Hit the Ground Crawling

And just like that, “Sacred Days” are over (well, sort of… we still have a couple of days until Epiphany, but some of us have to go back to work), and I found myself flailing wildly, searching for my cell phone in a near panic when my previously mentioned legitimate alarm clock went off at 5am, and I neglected to remember my new plan to turn off electronic devices and pack them away until after the daily office, every morning…

I never do anything halfway, and a phrase I have come to embrace in recent years is, “hit the ground running.” 

However, I feel like, “hit the ground crawling,” might better describe me as of late.

It’s day four of a new year, and… decidedly… I still don’t have it all together.  You would think I’d wake up one of these days finding that this had changed, right?  Here’s a new favorite quote:

“Courage doesn’t always roar, sometimes it’s the quiet voice at the end of the day whispering, ‘I will try again tomorrow.’” –Mary Anne Radmacher

Just a few weeks ago, during the short Advent season which seemed longer than ever, I read about, wrote about, and spoke about peace.  And here we are again:

Psalm 85:8, “Let me hear what God the Lord will speak, for he will speak peace to his people…” (NRSV).

If you’re sitting on the floor, today, wondering how to win the race when you can’t even get out of the blocks; you might pause to remember… It’s not a sprint.  It’s not even a marathon.  Peace is better than chaos, and it begins with us.  Peace is not about being the best but about being who you were meant to be, which most often includes sacrificing everything you thought you wanted for the sake of others.

Did you ever notice how the priests who carried the ark of the covenant across the Jordan river, “stood in the middle of the Jordan, until the entire nation finished crossing over…” (Joshua 3:17) or how we’re called to, “live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us…” (Ephesians 5:2) or how even Jesus did some really weird stuff, seemingly not the kind of things you would expect from Messiah, like spitting on the ground and granting sight through the use of a mud mask (see John 9)? 

Just in case we’re still unclear (and by we, I almost always mean me); it’s not a glamorous life, this following—literally following—to the point of being last… this servanthood that sometimes requires spitting and getting our hands dirty… this crawling around on the floor, knowing that running would be faster but would not incite peace… this sitting in silence, listening to the voice of God…

L.

The Cost of Winning

Ecclesiastes 2:11, "Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun" (NIV).

Sometimes I think to myself, "Wow, self, you are way too negative!"  Then I read Ecclesiastes, and I reconsider.  I mean, at least I'm in good company, right?

Galatians 1:15-16, "But when God, who set me apart from my mother’s womb and called me by his grace, was pleased to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles, my immediate response was not to consult any human being" (NIV).

Matthew 13:44, "The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field" (NIV).

Here's the thing: nothing that you or I can achieve on our own is going to count for anything in the end.  This is a very hard teaching for me to accept, because I like achieving.

Yesterday, I was playing with toy airplanes with my four year old nephew, Noah.  Mostly, I got to be the "bad guy airplane", which was just fine with me.  We battled and raced, and in the end, the "good guy airplane" would take me out, and Noah would say, "I win!  One more time!"  I quickly learned that, "one more time," in Noah's world, actually meant that we were going to play airplane battles until we died.  I should not tell you about the moment when I was crawling up and down the living room floor, racing, and losing badly, when my fourteen year old daughter looked at me and said, "Mom, I don't think you know what you've gotten yourself into."

At some point, we switched planes, and I thought to myself, "Surely I will win now, since I have the 'good guy airplane'".  It's been a little while since I have had a four year old boy.  It seems that I had forgotten how this works.  Even as the "good guy", I lost.  So I said, "Noah!  The good guy is supposed to win!"  And Noah just laughed as he informed me, "I like to win."  I paused for a moment before acknowledging that this child certainly belongs in this family.  We all like to win.  Sometimes at any expense.  And frankly, sometimes the cost is far more than a good guy/bad guy airplane battle.

I was going somewhere with this...

Oh yes, Paul...

A Pharisee, best of the best...  And then God calls, and Paul is on his way, preaching to the Gentiles, without even asking!

And this guy in the parable that Jesus tells...

He sells all his stuff and buys a field, and only he knows the value.

I just can't imagine any of this goes over well.  It costs everything.  Paul's friends must count this a huge loss.  The field guy's family must think he's crazy!  This is upside down thinking, but Kingdom values almost always are.

Don't get me wrong.  Winning is great, but sometimes losing is better.  Sometimes what looks like losing is actually the big win, in the long run. 

L.

PS  There was this one brief moment when Noah looked at me and said, "We both win!"  I told him that I love games like that best.  Then he went on to beat the life out of my airplane over and over again...