Spiritual identity means we are not what we do or what people say about us.
And we are not what we have.
We are the beloved daughters and sons of God.
– Henri Nouwen
Category: Black and white
Dinosaurs of the Plasticine Era
A new Facebook friend made a comment this week about how she, as a sensitive person, cannot watch horror movies. I can’t either.
I liked it better when the dinosaurs looked like they were from the Plasticine Era. This CGI stuff is just getting too real. Horror movies with their detailed scales and teeth, gallons of fake blood, strings of artificial mucous, creepy music and over-the-shoulder shots are abhorrent enough, but what really unsettles me is psychological thrillers. The grandmother/therapist/best-friend/baby did it? You can’t trust anybody! Paranoia on a stick. Why would anybody feed themselves this stuff?
Well, I did, or used to. My brother and I snuck out of our rooms after our parents were asleep to watch “The Outer Limits” or “The Twilight Zone.” We kept the volume on the TV so low we had to lean in to hear. The buzz of the old set added to the flickering light ambiance of tension — and the fear of being caught. After the show I would tiptoe back to bed and lie awake all night, planning what I would do if aliens landed in the backyard. For months I ran past lamp posts or neon signs that made that same buzzing noise, fearing I was being followed by something equipped with a death ray.
Nowadays, if the boys ask me to watch a horror or action flick with them I usually turn them down. I think even chick-flicks should come with emotional content warnings. My empathic tendencies have been traumatized by too many.
You see, I’ve discovered prayer doesn’t work in a movie (except to mercifully let the thing end or break the projector or something.) If I was running from a monster, scaled or coifed, I would be praying, “HELP!” or at the very least “OhGodOhGodOhGodOhGod…” (How do people cope without being able to call on him?)
But God doesn’t respond to lies. He’s not afraid of computer-generated dinosaurs. He never falls for clay or cartoon creatures. He knows the hunter never shot Bambi’s mother because Bambi’s mother was never in danger. She was not real. Bambi was not real. Godzilla is no threat to Bambi either. Asking God to respond and save us from imminent hypothetical danger is like my two-year old granddaughter hiding behind my legs and squealing that her brother is going to gobble her up – with a plasticine monster.
“You’re okay honey,” I assure her. “It’s only a pretend monster.”
This got me thinking about how the Holy Spirit responds to fears that have us quivering behind locked doors as we read scary predictions in the media, both broadcast and social.
He doesn’t.
Sometimes I cry out for deliverance and there is silence. Sometimes, when I join Chicken Little’s persuasive campaign and yell, “The sky is falling,” the Lord hands me an umbrella.
“Will this protect me from the falling sky?” I ask.
“No. But there will be rain later – the same kind of rain that has been falling off and on for centuries. Get a grip, girl.”
I have noticed that Jesus never allowed himself to be caught up in hypothetical questions. “What if…” His answer? “I will never leave you.”
It’s not that bad stuff never happens to good people. The devil still prowls around messing things up. You still reap what you sow. Corrie Ten Boom told the story of how, as a child, her father never burdened her with the responsibility of carrying a train ticket until it was time to get on the train. I think grace for trials is like that. The Lord will hand us our grace ticket when we need it. There is no provision in advance for “what if” questions because there doesn’t need to be. Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil, but there is no provision of supernatural intervention in a situation that we created in our own fear-based mind.
“Lord! Help me! I am under attack! The devil’s got me in his sights! What’s that strange buzzing sound?”
“You’re okay, honey. Shut the TV off and go back to bed. And quit watching that junk. It’s time to rest.”
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Gutted
It all started with the bathroom ceiling. We couldn’t figure out how to fix it.
In this part of the world the basement is more than a foundation. It is a well-used part of the house. We had a bedroom, partially finished bathroom/laundry room, storage/utility room, craft room, and family room with a big stone fireplace down there. Since it’s not the part of the house that students and guests usually see, it has received the least attention as far as repairs and maintenance go. But we fixed the leak last summer and had an unexpected provision of income this year so we decided it was time to tackle the basement.
I just wanted a proper bathroom with a ceiling, and maybe a shower. It would be nice if the ugly dark water-stained wallboard in the bedroom and hallway could be replaced with Sheetrock while we were at it.
We have a super carpenter (he happens to be our son and already did a splendid job on the kitchen and roof). He asked us to empty three rooms and a storage area of all the stuff hidden away in there. My daughter and daughter-in-law and close friend helped sort, toss and recycle.
I found things I didn’t remember we had. It was like seeing my life pass before my eyes. It’s tough to say goodbye to objects from times of my life that are no more.
-Boxes of music books and teaching aids.
-Crafts the kids made or gifts students gave me.
-Sports equipment that makes me shrug and walk away.
-Craft and sewing projects that would be merely quasi-useful or unappreciated if I ever did manage to finish them.
-Perfectly good collections of stuff that could be quite useful if I had the inclination to actually fix or re-purpose them.
-Camping equipment that will probably not come out of the bins because my husband still hates camping – and it definitely fails the five year guideline (“If you haven’t used it in two years, it goes, Mom.” We bargained it up to five years because I hope to get back on my cross-country skis someday.)
-Things that reveal how much I live in fear of having to scrounge to survive in the future.
-Books I think someone besides me should read. (I just haven’t met them yet.)
-Movies you couldn’t pay me to watch again.
-Cleaning supplies that were not as magical as promised. Apparently they required application and effort.
-Baby items, in case one of the kids changes his or her mind.
-Research for the novel I never finished.
Mourning was involved.
We bagged and boxed and the guys took it all down to the thrift shop or the dump. Then the gutting began. With the walls, and toilet, sink and old washer and dryer gone and with the musty flooring peeled back and scraped off and everything we kept piled ceiling high in the family room it looked very different. The carpenter kept telling us about more uncovered discoveries that needed to be fixed, moved or replaced.
The basement is a mess. It’s been gutted. Down to the concrete. Torn apart. Jack-hammered in parts. Stinky, because pipes had to be moved. Dusty, because who cleans pipes and vents? Mouse poopy, because apparently we entertained a family at some point in history.
“This is not up to code,” the carpenter said. A lot.
“This was maybe okay thirty years ago, but not now. Look, you’ve got a frost bubble in that line to the outside faucet. We’ll need to take the mudroom wall out too.” He tore it down and took it away.
“You’re going to have to change some of your plans,” he sighed. He must have seen the look on my face. “Give me some time and I’ll come up with something. For one thing, I’ll give you more windows and better lighting and much more efficient use of space.”
So here we are in the basement, torn up, tossed out, piled up, stripped down and with limited electric power. I realized this mess in our basement, which also spills into the rest of the house in the form of black finger prints, concrete dust, and muddy footprints, (and as our neighbour complained yesterday, shows up in the yard in the form of neglected grass-trimming) is kind of symbolic of what has been happening in my life in the past year or two. I wanted a repair that would make improvements in function and appearance.
“Restore me, Lord,” I prayed.
God decided to gut me. He changed my plans. He pointed out areas that look fine on the surface but will not work in the long run.
He is not doing a restoration of the facade. He is working on the foundation. He is giving me more light. He is urging me to let go of old thoughts and desires and habits and replacing them with his version of something new (that I haven’t seen yet.) He is not merely repairing or restoring. He is renovating. Re-newing. Re-forming. When I think I know where He is going with this He points out how changing one area affects everything else in my life. More walls have to come down. New supports and headers have to go up. The job keeps growing.
I wanted a new clean comfortable “throne room”; He wants to build a palace fit for a King.
Sometimes I appear to be a mess. I am throwing out old assumptions. I am letting go of familiar ways of doing things. I have disappeared into the place of stored memories and come out smelling like poo pipes as I try to learn new ways of dealing with stuff that needs to be flushed. I don’t know how to do this. The mess spills over into other areas and sometimes I’m hot and tired and grubby and emotional and I take it out on innocent bystanders who are perfectly content with their tidy routines. Sorry about that.
I keep running into people who seem to be going through this same process of re-thinking and re-forming. It’s like seeing microcosms of a larger reformation popping up everywhere. What are you doing, Lord?
These folks are getting push-back though. Changes in thinking and operating affect balance in our relationships because it’s difficult to change without provoking defensiveness in others. The mess clean-up makes irritates other people, like a six-foot strip of untrimmed lawn annoys a neighbour, when they are just trying to maintain standards in the neighbourhood and are not in the mood for upheaval.
It’s painful and isolating, this gutting process. But I know the Master Builder. I’ve seen his work.
I trust Him.
Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me. (Psalm 51:10)
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Just Give Me a Moment
I remember those wonderful summer days at the lake. Around about five o’clock families would pick up their toys and towels and wander off to prepare supper. If I was lucky I could stay there while the others slap-slapped their way up the trail to the camper in their flip-flop sandals. Sometimes in that transitional space between hours I had the dock to myself.
I trailed my hand in the cool water, smelling the scent of damp wood against my cheek and felt the gritty sand drying on my legs as I lay on my stomach on the gently rocking wooden island. A lull stretched beyond the distant sounds of swings clanging in the park and canoes scraping the pebbles on the shore. Smoke from barbecues leaked out from between tree branches and drifted heavenward like summer worship.
I had no profound thoughts, no plans, no particular emotion. The dock was like an island in time.
That’s kind of how I feel this week. After the drama and trauma of the deaths and funerals of both my Dad and my brother-in-law in less than two months I am tired, but not overwhelmed. I believe both of them are with the Lord. But I don’t have the energy to either celebrate or cry right now.
It feels like Jesus is just sitting quietly here with me like a close friend, making no demands, requiring no soothing of his own emotions, making no particular suggestions about what I should do next. I’m tired, but I’m OK. We’re OK.
In a while Mom will call me to put on some dry clothes and help set the table. There will probably be some game involving a ball or frisbee that the boys want me to join in on later. Dad will lay down his novel and get up from his lawn chair to chop wood for the fire we will sit around when the crickets sing in the darkness. Tomorrow we pack up and drive back to the city and get back to work.
But for now, on this little square island, there is only the sound of the waves lapping the planks, and the gentle sun pressing its comfort into my stretched out body, and I am at peace.
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Crossing the River
Tough day. My husband’s younger brother succumbed to lung disease yesterday. The news was so hopeful a little while ago, but he suddenly went downhill. The doctors said they found previously undetected small cell lung cancer that left him too weak to fight an acute illness. His family and friends surrounded him and wept as his heartbeat faded.
I am thankful for our 11-year old grandson who reminded us that even in this there is hope.
Today we try to work on funeral plans with his wife. We can’t speak Spanish and she can’t speak English. Bob was always the translator.
Today we try to comfort his mother, who seems even more frail with the shock and we live in a conversation on replay.
Today we try to gather up legal loose ends and financial unknowns. We step on each others toes in our efforts to step in to the empty spaces.
Today we wince as individual ways of handling grief clang against each other.
Today we can still be glad, as our grandson pointed out, that we have a close family that cares. They immediately gathered from across the country when they heard the news.
Today we can be glad, as our grandson pointed out, that we know Jesus, and that Uncle Bob knew about his grace.
“You know, when you think about it, this is really a happy day for Uncle Bob,” our grandson said in the ICU waiting room. “Today is the day when he will see how wonderful heaven is and get to be with Jesus.”
There is hope.
And then one day, I’ll cross that river.
I’ll fight life’s final war with pain.
And then as death gives way to victory,
I’ll see the lights of glory and I’ll know He lives.
(from Because He Lives by Bill and Gloria Gaither)
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Moralism and Grace
“Postmodern people have been rejecting Christianity for years, thinking that it was indistinguishable from moralism.”
– Timothy Keller
It made grammatical sense to me. When I was little, I added an “er” to the word bug when referring to my even littler brother, because he was bugging me.
Mom washed my mouth out with soap for my efforts to extend my understanding of linguistic principles. I didn’t know it was a bad word. That event made such an impact on me that I remember it all these years later. I resolved as a three year old that when I was a grownup I would explain the rules to my kids before dishing out consequences for violating them. Unfair! It was a justice issue for me then. It still is.
My husband and I were discussing the question of how to teach the principle of grace to young children in a Christian education setting. We both taught Sunday School for years and became frustrated with pre-packaged lesson plans that required every Bible story to have a moral. Nearly every one of them was a moral about behaviour — shoulds and should-nots. A lot of them were stories from the Old Testament that did not take New Covenant grace into consideration. Be like the good guys. Don’t be like the bad guys, because God is watching. (How do we explain that everyone, except Jesus, was both good and bad without glossing over the embarrassing details the Bible does not gloss over?)
What we truly believe becomes evident when we distill it down to concepts we try to teach to little ones. But how do we teach the concepts of grace and forgiveness to children (or others) who don’t yet know the difference between right and wrong?
Grace is not a laissez faire message that sin has no consequences. Skipping that truth is really unfair. Sin is not okay. Never has been. Never will be. I do think there is a difference between sin (defying God’s principles) and un-wise actions though. Sometimes even though you have been working at a job for 32 years, and know it inside out and backwards, a boss will require you to do something that you know is stupid. It will cost you great inconvenience later to clean up the mess, but the boss is in authority, so you do it. It’s not a sin; it’s just un-wise on the boss’s part. If the boss asks you to eliminate a competitor in the back alley, however, there is no question. That is sin. You refuse to submit, no matter the cost.
Sometimes we choose unwise actions of our own volition. When we come to our senses it involves changing our minds and policies, and probably offering some apologies, but it’s not the same as deliberately choosing to disobey Jesus’ command to love your neighbour, for example.
The Pharisees asked Jesus what the greatest commandment was. Children need to be taught what he said: “And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” (Luke 12: 30-31 ESV).
Four times in his final charge to his disciples Jesus said loving him and being his friend meant keeping his commandments. Then this: “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” (John15:12).
Sometimes love means being quiet and leading by example. Sometimes love means letting children learn the discipline of natural consequences. Sometimes love means tackling a kid who is big for his age before he hurts himself or somebody else. How this plays out in your life depends on the wisdom God gives you when you ask Him.
By the time a child can think for himself he knows he has missed the mark. Holy Spirit speaks to them too. Even as a child I knew that labeling my brother according to his on-going temptation to bug me was not loving him — even if I didn’t use the right word.
When I was depressed and in the midst of burn-out from trying to earn God’s approval a counselor asked me, “What does grace feel like?” I gave him the Bible school definition. He said, “No. I asked what grace feels like.”
I had no idea. I was a product of moralism. After a search in which I asked many other people this question – including some joyless Christians I did not admire – I came to an understanding. Grace to me now is climbing up on the lap of the Creator of the universe, (someone who has the power to annihilate me in a flash), resting my head on his chest and knowing I am perfectly safe because he loves me. Grace lets me know I am forgiven and enables me to change because he whispers encouraging words and tells me who I really am in his eyes. He loves me because he loves me because he loves me. The Creator sent his son, who lived as a man, who both accepted and spoke the truth to those caught in sin, chose to die at the hands of those he came to save, and conquered death just to prove it.
How do we teach children (and others) about grace? By demonstrating it. By speaking the truth about the way God sees them -as lovable. By loving them the way we are loved, including setting wise boundaries, teaching them to base their choices on love (and not mere tolerance) and becoming who they are meant to be. We teach by extending a grace that costs everything the way Jesus extended grace to us.
Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. – Jesus Christ
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When Hope is Hidden in Disappointment
His divine power has given us everything we need to experience life and to reflect God’s true nature through the knowledge of the One who called us by His glory and virtue. Through these things, we have received God’s great and valuable promises, so we might escape the corruption of worldly desires and share in the divine nature. (2 Peter 1:3,4 The Voice)
I knew a dear lady who became profoundly disappointed with God. She made a bargain with him, that if she threw herself into church work to the edge of her physical energy he would give her the desires of her heart — a husband and children. He didn’t keep up his end. When menopause hit and she realized she would never have a child and would probably remain single she was devastated. Her hope was the hope that disappoints.
I’ve realized lately that many of us test God with our presumptions. We tend to present him with bargains of our own design and don’t hang around long enough to find out if he agrees. It hit me last night that praise and worship services can fall into this category as well. I went to a large gathering of believers at a conference not long ago. I was really looking forward to it because I had heard stories about how “God showed up” last year. I had hoped that if I joined in singing loud rock-style praise songs for 55 minutes, if I knelt or waved a flag or swayed or shouted, whatever, I would feel experience a sense of God showing up — because it happened to those guys over there.
I felt nothing and was profoundly disappointed because I had thrown my whole heart into it. Other people seemed to be experiencing some sort of ecstatic moment while I felt nothing.
The truth is, I was presenting God with a bargain presuming that he would agree to it. “If I move out of my comfort zone and really get into this music even though it is a style and volume I personally find irritating, if I stretch out of my introverted personality and do things I fear would draw uncomfortable attention, if I sacrifice my time and money to be here, You will give me the desires of my heart, right, Lord? Because this is the way praise and worship is done, right? Because if You are pleased with my efforts You will take away the feelings that come with burying my dad yesterday and fill me with happy happy joy joy and allow me to experience Your Presence, right? ”
Can I confess I was actually angry when I left? I spent days wondering what is wrong with me that I was more aware of an out-of-tune guitar string than the majesty of God. Then I remembered an experience I had in Israel.
I was standing in the shell of an abandoned building in Gibeah — that place that was known as “The School of the Prophets” in the time of Samuel. I was excited when I found out this would be included on the itinerary, because the story in the Bible was that the presence of God was so strong there that even King Saul prophesied. I was secretly hoping for some special experience — at least some goose bumps.
Nothing.
The same thing at Bethel… and Shiloh… and Jerusalem. I told the Lord I was disappointed I didn’t have a sense of his presence there. That’s when I felt him say, “Because I’m not there. I’m in you now.”
In the past God has made his presence known in a burning bush, in a wind, in a voice like thunder, and in other ways. I believe that he has delighted the hearts of many people who have gotten together to offer him full-out singing and playing, but he doesn’t visit them by “showing up” like he did for a few in the Old Covenant. He inhabits them now. We are his temple. Worship is not something we do to earn a feeling. Using singing-style worship to manipulate our emotions so we can escape the unpleasant ones is making ourselves the object of worship. If I feel good this must be God, right? No. I was treating a praise and worship service like a drug.
I was wrong.
It made me re-think the point of actions we turn into rituals. It’s like giving a loved one the same birthday gift every year because we remember how happy their reaction made us feel the first time we gave it to them. We sensed God`s pleasure and his presence in us when our hearts turned to him and we expressed it through contemporary music. Now every meeting starts with obligatory rituals of a praise band and repeated choruses — because that worked before. For those whose hearts are in the right place it still does, but it’s not the method that connects them; it’s the heart.
Yesterday I read Psalm 109. It is not a feel-good psalm. In fact it’s rather embarrassing the way David spills out his feelings. I wish that one had been edited out. But in spite of his intense anger, grief, and disappointment, the psalmist offers the sacrifice of his right to want revenge and offers it to God.
Perhaps that is what would have made a finer gift of praise that day at the conference — my tears, my grief for what would never be on this earth ( a fully restored relationship with my dad), my honest feelings — the pure distilled worship of lament that says, Nevertheless I will give You first place in my heart because I choose to trust You. Christ is in me, and right in the middle of my disappointments You continue to show me the hope of glory.
Worship is acknowledging that God is God and he is good. And that does not require a sound system.
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Consolation Prize
When I think about the word consolation I have in my mind an image of Miss Congeniality.
“Well, you lost, but here’s a trophy for being nice. Thanks for playing.”
My next thought would be of platitudes spoken to console a bereaved person when you really don’t know what to say, but feel you really should say something so you blurt out a bunch of words anyway (a common source of pitifully bad theology).
“Well, I guess God needed a good plumber.”
But I keep running into that word lately – consolation. In my heart I hear the Holy Spirit, in the accent of Inigo Montoya from The Princess Bride, saying, “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”
It started with Psalm 94:19 which I quoted in Weeding Out the Noise. “When my anxious thoughts multiply within me your consolations delight my soul.”
Other translations use words like give me cheer or joy, or make me glad, or lighten my soul. They all agree, consolation brings good feelings.
I’ve gone looking for it, the meaning of the word, I mean. In Hebrew it is something like tanchuwm. It shows up in the last chapter of Isaiah where God promises to comfort his people like a mother. One translation talks about nursing from “the breasts of consolation.”
That ye may suck, and be satisfied with the breasts of her consolations; that ye may milk out, and be delighted with the abundance of her glory. For thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will extend peace to her like a river, and the glory of the Gentiles like a flowing stream: then shall ye suck, ye shall be borne upon her sides, and be dandled upon her knees.
As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you; and ye shall be comforted in Jerusalem. (Isaiah 66: 11-13 KJV)
I mentioned to someone that I was musing over this image. She thought I was making it up. I heard her muttering as the door slammed, “God the Father is not female. He does not have boobs!”
Literal minds have problems with this poetic language stuff. I shrugged (after I winced) and reminded myself of the dangers of being a verbal processor.
I kept looking. Another similar verse came to mind.
Surely I have calmed and quieted my soul, Like a weaned child with his mother; Like a weaned child is my soul within me. (Ps 131:2 NKJV)
Marty Goetz, the modern-day psalmist, phrased it this way in his song version of Psalm 131.
Oh Lord my heart is quieted
My thoughts are not too proud
The shadows flee, my eyes can see You now
I do not occupy myself
With things too great for me
Here in Your stillness, is where I long to be
And I have calmed my troubled heart,
I have quieted my soul,
Like a child at its mother’s breast,
I find my strength and take my rest
In the shelter of Your arms,
There is life to make me whole
I have calmed my heart and quieted my soul.
One of my best memories is sitting in the big comfy rocking chair in the middle of a cold winter’s night nursing my sweet baby. There were some nights when I felt exhausted, but this was not one. Aggressive winds whipped up the snow and tossed it against the window, but inside the house was warm and still. The boys were asleep and there was no new mom anxiety distracting me. I whispered to my child telling her how beautiful she was and all my hopes for her. I prayed for her and blessed her as she drew sustenance from me. When her little tummy was full she pulled back, looked me in the face and gave me a smile that all mommies wait for. Then she fell asleep in my arms, warm, dry, full and contented.
I wonder if there is something about the ability to receive consolation from Holy Spirit that involves us coming simply as wee children, hungry, messy, cold, and bewildered, to draw sustaining life from him. I wonder if the virtues we tend to associate with the feminine are also essential characteristics of God and if, when we allow him to draw us near, he wants to clean us up, hold us, fill the empty places in our hearts with warm nourishing milk, and, in the stillness, whisper blessings and his plan for us into our ear. Jesus called Holy Spirit “the Comforter,” the parakletos, the one who comes beside.
This week in my dreams, and as I woke to a clear June sunlight streaming through the window, I heard this song in my heart.
Lord I come to You
Let my heart be changed, renewed
Flowing from the grace
That I found in You.
And Lord I’ve come to know
The weaknesses I see in me
Will be stripped away
By the power of Your love.
Hold me close
Let Your love surround me
Bring me near
Draw me to Your side.
And as I wait
I’ll rise up like the eagle
And I will soar with You
Your Spirit leads me on
In the power of Your love.
(From The Power of Your Love by Geoff Bullock)
There is more to this idea of comfort and consolation that I am exploring, but for today, I am learning to rest here in the stillness and let his love surround me.
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When the Master Speaks
Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty
The earth belongs to You
We’ll prepare to go with You, Lord
But until the day we do, Lord,
Minute by minute, we’ll continue in the story
This mystery, Christ in us the hope of glory
– Marty Goetz (from “Hope of Glory”)
This song has been playing in my head for the past two nights. I’ve been thinking about hearing God’s voice, the means he uses, and the discernment he develops in us to know when the voice is his and when it is not. This line particularly was on repeat in my dreams, “Glory to glory, even by His spirit, moment by moment, when the Master speaks I’ll hear it.”
I talk about learning to hear God’s voice, but honestly hearing a little bit leaves me feeling frustrated that I can’t hear more. I want the unmistakable thunderous voice from the clouds giving explicit directions. I know one fellow, equally frustrated during a period of unemployment, who stood under thunder clouds with a metal rake balanced on his head and shouted to God, “Talk to me!” I know the feeling.
On the other hand the Bible tells the story of that time when God spoke in a loud booming voice from the sky. Some heard him clearly but others said all they heard was thunder.
The thing is, for his re-born, Spirit-filled sons and daughters the voice is no longer up in the sky. The voice is in us.
In a dream I saw people throwing huge lasso ropes into a city that was crumbling faster than a set for a sci-fi dystopia movie. One of them looped around a young man who was almost entirely buried in debris. I joined in pulling on the rope and hauled him out of the city of destruction. He stood up, brushed himself off and began running.
I yelled, “Hey! You’re not cleaned up yet!”
He shouted over his shoulder, “Do you recognize Christ in you well enough yet to know that he has called me?” and kept running.
Then I saw a word I had never seen before written in the air. When I woke up I googled it.
I found it could mean a tight Somalian hat, it was an acronym for a number of obscure ventures and technical terms and it was part of a rude name I’m sure the Facebook police have banned by now. I gave up and came back and gave up and tried again. Pages deep on the search something caught my attention. The entire page was in a foreign language and it included this word only once. I was about to abandon this site as well when I saw numbers interspersed with the words and something like II Korint written on the top. I realized it was a page from the Bible.
I found the verse in my own bible in 2 Corinthians 13:5 and it said: Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves! Or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you—unless indeed you fail the test?
My eyes fell on a phrase in verse 3 where Paul wrote, “since you are seeking for proof of the Christ who speaks in me...”
It “resonated.”
At first I felt quite privileged that God set up a riddle for me this way, the way I felt quite puffed up when I learned I was a descendent of European royalty. But just like in the way that I learned that the odds of anyone of European descent not springing from the loins of Charlemagne are one in 17 million this hearing God’s voice thing is not a unique experience. It’s for all his children. It’s matter of paying attention to the mystery of Christ in you, your hope of glory – however he chooses to communicate.
Minute by minute we’ll continue in the story.
Charis: Subject to Change 