Oh where do we begin? The rubble or our sins?
I write this morning from a mixed place. From a reality rooted in past failure and regret and a present place where God continues to hold me, guid and lead me. As I LOOK BACKWARD AND PROCESS THE STORY I FIND MYSELF IN I SEE RUBBLE, I see failure, pain, and a sense of dread and an impending sense that this thin place I stand could give way at any moment. I recognize this morning that these feelings I carry are so attached to past trauma, past experiences.
“I was left to my own devices
Many days fell away with nothing to show
And the walls kept tumbling down
In the city that we love
Grey clouds roll over the hills
Bringing darkness from above
But if you close your eyes
Does it almost feel like
Nothing changed at all?
And if you close your eyes
Does it almost feel like
You’ve been here before?”
These words haunt me this morning. They remind me that the story we find ourselves in is a story of great beauty, hope and freedom, in the context of an epic battle, a fight, a challenge. The story is a story where God wins. He has redeemed the rubble. He meets us in the rubble and leads us to a better place. I think the challenge is finding the strength to leave the cities that we love. To leave the places we have built that provide so much false security and so many comforts. If we look we will see that God is not a God that settles. He begins a work in us that is painstakingly intricate and specific. He is working to strip away all the masks, hiding and pretending. He lets the city crumble so that we will move, step out and trust. He leads us into unknown places of vast beauty and grace, and asks us to focus on him. Maybe the rubble of past failure is the very invitation needed to experience a God far bigger, far greater and far better than we have ever imagined. This morning I am faced with a choice, “Stay or go”. To stay means I stay stuck… I remain a victim and I get to stay in control. To go means I am in unfamiliar territory. It means I have to trust! I am reminded this morning of a time when my daughter was 2 years old. I was at home on a Monday afternoon, she was downstairs watching a movie and things got really quiet in the house. I proceeded to head downstairs to see what my daughter had gotten herself into. As I ventured down the stairs I felt the Spirit say “Linger”. I felt Him say “just observe because I want to show you something about my good heart for you.” As I rounded the corner I looked down to see my two yearly in her diaper, sitting on the floor of the kitchen in a puddle of chocolate milk. The jug spilling onto the floor next to her. She was using her blanket to clean up the mess, and as she tried it just spread and got bigger and bigger. I remember looking at her with this longing to get down on the floor with her, to clean up the mess, to hold her chubby little body in my arms and whisper that everything was ok. The mess she created was the context for me to enter and have relationship with her… to be with her…. I felt the whisper of the spirit say, “I want to be in your mess Jay”. I want a relationship with you in the context of your brokenness and your rubble. Maybe our rubble is the invitation that is needed to experience a Fathers love the way we were meant to experience His love, unconditional, everlasting and always present….