Remembering me?
Reading Psalm 103 today and wondering: does he really remember my frame? Does he remember that I am dust?
Lord, I believe! Help my unbelief.
Faith and Sight
I believe! Help my unbelief…
Archive for the month “September, 2009”
Job and his friends
Job and his friends hold a special place in my heart. Something about their tedious pontification and God’s eventual response brings me a degree of comfort that few other biblical portraits offer. First of all, it’s just so awkward. Who can’t relate? There they are – trying to figure out why, trying to assign blame… Who is wiser? Who needs to be humbler? Who can speak with authority? No one, says God. Stop! Knowing the way it ends makes my toes curl as I read through all their conversations. I feel embarassed for them. I know that they are me.
Second of all, there’s the happy ever after ending. This sometimes makes me mad. How in the world can God just “make up for it” like that? And, if he can, why in the world won’t he do that for me? Where’s my blessing? And there I go again, sounding like an idiot.
At the end of the day, I admit this: I come down on the wrong side of the whole biblical anecdote. I don’t get Job, who do I really relate to? His friends. Job says “though He slay me, still I will praise Him.” I say things like: What the hell is God thinking? And, even better, more recent, and humbling to see in print: “I just think God is wrong!” Yes, I did say that.
I can’t pretend that I’ve fully repented of that attitude. But I want to! I want to praise God, to tell Him I love him and how wonderful He is, in the middle of my tragedies and pain. This is the kind of trust that saves me. The few times that I have done this, I feel a peace that – as they say – passes understanding.
Where’s my blessing? He’s it.
Puppies and Kids
they do go together, as they say. I’m a pretty big fan of our new pup, Cody. Almost 12 weeks old…
Faith Against Sight
The world has cycles in its course, when all
That once has been, is acted o’er again:-
Not by some fated law, which need appal
Our faith, or binds our deeds as with a chain;
But by men’s separate sins, which, blended still,
The same bad round fulfill.
Then fear ye not, though Gallio’s scorn you see,
And soft-clad nobles count you mad, true hearts!
These are the fig-tree’s signs; – rough deeds must be,
Trials and crimes; so learn ye well your parts.
Once more to plough the earth it is decreed,
And scatter wide the seed.
– John Henry Newman
Faith and Sight 