April 14, 2014
Time flies. Halfway through April - nearly a third of the way through the year... The length between my postings is getting longer and longer...
I feel a bit like a beach after a big storm - Strangely scrubbed and clean - but with debris still drifting up to the shore.
It feels like it has been a really, really busy past couple of weeks and just starting to get my feet back under me again (kind-of). There are so many things to tie up and yet feels like we're already starting a new beginning.
Psalm 119:9-32 (Beth, Gimel, Daleth)
Daleth: Psalm 119:25-32
Funny that my eye first landed on this portion - took me a second to recognize I had skipped some. In my mind are all the recent conversations with --------, trying to sort out what is truth from so many religions that each claim they are the right way. They all start to sound and look alike - so I understand the confusion.
Yet out of all the clamor for attention and all the theological debate - I hear You calling out to me for relationship - for freedom - for the joy of knowing that is of heart and soul and not just of the mind.
"I will run in the way of Your commandments
for you have set my heart free."
It makes sense to me that the author cries out to You to make Your way clear - to help him to understand - to strengthen him in the midst of many false teachings... There are a lot out there - in a lot of different names and guises - and the only way I know to make my way through is to pray that I would hear Your voice - to listen intently - and trust that You have me - by crook and by rod - and will lead me through the confusion and the darkness and be my light.
So often You have - never have You not - and in the midst of all of it - I hear shards of truth - moments of truth - in all religions - in all beliefs - and still You stand supreme and Sovereign because it doesn't make sense that by any other way might we be saved except through Your Sacrifice - at once perfect, holy, divine, and eternal - no one else could satisfy the judge's jurisdiction except that He pay the price for His own justice (for how else could He be just in allowing an innocent to die for the guilty?) ...
And yet, simultaneously human - one of us - for who else could pay the transgression but one who was of the transgressors? Who else could intercede with perfect knowledge - knowledge as of knowing by experience - what it means to be human - what it means to experience death - and intercede on our behalf to a perfect and holy and eternal God.
And how could we save ourselves? With all our best efforts we put band aids on gaping wounds - we infect as much as we heal - for every advancement we create new problems - there is not one of us who is perfect or could even claim potential of perfection in and of ourselves.
Most of us are painfully - uncomfortably and disconcertingly - aware of our insufficiencies and shortcomings and weaknesses... and those that aren't are so afraid and so weak as to be unable to face their insufficiencies at all.
In the midst of this - all of this - I hear Your voice - and I can't ignore it - nor do I want to - calling me to rest - calling me to action - calling me to sufficiency and ability in You... Sometimes where I don't want to go - Sometimes when I don't feel ready - sometimes to people I'd rather avoid.
"My soul clings to the dust;
Give me life according to Your word!"
How is it that I know in my heart that You are true? I could explain in a thousand arguments - over a thousand issues - what it is that I see - what it is that You reveal to me - over a thousand discussions of theology - not one of them may make a single difference though...
"If today You hear his Voice -
harden not your heart!"
It isn't that those discussions aren't important - it's that they make no difference if you hear that whisper in your soul to believe - to trust - to allow yourself to begin the risky business of falling in love - and you refuse. You squelch it as insensible and write it off as a silly childish dream - as a "pretend" friend - as a crutch - as a deception to keep you from facing reality - or because you want to verify every truth before you allow yourself to admit (even to yourself - even a little) that you believe.
This relationship with You is strange and different - and yet not unlike falling in love. At first one may enter it cautiously - with a guarded heart - but eventually you must open your heart up a little - and little more and more - in order for it to begin and then for it to grow.
It's like wanting to know everything about a person - their history - their story - who they are - before getting to know them first...
It doesn't work... not really -
You have to be willing to get to know them -
Sit down and have those hard conversations with them - not just everyone else who knows them.
But Lord - may I not use that as an excuse. May I not become lazy - or harden my heart to Your call on my life - to open my heart to greater love - greater compassion - to becoming more and more like You in heart and in word and deed.
Father - may I be your hands and feet - your words - your love... may I walk in your statutes - proclaim your truths - with my life.
May I introduce you to others and help them to get to know you even more. May I be a matchmaker in the greatest love story there ever was.
Amen.
