There are a lot of disadvantages to a long-distance relationship. From the time I first took a serious interest in Laura to the time we were married, we only spent about 10 weeks together in person. We spent the rest of that two-year time period on different continents. We never really had a first date, unless Skype counts. We couldn't celebrate birthdays or holidays together. You miss so much of the person when all you experience of them is their words on a page.
[A]t the very same time that we continue to ask our Father in heaven to "lead us not into temptation," nevertheless we continue to rejoice when we find ourselves in that very place. Even there God is with us. Even there God is sovereign over every last detail of the situation. And even there God has a good end in mind for his beloved children.
This shirt is such a tangible link to the past. It's a connection, a rope to hold onto that's tied to days gone by on its other end. And what if the link breaks? The connection lost? The rope snaps? It feels like I'd lose a little piece of my history, a little piece of me.
I don't think it's hyperbole to say that "All torturing questions find / Answer beneath those old grey olive trees." The answers that linger there with Jesus in Gethsemane may not be exactly what you would have hoped for, but they are the answers you need.
We recognize and lament the cuts we've all taken to the bone and the excruciating pain that has cracked us through to the very core.... And we take a deep breath, lift our eyes up and away from the grief that clings to us like mud on shoes, and we understand that, in fact, we have a much bigger problem.
It is a difficult thing to come to terms with the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as he reveals himself in his word. So often I'd much rather paint a caricature of him and get to know the idol I've fashioned in my own image. My idols, even the ones I call Yahweh, are always much easier to accept, much less demanding, and are always neatly under my control.
"It's a big, scary world out there. We could all make lists three miles long of things to fear.... So I don't need to rehearse all the things that make us afraid. Just turn on the news for five minutes and let your heart start palpitating." But what is it about fear anyway?
I stopped the car just past the man, and we got out. On the ground next to the wall, two white shoes stuck out from underneath a large sheet of black plastic. When Laura had found the woman on her way home, the woman had been lying in the mud completely exposed to the cold. She was barely conscious then. Now it appeared she was completely unconscious. Laura pulled back the plastic. Sure enough. Out like a light.
Just like God intended, God had spoken through his creation, and his words were unmistakable: "I am here." But that wasn't all God was saying to me in that moment, for because I had read the words of a much older book, I also knew that the God who exists is also for me.
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