Thursday, October 15, 2009

The Space in Between, Part VIII

Space is not always geographic. Sometimes it is temporal.

I preached a few Sundays back on the subject of waiting. It's something I discovered four years ago while leading kids' quizzing on Exodus, and have seen so many more times in my current walk through the Bible.

Before the Israelites crossed the sea on dry ground, they waited all night for the waters to be pushed back. Before Abraham tied up his son for a sacrifice, they walked three days through the desert together. Before God's people returned to their land after the Exile, they relocated and rebuilt their lives in foreign lands. Before Jesus began his ministry on earth, he spent thirty years growing up like many other Jewish boys. And before Jesus rose from the dead, his followers grieved deeply for three days.

What we do while waiting shapes who we become. And who we become while waiting is arguably more important than what we wait for.

I'm still thinking about these spaces in between here and there.

Sunday, October 11, 2009

Blue Hope

Autumn is walking us toward winter these days. Night hangs on a little longer and lets go a little more stubbornly with each passing day. It seems a little harder to shake off sleep in the morning and to rejoin the Land of the Conscious.

The sky was deeply gray as I left home last week. Rain fell steadily. The thunder which accompanied it was more grumbly than powerful, and even the lightning seemed weak. It was one of those mornings.

Then, about halfway through the trip, I noticed a small hint of a blue hue in the distance. By the time I reached Bountiful, that small hole in the clouds had grown enough for a stream of sunlight to shine through.

Life is dreary sometimes. But even when the sun seems to disappear for a time, it is never gone.