I'm driving to work, dodging potholes left by ice pockets. I'm blowing on my hands and listening to David Crowder. I'm listening loudly, if it's possible. I'm thinking about Isaiah 60. I'm thinking about waking, coming, seeing, looking, seeing.
In November someone, or a few someones, said that this would be a long one. This is not what we want to hear on the cusp of our longest season. We do not want to hear that it will be a warm one, even, because temperatures closer to 30 mean more snow and we want less. At least I do. I'll take the frigid cold, so cold it's painful, but Lord, please, no more snow. So I bundled my self, my nerves, my attitude, and waited for the Long One. But the long one didn't come. I kept expecting it, holding my breath like the game we play in highway tunnels: who can hold it the longest? Waiting for the blizzard, waiting for the mountain of snow that would confirm Someone's words.
But it's the middle of February and It hasn't come. And all my projected disappointments have lingered still, waiting, opening every morning and pulling back the curtains to Is This The Day? The day that the Long One will begin?
And I think about this because I am thinking about anticipation. Someone else asks me the other day if I am doing what I want to do and I am smart and quick back to them, "Are any of us doing what we want to do?" And what I'm thinking is not smart or quick, "Aren't we all just waiting for the big disappointment? That we'll lay dying and think, well, I made it through and it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be." That the wars and rumors of wars and persecution and hurt and unfairness of it all were just, well, they just were and weren't as bad as they might have been?
We're all waiting for Spring and it hasn't even really been winter yet.
Isaiah 60 says it like this:
Get out of bed, Jerusalem! Wake up.
Put your face in the sunlight.
God's bright glory has risen for you.
The whole earth is wrapped in darkness,
all people sunk in deep darkness,
But God rises on you, his sunrise glory breaks over you.
Nations will come to your light,
kings to your sunburst brightness!
Look up! Look around!
And so this morning I add an addendum to my smart and shameful words and thoughts: We are sunk in deep darkness but God rises on us, His glory breaks over us.
Waking is not the realization that it wasn't as bad as we thought it would be or might be or could be. Waking is Seeing because we can. Right now! Not dwelling in projected disappointment (It might snow or It will snow and It might last until April or It will last until April), but walking in Light and Faith and Glory because the rest of the world is hibernating away the winter of their lives in darkness.
It IS nearly Spring, nearly over, and it hasn't been as bad as we thought it might be. Certainly not as bad as past winters and certainly not as bad as it will be in three years or ten. But it is now and it is today and we can let out our collective breath: Look up! Look around!
It's already finished!
In November someone, or a few someones, said that this would be a long one. This is not what we want to hear on the cusp of our longest season. We do not want to hear that it will be a warm one, even, because temperatures closer to 30 mean more snow and we want less. At least I do. I'll take the frigid cold, so cold it's painful, but Lord, please, no more snow. So I bundled my self, my nerves, my attitude, and waited for the Long One. But the long one didn't come. I kept expecting it, holding my breath like the game we play in highway tunnels: who can hold it the longest? Waiting for the blizzard, waiting for the mountain of snow that would confirm Someone's words.
But it's the middle of February and It hasn't come. And all my projected disappointments have lingered still, waiting, opening every morning and pulling back the curtains to Is This The Day? The day that the Long One will begin?
And I think about this because I am thinking about anticipation. Someone else asks me the other day if I am doing what I want to do and I am smart and quick back to them, "Are any of us doing what we want to do?" And what I'm thinking is not smart or quick, "Aren't we all just waiting for the big disappointment? That we'll lay dying and think, well, I made it through and it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be." That the wars and rumors of wars and persecution and hurt and unfairness of it all were just, well, they just were and weren't as bad as they might have been?
We're all waiting for Spring and it hasn't even really been winter yet.
Isaiah 60 says it like this:
Get out of bed, Jerusalem! Wake up.
Put your face in the sunlight.
God's bright glory has risen for you.
The whole earth is wrapped in darkness,
all people sunk in deep darkness,
But God rises on you, his sunrise glory breaks over you.
Nations will come to your light,
kings to your sunburst brightness!
Look up! Look around!
And so this morning I add an addendum to my smart and shameful words and thoughts: We are sunk in deep darkness but God rises on us, His glory breaks over us.
Waking is not the realization that it wasn't as bad as we thought it would be or might be or could be. Waking is Seeing because we can. Right now! Not dwelling in projected disappointment (It might snow or It will snow and It might last until April or It will last until April), but walking in Light and Faith and Glory because the rest of the world is hibernating away the winter of their lives in darkness.
It IS nearly Spring, nearly over, and it hasn't been as bad as we thought it might be. Certainly not as bad as past winters and certainly not as bad as it will be in three years or ten. But it is now and it is today and we can let out our collective breath: Look up! Look around!
It's already finished!
posted by Lore at 18.2.09
1 Comments:
I like this part of the verse...
"but God rises on you."
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