A Prayer: Inspired by the Book of Jonah

מנה

(in certain contexts to appoint, ordain, assign)

Oh Creator and Sustainer,

(your fingerprints on everything we see and touch and smell and feel, visible and invisible),

You are Lord and Provider over all--

--the deep, mysterious seas and her wild, colorful creature,

--the vegetation, green grasses of lettuce and kale, deep oaks exhaling oxygen, our food and shelter graced to us by your hand, and the beauty of a flower for your children,

--the creepers and crawlers, bugs and elephants, the microbes working in our guts, all obey your sweet commands,

--the forces of nature, gusts of wind and falling ice, the suns and stars, which you set to rule over days and nights, they are your emissaries. 

You appoint; you rule. All authority has been given to you, Jesus. 

When the deep seas overwhelm shores and the vegetation withers or the microbes attack and the ice strikes with a vengeance, even then, your authority still stands and your plans of deliverance and abundance are not foiled. 

To trust that you appoint, that you move within your creation, is to remember when we saw you move, saw you appoint, saw you orchestrate to save and restore. We remember Jonah's withered plant, we remember the dry land in the midst of a Red Sea. We remember in our own lives, how you are constantly creating, providing, sustaining, and appointing. 

I remember how you do not allow me to avoid conflict in my life (even thought I am an avid conflict avoider). You appoint that acid traveling up my esophagus, a sure sign of somewhere, something unraveling shalom. (Peace and restoration are not found in avoidance, neglect, or falsehood.)

I confess that it is hard to see and acknowledge your hand working in this world. 

Grant that I may more and more see the way you work in your creation to bring people to yourself and shower them with your love, even when it's bleak. For when a storm surrounds us, a fish swallows us, a plant grows and withers, and a hot sun scorches, even there--especially there--you are. 

This I pray in the name of the One who was appointed to die for my deliverance and to be raised for my restoration, Jesus and in the power of Holy Spirit,

Amen.

God's Beauty

Yesterday, I looked at the world upside down. I tipped my head in the ocean and the seaglass churning became my sky, the creamy sand became my clouds, and long, tall stalks of palm trees stretching into the bluest sky became upside-down plants in an airy expanse. I focused on different parts of the picture: the contrast between the green palms and the blue sky--both colors so brilliant, so bright--or the white clouds billowing in the blue--growing and moving light as a feather yet strong and commanding--or the shift of light blue to dark blue in the sky--almost like I could see the dark blue of the galaxy just behind the thin veil of sky--or I'd focus on the undulating clear turquoise carrying me softly on wave wings. The salty ocean breeze played on my heartstings a melody of beauty.

As I soaked up rays of sun, I soaked the idea that God created that. God has the ingenuity and power to create that scene, that moment. His creation is so different from what I am doing right now. My words spin pretty pictures of beauty but they are only the vaguest shadow of what it was, coming from a memory. However, without any mold or example, God's Word created that beauty from nothing into substance.

This summer, I have been pondering beauty. Beauty plays melodies and harmonies on our hearts, and somewhere deep inside we all know that Beauty is...something...something we can't really describe although philosophers through centuries have tried. We know it though because we were created by the one who created Beauty, who IS infinite Beauty. Moreover, we are told to think on what is beautiful (Phil 4:8) Yet, how do we do this when no one really knows what it is, when beauty is but an ethereal substance floating through air playing music on hearts (my personal definition)?

So like everything, we should turn to the Creator of Beauty--to God who is Beautiful--to know. Since I am no Biblical scholar, I utilized my concordance to start on my adventure of what God says Beauty is and I looked up "beautiful." I knew most of the references, but one stuck out: Ecclesiastes 3:11. I began reading from the beginning of the chapter:

"For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; a time to tear, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace...I have seen the business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. He has made everything BEAUTIFUL in its time" (Eccl 3:1-8, 10-11a)

It is funny that when I think of beauty my first thought is nature. Ecclesiastes, though, describes a human life. But life...it is too messed up (a time to kill), too mundane (a time to sew), too broken (a time to weep), too full of suffering (a time to lose), to be...beautiful. Yet, that is what God's Word says.

And that is what the Word of God demonstrates. Think, the most beautiful action in this world, is something which is viscerally ugly--Christ's death on the cross. Think of the blood and sweat, the wracked breath, the nailed hands and feet, the head hung, the human body which God made good and beautiful marred, disfigured. And think, how repulsive the idea of the Son of God dying is; it should make us shake--it made nature. But that moment of sacrifice is beautiful.

That moment so unlike my ocean moment contradicts all our ideas of beauty. God is the "King of Contradictions" as a Matthew West song puts it, putting things together that which seemingly contradict in our feeble minds. The one, true God's ways are not our ways; He is Holy and His Beauty far exceeds our imaginations.

His Beauty is found in nature's breath, in a field of flowers, in a grandmother's kiss, in a skilled painting, in Mozart's compositions, in a dancer's movements, and we find it, enjoy it and marvel at it.

His Beauty is also found in a human life lived for Him, in that life's suffering and in its brokenness; for we see but a snapshot, a puzzle piece, of the whole story, but we can rest assured that the story is a beautiful one for it ends at His feet in Glory.

The Weight of Love

On this Good Friday, the weight of Love brings me to tears.

I ponder, and countless of Christians before me have pondered, what love caused God to send His only, beloved Son (who He is one with) to be clothed in the ragged flesh of man, to die a cursed death on the cross. Oh, and what do we behold as we look upon the cross? We see "sorrow and love flow mingled down." Often as we ponder on the cross we look back to ourselves and what Christ has done for us, how we are justified and forgiven. And this is beautiful, breathtaking, wonderful.

However, let us ponder Christ on that tree:

O LORD, God of my salvation; I cry out day and night before you. Let my prayer come before you; incline your ear to my cry! For my soul is full of troubles and my life draws near to Sheol. I am counted among those who go down to the pit; I am a man who has no strength, like one set loose among the dead, like the slain that lie in the grave, like those whom you remember no more, for they are cut off from your hand. You have put me in the depths of the pit, in the regions dark and deep. Your wrath lies heavy upon me, and you overwhelm me with all your waves. You have caused my companions to shun me; you have made me a horror to them. I am shut in so that I cannot escape; my eye grows dim through sorrow. Every day I call upon you, O LORD; I spread out my hands to you. Do you work wonders for the dead? Do the departed rise up to praise you? Is your steadfast love declared in the grave, or your faithfulness in Abaddon? Are your wonders known in the darkness, or your righteousness in the land of forgetfulness? But I, O LORD, cry to you; in the morning my prayer comes before you. O LORD, why do you cast my soul away? Why do you hide your face from me? Afflicted and close to death from my youth up, I suffer your terrors; I am helpless. Your wrath has swept over me; your dreadful assaults destroy me. They surround me like a flood all day long; they close in on me together. You have caused my beloved and my friend to shun me; my companions have become darkness. (Psalm 88)

Have we ever pondered what Christ the blameless, faithful King who humbled himself felt as all my sins and all your sins lay on him? Flowing through his veins was every bitter word, thought, and action, every evil intent. All the black sin in our hearts turned his red life blood black in death. God put our sins onto Him, in His perfect justice and love and mercy, all mingled together.

The weight of Love is much too great for me. It brings me to tears. And yet, I do not even remotely feel the full weight of love. For I cannot comprehend what it was for God to turn His back on Himself, or for the Holy One to bear sin, or for God to die for me, for you, for all His children--the weight is too much for me to hold. Even nature itself could not hold it in. As its Creator died, the sun and moon and stars refused to shine.

All I know, is that the cross, that weight of Love too great for me, is where God took my sins away and made me blameless in front of Himself. The power of the Cross is God's gift which grabbed my heart of stone and tore it out of my lifeless body and gave me a heart of flesh. And because of this heart of flesh I can be brought to tears by the weight of Love.

Today, as I ponder Good Friday, I have nothing to give but my half-croaked thank you: "thank you my Lord, my Savior, my Redeemer, my Father" escapes in a gasp from my heart.

Dim Mirror Musings

Shakespeare asks, What's in a name? His answer, I can't remember. However, I know my answer: there is much in a name. Names give things identity and shape what they are in small and large ways. The letters which form sounds, the sounds which form names, matter. And because I believe they matter, I have a fascination with names, constantly thinking of names for my eventual children. However, those names will not aid in any human being's identity, yet. For now, therefore, I have named a pseudo-child, my blog.

Dim. Mirror. Musings. Sixteen letters, many sounds, three words, one name. Although they may seem like the three most random words to string together to name a blog, their importance to me shall soon be explained. Thus, in the explanation, the intent of this blog--I hope--will be understood. 

On Monday, my professor read, what he considered to be, one of the greatest prose works in the world: 1 Corinthians 13. This chapter is familiar to many people because it contains the oft quoted verses on love--"love is patient, love is kind...". The sentiment in these verses is often spoken in weddings or written on pretty home decor. However, I shall begin reading at the beginning of chapter 13. 

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. (1-3).

Paul's words are amazing. Stark and beautiful, they astound me. Love gives words, knowledge, faith, sacrifice meaning. We see this most clearly in the example of our Lord, who is love (1 Jn 4:7). His Word is filled with meaning; for, His Word brings life, in the creation of the cosmos, in the life-giving Bible, and in His incarnate Word--Christ. His knowledge is full of meaning for He knows each one of us intimately--"O LORD, you have searched me and known me! You know when I sit and when I rise; you discern my thoughts from afar. You search out my path and my lying down and are acquainted with all my ways.....and lay your hand on me" (Ps. 139:1-3, 5b). God does not just know the intimate aspects of a bird, flower, and human, He knows intimately the orderings of the world; for through His prophets mouths He explained events far in advance to His people and the world. Through His love, God the Son had faith in the will of God the Father as blood streamed from His face in Gethsemane. Finally, through His immeasurable love, God sent His Son to die to cover our iniquities, our sins, our evil, our separation from our Creator, our disdain of Him. "He was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we were healed" (Isaiah 53:5). This sacrifice made full of love, is not nothing, but everything; everything in this world and it covers everything in our lives.

Once, I understand the gravity of love--it's beauty and power--the next verses do not seem like fluff, but hard-hitting truths: patience gives my faith meaning, kindness gives my words meaning, rejoicing in the truth gives my knowledge meaning, endurance, hope, belief, these give my actions meaning. And love will continue where everything else shall pass away (1 Cor 13:8).

Now, I finally come to my beginning point, as the passage continues:

When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a (woman), I gave up childish ways. [Quick tangent: This verse is very special to me because it is the verse my pastor told me as he presented the Bible my church congregation gave me as I headed off to college] For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. (11-12)

This blog is my musings as I look through and consider the One who knows me fully. I know that as I think and ponder on my Lord and Savior, I will never be able to understand fully who He is, for He is infinite and I am but a small, finite creature, "such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is high; I cannot attain it" (Ps 139:6). Yet, the wonderful truth is this: God has revealed Himself to us! He is infinitely different than the pagan gods which people worship which were whimsical and unknowable. He has revealed to us who He is in the pages of the Bible, in the vast of nature, even within ourselves for He has made us in His own image. Although, I will only know in part I have the beautiful hope that I will know fully one day and see Him face to face, what a glorious day. I cling to that hope. And for now, I pray to know Him more for how precious are His thoughts....(Ps 139:17).

And for now, I'll share with you my dim mirror musings.