“Rest and Resilience: Vulnerability”
Vulnerable though he was, Nicodemus didn’t walk away from Jesus; he walked to him. Hallelujah! Nicodemus didn’t walk away from Jesus out of the gnawing fear that Jesus would judge him, rebuke him, reject him. Rather, he walked to Jesus out of a courage born of the hope and trust that Jesus would receive him, welcome him … all of him.
“Rest & Resilience: Listen”
Whenever I read of Mary and Martha, a former parishioner comes to mind. Bless her heart, June loved Jesus. But this story stuck in her craw. Got her goat. Rubbed her the wrong way. I can hear June now: "If I'd been there that day, I guarantee you I would have taken up for Martha!"
“Rest & Resilience: Rest”
Here’s the thing: it isn’t called hurry sickness for nothing. It takes its toll on a body. We’ll get to that in a moment. But it sickens the soul, too. Ortberg writes, “Hurry is the great enemy of spiritual life in our day. Hurry can destroy our souls ... For many of us the great danger is not that we will renounce our faith. It is that we will become so distracted and rushed and preoccupied that we will settle for a mediocre version of it. We will just skim our lives instead of actually living them.”