praying mantis
On a summer morning walk, I noticed a praying mantis clinging to the underside of a car tire, drawn there by the lure of shade, in the already rising temperatures of a hot, California day. “What a strange place to rest,” I thought. A precarious place—at any moment that car could start up, and the unsuspecting insect would be crushed under the wheels rolling forward.
It got me thinking that as a praying person, I’m a little like that bug. I’m hanging upside down, looking heavenward, but too often clinging to earthly things instead of the person and the plans of God. What do I mean?
Tom Lin, the President of InterVarsity, queried, “I often wonder what Christians in the United States will need to leave behind in order to embrace the adventure God has before us. I wonder what God might be stripping away so we can cling, desperately and helplessly, only to him. How does the longing for power, privilege and position freeze us in place? How do our financial resources… and cultural arrogance insulate us from an honest encounter with God and with the world?” That got me thinking. How am I clinging to power, privilege and position?
Am I trusting too much in my economic security, the power of my investments that depend on the rise and fall of financial markets? Am I relying on the privilege that I’ve always enjoyed simply by being a white person in a country that still hasn’t completed its racial reckoning? Am I too confident in my educational standing, my leadership abilities, my talents, my health, my personality? Is it my nice home in a “good” neighborhood that keeps me feeling invulnerable? Am I counting on my wonderful husband, my lovely children and grandchildren to be my joy? These aren’t bad in and of themselves, and this Thanksgiving I am full of gratitude for all my blessings. But they also have the power to crush me at a moment’s notice.
Years ago, my husband and I invested in a small condo near Wrigley Field that served as a place to stay when Meredith and her husband Ben were living in Chicago. I love it. It’s about the size of a hotel suite. I am so seldom there, but when we go, I know that all I have to do is turn the key, walk inside and it requires little from me. But one day this last summer, I received an email that a resident two floors down was experiencing some water in her unit and thought it might be coming from our floor. Suddenly what was my joy became a frightful burden. What if we had a leak? How would I find a plumber from 2,000 miles away? What kind of expense could I expect?
When the email came back shortly that the source of the trouble was one floor below me, my panic receded. But for those moments my world went from joy to pain to relief. What a roller coaster!
That’s what the world does to us. We can enjoy or be tortured by the full range of the emotional ride, but only God can bring a peace and a purpose that outlasts everything else. Only God will not run over us in the end and squash us like an insect clinging to a tire.
Love,
Liz
