Groan
I stand at the kitchen door and watch the remnants of Harvey finish off the last of the brown, crunchy grass. Lush green has returned to our land, as it always does.
The sky is heavy gray and the wind swirls, leaves trembling frantically and branches swaying in every direction. Diagonal rain pelts streams into the empty sienna garden soil, and pools on the glass porch table, ceiling fan above turning lazily in the breeze.
This after a thousand miles of weakening on its journey north. I can't imagine the horror that Houston saw. Even the clips of weathermen clutching metal rails and shouting, heads drawn into their slickers like turtles, aren't enough for us to know what it was like during that storm.
Or even more, what it is like now.
I get to stand here in my safe, warm, secure little brick house. Someone else does not.
Why?
A child of God, I believe every moment of eight billion souls is held firmly in His hand, and that nothing is wasted. We are human. He is not. His ways and thoughts are higher than ours.
The rain is falling straight down now, hard.
What is this need we have to figure out life? To know a reason for everything? Better yet, to the Christian who has been promised that this side of Heaven is supposed to be trouble, why do we try so hard to make sense of something that never will?
Is it entitlement? Do we think we deserve better, or at least a reasonable explanation? Ignorance.
Is it superiority? Do we think we are so smart that we can dictate reason? Ignorance. Again.
Or could it possibly be an expression of the groan?
We know that the whole creation has been groaning
as in the pains of childbirth right up to the
present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who
have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly
as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the
redemption of our bodies.
Romans 8:22-23
The groan. The ache. That heart in your throat, porcupine in your stomach throb we feel watching humanity at its worst in Charlottesville and the skeletal forms of children in Africa and the cruel world of raging water in East Texas.
The groan that says, this is not OK. There is more, I can feel it. This is not my home.
Oddly enough, this same ache shows up when you thrust ten bucks into the outstretched hand of a panhandler and in the perfect harmony of a praise song and in watching Houstonians of all creed and color lifting each other from the waters.
And this one says, there it is. The body, one in spirit, the hands and feet of Christ. How it's supposed to be.
The groan? It has a name.
Hope.
...we wait eagerly for our adoption as
sons, the redemption of our bodies.
For in this hope we were saved.
Romans 8:23-24
The supernatural DNA breathed into us by our Creator, our nature as His image-bearers, knows how things should be. Knows what we were made for.
Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in Heaven, not built by human hands. Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed with our Heavenly dwelling, because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked. For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed with our Heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. Now it is God who has made us for this very purpose and has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.
2 Corinthians 5:1-5
The rain now a mist, late afternoon fog drifts south from the mountains. And this broken world just isn't going to be fixed.
But we can never tire of doing good, because this hope we believers have? There are many who don't have it. And they need it from us. We are the light of the world, the salt of the earth, indeed the hands and feet of Christ, and they will know we are His by our love.
I've long lived in a self-constructed bubble, terrified to look pain in the face and paralyzed in the overwhelming knowledge that whatever I might try to do to help, it would never be enough.
But the older I get, and honestly the older the boys get, I become more and more aware that I can't ignore it any longer. No more out of sight, out of mind. No more if we're OK, everyone's OK.
Maybe it's the urgency to rapidly separate the boys from their self-centeredness, because my greatest desire for them both is that they will persistently serve the Lord.
Mayte it's finally a bit of kinship with the suffering. No, I know nothing of losing everything or poverty or threat of violence. But after the last couple of years, I know more that ever before what it is to hurt.
I have to give my hope away.
Aden goes outside to feel the rain, now slanted and steady again. "It's like when I take a shower, but it's cold!"
He and his brother, his Dad and I, will be collecting life necessities this weekend for blessing buckets. And we will tell them that sometimes hope looks very much like a roll of toilet paper or a can of Chef Boyardee.
...to bestow on them a crown of beauty
instead of ashes,
the oil of gladness
instead of mourning,
and a garment of praise
instead of a spirit of despair.
Isaiah 61:3
Praying for you, Houston.
The sky is heavy gray and the wind swirls, leaves trembling frantically and branches swaying in every direction. Diagonal rain pelts streams into the empty sienna garden soil, and pools on the glass porch table, ceiling fan above turning lazily in the breeze.
This after a thousand miles of weakening on its journey north. I can't imagine the horror that Houston saw. Even the clips of weathermen clutching metal rails and shouting, heads drawn into their slickers like turtles, aren't enough for us to know what it was like during that storm.
Or even more, what it is like now.
I get to stand here in my safe, warm, secure little brick house. Someone else does not.
Why?
A child of God, I believe every moment of eight billion souls is held firmly in His hand, and that nothing is wasted. We are human. He is not. His ways and thoughts are higher than ours.
The rain is falling straight down now, hard.
What is this need we have to figure out life? To know a reason for everything? Better yet, to the Christian who has been promised that this side of Heaven is supposed to be trouble, why do we try so hard to make sense of something that never will?
Is it entitlement? Do we think we deserve better, or at least a reasonable explanation? Ignorance.
Is it superiority? Do we think we are so smart that we can dictate reason? Ignorance. Again.
Or could it possibly be an expression of the groan?
as in the pains of childbirth right up to the
present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who
have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly
as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the
redemption of our bodies.
Romans 8:22-23
The groan. The ache. That heart in your throat, porcupine in your stomach throb we feel watching humanity at its worst in Charlottesville and the skeletal forms of children in Africa and the cruel world of raging water in East Texas.
The groan that says, this is not OK. There is more, I can feel it. This is not my home.
Oddly enough, this same ache shows up when you thrust ten bucks into the outstretched hand of a panhandler and in the perfect harmony of a praise song and in watching Houstonians of all creed and color lifting each other from the waters.
And this one says, there it is. The body, one in spirit, the hands and feet of Christ. How it's supposed to be.
The groan? It has a name.
Hope.
sons, the redemption of our bodies.
For in this hope we were saved.
Romans 8:23-24
The supernatural DNA breathed into us by our Creator, our nature as His image-bearers, knows how things should be. Knows what we were made for.
2 Corinthians 5:1-5
The rain now a mist, late afternoon fog drifts south from the mountains. And this broken world just isn't going to be fixed.
But we can never tire of doing good, because this hope we believers have? There are many who don't have it. And they need it from us. We are the light of the world, the salt of the earth, indeed the hands and feet of Christ, and they will know we are His by our love.
I've long lived in a self-constructed bubble, terrified to look pain in the face and paralyzed in the overwhelming knowledge that whatever I might try to do to help, it would never be enough.
But the older I get, and honestly the older the boys get, I become more and more aware that I can't ignore it any longer. No more out of sight, out of mind. No more if we're OK, everyone's OK.
Maybe it's the urgency to rapidly separate the boys from their self-centeredness, because my greatest desire for them both is that they will persistently serve the Lord.
Mayte it's finally a bit of kinship with the suffering. No, I know nothing of losing everything or poverty or threat of violence. But after the last couple of years, I know more that ever before what it is to hurt.
I have to give my hope away.
Aden goes outside to feel the rain, now slanted and steady again. "It's like when I take a shower, but it's cold!"
He and his brother, his Dad and I, will be collecting life necessities this weekend for blessing buckets. And we will tell them that sometimes hope looks very much like a roll of toilet paper or a can of Chef Boyardee.
instead of ashes,
the oil of gladness
instead of mourning,
and a garment of praise
instead of a spirit of despair.
Isaiah 61:3
Praying for you, Houston.
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