Waymaker | Red Sea Road, Revelatory Dark & Pillars of Hope

Red Sea Road from Prince of Egypt

If Moses was a type of Christ

 — if Jesus is the new and better Moses

 — then didn't both of their exoduses

down Red Sea Roads

begin with hands raised,

arms stretched out,

in cruciform surrender

to the will and way of God?

+ Waymaker

Last night, my wife and I were having a conversation about hope. Then, less than 12 hours later, I read this excerpt below from Ann Voskamp's Waymaker while I was waiting for my oldest son to get an x-ray on his busted ankle.

These words seemed like the voice of God

speaking out of a burning bush to me.

Perhaps it was for such a time as this.

If so, thank you again, Ann. 

And thank You, God.

Waymaker

The Sign of the Cross

+ pgs. 153-154

A cross-shaped life is an exodus-shaped life: always a way through.

I'm standing in front of

my own impossible Red Seas

everywhere I turn —

seeing no clear way from

where I am ...

where is my holy imagination

for the otherworldly ways of God?

What if:

The way through opens up

where we kneel down into

another way of being?

By growing a new way, thinking a new way, being a new way, by embracing a cruciform way of life.

Waymaker

The Revelatory Dark

+ pgs. 155-156

The cloud — lit up the night (Exodus 14:19-20) ... a cloud that's fire in the night? Who would've ever imagined that?

A shroud of cloud with a flaming blaze at its center, "to give them light on the way they were to take" (Nehemiah 9:12). I turn to the window again, like I'm seeing what I've never seen before: 

What's clouded in mystery 

is a flame to light the way.

The cloud over you is also the light before you. Clouds can be light.

There will be days when I think

this is a mocking joy,

any of these dark clouds

lighting the way,

and I will weep,

but there will be days

when I know it and

am not afraid:

Terrible clouds can be torches.

Even the dark is not truly dark 

 — everything can be a lighting thing.

Even the darkness 

will not be dark to You;

the night will shine like the day,

for darkness is as light to You.

+ Psalm 139:12

Within the clouds is a light

to lead the way.

Mystery holds revelation.

Trust how the mystery cloud

leads to the mystery of manna,

still, and taste grace here.

If you ever needed a sign, 

this was it:

a cloud on fire.

Pillar of Fire in Prince of Egypt


But isn't the Word, this Spirit-book that I'm holding in my hands, the Spirit Himself, a sign for all time now, a certain revelation of God?

Like the pillar of cloud-fire once led,
the presence of the Spirit-fire leads now.
Like God gave the children of Israel
a cloud-fire guide,
He gives His children now
the Holy Spirit as a Guide.

First, the "LORD went before them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead them along the way" (Exodus 13:21 ESV), and now it is said of His children: "For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God" (Romans 8:14 ESV), which means there is a light that isn't just at the end of the tunnel, but there is Light Himself with us now who leads the whole way through.

The Mystery of His Spirit leads through every mystery.

You have your own cloud aflame,
and it is the comfort of the Holy Spirit.
You have your own Holy Ghost
to lead you through the thick dark.

The Word under all my wounds, it's moving, it's speaking, it's rising like a Red Sea Road of its own. The Spirit-book speaks to the soul caught between a rock and a hard place, and its every word is a revelatory story of an exodus out, through the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. 

Waymaker

Soul Examination

+ pgs. 157-159

I underline it in ink: Israel saw what God did that day (see Exodus 14:30-31). Israel saw the great power of God; Israel reflected on what God has done; Israel examined how the hand of God had forged an impossible way. At the end of the day, Israel examined God's hand — and it changed their hearts. 

Maybe when we relive the day,

we see more reasons

to believe in the Lord.

Maybe part of the way out of the hard

is to examine our hearts.

Maybe there's no exodus

without an examine.

Hadn't John Wesley, George Whitefield, Ignatius all made it a daily practice to examine their hearts, scout out the topography of their souls, locate themselves in relation to God, to nurture their relationship with God? Hadn't David said, "I have considered my ways / and have turned my steps to your statutes" (Psalm 119:59) — because God Himself said, "Consider your ways" (Haggai 1:5 ESV)? Hadn't Paul implored: "Each one must examine his work" (Galatians 6:4 NASB)? But I didn't.

Was I too often feeling lost, 

like there was no way 

because I hadn't made a habit

of examining the way I was on?

Maybe it was more than high time

for my heart to murmur it

with all of God's people:
"Let us examine and probe our ways,

and let us return to the LORD"

(Lamentations 3:40 NASB 1995).

Daily experiences may teach us,

but daily examining our hearts

is used by God to change us.

Unless we make time for daily reflection,

we can be making a road

in the wrong direction.

I am learning exodus words — 

"There is a way, a way through,

a way forward!"

There is a Red Sea Road.

My own hope repertoire can change.

I can surrender to 

imagination and miracles.

I can be in Christ, imitate Christ, live the way of Christ, and I can learn the language of exodus, and I can find the Way.

Think of spiritual disciplines as ways
we can place ourselves in the path
of God's grace and seek Him
as Bartimaeus and Zacchaeus
placed themselves in Jesus' path
and sought Him.

+ Donald S. Whitney

The Story of God with Us by Kenneth Padgett

Waymaker

Doxology or Dark

+ pgs. 159-161

And what comes after the exodus?

Then Moses and the people of Israel

sang this song to the LORD, saying,

"I will sing to the LORD,

for He has triumphed gloriously;

the horse and his rider

He has thrown into the sea.

The LORD is my strength and my song,

and He has become my salvation;

this is my God, and I will praise Him,

my father's God, and I will exalt Him."

(Exodus 15:1-2 ESV)

I had once been dared by a friend to record one hundred — hey, how about one thousand — gifts from the Giver, and I had been fool enough to do it. I'd seized a pen and wielded it like a weapon against the dark and jotted down gifts, moments of grace, throughout the day, and for years I'd fought for joy because any life worth living demands that you refuse to let anything steal your joy because what steals your joy, steals your strength.

And I'd radically discovered:

If Jesus chose to give thanks for 

the cup of suffering since,

out of a cosmos of possibilities,

thanksgiving was the preferred weapon

to face and fight the dark,

do I have any better way?

And if Jesus can give thanks

even on the night He was betrayed,

then I can give thanks

in the midst of anything,

and there is always something

to be thankful for

and thanksgiving always precedes

the miracle of more God.

A habit of thankfulness

is always our exodus

out of bitterness.

Christ-exaltation always leads

to some kind of exodus.

Any way of life that finds a way through has always had the cadence of doxology.

Stillness to Know God

Attentiveness to Hear God

Cruciformity to Surrender to God

Revelation to See God

Examine to Return to God

Doxology to Thank God

A map, a way to a meaningful life. That was it: Finding a way through was really about finding a way of life, a rule of life.

What if the question is never

"What's the way out of this?" but

"What way can I be in this?"

The way through happens wherever

we stop focusing on how to get out

of something and

focus on what we can get out of this

to become Christlike.

“There’s no praying 

‘Thy Kingdom come’ 

until you’re living out 

‘my kingdom’s done.‘”

Freedom isn't about looking for a way out, but the Way deeper down, the Way to grow into more, to be pressed into the narrow pathway through.

Waymaker

SACRED Way — Selah

+ pgs. 163-164

The Red Sea Road — 

a SACRED way of life!

Every step of the way through that

Red Sea Road — 

Stillness,
Attentiveness,
Cruciformity,

Revelation,
Examine,
Doxology 
— leading out of bondage to

bonding with God

is a sacred way of life that

the WayMaker is working

to set me apart for Him!

The story may seem to make no sense,

but the WayMaker's working all the lines

into a way through it all,

to be in sacred union with you.

Even when you can't see that

He's doing SACRED work,

He's working to part waters

to set you apart for a

deeper communion with Himself.

 

"Red Sea Road" by Ellie Holcomb

Red Sea Road

Ellie Holcomb

2017 A.D.

We buried dreams,

Laid them deep into the earth behind us;

Said our goodbyes

At the grave, but everything reminds us

God knows we ache.

When He asks us to go on,

How do we go on?

We will sing to our souls,

"We won't bury our hope!

Where He leads us to go,

There's a red sea road."

When we can't see the way,

He will part the waves

And we'll never walk alone

Down a red sea road.

How can we trust

When You say You will deliver us from

All of this pain

That threatens to take over us?

Well, this desert's dry,

But the ocean may consume

And we're scared to follow You ...

(Chorus)

Oh, help us believe

You are faithful, You're faithful.

When our hearts are breaking

You are faithful, You're faithful.

Oh, grant us eyes to see

You are faithful, You're faithful.

Teach us to sing

"You are faithful, You're faithful, 

You're faithful!"

(Chorus)

Hope rises up from an empty grave.
Hope helps us stare 

into the face of everything we’ve lost
and every pain we’ve endured
and every pain we’ve caused,
and it says, “There’s more than this.
Healing is ahead.”

“… we believe that an unseen Hope
makes a Red Sea Road
when there seems to be no way.”

+ The Story Behind "Red Sea Road"

with Ellie Holcomb & Ann Voskamp

Other Hopeful Considerations:

Jesus, I Have My Doubts

Can I Say That?

Planting Seeds of Hope in the Dark

Wrestling with God in Doubt

Prayer in the Pain & the Dark

Christ Is Lower Still

Searching for Enough 

The Deep Down Things

Next Post:

Holier Than Thou?

Many blessings of peace and presence,

Rev. Mike “Sully” Sullivan

Email Pastor Mike | Website | Visit Us | Support Us

Work of Christmas Begins | Wounded Healers + Hope Dealers

"Kitchen Maid with the Supper of Emmaus" by Diego Velazquez, 1618 C.E.

Jesus' Kingdom is often the seed that grows unseen in the muck and the mire. Can we rest in a living hope as wounded healers and hope dealers who have met Jesus, the wounded Healer, and experienced His presence meeting us in the mess at His table, trusting that His light will break even into our current darkness?

"We had hoped ... " are the words uttered to Jesus on the road to Emmaus when He is unrecognized, questioned, doubted, and, in this moment, quiet (Luke 24:21). 

But from the moment of His incarnation, to his crucifixion, to His resurrection, He has been working to fulfill the work of Christ (i.e. anointed Messiah) + Mass (i.e. sent to save the world through only what He can offer) to give hope to the hopeless every step of the way.

Even in the midst of Christmastide, there have been moments where these hopes have been hassled and hurt ... 

"I had hoped ... that I would still have my job."   

"I had hoped ... that I wouldn't be stuck with my abusive partner, angry spouse, or despairing roommate." 

"I had hoped ... that the government would handle this situation differently." 

"I had hoped ... that it would be fun to be with my family, not so tense and sad."

"I had hoped ... that we wouldn't have to move again."

"I had hoped ... that this person I loved would have survived." 

"I had hoped ... there wouldn't be another natural disaster." 

"I had hoped ... that I would still be married."

"I had hoped ... I would still have faith."

All the hopes above are thoughts from stories I know exist in our city of Worcester, Massachusetts as we continue in Christmastide and get ready to step into a new year. 

And as 2023 comes to an end and 2024 is about to begin, I'm thinking again about the many reasons that God gave us the name Emmaus City Church. The "Kitchen Maid" painting above captures in visual form the essence of the potent true stories of "Emmaus" moments (including one of my favorites about Tatiana Goricheva). They are stories of real people who encountered the presence of Jesus in surprising ways, sometimes during Christmas. 

Today, I am looking again at Velasquez' "Kitchen Maid with the Supper of Emmaus," knowing I need to hear Jesus' answer to the statements, "I had hoped ... " And I look forward to how He will meet us with His presence at the tables He sets in the days ahead as we are welcomed and welcome others, continuing the work of Christmas.

When the song of the angels is stilled,
When the star in the sky is gone,
When the kings and princes are home,
When the shepherds are back with their flock, 

The work of Christmas begins: 

To find the lost,
To heal the broken,
To feed the hungry,
To release the prisoner,
To rebuild the nations,
To bring peace among others,
To make music in the heart. 

+ Howard Thurman

Bonus: Story Behind "Kitchen Maid w/ the Supper of Emmaus"

In 1618 C.E., the Spanish artist Diego Velazquez depicted the Emmaus meal in a painting called "Kitchen Maid with the Supper of Emmaus".  

Jesus and the disciples are portrayed in the top left corner. But the picture focuses all our attention on the maid. The astonished look on her face as she overhears their conversation suggests she's realized that a previously dead man has just eaten her food. The meal is hinted at, but it's all washed and tidied away. The central item is a piece of rag. The new world has collided with the old.   

Sometime after it was finished, the painting was altered by its new owner. The Emmaus scene was covered over entirely, and a few inches were cut from the left-hand margin (so that even in the restored version one of the disciples is missing). The original version was only rediscovered in 1933 A.D., when the painting was cleaned (see A Story as Sharp as a Knife by Robert Bringhurst). In the altered painting, the resurrected Christ had been edited out of the picture. The Bible story was painted over. Today we often remove the transcendent, the divine. But what we're left with then is merely the washing up. We're left with rags. But in our broken world at the sink with rags, Christ's resurrection is the promise of a new world. But we have not yet received our full resurrection and our world has not yet been renewed. We live between the cross and resurrection, between Good Friday and Easter Sunday. 

For now Christ is incognito. Paul says: "For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory" (Colossians 3:3-4). The reign of Christ is now hidden. But one day it will be fully manifest. For now, though, we live as disciples of the cross. We embrace obscurity, hiddenness, weakness, marginality, and smallness.  

The kitchen maid in Velazquez's painting appears to be an African slave. The artist lived in a time when Spain was debating the status of slaves, and Velazquez emphasizes the maid's dignity by portraying her as listening intently to Christ's words. She may be unnoticed by the world around her, but she dominates the painting and therefore our attention. The last shall be first. This is God's way. His Kingdom grows unnoticed by the world. It's the seed that grows unseen.

+ Excerpt above about the story behind Velasquez' painting adapted from A Meal with Jesus: Discovering Grace, Community, and Mission Around the Table by Tim Chester, pgs. 129-130  

Praying to Be a Wounded Healer and Hope Dealer Today

Let's ask God to help us see Jesus revealed, powerful and present, meeting us in our doubts and fears today. And in receiving such a grace, let's pray to be like the kitchen maid, surprised in the midst of serving, stopped in our tracks to listen and linger, shocked to be in a world where resurrection is possible, and daring to be prisoners of hope.

Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Meet us and fill us with Your joy to freely receive and freely give. Walk alongside us and those we get to be among today, and help us to walk alongside others on Emmaus roads in Worcester, not as victors, nor as people with all the answers, but as fellow human beings, wounded healers and hope dealers, looking for You, our Savior to be revealed again as the One who brings resurrection power to our lives, even when feel we lost or dead. Amen.

"I am always hopeful. A Christian is a prisoner of hope. What could have looked more hopeless than Good Friday? But then, at Easter, God says, ‘From this moment on, no situation is untransfigurable.’ There is no situation from which God cannot extract good. Evil, death, oppression, injustice—these can never again have the last word, despite all appearances to the contrary."

+ Bishop Desmond Tutu

Additional posts on being wounded healers + hope dealers:

+ God in the Garden: Seeds of Hope in the Rain & the Dark

+ A Time to Heal | Sozo Jesus, Shalom, and Kintsugi Gospel

And for an intro to the person who I first heard coin the phrase "hope dealer," check out Myron Pierce's amazing story in this 7-minute video: The Myron Pierce Story.

Christ is all,

Rev. Mike "Sully" Sullivan 

Email Pastor Mike | Website | Visit Us | Support Us 

CN | The Gardener of Hidden Moments Never Wastes Time

"The Gardener" by Joel Briggs, 2022 A.D.

I need a Christ who cares for my humanness—the joys, struggles, needs, wounds, and delights. I need a Lord and Savior who is redeeming me in my humanness. I need a Christ with dirt under His fingernails and oxygen in His lungs, who is bringing new order to the old chaos, new life to the old, worn-out wastelands. This Christ is not erasing the human story. His coup de grâce against the curse upon humanity is not the removal of my humanity. His final triumph is undying humanity— His physical resurrection, in which human thriving is defined. + Joel Briggs, The Gardener

For this City Notes (CN), I am reflecting a bit on my limited humanness and what it means to be anonymous, like Jesus often was, trusting the good work of God in me and through me will (and should?) most often go unnoticed for the good of myself and others, and for the life of the world Jesus is bringing resurrection and renewal to. 

The start to summer can give me the gift of "Holy Saturdays" throughout these few calendar months, and with it the experiences of the closing of some things while awaiting for the arrival of others. Especially when it comes to wanting my friends and neighbors to know the love that God has revealed to them in Jesus. My, my. Help me, Holy Spirit. It's why in nearly a decade of ministry, these words from Jesus continue to give me hope:

I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are
ripe for harvest. Even now the one who reaps draws a wage
and harvests a crop for eternal life, so that the sower and
the reaper may be glad together. Thus the saying ‘One sows
and another reaps’ is true. 

+ Jesus (John 4:35b-37)

It takes practice to listen to Jesus, stop and "open my eyes" again to see where He's asked me to garden, to wait on the seeds with hope in the rain and the dark, trusting Him with the sowing and the reaping. Just like it is good to make time to reflect on the depth of a work of art like the painting above, it is good to make time to not move too quickly through the still meditations and slow moments of life that the Gardener is cultivating in me and the world around me.

Otherwise, I might miss what Jesus is up to incognito even in the most seemingly deserted spaces in my heart and mind that prove to be the holy wild I'm supposed to be in all along with the Gardener who's ready to dig in the dirt of my soul and bring forth abundance.

"The Gardener" by Joel Briggs (see painting above) shows the risen Christ as wounded and in the midst of a scorched earth. The landscape is bleak. It’s real to our condition. But with His dove, a seedling to plant, and His shovel to dig into the dirt, He looks ready to turn the tide of ruin. If death could not destroy Him, a ravaged earth will not either. ... Jesus calls us even as He comforts us. His first concern is not our materialistic gain, our affluence, our prosperity, but rather our participation in His great restoration project for a groaning creation. 

+ Peter J. Schuurman, "She Supposed He Was the Gardener"

Anonymous | A Tree Planted by Streams of Water, Which Yields Its Fruit in Season

In winter, are the trees bare? Yes. 

In winter, are the trees barren? No. 

Life still is. 

Life does not sleep — though in winter she retracts all advertisement. And when she does so, she is conserving and preparing for the future. 

And so it is with us. Seasonally, we too are stripped of visible fruit. Our giftings are hidden; our abilities are underestimated. When previous successes fade and current efforts falter, we can easily mistake our fruitlessness for failure. 

But such is the rhythm of spiritual life; new growth, fruitfulness, transition, rest ... new growth, fruitfulness, transition, rest. Abundance may make us feel more productive, but perhaps emptiness has greater power to strengthen our souls. 

In spiritual winters, our fullness is thinned so that, undistracted by our giftings, we can focus upon our character. In the absence of anything to measure, we are left with nothing to stare at except our foundation.  

You are coming to Christ, who is the foundation (i.e. living cornerstone ... ) ... As the Scriptures say,

“I am placing a cornerstone ...
and anyone who trusts in Him
will never be disgraced.”

+ 1 Peter 2:4, 6 

Remain in Me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in Me. 

+ John 15:4 

Risking inspection, we begin to examine the motivations that support our deeds, the attitudes that influence our words, the dead wood otherwise hidden beneath our busyness. Then a life-changing transition occurs as we move from resistance through repentance to the place of rest. With gratitude, we simply abide. Like a tree planted by living waters, we focus upon our primary responsibility: remaining in Him.

In winter are we bare? Yes. 

In winter are we barren? No.  

True life still is. 

The Father's work in us does not sleep — though in spiritual winters He retracts all advertisement. And when He does so, He is purifying our faith, strengthening our character, conserving our energy, and preparing us for the future. 

The sleepy days of winter hide us so that seductive days of summer will not ruin us. ...  

Obedience to this God who appreciates the visible and invisible equally has led many truly great souls into long seasons of anonymity. Some emerged from obscurity into eminence. Others remained relatively unknown. 

All agreed that God never wastes anyone's time. ...

Consider the growth of a plant. Before a gardener can enjoy a plant's fruit, she or he must tenderly and strategically attend to its root. So a plant's birth begins with its burial. The gardener commits a generally unremarkable seed to the silence of the soil, where it sits in stillness and lightlessness, hidden by the smothering dirt. Just when it appears as though death is imminent, its seeming decay reveals new life. The seed becomes less and yet more of its former self, and in that transformation takes hold of the darkness and reaches for the sun. All that is to come rests greatly upon the plant's ability to tightly and sightlessly develop roots in unseen places.  

I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat is planted in the soil and dies, it remains alone. But its death will produce many new kernels—a plentiful harvest of new lives. + Jesus (John 12:24)

+ Excerpt above from Alicia Britt Chole's Anonymous: Jesus' Hidden Years ... and Yours

Seeds of Hope by Bette Dickinson

 

Bonus Post: CN | Icebergs, Delayed Destinies, Patience & Alert Availability

Here are links to other recent City Notes (CN) books:

Seeds of Hope in the Rain & the Dark; Wrestling with God in Doubt; Baptism as the Way of Life; Being with God; Listening Closely & Paying Attention; Living and Loving Curiously with Wonder; Waiting is the Womb; In the Holy Wild with the Lion Who Offers Us the Stream; Yeshua; An Unexpected Story of Discovering Jesus; Only One Thing Is Needed; No Secrets Are Hidden; Be Still Practice

Christ is all,

Rev. Mike “Sully” Sullivan

Email Pastor Mike | Website | Visit Us | Support Us | Facebook Us

New Year Hope | Planting Seeds in the Rain and the Dark

 

Seeds of Hope by Bette Dickinson

Planting Seeds Inevitably Changes My Feelings About Rain + Luci Shaw

For this City Notes (CN) to prep for the new year, I wanted to focus on planting something fresh even when life is so dark. The adapted excerpt below comes from Andrew Peterson's vulnerable memoir, The God of the Garden. This book was gifted to me by my friend and brother, Paul Gordon, pastor of Terra Nova ("New Earth") in North Adams, Massachusetts, and this part of the book continues to bring a smile to my face as it takes me back to one of my favorite psalms of the past couple years:

Those who sow with tears
will reap with songs of joy. 

Those who go out weeping,
carrying seed to sow,
will return with songs of joy,
carrying sheaves of blessing with them. 

+ Psalm 126:5-6

Instead of Lifting Us Out, Sometimes God Pushes Us Deeper into the Dark Soil

I just couldn't stop crying. It felt like:

my heart was being torn open 

whoever was doing the tearing 

wouldn't leave well enough alone 

they kept poking at the wounds 

worst of all, I had the sense that, 

though the voices in my head 

were from the pit of hell, 

the actual wounding 

was from the King of heaven 

it was as if I had been begging God 

to lift me out of the mud 

and I saw his hand reach down 

and merely push me deeper

It was one of the lowest, most desolate places I've ever been. I was in a tomb, and God wouldn't roll away the stone.

I truly believed that Jesus was God. But I was too scared to look at him, because the worst thing of all would be to see the freak in the reflection of his eyes, too ... but the gospel broke through (after counseling and revealing the false stories I had been living in full of shame and blame) because it isn't just about the fact that we're all fallen—that part's easy for me to swallow—it's about the fact that we're perfectly loved. "Jesus is God, and he loves you." I believe it completely. It's easier, though, to fling that glorious truth out to the masses than it is to let it settle deep into my own murky waters where the dragons writhe.

Looking back, it was the kindness of God that the two months set aside to make The Burning Edge of Dawn were March and April. I went into that record under the heavy, gray dreariness of Nashville's late winter. 

When I looked out the window at home all I saw was rain, rain, rain. 

When I looked inside at the weather of my soul all I saw was rain, rain, rain.

Not only that, the studio on Music Row was in a windowless basement, which meant that when I wasn't looking out at the rain, I was in yet another cave.

Who knows the mind of our God? Did he conspire with time and the earth's ponderous tilt into the sunlight of spring so that every day his frail, beloved child would see the bashful opening of cherry blossoms and daffodils on the way to the studio? Did he know that whatever wound was in me would heal enough that I could begin to hope that the pain would subside? 

Did he know that I needed the cave to write about the light outside of it?

One afternoon at The Warren, during a short break in the near-perpetual rain, I took my guitar out to a porch swing that hangs from a drooping hackberry limb. I was bundled in a coat, a scarf, and fingerless gloves. The guitar happened to be tuned to DADGAD, and I strummed a 6/8 patter for a few minutes. The words that came were these:

I tried to be brave, but I hid in the dark 

And I sat in that cave and I prayed for a spark 

To light up all the pain that remained in my heart 

And the rain kept falling 

 

Down on the roof of the church where I cried 

I could hear all the laughter and love and I tried 

To get up and get out, but a part of me died 

And the rain kept falling down  

 

I'm scared if I open myself to be known 

I'll be seen and despised and be left all alone 

So I'm stuck in this tomb and you won't move the stone 

And the rain keeps falling ... 

 

I'm so tired of this game, of these songs, of the road 

I'm already ashamed of the line I just wrote 

But it's true and it feels like I can't sing a note 

And the rain keeps falling down

That was as much of the song as I could write. My fingers were cold, it started to rain again, and I felt a little embarrassed at the thought of sharing thoughts so raw with people I didn't know.

What happened next gets a little fuzzy. I can't remember which came first. Luci Shaw's poetry or the day I went out into our muddy back garden to plant seeds for spring. Soon after I started the song and gave up on it, though, Skye (my daughter) and I went outside with a little packet of seeds and a trowel. We knelt in the mud as I explained to her what we were doing ... I hefted the trowel in my hand, then stabbed it into the earth. I did it again, then again. I tore a furrow into the ground about a foot long, then laid the trowel aside and parted the dirt with my fingers.

Seeds of Hope I by Bette Dickinson

"What do you do now, Papa?" Skye asked. "Now," I said with a smile, "we plant the seed." I gingerly took the little thing from the packet, pressed it into the mud, and covered it over. It was like a funeral. It was like that day when I asked God for help and instead of lifting me out he pushed me deeper. 

"This is how seeds grow." And the rain fell, and the rain kept falling. 

Luci Shaw's perfect little poem, called "Forecast," goes like this: 

 

Planting seeds 

Inevitably 

Changes my feelings 

About rain 

 

There's a lot of truth and beauty in those eight little words. Kind of like seeds. Thanks to Luci, I knew how to finish the song. 

 

My daughter and I put the seeds in the dirt 

And every day now we've been watching the earth 

For a sign that this death will give way to a birth 

And the rain keeps falling 

 

Down on the soil where the sorrow is laid 

And the secret of life is igniting the grave 

And I'm dying to live, but I'm learning to wait 

And the rain keeps falling down  

+ "The Rain Keeps Falling," 2015 A.D.

 

Can you believe that he loves you? Could it be that when you're deep in the dark cave, it's not because he doesn't love you, but because he does? I wasn't angry at the earth when I wounded it. Nor was I killing the seed when I buried it. I was giving it a chance to be born again.

+ "We Shall Be Led in Peace" excerpt from Andrew Peterson's The God of the Garden, pgs. 109-116

Bonus Poem by Mandy Smith from Unfettered:

God gives me a tiny seed – a hope, a whisper, a glimpse, a sense, a promise. 

He asks me to take it and steward it. 

The beauty of its hidden potential overwhelms me. 

The questions it raises awake my curiosity. 

I want to see, to understand. 

Why has he given me this seed? 

So I can tell others? But I don't know enough. 

So I can make it grow? 

So I can celebrate when it grows? 

I hold the seed but I hunger for the fruit. 

The closest way to get fruit from a seed is to suck the seed – try to taste any remnant. 

But seeds don't grow in mouths. 

Shall I dissect the seed? But wouldn't that kill it? 

Give me the patience to sow the seed – even in soil that seems rotting – what fertile soil it will become! 

Mine is not to be the sun or the rain, to burst the germ or bring forth the shoot. 

Mine is to tend, to watch, to wait, to be ready when it breaks through!

Bonus Quote from Alia Joy from Glorious Weakness:

A Savior, a dream, and a great, wild, terrifying hope ...

The God of found things who sees me, who comes for me, again and again. He is the God of the lost coin, he is the God who would leave an entire flock of healthy and profitable sheep for that one last, broken lamb. He is the God of the lost and I will find myself once again in him.

"Jesus, come for me," I cry out. I remember small grace and grasp hold, naked and nothing, and I worship Who I cannot even feel. Isn't this faith? Not that we wouldn't fear, or doubt, or suffer. Not that the bad days wouldn't come, sometimes unrelenting, sometimes often. 

Faith doesn't eliminate feeling wrecked or salvaged by good days or bad days, but the stone isn't being rolled up and crashing down like some mythical tragedy of lessons to be learned. No, the stone's been rolled away; the risen things take their place in the souls of mortals and we call them hope. Our only hope ...

God is not about upward mobility so much as inward expansion.

God's kingdom lives in the ever-widening rings, the core and the hollows.

God's kingdom growth starts in the dark and hidden places, in holy ground.

In a seed busted open and yearning.

A seed of hope.

 
Bonus Prayer and Quote from Desmond Tutu:

Let's ask God to help us see Jesus revealed, powerful and present, meeting us in our doubts and fears today. And in receiving such hope, let's pray to be stopped in our tracks to listen and linger, shocked to be in a world where resurrection is possible, and daring to be prisoners of hope.

Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy. Plant a seed of hope in us today. Grow this hope with Your resurrection power and spread it around us. You are the God of hope who can fill us with all joy and peace as we trust in You. May we become who we are, human beings, wounded healers, and hope dealers, receiving resurrection power to spring forth new life, especially when feel we burdened and buried. Amen.

"I am always hopeful. A Christian is a prisoner of hope. What could have looked more hopeless than Good Friday? But then, at Easter, God says, ‘From this moment on, no situation is untransfigurable.’ There is no situation from which God cannot extract good. Evil, death, oppression, injustice—these can never again have the last word, despite all appearances to the contrary."

+ Bishop Desmond Tutu

New Year posts: 

+ New Year Laughter | Jesus Wants His Joy to be in Us Fully  

+ New Year Wisdom | Receive & Give Healing in Jesus' Name

With presence, peace, and many blessings,

Rev. Mike “Sully” Sullivan

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