Need Hope


Why should you be beaten anymore?
Why do you persist in rebellion?
Your whole head is injured,
your whole heart afflicted.
From the sole of your foot to the top of your head
there is no soundness—
only wounds and welts
and open sores,
not cleansed or bandaged
or soothed with olive oil.
Isaiah 1:5-6

How long, LORD, must I call for help,
but you do not listen?
Or cry out to you, “Violence!”
but you do not save?
Why do you make me look at injustice?
Why do you tolerate wrongdoing?
Destruction and violence are before me;
there is strife, and conflict abounds.
Therefore the law is paralyzed,
and justice never prevails.
The wicked hem in the righteous,
so that justice is perverted.
Habakkuk 1:2-4

But if you can do anything, take pity on us and help us.”
    “‘If you can’?” said Jesus. “Everything is possible for one who believes.”
  Immediately the boy’s father exclaimed, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!”
Mark 9:22-24


When I think of the season of Advent, I think first of the darkness we must learn to wait within.

Knowing that Jesus will be born at the end of this time can give us a warm fuzzy, but the people who waited for generations, centuries, millenia, could only hope but did not know, even as we hope for Him to come again but we do not know when.

During this week, I have been thinking of the darkness that we dwell in, and the darkness within us.  I know exactly what so many of my sins are, but I cannot rid myself of them.  I try.  I want to look better to the world around me.  I don't want them to see my pride and jealousy and selfishness and greed.  My husband knows my struggles with these things, but I think he keeps that to himself, probably ashamed.  So I turn away from them, as best I can, and wait for the relief that only comes from His healing.

I look at the darkness around me, flowing over people that I love, and I feel powerless to help.  I cannot even help myself-what can I do for them, but cry to my Father for His rescue.  Sometimes, the silence burns.

Then, like the father in the story, I feel chastised by Jesus.  "Everything is possible for one who believes."  I so want to believe that I can be healed, that the darkness will be defeated within me and around me, that rescue for all is near, but there is a mocking within my heart.  How many times have there been prayers that fell back to earth unanswered?  How many times was I merely shouting at the night sky?  I want to believe-that He hears me, that He will answer me, that He will come for us.  I do believe, but I need His help to overcome my disbelief.

So we wait, trying to be patient, learning to live within the darkness but not too comfortably.  We want to be ready when the dawn comes.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Christ in His Distressing Disguise

Image
When I was much younger, I learned about this remarkable woman, Blessed Teresa of Calcutta, then simply known as Mother Teresa. As a teenager herself, she had chosen to serve God by leaving her home in the former Yugoslavia to go practically around the world to India and become a nun. There she taught school, but she was distracted by the poor on the streets. Longing to care for them, she needed to be released from her teaching duties. Eventually a new religious order, the Missionaries of Charity, was formed by Mother Teresa to serve them, the poorest of the poor. I wonder today what attracted me to her. I didn't know much about India. The pictures of the suffering, the cachetic bodies that barely resembled humans, puzzled me. Growing up with movies and air brushed photographs, as well as a skepticism of news and government organizations, it can be hard to believe. How can there be such incredible suffering in my world? Mother Teresa was doing God's work; I know that was exciti
Read more

Blog Carnival-Seasons

Image
It was all so much simpler in my spring.  I suppose it is for everyone.  That is why babies and puppies and newness are squealed over.  I have been struggling.  Spring has long gone.  The leaves are falling. I loved what I had, what once defined me. Without it now, I feel like a crab without a shell-              vulnerable...                            homeless...                                           dry in spirit. I know, that all is not lost. I know, things change. I know, that God,              who brought me from there to there once,              will bring me from here to there again. I know, the story is not over. I know, the season will change, again. I wish my heart knew all this as well. Check out more blog entries on Seasons at the Carnival .
Read more

Blog Carnival: Community

Image
Blog Carnival: Community Community is getting to be a buzzword that hardly seems recognizable.  It has become permanently connected with a metrosexual worship leader at the hip church which has an outreach into some impoverished place.  But is that community? Yesterday I wrote about Facebook's social networking site.  Did you know that there are more than 300 million active users and that 50% of their active users (returned to the site in the last 30 days) log on to Facebook in any given day and that the average user has 130 friends on the site? Is that community? Do we really have a community or do we talk so much about it and request friends by the busload because we desire it intensely? We were made for community.  Creator said it was not good for that first man to be alone.  Even Creator was not alone.  We need to walk with others.  We need our village.  We need them to not only walk with us and love us and share our burdens, but to challenge us, to force us to grow.
Read more