It’s almost August once again, and those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer have finally arrived. I fretted through these last
weeks wondering if summer would ever come. I know as an Oregonian I should be used to our cool, damp weather, but I still
lament the slowness of summer to arrive as I long for the sun to penetrate into my very core. So at long last, my porch swing
has again become my second home as I sip morning coffee and swing gently listening to the melody of the wind chimes. On
some afternoons, I bring my laptop and my books out for reading and sermon preparation and bake in the heat. The time made
all the sweeter because of my lament over the never-ending cold, wet spring of just a few days ago.
My body seems to be trying to store up enough heat to last through the winter. And because it is so hot, everything slows down; I slow the speech on my computer as I listen to the material I have downloaded in preparation for Sunday. The swing barely moves. Even my brain slows down. Finally I unplug my earphones as even the computer goes into sleep mode. I close my eyes and turn my face to the sun and ponder life’s cycles. I know this moment won’t last long. Soon I will need to get reconnected with the demands that tug on me—emails to answer, phone calls to make, meetings to schedule, the sermon to prepare. But for a brief moment I allow myself the pure pleasure of simply being in that moment of time.
Yet so often I struggle against whatever part of the cycle I’m in. When I am busy, I long for a moment of rest, and when things slow down, I long to be busy. Perhaps that’s human nature as we are rarely content to live in the “now.” Church too has its own rhythm and operates in cycles of rest and restlessness, energy and stillness. Just as Metzger slows down to catch its breath after the centennial celebration, West Portland ratchets up planning for their celebration in November. So I wonder why it is that we struggle over the cyclical nature of our relationship with God.
Somehow, if I am honest with myself, I expect God to be there in full strength all the time. I do well as long as I am aware of God’s presence both in times of prayer and in the everydayness of life. After all, isn’t that how it should be? So I begin to expect that of my relationship with God. Yet in every relationship in my life I experience periods of amazing energy and connectedness as well as times of distance and disconnectedness. So too with our relationship with God and with our primary means of communicating with God, prayer.
When I don’t feel God’s presence, I begin to discount those prayers as failures. I chafe at what I perceive as the lack of communication. I may try different ways of praying or even give up for a time because “nothing is happening.” We are addicted to immediate gratification in our culture—instant messaging, texting, cell phones that keep us constantly in touch. But God is the God of history as well as the God of the future. Our need for immediacy is not the same for the God of the ages. Remember what it was like to anticipate the arrival of a letter? Now what we waited a week or more for, we expect the same day and even perhaps within a few minutes or seconds. If God doesn’t seem to be on your time line of immediate response, lament as long and as loud as you want. The psalm writers left us a great model for that. In fact, their lament was a part of their not giving up. By asking “How long o God?” they understood that God was listening and would be with them again.
Patient and loving God, help us to recognize and appreciate the cyclical rhythms of life. Help us set aside our need for instant gratification, even in our prayer life, for a relationship with you that only grows deeper as we Journey with you through life in all its cycles of energy and stillness, closeness and distance, joy and sorrow. Help us relax and use this gift of summer to renew us in mind body and spirit
