The Last Thing You Expect: One Year Bible Reading for January 14

 

Today we read from the One Year Bible in the following passages:

Genesis 30:1-31:16
Matthew 10:1-23
Psalm 12:1-8
Proverbs 3:13-15

And the verse that jumped out was the one from Proverbs. Finding wisdom is a powerful thing, isn't it? And it reminds me of something that happened to me recently, where I was given some wisdom. But before we get to that, I have to give you a little back story. When I was about 20 years old, I was driving my car one day and suddenly I couldn't breathe. I felt a total peace, and knew that I was about to die. I started getting out of traffic so that I wouldn't wreck when I died. And I prayed, "God, I think I need to stick around a little bit longer to tell more people about You." And instantly my throat opened up and I could breathe again. Since that day, I've felt like God has me on "borrowed time" and that I'm here to tell more people about Him until time to go home.

Now, look at the picture above. That's St Therese of Lisieux, dressed as Joan of Arc for a costume party. St Therese said that she would "spend her eternity doing good on earth." 

So, I put 2 and 2 together this week and thought, you know? I should ask St Therese to help me help people. She's spending her eternity doing good on earth, and I'm sticking around to tell people about Him, so maybe I can like... be her hands and feet and she can whisper to me to do stuff? So I asked her if she was interested in doing that. I did that several days ago and then I was waiting for some big thing to happen - someone needing to be saved from an attack, or to be sent to help someone who was dying or something. That didn't happen.

What DID happen is I started finding myself being more patient. I started being less worried about things, and more in the moment. I found myself living in the present more and worrying about the past and future less. I found myself becoming a better person. This happened for several days before I finally remembered both my request to partner with St Therese AND remembered the quote from Tolstoy: "Everyone thinks of changing the world. No one thinks of changing himself."

Thanks, God, for giving me the wisdom to see that the biggest thing that my favorite saint and I need to work on is me. Maybe save the world if there's time left over.