I love the LORD, because he has heard
my voice and my supplications.
Because he inclined his ear to me,
therefore I will call on him as long as I live.
The first lines of today's psalm grabbed hold of me. I paused, and though I continued reading, I was still thinking about how Psalm 116 begins. I've read it many times before and not had it affect me this way. But today, for some reason, I immediately began to think about how rare it is to have someone who will simply listens, someone who isn't figuring out how to respond to you or straighten you out, someone who isn't wishing you would hurry up and finish so he can move on to more important things.
The image of God's ear inclined toward me, God patiently listening to me pour out my troubles and complaints, God treating me as though there was nothing more important at that moment, is a remarkable one. And it is an image reflected in the life of Jesus, who had time for children, who stopped for the poor, the sick, the despised, and the unclean, who ate with sinners and tax collectors.
No one could carefully examine our world and not surmise that things are not as they should be. War and violence are everywhere. Human capacity for cruelty to others and our ability to justify such cruelty is astounding. Surely God at some point will say, "Enough!" and be done with us. Indeed many Christian groups speak this way when the talk of a "rapture," people "left behind," and God destroying the earth. But the Bible does not speak this way. It speaks of God redeeming all Creation, a rather surprising move, or perhaps not for a God whose ear is inclined toward us.
No comments:
Post a Comment