As we walk
As we “walk”...
I like an english word “walkers”. When I think about it, I´ve always get a little impression of freedom. Walking is something more than get up from the bed and rush to work. It has always spiritual sense in the daylight. When I walk, it is only me. From one point to another I have distance between these points, where my time is only for me and my God. When I am leaving past behind me and reaching future before me, I can learn something more about a beauty of the moment “now”.
One part of my way to work takes me thirty minutes from my house to the railway station. When I mentioned this among the people, I was surprised, how many of them were shocked. “That is a long way”, I have heard, or “Do you wanna lift, darling”, or “Better you can get taxi.” From one view I can understand. Especially in this time of fast cars, instant coffees, fast moving world, full of very fast information. From this view “thirty minutes” looks like nothing. Looks like that I´m actually loosing them or wasting them by my walk. They are not worthy. But from another view it is “time” which is given to each of us from eternity. And sometimes I am wondering if we notice that time as a gift is given just once... and once, and once. That is why the time is so worthy. We can never get it back.
I believe that we are living in the most rushing time in the world history. If we could roll pages of the history eighty years ago, which is just one generation, we would be suprised how people were thinking for example about my “thirty minutes”.
One of our famous writer Karel Capek, very good friend of president T.G. Masaryk, was writing stories about ordinary people and their living in 1920. When I read his stories first I actually felt like that I have jumped into very different timing zone. The “zone” where people lived in time instead of live for time. People didn´t have things like we do today. That was time without internet, mobile phones, text messages, only few people had a car. No television, just radio and only somewhere. People used bicycle to work or just walked. The day apperead to be more slowly than today, even sometimes “boring”. But they had something what we are missing today – they had more time for each other.
I remember I was listening one biblical teacher Derek Prince years ago and he said something very interesting for me. He said that we actually watching our life around us more than we live it. And I heard this from him very long time before I saw first “reality show” in TV. Lawrence Kushner one very famous Jewish todays writter mentioned similar view in his book “God was in this place and I, I didn´t know this”, he wrote: “We are so busy with watching, recording, analysing our lives, that we forget to live it.”
This idea was connected in my mind later with Jewish understanding for life. Jews understand that everything in the daily living is spiritual. Eating, working, breathing, listening, talking etc. Because of the “Breath of Life” which God breathed to human creature, every single action in our life has spiritual purpose. Jews have even a prayer of thanks giving that thay can go to toilet. In that prayer is written: “Thanks be to Adonaj that every hole in my body is working properly, because if one of them wouldn´t, I would not be able to stand before you, serve you and praise your Holy Name”.
I tried to reflect my ordinary daily schedule and I had to consider that I see some spiritual purpose only in two parts of my day. My prayer and my reading Bible. Everything else was just on the side. Not really connected with my God. Even if I prayed “God please bless my day”. So I started to think how important, for Almighty God who created the whole World, can be for example eating my dinner. I can say prayer of thanks for food as blessing, but than what is so spiritual with eating dinner. When I was a young boy, my father always told me, when you eat your food do not do anything else. Neither watch TV nor read newspaper. Eat your food. And he was right. Eating dinner is not only spiritual it is very spiritual. That is time when we receive real blessing from our heavenly Father. As soon as you can see the food with your eyes, you can start enjoy a colour, form. Than you can smell it with your noise. You can catch different parts of that smell. You can regognize some of them. Than you can touch it with fingers. In the some parts of Eastern Europe countries people don´t use fork and knife when they eat, instead they use fingers. When you touch your food you can put it into your mouth where your tongue can produce different sensations of taste. What your eyes saw actually is becoming reality in your mouth. All these sences, what we are actually using every single day, were created by Almigthy God. But not only this sences. The food, every single part of vegetable, meat, spice, flavour, water etc. was created and manage by God. And God made it with one single purpose. To bless us. Eating is not only spiritual it is actually divine worship of Creator.
In the contrast of this picture I was thinking how we, living in this fast world, see the food as blessing. Specially in the time of fast food and McDonald´s. How we regard for example single bread on our table? “Give us our daily bread o Lord, we pray”. I thoutgh about Jesus, how He fed the thousands. Bread and fish. Than is written, that after every one was fed He gave command to gather every single piece of bread and fish, that nothing can be ruined. What attitude keep world today? Make a profit for yourselve,
do not care about others and throw out everything what you don´t need. It remains me single word from book of proverbs: “ The horseleach hath two daughters, crying, Give, give... .”
We read stories in Scriptures about Moses and Israel people on the desert. God fed them with manna from heaven. Gave them water from the rock. Or Elijah, feeding by ravens with meat and bread. Or, again Jesus satisfying multitudes with a food. I know, we have Tesco, Supervalue and Dunnes Stores today, we don´t need such a “miracles”:-), but I was trying to figure out and put myself into a picture, how would I trust to God in the desert with people of Israel or in the steps of Elijah? What if one day, I will appear in similar situation? Would my faith sustaine? That´s the question, because James in his epistole wrote: “Elijah? He was as the same ordinary guy as we are”. So how does it sound?”
Sometimes I have a feeling that our time today is very framed. Ten minutes for this, eight hours for this, five minutes for break, thirty minutes for prayer etc. That makes me ask myself: Was the time created for us or we for the time? Ecclesiastes said in his famous chapter three: “there is time for everything...”. But I can hear many times today very different sentence: “I have no time”. I think the problem can be that we walk more with our “time” than with our God, who is actually not framed with our time at all. Who simply is! As He said: “I am, who I am”. And because He is, so we are. And we are in the very moment right “now”.
As christians we understand that time was created by God. I think, that God makes time and put our living into time for one simply reason. That we can, without any special knowledge, understand that everything in our life has a start and also has a finish. And we have no power to change it. But unfortunately sometimes we try to change it. How? Because we have a “plans”. Don´t take me wrong, dear readers. I believe that to have a some plans in our life is a good thing. I mean the “plans” where we create and build our life in the future and we are not only the actors there, but we are the directors as well. My question is. Is there still any space for the real God and his real plan for us?
We can hear in churches today: “God has a plan for you!” I found myself more and more frustrated when I was listening this and was trying to find it. I was asking God many times. What is your plan for me? I was dreaming about myself preaching on the stages to thousand people, than I saw how I was prophesying to people into their lives. Than I saw how I´m laying my hands on the sick and they get healed. I was driving out demons from people and did many and many other “big” things. My imagination was runnig on full of gas. And there is actually nothing wrong with all this. And I believe in all this. Even Jesus is sending us to do this things in the world as a sign that His Kingdom is near. I just found one problem here. The problem was my own understanding what does it mean God's plan. The problem was that I found myself living more in the future and from the future and I was simply missing the beauty of the moment “now”. When I looked back into my life, I could see totally different story of my real life from my imagination how I was supossed to live “God's plan”. The God's plan, how I thought it would be for me, wasn´t actually God's plan but my own imagination, my own story which had never happened and will never happen. Instead of preaching to thousand I saw myself serving to people with disabilities. Instead of laying hands on the sick I found myself sick with alcoholism, fighting with the pain and simply realizing, what the real grace of God means when it is giving to me for free. Instead of prophesying I found that I am the one who needs to hear which way to go. I realized that my own understanding what does it mean God's plan was more similar, what we can learn in the world today. The desire to be successful. The desire to live life in success, respect and victory. The desire to be “seen”! But I learned something. It does not work in God's Kingdom. I simply found myself more as sinner who needs forgivness. I found that real desire in my heart is simply just to “belong”. I found that before walking in to real God's plan I need to loose my own. As I am walking, I am realising, that I am loosing. And I am actually loosing myself for one reason – to be found again, and again, and again.
As I walk I need to learn how He walked and than my walk is become the real freedom.
(m)
