Thursday, March 7, 2024
(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)
Jeremiah’s visit
Every kingdom divided against itself will be laid waste, and house will fall against house. If it is by the finger of God that I drive out demons, then the Kingdom of God has come upon you.
I heard somewhere that taking some meds makes your mouth dry. And somewhere else that older people often have dry mouths. That’s me, twice. In the morning my mouth is dry. In the evening it’s dry too. Drinking water helps some, and chewing gum, and swallowing.
This morning I hope eating breakfast will help some too. The sky quickly turned from morning blue to afternoon gray, but it’s only 8:50 AM. I wonder what joys and what troubles this day has in store.
Margaret arrived from Austin, rich in stories of the airports and the planes, I mean the people in the airports and on the planes. She will spend three weeks here, and we’ll visit friends and go to a play somewhere, and notice all that still needs to be done when it’s time to leave.
Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.
So we will do some sorting and discarding, we will eat some of the food stored on our pantry shelves and in the freezer. There’s a growing hole in the attic ceiling, surely made by squirrels, that will get patched soon, I hope. By my friend Frank, not by me. He might have come yesterday but there were more important things to do at Marc’s house.
Walk in all the ways that I command you, so that you may prosper. But they did not.
I think of Jeremiah’s stubborn allegiance to God his Father, and remember Marc’s stubbornness when he was a kid. Mine too. We rammed heads together like mountain sheep, he challenged my leadership every way he could think of.
Unconsciously, of course. Or rather, without the self awareness that came later when he became more of an adult. I taught a class in those days thirty years ago called “Family Life Skills.” It had been called the “Domestic Violence Project,” but that title scared off too many of the church people at Meadowbrook, which sponsored the class, provided space for us to meet, and invited members to participate.
As a new counselor looking for clients, I applied to facilitate the men’s group (there was also a women’s group, which met at the same time). The classes met twice a week for three hours at a time for sixteen weeks. No homework except to learn the art of “time outs” and stop acting out the anger. We talked about our lives for an hour of check-in, and the camaraderie we developed became more of a change agent than the teaching.
I have sent you untiringly all my servants the prophets. But even they have not obeyed me nor paid heed; they have stiffened their necks and done worse than their fathers.
But I couldn’t just step into the master’s role; I must be one of the last before being first. I took the class myself, as was required, and discovered, or acknowledged, my own anger, my own compulsion to control others, especially … Marc.
If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts. For he is our God, and we are his people, the flock he guides.
So I developed a method to manage my rage. First I bit my lips hard. Painfully. Second I put my hands behind my back and clasped them. Tight as I could. And third, I promised myself I would wait twenty-four hours before asking Marc’s forgiveness for whatever rage leaked out (or poured out) of me anyway. Inevitably I would regret my explosions (as did he, it turned out eventually), and try to make up while he was still angry. He was the kid, and couldn’t just blow up and get it out of his system, like I could. I was the “adult.” I had come down, while he was still boiling inside.
Over time this worked. Marc created his own method. Our angers became less of a signature on not just our relationship, but others as well. And we learned in this self-management much more about humility, and surrender, and becoming friends with God, from whom we came and to whom we will return.
Even now, says the Lord, return to me with your whole heart, for I am gracious and merciful.
(Jeremiah 7, Psalm 95, Joel 2, Luke 11)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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