Catching Up

Wow! If there are any readers, I apologize for not blogging in a while. Things are moving in some different, yet positive ways in life. The month of June has been particularly illuminating.

To start, I was challenged by some friends at the beginning of the month to get involved in God's word on a more intentional basis. I began Psalm 119. It has always fascinated me. As I studied through the Psalm, I picked up a book I had purchased a few years back entitled, Dietrich Bonhoeffer's Meditation on Psalms. The passage I read in Bonhoeffer's book was Psalm 119:17-24. Here are the verses:

Do good to your servant, and I will live;
I will obey your word.
¹⁸ Open my eyes that I may see
wonderful things in your law.
¹⁹ I am a stranger on earth;
do not hide your commands from me.
²⁰ My soul is consumed with longing
for your laws at all times.
²¹ You rebuke the arrogant, who are cursed
and who stray from your commands.
²² Remove from me scorn and contempt,
for I keep your statutes.
²³ Though rulers sit together and slander me,
your servant will meditate on your decrees.
²⁴ Your statutes are my delight;
they are my counselors.

Bonhoeffer's commentary on verse 19 struck me with both humility and confidence. It stated, "No word is said here about our true home. I know that this earth cannot be it and know that the earth is God's and that I am, even while on this earth, not only a stranger, but God's pilgrim and alien (Psalm 39:12). But, because on earth I am nothing as a stranger, without rights, without support, without security, because God himself has made me weak and poor, therefore he has given me for my goal a pledge, unfailing: his Word. This one certainty he will not take away from me. This Word will hold me to him and will let me feel his power. When the Word is familiar and close to me, I can find my way in a strange land, my justice in injustice; my security in uncertainty; my strength in work; my patience in suffering. 'Do not hide your commands from me.' That is the prayer of the pilgrim in a strange land."

There is still that emptiness in my heart because I do not depend on God's word, and, ultimately, God Himself like the Psalmist. However, I continue to be motivated to draw nearer to Him and know him well enough to have that face-to-face, eye-to-eye relationship that God desires (see Psalm 32:8). The journey is rough, but, as Jimmy Dugan said in "A League of Their Own, "It's supposed to be hard! If it wasn't hard, everyone would do it. The hard... is what makes it great!" Like baseball, this journey is never easy. And, while the effort may seem fruitless, it is joy to know that the pursuit is not in vein.

Today, as I have prepared for a church retreat this weekend, I ran into a great quote. It is from a Relevant Magazine article for the July issue. The quote stated, "Christianity is a robust culture in which anything can be asked and everything can be said. The call to worship is a call to complete candor and radical questioning." Wow! Yet, that complete candor and complete questioning calls me, as always, to lay in a raw, unedited state before the God of the universe.

There is so much more, but I don't want to bore you, dear Reader. Until next time....