Thursday, January 15, 2015

Yet, still, even though ... Just go ahead and celebrate

I've always loved the close Of the prophet Habakkuk's writing. In it he says (CEB), "Though the fig tree doesn't bloom, and there's no produce on the vine; though the olive crop withers, and the fields don't provide food; though the sheep are cut off from the pen, and there is no cattle in the stalls, I will rejoice in the Lord. I will rejoice in the God of my deliverance. The Lord God is my strength. He will set my feet like the deer. He will let me walk upon the heights."

It is easy, I believe, to focus on the very end, to see God setting our feet like the deer and letting us walk upon the heights.

But the sheer beauty of this passage is that earlier the prophet makes clear that no matter what, though nothing be working, though the bills have stacked like cord wood before a fireplace that is not lit, though the animals are, uh, animals and they have run away, still, yet, even though, God is our strength and we should, must, will rejoice.

I'm writing this, looking out a picture window at a street being pelted by a cold, cold rain. It is the middle of the bleakest of months, this January. I'm working toward, well, whatever.

And yet, still, even though I must rejoice.

He walks the garden with me in the noon-day sun.
He holds me when the tears come like a cold, cold rain.
He drifts away with me at night when the work has worn me to a frazzle.
His mighty arm is there to gently drape my shoulders.

We are not alone, friends.
We can argue about it, debate His existence, and generally make a pontificating idiot of ourselves.
But we are not alone.

He is there in the dark, spreading light.
There in the rain, painting rainbows.
There is the mist with a lighthouse.
There in the snow with potato soup (that's mine).

I don't know what the next six months will hold. I never have. Never will, I'm guessing. But what I do know is He who decides on the figs blooming, the produce growing, the sheep, er, shipping and the cattle hopping onto my plate or the milk into my glass.

He. It's all about Him. Never been about us.

Yet, still, even though I rejoice.

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