A Lenten scripture exercise in sovereignty.
I’ve had a hard time reconciling some things recently. For instance, the harder things have gotten with the pandemic in the past year, the more the faults in our systems and society have been highlighted. The more certain things have been revealed, the more they’ve been resisted and I truly believe that as human beings, regardless of religion, race, nationality, ethnic background or identification, that WE as people (most of us, anyway) are better than that. It’s been hard to accept that I have a lot yet to learn about many things.
I’ve had a hard time reconciling the ways fellow Christians have been speaking to one another despite our ideas of grace and mercy. It’s been difficult to read the words. It’s been painful to watch the damage being done.
Blind loyalty has been a tough one, too. I honestly just don’t understand how anyone can believe in their hearts that McDonald’s fries are not the best ones out there and still sleep at night.
Sometimes, during these last few laps around the sun, it’s been hard to watch the world and get the sense that somewhere in all of it, yes ALL of it, is goodness. We’ve literally watched parts of the world burn, helpless to do much. This is not to diminish the earnest efforts of all those who risk their lives fighting fires. We’ve metaphorically watched other parts burn, equally helpless. We’ve seen a virus wreak havoc and have struggled to respond well. We’ve had to confront a legion of our own demons: hate, division, destruction, racism, sexism, elitism, denial, and apathy. We’ve not done so well. It’s been humbling. It’s been breaking. We are in a mental health crisis that knows no equal. And we are in a spiritual crisis, as well.
The past two years have been, for me, an exercise in sovereignty. Not because we binge-watched Downton Abbey and The Crown, which I can neither confirm nor deny, but because of these difficulties in reconciling these things in my heart and mind. I still don’t have an answer for these paradoxes, I think we grow into those through humility, submission and… oh yeah, grace and mercy. This exercise in sovereignty has led me through some scriptures and a lot of prayer. I’ve asked a lot of questions and sat in a lot of silence. I’ve read a lot. I’ve been challenged a lot. And each step of the way has brought me to a single thought, a single question.
“Do I believe that God is big enough?” Do I believe He is big enough for this crisis, to fix that problem, to heal something that huge and festering, to bring peace to a place as deep and dark and despairing as this is, to work through the pain and grief, to bring restoration in some cosmic way, to redeem in the way that only He can and that only He does? Do I believe that?
The immediate answer has not always been yes. Sometimes I forget that God is God. I forget what that means. I lose what it looks like. And from where I’m sitting, I don’t seem to be the only one. We forget that He is the God of all things, all the time, and that He is constantly working for good in our lives, in our relationships and communities, and in all of creation.
So join me, if you will, on a Lenten journey of sovereignty. A daily dose of a bigger God. A God big enough for our questions and doubts. A God real enough to meet and talk to. A God that is NOT limited by us. A God that somehow has all of this in His hands and is weaving it together, with and through us, with love, into a future we don’t know and can’t possibly imagine. A God that is inviting us to participate, with Him, in the midst of the mysteries, to live and love as He does.