I am a planner. Big time. If I have a trip in mind, I will begin working our the details several months before. It drives Elise crazy at times. We may be just getting ready to embark on one trip and I try to discuss with her the plans for the trip after that. Plus I have my motorcycle tours to get arranged and I do around 6 of those each year. I make it a point to try to leave NOTHING to chance. Plus my approach is that it is all on me. The journey succeeds or fails ALL because of MY efforts.
I come by it rightly. My Mom would set the table for a dinner party at times one week in advance. If I had my alarm set to wake up at 7 AM, she would begin calling me at 6:50. At no time did she trust anyone else to make things happen. All on her.
And I also lived my life this way for the longest time. Constantly planning and worrying. When I was in high school I began developing anxiety over where I was going to college beginning in my sophomore year of high school. What was I going to become? What major should I have? What school would give me the best chance of achieving those goals? No wonder I had stress induced colitis!!
What I have gradually learned, as my faith life has strengthened is to leave most of this to God. To trust Him to handle the details. Yes, I STILL, as Elise would attest to, spend many, many hours planning motorcycle trips. But this type of planning I actually enjoy doing. Almost as much as the ride itself.
In today’s first reading we hear the story from Genesis about Abraham and the 3 strangers appearing to him outside his tent in the desert. Two of the strangers are angels and the third, we are told, is the Lord Himself. While Abraham is wining and dining the three, the Lord tells Abraham that his wife Sarah will have a child this time next year. Sarah’s response? She laughs. She laughs loud enough for the Lord to hear and Ge asks Sarah why did she laugh. She responds that she did not. But the Lord knows all and affirms that she did, in fact, chuckle at the notion of her having a child.
Why did she laugh? Did she not trust that God could provide? After all, God led Abraham to this place. He blest them with land, cattle, flocks of sheep. And a promise to him that he would be the Father of many nations. But to this point Abraham had not had any children of his own. But didn’t he?
Earlier in the book of Genesis we read (in Chapter 16) how Sarah was losing her belief that God would provide heirs to Abraham and herself. She had remained barren. In her doubt, Sarah convinced Abraham to take Sarah’s maid servant, Hagar, as his wife. Hagar conceived and gave birth to a son. Ishmael. Later when Sarah does in fact become pregnant and give birth to Isaac. She then begins to see Ishmael and Hagar as a threat to Isaac’s lineage and birthright. So mush so that she has Abraham send the two to wander in the desert. Eventually Ishmael becomes the leader of the Ishmaelites. You may recall that it was the Ishmaelites that took Joseph, Jacob’s son, as a slave when they bought him from his brothers. They also are the ancestors to the Arab race today. And as we know, there is no love lost between them and the Jews of today.
Abraham and Sarah’s lack of faith in God’s promises, and their insistence of taking matters into their own hands rather than wait on God’s time, led to conflict on a small scale between Sarah and Hagar. As well as conflict on a much wider scale between Arabs and Jews today. It is when we take matters into our own hands, rather than patiently waiting on the fulfillment of God’s promises that we often run into trouble. In the Gospel the Roman Centurion had unwavering faith in Jesus’ power to heal his servant. There was no doubt in his mind that Jesus could do this. So much so that he knew that Jesus did not even have to come into his home to accomplish the miracle.
What about us? Can we wait for God’s alarm clock to go off? Can we turn at least some of our decisions over to His care? Can we keep from laughing at His promises? And can we have the patience and trust to allow God to work in our lives?
“Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:29-30)
