Kicking the Wall

I had a good cry last night. I haven’t done that for a long time, but I was due. For those of you who don’t shed tears very often, that will seem odd, perhaps weak. I confess to both. My husband has a terrible time shedding tears; it’s just the way he is. Through the years I’ve probably cried enough for both of us.

Some of my tears tonight were self-centered tears, others were not. A few tears were for a couple of financial snarls that knotted up for us expectedly. When I stepped back and took a look at them rationally, I realized they were solvable.

The others things that made the tears flow were more complicated. A former pastor, who was about my age, became suddenly ill and passed away. A sermon he preached still lingers in my thoughts.  Those I wish were close to God continue to blow him off.  Several people I know are seriously ill. Ministry opportunities, though welcome, drained me this week. And the ever-present demands of work and home maintained their relentless pressure.

As a child, did you ever sit down on the floor and push against the wall? Maybe you did it just for the fun of it. Or did you ever do it because you wanted take your frustrations out by doing something physical, like attack a wall? For a while the strain of your muscles offers release, and it feels good. But ultimately it’s exhausting and useless. The wall never moves.

Sometimes I feel like I’m pushing up against the wall of life. I want things different than they are now. I don’t want people to die or get sick. I don’t want people to reject God’s ways and waste their lives. I want . . . I want . . . I want Heaven on earth. That’s what I want. And this place frustrates me!

Do you ever feel like that?

It’s the new nature clashing with the fallen world, and I don’t like it!

Through the years my prayers have grown up. I’ve learned a little bit about the fires that purify our lives, so I’m not so eager to pray them away. Knowing that God never overheats the furnace of testing, I’m more apt to pray: Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. (Matthew 6:9, KJV) Not blithely, but with tears. Because right now, although nothing is out of God’s control, things here are not the way they are in Heaven.  The earth and humanity groan for God to change things.

Until that happens, we live between the two worlds. I suppose I’ll kick the wall again sometime, but at least when I do that, I know that my heart’s in the right place—it’s longing for the city with foundations, whose architect and builder is God. (Hebrews 11:10, NIV)