But as for me, O LORD, I
cry to you for help; in the morning my prayer comes before you. Psalm 88:14
Gary
finished up the Nehemiah and Ezra teaching yesterday at Vineyard City
Church. And one of the many take-home
lessons is that no matter how wise, or clever; how called, or persistent we
are, like Nehemiah for instance, we cannot do it. We cannot change hearts of
stone.
The Law is limited. It helps, but it cannot do the job. It
only prepares the way for the Way.
I remember my first day at Grace Christian School watching
Jerry Bowen write on the chalkboard, teaching Old Testament to sixth graders,
and the cycle of repentance, of blessing, of sin, of consequences, of
repentance. Around and around we go.
Kind of like Everette’s new favorite thing, spinning around
and around and around on the old wooden chair in the living room. Around and
around. Except she likes it.
Now on the
twenty-fourth day of this month the people of Israel were
assembled with fasting and in sackcloth, and with earth on their
heads. Then the
Levites, Jeshua, Kadmiel, Bani, Hashabneiah, Sherebiah, Hodiah, Shebaniah, and
Pethahiah, said, “Stand up and bless the Lord your
God from everlasting to everlasting. Blessed be your glorious name, which
is exalted above all blessing and praise.
You are
the Lord, you alone. You
have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their
host, the earth and all that is on it, the seas and all that is in
them; and you preserve all of them; and the host of heaven worships you.
And they confessed their sin. They repented. They
made a firm covenant in writing; on the
sealed document were the names of their princes, their Levites, and their
priests.
And then flip, flip, a few pages later, they were
back into it all again.
Newton’s Second Law points out that systems tend to
disorder.
It is the nature of fire to go out. We must stir it up, give
it fuel and empty the ashes. –William Booth Salvation Army
Ann Voskamp articulates the daily battle.
The whole manna lesson.
The daily gathering.
(I am) the one who
lives her life in circles, discovering, entering into, forgetting and losing,
finding her way round again, living her
life in layers–deeper, round, further in. I know eucharisteo and the miracle. But I am not a woman who lives
the full knowing. I am a wandering Israelite who sees the flame in the sky
above, the pillar, the smoke from the mountain, the earth opens up and gives
way, and still I forget. I am beset by chronic soul amnesia. I empty of truth
and need the refilling. I need come again every day–bend, clutch, and
remember–for who can gather the manna but once, hoarding and store away
sustenance in the mind for all of the living?
Bowed at the edge of
the world, Jesus ask me spun in circles, me coming to, only to lapse and forget
again, He asks soft of me who is yet lost again what He asked of the man who
was born blind: What do you want me to do for you?
What do you want?
Yes, the whole of
life, these exercise to break down the knotting scar tissue from the fall. A summer
of pain. Always the running. A summer of grace. Always the revelation. Pain is
everywhere, and wherever there is pain there can be found everywhere grace, and
yes, Jesus, I am struggling and I get turned around but I think I know, at
least in part, what I want.
This kingdom laden
with glory, this, the pearl of great price, the field that I’d sell everything
to possess.
I whisper with the
blind beggar, “Lord, I want to see.”
And so here I am yet again. With an empty basket. The lesson
plans look paltry. The TO DO list only grew longer over the weekend. I can
never curl up on the couch wrapped up in the knit blanket in front of the fire early
enough to pack away sufficient strength for the next day. Can’t drink enough
cups of coffee from the Italian espresso pot first thing in the morning.
And so once again I bend, kneel down before my Maker, who
knows that I am but dust, and wait.
I will not leave this spot until You bless me.
I whisper with the
blind beggar, “Lord, I want to see.”
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