| Hold Your Horses! ~ May 21, 2007 | | Print | |
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Hold Your Horses! by Deborah Beach Giordano
Then Jesus gave his disciples the ability to comprehend the scriptures. He told them, "It is written that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning in Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. "Now listen: I am sending to you what my Father promised; so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high." Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and, lifting up his hands, he blessed them. While he was blessing them, he withdrew from them and he was lifted up, and a cloud took him out of their sight. While he was going and they were staring up toward heaven, all of a sudden two men in white were standing with them. They said, "What are you Galileans doing, standing there looking up at the sky? This Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will return in the same way as you saw him go into heaven." As I was reading today’s Gospel lesson I was reminded of a theme from my childhood. Jesus doesn’t use the same words when he’s talking to the disciples, but the meaning is the same: "Hold your horses." I think I must have heard that phrase ten thousand times when I was a kid. "Hold your horses." Slow down. Wait. Wait. Wait. Later. Tomorrow. Another time. Not yet. You have to be in the 4th grade to go on the overnight trip. You can’t go over to Teresa’s house until you’ve finished your homework. I don’t care if Sandy’s parents think she’s old enough to wear makeup. If everybody else jumped off a cliff, would you jump, too? But I want to do it now! I have to get started right away. If we delay — this stuff may never get done! It may be too late! I might never get another chance! I expect that most you know what that felt like: when you’re young and filled with enthusiasm and a longing to do something exciting and important. And it just seems like things can’t wait. That they shouldn’t wait, not even for a moment. Maybe your parents didn’t say "Hold your horses," in that situation — but I’ll bet you can immediately recall what phrase they did use. .... So here we see the disciples — in the middle of the most exciting time imaginable: at the dawning of a new age in the Beloved’s relationship with God’s people. Jesus has chosen them to go out into the whole wide, wonderful world to share the Gospel. There is no time to lose: there are plans to be made, places to go, people to meet, sermons to preach, lives to redeem ... Let’s rock and roll! And then Jesus says: "Hold your horses." He tells them they’re going to have to wait for something to happen. They don’t even know what this something is ("clothed with power from on high" — what’s that supposed to mean?), or how long it’s going to take to get there. It could be a day, a week, a month, a year ... ten years ... Oh my gosh. Can you imagine what that must have felt like? "After all this ... now we have to sit around and wait??!" Holy cow. The younger disciples were probably impatient to start — the zeal of youth being what it is. And the older ones ... they might have wondered if they would live long enough to see the work through to the end — or maybe even get to see it begin at all. The fact that the disciples went back to Jerusalem and waited seems like a miracle to me. I honestly don’t know that I could have been as patient; if I would have listened to the Lord as attentively as they did. It would have been really hard to do. There were so many things going on: there was this glorious opportunity to serve the Beloved, there was a desperate need, and it was clear what needed to be done ... why wait? If it were you ... what do you think you would have done? ... Sometimes we can get in such a hurry to start a new task, or end an old one, or to change whatever is going on — we can be so convinced of the urgency of a situation — that we forget what is most important. We forget to listen to the Voice of the Beloved. A lot of times our ideas and efforts wobble and fail — not because they aren’t good and useful, not because it isn’t the right thing to do, but because we have not sufficiently prepared ourselves. We haven’t brought our plans to prayer, we haven’t asked for the Beloved’s guidance, we haven’t strengthened ourselves with the Spirit. We get the bit between our teeth and we’re off and running. Sometimes we just need to "hold our horses." The most wonderful Message the world has ever known was made more perfect because the disciples were willing to "wait on the Lord." They were willing to trust that Jesus Christ would do as He promised. They believed in God’s abundant love and unending grace. And their faith — and their work — was rewarded with "power from Above." If the disciples had chosen to ignore the Lord’s words, if they had decided that they couldn’t wait, that they had heard all they needed to hear ... they would have missed the glory of Pentecost. We can have superb ideas, terrific plans, helpful suggestions, important work — those are all great things. But what ultimately matters is whether what we are doing aligns with God’s will for us. And we can only know this when we take time to listen to what the Lover of Our Soul has to say to us. Whatever we are doing, whatever we are planning, whatever we are hoping for is blessed by prayer. With the help of God and a listening heart we can understand what we should do and when we should do it — including the times when the Beloved replies, "Not now." "Not yet." or "Hold your horses." God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; Virtual hugs and real-time blessings, Deborah +
This Week’s Suggested Spiritual Exercise: What helps you to determine the right thing to do — especially if things seem to be "stuck"? How can you tell if it is a call to take a different path, to persist, or to be patient? (Helpful hint: What brings hope and joy to your soul, radiance to your spirit, and love and compassion into your life?) --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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