Inspiration

Jeremiah 29:11-13

I don’t know how other pastors feel, but practicing a prayer habit is difficult for me. Sometimes when I try to pray, I lose focus. There are times when I am not sure if my prayer should be verbal or something else. Many times, when I pray it doesn’t come with a sense of confidence that anyone is listening!

I admire historical figures like Julian of Norwich—she was an anchoress. That means her entire vocation was focused solely on praying to God. In her practice of prayer, she become an important mystic and theologian for Christianity and her writings have become a part of Christian tradition. Julian of Norwich lived during the ravages of the black plague. When she was 30 she became incredibly ill and thought she was going to die and in this time she experienced visions related to the passion of Christ.

Her story makes me wonder about how the power of prayer can seem closer and more vivid when things get difficult. Aside from black death, and a brush with death in her 30s, Julian also witnessed a widespread “Peasant’s Revolt,” and internal christian sectarian violence. Her life was surrounded with hardship, and her vocation confined her mostly to a cell where she prayed in St Julian’s Church in Norwich. Alongside prayer, Julian provided spiritual counsel. But she was, more or less, confined to her cell to pray for her entire life time. A rule book published around 1162 described how the life of an Anchoress required poverty, confined isolation, and a vow of chastity.

Julian’s life was hard. And yet Julian was the one who also famously wrote,

“All will be well and all will be well and all manner of things will be well.”

Julian seemed to access something powerful in her life of prayer, especially amidst the hardship she faced. And I wonder if that power might inspire us to consider that we are capable of a lot more than we think we are. That we can thrive even when circumstances place our backs up against the wall. The recovery journeys of those who are fighting addiction conjures similar surprising expressions of spiritual strength. And prayer is a big part of recovery as well. As a matter of fact, one prayer in particular is widely used—written by an ethicist named Reinhold Niebuhr—and you might recognize is.

“Lord, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

the courage to change the things I can,

and the wisdom to know the difference.”

I am not on a recovery journey, but that prayer has found me when I needed it. It’s a prayer that reminds me how control is an illusion. It’s a prayer that helps me remember the truth of Julian’s assurance that “All will be well and all will be well and all manner of things will be well.”

The prophet Jeremiah was an unwilling prophet who was compelled by God to speak truth to power. This put him in danger. He faced attempts to have him killed. And yet he was the one who wrote, “For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope. Then when you call upon me and come and pray to me, I will hear you. When you search for me, you will find me; if you seek me with all your heart.”

Sometimes the inspiration we need can be found in the midst of hardship and difficulty. As a church, our best days are yet to come after emerging from a global pandemic and facing hard realities about what it is like being Christian in the United States today. The work is harder, the trust more significant to rebuild between the church and its community. We have to think about new ways of being the church!

And while that can be exhausting and intimidating to consider, perhaps it can also be the place where some of our most exciting creative ways of being the church for our world will emerge!