...I'll be good sometime

Take my life, lead me, Lord, take my life, lead me, Lord,

Make my life useful to thee.

---R. Maines Rawls, 1968

I was sitting up late one night during a holiday break, when college-age children were ‘home’ for a bit. My cell phone chime startled me out of a thoughtful reverie (ok, Sarah, I was probably asleep in the green chair), and I picked it up to read the following text message: I’ll be good sometime. After my heart stopped racing, I was able to decipher the message; the sender’s predictive texting had interpreted the entered word ‘home’ as the word ‘good’ (same letters on the T9 keypad). And while I’ll be home sometime isn’t terribly specific, it is much more comforting than  I’ll be good sometime.

In this life, most of us can handle being called to ‘goodness’. We can do that, even if it is only ‘sometimes’. But, God knows, family, we are called to more than goodness. We are called to usefulness, to service, to faithfulness to the Savior who poured out his own life for ours.

Friends, we are not called just to be ‘good sometime’; we are called to be good for something.

...believing in 'all'

Pardon for sin and a peace that endureth,

Thine own dear presence to cheer and to guide;

Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow,

Blessings all mine, with ten thousand beside!

---Thomas O. Chisholm, 1923

The blessings of a life with God are many and varied, and this familiar hymn explores lots of them. One verse speaks of the blessings of nature --- the change of the seasons (although I am about done with this ‘all four seasons in just one week’ thing), the constellations in their utterly predictable paths, all of nature witnessing the attentions of a good God with imagination and aspiration.

I will admit to the next verse being my favorite, though, and it’s all about the third line --- “strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow.” God provides for us not only what we need to get through whatever presently troubles us --- worry, sorrow, fear --- but offers us a view of a tomorrow bright with hope. This seems to me the gift that keeps on giving.

All I have needed, Thy hand hath provided, indeed.

...I'll be good sometime

 Take my life, lead me, Lord, take my life, led me, Lord,

Make my life useful to Thee.

---R. Maines Rawls, 1968

I was sitting up late one night during a holiday break, when college-age children were ‘home’ for a bit. My cell phone chime startled me out of a thoughtful reverie (ok, Sarah, I was probably asleep in the green chair), and I picked it up to read the following text message: I’ll be good sometime. After my heart stopped racing, I was able to decipher the message; the sender’s predictive texting had interpreted the entered word ‘home’ as the word ‘good’ (same letters on the T9 keypad). And while I’ll be home sometime isn’t terribly specific, it is much more comforting than  I’ll be good sometime.

In this life, most of us can handle being called to ‘goodness’. We can do that, even if it is only ‘sometimes’. But, God knows, brothers and sisters, we are called to more than goodness. We are called to usefulness, to service, to faithfulness to the Savior who poured out his own life for ours.

Friends, we are not called just to be good; we are called to be good for something.

...bright hope for tomorrow

Pardon for sin and a peace that endureth,

Thine own dear presence to cheer and to guide;

Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow,

Blessings all mine, with ten thousand beside!

Thomas O. Chisholm, 1923

The blessings of a life with God are many and varied, and this familiar hymn explores lots of them. One verse speaks of the blessings of nature --- the change of the seasons (can I get an Amen for the beautiful weather lately?), the constellations in their utterly predictable paths, all of nature witnessing the attentions of a good God with imagination and aspiration.

I will admit to the next verse being my favorite, though, and it’s all about the third line --- “strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow.” God provides for us not only what we need to get through whatever presently troubles us --- worry, sorrow, fear --- but offers us a view of a tomorrow bright with hope. This seems to me the gift that keeps on giving.

All I have needed, Thy hand hath provided, indeed.

...beneath your wings

Show mercy to me, my God,
more mercy than I deserve,
my soul seeks sanctuary 
hidden in you;
I nestle in the safety and shelter 
beneath your wings
while storm winds tear apart the sky.
I call out to you,
you, who know the way ahead of me.
You will clear the path 
when there is none,
when obstructions block the way.
Your free-flowing love and 
faithfulness meet me where I am.
---Psalm 57:1-3, 5 (para. laca)

There they are, on the webcam. The bald eagle couple, the most famous on-campus residents of Berry College in Rome GA. The pair have nested high in a tree on campus for some time now, and the unfolding domestic drama has lured throngs of viewers to follow the...action, if you could call it that...on their own little nest-cam. With the entirety of campus designated a wildlife sanctuary, encounters of the wild kind are not uncommon; but even at Berry, the eagle family is big news. Rumor is that construction of an on-campus football stadium has been put on hold because its site includes the nesting tree!

So, I was interested to see how the eagle's nest would fare during the recent winter storm in north Georgia. After all, eggs were in the nest, and the eagle couple had been taking turns, sitting in the nest, precious treasures closely guarded under wing. Sure enough, heavy snow covered the Rome area, and the nest-cam showed a thick blanket of white (and not much else) on the nest, high in the tree. Where were the eagles? What would be the fate of the eggs, so vulnerable in the nest? And then I looked closer. And a small hole in the snowy blanket revealed an opening just big enough for a beak, and maybe a black, darting eye piercing the otherwise unbroken expanse of white. The eagle had been there, eggs tucked safely underwing, braving the ferocity of the storm to protect a future she dreamed for her young, a future he cleared the way for by showing up, over and over.

You, my shelter and my guide, steady and loving.

...to turn on the light

Do not, Mystery and Mercy, keep from me
what you alone can grant;
wrap me in the safety of your
strong and steady love,
let me feel the 'yes' of your faithfulness.
For the darkness of the world 
tangles around me,
enmeshed with my own 
inner shadow spaces,
until vision is a memory,
or a dream;
the shadows innumerable, 
my weakness takes my breath away.
You would delight to see me
delivered, relieved of
threats from the world,
and of my own weaving.
---Psalm 40:11-13 (para. laca)

It is so easy for me to get 'wrapped up', entangled, knotted, in the bad things happening out there. World things that happen because we are part of this world. Stuff that goes down in this broken world. Things people do that they have no business doing. Some of those things, they do to me. I know, right? And it makes me want to cry out, "God help us!" And sometimes I do. And once in a while I get a little more selfish, and I want to cry, "God help me!" 

And sometimes I do.

And God, Mystery and Mercy, says "Here I am." Which isn't always as satisfying as, "I hereby slap the baddies with tough karma and the flu!" But, then, God is God, and maybe plays the game a few moves ahead of us.

And there is this other thing. With all the darkness in the world, we sometimes can't let well enough alone. We go around creating more, and hiding it away in the nooks and crannies of our own souls. Friends, those shadowy places inside of us? They are at least as dangerous and threatening as the darkness the world tries to wrap around us. They push against us from the inside, sending out tangles of pain and hurt that interweave with the hurt and pain winding around us from the outside, and we are caught in the middle, left breathless and helpless, bound by the shadows. We can't even remember what it was to see clearly, or picture what it might be like to see again.

But the story doesn't end there. The great mystery and mercy is that, in the moment of our night-blindness, when we are bound by darkness falling on us and coming from us, there is One who is pleased to cut us loose, and turn on the light.

Praise be.