Understanding Surpassed

Walden Pond, MA picture by Christine Bosch 

It had rained that day.  The path had transformed into sticky grit that lodged itself into every sneaker crevice and between my bare toes. Perfectly round beads of wet hung from every pine needle, and every now and then one of these drops would loosen its hold on the deep green spike and fall with a light ping into a wreath of lake ripples.

And that would be all.

On the day I trekked that muddy path around Walden Pond, "still" is the only word I could employ to adequately describe the place.  Breathtaking, pure, and beautiful would be true as well, but secluded in a prickly nest of green pines with a glass water middle like a mirror to the sky, "still" describes it best.

But that is not the still this post is about.

"Rejoice in the Lord always."
"Again, I say rejoice."

Rejoice is a scary imperative -- an elevating experience but rarely a sensation that can be flipped on by mandate.  Occasionally there will come times in your life, and I sincerely hope you have experienced some already, where your heart will be stirred to new heights of delight.  It can come in one whirlwind moment. It can come on the mountaintop.  Or it could come in the quiet ripples of beauty with a step into the mirror-lake.
Yet there are  far more frequent times, I'm sad to say, when rejoicing is the furthest possible thing from our darkness. When a piece of our heart is resting under six feet of freshly turned dirt.  When that heart is broken again and again until it becomes lost.  When the world is bright but a heavy shroud around us keeps any light from reaching through.  These are the seasons we find ourselves in constant conflict with the other meaning of still.

It is not until I reach this joyless point that I really appreciate the story of Job.  Watching a man lose everything and fall to his knees in the rubble, we see his filthy, disease-ridden face lifted to Heaven -- lifted to the God we credit with miracles but question in suffering -- and hear him utter one of the most life-shattering statements of faith ever made:

"The Lord gives and the Lord takes away, blessed be the name of the Lord."

Have you ever been in a desert?  I haven't, but I have watched "Hidalgo" like forty times so I think that's probably close enough.  I keep thinking of Walden.  Of how green it was,  how deep, living, earth-rooted, eye-shocking green.  How the water was cold and how the grey pebble beaches were so smooth.  Then I'm forced off my damp tree stump into that grating, fire pit of sand and desert sun.
And I'm suddenly very thirsty.

And suddenly I'm in conflict again with the idea of still.

You see Job isn't just a sad guy with an inspirational story.  He is an uncomfortable mandate given to us in our own problems.  You might be in sweet, June, rain-filled Massachusetts, or you could be dying alone in the middle of the Sahara.  God gives good things, and He can take them away again, but still He is good.

Blessed Be Your Name
In the land that is plentiful
Where Your streams of abundance flow
Blessed be Your name

See God, I really like that place.  It's so easy to find joy in that place.  Why can't I just stay in Walden?

Blessed Be Your name
When I'm found in the desert place
Though I walk through the wilderness
Blessed Be Your name 

But God why?  I thought You were so good!  I thought You loved me!  I thought You were gonna take care of me!  Now I'm parched and weary and hurting and alone in the desert, and now You're telling me I'm still supposed to rejoice?

I'm still supposed to bless You?

I'm still supposed to proclaim to everyone around me that You are good.

yes.

"Celebrate God all day, every day. I mean, revel in him! Make it as clear as you can to all you meet that you’re on their side, working with them and not against them. Help them see that the Master is about to arrive. He could show up any minute! Don’t fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God’s wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It’s wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life."
(Pilippians 4:4-7 the Message) 

And this is precisely what I've found.  I don't know why I'm lost in the Sahara.  I don't know how to get out or where I'm going next, but I know that I am loved.  I know who loves me, and little by little I'm finding out how much.
And here in the heat and the sand, beyond any explanation, I'm finding peace like a sweet oasis.
And surpassing any understanding of mine, I find myself able to more fully rejoice.