Fresh eyes

When I was young, I could sense my mother's insecurities and mind boggling flaws.  It was like a slow revelation.  The kind of revelation you get when you eat chili made with peppers that give off a latent heat.  You know something is coming, you just don't know when.  I knew something was wrong, but I was not into peers, just family.  Once, I was able to visit friends and see how their mothers cooked breakfast, I knew that she had missed the mark something terrible.  I thought that this was going to go away, but the years have passed and I discover something new everyday.  Age does that to you.  I accept that she should have died young and that her way should have been hard.  There was really no other choice but that.  The beauty of youth is that it is eternally optimistic.  The beauty of wisdom is that it is eternal, period.  It unveils the world slowly and sweetly.  By the time you see the ugly and the unlovely, you are able to handle ugly and unlovely.  Each year brings fresh eyes and new interpretation.  The old folks said, that I would understand it better by and by.   I did.

Nighttime messages.

I often hear such wonderful messages in church.  They are in the most perfect of situations.  The birds are chirping.  The sun is shining and it is in the most positive part of my day.  You can tell me just about anything in the morning.  Most of the time, I wait to receive bad news in the morning.  It is a different type of message.  It is a message of hope that is readily received, but not without understanding.  When I go home, I then have to preach another message.  This is the one that gets you through the night when all of the metaphors and similes are useless.  The nighttime is not the time of talk about promise it is a time of survival.  We crawl down to the base of our desires and hold onto our integrity until the sun shines again. 

               Job knew the God of the sunshine.  That God blessed him indeed with ten children, property, and riches.  In that time, Job offered sacrifices to keep his blessing.  Then the enemy was given some reign in his life and all that he wanted to be kept was gone.  There was no need praying for children who were dead, cattle that was stolen or camels that were taken away.  When the enemy took all he had, he then began to take his health.  This was a different type of season and it called for a different type of prayer.  Job was then talking to God differently.  He was trying to maintain the only thing he had left and that was his integrity.  The only thing he had left to do was curse God and die. 

               His friends came and pushed the very button you don’t want pushed in the nighttime.  They blamed the whole thing on him.  They told him that the very reason why he was not blessed, was that he had done something wrong.  Once you get Job to admit to something he did not do, it would then be easier for  him to take the next step and sin.  Job was holding on to the only thing he ever had.  Nighttime messages are messages that keep you from losing your integrity.  It is not about turning around three times for a turn around in your life.  It is not about stepping out into a new dispensation.  It is about surviving with the only thing you have left.  Your integrity.

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