I stopped writing …
I can’t really tell you when it happened, it was a slow moving train wreck. Exhaustion from the world we walk and breathe within— war, power and political agenda’s.
Maybe it was the fear from the constant noise of content created online— Am I just fuelling the beast? Maybe it was the friendship I had made with being unseen and wanting to hide.
Grief — yes.
Disappointment at the state of the church collectively — indeed.
Delight— not needing or wanting to be a part of anything that distracts our generation even more.
And then I read a scripture. It was an echo that I have not been able to stop from looping. A call to arms in a season of so much complexity.
What if God wanted to bring a fresh start to it all?
What if we became the Noah generation and prepared ourselves for this new day?
God, make a fresh start in me, shape a Genesis week from the chaos of my life. Don’t throw me out with the trash, or fail to breathe holiness in me. Bring me back from grey exile, put a fresh wind in my sails!
Give me a job teaching rebels your ways so the lost can find their way home. Commute my death sentence, God, my salvation God, and I’ll sing anthems to your life-giving ways. Unbutton my lips, dear God; I’ll let loose with your praise.
Going through the motions doesn’t please you, a flawless performance is nothing to you. I learned God-worship when my pride was shattered. Heart-shattered lives ready for love don’t for a moment escape God’s notice.
—Psalm 51: 10-17
Psalm 51 was penned by David in the aftermath of his public shame of the decisions he made to bed Bathsheba. It is an act of public confession, when David, the greatest of Israel’s kings, fell into serious sin and recognised his need to plead with God for forgiveness.
Across the coming days, weeks and months, I am going to write from this one Psalm.
A call of compassion and contrite reflection. A call towards renewal and restoration. A moment where the explosive nature of creativity from the beginning of Genesis recreated our world anew. A time of reckoning that bought surrender and resurrection. A time where we acknowldege our need for re-creation amid of season of loss and discontent.
Henri Nouwen from this book “The Wounded Healer” call us all to courage at the humanity in which we all exist and breathe within.
“Compassion is born when we discover in the centre of our own existence not only that God is God and man is man, but also that our neighbour is really our fellow man.”
—Henri J.M. Nouwen, The Wounded Healer
If you would like to explore this topic together, make time to read and reflect as we look at what it means to have a Genesis Week holistically and find our way through to the other side.
Journaling Question:
Where am I stuck at the moment in my expression of worship or creativity with God?
What is one way this week, across Easter, that I can make time for re-creation again?
Feel free to comment below …
In Christ,
Thank you for this. I came across Psalm 51 just a few days ago and it stopped me in my tracks. Looking forward to your reflection on it.