The Redemption of Marah

Find a way this year.

Find a moment to breathe deep.

Mark it as the beginning of your personal Advent.

Not a devotional reading, but a moment in time.

To..."Be still and know." (Psalm 46:10)

From that passage, we're called to a "rapha" experience, 

                                                            a contemplative stillness, 

in order to know (acknowledge or become acquainted with) a truth.

In Exodus, rapha is listed as one of the names for God.  

When God turns the bitter waters of a spring called Marah, 

(The name not only implies bitter, but can also mean rebellion, grief, or hardship) 

into a sweet and drinkable water. 

We are then told, he is Jehovah Rapha or The God Who Heals. 

Rapha can also mean, to make whole or to restore.

Can it be that in our ceasing to strive, and rather approach a place of contemplative stillness,

                           that our spirit finally arrives at where God always is.

That place of wholeness.

Bitterness fades and hope invades,

                                                 physically, mentally and spiritually.

Through the spirit of Rapha.

Through the coming of His Son.

Maybe we can find healing.

This year...

            And for all time.

Against the Door

The first verse in the Bible that I ever memorized was Rev. 3:20.

         

         "Listen! I am standing and knocking at your door. 

                   If you hear my voice and open the door, 

              I will come in and we will eat together. (CEV)"

I was a freshman in college.

My thoughts attached to this verse were life changing.

Taken very literally the verse suggests Jesus is standing on the other side of a door, knocking...and waiting like he's got nothing better to do.

Waiting for me, or waiting for all of us to open the door.  

Like the housekeeping representative in a hotel.

How can he possibly do that?  

Be that committed to even me.

The verse captures my thoughts to this day.  

I have such a difficult time waiting for anything.  I will be looking impatiently at my watch or my phone if I know that five minutes could be expended on anyone or anything else. 

As though I'm just so very busy and it is such an inconvenience for me to wait. 

In the original writing, the greek word translated as "standing"

                                       is pronounced hee-stay-mee. 

It is defined as a prolonged form of stand or abide, bring, continue, covenant, establish, hold up.  

So, as odd as it seems to me, Jesus was saying in essence, 

                             "I am here, and I'm not going anywhere."

AND he's anticipating a response to the commitment he has made to us.

As if  he knows there's something we need, or something we should let go of, 

                                                                    and he wishes to discuss it with us...urgently.

Sometimes, I can feel him there, at the door.

Truthfully, it is not always what I want to feel. 

I'll sigh out loud and think,

                                    Why is he so persistent?

                                          I'm doing fine.  

Still, he waits.

That knocking noise is kind of annoying.

So, not only do I NOT open the door to him,

I'm pushing a figurative chest of drawers up against it.

Which is just silly, because he said he wouldn't enter in without me opening the door anyway.

And he never lies.

In these 45 years of our relationship, he's never pushed the door open.

The stuff I push up against it?

Fear.

Hurt.

Anger.

Control.

Grief.

Apathy.

Pride.

Regret.

Comfort. 

What I want, when I want it. 

...Basically, selfishness.

Finally, I stop and look at all that I have stacked against the door.  

I groan as I recognize that wall of division I've built there,

                                                represents me fighting against myself.

And, that if I want to see that wall come down, 

                             I will need to place my desire to be united with him 

                  above my desire to keep in place those things I built the wall with.

He will wait.

He will stand.

With grace and hope in his heart, 

                                           because, 

                                                               
He is for me.