Yes, You Can Find God in the Yellow Pages

Lord -- I want to scream! There is too much stuff I am responsible for. I can't even begin to keep up. 

-- Keep writing. --- 

How will that help? It adds yet another thing on top of the Aegean stable mess. 

-- You'll see. Everything in its boundary. --- 

I'm so sorry I wasted the time on that other computer. 

--- Not wasted. –

Well out of its boundary.

-- Perhaps. ---

 Okay, the information I gleaned will be useful both for some family friends and to send to Africa.

Still. God I need help. 

--- I'm here. Always.

 At your fingertips. –

Huh? That sounds like the Yellow Pages, a resource, or a servant...

-- Yes? --- 

Okay. Jeremiah 33:3, “God’s phone number.”

"When you call to me I will answer." 

I guess, I think of yellow pages because I'd look in them for specific businesses, to find their phone numbers so I can contact them to get the help I needed.

 Photo by Andy Hargraves on Stock Xchng

Oh. Each business offer specific help. You are here for specific help. I guess sometimes I think that You mostly help us in a general way like, “hold us up” or “be with us” or some such. And while You help us overall, perhaps most commonly You give help in specific, concrete ways. Maybe Your help is always in the specific, only We forget to pray that way. Or maybe lack the faith…

Back to the rest of the fingertips concept. Resources. Those equal tools, money, knowledge, wisdom -- anything that enables one to do what couldn't be done otherwise.

-- Yes? –

"In my weakness, He is made strong."

Okay. I can buy that. Still, it seems far too small for You. I think of You as providing resources, not being one. Only I find the idea does give me hope. I like that. Makes me think I can just lean back onto You when the going gets too rough. Even though I “knew” that in an intellectual sense, this wedges the idea in deep enough so I begin to believe it on a level where I can put it into practice. Oh. That trust thing again. Always, always, trust. Will I ever get there?

 So, I will accept You as my main resource.

 But that servant part -- that gets me squeamish like I'm thinking way wrong.

 -- But? –

 You came to seek and serve. I had to look that up. It seems You were forever serving Your disciple, and they got squeamish about the idea, too. When You spoke about coming to serve and not to be served, You used the word in the same sentence as “slave.”

That’s sort of scary.

But there is an odd reassurance to it, too. Lord? It is too much for my brain to hold. Lord, King, and slave? Yet – You call us to be “slaves” to one another. Paul called himself a slave of Christ. Well, a bond-slave, someone who has chosen to remain and serve his master.

 Lord – it seems to be Your way to do things in a circular manner. It makes sense on that level too deep for words, but I can’t logic it out and explain why. You know that frustrates me…and You laugh!

 -- Can’t leave it alone, can you? –

 I suppose not.

 -- My Little Figure-figure-figure it out one… --

 And the Holy Spirit is our advocate. Hmm -- in the NIV it reads Counselor. Which is it? Advocate or counselor?

 --- Doesn't matter. ---

 Okay, the New Living Translation expands it to: Counselor, comforter, encourager, or advocate. In the Greek. It says Paraclete.

 Para = alongside of. What does "-clete" mean?

The dictionary states "-clete" has to do with helping. It identifies Paraclete as literally a person called in to help.

The prefix, para means:

1) "at, or to one side of; side-by-side; beside.

2) Beyond, passed, or by.

 So, an advocate is:

1. An intercessor or defender
2. Someone who pleads the cause of another (Chamber Dictionary © 2008)

A counselor is

1)     Someone who gives advice about problems

2)     Someone who has supervisory duties at a summer camp

3)     (law) a lawyer who pleads cases in court

Back at least partially to being an advocate. I would think it all had to do with defending us, but the word also has to do with encourager and comforter.

Thank You, Lord, that You are all those things to us. You plead our case. You defend us. You stand along beside us and guide our paths. You give us advice. Even when we don’t take it, which is far too often, You stay with us, and continue to advise us. And when we fall apart because we were too stupid to listen to You and fell down the embankment, You reach down and pull us out of the mud-hole. Then You clean us off. Feed us. And help us on our way once again.