Sitting Quietly

“My flesh and heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever” – Psalm 73:26

It has been quite some time since I have sat and written. Time has been a restless pursuer and I have not taken it to be still and remember the altars the Lord has given me in my walk with Him. So here I am, in my own haphazard way.

Much has changed since I remember sitting down to write these thoughts. I have had plenty a good meal since the last. I have grown older, my back hurts a bit more than it used too…I have picked up new habits, both good, and not so good for me. I’ve explored many different worlds found in novels, imagination, and song.

Much about me is still the same. I still yearn for distraction from the hard things in life. I eat too much processed foods. I lack patience and the grace to allow growth. I am always a child of the most high King, and a sinner.

In this mountaintops and valleys season of life, my thoughts have often wandered, looking for hope. Hope that the story is not complete and that things will change. Hope that I will change and grow: to be a better friend, a more loving husband, a soft spoken word of kindness, rather than gossip. Hope that when Christ died, He died for all of me, not just the “prettier” parts.

Meditation has often returned me to this verse. I have found it odd that the writer uses the word “may”, instead of “will”, because it has never been a doubt that I am not strong enough to carry the burdens of the world on my own. The sadness, the shame, the joy, the praise, are all stained with sin. It is Christ who not only has the strength of my heart, but holds it. He sits with me, when my flesh fails and my heart is broken. He dances with me, when my soul is overflowing and my body rejoices.

In my flesh failing and my heart hardening, the hands that made me, I nailed to the tree. Yet He left heaven’s gates to come find me. To dance with me. To hold me. To sit with me, quietly and beyond all things, to love me.

This is hope: that Christ died for all, so that we may continually reconcile: with Him, with others, and with ourselves. Over death, He reigns. It is finished. Christ is Risen.

“You sat on the rooftop
and You looked over heaven’s gates
You came and sold it all
just to have me.”- John Mark Pantana