Sometimes I’m sure I rattle when I walk or think or talk or simply stand, paralyzed.
Chains, binding and heavy, clank about me. Doubt. Worry. Fear. Sadness.
I read about children in Ethiopia, whose home is a pile a trash, who drink rain water that collects among the garbage and eat whatever they can scavenge. I pace my apartment, feeling the weight. I read the article and unmistakable rattling echoes under the words. My heart hurts. All is not well. The chains are not only on me, but on the world.
Clanking and whispers. What good can an easily-tired introvert do?
I can pray. Love and pray. For the children, for people who can go and give homes and food and water and love. For the strength to do something myself.
Amid the whispers and rattling, I wish I had one of those awesome magic swords like in the stories I love. High King Peter’s Rhindon. The Sword of Griffyndor. Frodo’s Sting. Arthur’s Excalibur. With it, I would go to work breaking the chains that bind, myself, the children, the world.
Clank, rattle. Those swords don’t exist.
Then, suddenly, surprising me, my thoughts change. A real sword breaks a chain, out of the blue. Snap!
“Take up the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.” (Eph 6:17)
Jesus answered Satan’s temptations with scripture as he fasted in the desert (Luke 4:1-13). So today, I pray Ephesians 1:16-23 for you, me, and the world:
That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give us a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of our hearts enlightened, that we may know what is the hope to which he has called us, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.
Jesus, may we live the power of love you have given us. May we hear the sound of chains breaking.
***
In gratitude today for…
The Word of God and the words of Ephesians.
The bible found in the garbage by one of the Ethiopian children, and his ability to read it and share the Word with others. A person threw away the Word of God and God used it!
For the YWAM team who visited the children and brought help. For the photographer who makes these young faces real and present to me thousands of miles away.
God’s faithfulness as I wrestle with words to write.
Tim Dearborn’s sermon of hope yesterday.
Advent wreath making at Holiday Magic.
Reconnecting with my friend Amy.
Watching young Jack create a aluminum foil suit of armor so he can play High King Peter.
Music, especially “Of the Father’s Love Begotten.”
