Frightening

Today I was running on the Clark Trail.  (As opposed to the Lewis Trail.)  I had been on a steady incline, and upon reaching the top, I found myself on a towering bluff above the Missouri River.  The water ran wide and murky, flecks of white debris rushing down stream.  I thought about how the prophets and poets often compared God’s power and our own powerlessness to water.  We cannot stop it’s crushing force and yet with one word from God, the water is controlled.  I tried to imagine, as I looked down on the wide river, what it must have been like huddling fearfully at the water’s edge with the Egyptian army at my back, knowing that I could never step into that water without being swept away.  And then a wind begins to blow, a blistering wind that whips the water and then pounds it back on either side of a path that starts right at my feet.  Then, ages of mud begins to dry, providing a way for me to cross easily and quickly.  I tried to imagine what the form of God must have looked like at that time.  Could I see a majestic face, lips pursed to blow back the sea, or did God take the form of the wind itself, or was the wind only his messenger?  It didn’t matter, it was God who had provided a way for me through something I could have never survived.  And then, he used the very path that had saved me to destroy my enemies behind me. 

That’s when it occured to me.  God destroyed the Israelite’s enemies.  He will destroy mine.  He is willing to destroy the enemies of his children.  He is on my side.  That’s why he is called Protector, Father, Shield.  He puts himself against those who are against me and fights for me. 

I felt so cherished, so important to God.  Undeservedly so.  Why should someone else be fought against by God or be destroyed only because they are against me?  But I guess that’s what God’s love is like.  It is fierce, it is real, it is practical, and it is ravishing. 

Frightening.

September 6, 2006. jibberish, Uncategorized.