photo: flickr cc/ leland francisco
Something strange darkened my doorway this year. It cast a shadow I couldn’t erase. I’ve felt spiritually quarantined. Lost. Sequestered in silence, waiting for the cool drink of water that is redemption. Like the enslaved Israelites I long for a savior. I long for the hope found in an anointed savior who promises to make it all right. I have hope.
I’m waiting for my faith to catch up with everything I believe, for my heart to accept the things I already know. Yet even as my spirit aches, labors long with this soul-remembered promise I feel it. It’s expressed in my faith as I continue to search for God…even when I grow weary from believing.
I have hope. It’s birthed in the secret spaces of the heart. Chambers once soldered shut…opened. Once cauterised vessels now release streams of life-giving blood. The levees broke, the water rose. Into the chaos and clutter of a world struggling with the sin of systematic injustice, a baby was born.
Yes, we’ve been here before.
Whatever has happened, will happen again; whatever has been done, will be done again. There is nothing new on earth. – Ecclesiastes 1:9
Today God’s using one of the least encouraging scriptures to set my heart right. He’s shifting the atmosphere, rearranging the floor plan of my stubborn faith.
The Israelites got Moses and in the middle of the story a baby was born.
Focusing on what He’s done and what He promises to do keeps me grounded. From my view, the birth of a baby provides enough hope for me to stay the course. If there’s ever been a reason to believe anything in this world its new life.
In the day-to-day it means He’ll see me through this thing called marriage, help me raise my kids…do the laundry, plan the party, strategize the next big event at work, provide manna in the form of new ideas when I feel stuck. He’ll be the judge and high priest for every evil that ails this earth.
God will do what He said He’d do.
I have hope.
Let your handmaiden find grace in your sight…#GiveMeGrace
