The long, dull, monotonous years of middle-aged prosperity or middle-aged adversity are excellent campaigning weather for the devil.
~C. S. Lewis
A Psalm of David
The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures.
He leads me beside still waters.
He restores my soul.
He leads me in paths of righteousness for
His name’s sake.
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for
You are with me;
Your rod and
Your staff, they comfort me.
You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;
You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD forever.
~David, The Warrior Poet of The Ancient of Days in Psalm 23
Oh beloved, it is true.
There is a sweet solitude to that comes to a son maturing in his knowledge of The Holy One. It is a sense of the Presence of The Jesus Who has actually always been near. But now, the One Who was near has become us, and – this fool of a writer says this with careful intent – and we are becoming just like Him; united through only HIS plan, work, death, resurrection, and ascension to the throne of the Regent of The Universe.
We, Him totally alone, but forming an effulgent multitude that touches all of creation – and feels creation’s true touch in return.
However, while we sometimes taste this, all of creation still groans for the revealing of the full reality of our sonship and daughtership and the finalization of our adoption into the Family of G_d. We ache. We yearn. We trudge. We stumble. The hiraeth (look it up) nearly drops us to our knees. We feel alone, but not in sweet solitude. We feel the dry terrain of the temporal plane, and it wants to suck any of the strength we have from our entire being.
This sense of isolation is far outside of our Designed parameters and is a truly dangerous theatre of operations. And if we buy into this isolation as addicts (or as anyone, really) we are in danger of forever missing the eternal reunion for which we groan.
Can we see it?
The great Liar, The Satan, has already been cast into this negative isolation we feel. And he wants to deprive us of the Presence in which he once stood. And the great lie is that the years we feel alone here, are all that there is ever going to be.
Oh yes! He is going to experience this forever! And those who so choose will be granted their heart’s true desire to go their own way – forever alone.
But the great point about a lie is that it is a privation of a deeper and Eternal truth. David talks about this in Psalm 23. He is both rejoicing in His sweet intimacy with G_d, but is totally aware of the fact that he is still – for the moment – locked into the battle that time is trying to wage with eternity. And, what David saw was that the Mercy and Goodness of G_d was enough for this time. And mostly, this same Goodness and Mercy were the highway out of time and into eternal union with His Heavenly Father and His soon-coming family
So, are you feeling the crushing loneliness that can pervade our current existence? It is real. But, OH beloved, it is not forever. We are almost Home. Jesus is preparing our place at His table. He is getting everything ready for everything thing we will ever need in Him.
Tonight is your night. Time to realize the solitude of His Presence is what is real. It is not a fleeting thing. It is a taste of the truest and deepest reality.
We two form a multitude.
~Ovid
