That’s interesting….
Somewhere along the way my blog comments have become more about teaching than about experiencing. Or to put it another way, they have become more about sharing insights with others than about taking something away personally myself. How did that happen? Or, if I were to go back to the beginning, have I always written this way? Either way, I want to shift my focus slightly from sharing with whoever may be reading to absorbing something from the text myself, and then jotting a few reminders of what I learned here.
After reading the passage today I left my computer and sat outside on the front step. I never seem to get tired of looking out across the church property and the hills that surround it. It’s a beautiful sight even in winter…but I am glad for warmer weather that permits me to be outside.
As I sat there this morning I noticed that thin dark clouds were moving in. The wind was blowing slightly with a chill in it. Something inside me says that “it feels like rain”. I wonder where that feeling comes from? How do animals know how to predict the weather and we often get it wrong? I wonder this morning if there are things are bodies are capable of that we can’t imagine, or think impossible…simply because those abilities haven’t been “unlocked” by God. I noticed that from time to time there was a break in the clouds, and the sky was crisp and blue above them. I could see shimmers of the sunrise on the front sides of the storm clouds. You wouldn’t think that a storm cloud could testify that the sun was coming up….but it did.
Several thoughts occurred to me as I sat there gazing out across the lawn. First, that I never see the same sky twice. We often say “it’s overcast” but the clouds we saw moments ago are now reconfigured, or have moved away completely. There is a new “overcast” sky that replaces the old one. I don’t like overcast skies much, and I tend to group it all together and refer to it as one big “overcast day/week”, but that’s not exactly true. The overcast is moving, and will soon be gone, and the sun will return and shine brightly again, making everything warm…even hot to the touch. I picked up a flat rock laying in the yard yesterday and it was hot to the touch. Right now that seems like a long time ago.
David is crying out in his pain and sickness. For David, the skies are overcast, but he knows (I think…maybe he simply hopes) that this will “blow over” and he will return to strength again. Sunny days are ahead, when his enemies will be put down and silenced, and friends will be revealed for who they really are. Today is dark and chilly for David, with his heartbeat racing, his strength and eyesight failing, and who knows what other symptoms. People are afraid to even go into his room, for fear they may catch what he has. There are groups of people who are predicting that it’s so bad he may never get out of bed again. It’s funny I don’t remember David being this ill from when I read before…I remember Hezekiah being this sick, but never David. I wonder if this illness was part of what prompted Absalom to make a run for the throne? Was David on the run while he was seriously ill? Ugh. I wish I knew.
David realizes the plight that he is in, but he it placing all his trust and hope for healing in God. No mention of medicine, even though I am sure he took advantage of whatever he could…if healing came, God would get the credit.
I can endure overcast days….even see the beauty in them and the necessity of them, when I know that they aren’t permanent. Sun will return.
I suppose the same should be true of trials and persecutions in my life, and even illness. I can endure them, because I know that just like the overcast skies, they aren’t permanent. In fact, they aren’t always the same either. One day it’s a friend who has said something false, the next it’s an illness or injury, then perhaps a general feeling of malaise or downturn in ministry. It’s never really the same sky twice, it’s always changing, always moving. That alone should encourage me, because as it changes from one “calamity” to the next, I am reminded that it’s moving. Moving away. “This too, shall pass”.
I said earlier “several thoughts occurred to me..” so I’d better make good on that comment. As I sat looking at the hills, which are turning green around me, and listening to the birds sing I thought about what a rich and beautiful place this really is. “The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places”. In this area I could see many different varieties of song birds, ducks, geese, squirrels, deer and several eagles, all in the same day. And just a few hundred yards away the frogs are making so much noise that it’s almost distracting. Anyway, it always looks the best when the grass is mowed…I think that’s because I can look at the property and not see a “job that needs done”. Today as I looked out, and admired the greenery on the surrounding hills, I noticed that I couldn’t look at the hills without seeing the sky. My gaze was “upward”.
David said in Psalm 121 “I lift my eyes to the hills, where does my help come from..?” In his day, the surrounding hills could be the place where enemies spied out the city. But behind the hills is the true source of strength and power. “….my help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth”. Sometimes the hills are metaphors for all the problems we have. The kind of problems that David was having right now. But when David looked at his problems he saw the One who is greater than all our problems, looming large behind them, and making even those things we consider to be permanent or impossible seem like nothing important.
From his sick bed, David is looking up. And I suppose all of hell is wishing that he wouldn’t.
Faithfully,
PR