When I Can’t
There are days. You have them. I have them. I know my concerns are minimal. Still. Days when the illnesses and death in the congregation, in our circle of friends, in the news, just hurt. The seemingly never ending sorrows of injustice and hate pour out like poison from every corner. When evil puts on work boots and tromps into towns already broken from poverty, injustice, fear, isolation… seems like there is such cosmic unrest that nothing will assuage it. I can’t.
This “I can’t” litany goes beyond mind and body. It hits the soul. Hard. I am tired. Very tired. I suspect that you are too. Tired of constrictions on how to go to the store, tired of the sense of helplessness that comes from such destruction of life borne from racial divides. Tired is where evil would like to keep us. In a state of hopelessness. Anger. Disappointment. Fear. Weary of the ways that reveal the horrible, sinful worst in us. Selfishness, greed, hoarding, denial, soulless killing.
Maybe like me, you acknowledge our failures as society, and do your best to keep on keeping on. Because we do what we have to do. Maybe you smooth over this knowledge with determination and fiercely fight forward. But even then. There are days.
I confess, this morning is one of those days. I need, we need rest. Rest from the whole “ball of wax”. And who has one of those? What a strange expression!
I can tell you, that when I can’t, there is one solace that I can reach out for, sit into and find what I need. God. God’s word. The Psalms has become a go to for me to get in touch with the soul work I need to express. When words are not enough. When we are bent over with any and all the complicated human feelings that make us unique, individual and real. I pick up the Bible and read until I find myself. Flipping through the pages, starting to read … nope, that’s not it, no, no, and YES! There it is. The ancient words come at me like a rush of roaring water. Demanding I stand into the truth. I can bring all, I mean all. every single part of me before God. Psalms is a gateway to move spiritually towards God. When I can’t, God can.
God can understand the darkest parts of us, the parts we can’t even articulate. God shines light on the true pain that grinds us down, shifting the language of our mind to the language of truth. The Holy Spirit brings insights, understandings to our questions and fears. The awareness of words written well before our time, can erase boundaries of expectations for myself, for our society. Revelations of how I have done, like society, and stopped letting the words of God inhabit my actions, allowed confessions go unspoken, reconciliation become what we deem “unnecessary” until our soul is full to the brim with unrest. Peace is a place where I can’t, we can’t, find our way to that sacred ground.
Without God. Without addressing every little part of that which is me, and lifting it up to be examined by God. These examinations are easily dismissed because they require our full attention. Excuses and reasonings allow us to skip this important spiritual work. I don’t have time…. oh the hours that I occupy with so many “important” things. The hours wasted listening to news, repeating over and over the failings of humanity. The time of mindless entertainment that is our way of resting, that leave our minds on a spinning wheel. You know, like the ones we bought for our pet gerbils? We put the wheel in their cage. For exercise. To distract them from their circumstance of confinement, their dependence on our beneficence for food, water and safety. Are we on a wheel that provides only distraction, not resolution to our state of soul?
I don’t know about you, but when I feel like the landscape of life is circling around and around, when I can’t see where I am going, when I can’t believe in others good will, when I can’t lift one foot before the other, I have one “can do”.
Stop. Get off the wheel.
Wait upon the Lord. Read words of the Psalms that bring me to my knees with truth, and begin to lift up the scattered pieces of my soul for God to touch. To hold, to bind together what is broken in me. To let me say and feel and pray and wait until God is done with me. Done so that the litany of my heart changes. The soul which said, “I can’t” begins to say a welcome phrase that allows me to begin again. With hope. With faith. With confidence in the Lord, not in my own abilities. With the banner of love that patches up the tears and jagged edges of the soul with balm that heals and makes right.
Right with the Lord, by God’s grace and mercy. Then I say, “With God, I can. With God I will.”
It might take some time, maybe as much as we have spent on other things in a day. Assuredly, I say that that the time spent with the Lord is the way to find truth, to reseat priorities on what God is about. before we absorb what the world is about.
Do not be discouraged, for God is with us. God understands our days, nights and words that speak of our state and pours new mercies, new graces into our life. God can. On that I can live. I pray you will let God take you by the hand, by the heart and give you all you need for this day, every day. We can change the world, when we let God lead.
I am praying for you, I love you and God can when we can’t. Always.
Pastor Lisa |