Psalm 18:6-19
6In my distress I called upon the Lord; to my God I cried for help. From his temple he heard my voice, and my cry to him reached his ears.
7Then the earth reeled and rocked; the foundations also of the mountains trembled and quaked, because he was angry.
8Smoke went up from his nostrils, and devouring fire from his mouth; glowing coals flamed forth from him.
9He bowed the heavens, and came down; thick darkness was under his feet.
10He rode on a cherub, and flew; he came swiftly upon the wings of the wind.
11He made darkness his covering around him, his canopy thick clouds dark with water.
12Out of the brightness before him there broke through his clouds hailstones and coals of fire.
13The Lord also thundered in the heavens, and the Most High uttered his voice.
14And he sent out his arrows, and scattered them; he flashed forth lightnings, and routed them.
15Then the channels of the sea were seen, and the foundations of the world were laid bare at your rebuke, O Lord, at the blast of the breath of your nostrils.
16He reached down from on high, he took me; he drew me out of mighty waters.
17He delivered me from my strong enemy, and from those who hated me; for they were too mighty for me.
18They confronted me in the day of my calamity; but the Lord was my support.
19He brought me out into a broad place; he delivered me, because he delighted in me.
So that was one of the texts for yesterday. In it, God rescues one who is in distress from his struggles and takes him to "a broad place". The psalmist is delivered; God delights in him; he is now in a place of clarity, where he can easily defend himself and possibly find a new point of view. God arrives thundering in on the winds of a storm; He is mighty in His wrath, and the whole world knows it.
And I was thinking about how God is not only evident in nature in the places we normally think of--like the beautiful landscapes in those inspirational calendars--but also in the violence and wrath of the natural world. Have you ever been in a hurricane, or a tropical storm (or monsoon or typhoon or nor'easter)? It's terrifying and destructive and beautiful and majestic. Have you ever seen a satellite photo of a storm system like that? When you're removed from the middle of the storm, it loses much of its fearsomeness, and becomes instead a thing of awe and immense power and beauty.
I was in Iraq in the spring of 2005 when the Al Asad area was overcome by a gigantic sandstorm. If you do a google image search for "Iraq sandstorm April 2005", you get these:
And they, too, look majestic and powerful and beautiful (it's a strange beauty, but it is beautiful).
While you're in the middle of a hurricane or a haboob, it sucks. It's tearing you roof off, or toppling trees onto your car, or stinging your eyes and clogging your nose and ears with what is perhaps the content of the entire Arabian desert.
So life sucks at times. You're in the midst of the pain of the death of a loved one, or you're in debt up to your eyeballs and you can't see a way out, or you're lonely and you don't understand how anyone on earth, much less earth's Creator, could possibly love someone like you.
So life sucks at times. You're in the midst of the pain of the death of a loved one, or you're in debt up to your eyeballs and you can't see a way out, or you're lonely and you don't understand how anyone on earth, much less earth's Creator, could possibly love someone like you.
That's distress, live and haboob-like.
But God is bigger than the Ivan in your life. He's bigger than the biggest sandstorm. And he's big enough to take you out of the most terrifying part of that storm, and remove you to "a broad place"--where you can see not only the majesty of the storm, but also the power of the One who saved you.
A Timbered Choir
I go among trees and sit still.
All my stirring becomes quiet
around me like circles on water.
My tasks lie in their places
where I left them, asleep like cattle.
Then what is afraid of me comes
and lives a while in my sight.
What it fears in me leaves me,
and the fear of me leaves it.
It sings, and I hear its song.
Then what I am afraid of comes.
I live for a while in its sight.
What I fear in it leaves it,
and the fear of it leaves me.
It sings, and I hear its song.
After days of labor,
mute in my consternations,
I hear my song at last,
and I sing it. As we sing,
the day turns, the trees move.
And, once you live through enough hurricanes, or enough sandstorms, or tornadoes, or whatever, you might be able to see their beauty from the inside, even as you cry out to God to rescue you.
And then, too, you can catch a glimpse of how beautiful life is, even in its most painful moments.
Thanks for the poem, Molly! And, you know, the good preachin'.
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