In July 2010 the North American Christian Convention will be held in Indianapolis. The convention theme is “Beyond,” with the idea being we need to take our faith and practice far beyond what it is now. I’m privileged to be on the executive committee of this convention, and all of us pray for the convention at 2:10 p.m. each day. Here is a prayer I wrote for my own prayer time, thinking about the convention theme.
Where Was I God?
Lord, Creator of the universe, and the One who placed me upon this earth, Where have I been? Why am I only concerned enough now to read, just today, what a group of Roman Catholic Bishops wrote nearly twenty years ago, back in 1991 (!), and then after a year and a half of study (!!), about caring for the environment? Where was I God?
Where was I when my fellow brothers and sisters contracted HIV, but I ignored them, while focusing my Johnny-Come-Lately efforts on AIDS in Africa? Why was I, yet again, at least twenty years behind my more mainline denominational friends in talking about this issue? Did I not care? Where was I God?
I fully participated in a system that kept a man like me in pulpit and power, while at the same time denying my sisters even a taste of the same influence, let alone a full measure. Did I think I was better than they? Had I nothing to learn from Elizabeth Achtemeier, Elisabeth Fiorenza, or Elizabeth Elliot? Why did it take me so long to think and to even talk about this? Why did they find their home and acceptance in the World Council of Churches but not in the National Association of Evangelicals (or the NACC) for so long? Must one be an Episcopalian or a Presbyterian (bless them!) woman to preach? Where was I God?
Where have I been regarding diversity? Does spending much of my life in African and Asia exonerate me from having interaction in America who are not pasty white like I am? Why did I not write about this, (nor did any other for that matter) for the Christian Standard decades ago; the same time other Christians were writing on the subject for their denominational journals?
Lord, this is only a beginning. I haven’t even mentioned the disabled, the hungry, the poor, the homeless, the refugees – all of them your children. Nor have I spoken of my overconsumption in the face of these with next to nothing. Where was I God?
Forgive me Father, for I don’t think I was that close to you.
God, please, please take me beyond where I was … and am.
