huh.

Ever feel like things sort of pile up all at once? Like you can't really get used to some hard thing and then in crash a bunch of other things. Almost like it was arranged by a sovereign God. Almost like it was meant to quickly and effectively use up my stock pile of energy, stamina and human optimism.

Instead of trying to process these things and figuring out how I would ask God to move and how I would suggest a way through this 'howling wilderness' for a struggling friend, I can only pray for mercy. For lots and lots of mercy. Oh please, God, let your mercy be known and abundant and accepted by all of us.

And I find that my racing mind and grieving heart are quieted by the assurance that God knows and is actively creating a way through this for all of us.

The Short Leash

I have been pondering for a good while on the difference between the narrow road and the wide road. Or more accurately, the difference between the people who walk on those roads. Both are on a journey from one place to another (meaning they are not entirely satisfied where they are...they are looking for something else.)

One thing I have thought of is that wide road people resent being on 'a leash'. Being connected to someone who has the might and the right to tell them where to go and when to stop. Someone, other than their own inclination and ambitions, who can force that stronger will on them. What an enemy to autonomy and independence! How galling to have to be seen by others as one who submits one's will to another's design.

But narrow road people do not resent the leash. Or the shortening of the leash. It allows them to be held in closer proximity to that good Master. It allows a more regular communication. As the will is bent to follow the leash's lead, a greater joy is known by both ends of the leash, because both are moving toward a common destination.

thoughts about heaven

I am shamelessly robbing some Wendell Berry, Jayber Crow to be precise. (pg 268 to be exact.) Jaber is visiting with the recent widow of a good friend. She is trying to put into words how two things can be true, her husband 'finally got free of his sickness and awful clumsiness' which made her glad. And yet she was so sorry that she was glad. Seems wrong.

And then Jayber ponders. 'I thought an unimaginable thought of something I could almost imagine, of a sound I could not imagine but could almost hear: the outcry when a soul shakes off death at last and comes into Heaven. I don't speak of this because I 'know' it. What I know is that shout of limitless joy, love unbound at last, our only native tongue.'

Can you pause for a moment and think what liberty and breath and swelling joy it will be? When the carrying around death in our body is finally done. When the scent we smell (that comes off of us) is Not decay, but life. When our timeless body only looks ahead to glory and even more life. There has to be shouts and leaps for joy when we realize that its finally our turn for that life.

Forebearance by Samuel Coleridge

Gently I took that which ungently came, and without scorn forgave;
Do thou the same.
A wrong done to thee think a cat's-eye-spark thou wouldst not see,
were thine own heart dark.
Thine own keen sense of wrong that thirsts for sin, fear that -
the spark self kindled from within, which blown upon will blind thee
with its glare, or smothered stifle thee with noisome air.
Clap on the extinguisher, pull up the blinds, and soon the ventilated spirit finds
its natural daylight.
If a foe have kenn'd, or worse than foe, an alienated friend, a rib of dry rot in
thy ship's stout side, think it God's message, and in humble pride with a heart
of oak replace it. Thine the gains. Give him the rotten timber for his pains!

Ok. This poem has been a very good visual help to me at times. I find that I need to be reminded that God is sovereign. He uses painful moments to reveal Himself to me. To reveal myself to me. To let me understand that I have a pretty big problem with the way I assess what happens to me. And the kindest thing God can do is to relieve me of lots of that self-absorbed, self-protecting, self-excusing posture. That a foe or alienated friend could conjure up wrong for me is a sad tale indeed. But God wants me to know about myself that instead of grief being awakened to that condition in another, I want revenge and justification. I'd be pretty happy if a glaring light were shone on their sin, and my hard and burning reactions were undetected.

And He is after a different revelation. One that exchanges my 'noisome air' for peace and unshakable love. A much better fragrance.

i am no fear

When the disciples were on a boat that was being flooded and tossed and tipped. When experienced sailors began to despair of life (and a tax collector and political activist, and...)Then Jesus spoke these words. English translations say, 'It is I, do not be afraid' . But the Greek (so says pastor Loos) says, 'I am no fear'.

Like the same' I am' that Moses heard when he was trembling with respect and awe before Jahweh. The same 'I am' that caused Uzzah to die because his hand touched the ark of God. In the OT 'I am' was a name of God that called out respect, awe, fear, bare feet, turned away heads, bowed down posture. But in Christ, it makes fear go away.

Have you ever let your mind track back a sin? Like look for a sin root? Like here I am tempted (or recently fallen) and that sin of idolatry came from where? Or that sin of lying came from where? I could be wrong (since I often am) but I wonder if all sin comes from a root stock of fear. Anger certainly does. I am afraid I am losing something so I get mad. Idolatry is the same. I am afraid that this need of mine is going unmet, and maybe unmet forever. So I create my own solution to its void. Revenge, pride, greed. I can see how fear that my life is not being considered important enough to others can cause me to create my own rules.

So when our good and kind God says, 'I am'...I ought to hear that where my heart makes decisions. And watch His presence replace any other thing.