When Wings are Clipped

"Those who wait for the Lord will renew their strength.

They will rise up on wings like eagles.

They will run and not grow weary.

They will walk and not faint."

But lately, I feel like I'm barely crawling along.

It's not that anything is really wrong, because it's not.  It's the beginning of a new school year, and I'm glad about that.  I still love my job.  I love going out and hanging with my horse.  I love coming home to a dog who beats me with her tail because she's so glad to see me.  I have friends and family.  Indeed, I am richly blessed.  It's not that anything is really wrong.

It's just that God feels absent.

And I miss him.

Dreadfully.

Now, don't start lecturing me about how God is never absent from his children, how he never leaves us or forsakes us.   I know that.  I didn't say that God is absent, only that he feels absent.  I know he's as present with me now as he has ever been.  I know he still loves me.  I know he still cares.  I know that as much as I know anything, and maybe more.  My faith is not wavering.

And please, please don't give me the line that if God feels absent it's not because he's moved but because I have.  That line is just cruel.  It's cruel because it sounds like it might be true, but it isn't.  I have spent hours searching my soul, and while I know that there is much in that soul that, on a daily basis, does not line up with Jesus' way, I also know that the heart of my soul longs for the things of the Lord and anguishes over those things in my life that aren't of him.  No, he hasn't moved, but neither have I.  I still love him, still pray, still spend time in the Word, still seek to serve him, still want to follow his heart.

Yet, he feels absent.

And I miss him.

Dreadfully.

The missing of him weighs on my bones with a wearying intensity that startles me sometimes.  Rise up on wings like eagles?  Run?  Walk?  I feel like my feet are so heavy I can barely lift them to gain a painful shuffle forward.

And please don't assume I'm depressed.  I'm pretty sure I'm not.  There are many things that I enjoy, many reasons to get up in the morning, satisfying things to fill my day and to put me to sleep at night.  I don't feel depressed.  I just feel like God is absent.  And I miss him dreadfully.

So what do I do?

I'm tempted to spend endless hours in introspection, finding some way to blame myself for the state of affairs, so that I can then correct what's wrong and restore the feeling of God's presence.  I want to dredge up every possible sin I've ever committed and somehow make atonement for it, thereby forcing God to show himself.  But while there is great benefit in taking inventory and making amends, doing it for the purpose of earning God's favour falls dangerously close to salvation by works.  The fact is, my sins are fully atoned, and I am resting in that and trusting in it, and this yawning emptiness is not a result of unforgiven sin.  So I won't do that.

I'm tempted to run around endlessly trying to find something to fill the emptiness.  Maybe I need to try something different, have a new experience, explore a new theology -- something that will feel exciting and fresh.  But that sounds an awful lot like abandoning the known springs of living water to dig cisterns of my own, and that's always dangerous.  So I''ll hold tight to what has been tested and true.

I'm tempted to despair.  Maybe it's not just that I feel like God has abandoned me, but that he actually has.  No, no, that's all wrong.  I know that I know that I know that God is True, and his love is steadfast.  So I will remind myself of that truth every 30 seconds if I need to, to fight off any despair.

I'm tempted to tell myself that it's nonsense, that I shouldn't feel this way, that I don't really feel like God is absent, that I shouldn't feel this way.  I am tempted to distract myself from the feeling by working extra hard, playing extra hard, living extra hard.  But that is living a lie.  The feeling is real.  The feeling does not reflect reality, but it is a real feeling, and pretending I don't feel that way is to simply don a mask.  I won't do that either.  No, I will try to find the balance between respecting the feeling but not allowing it to rule me.

So what will I do?

I will carry on.  I will bring my feelings to God.  I will acknowledge them and feel them and grieve them.  I feel like God is absent, and I miss him dreadfully, and it is breaking my  heart.  It is just a feeling, but I will sit with that feeling in the presence of a God who feels absent but is not, until such time as he shows himself again. Why am I feeling like that?  I don't know.  I'm not sure it matters.  It's part of the ebb and flow of life.
 
I won't hide.
I won't cut and run. 
I won't wallow or feel guilty.

I will do the hardest thing of all:  I will wait.  Today, I may be crawling, but I will wait.

I will wait for the Lord, and he will renew my strength.

I will mount up on wings like eagles.

I will run and not grow weary.

I will walk and not be faint.

Plaque Words

The prophets were an inflammatory lot.  Come to think of it, so were the apostles.  So was Jesus.  They said things that got people all riled up, things like, "I wish those who unsettle you would emasculate themselves!"  (Paul), "You brood of vipers!"  (John the Baptist, and Jesus), and "You cows of Bashan"  (Amos, speaking to the women of Samaria, comparing them to a particularly plump collection of cattle).  They made outrageous claims, daring to speak for God himself, or even, in the case of Jesus, AS God himself.  And generally, their audiences didn't receive their words with particularly good grace or humour.  They persecuted the prophets, threw them into prisons and pits, stoned them, sawed them in half, even . . . even crucified them for the things they said and did.

No, the prophets were not particularly popular.

Which is why I am always somewhat amused when we pluck a portion of prophetic writ out of context and turn it into a platitude on a plaque or a mantra to rattle off.  We take these verses and turn them into something to make us feel good -- a purpose the prophet never really intended.

Oh, it's not that prophets weren't into comfort.  They were.  "Comfort, comfort my people, says your God," and all that.  It's there, for sure.  But it's there in a context, primarily a context of warning, condemnation, and punishment.  And it is that context we would do well to heed.  It is a context, which, if we took seriously, might warn, condemn, and punish us.  The words, in context, might make us feel a whole lot bad before they started to make us feel good, which was exactly their job.  And exactly why the prophets were so hated. 
 
You see, the people of God then weren't all that different than the people of God now.  The Pharisees of Jesus' day aren't all that different than we are today.   They all made the same mistake.  They all made the fatal error in judgement that the context didn't apply to them.  And that's why they were so stinking offended at the things the prophets and apostles, and Jesus, had to say.  How dare anyone accuse them?  They wanted the winsome words without the warnings.  After all, they were the people of God.  They were the good guys, the ones who had it right.  They weren't like those people, those miserable sinful people out there.  And when we pull a platitude out of context, without looking at the warning that precedes it, we do the very same thing.  We assume the warning doesn't apply.  We assume we've got it made.  We assume we're ok.  We don't allow ourselves to bow beneath the warning of God.

Take a verse like Micah 6:8.  "He has shown you, O man, what is good.  And what does the LORD require of you?  To act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God."  Plaque-able, really.  And so very inoffensive.  Perhaps some tough to do, but inoffensive.  After all, who doesn't like being just, loving mercy, and (cough, cough) walking humbly?  Such a person would be . . . nice.

Until you look at the context.

Even Micah 6:6-7 will do to get an idea:   

"With what shall I come before the Lord,
    and bow myself before God on high?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,
    with calves a year old?

Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,
    with ten thousands of rivers of oil?
Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression,
    the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”

Do you see what Micah is saying?  On the outside, these people were doing all the right things.  They were coming before the LORD.  They were bowing to him.  They were bringing their burnt offerings, just as he required!  In fact, they weren't just standard-spiritual, they were super-spiritual!  They were in church every time the doors opened.  Their kids were in all the programs.  They tithed and more than tithed.  They gave till it hurt and kept giving.  They put serving the Lord ahead of their kids.  They were pillars in the community.  They were doing things they thought would please God, things that God himself had asked them to do.  And Micah came along and threw it all back in their faces.

They came before the LORD, but they cheated a little when they thought they could get away with it.  They overcharged where they thought they could make a bit of extra profit.  They underpaid and crowed about the great deal they got from the sucker who sold them the goods.  They forgot to charge taxes or forgot to pay taxes on the cash deal.  Nothing major, just watching out for themselves against big business, big government, or the little sucker down the street selling stuff at the garage sale.

They bowed before the LORD, but they lied to each other when it was to their advantage.  They made themselves look good, and someone else look bad.  They conveniently forgot their own mistakes but long remembered the mistakes of others, and made sure that everyone else did, too.  A joke, teasing, I-didn't-really-mean-it.  Whatever worked to get to the top and stay there.

They brought their burnt offerings, calves a year old, but also bid for power.  They aligned themselves not with the one who was right, but the one who had the most influence.  Money spoke.  They allowed the big donors to get their own way.  They made decisions based on what was popular, what was culturally relevant, what was politically correct.  Whatever it took to be the biggest, the best, and the brightest, the most happening place in the area.

No, Micah says, the Lord has already shown you what is good, and what he requires. And what does he require?  Inner transformation.  A heart that beats for the same things that God's heart beats for.  A willingness to fight as ferociously for the injustices of the world, to love as extravagantly the completely unlovable, to forgive as wholeheartedly the unforgivable, to walk and eat and serve as unabashedly among the most broken and hurting people of this world as he did when he gave his firstborn for my transgression and for the sin of my soul.

It's so easy to forget the context.  It's so nice to just feel good.  But I dare not do it.  The people of God have always forgotten context at their peril.  To claim that the context does not apply to me, to assume I'm ok without allowing the searchlight of the prophet to plumb the depths of my heart is to risk hearing God say, "Therefore I strike you with a grievous blow, making you desolate because of your sins."  What do you mean, my sins, Lord?  Didn't I do it all right?  Didn't I do what you required?  I thought I was ok, but I never really took time to look.

But when I look, when I examine the context, when I recognise in my own heart those tendencies to put myself first at the expense of someone else, to speak words that will make me look good and another look foolish, to align myself with pride and power, when I recognise these tendencies not as "no big deal" or "little things", but as symptoms of a sinful and corrupt heart, when I see how far I fall short of acting justly, loving mercy, and walking humbly with my God, ah, it is then that the prophet whispers comfort to my bruised and broken heart.  "When I sit in darkness, the Lord will be a light to me.  I will bear the indignation of the LORD because I have sinned against him, until  he pleads my cause and executes judgement for me.  He will bring me out to the light; I shall look upon his vindication."

Words that become too precious for a plaque.

Ending in Lament

I read through the Bible.  I start at one end and read through to the other end, and then I switch versions and do it again.  I read everything.  I read the stories of Jesus in the gospels and the weird mildew laws in Leviticus.  I even read the begats -- those long lists of names.  If my name was in those lists, I'd want someone to read it there, so I figure that they're worth reading.  Some of it's a bit tedious (if it's not heretical to say that parts of the Bible are tedious) but I read it all.  And some parts of it are just wonderful.

Like the Psalms.  That's where I am now.

And in that wonderful book there are Psalms that are especially dear to me:  Psalm 13, Psalm 18, Psalm 22, Psalm 73.  And Psalm 88.

They're all laments.  It is through the book of Psalms that I learned to cry.  It is through the Psalms that I learned that crying is ok.

That crying is, in fact, praise.

It's true.  The Hebrew title of the book of Psalms is "Praises".  And the book of praises is full of crying.  The single largest category of psalms in the book of Praises is lament.  People crying to God.  People yelling at God, questioning him, feeling abandoned by him, wrestling with him, asking him why, bawling out their eyeballs because life has gone horribly wrong.  But they're crying to God.  It's all wrapped around him.  That's what makes it praise.  Sometimes I praise God in my laughter; sometimes, I praise him in my tears.  But always, I am wrapping my life around him, and that's what makes it a life of praise.

So what about Psalm 88?  Why is it in Marianne's Top 10 List of Awesomest Psalms?  It's certainly not there because it's bright and cheery.

"For my soul is full of trouble and my life draws near the grave.

I am counted among those who go down to the pit; I am like a man without strength.

I am set apart with the dead, like the slain who lie in the grave, 

whom you remember no more, who are cut off from your care.

You have put me in the lowest pit, in the darkest depths.

Your wrath lies heavily upon me; you have overwhelmed me with all your waves."

It's the song of a soul in pain.  I get that.  I've been there.  I've gone through seasons where the pain is so bad I truly felt like it would kill me.  I couldn't eat.  I couldn't sleep.  I couldn't think.  I couldn't even really feel anything, except feel hurt in every fibre of my wounded being.  So I love that the psalm is honest.  I love that it gives me permission to feel that way and to be honest about it.

But mostly, what I love about this psalm is the end.

"Your wrath has swept over me; your terrors have destroyed me.

All day long they surround me like a flood; they have completely engulfed me.

You have taken my companions and loved ones from me; the darkness is my closest friend."

And that's it.  Boom.  The darkness is my closest friend.  The end.  And I love that.  I love that.

Psalm 88 is the only lament psalm in the whole psalter that ends without some kind of resolution.  All the others have a "turn", a "but" statement.  My life stinks, but you are good and I will trust you.  Things are really hard right now but I know the Lord will save me.  I can't tell which way is up, but it's all going to be ok in the end.  Weeping may last for the night, but joy comes in the morning.  They all have it.  Except Psalm 88.   And I'm glad for that.

I know it's true, those "buts".  I know God is good, and I know he can be trusted, and I know that he will save me, and I know that it will turn out ok in the end, and joy will come in the morning.  But there are seasons in life where it just doesn't turn around quite that quickly.  There are seasons of life with very, very long and lonely nights.  And without Psalm 88, I could start to feel guilty about those long nights of weeping.

Sometimes people expect "weeping for the night" to be kind of like a 1-hour TV show.  It's all a mess, and everything's horrible, but within the hour, everything is tidily wrapped up and they all lived happily ever after.  In the time it takes to read the psalm, I should be moving from lament to thanksgiving.  Just that quickly.  Fine, if you need to cry, cry, but get to the "but" in a big hurry.  We have no patience or tolerance for extended periods of grief.  We are so quick to slap on the guilt trip, to say, in hushed tones, "Oh, she's not doing so well.  She's still really struggling," sometimes only weeks after a major trauma, let alone months or even years.  If we allow lament at all, we feel so justified in ending it quickly; after all, the lament psalms end in trust!

Except then there's Psalm 88.  And Psalm 88 gives me permission to sit in the sadness and give the night of weeping the time it takes to dawn into a new day.  "Darkness is my closest friend."  Psalm 88 gives me permission to truly grieve.

To grieve, but not despair.  Because despair turns away from God, but there is not a single psalm anywhere in the book of Praises that turns away from God.  Psalm 88, in all its dark night of the soul, is focused solely on the One who can heal the broken heart.  It cries out to the LORD, the covenant God, the one who is I AM, the one who hears and who keeps his promises:  "O LORD!"  "O LORD, the God who saves me, day and night I cry out before you.  May my prayer come before you; turn your ear to my cry."    Grieving is not turning away from God or showing a lack of trust -- it is running right into his arms.  It is crying in the arms of the God Who Saves, the God Who Turns His Ear. The God who knows we trust him, not because we're not crying, but because we've brought him our tears.

I love the God who understands that sometimes nights of weeping last longer than the hours of physical darkness.

I love the God who Saves.

And who sits with me in the darkness, and holds me when I cry.

And that's why I love Psalm 88.