Big Things are Boring

Joshua 6

After being derailed yesterday morning by a faculty meeting at school, here I am again to worship You. To worship You by reading the Scripture. To worship You in thought and reflection. To worship You, Your faithfulness, love, and loyalty are amazing to me. These characteristics You have and act on are hard to believe in the light of our (and my) constant sin and greed. Thank You for coming again and again to meet with me, even when I've not made it an every day priority yet.

So, in beginning to write poetry again, I started a poem two days ago about a rose. Well, kind of about a rose, but more about the idea of a rose and chasing the beauty down into the roots and the thorns, and seeing how awesome it is that You are working even at that microscopic level. My thought about the poem is to end it saying how I get so caught up in the cellular level of how You work in life that I sometimes miss the big things.

I probably have to be careful of that during this "slowly and attetively" focus that I'm trying to hold onto for the next thirty some odd days (I've already lost count). In other words, I feel like I have to look for You pretty hard sometimes, and I end up being taken-aback because I see You in "Little Joys" like my last post said. The little things are so "cool" to see You working in, because they take a bit of creativity to see (which is fair, because I believe that one brilliant characteristic You ooze is creativity). So I enjoy the process of seeing You in the small, because most people don't see You there, and thus it makes me feel kind of indie rock to notice You. But sometimes the big things can just sound trite and uninspiring.

Take for example prayer requests. Yesterday, one of the my students told me that her uncle fell off a roof and was in a coma. While my immediate response was shock and concern, my secondary response was to wonder why she never made any other requests. Why could she only bring this really big thing? Everybody would pray for this really big thing, it's not special! And in my stupidity, I pushed aside my concern.

And then I read the story of the "battle" of Jericho today. And it seemed boring. The walls fall down? Yea, that's predictable. God's children win? Yep, okay, seen this story before. Again, my immediate thought is to find the hidden small message instead of the very obvious important message of the big story. The battle of Jericho is summed up with one little, very important phrase that is trite as all get out, but maybe I need to hear it and properly recognize and celebrate it.

"So the LORD was with Joshua..."

There is a huge miracle done in this story, a miracle that the Israelites desperately needed, probably to build their faith and certainly as far as practicality is concerned. They had to take the city, and God, You did it in a miraculous way that built the faith of the people. That showed them You are with them. That showed them in overarching, uncertain terms that You loved them.

Do something big today, in my life or somebody else's, and let me not be so wrapped up in the details that I can see it, and celebrate You being with us! Amen.