Full of sound and fury

Yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you; He rises to show you compassion. For the Lord is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for Him! Isaiah 30:18

He is the one Who Longs to Act, to be the force in my life.  He wants to be my burden-bearer.  He wants it done right.  Not some mealy-mouth justice where I try to straighten things out on my own, normally ending in some garbled, trailing-off conversation, where things are only stirred up but not resolved, and I end up apologizing yet again.  

But that involves waiting.  

For God alone my soul in silence waits; truly, my hope is in Him. He alone is my rock and my salvation, my stronghold, so that I shall not be shaken. In God is my safety and my honor; God is my strong rock and my refuge. Psalm 62:6-8

In Him is my honor.  I do not need to defend myself.  I can stand on His faithfulness.  Mouth shut.  Waiting in hope.  

Because life without hope cannot be lived.  Uncle Ted lost hope.  He was at the end of his resources.  He was about to lose control.  Therefore the only logical option was to very deliberately and very carefully and very neatly put a gun to his head.  

I sift through the injustices that I have suffered throughout my long and sometimes weary life, until something catches my eye.  I pause, and kneel down to examine it more intently.  Most of them have already blown away in the winds of time.  Very truly the material injustices, the walking an extra mile, the stolen cloak, all of finitely measurable wrongs have been more than measured back, heaping and overflowing into my lap.  That I can quantify.  The promise has held true. In fact, the heaps are now piled high in every corner and I can scarce move without tripping over them.  Yet there are few left, sticky, tar-like clumps of injustice.  These are the questions of honor.  Mud cast upon my name.  My character.  Lies told and as yet unanswered.  As I bring one up close, ready to lift it up high and shake it in His face, I hear something.  

Wait.

 I join with David, my favorite man who was willing to take it the LORD: “Hide not Your face from Your servant; be swift and answer me.”  Psalm 96:1

Wait.  I am at work to bring all peoples to my name.  And I have all the time in the world.  In my hand.  

Mouth shut.  Waiting in hope.  Hope in a God of justice.  A God of compassion who longs to be gracious to me.  And to each and every one.  All peoples.  In His time.  

It’s all about the peoples.  For them, I can wait.

Because without hope, life’s but a walking shadow.  

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow 

Creeps in this petty pace from day to day 

To the last syllable of recorded time; 

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools 

The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player 

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage 

And then is heard no more. It is a tale 

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, 

Signifying nothing.

A little Macbeth brought to me by Gio’s AP English teacher.  The Bard knows what’s what.

But I have the heaps, poured into my lap as quantifiable down payment.  

Number 291 so far.