On the Way to Wonder

         Here comes another series of dominoes!  Paul asks how people can call on God if they have not believed and how then can they believe if they have not heard and how then can they hear if someone hasn’t been wiling to share and how then can people share if they have not been sent to share?  Perhaps it is like thinking about back in the day when the big goal was to find the right spouse.  Paul would reason that you cannot meet the right spouse if someone or some circumstance does not allow you to be introduced and how then can someone introduce that person to you if they don’t know you and the candidate?  There is a connection between our prayers and the events that must take place for our prayers to be answered.

         It is easy to become impatient with God for not answering our prayer immediately but perhaps he is getting the dominoes in line.  We live in a culture that now advertises Instacart so we do not have to miss action on the TV by just dialing a number.  Paul would argue that faith is not like Instacart or Door Dash or any of the easy solutions the commercials offer for our problems.

         Perhaps the challenge for us today is to ponder one of the big prayer requests that lays heavy on our heart.  The salvation of a beloved person may be an invitation for us to be one of the dominoes in that process.  We may feel the challenge to love the struggling in a selfless, unexpected way.   We can be a link in the chain of dominoes by smiling at a person facing an operation and offering a word of hope.  I would like to think that refraining from doing evil, cursing out the ding-dong who is texting at the signal change in front of us, not saying that snarky remark in front of family or friends is helpful.  Paul is talking about sharing our faith but doing it in love and not judgment might be the challenge.

¹⁴ How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in?

And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard?

And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? ¹⁵ 

And how can anyone preach unless they are sent?

As it is written: “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!”  (Romans 10:14-15)

Blessings as you help another connect the dominoes and become “beautiful feet.”

This entry was posted on Monday, August 14th, 2023 at 6:46 am and is filed under Spiritual Vitamins. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.