Showing Up in the Places we Least Expect.

Quote for the Day:
"Know that God is present most closely when He seems to be farthest away, and that He is most merciful and most the Savior when He seems most to be wrathful and to punish and condemn," Martin Luther (LW:27, p.27).
Texts:

Psalm 77

Job 5:8-27

1 Peter 3:8-18a

Who are we, that we should question God?  Who is God, that God should want to hear it?  It is with raised fists and yelling voices that we bring our cases to God.  It is out of this struggle that faith is born, the birth pangs of belief harkened by the soul rattling its cage.

I scream at you,

In case you are hard of hearing..

Can you see me struggling here?

Can you see me wearied of proclaiming,

   fearing I yell at the wind?

I am wakened by the nightmare,

  Your voice is silent within me.

I tell myself your stories, stories of 

  you coming to the aid of your child.

Is the voice within me the voice of evil,

  Or your voice?  Or is it mine, alone?

Will you be silent forever?  Have you no respone?

Is this Word still true,

  Or was it for long ago and far away?

It was once said: "The LORD is gracious and merciful,

  Slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love."

Do not forget me, O God; I have nowhere else to turn.

I tell myself the story, the story that has swept me up

  Into You.

I remind myself of the laughter and the joy

  The Promise of fullness of life.

I know you're still there,

  Even as my complaint blows in the wind.

I see the stars, and I see the ocean, and I am swept up,

  bolstered to see Your work as a testament to Your faithfulness.

I am small, and I am scared,

 the cracking of twigs makes me jump;

The rhythm of creation lulls me to sleep,

 And I will rise another day,

Hoping, trusting, believing, grasping for Your mercy,

That each breath might remind me Your Spirit dwells within.

This Lent, I am encouraging my community of faith to tell the truth: about ourselves, about God, about our tendency to argue with God.  Lifting up our brokenness, lifting up our dependence, lifting up our propensity to try to pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps.  Ours is a dual confession: breathing in and breathing out, we tell the truth of our amazement that God keeps showing up in the places we would least expect.