The day breaks with a stillness that grips every shaking heart. It sinks deep inside, capturing what was rivaled and turning, spinning and running.
Songs of yesterday still linger in the shadows of the mind, while the waves have made way for a dormant, chrystal pond, where rays of light shine and welcome us home.
And when we cross that bridge in our soul, between finding our hope in man, in wealth, or in our own circumstances, and learn to stand on Him, The One who is never sinking sand…everything shifts.
The tide does not take rock, the way it carries, thin, useless, numerous specks. It can rage and taunt, and waters can even wash over the rock, but it only makes it clearer, removes the dirt and particles useless to it’s shining.
Rocks remain; in good seasons and bad, through downpours and lightening storms. They make a stance, like those I once saw breached wide in the valley, and was told indians on their horses, once looked over this territory with dignity and valiance.
But wagon carriages, while learning planting and harvesting, never flew from rock to rock, like the indians who knew the land and loved it, found harmony, and accepted seasons as they come…
We dug and plowed, but somewhere along the way began fighting against the earth, modifying food, adding pesticides to produce wealth, not just food for our surrounding people.
We started controling nature, playing God, pretending we could feed the world if we grew things, requiring time and sun and rain, at a rapid rate…
When in actuality, all it took was us not feeding ourselves in excess, giving away what was surplus and not hoarding our homes and facilities with assets that would eventually just be thrown away.
They say, we could feed the world, so that not one person was hungry, if America just gave away the amount of food they threw away each day, in restraunts, in kitchens, in garbages hidden in our very own homes.
We have become gluttens of abundance…forgetting the indians way to not take from nature without giving back.
The lessons and creation of God is round, where man makes square boxes; houses, tables, books….
Why is it everything developed nations makes and uses, have sharp edges?
But God? He never has sharp edges.
And I look around. I see kids with an abundance of toys, lost in an empire of comfort, when children in Curahuasi are begging for shoes, looking for a meal…in fact, people in my very own community, scuff along the streets, lost in delerium.
No one, willing to reach them. All of us too busy or unwilling to be inconvenienced, to step out of our boxes, into their broken world.
So instead, we judge, point fingers, pick apart others faults, while sitting in a heap of injustice, hatred, distain, and excess.
Where did we as a society become so blind, prideful, and self-righteous, like we have the answers to everyone elses mystery….smiling on the outside, while medicating internally….
A nation lost in anxiety, desperate for help, but too blind to recognize it. Outside emblems inadequate representations of what’s going on internally.
Many nations had peace, found hope, and became content from their culture of self-sacrifice, or understanding that community means joining each other, with linked arms, not separating, isolating or dictating the ways of other people.
Yet, I have fallen myself, at times, fallen to pride, wanting to be the savior of some other persons situation, only to realize…people fight to see, only what brings them comfort, or justifies their present understanding.
Also, first, I needed to recognize my own need, confess my own weakness, surrender to the idea that we are all sinners saved only by grace, growing and being taught at only the safe speed, God allows us to learn.
No plant can grow in an air-tight container; receiving neither sun or light, water or oxygen. So, why do we, think we are any different?
Many ache, so we can share with them our lessons of heartbreak and help. We need, so that we can bow low to the lessons God teaches through strangers and children, friends, collegues and neighbors.
Still, beware of any person who comes at you with chest puffed high, thinking they are better than you, determined to “tell” you some rigid, unloving truth, or offering to “help” or “fix” you.
No man can dictate the journey of another mans heart. We are all equal sojourners.
In the same way, the moment our heart starts getting haughty, prideful, lifted up, thinking we are better than any other individual, we must bow low….or we fail the test God gives us, to walk humbly with the humble, carrying a teachable, meak, and contrite spirit.
I don’t know about you, but I want to cling to the rock in my journey, be like Him; strong, resiliant, capable, unshaken by the circumstances around me.
Yet, I also covet the Indians in America who taught me and embodied peace deep in their spirits.
I am jealous of the poor, for they know where true richness comes from.
I long to walk and talk with the hurting, because the broken, shine light, that often the self-fixed are often hidden and blinded from.
As we close this season, can we open the door of our hearts to understanding those around us. Give, so the poor will fed, stand for injustice, carrying open hands generous and contributing.
God, we cling to you, in a day where we can’t see, have taken the easiest path, instead of the way on the rock, where we crave the light, and are closest to The Son.
May we simplify what we have been taught, stop lifting ourselves up, according to wealth or education, and all be brought low, to recognize we are nothing without the one who takes hold our very souls, and brings down the proud…
Lord, teach us things we have yet to know.
We were made for more. More than ourselves, more than our hidden worlds, lost and sleeping, and away from where others can know or see us.
We were made for love and community, light and sun and rain, and everyting big and beautiful, found in the heart of Jesus.
Let’s tare down our man-made boxes, step out from the straight lines and sharp edges of our lives, and reach out for the light who is truth, the way and all things that make life worth living.
We are His servants, helpless, wanting, yet healed, hopeful and redeeming.
We are His image, made for His purposes, holding out His goodness, so that all the worl, might look up to The Son and bow down in faith, to The One who calls us children.
We wait. On The Rock. Not fighting, but resting. Still in the morning of a new season, as He longs to silence fears and carry us on a current of His power and wonderous love.
2 Comments
Sitting on that ROCK right beside you,RESTING in His Presence, which silences our fears and restores PEACE to our hearts… NO MATTER WHAT is happening around us.
I, too, want to be carried on a current of His power and wondrous LOVE. xx
Carries! Together! For His glory!