Gratefulness and Responsibility

for these things, i am grateful:

the morning at the lake, with friends i can trust. the road-trip with mom - the familiarity, the sense of home she brings, she is. the aptly-timed conversations with people i love, the weather beginning to change...

the pace of my job, the sense of purpose in my work. the ability to write and to have something to write; the opportunity to learn in a classroom setting...

the time to allow life to settle in my heart, like leaves softly beginning to drift to the ground.

- - - 

the past few weeks, i've been reading in my Bible about the destruction of a city, a people, long ago. the Israelites, and how far they fell from the place they were called to stand. these people had been rescued from their slavery in Egypt, and had been promised the world (pretty much literally). they had been given much. they had been given everything.

and they squandered it.

in Jeremiah, i read of the warnings given them, the chances, the love offered. i read of their hardness, their blindness... and ultimately, i read of their ruin. their laments hold true sorrow, and i read that too.

and i know that my heart would be just the same - has been just the same as theirs, before. (1 Corinthians 6:9-11) i know that the God who offered love to them, is the same that offered love to me - and that the death imposed on them by their sin, was once also upon me because of my own.

i understand their arrogance, the universal curse of pride in man. i understand their self-righteousness, their disregard for holiness, their disbelief that any harm could actually ever come to them. i too have been guilty of these things.

it's been a difficult section of the Bible to read, to be quite honest. it's been warning after warning, followed by prideful retorts and self-righteous proclamations, followed by woe and suffering, and destruction.... tough stuff.

but then, I got to Lamentations 3:20-26. ironically enough, i have a devotional due on this passage soon. these things are not coincidence; it is the work of the Holy Spirit, and we should understand.

Lamentations 3:20-26 says, "I will remember [the afflictions I received by the hand of God], and my soul is downcast within me... Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness. I say to myself, 'The Lord is my portion; therefore, I will wait for Him.' The Lord is good to those whose hope is in Him, to the one who seeks Him; it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord."

- - -

sitting at a coffeeshop on a day off, typing all this out on a laptop, drinking coffee... what should i take from their story? this is always the question. what choice can i make today that will be any different than the choices they made? every individual must wrestle these things out before the Lord... we too are a people who have been offered everything. will we squander it?

for this choice - this responsibility called freedom, this freedom called responsibility - i am grateful.

- - -

my husband will return in two days. the first frost of the season is forecasted tomorrow... the traffic backs up at a red light outside this coffeeshop, and the clouds rush across the sky to some unknown destination. and while the cup beside me drips its condensation, i think on these things.

i long to be nearer, see clearer, hold on to my sins less tightly, and walk humbly. i pray to have Him abide in me. i need more of Him, in my relationships, in my thoughts. i need Him to keep refining my prayers, and my attitude. to clarify my emotions, and improve my disposition. i need Him to keep remaking me.

i pray to be a walking resolve, but one that is tempered by humility - to be a living response of gratefulness, to the great responsibility Love has offered me.