It occurred to me this week the way the river can have a similar illusion as an airplane does when you look at it from the opposing direction. If we didn’t know better it could seem as though both were moving in slow motion. How similar this is to family, to life.
Sometimes from certain angles, we can look at our lives and buy into an illusion that it’s going too slow or not enough fill-in-the-blank-here. We are in the current and goodness gracious it is fast. Yet it is also tricky to perceive correctly, dangerously so. We can’t see ourselves. Everyday there are choices before us to make instant after instant toward a soft heart or a bitter one. Everyday there is the option of life or death.
Jesus (Yeshua) said to His would-soon-be disciples, “Come and see”, in response to them asking Him where he was staying. Everyday I want to become more like Jesus, dwell with Him, but everyday I feel the capacity within myself to pull more away from this willingness to open up my own living space. What benefit is there for others to come and see my humanity, my need for humility, and my hampered places?
It turns out relationship, willingness to share our lives as well as share in others, is one of the best ways to perceive our current currents or flight path. It’s risky still, and painful often, no doubt. However, insipid life does not flow here. Yet when it seems so, a voice in the wilderness calls, “Taste and see”. Never choosing for us but ever and always inviting us on to walk with mercy and justice. In this, I tremble and fear, I falter and praise, I linger and long to know my Creator who is a king and who is kind, and I find contentment.
He invites us to taste and see? Breather of all life, Namer of every star, Word and Wisdom made flesh. He speaks and it is. I say, “Yes, Lord”, as I remember His way, “Come and see.” I say, “Help Lord”, as I walk on into the wilderness of this blessed daily life. Teach me the way of contentment, to perceiving correctly the enough-ness you have created me with. So enough, so loved, that I need not run after material gains nor emotional canes.
But godliness with contentment is great gain. -1 Timothy 6:6
Quiet us in Your love so that we can see when we are demanding from others what they cannot give. Quiet us in Your love so that we can see what has already been given.
Quiet us in Your dwelling place, that is better than life, that teaches us hope and contentment even in the midst of a sense of losing ourselves, not being able to see ourselves.
Let us hear Your voice.
Just like your days, mine are a skeleton waiting to see how I will procure it with life, sustenance, and health or otherwise. The seeds of change planted daily over years now bear fruit and are harvested, wheat and weed together. What will survive? What will we plant and allow to be sown in us today? Start here?
“In the reverence of the LORD one has strong confidence,
and his children will have a refuge.” – Proverbs 14:26
Not in the reverence of plans or fulfilled expectations, that is not where our confidence can be sure. Not in the honoring of perfection by our definitions, not in our perceptions, no, all these things disappoint. We need a rock higher than all of that to stand and to see from. In God, Who for all of His mystery has revealed enough of Himself for us to grab hold of, we can be confident. And as we look to Him, those who look to us will see our gaze, our refuge.
Is hope or contentment a struggle for you right now? Send me an email and I’d be more than happy to get to pray for you and walk onward with you today, with hope to see.
Raynna
The photos for this week’s post were taken on my iPhone in the Columbia River Gorge of Washington State where I live with my husband and homeschool our six children. I love to share here and am so thankful for my readers. I welcome you to stay. Let’s grow together.
Read some of my previous posts to see what it’s like around here:
A Feast For When You Feel Like You Might Lose It, For When You’re Afraid
Take Us Into the Real: Teach Us How to Forgive