Wednesday, May 4, 2022
On the warehouse floor at ADRNÂ Â Â
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
You have changed the sea into dry land; through the river we have passed on foot. Therefore let us rejoice in you. You rule by your might forever.
Most of the money that supports Austin’s Disaster Relief Network (ADRN) comes from a network of nearly 200 churches, spread among twelve sectors of the Austin area. Recent disasters include floods, fires and a tornado. Last February Margaret and I, along with most of Austin, were included in rescue operations during a week-long electricity shutoff and no water for twice that long.
ADRN’s Hope Thrift Store is their second source of income. Aki helps there each week for an hour or so. Along with my friend George, who has begun to spend his Saturdays at ADRN, he is one of their heavy lifters. I took the online training course Monday night, and we drove together to ADRN yesterday afternoon. Aki and I helped Cricket (who isn’t much larger than her name) move a large leather sectional from the warehouse to a prominent spot in the front of the store. Or rather, Aki helped her, and I helped them. A little. We moved a table. We sorted clothes. And we moved several heavy chairs.
I’m not a heavy lifter, not any more. God watches my back, but I need to watch it too. My back has been quite busy the last 72 years. Still, I think I can help the hard workers at Hope now and then. Doing this simple, necessary, everyday physical labor for someone besides myself, Margaret and our family is good. Good for me.
Monday we listened to our online friend Rick Ganz probe C. S. Lewis’ insistence on personal honesty when we read the psalms. He asked us what we strive to change but fail, when nothing seems to happen, not then, not now, not for years and years. I remembered a Sunday School class 42 years ago when our pastor’s wife Pat read the passage from Mark, “Sell all you have and give it to the poor.” She looked up, stricken, because she could not do it. I was stricken right alongside her. Not everyone is stricken by Jesus’ command to the rich young man, but we were. I was. I still am. So I shared the story of that painful paralysis with the group.
I realized at the Hope Store how far I was from acting on Jesus’ words, but then I noticed that while doing the physical work I felt more relaxed. I felt more open to Jesus’ forgiveness. He commands me to obey him, and then forgives me when I don’t.
Seems like such a simple thing.
But it’s not. Over time true guilt and false guilt have woven a complicated net around me, and sometimes I can hardly breathe. But at ADRN my self-imposed suffocation lifted a bit, and I breathed in what I want to call God’s grace: a potent mix of command, forgiveness, patience and paradoxical permission.
Saul, meanwhile, was trying to destroy the church. He entered house after house and dragged out men and women, and he handed them over into imprisonment.
It won’t be long now for Saul. Soon he will be confronted by Jesus. “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” Stop it, Jesus commands Saul. Then his forgiveness is evident everywhere as Paul recovers from the confrontation. Jesus is patient with Saul. And in a very real way, he gives Paul permission to live his whole, God-shaped life from one day to the next.
In those days, Paul’s joy is made complete. Let that also be true in our lives, Lord.
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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