A quiet song of Hope and Lament
A small fire of worship configured as words written as if for other people, but not really
Hi.
It’s been a while.
I went through a year of pain and hard choices and came out the other side a new person. It happens.
In the process I lost a lot of illusions, a lot of preconceptions (prefered conceptions! they were nice!), had to let go of a lot of ideas of who I was, and, moreso, of knowing exactly what size and shape of box God did or did not fit.
Because He doesn’t fit in boxes.
He is in fact the sovereign of boxes. Each of them. Everywhere. He is quite outside the box.
Psalm 50:12
”…all the world is mine and everything in it.”
That includes boxes.
The universe as a box of boxes. And people. And cows.
So it’s kind of funny the way I just want to stick Him in there.
Have you not done this?
Found, again, painfully, a moment in which you realize that you had used your everything of ‘following God’ to create a world in which you maybe don’t-need-him-quite-as-much? Not consciously… but in effect… trying to outpace grace with excellence?
No?
That might be just me. Perhaps better if it is.
I’ll make you a deal.
I’ll be the worst of us and be honest about it.
See?
Easy.
That’s the deal.
It was a painful moment of realizing that to be a God follower I had to actually follow God when He went places I didn’t want to go.
That He would, in fact, not follow me and support me in my comfortable and prefered ideas.
That was new.
For ten years, though it has not been easy and there has been plenty of heartache along the way… I have had the kind of story that (sadly) often gets used to sell prosperity rather than the need for grace.
(shame!)
(thank you!)
He had, essentially, led me right into everything I had ever wanted while I wrestled out the humiliating bits and clung to His knees.
And then one day, the story changed, and He turned and walked out of the spaces1 I had known Him in and into spaces I didn’t want to go or understand.
This was, to put it mildly, wildly inconvenient.
Basically, I shook my head, pulled a pout and said, “Nuh-uh.”
So God sat me down and he held out two hands and said, “You have to pick one. You can have me, or you can have my stuff. Which one do you want?”
It took me an embarrassingly long time to answer.
What else could I do?
Don’t get me wrong. I wanted to stay right where I was. In the middle of all the disappointment, all the pain… having no God at all looked pretty good.
…and I’ll acknowledge it’s socially unacceptable to say that if you’ll consider that the very nature of following God requires it.
I mean… how can I choose to follow God in any meaningful way where I didnt want to ‘not?’
That’s just not real.
That choice is pretty much the whole point. It’s where all of our stories lead and it is what our model in the person of Jesus shows us.
He had a choice.
The perfect obedience and posture of Jesus means what it does precisely because He wrestled with wanting to turn and go the other direction.
I dare you, go, now, and read all of Cavalry and just look for the restraint. The posture of the miracle man who can choose RIGHT. What an astounding thing, this right chooser. I can’t even.
And He choose right that day, completing a lifelong sequence of perfect choices in the perfect execution of the impossible day we call ‘good’ but which was without question ‘best.’
The best day ever lived.
When He waits in Gethsemane. Choice.
When He doesn’t defend Himself. Choice.
When He asks God to forgive those that persecute Him. Choice.
When He asks the cup be taken from Him… choice.
Luke 22:42
“Father, if you are willing, please take this cup of suffering away from me.”
I think it’s worth a long, hard, sit and look, right here.
Eyes wide.
He doesn’t want to do it.
He is asking, with deep humanity, “please.”
…
That “please” is the key that unlocks the world, if we’ll let it.
That choice matters.
…and I have to wonder… if you can’t remember making it… did you?
So I chose.
I set down the things in my hands and grabbed onto the heart work God called me to and surrendered every available title I had beyond ‘God follower.’
I look at the ceiling and I say, “here I am.”
And I wait.
And life is new.
2 Corinthians 5:17
“This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!”
One would think there would be a statute of limitations on that verse… but I don’t think there is.
If so, I’m doing it all wrong.
Here’s to day 1.
May it be ever present.
All scripture referenced is NLT unless otherwise noted. I prefer NLT for postural discussion as it is both reasonably rigorous while retaining a conversational tone.
For study I strongly encourage the use of original language tools, multiple translations, and critical thought.
Please remember that when you read the Bible in English you are always reading someone else’s interpretation of the text.
It is worth noting that just because I had the conviction to follow God meant to ‘go’ didn’t mean that applied to anyone else near me. One of the most painful points in the journey was to realize that to ignore my convictions and stay as I was would mean staying as an impostor amongst people who like as not were faithfully following God, right there. For me, it meant to move. Omnipresent deity can go how, where, and with whom they please all at once.