32 Days - Praying and Hoping

To all:

Uncle Al here in Singapore, Sir Al to some of you in Bicol (an even here in Singapore): let me take this opportunity to contribute to this blog. Just 32 days more, and we will be in Bicol (the Advance Party at least). Our final schedule is still being finalised. although I suspect that God will always add in elements of surprise; that's why He is not allowing us to have a final schedule. Which is just as well, because we need to be flexible during missiont trips like this. Meanwhile there are programs to prepare, lots of liaison work between the mission trippers and the host, there's a confirmation retreat from 15-17 November, confirmation mass on 20th, and the final stretch of the mission trip preparation after that. The final stretch includes the Advent Cantata, where I expect every mission tripper to participate fully. After all, we are the main organisers and part of proceeds goes to our mission trip.  

This blog gives me the oportunity to break today's Word. 

The Old Testament reading is from Wisdom 6:12-16, the psalm is from Psalm 63:2-8, the epistle from 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18, and the Gospel is from Matthew 25:1-13

The past half-year, many parts of Southeast Asia, including the Philippines (anf the mission are) suffered through an extended period of rain, inundating great plains, causing landslides, destroying crops and blighting the land.

And even as I write this, I am praying for relief and anxiously scanning weather maps and weather sites on teh internet, hopeful of a long-overdue relief to the people that had undergone so much stress.

In retrospect, I reflected on the way that prolonged stress in our lives often has the same kinds of effects as the damage the flooding had on the land, especially when we're unprepared for it. I can be humming along self-sufficiently, confident in my ability to handle the various challenges of daily life, when something - usually several things at once - comes along and knocks me for a loop.

Before long, my energy is depleted, and I find myself prone to fatigue, absent-mindedness and depression. Even my ability to pray feels "dried up," and, like those five foolish bridesmaids in the Gospel, I'm left standing in the dark with an empty lamp.

It's is times like these that I am reminded of the snare that self-sufficiency can become - when I think I am and always will be enough for whatever comes my way.

Unexpected trials come to everyone, but the difference between utter depletion and hopeful endurance usually depends on the reservoir of prayerful trust in God that one nurtures and guards during the more tranquil times in one's life.

Being "knocked for a loop" is a lesson in humility, prompting me to replenish my spiritual lamp often lest it burn out. Those periods of drought encourage me to keep searching the horizon for the Lord's refreshing presence. And when I seek the Lord as one seeks for wisdom, I am not disappointed, for as "wisdom sits by the gate to be found at dawn," I find the Lord is very near.

To God be the Glory, forever and ever. Amen.