In the Hezekiah saga of Isaiah in my AM reading. Reflecting today on the poetry - and more generally speaking - the art, prose, music and poignant beauty that only emerge when a pen is dipped in the deep inkwell of pain and suffering. How many songs would never have been written?
Isaiah 38 records the poem Hezekiah wrote in the wake of his illness when the Lord had told him to set his house in order because he’d soon die. He wept bitterly & pled for God to change the outcome and God granted him 15 more years. The song he wrote visits the depths & heights.
A few lines…
“In the prime of my life… I am deprived of the rest of my years…I have rolled up my life like a weaver; [God] cuts me off from the loom… I moan like a dove. My eyes grow weak looking upward. Lord, I am oppressed; support me. What can I say? He has spoken to me.
“and He himself has done it. I walk along slowly all my years because of the bitterness of my soul. Lord, by such things people live and in every one of them my spirit finds life; You have restored me to health and let me live.” Stick around long enough to read this last part...
“Indeed it was for my own well-being that I had such intense bitterness but your love has delivered me from the Pit of destruction for You have thrown all my sins behind your back.” So gorgeous. Hezekiah now personifies death: “For Sheol cannot thank you; Death cannot praise you
Those who go down to the Pit cannot hope for your faithfulness. The living, only the living can thank you as I do today...the Lord is ready to save me; we will play string instruments all the days of our lives at the house of the Lord.”
You see, there’s no song in the night...
...without the dark.
My prayer for us all is that we’ll be delivered by God from our varied sufferings & pain just as we’re asking. But, until then, or, if not at all, let us ask of Him what he will surely give: treasures in darkness.
Dip that pen in ink.
That brush in paint.
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There are certain expectations we are absolutely right to have about people in any realm of Christian ministry: Pastors, teachers, communicators, singers, worship leaders, church leaders, representatives of Christian nonprofits, etc. Expect them to be flawed? Imperfect? Yes. BUT
Expect them to be genuine regarding Jesus and the people they serve in his name. Paul told Timothy to to “keep away from youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faithfulness, love & peace in company with others who call on the Lord from a pure heart.” If over time they don’t,
that’s not where you want to be. Do not get it in your head no matter what comes out about any person in Christian work that it’s the way you may as well expect all of them
to be. That’s hogwash. You won’t find anyone perfect. Anyone who walks in the Spirit every second. But you
Thinking of the psalmist’s words of distress in Psalm 116:11. “Everyone is a liar.” I’ve lately caught my attitude toward governmental officials being, “you’re all a bunch of liars.” The Holy Spirit points out in this psalm that arriving at this summation is severely oppressive.
And surely it is. And surely this is one reason we of faith are commanded to pray for our leaders. It shields our own hearts, too. The lazy thing to do here is argue over who the biggest liars are. My point is how oppressive it is to think we can’t trust leaders to be truthful.
Of course, there are honest officials out there. Characterizing all by some is cynicism & cynicism left to grow morphs into oppression. Here’s the thing: we CAN trust the Lord. He already told us not to place our trust in humans. Pray for them, yes. Entrust ourselves to them? No.
You know what fun thing you young career writers have to look forward to? Happening on a phrase, a sentence or a crude drawing you scrawled on some random piece of paper that God grew into a book. It’s happened to me so many times. And I always stop, smile and think on it.
Writing’s a hard profession. Maddening. And either impressively defiant in a social media world flatlining our reading comprehension or just plain stupid. Immediate gratification is a fool‘s hope which is why you turn to Cheetos. And as paragraphs gradually materialize on paper,
your book has an uncanny way of having been so much better before you wrote it. Then, should some publisher actually show interest in it, the question becomes whether or not your ego can bear the criticism. And then, of course, there are all the deletions.
You know how you sometimes can’t articulate a season of your life till you begin coming out of it? I’m having that experience. I feel like I’m waking out of a long winter’s night that began with the death of my beloved brother 18 months ago & began wrapping up about 1 month ago.
It was characterized by so much mourning (multiplied with the death of our 5 year old cutest-thing-ever bird dog), bone-deep exhaustion & increasingly unbearable physical pain. I couldn’t write. I could study & prepare messages but not write. I tried hard but nothing would come.
I didn’t have the energy to garden. My body was racked with too much pain to fool with my vines. Got so down about that, I couldn’t even go look at them. I didn’t have energy for complicated relationships or conflict.
This is a fairly niche tweet to any of you who are heads of ministries and nonprofits or are long time pastors of a church and you are nearing or well within retirement age. Assume that those who are working for you are wondering what your plans are. Don’t leave them hanging.
Denial is not only unhealthy for you, it is extremely unfair to those who work for you. We who are in Christ ought not fear facing natural decline. We can say all we want that we still have the energy of a teenager and the gifts and calling of God to stay in the lead but for most
it’s simply not reality & sometimes we can be the last to know. Do you have trustworthy people with the guts to tell you when it’s time to transition if even just a little at a time? Refusal to think about/talk about it signals that our identity is in our position, not Christ.
After your graciousness, I’ll share a couple of good recipes with y’all in a thread. I have to admit when someone has me beat and my friend Jan Morton’s southern cornbread dressing surpasses mine. The best, most consistent recipe for it I’ve ever tasted. granjansjoy.com/2016/11/dressi…
This is my high school boyfriend’s mother’s (lol) recipe for chocolate pecan pie. Makes two so, of course, half the recipe if you’re only making one. It’s absolutely fantastic. The alternative at the bottom is mine. My problem is, I think everything is better with cream cheese.