Tip of the Week-- April 2, 2015

In place of a "Tip", I thought I'd post some reflections/quotes for Holy Saturday:

I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope

For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love

For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith

But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.

Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:

So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing...

      

                In order to arrive there,

To arrive where you are, to get from where you are not,

    You must go by a way wherein there is no ecstasy.

In order to arrive at what you do not know

    You must go by a way which is the way of ignorance

In order to possess what you do not possess

    You must go by the way of dispossession.

In order to arrive at what you are not

    You must go through the way in which you are not.

--T.S. Eliot Four Quartets

"Holy Saturday is the moment when everything stops and waits. And waits-- for a different kind of answer.  If you want God's hope instead of yours; if you want God's love instead of yours; if you want God's thoughts instead of yours--then you will need to go through a time of silence, of resting, of ignorance and dispossession.  And if we want to find God's way forward for this community, for ourselves, for this church--and we are, in many respects, a microcosm of where so many churches up and down our country are today-- then we must learn to wait, to be quiet, to affirm God's order in our chaos but not yet to understand it.  Only when, in days and years and decades to come, people look back and see the new things that God will have done, things we can't at the moment imagine or plan for, we will say, 'Yes: we needed to let go of that anger and grief, to leave it on the cross of Jesus, to see it buried in his tomb; because God's new creations is God's new creation, always a surprise, always a shock.'" (NT Wright, "Christians at the Cross")

Prayer requests

1. Last night, my teammates and I hosted close to 35 friends, most of whom do not regularly celebrate Easter.  We had a great time together, and I was able to share about Easter's roots in the Passover, sharing about what we learn of God through the Exodus events.  Please pray for all that attended, that seeds of truth would sprout to bearing fruit.

2.  Pray for Tim T., a teacher that teaches in the village of Tiere (where we did an outreach last week).  As one of the only believers there, he is trying to make a real difference.  He will be following up with several of the kids that wanted to know more about Jesus.  Please pray that he would be empowered and lead by the Holy Spirit to make a difference in these kids' lives.

3.  Pray for a couple friends that will be going with me to Easter service tomorrow (hopefully!).  This will be their first church service, though they've both expressed interest in the Gospel.

4.  Continue to pray for the stability and security of this country and all of West Africa.  Recent events indicate an up-tick in violence from radical groups.  Pray that they'd be stopped.