The rest of the country is caught up with Johnny Depp courtroom drama, but I can’t stop thinking about about the Son of God on the stand a couple thousand years ago. The testimony against Jesus was shaky at best; the witnesses couldn’t keep their stories straight and lied like veritable rugs to further their purposes.
Author: Anna
We, too, try to rearrange the hands of God according to our own agenda. Where Jacob truly was aged and unsighted, our God is ageless and omniscient.
I have limited opportunity to take my trash to the curb. The garbage guys, God bless ’em, only come by once a week. If we fail to roll out the bin, we’re out of luck for seven more days. This is not the case with our God. He is always, endlessly ready to receive our trash! He’s waiting, with forgiveness in hand, happy to exchange our sin for righteousness. Isn’t that amazing?
Rest makes room for repentance. When one slows their soul to God’s speed, they suddenly become aware of all the ways they’ve fallen short. They have time and space to feel the angst in their frame and address the issue. Rest allows for repentance and repentance is the reset button; the presser is awarded another opportunity to live God’s way.
Jesus knew the limitations of His disciples. He realized they could not alleviate His pain, but He had hoped that they might, at the very least, keep pace with Him that final night. They did not know the future He was facing or the agony He would endure, but they could be present in His affliction. In those moments of anguish, in the time and space where Jesus set His face like flint toward the tasks at hand, He was simply wanting a witness for His pain.
More than a decade ago, I had gone to the grocery store with my mom picking up a few things. It was the week between Christmas and New Year’s and she was on the hunt for pumpernickel bread and pickled herring. I must have blanched when she flagged down an employee and made her request because once she found her wares, she turned to me and indicted: “Don’t you eat picked herring and pumpernickel on New Year’s? It’s good luck.”
It’s been said that life has two halves. The first half is all busyness: learning, growing, achieving, collecting, producing, consuming. But the second half is markedly slower: it is the sacred space where one finally makes peace with stillness.
Falling in love with Jesus has been the most transformative endeavor of my life: more than learning to read or write or setting foot in another country or even getting married. Loving Jesus has sent me on a journey of healing and wholeness and love for others that could not have happened by any other means.
Even though Cain and and his brother became full-grown men with careers and responsibilities, Cain still interacted with the world and God as an emotional toddler. He threw tantrums, he was selfish, accusatory and violent.
As we age, our tents start to show signs of depreciation. But old age and even death is not the end of our story: one day soon, we’ll trade in these canvas coverings for eternal dwellings: homes of brick and mortar.