Apr 6 2022 Day 319 2 Corinthians 1:1–3:18

Was I vacillating when I wanted to do this?



Paul is explaining to the people of Corinth that he does what God wills. Nothing more, nothing less. He doesn’t have second thoughts, and say yes then no. He listens to God, and does God’s will. Ah, if it were that easy.

There have been a few instances where I felt that I was acting absolutely driven by God’s will. The rest of the time, I hope. I hope I’ve listened. I hope my will isn’t more important in my thoughts than God’s will.

The accompanying reflection is from Teresa of Avila, a 16th century Spanish nun. She writes that that the human soul is something like sealing wax. The wax doesn’t imprint itself. It can’t soften itself. All the wax does is receive the imprint.

She prays that her soul be like soft sealing wax, ready for God’s imprint. I like this analogy, as it makes concrete something that’s not. Our soul, our very being cannot imprint itself. We cannot will ourselves to be formed and sealed by God. All we can do is ready ourselves, and be willing to receive God’s mark.

I’m not sure how to do this, other than to just be willing to acknowledge that God is the actor in this story, not me.

I’m reminded of another story, I believe by Henri Nouwen. He wrote that he had a great lesson in trusting in God from a trapeze artist he met on a park bench. The artist was the ‘flyer’, the one who flew through the air. He said that his job was simply to fly and put is hands in the ready position, so the catcher could catch. The flyer could do nothing to help, and was frequently backwards at the time. If he tried to ‘help’, by reaching or changing the position of his hands, he could easily break his own wrists or those of the ‘catcher’. He had to just put his hands out and wait to be caught. 

I guess that’s what God’s imprint feels like to me, more like flying through the air with my hands held out waiting for the catch. Waiting, but entirely unable to affect its success. This story has a lot of value when thinking about faith, so I don’t mean to dismiss it. But my affinity to the story about the flyer maybe says more about my desire to ‘help’ God out. This morning, I’m thinking about how to be more like wax than a flyer.