Showing posts with label alone. Show all posts
Showing posts with label alone. Show all posts

27 Nov 2013

Discovering God

Last night as I led a few leaders in a time of sharing about the past year in our lives; a brother talked about how his recent experiences helped him see that there are moments in life when it all boils down to you-and-God. No one else can quite enter your experience, bear the pain or help with understanding. Only One remains present, attending, and able to help. 

Yet, it will take us all a while to learn this deep truth that we indeed have a Heavenly Father, a God who offers help, a God who does carry us, a God who will grant wisdom, provide rest and bring healing.


When King Saul's jealousy and possible psychosis got the better of him, he hunted for David like a crazed predator for four years. Naturally, David feared for his life - and fear can make us do many things.
David went to the high priest for help. Later he went to enemy territory to hide. Everywhere David turned, people became implicated and sometimes suffered from the fallout of the conflict between Saul and David.

It looked like the sheer fear for his life was going to layer on with more: grief for what Saul would do to others who are innocent.

In our desperate moments, we will often turn for help - and sometimes, like a drowning man, we cling so tight to anyone or anything that can help; and drown that too.

There is instruction in this.

Equally, the four years David spent running for his life did something for him as all of these things happened. He crafted the Psalms that today reveal what depths a man and his God can get to.

In God alone there is rest for my soul

nowhere else
nothing else
no one else

In God is my safety

Not here
There
in him/her
in this/that


In God is my refuge

no need to flee
panic
fret
for God, ever-Present is.

David of course, eventually becomes the King God has anointed him to be. The dream God inked on his heart will come to pass even if it has to nearly die first. The king God saw fit to stand through a nation's history as king par excellence and as a pre-figure for Christ - that king who will build God's kingdom ways in a people, must know his God to the depths a mortal may be granted to. Yes, much of it came through a cauldron of human suffering we all seek to avoid: fear, threat of death, loneliness, emptiness, defeat, humiliation... But perhaps as John the Baptist would put it a thousand years later, "He must increase, I must decrease". More of God, less of me.


Christ on the Cross with John the Baptist and King David by
Schaufelein, Hans Leonard c1480-1539
note: These experiences and insights about God are reocrded in Psalm 62 - lyrics and music for a head Levite named Jeduthun* -one of three chief Levites; whom some deduce may be David's music teacher! 




2 Jan 2012

Starting Clean n Fresh..and O how hard this is!

There was a time
when it was simple
to start over
just kick the dust
shame the shame
grin
grit - and -
go.

But with years
and a tad of wisdom
It just aint so easy
no more

resolve
resolute even
and sutbborn, rutted ways that have made a home
tracked all over your soul
permanently marking you
belonging
to the
broken
wounded
helpless

and sometimes, it seems, hopeless...

as a friend once wrote:
all broken up and dancing!
new wineskins
new moves
new steps
new

not imagined
nor dreamed
nor aspired
but
written in
Holy Writ
"songs of joy for mourning"
"dance"
"praise"
"hope"

Your word or mine?
Your voice or all these other voices?

Jesus
set his face toward Jerusalem
for mission..perhaps (they can arrest him elsewhere couldn't they?)
but for worship - certainly - for the Great Passover is coming!

Where in the buffeting winds of demands
dark forecasts
possibilities
do I set my face? and feel the Wind?

"...carried by Grace, held in Your perfect peace.."

and Your solutions to daily needs
large challenges
fantastic Living
comes...

always has been
always will be
always must
You.

Come 2012, I am not alone.