Rest, watch and wait... God is in charge

Richard Rohr captured what was in my heart all day when he said:

Prayer is largely just being silent: holding the tension instead of even talking it through, offering the moment instead of fixing it by words and ideas, loving reality as it is instead of understanding it fully. We must not push the river, we must just trust that we are really in the river, and God is the current.

That may be impractical, but the way of faith is not the way of efficiency. So much of life is just a matter of listening and waiting, and enjoying the expansiveness that comes from such willingness to hold. It is like carrying and growing a baby: women wait and trust and hopefully eat good food, and the baby is born.

The great Baptist social justice theologian, Clarence Jordan, helped me grasp this truth  30 years ago about the Blessed Virgin Mary ~ and what holds true for her is certainly true for us:  rest and wait and trust ~ these are the key to growing in the Spirit.