A few years back, I accidentally started a tradition of reading through Psalms between Christmas and New Year's. This morning, I was wondering why ... and I think there's just something about all that vulnerability, all those emotions - the vacillation between fear and courage, hope and despair, joy and sorrow, and the juxtaposition of the messy human and the beautifully Divine, that resonates with the end of a year and the beginning of another. I want to believe in transformation and revelation and redemption and reconciliation and celebration in 2017 ... and I just don't think I get there without wrestling first with the disappointments and losses and woundings and confusions and griefs of 2016. So, that's what I'm doing this week - leaning into the dichotomy of life on earth and breathing in Hope.
Viewing entries tagged
Grace
This was first published on my old blog back in 2011:
"All who worship images are put to shame, those who boast in idols — worship him, all you gods!"
Sometimes our house feels like an empty, dark shell on Sunday mornings. The husband's been at work since before the butt crack of dawn and the blinds are closed and there's a still chill in the air from the night's air conditioning …. so, waking alone and cold and to scare the spook away, I break the film with His Word — reading aloud — before shuffling through the house to let the light in and pour the coffee.
This morning, I flipped my bible open to Psalm 95 … read through Psalm 97 … and found my eyes returning to the verse I quoted above. Images. The physical form of an idol. The noun. How does the physical representation of a misplaced trust, hope and love translate to today?
I don't know. But I found myself thinking about how my faith has morphed from legalism to love over the years and then how sometimes my delight in how God is in all things beautiful and true leaves me enchanted with that beauty and that truth … but, ironically, distracted from He who embodies it … enables it … creates it … has intent for it (far beyond any scope or hope I could imagine).
The point: Sometimes I make idols of His blessings. I hold my hand out, watch the glitter fall into it, take a picture, write about it … and forget to look up and behold what I can't.
Just thinking. Love.