I miss my friend Martin. Martin is tall and has a low voice, a voice so low that you can often feel it before you can hear it. And since low frequencies are omni-directional, you can sometimes hear him from a mile away. Seriously. …OK, maybe not seriously, but it is phenominally low and you can hear him from quite a distance away. Martin is a man of great depth, even though if you were to tell him that he’d probably just assure you of his brokenness…but that’s one of the reasons that he is so darn deep. One day in morning men’s group Martin said something so deep that it shook my ribcage. He said, “Without forgiveness the Devil would win.” He said it in normal volume, but sometimes when he says deep things he says them in lower frequency than normal, in a way that growls into every corner of the room.
“Without forgiveness the Devil would win.”
The thing of life is that it is not just a futile existence of “getting by” in a world of surface mortality. It’s ever so much spiritual…probably more spiritual than physical, which blows your mind if you think about it. It’s a battle we are in, and when the issue of mercy arises it isn’t just a bunker on the battlefield when blood and mortar lingers as a perpetual well. It isn’t just an oasis…it is a whole new earth. Mercy is life for death, beauty for ashes, and joy instead of momentary thrills and happiness that we try to medicate ourselves with.
The other day I was drawn in by Isaiah 54:10:
“ ‘For the mountains shall depart
And the hills be removed,
But My kindness shall not depart from you,
Nor shall My covenant of peace be removed.’
Says the Lord who has mercy on you.”
The world will pass away. Seriously. Literally and metaphorically. Careers toiled under in search of success, fame sought out with lifetimes, and kingdoms (in the broad sense as well as the personal sense) will come to an end. Only one Kingdom will reign. The Kingdom that has always been will always last beyond the stretch of any time and imagination. The point is, however, that all these things may lay waste in an abyss of transience…the earth may split and mountains leveled, but the mercy of God will be forever victorious in eternal existence. THE WORLD MAY CRUMBLE AND LAY WASTE. But the Creator whispers into the depths of His Beloved, “But My kindness shall not depart from you, nor My covenant of peace be removed.”
John of Avila once wrote:
“Nothing can so terrify us as much as Jesus Christ can reassure us. Let my sins surround me, let my fears of the future accuse me, let the demons lay their snares for me. As long as I beg mercy of Jesus Christ, who is all kindness, who has loved me even until death, I cannot lose confidence; for I see myself so highly prized that God gave Himself for me.”
As I write this to a sea of anonymity I come…maybe as a fool, maybe as a warrior, or maybe as an aching human eternally hungry for its Creator’s touch once again. Deep cries out to deep, hope out to hope, and aching to a perpetual well of One who is Omniscient. I will not fear in the battle, though I may lay waste in my flesh…I am prized. Jesus, the eternal One, is coming back for me…with fire burning in His eyes (a fire of love), He’s coming back. My ache will only end with Him, and He speaks into the plain of mortality only to shake it with His immortality as He says, “Surely I am coming quickly.” (Rev 22:20)
“…even so, come, Lord Jesus!” Come, I beg. Come, I ache. You, my One Thing, oh Desire of the Nations and Desire of my heart. Come. Come in the humdrum of this humid Monday morning. Break through and rain down. Do whatever You see fit. Strip me and peel my humanity until it’s just You that remains. Ache calls out deep, come Lord Jesus. Amen.