Every Friday, I go to a church member’s house and just hang out with him and his family. We don’t have any Bible study formats or anything like that, I just let him talk and then I respond with Scripture whenever it comes up.
Yesterday, as per usual, he checks in and confirms our meeting. I told him that as the end of the month approaches, I may not have time; in its place I invited him to the church-wide men’s fellowship that just kicked off and happens every Saturday. He responded, saying it’s okay because he still has to deal with a family problem – well, for the sake of emphasis I’ll just specify that he has an ongoing conflict with who I’m assuming is his eldest son. I told him I prayed and will continue to pray for him and his son, to which he replied, ‘that’s the only thing we can do now‘.
And now that I think about it, I realize how humiliating and painful it is for a father, who I assumed exhausted all possible solutions, to say that all that’s left to do is to pray.
But see here – I doubt I’m the only one who’s noticed that the number of problematic people and issues which are (1) within our radar and (2) just out of our hands, is increasing in at a higher rate as of late.
Sorry, I’d like to just focus on people – There’s the aforementioned angry son.
There’s those folks who I believe targeted my Mom and pulled off not one, but several rapid successive fraudulent credit card transactions in her name.
There’re the sympathetic bank employees and the credit card company folks ‘just doing their jobs’. Oh, bless them.
There’s those other folks who I wasted time and resources on during the crypto ‘boom’ (2023-2024 when anyone and everyone was into NFTs and all that ‘to the moon’ slop)
And that group of people who offered me a cheap camera but ended up just taking my money (incident happening more than 10 years ago but hey, we’re talking about problematic people here so I’m just racking ’em all up) – and the ‘friend’ who linked me to them (who at one time I suspected was part of the group); Well, he died a year or two ago but I still think about the wife and kids he left behind.
Speaking of 10 years ago, I’m still slowly trying to move away (but stubbornly glancing back every now and then) from the lady I met 20 years ago (as of today) who stopped all communication and blocked me twice leaving me with all sorts of questions and reasons to overthink and act recklessly and impulsively.
There’re the other folks I’ve hurt along the way as a result of that one that got away.
There’s even our cat, who just likes to cause trouble inside of the house… and even if we know that the solution is to let the guy out more, we’re afraid to because he may never come back and we haven’t come to terms with that yet.
And I haven’t even gone through the rest of the church – yes, the same church we like to say ‘isn’t a museum for perfect relics, but a hospital for hurting people’; Well, a couple of these people are still blind to the supposedly sobering fact that hurt people hurt other people, and are causing problems for themselves and/or the people around them.
And if I’m honest, there’s me – because I’ve pretty much hit rock bottom time and time again, and all I have to show for myself is the ultimate move for anyone who could use some motivation, inspiration, direction in their lives: Commentary. No, blogging.
But am I writing here and now as an appeal to emotion, or to wallow in self-pity? No, thankfully, I had intentions before I hopped into that swamphole of recollection.
Going through the ‘shopping list’ of past painful people can take enough time on its own… but there’s a lot of people in our present (or even folks from the past that we like to ‘keep’ in the present) as well as people in our future that introduce their own flavor of worry in our lives.
I say all of this time and time again to emphasize that we are not denying the overwhelming weight of this reality – which makes it all the more encouraging for us to realize and recognize that the heavier things get, the greater our God is.
No, I’m not just going to leave it at that. Don’t take my word for it – For myself, and for whoever’s reading, I believe the Word gives us significant, infinitely superior assurance.
Between the last time I touched this and now, I sort of realized that though it may be possible that certain folks may stand out with their own significant and intangible problems, the fact of the matter is, while we are in this world infected by sin and subject to death and oblivion, we ALL have pain.
But that doesn’t change the flow of where I believe I’m headed to, here. Sure, we’re seeing an increase of really messed up things going on by the hands of really messed up people… But it only underlines the fact of the matter being that we’ve actually been really messed up ever since our fall at the Garden of Eden.
This here isn’t a call, but it’s a reminder – that now, as we should have been, and as we should keep doing; We should really be looking to the the Lord, abiding in Him, praying with Him, taking in His Word and proclaiming it into the world.
Speaking of the Word, here’s something I scribbled onto a sheet of paper, yesterday in between meetings:
Psalm 54:1-3
Answered Prayer for Deliverance from Adversaries
To the Chief Musician. With stringed instruments. A Contemplation of David when the Ziphites went and said to Saul, “Is David not hiding with us?”
1 Save me, O God, by Your name, And vindicate me by Your strength.
2 Hear my prayer, O God; Give ear to the words of my mouth.
3 For strangers have risen up against me, And oppressors have sought after my life; They have not set God before them.
Praise God, from whom all blessings flow.
Praise Him, all creatures here below.
Praise Him above, ye heavenly host;
Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost!
For in the recalling of the Word, we could not help but praise.
We flow. I think we’re in a season where we understand that, yes, Father, Son, and Spirit, and the body of Christ are separate entities… But we all flow together.
Flow, in crisis. Flow, in abandonment. Flow, in loneliness. Flow, in betrayal. Flow in sudden conflict, flow in the pain. We flow, we trust God, and we thank God.
We think with the Father.
We speak, and Christ speaks with us.
We move as the Spirit moves.
David had an idea of what he wanted (v1). David also certainly knew what he was facing (v3).
And in spite of that, He placed His trust in the Lord.
He looked to the Lord, calling out to Him, so that, more than anything else, He would hear his prayers, and the words of his mouth.
Our faith is in God (Father, Son, and Spirit), who hears and responds. He hears us, He listens to us, He responds – according to His infinite power and eternal wisdom.
But we also respond as He responds. That’s what we say when we say we flow.
We respond with the Father.
We reply with Christ.
We react in the presence of the Spirit.
We flow.
I’ve been working out more lately, and there’ve been parts and areas of my body that have been aching. But as much as we can… we still need to show up.
One thing about this world is that it’s rife and saturated with pain… but we give thanks to the Lord, because it’s not by our strength, nor is it by our will that we are able to show up and stay up – Give thanks to the Lord, for He is trustworthy, and He is with us through it all.
Let’s continue to take in the Word, let’s continue to share the Word, let’s continue to flow.
Because that’s really all we could do, here and now.
And, really, this is more for me than it is for anyone else.
Amen.
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