Ramblin' on

Some days you feel the weight and press of your humanness. Those moments and hours when your heart and your mind don’t match. Flesh and blood are heavy; the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.

Mundane living is full these days, yet mercy is great and grace is given for all things. Much to ponder, to process, to practice. Three hour classes provide a good bit to digest and sometimes the path from the head to the heart is long and meandering. I pray for His Spirit to work amid these times, to wake me up from apathy constantly, to open my eyes to the sin of my heart, and to draw my gaze up toward Him in whom is all loveliness and all sufficiency.

He has inexplicably chosen me to run this race, to undergo this painful, glorious process called recreation. He’s plucked up the unlovely and given me an eternal inheritance, an unfading hope. Something began to make sense this week, something that I’d wondered long about. Locked in debate with Erasmus, Luther once wrote “The love of God does not find, but creates, that which is pleasing to it. The love of man comes into being through that which is pleasing to it.”

This quote brought out in clarity the disparity between the extravagant love of God for me and my own weak, pitiful excuse for devotion. It’s the dichotomy of the Christian life, that realization that we’re offering Him rags and He’s giving us His robes. Unfaithfulness for hesed. How can these two things even bear the same name?

The strands of men and nations stand as a grand masterpiece in which I am but a stitch, a breath, a blade of grass that will soon fade and pass away. I stand with generations to my back, likely generations ahead, and there’s one thing that binds together this metanarrative of His redemption. He’s called out a people, choosing some to live, to go back to Eden, to stand up as the Bride of His Son.

Yet in all this weakness and press of moments there is also a freshness, like I’m in the calm before the storm, on the verge of a plunge, as one friend put it. I’m gathering tools now, setting the rooms of my mind in order, charting patterns of the heart to last a lifetime. I’m all too aware this is imperfect, and the remodeling will take a lifetime of rebuilding, expansion, and reorientation by the power of the Spirit. Lifetime learning is a good paradigm, but I’m starting to be convicted of a rut in my thinking about life. Were I to go on to Oxford for another four years this rut might be necessary or even useful. But I’m graduating in a few months, and the plains stretch out before me—wild and unknown.

Earlier this week, one professor described an analogy developed by Edwards; that of a river which stretches out a matter of feet ahead and leaves us wishing we could somehow snatch that aerial view. Yet were we to actually get that glimpse of what lay ahead, of the twists and turns, the obstacles and impossibilities that clog the way, our hearts would fail within us.

As it turns out, all the things our Father ordains in the face of our doubt and anxiety, carelessness and fear—those things are always the best. It never fails. They far surpass all the things we thought we wanted, needed, or deserved. The given good is always best. And He gives grace.

So our good Father keeps the veil in place, keeps us ramblin’ on, fighting the fight, pursuing that celestial city He’s prepared for us. Jobes writes, “And perseverance works toward spiritual maturity and wholeness, presented implicitly as a worthy goal in the life of the Christian. One’s lifetime in its entirety seems to be in view as the period of potential testing and trials. . . James calls his readers to wholeheartedness toward God, a quality entailed in Jesus’ command to love God with all one’s being.”

Through it all, He is with us. It’s the breathless expectation of Emmanuel foretold by the prophets, long awaited amid exile, and coming true in the Person of Christ. He gave us, His people, a mission. But never, never will we be alone. This He promised the disciples just before He ascended to the right hand of the Father—where He sits now. The patriarchs, the prophets, the judges, the men and women of old caught the merest shadow of what God actually planned to do, yet they remained steadfast, persevering in hope despite sight.

The world surrounding me is far different than theirs, yet the deepest, truest things have not altered. None of the good promises of God will fall to the ground, and every one finds their yes and amen in Christ—the One to whom I am united in faith.

So whatever lies ahead, I pray I never lose sight of Him, never lose the soul hunger that seeks His face, never lose the wondering delight in the gospel. May I be used to bring others to Him, and may He preserve my faith despite me. Josh Garrels sings it truly:

Farther along we’ll know all about it
Farther along we’ll understand why
Cheer up my brothers, live in the sunshine
We’ll understand this, all by and by

Tempted and tried, I wondered why
The good man died, the bad man thrives
And Jesus cries because he loves em’ both
We’re all cast-aways in need of ropes
Hangin’ on by the last threads of our hope
In a house of mirrors full of smoke
Confusing illusions I’ve seen

Where did I go wrong, I sang along
To every chorus of the song
That the devil wrote like a piper at the gates
Leading mice and men down to their fates
But some will courageously escape
The seductive voice with a heart of faith
While walkin’ that line back home

So much more to life than we’ve been told
It’s full of beauty that will unfold
And shine like you struck gold my wayward son
That deadweight burden weighs a ton
Go down into the river and let it run
And wash away all the things you’ve done
Forgiveness alright

Still I get hard pressed on every side
Between the rock and a compromise
Like the truth and pack of lies fightin’ for my soul
And I’ve got no place left go
Cause I got changed by what I’ve been shown
More glory than the world has known
Keeps me ramblin’ on

Skipping like a calf loosed from its stall
I’m free to love once and for all
And even when I fall I’ll get back up
For the joy that overflows my cup
Heaven filled me with more than enough
Broke down my levee and my bluff
Let the flood wash me

And one day when the sky rolls back on us
Some rejoice and the others fuss
Cause every knee must bow and tongue confess
That the son of God is forever blessed
His is the kingdom, we’re the guests
So put your voice up to the test
Sing ‘Lord, come soon.’”