In Between "Who Am I....and Here am I"

Part 1...

There were only two people who actually said it.

Perhaps, many more felt it in their hearts, 

discussed it within themselves,

almost muttered it out loud, 

but the words never tumbled across their lips.

It was only Moses and David.

     At a point of self-assessment, 

compared to the task at hand...

they considered their frailties, 

their shortcomings, 

their regrets,

their anxieties,

         and asked, 

                        "Who am I, Lord?"

Consider those names...

MOSES

KING DAVID

Two of the most dynamic leaders in all of world history.

Yet they clearly understood their absolute need for divine 

strength and understanding.  

It wasn't just that the job description seemed mountainous.

A great work needed to be done.

And it needed to be done in a way that 

                              reflected the character of their God.  

That's a lot.

Getting something done is one thing.  

Doing it in a way that consistently brings honor and glory to our maker...

                        "Who am I, Lord?"

There's a necessary humility in that question.

A necessary dependency that's elusive to a lot of us today.

Elusive because, first off, we don't like dependency.  

Counting on someone else to come through...

And honestly, we tend to want to be known for our achievements.  

We'll often deflect some of the accolades to God, but we like wearing the bulk of it.

However...I think... I'm getting to a place where I would rather be hidden in the cleft of the rock.

I truly wish to see his glory, while remaining protected by his hand.

Unseen by anyone else...I think.

Part 2...

Enter the prophet Isaiah.

He doesn't ask the same question as Moses and David.

He registers his humility with a declaration.

Having just seen the majesty of his creator, he says, 

         “Woe to me!  I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among 

            a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.”

There's the necessary humility again.

But he doesn't stop there.

After a forgiveness and atonement has been applied, he hears the voice of his King 

searching for someone who will step up and follow in the effort to bring healing 

to a nation.

A seemingly overwhelming invitation.

Yet, instead of shrinking back.

It's at this point that Isaiah steps up.

I don't know if his words were a shout or a quiet, but determined acknowledgement.

Regardless, Isaiah's response was, 

                           "Here am I.  Send me!"

Part 3...

This is the "in between" where Moses, David and Isaiah lived.

This is the "in between" where I think we must live.

In between the "Who am I?"...and the... "Here am I."

Knowing our weakness.

But trusting in his strength enough to raise our hand 

and volunteer to be sent.

In grace-sufficiency.

It will feel a precarious stance at times.

It will feel vulnerable.

It will feel too bold and sometimes not bold enough.

It will be awkward because we won't always know what comes next

Because it's not our agenda.

It honors The One who is over all,

                                in all 

                                          and through all.

                                                     It's where we become followers.

                                   

(Thanks to art by Richard McBee)

I'm Still Here

A few weeks ago I heard a young woman share her story.

Her name is Gabby Lyons...look it up.

I love stories.

Especially I love true stories about people finding their way.  

Finding their way through

hardship, abuse, injustice, physical difficulty, financial difficulty, 

Or just working through the pain of being ignored; feeling invisible.

Gabby's story is one of saying, "I'm still here!...in spite of..."

(In her case it has been a litany of physical suffering)

It's not a success story in the sense of something amazing coming at the end of it.

She didn't become the head of a Fortune 500 company.

She didn't win any election.

She's not on the cover of a magazine.

Her autobiography is not a best-seller.

Again...she just said, "I'm still here!"

Feet, firmly planted in her faith.

In her trust.

With Jesus.

She hasn't been healed...yet.

And she's okay with that.

She's not going anywhere without him.  No matter what.

The phrase she used to identify her commitment was this: "Ten toes down!"

Oh how that made me smile.

And nod my head.  

She's digging in.

"As for me and my house..."

Not five toes down, with one foot ready to pivot and walk away.

Not looking over her shoulder for a better offer.

Ten toes down.  

Facing the challenge head on.

Quietly.  Determined. 

Drawing every bit of strength that she can from The Divine.

Leaning on support from all who may offer.

Thankful for what He's already done.

Returning her love for the love he extended to her first.

We need that example.

I need that example.

Let's choose this response today.

Let's choose it for ourselves and share it with others.

Not because it will get headlines or because it will pay off in something tangible.

Just because it will quietly ripple through us in a way 

                                                        that generates hope around us.

All of us.  Standing for each other.  

If you need me, I'll be here....

                                  TEN TOES DOWN.

(Gabby's testimony) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wz4GDqLXBcs 

Get the questions right

It sounds nearly uninspiring to say it, and I don't want to shout the words but rather whisper them.

But...I want to be a better follower, more than I want to be better a leader.

I want all of the "Be still and know" moments that may be available to me.

Just breathe.

Take in His Spirit.

(Then follow the advice of the "Fun With Dick and Jane" books.)

Look.

Listen.

See.

Through the eyes of a follower.  

(These were the thoughts behind what's written below)

In the quiet; not yet consumed 

By the day that's to come

There's a voice, that calls forward

In a song, still to be sung

The words are a mystery

The tune, all we hear

O' that we learn to listen

Closed mouths; open ears

Falling on my face

Stumbling in my pride

Comes something of a light

With mourning hope inside

I don't know the answers...but I'm starting to get the questions right.

I don't know how

I don't know when

I don't know why

Or where to begin

I don't know the answers...But I'm starting to get the questions right.

You will catch us there

Together; cradled in your grace

Nothing we can say or do

Nothing left to chase

None will be more
worthy

None will be the least

But all will be invited

'Round the table of a feast

I don't know the answers...But I'm starting to get the questions right.

It Takes A Lifetime

As I grow older, I find that I am more and more interested in vulnerable and even sometimes difficult conversations. I have to catch my breath in between them, and it's good to talk about baseball, or music, or what you had to eat yesterday as a break here and there, but hearing the truth of someone's life has become a gift to me.

Let's cut to it and deal with our joy, grief or broken-ness. Then find a way to support one-another; invite help from beyond our human weaknesses into the process.

I have said a few times on Sunday mornings, "A 'little bit raw' can stand awfully close to repentance."  

I know that has been true for myself.

So, in that spirit I began writing something that spoke to the cycle of insecurity and peace that I have felt my whole life.

From childhood, through adolescence. 

Through parenting and now into my senior years.

A good friend of my wife's who passed on just a short time ago, once said to Rhonda, 

"Oh honey, fear is what we feel, but brave is what we do."  I like that a lot.

The dark or unknown has always been there.  Jesus has not eliminated my sense of anxiety about those things which I have no control over, just equipped me to enter into those moments anyway...with trust.

Along these lines, I wrote this bit below.  It is attached to some specific thoughts related to my family and I, but there could be connection for others as well.

Just a child

Not ready to go

Saying goodbye is 

to swallow something

you don't even 

want to taste

Everything was new

Everyone was hard

New doesn't always

Make me feel like smiling

Still we say...

Be good

Be strong

Be well

Get along

Be courageous

Sing your song

Sometimes 

Finding your words

may take a lifetime

If my life's a story

I've been a hero

but I have also been a villain

looking away

when I should face it all

looking over my shoulder

at the giants; who stood so tall

Wanna walk, walk, walk

Walk into light

But still a bit 

afraid of the dark

Be good

Be strong

Be well

Get along

Be courageous

Sing your song

Sometimes 

Finding your words

will take a lifetime

Red dirt roads

We walked through

On my shoulders

Holding their shoes

Pig-tails; painted days

A sun that smiles

Kiss the frogs, "Morning Girl"

Across the miles

That day has gone away

Sometimes...I'm still a bit

Afraid of the dark

How well did we sing?

My love, my heart

How long is our hope?

They're grown, they're gone

Can they stand, be still?

Just stand and not run

My arms are open

My sight is clear

Your hand in mine

Yet, not too proud to admit...sometimes 

I'm still a bit ...afraid of the dark

Be good

Be strong

Be well

Get along

Be courageous

Sing your song

Sometimes 

Finding your words

                      takes  more than....a lifetime

Between Faith and Sight

My friend was in that space between here and there.

This world had become shadowy and thin, and the next life was taking on form and substance.

I've seen it many times.

His eyes flickered open and shut.  

His chin raised, and a smile swept his face to acknowledge my presence 

when I said, "Hello."

With a bit of a trembling heart, I asked him, "Has Jesus been near these days?"

He nodded.

"What has he been saying to you?"

"He said that I'm forgiven and that he loves me."  

He paused, gathered another breath and then, "...and that he'll meet me forever and ever."

These words came with
struggle but also with great certainty, gentleness and comfort 

held in them.

"Anything else?" I asked.

Again he nodded.

"He said...he's going to make me more like myself."

Then he closed his eyes, lowered his head and slept.

AND the next day, he went home.

No Magic Beans

Recent days of blue sky carried me back to memories of a friend.

They are woven around warm breezes across outfield grass, 

the sound of a baseball thudding into a mitt or pinging off an aluminum bat.

Then, other thoughts came on the heals of those memories, 

but they were more disheartening.

I knew that his Dad was gone.

I don't remember if he had died or just left the house one day and never came back.

His Mom was loving, but rarely showed her face outside the house.

There was a tension in the rest of the family dynamic. 

Pain lurked there.  

Just under the surface.  

Like something looking for an escape route or waiting for an opportunity to pounce.

I would catch him staring to the ground or at the workspace before him at school.  

Motionless.  

Absent.

I would nudge him and say, "Hey!  Where'd you go?"

He would shrug and smile, but offer nothing.

I occasionally wondered about what life was like for him when none of the rest of us were around,

and he was alone at home.  

I was pretty sure there was an escalation of that tension that we saw.

That the shadow of it all grew into something that at times was overwhelming.

I didn't have a clue how to help unpack any of that.

When you're a kid, getting a handle on your own life is challenging enough. 

You're pretty sure that every family has their own junk, but acknowledging that something is "dysfunctional" is a whole different thing.

I don't know that I had ever heard that word until I was in my late 20's.

At one point, for many reasons, our paths separated and never completely came together again.

We pursued different things.  

There was college.  

Then there was marriage and family.

Vocation has taken me out of state since then, even out of country, a lot.

And then we re-connected just a short time ago, sort of...

But the distance and time between us has been too great to navigate.

I feel like those hurts that I sensed in the "way back when" have calcified.

Now there is a very real, very tangible physical wound in him, that I can do nothing about.

It bothers me that I didn't ask more questions then.  That I didn't try harder to figure it out.

But, I also know, in most respects the whole of it is beyond me.

Beyond my wisdom, my strength...my ability to heal.

The weight of that truth alongside the memories, is crushing.

When I think on the many faces of people I have met, 

those who I've been fortunate enough to call friend or even family,

and those who have just been acquaintances,

through these six decades of life...

I believe that we all have at least one thing in common.                                                                       

                          Peace is what we seek. 

Even when we don't know it; 

             don't say it out loud, 

                       it's the echo of our hearts, in some way...nearly every day.

I saw a young mother navigating her way down an aisle in Walmart; three kids in the grocery cart, negotiating throughout the store as to what items will end up in the cart.  

A man at the highway intersection looking for spare change, 

with a sign in his hands, that just said, "Smile!" 

His face mirroring his admonition.

I hear so many stories of...

Hope reborn, and also, hope dashed.

Someone I know, is today rolling their shoulder away from their present situation, 

eyes on a greener pasture somewhere, anywhere.  

Another job.

Another city.

Another neighborhood.

Another school.

Another spouse.

                              Searching for peace.

With these thoughts spilling across my brain like puzzle pieces poured onto a table,

          I have come to a conclusion.  

There are no "magic beans" to get us what we really want.

Definitely they won't get us what we really need.

And I wish like everything, we could stop approaching life this way.

It's fruitless, and dark.

After these six decades of listening and observing,

                                   mourning with those who mourn,

I want to say that our peace cannot be found in "another anything."

At least not in a continual way, a lasting way.

We have discovered how to soothe its absence by medications; doctor prescribed or self-prescribed.

Those solutions may seem to help for a little while, but they are no cure.

As my days/weeks/months/years tick by I become more and more certain that         

                               the peace we seek comes in a person. 

Honestly, I hear the arguments against.  

But I have to say they mostly come from mistaking an institution for His person.

Meeting the Christ, is unfortunately not the same as meeting a Christian.

Or attending a church. 

It could be, and probably should be, but often times it just isn't.

He is wholly unlike our caricatures of him.  

He will not be boxed by anything we have heard about him.

He knows the misconceptions we have had.  Even mine.

He knew that we would doubt.

He knew the arguments that we would make; those of us who are searching.

That's why he said, his offering to us was different than what we would find apart from him.

It wouldn't make sense to any of us who were

                   seeking peace through the given processes around us;

                                                             through the equations we tabulated on our own,

                                                                              through our own devices.

That's why we struggle to find...PEACE.

We look for it in the emptiness of things.  

Or from others, whose well does not go deep enough

                                 to satisfy their own thirst, let alone ours.

And for that reason,

                  Wise men (and women) will still seek HIM.

                        AND when they do, without distracted intent

                               His promise is that he will be found, and with him, 

all that our heart is desperate for.

               

A Lesson For The Day

On the heels of the pandemic, comes war. 

Just thinking on that makes me wince.

We look forward to the opening up of our connections with each other again, 

and are drawn back to our knees as families in another part of the world are separated.

...Children and their nurturers this way and soldiers the other direction.

Perhaps though, this is the lesson.

Whenever we celebrate new birth, 

we should remember that someone else will be leaving us.

Whenever we celebrate freedom, 

we should remember someone else is struggling for their release.

It doesn't mean that we should be somber in our celebration, 

only that we should value it more than we do.

It's a deeper joy in the family that we are learning to appreciate today, 

reminding us that we are not islands unto ourselves, 

but a global family, in need of supporting each other...always.