Today’s readings: Click on today’s date at http://www.usccb.org/bible/
God beside me
Friday, March 14, 2014
Friday of the First Week of Lent
Psalm 130:6
My soul waits for the Lord more than sentinels wait for the dawn.
Beside our computer Margaret framed a statement for us (mainly for me): “The sun has set. This day is done. What’s done is done. What’s not is not.” She calls this “exhorting alongside.” *
Wednesday afternoon she drove home through the snow, just a few hours after a 75 degree day in Kentucky. Her wonderful friend JK died on Saturday, a man who was deeply involved with Margaret and other young Christians in the late ‘60’s and early ‘70’s, forming a campus ministry at Murray State University.
They had not seen each other for many years. JK had cancer, but few people in his life knew, and his death came as a surprise to everyone. Things hadn’t gone so well for JK lately, and Margaret grieved for him from a distance.
On Tuesday she grieved beside his grave, wept with others weeping. And now she waits. For the Lord. More than sentinels wait for the dawn. More than watchmen wait for the morning.
All there is, at the beginning and the end, is to be with God. Our simple humus carbon footprint leaves a light touch, and then we fly away. Dust we are. What’s done is done. What’s not is not.
Is my spiritual being more real than I almost ever realize? Eben Alexander (who wrote Proof of Heaven) knows it is. JK knows it is. We wait to know it is, like sentinels wait for the dawn. The psalm continues, “I trust in the Lord; my soul trusts in his word. For with the Lord is kindness and with him is plenteous redemption.”
Find me, Lord, in the darkness. I can’t always find my way to you. Tears brim and spill and cloud my vision, and so I sit and wait for you. You always find me. You always see me. You always are.
*Exhort (see for example, Hebrews 10:25) is a powerful word – translated from Greek parakaleo. Para means alongside and kaleo means to call, beckon, speak to. A somewhat pallid contemporary translation is “encourage.”
I think of football coaches, army platoon leaders. Then there are the rest of us, walking alongside each other, married, friends, family, influencing and loving each other. Exhorting alongside … pleading, begging, encouraging our own selves along with each other to live well and trust God.
http://www.christiancounselingservice.com/archived_devotions.php?article_id=1243
