Blog
Patience
Paul stood up and began to speak: “The God of this people Israel made the people great during their stay in the land of Egypt, and with uplifted arm God led them out of it. For about forty years God put up with them in the wilderness.”
– Acts 13:16-18, excerpts (NRSV)
I often wonder why God puts up with us.
We’re terribly wasteful – with the planet, with one another, with life. We’re dreadfully self-centered – in our pride, in our needs, even in our shame. We’re easily frightened – by what is new, by what is unknown, by what is evil, and (puzzlingly) by what is good.
What kind of deity has patience for such behavior, generation after generation?
“A loving God,” is the right answer, of course. I still know my Sunday school lessons. But my lingering dissatisfaction with the right answer suggests that I’m asking the wrong question.
What kind of people continue such behavior, generation after generation?
People in pain. People in pain because of evil, and people causing pain out of evil. People carrying the unhealed pain of previous generations. People jealous of the healing others have found. People raging against everything and everyone except the pain itself.
When my kids were in elementary school, I learned to recognize that a sour attitude at home in the evening meant they had poured all their energy into keeping their composure during the school day, only melting down into a tantrum at home where it was safe to do so. For forty years in the wilderness, the ancient Israelites raged and wrestled against God, finally releasing generations of pain that they had kept tightly concealed while living under Pharaoh’s oppression.
And God put up with them.
Not because God is patient with pain. But because God is patient with healing.
Prayer: Put up with me a little longer, God, in this wilderness of healing.
written for the Daily Devotional
Love, Rise
Sun, rise and welcome the new day I have dreaded
Love, rise and stand in the gap of my silent fears
I watch the sunrise because I long for your warmth
River, rise and carry away this ache of sorrow
Love, rise and wash over me with wonder
I come to the water because I miss you
Song, rise and swell my heart with stubborn hope
Love, rise and free my tongue from its mantra of shame
I brave the song because I need a lullaby
Wilderness, rise and strip death bare of its lush ivy
Love, rise and stretch toward life with joyful growth
I wait beneath the tree because I am lost
Moon, rise and invite in the rest I have resisted
Love, rise and baptize my skin with your blessing
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