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Well of being
Friday, December 11, 2015
Second Week of Advent
Isaiah 48:18
If you would hearken to my commandments, your prosperity would be like a river, and your well-being like the waves of the sea.
Over and over Jesus quoted Isaiah, beginning with his first public preaching in the synagogue of his hometown Nazareth. It didn’t always go so well; even that first day the crowd wanted to throw him over the brow of a hill.
Still, we need each other to “hearken” unto God. Alone, my own voice grows louder and replaces God’s. I “hearken” to shopping and succeeding and saving money or spending it. I hearken to my own lusts and greeds and fears. I hearken to the siren songs. I rush into the shallows from the deep water, and my frail little boat founders on the big rocks I cannot see.
I need you to help me hear God, and you need me. We are not alone; we are made to be friends and partners and helpmates, especially on the darker days. And then we can together know peace like a river. Our well-being will be like the waves of the sea.
I know what it is to look into someone’s eyes and see nothing there except love for me. My eyes too, can reflect that love. We are only passing on what has been given to us. Often I fail to let this miracle occur. But it is there, every day, for me to claim.
Margaret and I were married in Mt. Pulaski, Illinois. Our friend Don Romack took a moment off from being our wedding photographer to read a poem. What I remember from the poem is just this, “I am loved. I am loved. I can risk loving you.”
But the much greater risk, really, is turning away in fear. When I avert my eyes and choose to be alone, the river of life floods me and I drown in tears. No, this is not what God wills me to choose. His love is for spreading, and sharing, and thus it becomes sweeter day by day.
You make us like trees planted near running water, Lord. Let us delight in your law, teach us to meditate on your law and your love by day and by night, together with each other and with you.
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