I think I made that word up?!
I’ve been musing about what would be a good analogy to pick for a ‘what is God doing’ sort of a post.
2009 has felt like the year of the metaphor so far, these days I regularly find myself sitting in one hot beverage emporium or another wrestling with fitting all that he seems to be saying and doing into the bigger picture of life, and then words fail, and so we resort to pictures of houses and jigsaws and radishes (ok… I made that one up, but I needed a third example and I’ve always wanted to create a metaphor involving radishes…)
I guess I’m all too aware that the next six months are going to bring change change change, and I’m excited, really I am. Often these days I find myself lying in bed and in those moments before I drift off to sleep just feeling toe-curlingly expectant about everything.
And I’m such a ‘now’ person. I want to wake up and it all be happening today. And I want it all to fit into the nice 17 point schedule I’ve arranged, and I want it all to be perfect, and I’m mentally running around the place trying to work out if there’s anything I’ve missed, and if there’s anything else I can do to ease the proceedings along. And then I come to God at the end of the day, with my list of questions and a report of the day, and instead of responding to my debrief like an employer, he just seems to want to stop for a while and listen with me, and he’s pointing out the sound of the rain bouncing off the rooftops all around my (now sparse) attic room.
And so we sit, and suddenly the rest doesn’t seem so important after all.
Yesterday, during the great spring clean/sort out/room transformation, I learned that people approach such tasks very differently. I am definitely in the ‘clear everything out of the space, pile it up in the bathroom and bring it back in piece by piece. Try it in four different places before moving it back to the first’ camp. My lovely friend is definitely in the ‘it will save all of our backs to just pile it up by the fireplace and work with it all around’ camp. You could probably psychoanalyse that, or deduce something remarkable about our learning styles or something, but it made me think about me, and God, and my reactions to all the ‘renovations’ he seems to be doing in my life at present.
I loved the moment when my room was empty of pretty much everything, and it was fine (as long as noone wanted to use the bathroom… or get down the stairs without risking life and limb, for that matter). I enjoyed the order of building up the space bit by bit, and it made me think that I often find myself wishing healing was like that – wishing that God got rid of everything that was wonky and dysfunctional in one fell swoop, so everything could be reassembled neatly and in an ordered fashion, piece by piece. I think lovely friend was slightly terrified by my ordered methodicalness (which may have crossed the line into dictatorship only a few times), and I was smiling thinking about how much I strive for that same order in much of my life.
And then I was smiling some more thinking about how God doesn’t seem to keep things in the same neat lines, he doesn’t seem to be methodical in the way that I would rate. It’s like he listens to my plans and values my ideas and then responds with something that makes a whole lot more sense anyway, (and I am only ever a little disgruntled… really).
It seems that his way of doing things is much closer to my lovely friend’s. And I’m there feeling a bit flummoxed because boxes are half unpacked and the floor is only a third hoovered and where is the wardrobe going to go, and surely we have to get this done before we’re allowed to drink tea. And he is like ‘let’s take a break and go get some cake’, and it’s in stopping that I can take a deep breath, and see how much change has already taken place, and he energises me to keep going. He surprises me with his insight and wisdom, he knows when I am tired and just carrying on because I think I should, he isn’t restricted by my sense of pressure and deadline. It’s refreshing.
These past couple of weeks I’ve kept getting a passage from Exodus 35 resounding in my mind. The tabernacle is being built, and the Israelites all go off back to their tents in order to create something to bring to be ‘built into it’. I love the imagery in the passage about different coloured yarns, and linen, and brooches of silver etc. It’s a strong picture for me. I really do feel like I’m sitting in my little tent, crafting something to bring, but it’s like when you start sculpting with clay, and you don’t really know what it’s going to be yet, and more than that I can’t really even picture what the tabernacle is going to look like, so I’m not really sure if it’ll fit with the décor… but I’m sure God’ll be able to work all that bit out. This really does feel like a season of preparation – what is ahead is beautiful and good, but for now it’s just kind of nice to be able to sit in my dim but amicable tepee and muse about it all.
Sounds like an amazing time of preparation!