a gracious gift

A dear friend from Uganda, whom I frequently keep in touch with, sent me a very disheartening, unfortunate message:

"today has been really sad for me, yesterday I spent a night at my friend's place and it really rained heavily at night, in the morning I went to check my room and I felt so sad that bags, clothes were really wet..."

I never had to worry about my tin roof, over my tiny, one-room house, leaking and getting my stuff all wet. Many of my worries, concerns, and problems look very different from the average Ugandan's worries. I have always struggled with romanticizing poverty. I must constantly remind myself that living in poverty doesn't equate to a more ready heart of thanksgiving. 

I have been thinking a lot lately about how to cultivate a more grateful heart...how to live in sync with soul and body and God....how to slow down and wake up and fully live. After all we are God's breath, God's life, God's glory. How paradoxical and offensive it is to think how ungrateful we can be at times when every single fiber of our being is made in His glory...we exude His glory.

I like being around people, there is so much in life, in my life, that I love, I have so many curiosities, interests, hobbies, hobbies I hope to pick up sometime, so many ambitions, dreams, hopes, plans, so many places I still want to travel to, several post-docs I dream about pursuing, countless lists of books I want to read........and all these things are great but they can be so distracting sometimes. We are relational beings who have many interests and we live in a world of many interesting things...some of which can help us draw closer to God but if we don't take the time to slow down then it is almost impossible to truly cultivate a heart of thanksgiving. Although God can be found in all these things, it can be terribly hard for us to find God in them when we are in a hurried rush. We are commanded to enter His courts with thanksgiving. When we are thankful we see God more clearly but thankfulness cannot be deeply planted in our hearts if we don't first slow down enough to reflect on what we are thankful for.

Help us, Lord, to learn to give thanks incessantly, to make every sigh and every breath one of thanksgiving, help us to give thanks for the breeze through the open window, help us to give thanks for the elderly man picking out flowers at the florist, help us to live in a posture of gratitude.

We have been offered grace upon grace upon grace upon grace upon more grace....the amount of grace we give depends on how grateful we are for the grace we have been given. 

Though we grieve, though we wonder, we must slow down and wake up and perceive each moment for what it is: holy, ordinary, amazing grace...a gift. 

stillness

       In the busyness of this day

grant me a stillness of seeing, O God.

In the conflicting voices of my heart

grant me a calmness of hearing.

Let my seeing and hearing 

my words and my actions

be rooted in a silent certainty of your presence. 

Let my passions for life

and the longings of justice that stir within me

be grounded in the experience of your stillness.

Let my life be rooted in the ground of your peace, O God,

let me be rooted in the depths of your peace.

--from Celtic Benedictions, J Philip Newell

holy, holy, holy

Lately I have been reflecting on just how little I know of holiness.

R.C. Sproul makes an insightful observation from Isaiah 6:

“The Bible says that God is holy, holy, holy. Not that He is merely holy, or even holy, holy. He is holy, holy, holy. The Bible never says that God is love, love, love, or mercy, mercy, mercy, or wrath, wrath, wrath, or justice, justice, justice. It does say that He is holy, holy, holy, the whole earth is full of His glory.”

To be holy is to be set apart, distinct, in a class by oneself….meaning God is transcendentally separate. Sproul goes on to say that “He is so far above and beyond us that He seems almost totally foreign to us.” To be holy is to be “other.” 

A.W. Tozer beautifully writes:

 “We cannot  grasp the true meaning of the divine holiness by thinking of someone or  something very pure and then raising the concept to the highest degree we are  capable of.  God’s holiness is not simply  the best we know infinitely bettered.  We  know nothing like the divine holiness.   It stands apart, unique, unapproachable, incomprehensible and  unattainable.  The natural man is blind  to it.  He may fear God’s power and admire God’s wisdom, but His holiness he cannot even  imagine.”

We can’t even use the word holy as an attribute to describe God. Purity is contained within the idea of holiness but even the purest form of purity is still not pure enough to even capture the smallest part of what it means to be holy.

Earlier this year when I was doing some heavy reading through the Old Testament, I was quite literally (and ironically) struck with awe when I read 2 Samuel 6:1-11. David and his chosen thirty thousand men were bringing the Ark of God to Jerusalem. As the Law specified, they set the Ark on a new cart –not just any cart –which was carried by men of Kohath –not just any men.  

As the oxen pulled the cart over the threshing floor, the Ark suddenly became unsteady. Then Uzzah stuck out his hand to help steady the Ark. Uzzah unintentionally violated the “do not touch any holy thing, lest you die” principle; therefore, God struck him for his tragic error.

I am pretty sure I shared in some of David’s anger over the Lord’s outbreak against Uzzah when I first read this. I mean I am pretty sure most of us would have done exactly as Uzzah did. If you saw that the Ark of God was about to come crashing to the floor wouldn’t you have unconsciously reached out your hand to help steady it to avoid a catastrophe? I know I would have.

The instant anger I initially shared with David upon first reading this passage just goes to show that we can’t even begin to comprehend God’s holiness. God’s ways are so much higher than our ways and His thoughts are so much higher than our thoughts.

I think this passage also reminds us to be constantly mindful of the holiness of God in our everyday lives. So often I find myself rushing to God in prayer or sometimes rushing through prayers….it is in these instances that I have to pause and remind myself that I am speaking to the Most Holy of Holies.

It is so hard for us to understand God’s holiness because where God is holy is where we are most unlike God….His very name means the “wholly other.” Where He is most holy, we are most unholy; yet, in all His incomprehensible holiness, He has somehow allowed us to share in His holiness by paying for our sins without tainting any part of His own holiness with our un-holiness. Reflecting on this helps me to feel like I understand less of God’s holiness which in turn helps me to genuflect in greater awe of just how infinitely holy He is and how infinitely un-holy I am.