I wait for the Lord, my whole being waits,
    and in his word I put my hope.
6 I wait for the Lord
    more than watchmen wait for the morning,    more than watchmen wait for the morning.  Psalm 130

The subtitle of this psalm is "a song for pilgrims".  Pilgrims are those who journey, yet waiting often feels like standing still.  It almost feels mis-titled.  Perhaps it signals that one should wait for the LORD before starting a journey, certainly helpful advice for all who are headed off, to let the LORD lead the way.  

But instead, I wonder if waiting itself isn't a journey, if the pilgrimmage is less physical travel and more spiritual awakening, if the journey is learning to find God when things feel at a stand still.  Learning to let God show up, on God's terms, rather than our own sometimes frantic pursuit.   The waiting itself is a task, a seeking (after all that's what pilgrimmage is), an active watching for the one who promises to show up no matter the circumstances.  

If one is a watchmen, then no matter what is happening, they are supposed to be still, to be waiting, to manage any urge to go do something else, and stay at their post.  While most nights it may seem less than fruitful, it's exactly where they are supposed to be at that time.  

That doesn't mean it's easy or always enjoyable. I imagine watchmen face all sorts of challenges as they wait.  I assume they battle boredom and restlessness, because we are a people who like to move at will, we are not well practiced at waiting.  I'm sure there are nights that seem to drag on forever, and there is always the temptation to assume no one will come, and abandon the post.  As these feelings ebb and flow with the changing skies, I imagine if feels a bit like a journey to get through the night.   I'm sure there are sounds and shadows that raise their heart rates, nights when the anxiety of only being a watchmen, not the one who sees all, presses in hard.   Afterall, they are not the ones in charge, much as they might like to be, only the ones set as a sentry to announce the coming of another.  

And that seems to be the heart of our role.  Ones set as a sentry to announce the coming of another into the world again and again.  We have this call to be the ones to announce the presence of God in our life, I think most especially when that presence appears in the dark nights. 

But despite the challenges of the position, there is one thing that watchmen can always count on.  The morning always comes.  No watchmen waits for the morning in vain.  No matter how long the night, the arrival of morning is absolute.  So it is with us as well.  While the journey of waiting seems long, restless, scary, tiresome--it is for just a time.  It is watching to announce the coming of the one who will set our feet on the next journey.  The pause of waiting is in fact pilgrimmage, a journey of the heart learning to be still, to anticipate the one who always comes.  

"For you shall not go out in haste, and you shall not go in flight; for the LORD will go before you, and the God of Israel will be your rear guard."  Isaiah 52:12

How tempting it is to move at our own pace, usually quickly through times of discomfort or uncertainty,  and back to what we know or want.  We often brush over the times of waiting or wandering, and see only what's next.  Yet waiting and wandering is where we hear from God what truly should be next.  Our temptation is to go out from these times in haste, but we miss the grace that falls in the waiting, and we forget that God is the one who has the perfect timing in all things.

 God is the one who takes the first step, and then encourages from behind when the step seems frightening.  When we rush through to find some sort of settling, we get ahead of the path.  God goes before and invites us into the perfect future he has designed for us.  As a loving father, he knows when the time is right, when we are ready, and when all the pieces are in place.  It's hard to slow down.

A runner needs to know the course ahead in order to set a pace.  And yet, we are not the ones who know the course ahead.  We're not the ones to set the pace, to start off fast only to loose steam, or to fail to calculate the distance.  It's grace that we walk behind someone who does, and in front of one who can pick us up when we grow weary.  When we try to rush ahead, we find ourselves out of place, and no further along on the true path than where we were, needing to backtrack to find the real direction.

With God's perfect timing, "You shall go out with joy and be led forth with peace"  Isaiah 55:12

The sun shall no longer be your light by day, nor for brightness shall the moon give light to by night; but the LORD will be your everlasting light.  Isaiah 60:19

 It's so easy, so natural to rely on our circumstances or outside factors to determine our state of being, our state of spirit.  Wilderness can feel like a prolonged time of dark, and we can find ourselves waiting for certain things to happen, or certain pieces to fall into place, thinking then we will be satisfied and have what we need for joy.  It's like waiting for the sun to come up.  But often the night feels long.

Instead, God calls us not to rely on our circumstances, but to find our light, and our hope, in him.  The joy of the Lord is found in dark nights, rainy days, and days full of sunbeams.  It's a matter of where we look, not to the horizon for some dawn we're waiting for, some change in the landscape that will finally bring us closer to where we want to be, but about finding the light God showers upon us.  It's about taking time to bask in it, feel it penetrate our soul, so that even as outside seems like pouring rain or dark of night, we know true light that is not subject to 24 hour cycles, to life changes or circumstances.  The true light gives life to the world.

 When we realize that the joy and true light comes only from God, we are able to rejoice even in difficult circumstances, and that's a powerful witness.  It soon becomes quite noticeable that strength, joy, and hope in our life comes not from the horizon of things we hope will happen or clouds we will hope will clear, but from the one who neither slumbers nor sleeps, the one who is light, always.

  "nations shall comes to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn"  Isaiah 60:3

That kind of groundedness, faith, and hope serves as a beacon to others, tired of riding the rollercoaster of circumstances and aching for lasting peace.  It is perpetual dawn, trusting in the God of everlasting light, and it draws others to know how to find this light for themselves.

Shower, O heavens, from above, and let the skies rain down righteousness; let the earth open, that salvation may spring up, and let it cause righteousness to sprout up also   Isaiah 45:8

We're coming off of several days of rain and today have a beautifully sunny day, but I have been pondering about "raining down righteousness"  First, the rain from heaven comes to quench our own souls, but then, I think we too have a call to rain down righteousness.

The most important factor needed for a rainstorm is "lift".  Ground air, heat, and humidity have to rise.  As the earthy air collides with the higher atmosphere a storm is formed and rain pours down.

 It's easy to think of righteousness as "right-ness."  That we should rain down with the right way to do things, with reckoning or judgment.  Someone else defines righteousness as leading a life that is pleasing to God. When we lead lives that are pleasing to God, the natural outflow of that are things that soothe and heal our parched world.

As we raise prayers to God, he allows for our lives to be poured out, a rain of righteousness.

Our collisions with heaven burst forth into nourishment for the world, water for thirsty hearts, relief for cracking environments, and hope for seeds abandoned.  

"let the earth open, that salvation

may spring up" 

 As rain falls on dry ground, at first it does little, it is soaked up, never to be seen again.  Sometimes when the ground is really dry, the rain runs off quickly, not even having a chance to soak in.  But after prolonged rain, the ground softens, receives the water and it soaks in deep.  Sometimes it takes a lot of rain to soften ground, to prepare it to yield fruit.  That's why we're not supposed to sprinkle or drip, but rain down with the outflow of a life pleasing to God, that people can't help but be touched by it, soaked by it really, and changed by it.  It's then that the landscape is changed, heartscapes are changed, softened, to allow for salvation to spring up.

What does it mean in our daily lives to rain down that kind of love that allows for salvation to naturally spring up in the places we go and the lives we touch?  Probably first needs a lot of prayer rising, a lot of holy collision, maybe holy collusion, to bring that kind of rain.

and he will make her wilderness like Eden    Isaiah 51:3b 

What a promise this is for wilderness time. Wilderness, a time that is thought of as difficult, lonely, rugged, even desolate--and it says God will make that wilderness like Eden.  God's presence transforms wilderness into holy time, time when we encounter God as closely as we did in the garden.

"and they heard the sound of the Lord walking in the garden..."  Gen 3

In wilderness God led the way, walking beside the Israelites day and night.  In the garden, God walks among the man and woman, so intimately close.  God walking in the garden; so holy, the God of all walking with us, and yet so ordinary--as though an every day stroll.

As God walks with us through wilderness, we learn the promise, the hope, the joy of knowing God intimately that was embodied in the garden, before we tried to be God.  And maybe that's why we need wilderness, to be taken out of what is comfortable and known, what we build and make and strive for, to find ourselves without a map so that we can learn the ways of the one we follow.  We learn to walk humbly with our God, not to hash out plans and directions ourselves.  We are reminded in wilderness the vastness of God and the smallness of ourselves in comparison.  We learn to read the movement the spirit, not the mood of our environment.  We are given wilderness to be reminded that the one we follow created the heavens and the earth.  "And he will make her wilderness like Eden", where we encounter God face to face.  Where we are reminded that we are dust, but that we are God's dust, spirit-breathed and created for good works.

"and they heard the sound of the Lord walking in the garden...but the Lord God called to the man and said to him "where are you?"

And as wilderness transforms to the intimacy of Eden as we encounter the living God fresh, unencumbered by our plans, we receive a great gift.   We realize wilderness is not designed as a time to be lost, but as God asks "where are you" we see that it is in times of wilderness that indeed we are found.

God's Poem

 For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.  Ephesians 2:10 NLT

 Often this is translated as "we are God's workmanship".  The NLT version above chooses "masterpiece".  NT Wright in his book The Case For the Psalms reminds us that the Greek work here is poiema, the same word as "poem" and that "we are called to be living, breathing, praying, singing poems".

God desires for our very lives to be works of art, poems, that draw people in and tell his story.  He is the one who has written them all "All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be"  (Psalm 139)  As I face this juncture, it's hard for me to imagine being a poem for others having no idea what my next verse will be.  It's hard for me to imagine the story I tell through this poem, and yet I feel this beckoning to start telling a story, which seems strange since I know not even the topic.  Perhaps a story of what faith looks like when you can't see the next stanza, of how to be fruitful and see beauty and grace all around, when it feels like you're on pause.  

As I reflect on this idea of a poem, I am drawn to the Message version of Matthew 11 calling people to come to Jesus in order to "learn the unforced rhythms of grace."  Perhaps, for now, it's a matter of living into the rhythm of this grace poem, feeling its cadence, getting swept up in patterns of grace before the words to the next stanza come.  
The spirit drives us into the wilderness, a time away from our normal activities, a time that can feel like pause, because it's a time for us to learn what it means to walk as God's children as we approach a new verse.  The Israelites wandered before promised land, Jesus spent time in the wilderness before his ministry began.   Moses ran away from the city to be in the wilderness, wandering with the sheep, before he found holy ground, before he saw God's blaze.  It seems to be a prerequisite when God is doing something new, changing courses.  I can say it has always been for me, but usually I don't see how far I've wandered until I see the horizon of promised land.  Never before has its onset been so pronounced.  But the spirit drives us to the wilderness, a time away, to teach us new rhythms, a new song, the melody and pattern, and the heart and soul of it, so that at the right time, we are ready to sing it for all the world.  
So, I hope to share the story of what it means to wait in faith, learning the cadence, the rhythm, before the words to the next stanza of my life-poem.