(originally published August 3, 2017)
Thursday,
August 3, 2023
I’ve often wondered how the people of
great reputation in the Biblical accounts could also appear so small, frail,
and full of weakness. But as soon as I begin that pondering, reality
rises up in my thoughts, that those people are flesh-and-blood, not icons
painted on a wall. Of course they have moments, even months or years,
when they’re not icons of faith; they’re reminders that we all come
from small places.
When we leave the womb we begin to face the possibility
of isolation, being alone. And, not being created for aloneness,
it troubles us. David spent months being chased into the wilderness
places, hounded by an increasingly insane King Saul, former benefactor and
mentor (when your friends turn, the darkness deepens!). So David spent
time hiding in caves to avoid capture and death. Dark caves, silent
places, are places where you have no place; you only exist. David spent a
lot of time crying-out to God for rescue from his troubled existence.
Did you catch David’s dark weakness when he lifted up his voice to pray?
I am praying
to you because I know you will answer, O God. Bend down and listen as I
pray.
David expressed faith (I know you will answer, O
God). But the next phrase tells
just how much David senses his prayers are very disconnected from
God: Bend down…, this is the cry of
someone who feels very small and very isolated.
This is my liturgy of light for dark
places.
There have been a number of times in my life, (and it
still happens occasionally), that the aloneness of that small and vulnerable
newborn child, just out of the mother’s womb, rises up in my soul and proclaims
the profoundness of the deep darkness that surrounds and would swallow me
up! It is then I need the liturgy of light!
Liturgy is something we might connect with a labored,
boring responsive reading, or long, drawn-out call and response during the
sacraments. Literally, the word “liturgy” is work of the
people, our part in offering worship to God. As the people of
God offer genuine, heart-felt worship, darkness is dispelled, chased from our
lives. That is why whenever you don’t feel like coming to church on a
given Sunday…and you go anyway…when you leave church that day there is a
general sense of lightness; you feel better for having attended – glad you
went!
The darkness had to leave when you emptied yourself in
the presence of light!
For You Today
Got darkness?
There’s an app for that…liturgy of light!
You chew on that as you
hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!
There are about 2,600 devotional
posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions library.
Title Image:
By Dinesh Valke from Thane, India, via Wikimedia
Commons
Images without citation are in public domain. Unless noted, Scripture quoted from NLT©
