Abandoning Chaos

If you don’t surrender to Christ, you surrender to chaos.
~E. Stanley Jones (1884-1973)

Thus says the Lord: “In a time of favor I have answered you; in a day of salvation I have helped you; I will keep you and give you as a covenant to the people, to establish the land, to apportion the desolate heritages, saying to the prisoners, ‘Come out,’ to those who are in darkness, ‘Appear.’ They shall feed along the ways; on all bare heights shall be their pasture; they shall not hunger or thirst, neither scorching wind nor sun shall strike them, for He who has pity on them will lead them, and by springs of water will guide them. And I will make all My mountains a road, and My highways shall be raised up. Behold, these shall come from afar, and behold, these from the north and from the west, and these from the land of Syene.” Sing for joy, O heavens, and exult, O earth; break forth, O mountains, into singing! For the Lord has comforted His people and will have compassion on His afflicted. But Zion said, “The Lord has forsaken me; my Lord has forgotten me.” “Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of My hands; your walls are continually before Me.
~ from Isaiah 49

Oh beloved, it is true.  There are days.  And then there are days.  And then… there are memories He gives which will outlive the sun.  It seems that just as we come to be familiar with His goodness, the boundary we had in sight, skitters off into infinity.

Will we ever find the center of His goodness?  This fool of a writer believes the answer is yes, however it will take us forever to find it.  The depth of who He is defies the word depth.  And the coastline of the ocean of His grace simply does not exist.  Oh for that day!  But still, He gives us a picture to hold until we can see it for ourselves. 

He does not just have our name or initials written on His hand like some note or icon of remembrance.  He has us (our entire being) engraved on both of the palms of His hands.

Yet, as we in this fallen world go through our days, we tend to both make and inherit messes. We break things, and things break around us. The corruption of the flesh and the futility to which creation has been subjected shatter around us.  And the entropy inherent in the cosmos we inhabit imparts a temptation on us to panic.

We get into problems and we know that we need to hand them over to the One who can put it all back together.  But, even in the knowing, we have this tenacious tendency to try and somehow organize or outline or wrap or comprehend or even partially fix our problems before we hand them over to Him.  

Oh, it is not that we don’t trust Him.  But it is more like we are the kid who thinks he can fix his broken plastic toy by pushing it back together, or just rolling the broken wheels harder against the floor.  

Or perhaps we are a bit embarrassed that we have gotten ourselves so tangled in the mess we have been in so many times before.

Or maybe we don’t really trust Him.

And then we see it.  He already knows.  

And He is not disappointed.  
He is not disillusioned.
He is not surprised.
He is not offended.
He is not caught off-guard.
He is confused.
He is not annoyed.
He is not dismayed at our failure.

We are His children.  We are His little children.  We are His babies, cooing and crying and playing and whining in the palms of His amazing hands.   We have been there since birth. And we have never left this place.  In fact, we are so “in” His hands, as to be engraved in them.  And so, when we think we have to bundle up our problems, and bring them to Him, we make an immense mistake – for there is no journey before us.  We are already there.

Can we see it?  We are already kept and fed and clothed and protected and built-up and watched.  And the pieces and problems we are trying to scoop up and bring to our Papa are already under Watchful Eye of the One in who’s hands we already reside.

Said simply, the problems have already found their solution.  The problem is not the problem.  The problem is the direction of our gaze.  What if we just dropped all the thousands of pieces we are trying to pick up and let them fall right back onto the floor?  For the very firm floor and foundation for us is His very able hands.

What if we just curled back up in His hands for a moment and rested from the false torture and labor we have been subjecting ourselves to?  What if we stopped squirming and whining for just a moment and rested?  What strength might come from that moment of true rest?

We know the answer.  But like the squirming baby in his mom’s arms, we have to stop and allow the comfort and sustenance of stillness come over us.  Will we?   

Tonight is the night beloved.  Let Him have you.  Come to rest in His very able hands.  You are already engraved in the hands of the everlasting arms.  They will not grow tired.  They will not drop you.  They will not fail.