the undiscourageable God

"I know somehow that only when it is dark enough can we see the stars." - Martin Luther King Jr. from the speech "I have been to the mountaintop" 

Sometimes in this 2 year moment of life, I think that Kelly and I were called here to learn about servanthood.  Other times I think we're here to learn about how to love one another.  Still other times I think that we arrived here to realize that in life, we have not yet arrived, and so this moment is to teach us more about us.  And then there are sacred moments where I can see quite clearly that we are here to learn more about the God of Jacob.  I am in that sacred space right now.  It's one of those moments where I can't decide if I should remove my sandals, or stand at the gate of the city proclaiming the greatness of our God.

I realized that God in His omnipotence, still moves step for step with us.  He doesn't wait on the side of peace, encouraging us to have patience and to learn from the experience, removed from it all.  Rather He gets down in the muck, and experiences discouragement with us, and grieves the brokenness with us.  But when we give over to despair, He perseveres in hope.  When we reach our end, He carries us through to the actual end.

My pastor back home often reminded us that God "stoops" to us.  He doesn't bend at the waist and look down at us, he bends at the knees until he is stooping on his haunches, looking at us from our eye level.  And that is what I have been experiencing.  I've felt discouraged and frustrated by the brokenness that I've seen manifest in the way that people can treat each other.  And the whole time I've been crying out for God to respond, to act, to get indignant.  But I think my posture in prayer was to cry out to a distant God that could tolerate the now for the long view of later.  And while I still believe that God holds the long view, I also believe He is indignant with us and He isn't removed from the feeling of discouragement.  He isn't some distant college professor waiting for his students to figure out what he already knows.  He's the kindergarten teacher who gets down on the floor with his students, participating with them as they figure out what he sees with fresh eyes every single time.

I'm not sure how to convey the reality of what I've been learning.  God has the answers and still moves at our pace.  God helps us move out of discouragement even while He feels it with us.  He doesn't act like a know it all, always surprised that we don't already understand, and constantly waiting for us to get it.  Even while He hopes for us, He experiences it all.   Perhaps the difference is that He isn't given over to His emotions the way that we often are.  God is with us.  God is with me.  God deals in the minutiae even while maintaining that which is grand.

Trying to feel what I might have already known,
M&K