What Does This Mean

The blank space of Microsoft Word feels like a canvas for me, but I sense the need to be still… to be quiet… and to listen instead of analyzing and explaining… What do You have for me? I confess even as I write about my faith and people tell me they are strengthened by my words, I don’t entirely derive my all from You. I still reach out, look for the stimulus to help me get up and go and do the next thing. Anything so that I won’t be as aware of just how much pain there is. And why is it pain? Could I not make the choice to believe that ahead is goodness? Perhaps I can. Perhaps I don’t have to, every day, remain so sad. But then other times, like even yesterday, it appears completely out of my control. I was so tired. It swept over me. I couldn’t keep my eyes open. You would THINK I had drugged myself. And then when we tried to take a walk as a family, I felt so hopeless, so helpless, standing there on the sidewalk, waiting for Eli to finish his tantrum about not wanting to wear a shirt, holding the leash while Jirem sniffed around. Where was the joy? I just wanted to hurry up and get back home so I could lay in bed. I suppose that is okay sometimes. Maybe? I’m not sure. But it’s what Elijah did. And whether there was sin in his action is probably not the point. The point, I think, is how You responded to him.

1Kings 19- one of my favorite chapters of the Bible. You allow Elijah to cry out all of his (somewhat irrational) complaints to You. Then you allow him to sleep. You feed him. And then You speak to him… not in the wind, not in the earthquake, and not in the fire, but in the still, low, whisper. The Hebrew is literally ‘a thin silence.’ It was probably a deafening silence… That’s how I imagine it. And maybe some type of reality even sunk into Elijah’s being, a deep realization about his circumstance… and for some reason that thought takes me to John 11, and Mary and Martha weeping for Lazarus… perhaps as they wept, the deep, sinking feeling in the pit of their stomachs rose up to their throats as rolling stones, thundering the truth that their brother was dead.

And then that thought takes me to the day I found out Bryant had been arrested, and what he’d done… and I can feel that thundering stone, and then the silence… the shock… same as when I looked at the screen and asked “a miscarriage?” and Dr. Chen said, “That’s what I’m thinking.”

Sometimes, after that thunder, in that stillness, I don’t hear You. I break down. Or I flee to the hills of my different forms of idolatry, revolving my life around my obsessions from which I can derive pleasure. Or I just do like I did Thanksgiving of 2005: a period you recently brought back to my memory out of the clear blue yet vivid and fresh- a time when I lost the hope of something I wanted so badly, and instead of grieving the loss, I just pushed it away to somewhere else… a place where I denied it’s reality and lived in a dream world.

But other times, when that shocking silence and thundering stone comes, I embrace it… out of complete exhaustion and helplessness and nothing more. And the warm tears well up behind my eyes… like right now… and in this moment… right now, as I’m typing, I hear it. This is what You are saying…. It’s not about me. When I numb out, when I serve idols, when I demand answers, when I live in a dream world, I still make it about me. But if I hear Your still voice, I see it’s not about me. I’m reoriented. I forget myself, my circumstance. Like Job, I see the Lord…(Job 42:5).

It wasn’t about Elijah in 1Kings 19. You sent him back to do very non-spectacular things when You spoke to him. -Nothing like what had just happened on Mount Carmel. You were going to bring about your plans, but he was to anoint Elisha. Elisha would be the one who would usher in the redemption. Elijah’s time was over. He’d went out to the desert, upset, frustrated, fearful, perhaps desiring final vindication for himself in front of everyone, so that his accusers and attackers would quit seeking to tear him down. But you didn’t give that to him. Instead, you sent him back, not to be vindicated. You sent him back and told him to do “the next thing” as Elisabeth Elliot would call it. The things that were the common-sense next steps to happen, things that clearly weren’t about him, things that were not going to bring some rush of satisfaction, vindication, or revelation. You didn’t send him back into a grand love story with a rush of thrill. It wasn’t about him… It was about You. (For more information on this story read the ESV study bible notes on 1Kings 19- I’m not doing it justice).

And the same thing with Mary and Martha at the tomb in John 11. You said that the whole point was about seeing Your glory, (John 11:40). It wasn’t about Mary. It wasn’t about Martha. It wasn’t even about Lazarus. We don’t even really hear anything else about him after You raise him from the dead. The whole thing- all about God… all about Your glory!

In 2Corinthians, as Paul chronicles his sufferings, he sets out a theology that explains that the circumstances of his sufferings and depressions and oppression are about Your glory being revealed. If it were not for those things, he wouldn’t have his ministry! The very things that some people in Corinth accuse him of and say make him unworthy to be an apostle are the things from which You flow out a ministry! And Paul understood it. He said that the current sufferings were preparing an eternal weight of glory… the suffering wasn’t about Paul… but it wasn’t meaningless for Paul… and it wasn’t meaningless in general… (2Corinthians 4:17).

What can this mean… everything going on in ‘’my’’ life…. as I sit, in this stillness, I hear you say that it isn’t about me… even my baby’s death, even not getting things I want, even my ministry, even the church replant and uncertainties surrounding it, even my life, even my marriage, even my son, is not about me. You are on a mission. You have called me into that mission, and that is for my benefit, but I must stop letting myself warp it to center around me in my mind. There is no secret message I am to learn. Being on this mission with you prepares me for the eternal weight of glory. If I cannot endure in this life, having endurance produce character, and character hope, then how will I ever behold your glory? You had to shield Moses from seeing Your full glory… How will I ever stand in glory with You unless I am fully sanctified?  …(2 Corinthians 3).

The only thing this mission has to do with me is my sanctification… and one result of my sanctification is that I become an aroma to those that are being saved, (2 Corinthians 2:15). So my job is to do the next thing, simple and not glorious. My job is to be exhausted and fatigued when you place that upon me. My job is to plan a praise set, help a student with time management, make lunch for Eli, respond to emails, love Your people, and be honest about life. There will be no ministry if I am not honest. There will be nothing at all if I set out to make something I think will be of worth to people. I’ve only to do what You place before me, regardless of whether I or anyone else thinks it is of worth… You know what You are doing. You know what is of worth. I am to look to my God and follow. Because I don’t believe this life is my own. Because I believe that simply….as You have said

 I “have this treasure in a jar of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God, not to me. I am afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in my body. For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but Life in You!” 2Corinthians 4:7-12

What does this mean? It means You are here, and You are at work. It means You are real. It means You love me. It means You love Your people. 

What does this mean? This is You speaking, and who I am that I can hear? Who am I that I can see? That You would unblind my eyes and allow me a glimpse in a mirror dimly?

 What does this mean? This is You.