February 21, 2009
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Sorry
Sorry, I suppose, is sometimes just not enough. I suppose this is why this huge gap had to be bridged by a member of the Godhead, rather than a word, a feeling, or an overused apology. And what kind of gap is big enough that angels (with their tremendous wingspans), human beings (barack obama with his giant electrons that swayed a nation), and thousands of dead animals could not fill it?
And so we sing.
O for a Closer Walk With God... and it seems as though this 'closer walk' would be devoid of any kind of sin and struggle, and the peace we expect is the heavenly harping that is couched in quietude and framed with majestic clouds and winged messengers of peace.
And yet this is war.
I think of David and his approach to Goliath: prepared, but with weapons of warfare that were of the godly sort: "I come to thee in the name of the Lord of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel..." He didn't say, "...and with a few stones and a sling, which by the way, I happen to be awesome at." He said, "This day will the Lord deliver thee into mine hand." He said, "The battle is the Lord's, and He will give you into our hands."
They that are with us are more than they that are with them.
No matter how giant and intimidating they are (and no matter how many fingers they have on each hand.) When David saw Goliath, he "ran towards the battle line to meet the Philistine." We tend to run from our problems, not to them. We hide our defects, our troubles, our struggles. The enemy is one to flee from, not someone who will flee from us. Perhaps if our sins were more visible (like the leprosy of the Bible where our cries of 'unclean!' would precipitate our arrival everywhere we went) things would be different. Perhaps if we understood what Paul meant in Romans ("we rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance character; and character hope..") we would understand why these things come upon us.
Not that I condone embracing our enemy. Embracing suffering doesn't mean we have to love it. It doesn't mean we enter into some odd covenant with "the prince of darkness grim." It means we meet it, accept it, let it change us.
Not I, but Christ. This is the victory of faith. This is the victory that overcomes all our sorry apologies, all our insufficient attempts at short-lived self-perfection, and our ropes-of-sand promises.
Comments (4)
ehhhh?????
hehe... is this confusing? this was a personal note to my personal self that I shared here, so it's not completely spelled out. lots of inside (biblical, anyway) references. This is my new world. Isn't that bizzare, Spacey? when i think about it, I am amazed. it's one of thos anomalies. we call them miracles here. hyuk hyuk. it is abolutely great though.
I think it would have totally awesome if David just included a one-liner to his speech to Goliath where he states, "And by the way, I am awesome at the zinging stones with my sling!" And yeah, this would make much more sense if it was better spelled out for the rest of us! But thought-provoking nonetheless. ;)
@rAmOsEs - oh man. is it confusing for you too? i was thinking you would get most of the references (minus the weird one about obama.) hope you had a good Sabbath....
i sometimes wonder why David didn't say that. maybe his personality was such that he just went and did what he had to do. it's so interesting to think about how things would've looked like if you were there, and what aspects of David you could learn about in the passage...