Well, those kinds of thoughts can work two ways. Either I end up dismissing the readings and go on with day, or, if I'm really, really lucky (graced) God takes that moment to smack me on the upside of my head. Today, my guardian angel must have have been working over time so that the Holy Spirit could catch me before my mind drifted off to other things. My divine "smack" came in the form of today's psalm:
Psalms 81(80):10-11.12-13.14-15.
There must be no foreign god among you; you must not worship an alien god.
I, the LORD, am your God, who brought you up from the land of Egypt. Open wide your mouth that I may fill it.'
But my people did not listen to my words; Israel did not obey me.
So I gave them over to hardness of heart; they followed their own designs.
But even now if my people would listen, if Israel would walk in my paths,
In a moment I would subdue their foes, against their enemies unleash my hand.
There must be no foreign god among you; you must not worship an alien god.
I, the LORD, am your God, who brought you up from the land of Egypt. Open wide your mouth that I may fill it.'
But my people did not listen to my words; Israel did not obey me.
So I gave them over to hardness of heart; they followed their own designs.
But even now if my people would listen, if Israel would walk in my paths,
In a moment I would subdue their foes, against their enemies unleash my hand.
Wow. That's pretty much laying it out on the line. If you're following God's path, you are as protected and cared for as a fledgling bird in the nest ("open your mouth that I may fill it"). If you are following alien gods (and I have plenty of those calling my name: pride, control, vanity, anger, sloth...) you are setting up your own hardness of heart, your own destruction. Maybe it's just all the Valentine's day hype that is everywhere right now, but I can't help but tie this to an image of God as a broken hearted lover, grieving for our self-created woes and alienation, waiting to take us home and once again treasure and cherish us as a pure a perfect first love. All that went before, not merely forgiven, but forgotten.
The words of the Psalm are echoed throughout scripture - they immediately made me think of the book of Jeremiah and a couple of verses that are often in my mind: Jer 6:16 and Jer 29:10-11.
Jer 6:16 Thus says the LORD: "Stand by the roads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls. But they said, 'We will not walk in it.'
I love the the promise of the first sentence of that verse. And hear the shattering heartbreak of the second sentence. Sometimes I feel like that one verse sums up the majority of the Old Testament - it definitely sums up the internal conflicts of my life. So I cling to that precious piece of scripture, and try my best to ask for the ancient path - because I know Whose path that is. And I marvel that all I have to do is ask for the path, I don't have to find it on my own, I don't have to carve the path out of the wilderness. Now, the path is ancient, and perhaps little used, so I will need to persevere and keep my attention on the path. But it's there for the asking. I just keep forgetting. And sometimes even say "I will not walk in it".
Jer 29:10-11 says: 10 "For thus says the LORD: When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will visit you, and I will fulfil to you my promise and bring you back to this place. 11 For I know the plans I have for you, says the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.
These verses remind me that God is faithful, that even when I stray. When I ignore the good path that He has generously, lovingly set forth for me, He still has plans to prosper my life, to give me future and hope.
Reading these words, how can I want anything but to follow the paths He's set forth. How can I doubt that those ancient paths are superior to any paths that I could carve.
I'm very thankful that God's graciousness kept me from just casually skimming the readings today.
I know whose paths I want to follow.** Time to lace up those hiking boots!
*an easy way to keep up with the daily Mass readings is via DailyGospel.org - subscribe (free) for daily emails of the mass readings and commentary.
** and I'm reminded that the days when my first thought upon waking is to pray a Morning Offering, it's a lot easier to stick to those paths. Prayer = God's GPS - keeps me on His paths.
Thank you Janet. Again, great idea for Lent. We talked about it in the post Keep It Simple and again here. Ask for the ancient path. We sometimes make things so dramatic - when I have time I am going to really pray or I am going to reinvent my whole life. But it is in the simple the basic and what is already there for the taking (ancient path)that we can make the most dramatic changes in our lives. Thank you God for making it easy for us. That free will gets in our way a lot, but if we just take it one moment at a time, one hour at a time, one day at a time, there is so much hope for us!
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