Isaiah
42:1-9. I am the Lord, I have called you in righteousness, I have taken you by
the hand and kept you; I have given you as a covenant to the people, a light to
the nations, to open the eyes that are blind, to bring the prisoners from the
dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness.
“I have taken you by the hand and kept you.” I want
to tattoo that odd-shaped little word on my arm: kept. I want to claim it for
myself. Preserved like a bottle of wine, maintained like a house on the coast,
guided like a child at a crosswalk, carried like a pebble in a pocket, stashed
safely away like a treasure. Kept. A beautiful thought.
Beautiful, but difficult to accept. I find myself
crippled at my own hand. I have built walls of guilt and shame so high between
myself and God’s love that I feel I’ll never be able to accept it. I am scared
and confused. I despair that I will never feel anything but scared and
confused. I am in rough shape, and hardly seem worth keeping, worth even the
slightest glance from God.
It would be nice to think that someday I will be a
light to the nations. That someday I will open the eyes that are blind, rescue
prisoners from darkness, feel secure in my calling to righteousness. On rare
days this feels like a reasonable hope for the future, but mostly I roll my
eyes at the futility of the whole operation.
But here comes Lent again, and like it or not, I’m
going to make another pass at it. This year I would like it to wash over me. I
would like to understand deeply that Jesus came to save me from myself, from my
blindness, from my prison of doubt. That he did this because I am unable to go
it alone.
So I will try and walk this Lenten journey. I will
try to surrender, and recognize that God is holding my hand. I will try and
allow myself to be kept. It is, after all, an excellent place to be. Safe in
God’s pocket, precious in his sight, subject to his divine maintenance. I need
to let God do the work, instead of trying in vain to do it for him. And maybe,
instead of listening, finally I will hear. Maybe my eye will be opened. Maybe I
will be brought out from my darkness.
— Tim Blok
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