The rain is running down the windows of the house I’m staying in right now. A little after midnight, the only tones lingering are the reverberations of a settling house…or maybe it’s my heart that’s just slipping into a mode of sleepfullness that will strike soon before I’m aware (as it always does). Regardless, something is different tonight. It’s like there’s an eeriness that just rolls out its heart like the humidity outside that eventually grew so heavy that it had to burst open with rain. Maybe that’s what had me write tonight, or maybe it was something deeper…the Spirit within my spirit.
Life moves in seasons. If it’s not one season it’s another, and if you’re anything like me, you usually spend each season wishing for another season to come your way to deliver you from any negative weather of the present season, when really in reality you know that that’s not the answer. There’s no use trading radishes for brussel sprouts if you hate them both. Lately I’ve been scrounging for radish sprouts, which I don’t think are real, but are something that sound good because I don’t completely like one over the other, and maybe (just maybe) together they will be the answer to contentment.
Right now I’m staying in a house with a friend named Jim (the green thumbed contemplative) in his late 30s and a band of 3 guys in their twenty-somethings. Right now I sleep on the couch. It’s reasonably comfortable, and apart from zig zagged schedules it’s rather low keyed in the house. I believe that God has me here for a season because the storms of life have me tossed a bit to where I think I just need some good old fashioned camaradarie. While I’m sure I’ll share more about my present home later, I must tell you about Bob. Now, Jim, being the green thumbed contemplative that he is, has an interest in Bonsai trees. Bob is an uncut Bonsai. Sitting a foot or so away from me right now, Bob is a noble little tree with his small stature and smooth little pebbles and moss making his bed. Bob is by far the friendliest Bonsai I’ve ever met…and he’s a good listener too which comes in handy because if he could talk he probably wouldn’t get much in edge-wise in our ragamuffin monastery. Uncut and untrained, Bob looks a little like the Christmas tree from the Charlie Brown Christmas. Bob doesn’t care though. God has brought loving people along to water, nuture and (who knows) maybe even prune Bob. Bob doesn’t worry, and while Solomon may have been dressed better than Bob, Bob (I’m sure) could give Solomon’s sock drawer a run for its money. But Bob has taught me a lot in his silence, which may make one worry about my sanity. Regardless, I’m learning about contentment. In Matthew 6, Jesus said:
“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?
And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”
Now that I’ve strayed you out of state, when I was just wanting to go to the grocery store, the purpose of all of this is just that there’s an element in all my rambling that’s hidden deep, and if I just shut up and listen, I can hear a truth whisper through the rain outside. The issue right now is not my worrying, even though I believe it strikes right down to my lack of contentment. I nearly hear it in the sounds of the bugs outside, and the random drip of the rain gutters. “…His compassions fail not, they are new every morning.” (Lamentations 3:22-23) His mercy is new this morning, before the sun rises and temperature climbs again. In all seriousness, when it all comes down to the line, my wanderings and contentment issues are all pulled up in the mercy of God. My heart has been captured with worry, and fear; when it was designed for something different, and I feel (in this moment) something drawing me back. I don’t get what I deserve, and while I shutter to think what I should really get, I wrestle with this: God loves me more than I could ever love Him. More than I could try, hope, or dream. God’s love for me out did mine when I was in my mother’s womb, on my best day as a child, and my most successful day as an adult. His mercy is drummed up in the truth that He designed me to be loved by Him…and to love Him back with the love He puts inside of me to love Him with. His mercy is more than a clean slate…it’s a new slate. Brand new. With this morning He’s brought a new hope, new heart, and a new start; not stale left-overs from yesterday. Through the worries and lack of contentment in my flesh, He parts my stirred heart this morning for me to walk in to tomorrow on dry ground. “Mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed.” (Ps 85:10)
Mercy is the beginning in this new season.