Caution: Green Fragility

I'm tired.

I'm really, really bone-weary. I'm not talking about the fact that I woke up this morning with a jaw-clenching, nausea-inducing migraine headache (which, thankfully, is beginning to dissipate now), and with sand-paper eyes that didn't want to stay open.

I'm tired of the social media "aura:" politics, arguments, name-calling, conspiracy theories, blindness, hatred, fear. 

We are a horribly divided people, both those outside the church... and those in it.

What a statement: The church, called to be one body, a single unit with Christ as our head... horribly divided. How have we arrived here?

That's an interesting word: Arrived. You know? It engenders this idea of Destination. Finality. The End of a Journey.

Is this really where we were headed? Is the end of our story truly I'm-over-here-and-you're-over-there-and-good-riddance?

Do you see why I'm tired? 

I interrupted my read-through and blogging of Genesis this morning to cry out to God with the desperation and fervor of Daniel. "Now, our God, hear the prayers and petitions of Your servant. For Your sake, oh Lord, look with favor on Your desolate sanctuary. Give ear, oh God, and hear; open Your eyes and see the desolation of the city that bears Your Name. We do not make requests of You because we are righteous, but because of Your great mercy. Oh Lord, listen! Oh Lord, forgive! Oh Lord, hear and act! For Your sake, oh my God, do not delay, because Your city and Your people bear Your name" (Daniel 9:17-19).

I used an illustration in one of my devotionals in The Hope Feathers. It's entitled Bride: Stuck, and I based my reflection on a character from Great Expectations. Dickens' book, despite not holding my interest as a whole, includes one of the most fascinating characters about whom I've ever read: Miss Haversham. 

Miss Haversham is a victim of unrequited love, a jilted woman, who lives her life amid the ruins of her great expectations. She is a ghost of what might have been, a relic, a dusty item that has been placed on a shelf and forgotten. Her house is shambling, her wedding feast is cobwebbed, her wedding dress is tattered, transformed into widow's weeds instead of ornate lacework. She can't face forward; she's stuck in a backward, rear-facing position, unable to see past her shattered hopes. 

Dare I say that the body of Christ is stuck? Dare I suggest that we are looking back at what we had considered to be our future? Dare I say we wear our tattered bridal gown like a widow's garment?

Y'all, I'm not talking politics, although I could certainly include that if that's where you're feeling convicted. I think the church, at least in the United States and maybe on a wider scale, is a victim of burnout, a natural consequence of a pandemic-election-multiple-natural-disasters-year. 

This morning while praying, I had a vision almost entirely in black and white, which I thought was significant, since other visions or pictures the Lord has given me usually claim a significant color. Yellow, orange, blue, etc.

Anyway, I saw an enormous ornate cathedral sanctuary, one of the kinds you enter, not only to worship, but, as a reverent tourist, you walk through with your head tilted back in awe as you discuss the architecture and stained glass in hushed whispers.

Only this sanctuary was the victim of an apparent fire. It was filled, ankle-deep, with ash and soot. The windows were bereft of stained glass; all had been shattered. Blackened scorch marks traced up the walls. Pews were askew and turned over. The stench was thick and difficult to breathe.

There was a person in the middle of the sanctuary with a mask over his face for protection against polluted air, no doubt (I had no sense of Covid; "post-fire" was the main essence of the picture). He was kicking things aside, brushing back soot with his boot, and his shoulders were rounded with despair. 

He stopped and bent down, shoved aside some ash on the floor. Here was the first evidence of color. A single, fragile sprout pushed up through the burned out stone floor, and it was green. The man cupped his hands around it to keep the soot from falling back on it, protecting it in all its fragility and preciousness. Life in the middle of death.

Now... when I have headaches, the pictures or visions that sometimes come are a bit more real, possibly because of the insistence of the pain. So take the details I've given you for what they're worth, with a grain of salt. I think, no matter what, it was obvious the Spirit was showing me the contrast between discouragement and hope, and pushing me, in my discouragement, toward the hope.

The church bears the name of Christ. Each of us, when we made that decision to follow Christ, were given a new name; we were sealed beneath the redemptive blood of Jesus, to be able to stand in the presence of God. "When you believed, you were marked in Him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit" (Ephesians 1:13b). 

Oh Lord, listen! Oh Lord, forgive! Oh Lord, hear and act! For Your sake, oh my God, do not delay, because Your city and Your people bear Your Name!

We the church, we the followers of Christ, we the bearers of His name, are called to persevere. Through the discouragement, through the darkness, soot, ash, broken dreams, tired plodding, endless struggle of sickness, dark days, pain, and death. We. are. called. to. persevere. Jude verses 17-19 lays out the struggle in vivid terms: "But, dear friends, remember what the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ foretold. They said to you, 'In the last times there will be scoffers who will follow their own ungodly desires.' These are the men who will divide you, who follow mere natural instincts and do not have the Spirit."

Huh. Division. That sounds hauntingly familiar.

Jude drives it home in verses 20-21: "But you, dear friends, build yourselves up in your most holy faith and pray in the Holy Spirit. Keep yourselves in God's love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life."

The language of hard work Jude is using here is tough grappling for my tired mind. I want to rest, but Jude says: "Build yourselves up." I want to lie down and sleep until this is all over, but Jude says: "Keep yourselves in God's love." I want to impatiently stamp my foot and stare up at heaven: Any time now, Lord; we're waiting for the cure to 2020. Jude says: "Wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ."

Wait. Wait? Where have I heard that before? Ah yes, from one of the Bible's best-known passages: "But those who wait on the Lord will renew their strength; they shall mount up (action... and rest) with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary (action... and rest), they shall walk and not faint (action... and rest)" (Isaiah 40:31).

What an incredible paradox! Action and rest. Rest as we build ourselves up, as we keep ourselves in God's love. Take action by praying in the Holy Spirit. 

You know, a friend of mine gave me a really interesting thought the other day. We were talking about prayer and intercession, praying in the Spirit, praying for God's will to be done. Of course, Romans 8:27 came up: "And He who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God's people in accordance with the will of God." 

My friend sometimes works as a translator for Spanish-speaking families, and she connected this verse to that work. Sometimes, she said, when a person is relating something in a different language, her job as a translator is not to translate word for word, but rather... to hear the heart of the message that needs to overcome the language and cultural barrier... and to translate that instead.

I think that is precisely what the Holy Spirit does for us. He is our Translator. He hears our hearts. Our faulty words are never enough, and I praise the Lord that He does not rely on our imperfect methods of communication. Instead, the Holy Spirit translates our hearts to the Lord, interceding for us because we can't overcome that language barrier by ourselves.

As a person who loves words, but keenly feels their limited capacity to fully express my heart, this greatly encouraged me, so I'm passing it on to you. There you go. :)