stubborn-ness

Papa Dave Manley put me onto an incredible poet who has stirred my heart the last couple of days....

Here are some thoughts.

Gerard Manley Hopkins

My own heart let me more have pity on...

Leave comfort root-room; let joy size

At God knows when to God know what; whose smile

's not wrung, see you: unforseen times rather...

I am becoming more and more aware that it is not only the joy of God and the comfort of God that come at unforseen times. God's coming is always unforseen, I think...the reason? If I was to roll the dice and take a guess:

Is it possible that if He gave us anything much in the way of advance warning, (that He was coming to specifically look in our eyes and deal with our hearts...and not just give us a great mission to go on) that more often than not we would have made ourselves scarce long before He got there... sigh...let me share an unforseen moment in a poem...

Ranier Maria Rilke writes a poem called 'The Man Watching':

I can tell by the way the trees beat, after
so many dull days, on my worried windowpanes
that a storm is coming,
and I hear the far-off fields say things
I can't bear without a friend,
I can't love without a sister

The storm, the shifter of shapes, drives on
across the woods and across time,
and the world looks as if it had no age:
the landscape like a line in the psalm book,
is seriousness and weight and eternity.

What we choose to fight is so tiny!
What fights us is so great!
If only we would let ourselves be dominated
as things do by some immense storm,
we would become strong too, and not need names.

When we win it's with small things,
and the triumph itself makes us small.
What is extraordinary and eternal
does not want to be bent by us.
I mean the Angel who appeared
to the wrestlers of the Old Testament:
when the wrestler's sinews
grew long like metal strings,
he felt them under his fingers
like chords of deep music.

Whoever was beaten by this Angel
(who often simply declined the fight)
went away proud and strengthened
and great from that harsh hand,
that kneaded him as if to change his shape.
Winning does not tempt that man.
This is how he grows: by being defeated, decisively,
by constantly greater beings.

It is really incredible...the places that God chooses to speak...When I read this poem...I had a feeling He had hijacked me...and I couldn't get away...despite my own stubbornness.

Sophocles said, “It is not wisdom, but foolishness, that is stubborn. Look at the trees. By embracing the movements of the tempest they preserve their tender branches; but if they rear against the wind they are carried off, roots and all.”

How often are the "valleys", "dark times", "low points", "wilderness'" of our lives are simply the coming of Jesus to our side? And in the middle of them do we/I embrace the movements of the tempest, or just stubbornly rear my head and heart against the wind...in an effort to prove my strength, calling, independence, holiness, faith (pick your own word)?

What are you saying??? Well...on a personal Note...

Have I been Jacob, longing for God's blessing, but in my own time, on my own terms, trying to pry it from His hand?

Is this how I grow - as a person, a man, a leader, a son - by being defeated, decisively, by constantly wrestling with greater beings? Not by mastering theology or the strategic requirement for planting a mega-church...but by being thrown to the ground and held there, face mashed against the dirt, breath knocked out of me, gasping for air, ligaments straining, muscles burning, joints coming out of joint...tearing loose.

Scott and I were chatting about Jacob the other night...and the thought that I went to sleep with that night was the according to the biblical story, it was after wrestling till dawn that he walked away with God's blessing.

But he walked away with a limp.

And he walked that way for the rest of his life. What would have happened had he just surrendered? (and why do we make this story our spiritual energy bar as if God was a tight fisted grandpa and we the neglected child...trying to pry a quarter out of His closed hand???? and those who do have truly met with God...just a thought.)

I am discovering something...for me...Burnaby has become a question. "bend or be broken". God has come to me like a terrifying storm, like a wrestler jumping me from behind and overpowering me. In the fury of the storm...I am asked that question..."bend or be broken?"

How many of us are in the middle of a great wilderness...shouting, where are you God? When really, He is the wilderness - a place where the 'comfortable distractions' of life are stripped away...and we are wrestling with Him for the title deed to our hearts...sigh.

I am in the grip of the great contender...the divine wrestler...who is forcing me to decide...surrender and go away limping...or keep struggling and maybe never get up and go anywhere at all.

The images of Ranier's poem have burned themselves into my heart. I can see that it IS God who is wrestling with me. In all my searching for Him...He is right there...in my face...grappling with me. And it is me who forces him to throw me to the ground...dislocate my hip...and in dislocating my hip, He teaches me to cling. In making me limp, He teaches me to lean...not on my strength, my gifts, my abilities...not on my own two legs...but on Him. I want to learn to bend with the wind...and not define myself by how strong I can be, how much I can take, how big, tough, wise...I am...what pride eats at my soul that has convinced me that this is the path to life?

Why does this stir my heart till tears run races down my cheeks? Probably cuz its true.

in the wilderness.

j