Week 3

A few years ago my husband and I went to a Christmas party.  The host made his own plumb brandy.  Of course we couldn't pass the opportunity to sample a little moonshine.  This brandy was served in a shot glass, with the intention of it being sipped....slowly.  This stuff could keep you warm in the middle of the winter in the arctic.  Wright's writing reminds me of this brandy.  It is meant to be enjoyed slowly.  Sip by sip piece by piece. There is so much depth to these chapters.  I wish I had the time to read and re-read and read again these pages.  Such thought provoking and challenging words.  

"Make us, in other words, to be people who know how to stand at the threshold of human time and God's time, and there to learn both humility and hope." 

How do we learn to "know how to stand at the threshold of human time and God's time"?  In theory this sounds great.  To actually  learn this feels impossible.  Its the "tension of the now and the not yet" as we so often talk about in the Vineyard.  One of the reasons I love to be around people who have "been around" is because they teach me how to live in this tension.  I love that this is such a big part of our Vineyard roots.

Wright says "and there to learn both humility and hope."  These are the hard things.  We don't know them intuitively.  They seem to be learned most often in difficult and painful circumstances.  It reminds me once again that being a Christian is a process.  It's a slow sometimes painful process, but God's patience and grace with us never fails.  God is good.  He is always good.