Sit for Awhile

As the sun rises after the longest winter, I hear Him whisper, “Sit with me for awhile”.

I spin, twist, rise, wrestless in defense, justifying my own self importance, all the things I need to say, all the things I need to do.

And yet, I remember his baby blues; staring, heeding, reminded me to slow down. Looking at me with a steadfast faith, unshaken, though cancer ravished his body.

He was dying, yet whole; losing, but won knowing…

Some things are worth slowing down for. Some stories are worth waiting for in the quiet, as they form without us pushing.

My bones are now strong, though they once were broken and defied, scattered and lied to.

And still, my ancestory reminds me, nothing can shake the truth of who I am.

At the same time, my own genetics, wisdom, will or strength, holds no light against the reigning truth that the floor of my humility is where my greatest victory lies.

There, in His presence, I hear Him whisper, “Sit with me for awhile”.

The current jolts against me, like a wave crashing upon the sea shore.

Life is well. Warm sands delute my soles. The open skies offer false illusions that life is what I make it.

And yet, it crashes, salty waters, pull me outward.

I hear the gush. But have no time to brace myself.

I am a victim to the One who controls the waves, knows this pain is nothing we can run away from.

It is in the stillness; the wet and weary, drenched and willing, where God stands with us in the current.

He holds our hands and leans nearer….

If we don’t run. Don’t fight…

Don’t demand life is different, or people become holier than they pretend to be on the surface.

I heed Him as He whispers, “Sit with me for awhile”.

The unknowing gnaws at my faith, like a rat eating cheese, aged, begging for rest among those weary from battle.

And yet I know, He is my path. The light of His lamp illuminates my feet. He is the way, and I don’t need to see clearly, more than the next step in front of me…

I have this moment. Here. Now.

I get to choose to cling to faith or drown.

I can rise and run, fight and become whatever I think I want in my own strength…But this life, it isn’t my own. 

So, I “sit with Him for awhile” and ask Him what He wants.

“How do you see, Father?” “How can I please you, Jesus?”

Yes this life, it isn’t my own.

And there, in the washing of waves plowing over me, the grief and the unknowing, He uses that wave to wash my fears away.

He takes what I resisted and laps over my spirit, a sense of certainty that He is enough.

I can be little, unkown, microscoptic, and that is o.k.

The runners despise Jesus. The grandstanders flame in their blaze, hate the wave that shrinks them to what they might be in Christ, depenedent.

So I hold tight, there in the quiet. I remain silent, in the presence of the One who I sit with for awhile.

And instead of getting up and leaving, instead of asking for a Word or feeling…

I remain. I wait. I am still.

No noise. No pushing. No thoughts swirling like a hurricane, demanding He make sense of it all.

He is enough.

Every story that was told, every Bible verse pointing to the man who got low, and surrendered himself out of love for you and me…

He “sat for awhile” with His Father, in the Garden of Gethsemane.

He waited in his pain. He questioned, but then surrendered to the plan of the Maker of Heaven and Earth.

And I too, don’t want to rush God. So, I wait in His great strength and holiness…

And find myself pure again. Pure in the washing of those waves of grieve lapping over me.

Pure in the self-denying, self-control that is asked of us in Scripture.

Pure, ultimately, in the Blood of the Lamb that was shed for me.

I need not be enough.

I am whole and complete in Him, as “I sit with Him for awhile”.

Won’t you live, counterculture, separate from the scrambling, saturated in His goodness?

Won’t you step away from the chaos…

Run to to Him and, “sit awhile”?