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- Written by: Don Goulding
He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.
And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God. (Micah 6:8) (NIV)
While still in the womb, a human baby develops brain cells at an astonishing rate. By the age of three, we reach the lifetime peak of one hundred billion cells with a quadrillion synapses exchanging information between them. A three-year-old’s head is a busy place. From age three onward the synapses begin to die, and it becomes a race to establish the necessary pathways of information flow with a diminishing number of resources.
My aging brain is an example of ever reducing assets, and yet, a smaller synapse count is offset by acquired wisdom, residing in the healthy connections. Youth has an excess of unformed brainpower, while old age has fewer but more effective mental resources. The bottom line, I must get life figured out before I can no longer noodle on it. Praise God, because he knew I’d be working with less and less, and so he made the answer to fit into my narrowing ability.
In the years my synapse paths were forming, I sampled the gamut, seeking life’s purpose. I researched comparative religions, dabbled in philosophy, and agonized over biblical interpretations. Now, I discover, I must go out much as I came in, with simplicity. I made finding my place confusing, God made it plain.
According to the passage above, we only need to act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with him. That’s all there is to it.
So what exactly does he mean by act justly, I want to ask. But no, I don’t need to ask—I know perfectly well what he means. And do I love mercy as my most prized gift? Do I receive mercy from God and give it to others? And finally, do I humble my heart before the Almighty? Do I bow and repent, and simply walk with him?
Life is not some unsolvable mystery. Either I act justly, love Christ’s mercy, and squash my pride, or I don’t. Any child with undeveloped synapses can see whether I do or don’t.
Prayer: Gracious Father, thank you for the simplicity of salvation.
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- Written by: Don Goulding
As he (Jesus) said this, he called out, “The one who has ears to hear had better listen!” (Luke 8:8)
Woe to the over churched. That was me. God saw me sitting in the pew and breathed a razor-sharp message into my pastor’s sermon. The words flew from the pulpit, hit my eardrum, and bounced onto the floor.
I’d been practicing A.S.D. (Auditory Selective Dullness) for years. Raised in the pews, the effervescent words of life were poured over me before they had meaning. Jesus is the blah, and the blah, blah, blah. It’s a malady I fight today.
As I got older, I determined God was for those who shrink from life. I strained for the highest numbers on the fun-o-meter. But such living never brought joy. My truest desires weren’t greeted at the door, let alone invited into satisfaction.
Behind the temporal games, I hid a longing to touch the Progenitor of life. I wondered if the enormous life in Christ lay in grasping the true meaning behind all those churchy phrases—washed in the blood, dead to sin, sanctified by grace. They were so much white noise in a preoccupied head.
On one of those unfulfilled mornings I woke, and there beside me lay the instruments needed to open the tired phrases—a Bible, prayer, and a desperate heart. With the tools, I pried the trampled walnuts until they burst to reveal emeralds of hope, fire-blue sapphires of love, and diamonds of truth. Christ in me was no longer a ho-hum byline, it was my oxygen. The words were the same, but the power exploding out of them woke me from the stupor I’d called life.
From time to time, I still feel over churched, but then I crack open the old terminology for all the brilliant reality it will yield.
Prayer: Holy Spirit, dynamite my crusty heart with fresh understanding.
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- Written by: Don Goulding
I saw the glory of the God of Israel coming from the east; the sound was like that of rushing water; and the earth radiated his glory. (Ezekiel 43:2)
I faced the eastern sky. The confusion of the night was nearly over. There were signs that made hope dissolve into reality. Thin clouds reddened like a bashful girl. They swirled in the clash between the cursed night and the joyous day.
Paul says, “For we groan while we are in this tent,” until “what is mortal may be swallowed up by life” (2 Cor. 5:4).
These blood touched wisps were caught between groaning and singing. Likewise, our groaning awakens our voices for the song to come.
I faced the eastern sky. Now I stared into a red so loud I wondered what more God could say to assure the Son’s coming. Behind me the horizon was black, people slumbered, and evil prevailed. Facing that way provided no indication of the miracle that unfolded, so I set my gaze on the east. I strained toward where the Son was expected, where the lover of my soul would materialize. I stretched toward the promise, and now, there it was, this red groaning sign.
I faced the eastern sky. Logic told me warmth from Sol’s amber beams wouldn’t be felt for a while, but it also said the ruby flower at the bottom of the night meant he was coming. God’s Spirit, pining in me for our broken world, is the red break in the night of my spirit. It’s my guarantee that the Son, even now, rises in the east with a voice like rushing waters and a radiance that bathes the land with his glory.
Prayer: Arise. Arise to shine, Lord Jesus.