The Mix of Life

Yesterday morning I had an interesting confluence of two things. I was driving to work on my massive ten minute commute. One of the great things about working at WCU is the drive. It's always the same road, Highway 107, but you never know what the scenery will be. You go up some in elevation and through Catamount Gap, a place blasted through the side of a mountain years ago to make a way for the road. There's a curve there where you can't see far ahead with rock walls on both sides. But then you come through and see the Cullowhee valley below you and many of the buildings of main campus with the mountains behind them. It's a beautiful sight.  In the spring you may have wildflowers. In the summer you get clear blue sky and many layers of mountain views. In the fall you get the quilt of many colors covering the hills. In the winter you may see a dusting of snow and icicles covering the walls of rock. Sometimes, you come through the gap and can barely see the trees lining the road for the fog.

This morning, it was a gorgeous sight. I came through the gap and it was a bright and clear morning. There was a layer of bright white cloud just high enough to see the campus but low enough to still see the tops of the nearby mountains. My heart praised God for the beauty of what he has made in this place and allowing me to see it. 

But then, I looked over on the side of the road. There was a dead racoon. Very stiff, and (pardon the image) not quite all in one piece. Thankfully I had the windows rolled up and the fan off but the memory of smells from similar encounters came to mind vividly. It was a ugly, disgusting sight and I was glad it was over quickly. 

Life is this way. We sometimes get bursts of beauty, goodness, and truth. We get a small glimpse at the how-it-should-be world, a world without the curse of sin and death. We give and receive kindness and grace. We experience the beauty of holiness. We share good meals and hearty laughter with friends and family.

But sometimes not. Sometimes we get the mundane of aligning spreadsheet columns, sweeping the same floors, patching the same clothes. We must try again to fix the leak in the roof. And sometimes we must face the ugliness of death. The beeping machines, endless pills, people coming and going in a blur. 

And sometimes we have both of those at the same time. When a saint is dying, there is the ugliness of the body giving way, but there is often the beauty of love, care, and community. Even more, there is hope for the beauty, goodness, and truth of the world that is to come. 

We see it in small things also. Last night I spent two hours replacing a broken part in my refrigerator. It was frustrating to have a fridge that didn't work correctly, and then to contort myself to get at some of the screws, plus having to figure out (with lots of help from YouTube and a friend) how to go about replacing it. But, I managed and I (hopefully) now have a working fridge again!

Let me encourage you in this. Be glad for those times of beauty, goodness, and truth. They are from the Lord and his kindness and grace. They show his power, wisdom, beauty, and love for us. We rightly revel in them.

But those times of the mundane, sorrow, pain, and death are also ours. They remind us of our sin and that we are truly but dust. The Lord's curse and judgment are heavy, because our sin is a heavy, deadly thing. Be reminded to cry out for the Lord's mercy. He is slow to anger and will hear you. We might pray like the writer of Psalm 90:

¹² So teach us to number our days
    that we may get a heart of wisdom.
¹³ Return, O Lord! How long?
    Have pity on your servants!
¹⁴ Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love,
    that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.
¹⁵ Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us,
    and for as many years as we have seen evil.

Image Source: Photo by Richard Wilson from Pexels

Plodding Habits - Prayer

Prayer is another plodding habit that will feed your soul. It works just as slowly as the others, day in and day out.

If you're not even sure where to start, I point you to the Lord's Prayer as a model to follow. Think through each part of it and expand on it. For example, when we pray, we pray to "our father in heaven." We can expand on this and think of the many other names of God and address him with those also. Lord, Savior, Father, Almighty, and so forth. When we add "hallowed be your name" we can spend time in praise of him and his greatness and thanking him for the many blessings he gives. Continue like this through the rest of the prayer. One thing you will notice is that you must spend time in praise of God, turning our attention to him rather than only asking for things.

If you prefer, you can have an even simpler structure using the ACTS acronym. That is

• Adoration - praising God for who he is
• Confession - confessing your sins and asking him to forgive you
• Thanksgiving - thanking God for his gifts, blessings, and forgiveness
• Supplication - asking God for our needs and those of others

You do not have to include every part of prayer every time.  Several years ago, I was trying to pull off a winding road in the rain and my car slid into a ditch and down a hill. I was praying, braking, and steering all together and I didn't have time to get through adoration, confession, and thanksgiving before my supplication! But, we should have time set aside to pray just like for scripture reading, so we can spend time on each part of prayer.

Another example I will share is from Nehemiah. In chapter 1, Nehemiah learns of the sad state of Jerusalem and prays extensively to God on behalf of his people. In chapter 2, the king asks Nehemiah what is troubling him. Verse 4 says Nehemiah prayed immediately after this question, then answered. I think we can assume that Nehemiah didn't run from the room, spend time going through ACTS, then return. He probably prayed something like "Lord, help me!" in his mind and then asked. Both are valid prayers, but we should cultivate both.

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