Right way and right time

In the early hours of the morning I was awaken after a dream.  It was a deeply sad dream.  I was troubled.  I could feel the fear lingering in my heart.

Laying in bed, in prayer... I decided to get up.  I would re-set my alarm to sleep past my normal waking time.  I could go and have my 'God-time' in His Word at 4 am... then allow myself the extra sleep if I could get there again after 5 am.

Needless to say, it was a troubling dream.  Anything that will pull me from my warm bed...into the cold, wet dark of winter; I was feeling it acutely.

Sitting in my 'morning chair' I prayed.  I could feel the silence of the dark around me and I knew that the dark was welling inside, as well.  I didn't feel relief in that moment.  I just felt alone.

So... I spent the first moments of my quiet time in my journal.  I wrote.  And, wrote.  I spilled out the profound sadness that accompanied the dream.  This dream happened to be a repeat of a theme, as of late.  I have seen this dream before... or at least I have seen its sort.

A theme of worries and fears about the future.  I have been having dreams of sadness draping my world and hard roads which lay ahead.  Oh... the cold and dark of the early morning hours.

After spilling my mind and my heart out on paper... I still felt a bit lost.  Where now, Lord? 

I sensed and felt to simply pick up where I left off yesterday... in my daily reading through of Isaiah.  Isaiah 30 is where I landed.

In the dark of this early morning, my eyes began to read and read and read... Slowly, prayerfully I read; all the while waiting and expecting the living Word to do what it so often does--- jump right off the page and touch me.  I wasn't disappointed.

After a few moments, from the pages, my soul saw and heard "Yahweh is a God of justice*.  Blessedly happy are all who wait expectantly for him" (Isaiah 30:18)

The word justice... in this version.. had an asterisk next to it and the explanation said:

"This word justice is the very complex and profound Hebrew word:  mishpat.  In this context it means 'one who knows how to make right decisions at just the right time'.

...to make right decisions.  just at the right time.  Always true.  Always authoritatively correct.  Always timely.  Just the right time.

This was exactly what my soul needed this morning.  With the Words, I could feel my heart resting and my mind slowing to the pace of Truth.

My God... this Yahweh, who I love with all my heart, mind and strength... is a God who is good, righteous, loving, and holy.  He has always been.  He will always be.  It is HE that makes these decisions.  Just at the right time.

These heavy premonitions and worries that lurk at the edge of my future... these sad things that my soul seems determined to process--- I can lay them down at His feet.  I can place them in His hands. I can wait expectantly on Him---receiving my inheritance of peace and 'blessed happiness'.  I can know that He does all things well.

I need never worry.  I need never be afraid of tomorrow.  I can trust Him to do just the right thing in/with my life---at just the exact right time.

As an end to my early morning journal ramblings, I wrote the verse down.  I circled it.  And shutting the book, I quietly made my way upstairs and slipped back into bed.  For a very few short moments, lying in the dark of the 5 am...  I whispered a prayer and my soul was at rest once again.  ...Falling asleep with the thought,  My God is the God of mishpat!

My Advent

There are days when it all feels very heavy and dark.  The world.  The news.  The sadness.

But, today, I awoke with a sadness that was almost oppressive.  Sadness seemed to hang around my neck as I rose from bed.  It pulled me down and filled my chest as I sipped my coffee.  Grief sat in my throat as I ate and weighed heavy as I walked to church.  As worship began, the tears hung heavy in my eyes...  slow, big, fat, hot tears.

Heavy, dark sadness.

I was sad... deeply saddened by the state of my heart.

Simply put, in my life, there is a certain way of thinking and seeing that is just wrong.  Profoundly wrong.  I know it is wrong; and yet, I still think the crooked thoughts and see with these darkened eyes.  There seems to be nothing I can do to change it.   Years, my heart cries.  Years and years I have seen this way and battled against it.   Years, Lord!  I cry out...longing for this to be changed.

I even know why I might naturally think this way...   I am aware.  I know the history--- I understand the where it came from.  God has shown me.   And, that has helped.   Awareness is definitely good.

But, still.  Still, I can't shift it.  I can't seem to change or fix the pattern.  My friend refers to these places as tectonic plates in our souls.  I seriously need an big 'ol 8.0 to shake these set ways of seeing.  Where can I go and what can I do?

It was one moment in time...

One swift moment.  This morning, in the midst of this heavy grief over my sin...

One young man reading one well-known passage in Scripture. 

A phrase.  A line from the text.  The Word jumped out of his teenage mouth into my dark heart and there was instantaneous light.  I felt it.  One beautiful moment...   Truth and light.

I quickly found the passage to read it again.  I couldn't take my eyes off it!  I read and read.  As I read the Word, I could literally feel the surge of hope.  I could feel the light swelling and pushing out the sadness.

"Every valley shall be raised up.  Every hill made low.  The rough ground shall become level and the rugged places a plain." (Isaiah 40:4)

Rugged and rough places.  Dark valleys...

In my minds eye I could see the rough and rugged reality of my soul--- these wrong ways of thinking and the dark valleys where my eyes could not see rightly.

My soul.  Rough.  Rugged.  Thorny and full of stones.

As if I could hear the Spirit of the Lord this morning saying over me, "Make a straight path for our God!" (Isaiah 40:3)  He commands it.  The Lord wills it.  Over me, He speaks...  I will make it level!  

In me.  In and over these rough places.  In me... a straight path.  Level ground.  A green plain.  A straight pathway for the glory of the Lord.

This is the gospel.  This is what Jesus has done for me.  This is what Jesus is doing in me...   The now and the 'not yet'.  He has shifted.  He will shift.  And, He continues to shift the rocks and make way for His way in and through me.  I have seen it.  I will continue to see it.

Light shone into my darkness this morning.  This morning, I, once again, saw a great light.  The darkness will not overcome it.  He is making all things new.  This will shift.  This will change.

There are days when it all feels very heavy.  Yes.

Today, I will wait.  I will hope and I will watch for the Lord.  With joy, now, hovering over my head and light filling out the spaces of my heart---I wait.

My advent. 

"And then, imperceptibly, it was death and winter that yielded, and life and spring stood at the door and beckoned." ~ Elizabeth Goudge, Towers in the Midst