Weekly Encouragement Letter #2
I can't believe I signed up for four of these. A career as a devotional writer, I do not have. Nevertheless! I finished my second weekly encouragement letter this morning a full twelve hours before the deadline. W00t. It's not that bad, either -- or at least, I don't think it's that bad. I will probably change my mind once it's actually sent out with the assignment page and crippling doubts start to assail me. So with that hearty and appealing recommendation, here it is!
You think you understand something. You bury yourself in a story until the character’s joy is yours and you laugh until you are breathless; until the character’s anguish is yours and you shudder with great, hiccupping sobs.
You think you understand something, and then you hold your newborn in your arms and -
“Then God said, ‘Take your son, your only son, whom you love -Isaac-and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you.” (Genesis 22:2)
--the awful, nauseating enormity of it crashes onto you for the first time. And though in the end God provided a ram and Isaac (and, frankly, Abraham) was saved, is it possible to think of that story without also thinking about
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son . . .” (John 3:16)
and realizing that, while the ocean of God’s love is still too deep and broad for you to comprehend, the tiny charge nestled against you has enabled you to take one step into the waves?
Of course, not all revelations surge from life-changing events and inspire lofty feelings like awe. There are also the ones that come in flashes of frustration. For example, I’d always rolled my eyes at the Israelites and their golden-calf obsession, however explicable in the context of the surrounding cultures, importance of a good crop, etc etc. I’m sorry, but God gave you miraculous signs and a divine rescue and the Ten Commandments, and you couldn’t keep it together for forty days?
And then I had toddlers who couldn’t keep it together for forty minutes. You know, when you’re a young child, your parents’ rewards and punishments feel divine. They come from above -at least three feet above!-as inescapable judgments and affect your entire world. Your parents’ anger is terrifying; their approval astounding. All this I remember from when I was a child. All this I’m pretty sure my toddlers experience. Yet despite this, they will insist on doing the things I have told them not to do, on touching the things they know they’re not supposed to touch. Aaaaargh.
“I have seen these people,” the Lord said to Moses after the Israelites built themselves a golden calf, “and they are a stiff-necked people. Now leave me alone so that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them.” (Exodus 32:9)
Let me tell you, when my two year old, who knows she’s not allowed to touch the fruit bowl, and who knew full well she wasn’t allowed to have any more kiwi because she’d asked me for more after her second helping and I said “No; we need to save some for tomorrow,” snuck over to the fruit bowl when I was out of the room, stole a kiwi, dug into it with a spoon, and then left the half-eviscerated carcass of it on the floor in a puddle of its own innards, my anger burned.
But Moses didn’t leave the Lord alone; he pled for his people. God relented, too, despite the fact that He knew full well that the Israelites would keep disobeying, and disobeying, and disobeying. That might have been the first golden calf, but it sure wouldn’t be the last.
And I, despite knowing that this was neither the first nor the last time I was going to have to reprimand my tiny fruit thief, did not destroy her, either.
(She did have to help me clean it up, though. Seriously, we should have had crime scene tape, it was that gory. Kiwi juice all over the floor.)
I lay in bed that night, thinking about all the times I’ve done things I knew I shouldn’t do, and thanked God that he didn’t smite me with lightning years ago. Toddlers aren’t the only ones who can be stiff-necked, after all, and I’ve had far more than two and a half years to rack up offenses. God’s forgiveness, like His love, is an ocean whose depth and breadth I cannot comprehend, but sometimes a wave hits me in the face anyway.
God gives us experiences to teach us the meaning of things we think we understand. The insight we gain today is a stepping stone to the insight we’ll gain tomorrow. This process is a gift: whether or not we understand God’s teachings doesn’t change the rules, but He takes the time to explain them to us anyway. May He give us clear eyes to see what He wants us to see, the wisdom to understand what He wants us to understand, and a deep and permanent aversion to golden calves.
You think you understand something. You bury yourself in a story until the character’s joy is yours and you laugh until you are breathless; until the character’s anguish is yours and you shudder with great, hiccupping sobs.
You think you understand something, and then you hold your newborn in your arms and -
“Then God said, ‘Take your son, your only son, whom you love -Isaac-and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on a mountain I will show you.” (Genesis 22:2)
--the awful, nauseating enormity of it crashes onto you for the first time. And though in the end God provided a ram and Isaac (and, frankly, Abraham) was saved, is it possible to think of that story without also thinking about
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son . . .” (John 3:16)
and realizing that, while the ocean of God’s love is still too deep and broad for you to comprehend, the tiny charge nestled against you has enabled you to take one step into the waves?
Of course, not all revelations surge from life-changing events and inspire lofty feelings like awe. There are also the ones that come in flashes of frustration. For example, I’d always rolled my eyes at the Israelites and their golden-calf obsession, however explicable in the context of the surrounding cultures, importance of a good crop, etc etc. I’m sorry, but God gave you miraculous signs and a divine rescue and the Ten Commandments, and you couldn’t keep it together for forty days?
And then I had toddlers who couldn’t keep it together for forty minutes. You know, when you’re a young child, your parents’ rewards and punishments feel divine. They come from above -at least three feet above!-as inescapable judgments and affect your entire world. Your parents’ anger is terrifying; their approval astounding. All this I remember from when I was a child. All this I’m pretty sure my toddlers experience. Yet despite this, they will insist on doing the things I have told them not to do, on touching the things they know they’re not supposed to touch. Aaaaargh.
“I have seen these people,” the Lord said to Moses after the Israelites built themselves a golden calf, “and they are a stiff-necked people. Now leave me alone so that my anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them.” (Exodus 32:9)
Let me tell you, when my two year old, who knows she’s not allowed to touch the fruit bowl, and who knew full well she wasn’t allowed to have any more kiwi because she’d asked me for more after her second helping and I said “No; we need to save some for tomorrow,” snuck over to the fruit bowl when I was out of the room, stole a kiwi, dug into it with a spoon, and then left the half-eviscerated carcass of it on the floor in a puddle of its own innards, my anger burned.
But Moses didn’t leave the Lord alone; he pled for his people. God relented, too, despite the fact that He knew full well that the Israelites would keep disobeying, and disobeying, and disobeying. That might have been the first golden calf, but it sure wouldn’t be the last.
And I, despite knowing that this was neither the first nor the last time I was going to have to reprimand my tiny fruit thief, did not destroy her, either.
(She did have to help me clean it up, though. Seriously, we should have had crime scene tape, it was that gory. Kiwi juice all over the floor.)
I lay in bed that night, thinking about all the times I’ve done things I knew I shouldn’t do, and thanked God that he didn’t smite me with lightning years ago. Toddlers aren’t the only ones who can be stiff-necked, after all, and I’ve had far more than two and a half years to rack up offenses. God’s forgiveness, like His love, is an ocean whose depth and breadth I cannot comprehend, but sometimes a wave hits me in the face anyway.
God gives us experiences to teach us the meaning of things we think we understand. The insight we gain today is a stepping stone to the insight we’ll gain tomorrow. This process is a gift: whether or not we understand God’s teachings doesn’t change the rules, but He takes the time to explain them to us anyway. May He give us clear eyes to see what He wants us to see, the wisdom to understand what He wants us to understand, and a deep and permanent aversion to golden calves.