Wednesday Words » Wednesday Words

A trick of the eye

Leigh — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 12:51:58 +0000

Someone has said that one of the most crucial aspects of writing is noticing. I don’t disagree. Oh, sure–there are tricks of the trade, and even rules any writer must learn so that he or she will know when to break them. (I imagine my English teachers cringing here…I am sorry. But only a little.) But if a writer’s eyes and heart are not alert and awake to all that is around him, if he is not keen to notice the smallest sights and moments and spoken and unspoken words, well, you and I won’t likely read his work for long.

As readers we’re looking for recognition: for the moment we say “Yes, of course, I’ve seen that, too.” Or, “Oh, that’s like the conversation I had with my spouse last night,” or “That makes me think of that little deli in Cleveland.”

If a writer really notices, his readers see what the sees–even if the image they perceive is not exactly the same one he describes. They experience a kind of literary trompe l’oeil: a trick of the eye that renders a “flat” image three-dimensional. The words on the page create something more substantial than simply ink on paper. They take shape in the reader’s mind, connecting with a thousand tiny synapses of memory, and resonate as real.

Last Friday I sat and watched a hummingbird hover near the blooms off my front porch. I’ve lived in this house over a year, and not once before seen a hummingbird. I decided I would stay as long as she did, and watch until she tired of my hedge and moved on. I’ve never seen something so small work so hard to stay in motion.

On Sunday morning as a storm was brewing I opened the screen door to smell the rain and feel the pregnant breeze stir. I swear I felt the thunder before I heard its slightest rumble: just the tiniest contraction in advance of the big event.

As real as these things seemed to me, I suspect they were only a trick of the eye– quick renderings of God that struck my eyes and ears and skin, but were really flat in comparison to reality they hint at. There is more than this. So much more.

C.S. Lewis said, “We do no want merely to see beauty, though, God knows, even that is bounty enough. We want something else which can hardly be put into words–to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it. . .at present we are on the outside of the world, the wrong side of the door. We discern the freshness and purity of morning, but they do not make us fresh and pure. We cannot mingle with the splendours we see. But all the leaves of the New Testament are rustling with the rumour that it will not always be so. Some day, God willing, we shall get in.”

Some day, I will climb through the frame that is this world, and enter another. Some day the hummingbird will rest easily on my outstretched finger, and I will surf the wind that blows before the rain. I’ll say “This reminds me of that morning on the porch,” or “this is like the smell and sound of the storm beyond the screen door.” Some day I will know that what I thought was the real thing was only a beautiful trick of the eye, and even so–be grateful for the preview that was mine.

For now we see through a glass, darkly, but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. (I Cor. 13:12, KJV)

www.leighmcleroy.com

“Speak what you feel, not what you ought to say.”

As good as it gets?

Leigh — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 19:16:51 +0000

Driving recently through a neighborhood not far from mine, I saw this sobering message graffitied on a meter box: This is as good as it gets. The corresponding spray-painted artwork depicted a somber looking male face. It might have been the artist’s hasty self-portrait. Or it could have been a stylized Christ, or even Che Guevara for all I know. The image was hard to decipher, but the message wasn’t. The artist’s bleak outlook was crystal clear. No better days ahead. Nothing good to anticipate. No cause for wonder, and certainly none for worship. Even though I know better – the words made me sad. Not that they might be true, but that someone – anyone – might think so.

Because it’s going to get a lot better than this.

I’m not sure what your circumstances might be…and perhaps they are discouraging. Daunting, even. Maybe sickness or death or unemployment or bankruptcy or a broken marriage or a wayward child or something I can’t imagine consumes your every waking thought. And maybe it’s tempting to believe that nothing will ever change. That there is no hope left. Nothing to long for, dream of, pray for. Maybe the voice of the enemy is whispering despair in your ear, and telling you that it’s time to give up, that hope is absurd, and that tomorrow can bring nothing but more of the same.

But that voice is lying.

Nearly 2000 years ago a band of followers of a Nazarene teacher came to see him for who he was: God. God in flesh, God in person, God, as Eugene Peterson says, “in the neighborhood.” He lived and died before their eyes, and then – for 40 days more - he kept showing up, raised and somehow blazingly new, even with his scars. “Wait in Jerusalem” he told them, “for the gift that was promised to you.” Some of them were probably so confused and frightenend that they just wanted to go home to business-as-usual, whatever that business might be. Others were itching for a political coup, and still others, for a prominent place in a new movement. But no doubt there was one, or even a few, who had decided, “This is as good as it gets.”

It wasn’t.

The one who died for them intended to keep on living for them – and he had plans in mind. Big plans. But first, he needed to fill their tiny waiting room with a hurricane of power and gift them with his permanent presence: His Spirit. Then, and only then, they would have what they needed to turn the world upside down on his behalf. But even that was nowhere near as good as it gets.

One day, he will make all things new…even us. He will defeat his arch enemy once-for-all, administer justice, and reign forever. He will undo the curse, reward his servants and usher in a new heaven and a new earth. His rightful kingdom will have no end.

That, my graffiti-splashing doomsayer, will truly be as good as it gets. Forever.

No one’s ever seen or heard anything like this, never so much as imagined anything quite like it – what God has arranged for those who love Him. (I Corinthians 2:9, The Message.)

…all created beings in heaven and on earth – even those long ago dead and buried – will bow in worship before this Jesus Christ, and call out in praise that he is the Master of all, to the glorious honor of God the Father. (Philippians 2:11, The Message)

©Leigh McLeroy 2009

www.leighmcleroy.com

A contemplative visits the car wash

Leigh — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 02:56:16 +0000

Open air parking and a pair of 70 year old oak trees in the front yard mean that my car gets washed fairly often. Sometimes with the water hose and a bucket, but more frequently (and conveniently) at the drive thru car wash a few miles from home.

The perky, onscreen video-girl chirps a greeting, and tells me to select my wash and “insert cash or a credit card.” A token for a few minutes of vacuuming drops with a clink when I do so. Then I drive forward and see the only human apparently employed there: a fellow who points me toward the rolling belt that will capture my tires – and once I’m properly aligned, motions for me to put the car in neutral.

That’s when the real fun begins.

I’m on a track I can’t see, moving at a rate of speed I can’t control. I can’t back up; my brakes are useless. I can only go forward. Moving arms and swirling brushes assault the car, flinging foamy soap every which way and slapping the windshield and windows with surprising force. Once the brushes descend completely my vision is obscured. I could be around the corner from home or in the Ukraine, for all I can tell. I hear threatening thumps just inches away, and the car rocks slightly as it eases forward. I can’t see where I started, or how near or far the end might be. I don’t know what spray or gel or finishing agent will come at me next.

The car wash is a lot like life.

Oh, I can entertain the illusion of control – at least for a while. But not for long. I’m in a groove that won’t let me go, and moving under a power not my own. I can’t manipulate the mess and motion around me, or command the things that threaten me to stop. But I’m held. And safely. No matter what momentary threats assail me, or for how long, I will be released at the appointed time – bright, blown, buffed and clean…and surely better for all the wear and worry.

Imagine: receiving far more than four dollars worth of spiritual tutoring not three minutes from home. If the owners of this place knew what they were dispensing along with the foam and film and spray, I’ll bet they’d find a way to charge extra.

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Just as it is written, ‘For Thy sake we are being put to death all day long; we were considered as sheep to be slaughtered.’ But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:35-39, NASB)

One-of-a-kind mug # 10

Leigh — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 02:54:38 +0000

I love mugs. Love wrapping my fingers around a mug filled with hot, aromatic coffee, morning or night. I like the weight of my numerous mugs; their irregularities and the random stories behind them. Mugs are multi-functional at my house: they not only serve hot beverages, they make a perfectly good receptacle for fresh berries, yogurt, tomato soup or oatmeal. Everything tastes better to me when it’s cradled in the curves of a good, solid mug.

A few weeks ago, I ordered a handcrafted mug from one of my favorite virtual gathering places, Andrew Peterson’s wise and welcoming Rabbit Room. (The real Rabbit Room is in Oxford, England, in a tiny pub called The Eagle and Child. Years ago writers like C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien and Charles Williams used to raise their own mugs there, as they critiqued one another’s writing.)

When my Rabbit Room mug arrived, I liked its heft, and its roughness. I liked the rich ochre color, and the splashes of scarlet inside. I like the letters “the rabbit room” imprinted facing me on the rim, and the nicely curved handle wide enough to slip three fingers through. But it took a few days before I noticed something else about my mug: the tiny numeral “10″ etched just beneath the handle, reminding me that of of the 26 or so Rabbit Room mugs crafted, mine was 10th in line. And although I’ve not seen the others, I am certain that while they might appear similar, none is quite like this one. Mug #10 is one of a kind.

You are, too. And so am I.

God’s creativity is so limitless that he has never – not once! – in the creation of bodies and souls crafted the same one twice. For all our similarities, we are different down to the contours of our fingerpads and the tiniest ridges of our minds. The desires of our hearts, the gifts we bear, the abilities we possess and the visible reflection we make in the mirror – these are unique. No two alike, anywhere, ever. Even every sunrise is different, and no two stars or strawberries are alike. G.K. Chesterton once imagined God so delighting in creation that each morning he chose to say ”Let’s do it again!” C.S. Lewis said there are no ordinary men or women, that each of us is shot through with something utterly eternal. And he was right.

We might not have unique numbers etched on our surface for the attentive eye to see, but we are fearfully and wonderfully made, just the same. Mug #10’s beauty is a testimony to the skill of its potter, and your own particular ins and outs are a great shout of praise to your maker, too. Glory be to God for molding and shaping you just as you are. He has done well, and you are very well-made, indeed.

“Who are you, O man, who answers back to God? The thing molded will not say to the molder, ‘Why did you make me like this?’ will it? Or does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use, and another for common use? And He did so in order that he might make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory, even us, whom He also called…” (Romans 9: 20-21, 23, NASB)

Living with my hands full

Leigh — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 02:51:35 +0000

I had to grin when I saw him…mostly because I could relate. The fellow coming toward me on the sidewalk just had way too much going on at once. He led three bigger-than-average dogs on leashes (or, they led him) – and a boy of about five or six wobbled in front of him on a bike with training wheels. He was clearly stretched, but maintaining equilibrium. Then, at the moment our eyes connected, the dogs went in three different directions, his son’s bike hit a slope in the sidewalk, and he grabbed with his free hand for the bike’s handle bars just as it began to slide backward and away from him.

If I could have captured him with a camera, I would have put his picture on my refrigerator, with this prophetic caption: Pay attention. Here’s what happens when you try to do too much at once.

In a world where multi-taskers congratulate themselves, busy people are sought after to do still more, and precious few stray moments are left “unbooked,” my overextended and tethered friend was right at home. And most of the time, so am I.

I juggle all kinds of stuff from dawn to dusk. “Still” and “empty handed” aren’t adjectives anyone would be likely to use on my behalf. I frequently overestimate my efficiency and underestimate the length of time it takes to do the simplest things. I cram my days full and carry as much as (or more than) I comfortably can, whether I’m going from room to room or appointment to appointment.

In other words – my dogs are too often going one way, and my bike another.

My sidewalk encounter left me asking myself two questions: first, what am I doing? And second, what would happen if I stopped?

What would happen if I deliberately made room in any given day or week for…nothing? If I emptied my hands of possessions and hobbies and busy work, would my stillness invite anything in? Or make room for Anyone? Could there be a blessing God waits to give until I empty my hands of my usual “haul?” And finally – wouldn’t today be as good a day as any to find out?

What if I cleared a place for an altar – and found that the only sacrifice my God desired was me? I won’t know, will I, until I’m ready to stop living with my hands full?

Now as they were traveling along, He entered a certain village; and a woman named Martha welcomed Him into her home. And she had a sister called Mary, who moreover was listening to the Lord’s word, seated at His feet. But Martha was distracted with all her preparations…and said, “Lord, do You not care that my sister has left me to do all the serving alone?” But the Lord said to her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and bothered about so many things; but only a few things are necessary, really only one, for Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away from her.” (Luke 10:39-42)

©Leigh McLeroy 2009

Tangible proof

Leigh — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 19:56:01 +0000

In a little over a month I will have a new book out. So these days I’m finding myself on the firing end of the obvious question “So, what is that thing about, anyway?”

I know enough marketing to know that I should be able to answer this question in 15 seconds or less, in a way that makes you want to use the one-click feature on Amazon.com. But it’s hard to say in less than half a minute what it took nearly a year and 50,000 words to express. And after four books, I’ve discovered something else: I don’t yet fully know all that Treasured is about. Even months after the last word was typed, I am still discovering more of what it was I’d hoped to say, and some of it I will no doubt learn from you.

I am uncomfortable with my inability to easily express the “unique selling proposition” of a book I wrote, but earlier this week I watched a short video of an uber-famous, bestselling author talking with his publisher for five hard-to-follow minutes about his upcoming book, and was uncertain when he was done that either he, the publisher, or I understood its premise! (Then I breathed a short prayer of thanks that at least I do not struggle alone.)

Here’s what I know about Treasured. God reveals himself to us in many ways, ways that help us to know him intellectually, emotionally, and spiritually. But the game changer – the no-other-god-did-it-like-this way He revealed Himself was incarnationally. He became somone, as the apostle John said, that our eyes could quite literally see and our hands could reach out and touch. The incarnation changed everything about the way man experienced God.

Because God entered the same flesh-and-blood world I inhabit, I can know, understand and experience Him through real, everyday things. Things in his book, like a fig leaf, or an olive branch. Like a golden bell or a scarlet cord. Like a bloodied piece of cloth or a smooth stone plucked from a river. “These keepsakes tell His story, and they help me to understand my own.”

Not only is God’s story full of these tangible treasures, my story is too. So things like my first, tiny Bible, a Dennis the Menace spoon, a sugar cube, a “holy” card, a handful of feathers and a small box filled with ashes are rich with meaning, too. Because “I don’t have a treasure box filled with mementoes of my walk with Christ. I have a life filled with them.”

His treasures and my own tell me that my God is a God who sees, who provides, who casts against type and who has a bigger plan. He’s a God who crafts new beginnings, who speaks in unlikely ways, who gleans joy from sorrow and who has defeated death once and for all. “There is so much glory and wonder in this world if we will only notice it. So much intricate beauty and so many details worth reveling in. One day He will change us – and this beautiful but broken world in which we live – into something new and shining and glorious. One day we will exchange our small box of treasures for His infinite one, and it will take forever to see what He has saved.”

“You have multiplied, O LORD my God, your wondrous deeds and your thoughts toward us; none can compare with you! I will proclaim and tell of them, yet they are more than can be told.” (Psalm 40: 5, RSV)

PS I really DO want your help in more fully expressing the idea behind Treasured. So I’m asking, “What’s in your box?” In other words, what keepsakes or objects tell the story of your experience with God? You can “talk back” on the Facebook page for Treasured. I’d love to hear from you!

www.leighmcleroy.com

Telling his story

Leigh — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 19:53:38 +0000

We met for the first time at a small coffee shop near my house. A mutual friend had suggested we would be good for one another. He seemed kind and respectful as we spoke by phone to set up the meeting, and neither of us bothered to describe ourselves to the other the way you might if meeting a stranger for the first time – a thought that occurred to me only as I topped the steps that morning and reached for the door.

The shop was not crowded, but I would have known him if it had been standing room only. He was the white haired gentleman in pressed khakis and a golf shirt, smiling up from his half-drunk mug, and a pristine folder stuffed with pages.

“If they asked me, I could write a book…” the old Rodgers and Hart song goes, “about the way you walk and whisper, and look.” And he had. About her.

He was a retired physician; she a nurse. They were married nearly 62 years, and raised five children who gave them a dozen grandchildren, and three great-grands. He had written the story of the lives together, and he wanted someone to help him make it sing. He hoped that someone was me.

I’ve only helped “birth” one or two memoir-styled books. Usually they are vanity pieces, whose author believes they are exceptional, and publishable. He had no such aspirations. He simply wanted to tell their story, and to make it readable for their family, known and yet to be. I had read every page before our meeting, secretly hoping to find in them a good reason to say no to the project. I never did.

As we talked, he occasionally opened the folder to pull a paragraph or a picture or two, or he simply patted it lightly with one hand. I knew that inside that folder was the story of their first date – he a sophomore and she a senior – and that he sold a pint of blood to afford a taxi, corsage, and dinner before the dance. His eyes teared up more than once. He apologized after about the third time: “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m still grieving.” Then, “I want everyone who reads this to get her – to see how wonderful she was.” I told him that he had already achieved his objective; it was clear from the first few words.

So I said yes. Yes to helping him shape and hone the words he’d written. But he needed no help telling their story, with words on a page, or otherwise. Anyone with half a heart could see it in a glance. He was still a man in love. And he wore it very well.

“Love never gives up. Love cares more for others than for self. Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have. Love doesn’t strut, doesn’t have a swelled head, doesn’t force itself on others, isn’t always ‘me first,’ doesn’t fly off the handle, doesn’t keep score of the sins of others, doesn’t revel when others grovel, takes pleasure in the flowering of the truth, puts up with anything, trusts God always, always looks for the best, never looks back, but keeps going to the end.” (I Corinthians 13: 1-4-7, The Message)

High Flyers

Leigh — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 19:51:21 +0000

Because my desk faces a window that faces the street, not a day goes by that I don’t see some kind of mini-drama unfold. (If I had gotten up early enough, I might have been a witness to car theft when my across-the-street neighbors’ Suburban was stolen out of their driveway!) Most days, though, the scenes I see are of the less-than-felonious kind.

If their movement catches my eye, I sometimes stop to watch squirrels race one another up and around the huge oak in the front yard whose branches arch more than halfway across the street. They’re fast and they’re fearless. And adorably “twitchy.” My oldest niece, house-sitting for me, observed them from my perch and began referring to one especially twitchy specimen as “Beyoncé-squirrel.” (The next time I watched, I laughed at her reference.)

When they’ve raced as high and far as they can, these furry little wanna-be flyers fling themselves off the branches of my tree and into the branches of another next door, or across the street. They don’t hesitate. They just go. I wonder: do they squeeze their eyes shut like I used to when I launched myself off a high dive, or simply catapult wide-eyed, toward their goal? Granted the gaps they bridge aren’t huge, but they’re real gaps nonetheless.

And here’s the oddest thing: I’ve never seen one fall.

Squirrels must instinctively know more about the realities of aerodynamics (and gravity) than I know about faith. I seldom jump without hesitating, and I tend to trust the “branch” I’m on way more than the one I’m aiming for. But faith, said the writer of Hebrews, “is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” (Hebrews 11:1) And “we walk by faith,” the apostle Paul taught, “not by sight.” (2 Cor. 5:7)

How is it, then, that the faith I trusted long ago to save me seems at times too shaky to keep me? How is it that I trust only what I can see more than I trust the One to whom nothing – including my own heart – is hidden?

Other branches beckon. And if you and I have enough God-infused momentum, it’s actually easier to launch out and “catch air” in faith than it is to come to a screeching, dangling, death-grip stop.

We come to Christ by faith. We come to be like Him, in the power of his Spirit, the same way. C.S. Lewis said it this way: The idea of reaching “a good life” without Christ is based on a double error. Firstly, we cannot do it; and secondly, in setting up “a good life” as our final goal, we have missed the very point of our existence. Morality is a mountain which we cannot climb by our own efforts; and if we could we should only perish in the ice and unbreathable air of the summit, lacking those wings with which the rest of the journey has to be accomplished. For it is from there that the real ascent begins. The ropes and axes are “done away” and the rest is a matter of flying.

Let the daring drama begin.

© Leigh McLeroy 2009

An Innocent Age

Leigh — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 13:38:05 +0000

“Bababa-ba-ba-baaahhm, bababa ba ba baaahhm…”

The 45-rpm record (ask your mother, maybe she’ll explain) dropped to the spinning turntable, the arm swung over, and the needle found its groove. There were some scratches, sure – and not the kind artfully inserted by a gyrating DJ – but the music came through loud and clear. “ABC is easy, it’s like counting up to three, just a simple melody…”

My sister and I listened to this song, and countless others like it, in the front room of our four-bedroom, suburban ranch house throughout our elementary and junior high school years. It was, by and large, happy music, and the singers who performed it looked happy, not tormented. This was before MTV when the people behind the music performed it on low budget variety shows, not multi-million dollar music videos. The artists seemed real then – almost ordinary except for the extraordinary talent of some.

When we listened to the Jackson 5 sing ABC or Rockin’ Robin, or The Love You Save, in our minds eye we could see them dance, and imagined that we could dance like little Michael, too. We couldn’t of course – nobody could dance like that. But we had fun trying. It was an age of innocence, and to this day the first few notes of any song recorded from 1972 forward can still cause an involuntary smile to emerge on my face.

I wish that innocence could have lasted. I think maybe the man who made the music wished it could have, too. It looks like he tried for the rest of his life to bring it back – but the clock keeps turning, and it moves forward, not back.

Isn’t it a wonder, then, that Jesus told a grown man named Nicodemus he must be born again? That phrase “born again” has become a cliche at best – or at worst a defamatory grenade lobbed with a sneer at the evangelical world. But I’ll bet it would have had an almost irresistable appeal to the sad and sickened pop star who died last week a mere shell of the clear-eyed child he once was.

“You must be born again,” the Master said. You must come clean and start anew, wiping the slate clear as if nothing that ever happened to you happened, and no sin you ever sinned took up residence in your body and your heart. You must go back to the beginning, back to the age of innocence, he seemed to say. And his further claim was even more arresting: “I can take you there.” It’s irresistable, no?

Forget nostalgia, forget retro dressing, forget anti-aging serums, wrinkle creams, grainy YouTube videos and never-lands. There’s only one way back to the age of innocence – a true innocence, not an imagined one. And He’s it. There is no other.

Jesus declared, “I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again. ”

“How can a man be born when he is old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely he cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb to be born!”

Jesus answered, “I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” (John 3:4-8)

Betrothed

Leigh — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 13:30:37 +0000

He’s 25. She’s 21. I held her when she was just hours old, and loved her before I ever saw her face. She is my sister’s youngest daughter…and she’s engaged. She’s about to begin her senior year of college, and she’s planning a January wedding.

A little over a week ago they sat on my sofa and talked about the future, and I almost had to blink to see her as she is…not as I remember her: at birth, in kindergarten, with pigtails, with a broken jaw, or in Christmas pajamas or braces and a hoodie. (I think for a minute there I may have even heard Tevya sing the first few bars of “Sunrise, Sunset.”) However hard it is for my eyes to adjust to the reality before me, she’s grown, and she has chosen who she’ll love for life. I believe she’s chosen well. When she looks to the future she sees the young man beside her clearly – the rest is a little fuzzy, still. And she seems good with the unfinished picture as long as her groom is in it.

She’s sure now who she belongs to, even if she’s sure about little else. Three years ago we sat together on a balcony on a July night in Aspen, gazing at the moonlit ridge before us and shivering in the chilly mountain air. She was ready to go to college, to test her independence and her ideas. She was sure then about what she wanted. I’m grateful that she’s found it.

She’s spoken for. Betrothed. And betrothal changes things.

What if we each knew and believed beyond a doubt that we were spoken for? How would our days be different? What if we viewed our lives as one long, tender engagement – as a prelude to a promised eternity with a strong and faithful Bridegroom? Would a deeper understanding of what it means to be the betrothed Bride of Christ change the way we live now, today? And how?

Our modern ideas about engagement focus chiefly on the bride, and on an event – the wedding itself. But the central figure of betrothal in Jesus’ culture was the groom: his actions, his provision, his promise. And his betrothal was a binding agreement. No turning back. No second thoughts. Done. Deal. So the betrothed bride need not fear the future. She was utterly certain of her groom’s good intent, and confident of their shared life to come.

We have no need to fear the future, either. Our Groom has secured our destiny and prepared our forever-home. He will defend us against any thief or deceiver, for he has betrothed us to him in “righteousness, justice, lovingkindness and compassion.”

There’s more than one wedding in our future. We are counting the days with joy.

For your Maker is your husband – the LORD Almighty is his name – the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer; he is called the God of all the earth. (Isaiah 54:5)