The Pain is Great, Yet Grace is Near

Job 17:12 Yet the desires of my heart turn night into day; in the face of the darkness light is near.

This is one of those posts that came to me during the most mundane of tasks.  I was doing yard work today when the spirit laid a thought on my heart.  He caused me to revisit Charles Dickens - A Christmas Carol, the movie version that I love to watch each Christmas Eve with my family. The spirit prompted me to go beyond the acting and to revisit the lesson the story gives. The movie and novel build a strong case for why Ebenezer has become the man he is. During the journey to revisit his past we learn that his father had rejected him in the most absolute way possible.  He did not even want his own child to stay in the house with him, so he sent him away to boarding school. These wounds were deep and painful in the young Ebenezer's life and I could understand his bitterness later in life. Indeed, the hurt and pain must have been agonizing at times.

The Christmas Carol though ultimately concludes that his wounds do not give Ebenezer an excuse for becoming who he has become. Yes, the spirits acknowledge, you were treated horribly and wounded severely by your father, and still that does not grant you the privilege to treat others with the same contempt and callousness. 

In his last encounter with his betrothed Belle, she shared with him that his passions have all merged into one master, profit! "The thought of it engrosses you." Ebenezer was on his way to laying the foundation to become a very rich man, yet Belle did not want his money. In the end she releases him from their agreement and marries another. His wounds caused him to miss the point. Belle was saying to him, Ebenezer I don't want your money, I want you! For a person who wanted to be loved by his father, it seems like Ebenezer should have picked up on this fairly easy, but wounds have a terrible  coping system in they way they cause us to build defense mechanisms to protect ourselves, and so Ebenezer failed to see the one thing he desired more than anything else; love. The spirit seemed to be teaching me that my wounds like Ebenezer's have tried to protect me from feeling more pain and the defense mechanisms I have built are causing me to miss out on the beauty that surrounds me. 

Charles Dickens seems to be saying we are expected to rise above our circumstances, our situations no matter how ugly and chose instead to make a difference in mankind. We have no excuse for failing to help others in need. So Job reminds us in the face of darkness light is near. Open my eyes Father and let me see the light rather than concentrate on the wounds.

The Reverence of Grace

Ezra 8:5 Ezra opened the book.  All the people could see him because he was standing above them and as he opened it all the people stood up. Ezra praised the Lord, the great God: and all the people lifted up their hands and responded Amen! Amen! Then they bowed down and worshipped the Lord with their faces to the ground.

What a powerful picture of reverence! The book is so sacred that in the moment of opening it up the people were so moved they could not remain seated. This was a moment that required them to stand in reverence because Ezra was going to read from the book of the great God. The moment so moved Ezra, he lifted up words of praise and the people lifted up their hands in reverence to the great God and said the only thing they felt was appropriate, Amen! Amen! And then the worship was done in a position of bowing down with their faces to the ground, because they knew they were unworthy to remain standing before their great God and worship him in that position.

I have to believe the reason the people were so reverent was because they knew how great their sin was and how it had grieved the great God so deeply that he allowed Nebuchadnezzar to take them captive all the way to Babylon. They understood that their sin was so egregious that the great God did not even want them to remain in Jerusalem, and he allowed the king of Babylon freedom to come in and plunder the city and take the people captive. The great God wanted the city to be empty, rather than let any of a sinful people occupy it. 

Yet, years later their repentance caused their great God to allow them to return to the place their hearts yearned for, home. It was not of their doing that they had returned home, but by the pleasure of the great God and they no doubt understood this and believed this deeply in their souls. When a person looks intently in the mirror and sees what he has done that grieves the great God and realizes that God let me live and God let me return home, it must be the most humbling moment an individual can experience. Then when all the brethren are gathered together and the book is opened for the first time in decades, how can you remain seated before the great God? Some worship requires I bow down and put my face to the ground, because my sin is so egregious. I have not been reverential in many years I think. I have had moments of revelation that pricked my soul and brought tears to my eyes, but I never felt the need to hide my face from the great God. I need to be reverential Father, because you are the great God and I am the created. Prick my heart and let it be softened by my sorrow so that I will remember all the time that you are the great God and I can only approach you in reverence or I cannot approach you at all. Grace should cause me to stand during moments of sacredness and bow in moments of worship, because grace was beyond my reach, but I was never beyond its reach. Oh great God! Thank you!