So make up your minds not to prepare your defense in advance; for I will give you words and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand or contradict.
Ouch. This is me. I worry, fret, plan, script, pronounce. I worry about having the right thing to say in response to criticisms of me, of my family, and perhaps most of all, about my faith and tradition. I think this is human nature, and that’s in part why it’s so hard to do. I want to believe this is true, that I don’t need to fret and that the wisdom and words will come. And in an unstressed moment, I can even commit to do this. On my honor, I will try to let God give me the words and wisdom. And yet, in the heat of the moment, do I really do this? If not, how can I grow in this?
One way I can improve is to make sure I go into my day, my meeting, my contentious conversation, invoking God’s presence. Cognitively, I know that without my invocation, God is present. And being intentional about it makes me aware of that truth in that moment. It helps ground me in that truth. God is in the room. By the invocation, I’m not actually letting God into the interaction, but I’m actually bringing me and my faith-full-ness into the interaction.
At one particularly challenging job, I had gotten in the habit of throwing up a quick prayer of invitation every time my phone rung. It was an easy prompt, and it settled me into knowing God was present, and that I could trust in God’s wisdom and words. Somewhere along the way, that habit faded. I don’t sit at a desk now, but perhaps it’s every time I open my email or get on a video call.
Currently, there are people in my world that push my buttons more than I’d like. Perhaps before every interaction with them, I need to send up a little prayer. God, be in this interaction, and let me hand over to you the scripting. This morning, I’m thinking about all of the small but incessant times I forget that God will give the words and wisdom. I’m thinking about how I might turn them into habits for prayer, so I can once again remember that God’s got this.
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