Come Apart!

 

Monday, July 19, 2021

O God, listen to my cry!  Hear my prayer!  From the ends of the earth, I cry to you for help when my heart is overwhelmed.  Psalm 61:1-2a

I’m not entirely certain who was speaking the first time I heard it; it was one of those sayings understood by most people.  You hardly have to explain this one.

If memory serves, the first time I heard this was in seminary.  It was a caution thrown-out to the fledgling preachers who were sitting at the knees of professor Jerry Breazeale, who was holding-forth on how to be like Jesus.  Only he said, people…remember this…there was only ONE Jesus…and you’re not Him! 

Dr. Breazeale then reminded us how Jesus often was found early in the morning not being found.  He was alone somewhere, praying, regrouping, gathering his strength for the day by being with His Father.  The point was well-taken, if the divine Son of God could feel the boards of life coming apart, we also must pay attention to the way we’re put together; nobody’s indestructible.

As I write, the sun has been up for an hour or so.  My desk faces our deck, which has seen better days.  

The wood has dried-out, paint is peeling, and the nails are surfacing like microwave popcorn making noise in the kitchen. 

The old deck, if not given some major TLC (tender loving care with hammer, sander, and paint-brush), is going to come apart. 

I have been putting this off, because fixing the deck means getting down on my knees, (something else that’s coming apart in my life).  It will be painstaking, time-consuming, and a little costly…but the alternative is to step on the deck some day and find myself in the backyard under a crumbling wood pile.

The same is true of each of us who are children of Adam and Eve.  Our bodies, minds, and souls need spiritual attention.  We need to come apart from the rigors of dealing with life in the 21^st century, and get alone with our Father.  The alternative is to find oursleves with neatly arranged lives of self-sufficiency, only doing the next thing on the task list our smart phone dictates.  And, by the way, that’s not such a neat arrangement!  The purpose for why you do what you do can get major-lost in the flurry of a list of tasks.  And life without purpose is the description of death.

For You Today (and me)

It’s time to take a break.  Get alone with the Father and a cup of coffee, or a walk in the woods, or whatever else gives your schedule the layer of dust it needs. 

For me, that will mean putting the computer on hold for a block of time.  That means you won’t find me in your inbox for a bit, but the plan is to come back to it fresh, renewed, and – having come apart – I hope to be like my deck should be shortly, put back together, sanded, with a fresh coat of paint.  I hope to see you looking refreshed also.

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!   

[1] Title and Other Images:  Pixabay.com  Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©