Some Helpful Mottoes - Respect Food Roles

Stained glass window reading fortiter, feliciter, fideliter

photo credit: Pixabay.com Translation: Strength, Happiness, Faithfulness

You know what I like about Wednesday? That’s the day each week when the Gretchen Rubin podcast comes out. (Don’t worry–I have quite a few podcasts I look forward to, but this one is probably the top. I typically listen to it at least twice.) Gretchen and Liz always have something useful and thoughtful to say, clothed in lots of laughter and lighthearted banter. So yesterday’s podcast had as one of its main points “Write your manifesto.” In other words, figure out a few brief sentences that sum up your attitudes or goals in a certain area of your life. They specifically mentioned marriage as one area. Maybe I’ll work on that.

(By the way, the word “manifesto” has negative connotations because it’s associated with dangerous documents such as “The Communist Manifesto,” so you’ll notice that I’m using “motto” instead. Plus my statements right now are pretty minuscule. Maybe I’ll work my way up to a full-blown plan of attack at some point.)

Anyway, here are three mottoes that I’ve been trying to incorporate into my thinking and especially into my praying over the past months and years:

1. “Prepare to be amazed.” I believe I mentioned this one in my book, so it’s several years old. It’s a paraphrase of Habakkuk 1:5: “Look at the nations and watch–and be utterly amazed. For I am going to do something in your days that you would not believe, even if you were told.” (NIV) I frequently say in my prayers that I am expecting this in my own life; I am prepared to see God at work in ways I could never have imagined.

2. “Enlarge my coast.” This comes from I Chronicles 4:10 in the King James Version; in a more contemporary version it reads this way: “Jabez prayed to the God of Israel: ‘Bless me, O bless me! Give me land, large tracts of land. And provide your personal protection—don’t let evil hurt me.’ God gave him what he asked.” (The Message) I pray this prayer as a request to God, not as a command that He must grant. And I’m very conscious of Jesus’ admonition against “vain repetitions.” So I don’t buy into the whole “prayer of Jabez” phenomenon; I just want to actively enlarge my sphere of influence and blessing.

3, “I will not let you go until you bless me.” This one comes from a rather puzzling story in the book of Genesis, chapter 32. We are told that Jacob wrestles with “a man” one night, that Jacob is prevailing against this person and so he puts Jacob’s hip out of joint, and that when the man says that Jacob must let him go Jacob says the above line, and he is indeed blessed. Jacob thinks he has been wrestling with God Himself, since he says, “I have met God face to face, and yet my life has been spared.” And the next day Jacob is limping because of his hip. I think the idea is that he limped for the rest of his life.

Well, I’m not going to put myself on a par with Jacob, nor am I going to try to parse out how a human being could actually wrestle with God and prevail. That’s a little too far up in the stratosphere of theology for me. But we are commanded over and over in Scripture, both in the Old and the New Testament, to be persistent and fervent in prayer, so that’s what I want to be. Again, I’m very careful never to think that I can tell God what to do.

I find it extremely helpful to remind myself of these three mottoes. What about you?

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