January 6, 2014
Had to be at work early, early today - "normal time" for everyone else in the world - but normally at 8am I am awake but not at work - so I missed my time this morning with You.
Always feels weird having it in the afternoon - well, more evening now - but feels like the middle of the day. In between work and the "after work" activities of hanging out with people.
Just feels weird because normally in the morning things still feel fairly fresh - new - unstarted - a blank page - but by the middle of the day it feels like my day has already been "lived in" a little...
May be the best time to come to You for that reason - Just hard to find those times unhurried and unrushed.
But we have some time... Going over to Dee and Sally's to watch the National Title game and although I could care less about the game and am not looking forward to being out in the bitter, bitter cold - it will be so good to see them again and I am looking forward to getting out of the house - Full of unfinished cleaning and lists of things I could do but don't want to do because it feels so empty right now - waiting for Apple to come home.
Also be nice to escape a little. I finished the first of the Lemony Snicket series and have decided I'm not going to finish it. It's leaving smudges on my soul - similar to how I felt reading Game of Thrones and Hunger Games. I endured Hunger Games because I felt it had purpose, but lost my appetite for it with Game of Thrones and then this series...
Just feels like reading and engorging myself on darkness and violence and evil - even if it's only jokingly so, that sometimes makes it even worse. Pushes me towards my depressive side - makes me realize the bleakness of this world - of the injustice that is so thick in it - of evil that continues without consequence or ending... and I just feel like books like that leave me feeling smudged and out of sorts.
They aren't bad books or poorly written - or unworthy of reading - I just feel that they are imbalanced and they push me to the side on which I already feel unbalanced or inhabit for too much of my liking anyways.
It always takes some time for me to "de-smudge" and clear the air to where it feels that I can breathe again without that heaviness weighing on my heart and threatening to cave me in.
Feel like I have to shake it off me - or keep pushing its sticky grimy fingers away from my mind and soul. Too long that darkness haunted me until it possessed my eyes... I am not willing to enter back under even the shadow of it unless the light calls me to bear it there.
I have little Apple's picture pulled up everywhere and those big haunted eyes remind me of how easy it is for me to forget about love and light and laughter and warmth and feel buried beneath sorrow and hurt and coldness and silence and isolation.
I have never really liked the summer - and of the solstices I prefer the winter for its beauty and its silence - but my heart is ready for summer warmth in what feels like a bleak and cold day.
... It isn't over yet. Perhaps gathered with friends who love laughter and joy and friendship I can help dispel some of the gloom...
But for now in the quiet - in the "bleak midwinter" of the moment - I'll seek You out in Your Word and maybe find you waiting in the dark - a gentle light ready to change the world entirely...
Psalm 69
"Save me, O God! For the waters have come in unto my soul
I sink in deep mire where there is no foothold;
I have come into deep waters, and the flood sweeps over me
I am weary of crying out -
I don't have it in me anymore -
My eyes fail with waiting for my God."
Last night at BCF's "Dwell" event several were sharing in how You brought them to a place of brokenness to shine your light upon them - to a place of deep darkness so that they might hunger only for the true light that is in You. No matter how many times I consider and experience this truth, Lord, it is hard to grasp.
We want to think that as Lord of the Light you dwell only in places of Light and goodness and brightness and wealth. We want to think that because You are the source of every good and perfect thing that we will find more of You as our lives improve and become enriched and enlightened as we open up into broad places and bright lights - in lands of plenty and provision. That in seeking You we will be lead out into those bright and promising futures...
But often Father, it is in our brokenness - in our darkness - in our despair - in our tragedy - that we see our need for You most clearly and are most hungry and desperate for your voice.
I don't like to think that - and my heart rebels. It wants to run from the sadness and brokenness of humanity - it wants to reject our evil and our pain- our smallness - our deep ugliness and our rude natures that we so often cover with niceties and social norms. I don't wan to confront the ugliness of humanity. I don't want to see it - I don't want to live in it- or be aware of it - even if it is true.
Why bring me here, Lord? To this darkness - to these waters threatening to drown me? Why bring me to acknowledgement of this - when what I want is proof that this isn't all there is - that this isn't all life is - that there is something beautiful to believe in. Why bring me face to face with the helplessness of man in this Psalm - and all his anger and brokenness and railing against his enemies like a toddler lashing out?
"But as for me, my prayer is to You, O Lord -
At an acceptable time, O God, in the abundance of your steadfast love
Answer me in your saving faithfulness."
Complete brokenness - complete dependency - Rescue me Lord, in Your own timing...
Who prays these kinds of prayers?! Honestly?
Men and women of deep desperation... and deep faith...
"Deliver me from sinking in the mire,
Let me be delivered from my enemies and from the deep waters.
Let not the flood sweep over me,
or the deep swallow me up,
or the pit close its mouth over me."
How many times has this been my prayer?
More times than I care to count... and so many times wishing that I did not even have to utter that prayer - or that I could have a steady internal life that didn't involve being aware of all the yawning pits of death - but a life that saw and believed in a field of daises - in still waters and green pastures...
... This has been sticking in my mind - like a bone out of the dirt - it doesn't surprise me that many of my friends who are atheists are against the teaching of Christianity - not opposed to the loving one another - or treating each other with dignity and respect - but on its teachings about God - and Your Son - It doesn't surprise me that so many reject You and often I feel if more "Christians" understood this walk of and life of faith as I understand it - then more of them would reject it too.
Not many can stomach or want to follow or worship or give any credence to a God who allows brokenness - even uses brokenness - to prove His almighty strength and power.
You crushed your son -
You crush us -
willing to force us to see the pits of of darkness - the yawning gaps of Hell on earth - into that pitch blackness You dive and refuse to let any of us walk away or ignore (who truly decided to follow You - no matter the cost) - into that utter dark you go and force us to look into that yawning chasm of need and desperation and helplessness and You refuse to let me look away or ignore its presence or pretend it isn't there.
I am painfully aware of it - and feel that when I am not aware of it - it is because I have shrunk you to a proportion that I can stomach - that I can live with - that I can be comfortable with and happy with and relax and sit back and enjoy life...
Because what person would really want to follow such an outrageous God??
Even knowing that is because of your great love that You will not let me look away from suffering of humanity and our own life - because You refused to look away or walk away from that yawning, weeping, gaping hole of agony and need and desperation - You refused to let it be covered by a simple bandaid and/or an easy covering - But jumped right into the heat of it. Born in the deep midwinter of our greatest distress as helpless and naked and frightened as any of the rest of us
... Even knowing that because You loved and You still love - You refuse to let those agonies go unanswered - those needs unfulfilled. Even knowing all of that - I cry out to You that sometimes it is too much.
It is too much and I want a break
It is too much and I want to settle back and let my life go on comfortably because I cannot function the face of the gaping hole of humanity...
I am left devastated by it -
broken by my own reflection in it -
left despairing and tired and wearied and doing nothing but begging for all the agony to be put out of its misery and to just let it all be at rest...
Will you hear echoes of the screams and agonies of humanity for all eternity Father
WIll they cease when heaven and earth are made new?
Or will Your heart forever know the brokenness of lost souls and lost moments and tears unrestored and lives unmended?
Is that why You refuse to let me ignore it?
Is that why You force me to hear it - even if it drives me to points of utter despair?
"You know my reproach, and my shame and my dishonor -
You know each person's - the whole world's - shame and dishonor
on a level of complete intimate knowing - Your Son experienced every heartbreak - every failure - every atrocity - every wrong
You know all our foes - both internal and external...
Reproaches have broken my heart, so that I am in despair.
I looked for pity, but there was none,
And for comforters, but I found none.
They gave me poison for food,
and for my thirst they gave me sour wine to drink.*"
(* John 19:29, 30)
The response of the Psalmist - like mine - to evil in this world is to call for its obliteration - to rail helplessly against it and call down curses upon it for its destruction and its end...
... But those verses harken back to Your Son - And Your Son's response to evil in the world was to absorb it...
To step into that gaping hole of need and desperation and want and anger and destruction and violence and dare to fill it with love and forgiveness and grace...
... Believing that His love - and His power - and His grace was enough to conquer it all - to restore it all - to redeem it all - heal it all - bring it all back to resurrected life...
... All that Death had claimed
... All that was lost and broken -
You dare to go into that darkness - believing You can overcome it all -
And you dare us to believe the same.
To stare unflinchingly into the chasm of brokenness and need and to jump in - believing we can bring light and Your light and find You in the deepness of it...
I am not sure I can pray as the Psalmist did that people's names be blotted out of the book of life - but maybe that is what I in fact live out when I refuse to face the gaping hole of need and desperation in the world - when I refuse to walk into it - bearing Your image - Your light - Your presence - by believing in the power of Your love to conquer all.
"You who seek God, let your hearts revive.
For the Lord hears the needy
and does not despise his own people who are prisoners."
Father - grant me courage and faith - to face the brokenness of the world and our hearts and to not run - or diminish it to a palatable size. Lord, the suffering of this world is too much for me to bear - and I know Your Son bore it because it was too much for any of us to bear - but I am wrestling because I know that You have told me that for me to live is Christ - to bear Him and His heart and His image to this world... That is a truth I do not fully understand and something I am not comfortable with and the world and many people are not comfortable with...
Help me Father to have faith that Your light is greater than any darkness. Your good greater than any evil - Your power to heal greater than any wound - Your love greater than any fear - any pain - any anger - any hurt -
and help me Father -
help me not to belittle or shrink any suffering down to a size that I can manage - and in so doing - shrink You and the great capacity of Your love.
Lord - Your Son went to death on the cross - went to bear all the sufferings of the world - in faith and belief that Your grace and love could conquer them all... so much so - that He was willing to absorb them all - to step into the utter darkness and embrace it in sacrificial love.
Lord, I don't understand what that means for my life - but I pray You would teach me - piece by piece - even as I tremble in fear with that prayer - not knowing what that means - but teach me Father - bit by bit - what faith in that transformative love looks like - so that I may not flinch in walking into the midst of the needs of this world with that love.
In Your Name I pray - Amen.
"Let heaven and earth praise him,
the seas and everything that moves in them.
For God will save his people,
and build up the places laid in desolation and waste,
And people shall dwell there and possess it -
that which was once abandoned and lost
The offspring of his servants shall inherit it,
and those who love his name shall dwell in it."
Amen.
