Out of the Woodwork

I guess it’s time to emerge from the woodwork. To break the silence that has almost deafened my own ears.

It has been a rollercoaster week. A week in which I have fallen into the depths of despondency, and have also, by the tender mercies of God risen on the wings of eagles with fresh faith and hope anew. Before, I had felt like a king and priest stripped of his kingly robes and priestly garments, naked and as shame-faced as Adam and Eve. Now, I feel like a little girl stretched out on a field of soft green grass – basking in the warm and glorious rays of the sun.

What transpired in between?

A simple woman who reminded me that there is war in the heavenlies, that good and evil existed long before man was created in the Garden of Eden, that to lose heart is to lose life and that the devil is fighting for our hearts as hard as God is.

A nightmarish week – as I took a good long hard look at myself, my life, and the convictions which I have clung onto for the past six years since I decided to abandon my boats to become a fisher of men like Jesus. Angry words hurled at me that shook the very confidence upon which my faith stood and put into question the vocation to which I thought I had been called.

I wondered about me. The heart is, as Jeremiah 17:9-10 put it, deceitful above all things; it is perverse – who can understand it? It is the Lord who tests the mind and searches the heart, to give to all according to their ways and according to the fruit of their doings.

Have I really hidden behind the things I have been so good at doing? Have my ruminations and reflections about God in my world turned out to be a defence of the wayward Self more than a defence of the Gospel? Has religiosity and dogmatism taken precedence over an authentic spirituality expressed through faith, hope and above all else a love that is supposed to be patient and kind, that is neither proud nor attention seeking, but seeks rather to bear all things, believe all things, and endure all things?

The heart is indeed deceitful above all things. I don’t claim to understand mine. But if I can’t speak for all, I speak for myself at least – that there is as much a monster in me as there is a saint. I am capable of committing unthinkable monstrosities as I am able to serve my fellow brethren in sacrificial acts of love. I don’t have the last word. But if I can have a word at all, I pray that this may at least be an attempt, no matter how pathetic it may seem, to allow God to shed His light on my darkened heart and to probe my limited mind. If only, this vessel could shine just that little bit brighter, just that little bit warmer.

Yes, when tempers run amok and the monsters in us unleashed, I am reminded that whatever evil we have committed against each other really ceases to matter if we are to believe that the greatest of all is love, and that this love is more than able to cover a multitude of sins. We fear not the evil that can be committed against us, because we trust in the bigness of our Lord, who is our hope, and whose love we may hope-fully look to, to drive out all our fears that we may never find strength enough to piece our broken selves back together again.

Blessed are those who trust in the Lord, whose hope is the Lord. For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters, which spreads out its roots by the river, and will not fear when the heat comes; But its leaves will be green, and will not be anxious in the year of drought, nor will cease form yielding fruit. (Jeremiah 17:7-8)

All things work together for good. Good can come out of evil, where sin abounds, grace abounds also. We bear fruit in such times of testing, for it is in the longing that we experience love most strongly; it is in moments of doubt that we learn to exercise faith, and it is in times of pain and suffering that we find ourselves hoping against all hope.

Give me thy grace, good Lord... To think my most enemies my best friends, for the brethren of Joseph could never have done him so much good with their love and favour as they did him with their malice and hatred.

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- Thomas More

Amen.