Waiting ...

“And they (Job’s friends) sat with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his suffering was very great.”  (Job 2:13, ESV)

Oh the waiting game ... often played, rarely appreciated.  I'm playing it now and I hope that I can take a lesson from Job.  Those seven days where nobody spoke a word were essential to what unfolded.  Too often, we (and by that I mean I) want to rush to the solution or the end or at least something other than the waiting.  And, when we do that, we miss the opportunity to appreciate so many things.  So, while I'm still waiting on what comes next for me, here are some thoughts that should make me appreciate this silent period.

I had the most wonderful time away with the family.  We really needed it and despite not having a job to come back to, it was a great experience where lasting memories were made.  That can get lost in the waiting impatience if I let it and it really shouldn't.

I have had the chance to see just how big my network is over the past few weeks.  No, nothing firm has turned up for employment, but there have been some great conversations and we have not gone hungry or begun living outside yet.  The breadth of people I know at many levels can get lost when I'm focused on busy and not in a waiting stage.

Serving others is a valuable thing that rarely gets done when we are so focused on what is next.  This past week, I had the opportunity to serve my sister by ripping out and replacing her porch.  The job ended up bigger than we planned, but it also ended up as a much nicer porch.  She will have many pleasant mornings, afternoons, and evenings sitting on that porch and just enjoying what life brings in front of her.  Had I not been waiting, it would have taken a month or more of weekends to do the job.

God doesn't promise a precisely running clock on the Crooked Path.  He only promises to be with us - and that extends to the waiting period.  The waiting is a chance to listen a little more closely, reflect a little more deeply, and take time for opportunities that otherwise might have been missed.  And, as Isaiah stated, it can be a time to renew that which sustains me as I travel.

So Many Thoughts

So many thoughts swirling around in my head today. Too many to just focus on a single post, and yet there is a single idea that does make me pause to consider that magnitude of it.  It is a very comforting thought in difficult times and an encouraging thing on which to base my faith day to day.

First, John Eldridge's daily post today was from his book Desire.  The first part of the e-mail said this:

"This may come as a surprise to you: Christianity is not an invitation to become a moral person. It is not a program for getting us in line or for reforming society. It has a powerful effect upon our lives, but when transformation comes, it is always the aftereffect of something else, something at the level of our hearts. And so at its core, Christianity begins with an invitation to desire."

I carried that thought into the Sunday School class I'm co-teaching on C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity.  But it was one of the verses attached to the e-mail that really struck home with me and a few of my friends.  Jesus ends his discussion with the Samaritan woman with this, "The water I give will be an artesian spring within, gushing fountains of endless life" (John 4:14 The Message).  What a way to capture that thought.  And how encouraging when we face so many difficulties in our lives.  We have a well spring within us, gushing LIFE!!

In my current search for the next career situation God has for me, through the loss of a dear family friend rather suddenly, to all those little aches and pains that accompany nearly half a century on this Earth ... I have a connection to LIFE that gushes refreshment and renewal right inside me.  God's Spirit will not fail to provide what I need in absolute abundance.  The emotional comfort, the physical needs ... all of it is taken care of by a God I can trust completely.

Now I realize I've rambled a bit, but I think I gave fair warning about that.  The Crooked Path of life often comes at us in what seems like hyper-speed.  But God's provision - the LIFE in Christ he provides - will always be what we need, when we need it, and in overwhelming abundance.  I may not be able to focus my thoughts all that clearly, but God knows them and knows me completely.

A Little Perspective

About two years ago, I had one of "those" meetings with HR and my manager.  It wasn't a big surprise as there were many changes going on.  Still, it was a change that we had to accept and it meant a more aggressive search for a new job and all that comes with that.  It took about four months to get into something stable and even now, I've not held a "permanent" job since I left that company.

Today is the first day of another journey.  My current contract was not renewed (again, not a big surprise) and we're in that search mode once again.  I've had some bouts of feeling sorry for myself, but they have been tempered by the overwhelming knowledge that I belong to a God for whom nothing comes as a surprise.  And this same God promises to be with me no matter what.  He tells me that instead of worrying, I should bundle up my worry and give it over to him.  It's not an easy thing to do, but I am trying to practice it day by day, hour by hour.

All this puts things in perspective for me.  I have yet to find myself without more than just the bare necessities of life.  In fact, through all of this I have been more than blessed.  Perspective also bids me to look around and see that others suffer in far greater ways.  Once again this week, the headlines are full of truly evil acts.  Phone calls, e-mails, and social media posts tell of others who have greater cause for concern about things that matter far more than my job.

Perspective ... it can be a difficult thing to interpret at times.  I've said before that the Crooked Path makes some rather tight turns and seeing very far ahead just isn't going to happen.  Especially in those times, I need to trust the one who has a far greater perspective of my life and know he loves me deeply and will make his best happen in his own way.

Work In Progress

I've spent more than a few years in multiple industries over the course of my career.  In nearly every one of my situations, there is a concept called WIP or work-in-progress.  It's that intermediate stage that has taken raw "stuff" and begun to make something tangible and planned out of it.  Sometimes there is a little work, sometimes there is a lot.  Either way, it's necessary and it is very intentional.  It isn't the finished state, but it has value as it progresses toward that end.

Paul understood this when he wrote to the Philippians (1:3-6, The Message), "Every time you cross my mind, I break out in exclamations of thanks to God. Each exclamation is a trigger to prayer. I find myself praying for you with a glad heart. I am so pleased that you have continued on in this with us, believing and proclaiming God’s Message, from the day you heard it right up to the present. There has never been the slightest doubt in my mind that the God who started this great work in you would keep at it and bring it to a flourishing finish on the very day Christ Jesus appears."

It is the same with me today.  God is performing good work in me (not just through me) with a purpose he has in mind.  He's doing it so that I will continually be transformed and conformed to the image of Jesus.  It leads to perfection in his divine timing and in the way he defines "perfect".  It means he is going to mold me through the good and bad, redeeming even the most evil things that I encounter.  Even the most terrible is not beyond his ability to bring about his glory in his way.  I don't have to understand it (I rarely do anyway); my job is to trust God and believe he is ultimately good.

The Crooked Path is filled with this work in progress.  As I move through it all, I can take refuge in the knowledge that I do not travel alone.  The work in progress has purpose and the one guiding it does not leave me alone.  He has a specific purpose and the work in me is good always.

Brevity

I read a post from a former teacher this week that gave me cause to stop and think about things that are going on all around me.  Bonnie had received notice about her high school graduating class and remarked how several of them were listed as "deceased".  She added, sadly, that only a couple of those she knew of were believers.

I thought about that post and then about how events in Boston played out ... and it brought me back to the verse in James where we are told out life is as brief as a vapor - as momentary as the mist that hangs in a grove of trees on a Spring morning.  In the perspective of eternity, no matter how long you live or how old you think this Earth might be, what we know and see are mere blips on the radar.  I don't know about you, but this stuff gives me at least the opportunity to re-evaluate my life and, if I let it touch my heart, I take that chance like I did this week.

The thoughts of brevity lead me to other thoughts as well - and these are of great hope in difficult times.  In the Upper Room Discourse, our Master and Friend told his disciples that he would be going away, but that he would not leave them as mere orphans.  They were still in the orphanage with all its trappings, but they were children of God.  Paul emphasized that hope with his writing on our troubles being temporary as well.  He saw through the mist and knew it would lift.  The brevity of our time should be of great comfort if we take that perspective.

It is just that - perspective - that we need to keep as we travel this Crooked Path.  Life is hard at times, but when weighed against the scale that is eternity, the difficulty is brief.  While this gives us hope, it also brings the same perspective my friend Bonnie had when reading that list.  Brevity should go hand in hand with urgency - we want to bring others with us into our Hope.

Open and Clear - Forever!!

"The crucified Christ reminds us that despair and disillusionment are not terminal but signs of impending resurrection.  What lives beyond the cross is the liberating power of love, freeing us from the ego centerdness that says, 'All I am is what I think I am and nothing more.'"  - Brennan Manning

Nothing quite captures the essence of Easter as much as Christians saying to each other, "Christ is risen!" with the echoed reply, "He is risen indeed!"  All that despair and disillusionment Manning mentions does indeed become temporal rather than terminal.  The death we so wept and despaired over was necessary, but it was not the end.  It was only a necessary second hinge on which the Door must be hung so it could open once and for all.

The Crooked Path only paused at the Cross - it now marches boldly and confidently through the open, empty tomb and embraces a Savior who has conquered Death and left it to languish in its own misery.  Our Divine Brother did this for us, his mortal brothers and sisters, so that our Father could give us his heart all over again - because redemption has been on his mind from the start.

So rejoice, my friends!  Take heart in the message the angel spoke (recorded for us in Luke 24 as presented in The Message):

Then, out of nowhere, it seemed, two men, light cascading over them, stood there.  The women were awestruck and bowed down in worship.  The mean said, "Why are you looking for the Living One in a cemetery?  He is not here, but raised up."

Two Hinges and a Door

I've often viewed the Story of Jesus' life on earth as two hinges and a door.  The hinges are his birth and death - both distinct hallmarks of his humanity.  The birth hinge is a glorious and humble event.  He came, subject to the same nine-month gestation that we all went through, and was born in the lowliest of circumstances to a peasant couple from a back-water town.  Quite the dubious beginning.

He likely apprenticed to his own father, I'm sure banging his thumb more than a couple times, and didn't seek out fame.  When he was "ready", he set out teaching as one of a continuous parade of itinerant rabbis.  Nothing of great note here, except that his followers, especially those closest to him, noticed something different.  They noticed a kind of authority lacking anywhere else they had looked.  And this was a pretty down-trodden people.  They had seen these teachers come and go and none of them even came close to what Jesus said and did.

So it really should surprise us that we see him coming into Jerusalem that day in a way that directly brought Zechariah 9:9 to the crowds' minds.  They had seen enough to believe this King had the staying power they sought to break the tyranny of Roman rule.  This was a people who hadn't been "free" in over a millenia and they were ripe for a coup.  The songs and praises rang out that Palm Sunday ... right up until the coup never happened.

That's where the second hinge of our story comes in.  After a sham trial that didn't even meet the legal standard for witnesses agreeing, the Rabbi was sentenced to death.  And the same crowds that were ready to welcome him as the king, cheered on the Roman soldiers as they administered the punishment.  There would be no coup - and the door, now set on those two hinges appeared closed for all time, just like every other human who lived.  He was born, lived a brief life, and died like a common criminal.  Case - and door - closed.

What nobody saw - and I'm thinking even his disciples were in this group - was that this was all part of a much bigger plan.  The Story of God's redemption required Jesus to go through all aspects of humanity the same way we did.  And, while his body lie in that borrowed tomb, the rescue effort was in full swing.  But that, my friends, is  story for next week.  For now, I'm encouraging you to see the door, on its two hinges, shut and dark.  Just like I didn't want to hurry past the Manger, I don't want to rush past the Cross.  The birth is necessary because it makes the death possible.

As I travel the Crooked Path this year, I want Holy Week to bring a special focus for me.  I want this last week of the Lenten season to ring home the grandeur of The Story in a way that only the darkest of climaxes can.  I want to prepare, once again, for the death of a close family member - my Divine Brother - who did so just for me.  I want to pause and grieve so that my relief next Sunday will be all that more genuine.  Pause with me and look at the door on its hinges - the door seemingly closed as seen by those who walked with Jesus over 2,000 years ago.  Don't rush through it - it will open soon enough.