Bucket List Activity - August - A Complete Bust? ... I Think Not!

Truth be told - I couldn't think of anything "cool" or exciting to do for my August bucket list activity, so I decided to go for a prayer walk each day, all the while praying for a specific person.  (I know, right?  Pray because I couldn't think of anything better???)   The 1st three days actually went great. It started out just as meaningful as in April when I wrote a letter a day.  (I still think it was a great idea!)

Then, came the distractions.

First, there was the fact that I, once again, packed my calendar to the gill with "other" things to do.  It seems I still need some practice with the exercise of my "NO!" muscle.  Then, there was the surprise, last-minute trip to Chicago, the one that brought about the virus that 2 weeks later, I'm still fighting.  

Then there were the "other" usual distractions - the constant "thorn in my side," the dead battery in my son's car, a little bit of "drama" here and there, and every other distraction you could possibly think of.  

Hey, I'm being honest.  

Today being the 25th of the month, it's too late, and would be too UN-meaningful to think of something cool to do for August when the month ends in 5 more days.

Then someone asked me what I thought of Chicago, and how the visit to Moody College went.  I responded quickly that upon arriving to the downtown Chicago area, it was difficult not to immediately notice the fast pace in the city.  Within 10 minutes of being downtown, at least 10 people had blown their horn at me, tried to go around me, flipped me their middle finger, or cussed at me.  At first I thought that turning 50 must have also changed my driving habits to that of a 90-year-old, but once we parked and were on foot, the atmosphere was not much different than in the streets in a vehicle!  Everyone was in a hurry.  No one made eye contact.  The city was busy, and loud, and so very impersonal.  I thought about how the city life must make people "angry" and therefore, unfriendly and, well, down-right not nice.  I couldn't wait to get home. 

And then we found Moody College, which sits right in the middle of the city, surrounded on all four sides by the hustle and bustle of downtown Chicago.  As we entered through the doors, a quiet peace fell on us, and the first thing we caught a glance of was a wall with scripture engraved on it. 

Immediately I thought about the words used in the Gospel of Matthew to describe us, as believers, as being the salt and the light of the earth.  I mean, here sits a Christian University, where undoubtedly an incredible amount of prayer goes on, likely 24 hours a day, right in the middle of the "world" - and probably safe to say, right in the middle of "darkness."  How cool.  I mean, we can't be the salt and light, inside of the salt and light, right?  We have to take that light to some darkness in order for it to be effective, right?

After the college campus tour, we went back out into the city.  At every intersection I could not help but continue to notice the noises, the traffic, the fast pace of the city.  What happens to people to make them fit in so well to their surroundings that they lose the ability to say good morning, smile, make eye contact, and make them seem down-right angry?!  The world around them must have distracted them from the most meaningful things in life.  Wow.  I don't want that to happen to me ever.  

My month of August, and my plan to pray for one person specifically throughout my day lasted a total of three days.  Three!!!   I totally failed.  :(

Sooooo, it turns out that i have a lot more in common with the people in a big city who have blended right into their surroundings, than I would like to admit.  I cannot even count the number of distractions I've had this month.  And most of them, I can look back and actually identify as being attempts by the enemy to distract me.  And he did.  I am a whole lot more distractable than I had ever thought I could be.

So, August may have been a complete bust as far as actually completing a bucket list item, but I did get to spend a couple of days with Ian and Rachel.  And I did get to re-unite with Wendy, a true friend I hadn't seen in 28 years.  And I DID learn something through it all, so something good DID come from it.   I learned AGAIN that the enemy would love to stop me from praying.  (Sometimes, I need multiple lessons - I'm really not that bright).  

And something else I thought about - You know that question people always ask - The one about those who live in some far away land in the middle of nowhere?  How will they ever know there is a God?   Well, I have a feeling that as long as they are out in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of God's green, beautiful earth, they may just know Him a whole lot better than we can imagine.  

Romans 1:20 says, "For since the creation of the world, God's invisible qualities - His eternal power and divine nature - have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse."

No wonder people love it up north.  No wonder my son lives around his plans to get back to the quietness and peacefulness of Spring Hill, where he says, "Jesus lives."  

What am I doing now, so early this morning?  I'm going for a walk.  You know the rest.  ;)