offended amidst crickets & sirens
The firetruck's siren was blaring, trying to find some sort of harmony with the crickets outside. My room was lit by candles alone as I laid on my back, book to my nose, listening to the uncertain song. The scene perhaps sounds serene but truly it was my attempt to chill the f out.
In the midst of a whirlwind of transitions, I had a lot of questions I wanted answers for. These quiet moments, often before bed and right when I awoke, had been necessary solaces for me. Essential reminders that life is bigger than job interviews and rent checks and carefully made plans.
So I lay in bed, reading St. Augustine's Confessions, trying in earnest to let some semblance of cricket songs fill my heart when the resounding sound was sirens screaming.
And then I read this sentence: "I sought, therefore, some way to acquire the strength sufficient to enjoy you; but I did not find it until I embraced that 'mediator between god and man, the man Christ Jesus'... [Jesus came that he might] lower our pride & heighten our love, to the end that we might go on no farther in self-confidence--but rather should become weak, seeing at our feet the deity made weak by sharing our coats of skin--so that we might cast ourselves, exhausted, upon him and be uplifted by his rising."*
My reaction to this passage did not align with the peace I was trying to cultivate. I was pissed off. I was irritated. How, after years of being a believer, is this gospel still so offensive to my incessantly independent heart?
There are seasons when I feel incredibly aware of my weakness and vulnerability. Seasons of transitions, of newness, of sadness that will not lift. Seasons when I want desperately for answers, but know only questions. And in these seasons I often find myself picking up a pen and paper to make a list.
I love lists. I make lists for my lists. Lists are pavement to which my vehicle can make its way to new adventures and accomplishments and achievements. There is one thing I love more than lists, thought. Crossing things off lists. Sometimes I add things I've already done to a list just to be able to cross it off.
My love affair with lists began at a young age and felt like a necessary tool in a particularly difficult season.
It was my junior year of college when the clouds seemed unable to lift. So what did I do? I made a list. A list of anything I could do that may not fix the sadness, but definitely would not hurt it. With a list in hand, I felt like I was gaining back some power I had lost. This list equipped me with tools, with things to do, with opportunities to cross things off.
A list gives me options. It gives me something, anything, that I can do.
So this word from Augustine found me angry. I cannot make everything better, which isn't a news flash to anyone else, but took me by shock. My heart and life and being is unable to truly help myself. I cannot make a list of things to do for my salvation. I cannot muster up enough effort and gumption to please my Maker.
Instead he asks me to come to him, stripped of pretense, lists thrown away, aware that I cannot do it, aware that I need someone greater than myself. As Joseph Harp once wrote: "All the fitness he requireth, is to feel your need of Him."
That is so beautiful and vast and shocking and offensive. I want to be able to do it. I want to be able to make a list, to do a thing, to earn my way. Don't we all? We want to be able to say we did it. We want to be able to feel we've earned it.
But we haven't. We never could.
Daily I must come to terms with the truth that it is not in my hands. My most valiant efforts cannot do what only my Jesus can do. Bible studies and prayer meetings and church community cannot do what only Jesus can do. My conversion story or my growth as a believer is not what I can depend on. Only Jesus. Always Jesus.
And he does not ask for a list with completely crossed off tasks. He asks for me to come to him, aware of my need, accepting his generous and free gift.
* I took some liberties with this passage, changing words like "them" to "us", etc.