Dayenu

It is the method to my step and the life to my spirit and it is not that God is good, but that God is still good.

When my brother died one of our friends wrote a poem called Dayenu. It means "It would have been enough" and it was what the Israelites said after each common grace was given to them: escape from slavery, dayenu; through the red sea, dayenu; manna in the desert, dayenu.

It would have been enough if God had only done this one thing and nothing more, it would have been enough.

David prayed it again with different words: "Bless the Lord, oh my soul." Soul, you're downcast, you're empty, you're sad, but oh, what God has done! It is enough. So bless the Lord.

My soul is a heavy one today, the effects of sin are near and touching people I love and me too. I'm confronted about the words I say, I hug a tearstained girl, I cry my own tears, we're praying for an unanswered prayer and this is what I'm thinking all day: God is good, yes, and so we long for the completion of what we want, but God is still good while the completion is far, far off.

It would have been enough if He had only created the earth and put us here to tend the garden.

It would have been enough if He had brought us out of captivity to settle in the wilderness.

It would have been enough to leave the Old Testament hanging for 500 more years.

It would have been enough to birth hope in a manger.

It would have been enough to have smitten His son and washed His hands of it.

It would have been enough for a resurrection alone.

It would have been enough for me to be born, to enter fighting and gasping for the stuff of earth.

It would have been enough for me to live through today.

Because God knows something that I cannot even fathom with my earth encrusted prayers and thinly veiled attempts to get more of Him by getting more of myself: He is still good and He is faithful to finish and He has already won.

This comforts me because sometimes I hear an answered prayer and my heart jumps inside of me, words on my lips: God is good! But I stop here, because even in the lack of what we pray for, He is still good. He has brought us thus far and He has done enough. He has not left stones unturned or promises unanswered. He is not waiting for you to get your act together or for me to learn one final lesson.

Today I'm asking myself what I'm asking for. Am I asking for meekness? For righteousness? For a glimpse of my heart's desires? For repentance? For gratefulness? What am I asking for that cannot be quieted by one simple declaration: what You have done is enough for you to be worthy of all glory today.

What has God done for you that is enough? If He did nothing more, is He still worthy of your praise? Your trust?

How do I balance?

(pinterest)

When I was small, still playing on playgrounds and wearing pink overalls, my favorite playground apparatus was the seesaw. A friend and I would try any number of tricks to try to defeat balance and gravity, but no matter how long we could keep that solid board parallel to the ground below us, inevitably it would begin tipping one way or the other. Perfect balance was impossible.

For years the concept of balance has irked me. When I would stand on one of my certain soapboxes and someone older and wiser, or younger and more naive, than me would begin to laud the importantance of balance, I would check out. Balance is sissy to me.

I like the idea of zen, order, some sort of divine knowledge that the universe can be steadied by my efforts and meditations.

But the truth?

The truth is that nothing about the faith I've been adopted into is balanced.

What we're saying when we say we need to be balanced is that we need to not offend, or not be radical, or not be too much of any one thing, that everything must taste good, feel good, and not be irksome in order to keep balance in the world. What we're saying is we've got to keep that seesaw parallel to the ground beneath us, or we'll come crashing down with a pounding thud.

Like the hill at Golgotha, when a broken, bleeding man dropped his head and the sky went dark, the veil tore in two. A pounding thud.

Quiet.

Because balance was broken.

One man took the wrath for a limitless number of us.

Complete imbalance.

So when we ask that question "where is the balance?" I'll tell you where it is:

Nowhere.

It doesn't exist. Balance was broken. And what you're searching for is not a parallel board, hovering peacefully above the earth and all its brokenness, what you're searching for is Jesus.

Perfectly imbalanced Jesus.