Thursday, May 22, 2008

The Lord’s Prayer and Daily Provision

"This, then, is how you should pray: ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.’” — Matthew 6:9-13

This prayer has been on Tom’s and my heart a lot lately. One day, Tom pointed out that since the God of the universe came down to earth and said, “This is how you should pray,” maybe we should pay more attention to it! We are seeing firsthand how He provides for us each day. Today, we have all that we need. I cannot worry about tomorrow, for today has enough trouble of its own. :) Thank You, Lord, for Your provision today, and I trust You for our provision tomorrow.

CA still hasn’t sent us the information about Job’s Retreat, so I decided to look them up on Google—and there they were! And guess where they are located? In the same town as us! Wow. I wanted to call them as soon as I saw that, but Tom felt we needed to wait. So now, I’m looking forward to when we can connect with them and learn more about what they do and how they do it.

Tom met with A last night to express our concern about his rush to get married and our disappointment in how he has communicated his plans. He felt like the conversation went well, and I pray A felt the same. We’ll see when they come back from vacation if anything really sank in… It’s hard to tell anymore. When A is alone with us, he seems to agree, but when he’s with C, she is always right, and we are always wrong.

I keep forgetting to write about a dream I had the other night:

In the dream, we were with A and C, and they took us to an underground labyrinth of tunnels and rooms where a community of people were living and serving. It was makeshift—pieced together with random boards and bricks—but it was functional.

C showed me around and pointed out the shared women's bathroom, while A took Tom to help a group of men assist someone “above” who needed help. In the center hallway, there was a large-screen TV displaying news from the world above, helping the people underground know who needed assistance.

This underground refuge seemed to be a safe haven for people who were struggling in the outside world. I found myself taking care of some children when, to my surprise, I saw my childhood best friend! I hadn’t thought about her in years! She was in a group of women, and when I did a double take and called her name, she turned—and sure enough, it was her!

The whole dream had an end-times feel to it, like a glimpse of what we might be doing to continue functioning and serving in the body of Christ. But seeing my childhood friend in the dream makes me wonder… could there be something more to it?