A Concord Pastor Comments: Pause for Prayer: FRIDAY 7/25

I've never sat in a kayak but the past few days I've been watching kayakers paddle past my lakefront porch. I'm taken by such graceful movement powered by two arms and a light, double-ended paddle, cutting the water's surface like a knife through butter. Dipping smoothly, left and right, a simple tool and stroke send the boater gliding cross the lake's surface: the kayaker feathers the waters and it's a thing of beauty...

So, I wondered: could life be like this... each of us feathering through our days and years, gracefully, with simple tools and simple strokes...

(Vacation is a time for dreaming!)

But aren't our lives the shells in which we make our way? And aren't God's gifts to us our double-ended paddles: faith and grace, trust and hope? How often do we overload our "boats" with useless cargo weighing us down, physically and emotionally? How often do we try to power our way through with no end to the machinery we think will make things so much easier - but it doesn't... How often do we fail to gracefully "feather" our way and, instead, beat our path from here to there, relying on ourselves, forgetting those simple paddles of faith and grace, trust and hope?

Maybe the kayaker's craft and paddle have something to teach us...

But perhaps you'll argue that life's waters are often so much rougher than a quiet lake: the waves choppy and unsettling, rough for passage and survival. Well, you'd be making a fair point. Life's not always a peaceful lake, it's often challenging, difficult and dangerous. Still, it's a simple double-ended paddle that takes the kayaker down raging rapids and out into the ocean's open waters. And those same gifts of faith and grace, of trust and hope are still the double-ended paddle given us to move our humble craft through life's white-watered times...

Pause for Prayer

Lord, you've given me the gifts I need
to make my way in safety:
cross placid lakes, down rapids rough,
through troubled ocean waters...

Give me faith your gifts are all I need
and grace to use them wisely;
give me trust that you are by my side
and hope for peaceful waters just ahead...

With your Spirit's strength, Lord,
help me paddle, feathering gracefully,
my way through life
to you...

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And since I'm on vacation, let me add just one more tease of a video. You won't need a translator - you'll get the point right away! And be sure to note that the kayakers here are using simple, double-ended paddles!

First and second videos above from Shutterstock.com