Good morning…
Walking our dog, I noticed this conglomerate rock resting in the grass. I picked it up, held it in the palm of my hand, and thought, “This feels like a symbol of me right now. So much new is rising up from the depths of me, moving steadily from unconscious unknowing into conscious awareness.”
I brought the rock home, placed it on its own perch, and surrounded it by three open, empty, permanently connected jars. One for the Father. One for the Son. One for the Holy Spirit. As I grow more consciously aware of the deep needs of all people, I remain prayerfully open and empty, trusting our triune God to fill me each day with the enduring strength of our Father, the sacrificial love of the Son, and the nourishing fruit of the Holy Spirit.
When the moment was right, an email from earlier in the day rose up to remind me: “The minister at our church called this a liminal time, which I’ve heard many times before. But he specifically defined it as a change in thinking or PERCEPTION. And I think that’s what is happening in me.”
“Actually,” I responded, “I think that’s what is happening in me too.”
My thinking, my PERCEPTION is changing. I sense myself moving from a blind unawareness of inhumane injustice to a soul-stirring, new awareness of God’s relentless love for all people, for the mistreated and the marginalized, for the givers and the grievers, for the victims and the victimizers. Of Jesus it is said: When he looked out over the crowds, his heart broke. So confused and aimless they were, like sheep with no shepherd (Matthew 9:36, MSG).
With fresh awareness I sense, “We are that crowd.”
People of color who have endured generations of ugly oppression and white people who, knowingly or unknowingly, have used power and privilege to build inequitable systems. Peaceful protesters and violent rioters. Policemen, civil servants, most who unselfishly put themselves in harm’s way and some who callously cause deadly harm. Exhausted people who just want to get back to “normal” and exhausted people for whom “normal” was perpetuating poverty, lack of opportunity, and unjust treatment. All of us like sheep have gone astray, we have turned, each one, to his own way; But the Lord has caused the wickedness of us all [our sin, our injustice, our wrongdoing] to fall on Him [instead of us] (Isaiah 53:6, AMP). Embodying all of our burdens on the cross, Jesus died to his own “life as it was” to open wide a new threshold into the full freedom of an intimate, abundant “life as it will be, forever.”
As I grow more consciously aware of God’s heartbreaking love for each and every one of us, my new PERCEPTION picks up a powerful promise from Jesus: “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself” (John 12:32, NIV).
Lord, help us all to draw closer to you.
…Sue…
