Teach me to number my days, O Lord, that I may gain a heart of wisdom.” ~ King David
The measure of God’s love displayed in me just might be my willingness to be inconvenienced.
It was early on a Friday afternoon. I was way behind on all the things I needed to get done for the dinner party I was having that evening. Suddenly, I heard a knock at the front door. I was feeling more than slightly annoyed. Espsecially after I opened the door, only to find the “neighborhood inconvenient kid”. That kid who shows up at your house randomly. The smart-aleck, but admittedly funny and sarcastic class clown who, according to my own kids, spent most of his school time in detention. That kid who did whatever he felt like doing; he just never seemed to notice how things affected other people. I’m sure every neighborhood has one of those kids. I stood there scrambling for a not~so~rude way to tell him this was not a good “play day” and to go home.
He looked up at me with his round, blue eyes and exclaimed, “Hi!” as if I had invited him over ~ when in fact, he was the last person I wanted to see standing there on my doorstep. After all, he was so inconvenient. He brushed past me into my house saying, “Where’s Heather?” Luckily Heather had always liked him. The next thing I knew, they were sitting cross-legged together looking at old photo albums on the floor of my living room.
I could have run to the grocery store for a more fancy bouquet of flowers than I could cut and put together from my garden. I could have curled my hair so everyone would think it always looked like that. And the kitchen floor was a tiny bit dirty. But I hadn’t seen this little guy for quite a while. So I sat down in the family room for a bit and chatted with him and Heather. And the three of us laughed and laughed at the pictures in the photo albums of them growing up together ~ and remembering those endless birthday parties.
Did I waste my time that afternoon? No, because I learned something infinitely valuable. More valuable than I could have learned any other way.
I learned that Wisdom has Corners.
My time is not my own. Neither is my checklist. What I do with my life every minute of every day belongs to God. For some reason, it seems to be far easier for Christ Followers to say, “I feel like God is calling me to be a pastor, or a Bible Professor” than it is to know that we are called to honor Him with every day-to-day moment of our lives. And to actually live our lives that way. Suddenly wisdom took an unexpected corner.
NEVER FORGET THE CROSS
Always keep in the forefront of your very being what Jesus did for us on that cross. Despite the torture and horrible death of Jesus Christ, I believe His most painful moment was when His Father turned His face away as He hung there on the cross. Jesus, for the first time, was utterly alone. The Father turned away so that no matter what else happens to us in our lives, we can be certain we will never have to be alone like that. We, in all our inconvenience, will never be forced away from God’s loving side.
As long as we turn our faces toward Him, He will never turn His face away from ours.
No matter what a mess we have made of our lives. No matter how many times we have blown it. No matter how incredibly inconvenient we are ~ what a waste of time we may seem to all of our friends. No matter how many times we have been that little kid standing on the doorstep of the “too busy” lady.
They say that a long life is the only way to gain wisdom. A person can be smart, clever and educated while young. But they can’t be wise. Wisdom is a long road. But it’s not a highway. It’s not even a straight road from here to heaven. It has unexpected road blocks and dead ends. Those are obvious in their own way. In the case of a roadblock you stay on the road and wait for the mess in front of you to clear out enough for you to proceed in the same direction. A dead end is even more obvious. Turn around.
But wisdom has corners. Hitting the corner of a wall feels like you slammed full speed, head-first into something insurmountable. And you might be dead. But when you regain consciousness, you’re not dead. That, as a Believer, would be too easy. Instead, it’s just another corner. It’s easy to see which way to go…it’s just awful. It’s worse than inconvenient, because it’s one more beating you never really recover from.
And so you get up ~ and keep on walking. Or rolling your wheelchair. And each time you get up again, you become more lovely to your Father. And He is always there, waiting for you just around that corner, with his love-filled face turned toward you…never away. He’s never far from you. If you seek Him, He will come after you.
And no matter how many times you slam into a wall and it seems like you are dead, only to discover it’s yet another corner ~ just get up and keep on going. You won’t get lost, because your Father is beside you. You won’t be alone, no matter how lonely you feel, because He is right there. Your heart, no matter how many times it’s been broken, will always be full, no matter how much its brokenness hurts. You will never be inconvenient to Him. Never.
And in learning to trust Him through all of this, you will have gained wisdom.
Even though ~ Wisdom has Corners.
