Seeing Things

I don't have many spiritual gifts. That is not humility, that is fact. It is easy to look around at others and say, "wow, I wish I could teach like that" or "wow, I wish I were smarter." But at some point in life, sooner hopefully rather than later, we all discover what we can do and accept what we can't do. There is a certain amount of personal inner peace that comes with these repeated, small "ah-ha" moments. There is also, I am convinced, a danger. The danger is that we come to accept our limitations, and resign ourselves to them, forgetting that there are no impossibles with God.

One gift I do have is faith. I see stuff. Now, not visually (most times), and I don't get any divine revelation in my sleep (my snoring drowns out all possibility of otherworldly communication). But there are times when I just sort of know what's going to happen. Right now is one of those times.

We are going to have a meeting this Friday night. It's a biggie. The meeting will determine, I suspect, significant direction for our lives and ministry here for the next several years. I am extremely blessed to work with some really creative, diverse, dedicated men. I know them, and they know me. Several of us have worked together for nearly 10 years. I know they respect me, a gringo, a foreigner but not a stranger. They know I have and I would give nearly anything to them, or for them.

We will be talking vision this Friday, by far my favorite theme for any long evening meal. We will be talking how to work together, to leverage all the trust and talent and divine blessing we have been experiencing here, in this place, over the past decade. Our plans will change lives and impact entire communities. I know this.

I am keenly aware that there is much that I cannot do, but I can't think of hardly anything that we will not be able to accomplish together. To do this, we need to trust and love each other. We do. To do this, I need to provide appropriate ministry parameters for the future, that are not too restrictive, but are not ambiguous either. I'm working on that.

If you are reading this, in English, you have a part to play in this also. Don't worry, I'll be letting you know soon enough. In the meantime you can pray for our meeting this Friday night.

Quote of the Day: The fragilista belongs to that category of persons who are usually in suit and tie, often on Fridays; he faces your jokes with icy solemnity, and tends to develop back problems early in life from sitting at a desk, riding airplanes, and studying newspapers. He is often involved in a strange ritual, something commonly called “a meeting.” Now, in addition to these traits, he defaults to thinking that what he doesn’t see is not there, or what he does not understand does not exist. At the core, he tends to mistake the unknown for the nonexistent.
Taleb, Nassim Nicholas. Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder (Kindle Locations 445-449)