Christian Counseling Service -- Devotions

Not one face has been forgotten

Thursday, March 9, 2017

From Matthew 7
Jesus said, "Which one of you would hand his son a stone when he asked for a loaf of bread, or a snake when he asked for a fish? If you then, who are wicked, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good things to those who ask him?"

Thomas Wolfe began his first novel, Look Homeward Angel, like this:

... a stone, a leaf, an unfound door ... which of us has known his brother? Which of us has looked into his father's heart? Which of us has not remained forever prison-bent? Which of us is not forever a stranger and alone? O waste of loss, in the hot mazes, lost, among bright stars on this most weary unbright cinder, lost! Remembering speechlessly we seek the great forgotten language, the lost lame-end into heaven, a stone, a leaf, an unfound door. Where? When? O lost, and by the wind grieved, ghost, come back again.

These words do me in. With young Thomas I too am lost, caught in his web, wandering alone above my life in thin air, asking questions that aren't meant to be answered. Jesus' questions, too, don't intend answers, only quiet submission to his clear picture of the loving Father he knew so well. God has only bread for his children.

Wolfe died of a rare tuberculosis at age 39. Jesus was carried back to heaven at 33. Many of us suffer deeply, watch our loved ones suffer deeply. We all die. What is this bread Jesus claims? Where? When?

Esther cries out in the middle of her night, "God, blessed are you! Help me, who am alone and have no help but you, for I am taking my life in my hand. Turn our mourning into gladness."

My aunt broke both her hips and waits again to walk. Will she? My friend doesn't know how he'll handle the awful surgery required on his treatment path for pancreatic cancer. All of us wait ... at last to die. In our living, breathing moment, there is the shadow. T.S. Eliot wrote, "This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper."

Jesus carries a different message for us on this March day. Our breath has not yet become mere air. We have one single song to sing and sing. Jesus reminds us, "Everyone who asks receives; and the one who seeks, finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened." God's in charge of his gifts; we have only to stretch out our hands and keep them open.

Lord, day after day you call me to task. "Open your eyes. Open your hands. Let me give you what I have for you today. Will you wait on me, and see what happens next?" When I forget you, when I hang on so tight to what I have, relax my grasping fists. I can learn to trust you. Thank you for the days I have.

Devotions Archive

Not one face has been forgotten

Thursday, March 9, 2017