Biltmore Ashville, NC Each morning for many years, most of our married life for certain, we pray together. We always mention what many would call an outrageous prayer. Nearing fifty years of praying and accepting many wonder answers, we keep on praying and several years ago we added outrageous. The other morning, we looked at each other and the Great Blonde stated, “Larry this is absurd!” And then we laughed because many of our prayers have been absurd!
Surely you know that any prayer is absurd according to human standards. So, if we are satisfied to live under the umbrella of human possibilities, why pray at all? The other day while zipping around the Internet for some pithy quotes about prayer, one seemed to jump off the screen and grab hold of my mind and heart. It is probably strange that while “zipping” I was singing, loudly as no one was around, The Quest. You probably know it as The Impossible Dream. Here’s the statement Joyce and I chuckled over the next morning:
“Only he who attempts the absurd is capable of achieving the impossible.” Miguel de Unamuno.
Knowing the statement sounds silly at first glance is to demonstrate pure humanity. But a pause and thought will send the truth rushing to our frontal lobes and the light will cause a dawning that just about everything we take for granted was at one time merely absurd.
In our family, loaded with a gaggle of sisters and two brothers, it was common to watch one of the sisters talking to someone using the phone. It was a primitive telephone. You simply picked up the phone and waited until you heard the operator say, “Number please.” At that point you told the operator the number you wanted. We often responded with, “64.” This was the local sheriffs number. If you didn’t know the number, you could give the operator the name of the person you wanted to call. Often the operator would say, “Now write this number down” and give the number to you. One of the absurdities of the era went like this: As my sisters were talking on the phone in night clothes, with hair in all sorts of curlers, with a variety of make-up cleanser on their face, looking like they were preparing for Halloween, you would hear “It’s a good thing telephones don’t have pictures!” Back then we all laughed at the idea of “picture” phones. TV had not yet invaded our little spot of the world.
How many things do you use today that were an absurd idea just a few years ago?
While thinking on absurdities an old line floated to the fore of my thought and it is so true,
“Men who never build castles in the air, never build castles anywhere!”
Joel 2:28 "And it shall come to pass afterward That I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh; Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, Your old men shall dream dreams, Your young men shall see visions.”
The sense of the verse is affirmed on Pentecost. PTL.
Copyright © 2016 Larry Lilly
Good IT work by Oral Deckard
Surely you know that any prayer is absurd according to human standards. So, if we are satisfied to live under the umbrella of human possibilities, why pray at all? The other day while zipping around the Internet for some pithy quotes about prayer, one seemed to jump off the screen and grab hold of my mind and heart. It is probably strange that while “zipping” I was singing, loudly as no one was around, The Quest. You probably know it as The Impossible Dream. Here’s the statement Joyce and I chuckled over the next morning:
“Only he who attempts the absurd is capable of achieving the impossible.” Miguel de Unamuno.
Knowing the statement sounds silly at first glance is to demonstrate pure humanity. But a pause and thought will send the truth rushing to our frontal lobes and the light will cause a dawning that just about everything we take for granted was at one time merely absurd.
In our family, loaded with a gaggle of sisters and two brothers, it was common to watch one of the sisters talking to someone using the phone. It was a primitive telephone. You simply picked up the phone and waited until you heard the operator say, “Number please.” At that point you told the operator the number you wanted. We often responded with, “64.” This was the local sheriffs number. If you didn’t know the number, you could give the operator the name of the person you wanted to call. Often the operator would say, “Now write this number down” and give the number to you. One of the absurdities of the era went like this: As my sisters were talking on the phone in night clothes, with hair in all sorts of curlers, with a variety of make-up cleanser on their face, looking like they were preparing for Halloween, you would hear “It’s a good thing telephones don’t have pictures!” Back then we all laughed at the idea of “picture” phones. TV had not yet invaded our little spot of the world.
How many things do you use today that were an absurd idea just a few years ago?
While thinking on absurdities an old line floated to the fore of my thought and it is so true,
“Men who never build castles in the air, never build castles anywhere!”
Joel 2:28 "And it shall come to pass afterward That I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh; Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, Your old men shall dream dreams, Your young men shall see visions.”
The sense of the verse is affirmed on Pentecost. PTL.
Copyright © 2016 Larry Lilly
Good IT work by Oral Deckard
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