Clearing the Underbrush
In some measure many of us have “stood on the shoulders of giants” in order to see and realize more than those before us. Such people who have boosted me are a continual inspiration and more than once I have given thanks for such people who were bearers of encouragement and benevolence. I regularly give thanks to God and others for them by name.
I could not say these people in my life contributed to my success. Frankly, I know little of what “success” is unless it is to live with a sense of purpose and enthusiasm. Those giants put a fire in my core to become an encourager myself. The higher call upon our lives is that we do not live this life merely to see “more” and achieve “more” than those before us. We are part of God’s redemptive plan for the earth and its people. We have a divine call and privilege to advance the opportunities and personal dignity of those who follow after. And, for the believer those opportunities involve making inroads in preparing “the way of the Lord.”
The sooner we get over the illusion of achieving and focus upon the work of the advancing the “King and His kingdom” the more we will discover what life is. John the Baptist had the message. He characterized himself as “a voice crying in the wilderness,” in fact, and gave us this refrain:
“’Prepare the way for the Lord,
make straight paths for him.
Every valley shall be filled in,
every mountain and hill made low.
The crooked roads shall become straight,
the rough ways smooth.
All mankind will see God’s salvation.’”
Luke 3:4-6
The believer is empowered not to build something but to clear the way for it. The straight paths may be seen as prayers and preparations for the coming event of His appearing. The low places may be seen as lifting the lowly and the mountains and hills as in the bending and bowing of our natures to the king. The crooked roads are those values, attitudes and styles which are out of joint and which are bent.
It is not drum beating of personal achievement which the believer is attuned to. It is the padding of the feet of the multitudes that have gone before them to behold the promises fulfilled and looming even larger in what the scriptures call “The Golden City.” This is the vision that lifted and carried generations bound in slavery and degradation. It is the vision for which all human nature yearns in the essence of their seeking even of false temporal goals.
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Psalm 131
A song of ascents. Of David.
1 My heart is not proud, LORD,
my eyes are not haughty;
I do not concern myself with great matters
or things too wonderful for me.
2 But I have calmed and quieted myself,
I am like a weaned child with its mother;
like a weaned child I am content.
3 Israel, put your hope in the LORD
both now and forevermore.
Christians may be entitled to peace but they do become miserable from time to time. The times I am most despondent are those times when I fall into that category of persons who feel it is their job to fix everything that I perceive is wrong. I have images of myself running in circles like a dog chasing my tail and every once in a while actually catching it. Then, I ‘yelp’ as if I am suffering from some outside force and all the while I am biting at myself.
It is an illusion to believe that when it comes to relating to others that we can fix them or circumstances to create a perfect world. We fix nothing. It is the nature of this world that when you push something or someone in one place they bulge out in another. “Cause and effect” influences most of what happens in life and try as we may we cannot see all the consequences of our actions. We need to have enough insight to accept that as a fact.
When we push, a reaction takes place that is invariably larger than what we expected. We are arrogant to think otherwise. That is precisely why the believer needs to develop a trust inProvidenceto take over and order the pieces on this giant chess board for ultimate, how be it temporary, “solutions” which usually turn out to be nothing more than cutting a course through a sea of dangerous alternatives.
This is especially true when we have to relate to other people. When people are pushed they eventually end up exercising their wills in obvious or secret ways to resist the cure we would prescribe for them. Nothing will reach them but what has reached us and that is what has reached us at the seat of our wills, the heart.
The Psalmist David was very aware of this. Even though he was familiar with the tendency of sheep to be herded when he became a leader of people he learned people are not sheep. As they sheep they need care and direction but unlike sheep people follow only when they get what they want and what they think they need. Too much pondering on why this is so always leads us to the conclusion that the ways of men are “great matters or things too wonderful (overwhelming)” for us.
David discovered the eventual solution for this ague of the soul was simply learning how to quiet himself as a child weaned from its mother. Such a child no longer has to cry to get the comfort of care. A “weaned child” has only to ask and trust. The formula is a simple powerful one: speak truth and life; act on truth and life; trust in the truth and life which we have embraced as the Way of God. Sow your seed of good will, love and labors and trust God for the growth.
‘Israel put your hope in the LORD
both now and forevermore. ‘
