Life is a difficult concept.

It’s something we can’t even agree upon the definition of, as far as when it starts and under what circumstances we should end it.

Vulnerability is not a cherished trait. Power, control — this is strength, to us. The vulnerable, sometimes mislabeled as lazy or stupid or emotional, are the ones whose lives are out of control, who seem to be a mess, who seem to get tossed around on every wave that comes their way.

“Wow, can’t they just keep it together and get their life together?”

I like what Nouwen says in his quote; it’s very simple to quickly forget our moments of vulnerability when things swing our way.

My friend Charlie recently emailed me, saying something that seems connected somehow:

My theory is apparently that you have a very powerful prayer warrior asking that you will become more selfless, loving, patient, kind, gentle, and generally Christ-like. Earnest prayers for a person to become more Christ-like are at once exhilarating and terribly frightening. The frightening part is facing the the circumstances in life that require those qualities that will inevitably come when you ask for the characteristics they should produce.

I have already “lightly” asked mom what she’s been praying all these years, though if I knew I would likely have that moment of terror that Charlie wrote about. I don’t really want to know. Sometimes I try to think back to when I was a teenager and try to remember what I prayed for in the moment up at the altar at Bible camp, for example, and whether I should have been a bit more careful in my requests.

I often pray for wisdom, latching onto James 1:5. Do you know how one gets wisdom? It says just to ask, and that God will generously give to all.

But do you know how one gets wisdom? Do you know how that “giving” arrives? There was only one King Solomon, and the rest of us who ask for wisdom get it in the form of difficulty in life, struggles, painful lessons, the passage of time — that is the way the “gift” of wisdom arrives. It’s kind of soft and broken and patient and not at all grandiose.

The gift of life comes with “fragile” written all over it. Easily taken, easily dismissed. To mix asking for the gift of wisdom with that seems incredibly unwise.

I have no idea how it is that we can’t really grasp the paradoxes of God where the weak are strong and the broken whole and last are first, and how he manages to cram wisdom into such fragile clay pots through methods that seem pretty brutal.

Life is really easy to love when I’m doing well and things seem up and I feel popular and that everything is a hit; it is then that I forget about fragility and end up trading in wisdom for what’s easy.

You should probably be really careful what you pray for.