Friday, September 12, 2014

A piercing name

I've spent a lot of my week in the cavernous area of the NFL and domestic violence, looking at it from a couple of angles I've yet to see in other circles.

But it's Friday. We need to look ahead. Why? Because Sunday's coming.

In this work where domestic violence has overtaken our thoughts, where Ferguson still is such a raw topic, where ISIS or ISIL or WHATEVER is a real and present danger, it is good to know this morning one idea above all else.

God told the prophet Isaiah: See, I have written your name on my hand. Today we go to great lengths to teach our pastors not to tell people that God has a plan specifically for your life, because that becomes problematic when things go so terribly for some people. When that happens, the idea is, that people, our congregations, will then blame God for what has happened. In other words, "you mean to tell me that the Holocaust was God's plans?"

But this is not that column.

This is about understanding that life happens, God makes good of whatever bad happens in the long (and sometimes the extremely short) run. And every little choice along the way makes ripples that will last a lifetime.

Yesterday I spent time in my hometown. We drove by the house I called home for but 12 of my 61 years but that my mother called home for 45 years. It looked wonderful, and the owner, my cousin, had done a wonderful job with the land in front of it. I teared as I look on it for the first time since I sold it and left the property eight years ago.

I can do many things through Christ, but I can't go back again.

The point is this: Had I not sold it, conceivably we might be living there one day, heck maybe even this one.

Every movement, every moment, every magnificently magnified choice ripples through our future's. And God sees them all, outside of time, and can (I believe) adjust to take even the worst of our moments, movements, mangled and mismanaged choices to the good not just for us but for the world around us.

He has my name written on the palm of his hand. That both comforts me and informs me. I am a creature created by THE creator to live to the best of my ability. That usually isn't very well. I fail far more than I should at this advanced age. But I get up when I fall and I turn to Him who knows every mistake I've ever made and loves me anyway. No one else on the planet can say that to me and mean it. No one else can categorize the mistakes, the poor choices, the sins I've committed. No one could live with all the dirty hands I have.

But he spread the hands that I had dirtied wide, with my name on them, and he let a nail pierce my name. That nail split the BI and the LLY because of my mistakes, poor choices and sins. I know that. I realize that. I feel that.

He knows my name. What a responsibility. What a job. What a joy.

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