Testimony

 

Hey, Cobblestone,

 

    On the advice of a dear friend, here’s our next object of redemption: your testimony. “Testimony” isn’t a word that rolls off your tongue very often? I wouldn’t be surprised. It doesn’t roll off mine very often either, and given my line of work, that could be a problem! If so, maybe the first logical step toward a solution is to explain what I mean by testimony. In the context of today’s letter, it’s the story of how Jesus got a-hold of you. Every Christian has a testimony. Every story is different, yet closely related – Jesus is the central figure; his sacrifice on the cross was totally sufficient; his lordship is evident in the life of the believer; his resurrection guarantees every Christian’s resurrection. But testimonies tend to wander off course, into a place where the believer is the central figure – it happens even to the most devoted among us, so don’t beat yourself up too badly, please. I’m simply offering a suitable point for entering into the redemption of testimony.

     By way of reminder, the central question in this “Three R’s” series is, “At the intersection of faith and culture, what should we do with a given cultural element – Receive it as all good, Reject it as all bad, or Redeem it from whatever bad (or sideways) purposes it may have been put to?” Given that we are, every one of us, plunked down into a particular culture, testimony becomes a cultural element because we are part of the culture into which we’ve been plunked. How, Christian, will your testimony affect those around you – believer as well as unbeliever?

     Receive and Reject have consistently been the easiest options to turn into non-options; let’s see if the pattern holds. Some of our testimonies have shifted into a story of self-improvement. Sure, Jesus is the one who empowers the improvement, but he doesn’t get top billing. Any story that casts Jesus as an accessory can’t be Received as all good. And how about Reject – should testimony be avoided altogether? The most direct answer I know of is found in Psalm 107, verse 2… Let the redeemed of the Lord tell their story – those he redeemed from the hand of the foe. Satan was destroying you, but the Lord redeemed you, and now you have a story to tell. Once again, Redeem is the one option remaining. Whether your testimony needs a tune-up or an overhaul, there’s a path to redeeming it.

     I’d be hard pressed to decide on a favorite testimony from Scripture – there are so many – but for our chat today, I’ll pick two front-runners: Psalm 73, partly because it’s in our Bible reading plan this week; and Acts 26, because it gives a simple and repeatable pattern for testimony.

     In Acts 26, the apostle Paul has been arrested for preaching Jesus, and he’s making his defense before no less than King Agrippa. Also present were his accusers, and as I read the story, I like to imagine Paul taking a few pokes at them even as he persuades the king. But in essence he’s simply telling his salvation story, which divides cleanly into three parts: 1)“I was __________”; 2) “But God ___________”; 3) “and now ___________.” In verses 9-11 he describes what he did “in opposing the name of Jesus of Nazareth”. In verses 12-18 he tells of how Jesus found him on the road to Damascus, “to appoint (him) as a servant and a witness”. In verses 19-23 he declares, “I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision…” and “to this day I have had the help that comes from God”.

     It wouldn’t be difficult to feel very small in light of such a large testimony. But largeness and smallness are neither one the point. The point is Jesus. By sheer verse count, I hope you noticed there’s more about Jesus than anything else. The pattern is totally repeatable:

I was __________.

But God ____________________________________.

And now ______________.

The blanks are yours to fill in.

     Likewise, Psalm 73 constitutes what you might call a believer’s ongoing testimony, the story of God’s moment-by-moment help in navigating life here below, where the devil has come down to you in great wrath (Revelation 12:12). The pattern of Acts 26 is recognizable:

…my feet had almost stumbled,

      my steps had nearly slipped.

For I was envious of the arrogant

     when I saw the prosperity of the wicked…

I was brutish and ignorant;

     I was like a beast toward you (verses 2-3, 22).

In other words: “I was _________.”

 

Nevertheless, I am continually with you;

     you hold my right hand.

You guide me by your counsel,

     and afterward you will receive me to glory.

Whom have I in heaven but you?

     And there is nothing on earth I desire besides you.

My flesh and my heart may fail,

     but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever (verses 23-27).

There’s the hard pivot I mentioned last week: “But God _______________.”

 

But for me it is good to be near God;

     I have made the Lord God my refuge,

     that I may tell of all your works (the 28^th and final verse).

“And now _______________.”

 

    Best I can tell, a Christian’s testimony typically suffers from one of two maladies, opposite yet equally troublesome. One is the nagging suspicion that the blood of Jesus wasn’t sufficient for the forgiveness of all the believer’s sins; some were (or will be) too horrible. The other is the nagging suspicion that the believer hasn’t (or won’t) commit any sins so horrible as to require the blood of Jesus. If there’s a third malady, maybe it has to do with simply not feeling equipped. But I would still contend that the third has its roots in one of the first two, and some honest digging will expose them. Probably the best news about giving a testimony is that, as much as it has to do with you, it’s not about you – it’s about Jesus: you were bought with a price (1Corinthians 6:20). I’m hoping that takes most of the pressure off.

     My friend was worried about her testimony not being effective in the lives of others. As we talked, I had some of the same worries about my own, and could remember times when it seemed especially weak. We’re taking the conversation as a nudge from the Holy Spirit – to make our own testimonies more Jesus-centric and God-honoring, and urge other Christians to do the same. Pointing to the “large” example of Paul, there’s no evidence in Acts 26 that King Agrippa became a Christian, even with Paul’s persuasion. One thing odd about giving testimony is that we don’t get to hear – this side of heaven anyway – the rest of all the stories.

     But based on God’s faithfulness, one thing we can be sure of: the more we give it the more redemptive it becomes.

  

Grace and Peace (and re-acquaintance with your Jesus-got-me story),

 

John  

Ear Worm

 

Hey, Cobblestone,

 

    Do you happen to have an “ear worm” playing in your head at the moment – the jingle from a commercial you saw last night, a song you thought you’d forgotten long ago, a fragment of something your child was singing yesterday? (Well, if you didn’t before, maybe you do now!) It’s the nature of song to land in a different place than spoken word, and stick; the rhythm and meter of music will go deeper and stay longer than most of the less connected sounds we hear. With that ear worm pestering you just now, maybe this is a good time to measure music on the Three R’s scale: is it something to be Received as all good; should it be Rejected as all bad; or treated as an inherently good thing, and Redeemed from whatever bad purposes it may have been put to?

     By now, you’re fully aware of my fondness for redemption – cooperating with the Creator in bringing all of creation to what it was always meant to be – so you know where I’m headed. But to stay true to the pattern, let’s think: Can music and song be Received as all good? I’ll bet each one of us can pull at least one no-good song from memory in an instant, and another half dozen shortly thereafter. One of the hot-shot philosophers – Voltaire in this case – has said, “Anything too stupid to be said… is sung.” I’m not a Voltaire fan, but like it or not, certain songwriters and musicians have been making his point for him throughout history. Receive is out. How about Reject? You may not know this, but the first recorded words of a human being might have actually been a song: This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh… (Adam, speaking at Genesis 2:23a). He seems to be thrilled that “the rest of him,” meaning Eve, is now on the scene, and most modern Bible translations print his words in the same format as a song or psalm. And as recently as ten minutes ago, you could have heard Etta James singing, “At last, my love has come along! My lonely days are over, and life is like a song.” A life without song sounds awful; to Reject music out-of-hand would be a terrible idea. Are you ready, then, to become a little-r music-redeemer?

     What do you suppose it’ll take? What could your part amount to? With music being such a far-ranging subject, what’s the best and most redemptive work you can do within your given context? Maybe we should start with a micro-study on the nature of music.  

     For all its fantastic possibilities, music will take you to what is real. One of the beautiful aspects of music of any genre is that it can take you to realities you wouldn’t have encountered by any other means. A fair and potentially redemptive question to ask, then, is, “Where is this music taking me?” Even with Bible songs, it’s a question worth asking. 

     David was the most prolific songwriter in the Psalms. In the 62^nd he covers a lot of reality: God is his fortress, his enemies are fierce, riches and status are fleeting and ultimately meaningless. None of what he said was unreal – true, every word. And if you scope out a bit, you’ll see the healthiest and most helpful reality of all:

 Once God has spoken;

   twice have I heard this:

that power belongs to God,

   and that to you, O Lord, belongs steadfast love (Psalm 62:11-12a).

     Music and song have the ability to take you beyond what was spoken to what was meant, beyond words to understanding, and even to the motive for speaking the words. Music is powerful stuff. Like all things powerful, we really ought to approach it with some awe and even trepidation, looking to understand what it’s up to.

     Several years ago there was a contemporary Christian song based on half of Psalm 73 – “half” being the operative word here. I won’t mention the title or artist; it would only start an argument. Psalm 73 is coming up in our Bible reading plan next week, and when you see it (sing it?), you’ll see that, like many of the Psalms, it has a hard pivot point. The song stopped short of the pivot point, leaving the hearers stranded in all the unhelpful realities. That wasn’t the motive behind the psalm; the motive was to give a nod to the hard realities, then carry the hearer through to the glory. Half-a-psalm was worse than no psalm at all. Catchy tune, but it needed at least one more verse to be redemptive.

     Where is the music taking you? Can you use it to take others to healthy and helpful realities, even if that means passing through the harder ones? Can it, in any way, honor God? If you’re willing, where and how, exactly, will you start redeeming music?

 

    And yeah, in case you’re curious at all, the worm in my ear at the moment is indeed Etta James, and she can stay there all day long. I walked my daughter down the aisle to Etta singing “At Last,” and into a God-honoring marriage with the man who is my son-in-law. Some mighty sweet realities, those.

  

Grace and Peace (the music to your ears),

 

John  

 

Plainly

 

Hey, Cobblestone,

 

    I once had an hour-long conversation with a man who could neither hear nor speak. Deprived as we were, both of us, of the ordinary mechanisms of conversation, we sought out the most effective means at our disposal. Napkins and placemats disappeared at an alarming rate under the onslaught of pen and pencil – written word was the way to go. One thing we learned rather quickly: buzzwords and slang and doubletalk were of no use to us. This conversation would either be in plain words, or it would be a waste of an hour.

     It’s the nature of language to change. New things come along, and we need nouns for them: email, text, instant message. Nouns grow verb-appendages: emailing, texting, messaging. Language changes when words from another language are more descriptive, or just prettier: “reconnaissance” instead of “lookin’ around.” Language changes as each generation hopes to have certain words it can claim: “groovy” is taken already (for better or worse). Dialects develop within a language: y’all, you’uns, and yous all mean the same thing; it only matters where in this country you’re standing at the moment whether you’re understood. Language changes, for sure (fer sher?), but have you noticed that the pace of change has quickened tremendously in recent years? Have you wondered why?

     If you could charge a hundred bucks for each new word that gets circulated and adopted into our language, or has had its meaning shifted or reversed, you’d be swimming in cash. I don’t know who, exactly, you’d charge, but if the billing could be worked out, it might be the most lucrative business plan on the planet. On a recent trip to Half Price Books – in my world, there’s always a good reason to go to Half Price Books – but on this trip I was on a laser-guided mission to purchase the oldest print dictionary on the shelf, so that, ten years from now I can point to a word and say, “See? It used to mean this!” The proper use of language has become like trying to hit a bullet with a bullet.

     Best I can tell, there are basically two reasons for communicating. For the sake of simplicity, I’ll keep them in you-and-me terms. One reason for communicating is to make myself understood. The other reason for communicating is for you to gain understanding. Did they sound almost the same to you? Probably. Here’s the subtle but essential difference: the first is for my benefit; the second is for yours.

     The first reason is mostly one-way: I put the information out there, and assume the putting of it got the job done, or more precisely, I put the responsibility of understanding on you. If you don’t get it – hey, not my fault. As long as I use the right words, or say them often or loudly enough, how could I possibly be misunderstood? This method is bound to work sooner or later, so I keep using it.

     The second reason for communicating is mostly two-way: I put the information out there, but won’t know if you’ve understood until you say or do something that indicates one way or the other. The responsibility for your understanding is on me. I won’t know if you got it until you say so, and if you don’t, I’ll commit to a method that keeps looking for ways for you to gain understanding.

     Which method, do you think, is more loving?

     We have so many things to figure out, Church – all of us together, and in ones and twos and threes – and plain, loving speech is the only way to gain understanding, each of us committed to the longer-and-better method of being responsible for closing the loop.

     Here’s the problem as I see it: We are mostly committed to the first method, stubbornly expecting more-and-louder to get the point across, throwing more coal into the communication furnace without trotting upstairs to feel if the house is getting warmer. With so little to compare it to, and bombarded by it ourselves, more-and-louder seems to be the only game in town. Throw in a rapidly changing vernacular, and the very thought of taking the time to close the loop of communication is terrifying.

     In our Bible reading lately, there’s been a recurring statement: “Then you will know that I am the LORD.” I would quickly run out of letter-room if I gave all the Scripture addresses, but one of the most recent is Ezekiel 20:38. God uses plain words, he uses events, he uses metaphor, he uses parable, he uses object lesson – all for the purpose of creating understanding in his people. Would God be diminished in any way if his people did not understand? (This is where you say, “No….”) For whose benefit, then, is the communication?

     Before long, our reading plan will have us in Psalm 119; verse 130 of that Psalm says…

    The unfolding of your words give light; it imparts understanding to the simple.

    This one little sentence is packed with: an object lesson (imagine opening up your Bible, literally unfolding it); a metaphor (that Bible of yours doesn’t actually shine, but the words give light); and a statement of plain fact (understanding is about to happen for the one who simply engages). What a blessing! What an honor, that God himself would communicate with his people, so plainly and lovingly, waiting for us to get it!

      Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children… (Ephesians 5:1). I’ve been operating, far too long, under the mistaken notion that I am diminished somehow if you don’t understand me. I’ve been operating, far too long, under the mistaken notion that you bear the responsibility for understanding me. I’ve been using, far-the-heck too long, the wrong method. (Hey, ding, maybe that’s why I so consistently get bad marks on communication.) I suppose this is a good time to try to clarify. If our communication can only be done by the more-and-louder method, I’m out – it can only lead to further frustration for both of us. Oh, but if……..

 ……..if, I say……

 

…if we can commit to being imitators of God as dearly loved children, patiently and for one another’s benefit waiting to see the loop closed (or not?), trusting our Father to impart light and understanding to our speech and relationships…….

 …then I am soooooooooooooooooooooo IN!

     Because of unfamiliarity, it won’t be easy. But my soul giggles at this prospect: It’ll be worth it. Maybe we need a stack of placemats and some good pens to get us started. Whatever it takes, I believe we could be, in very little time, well on our way to redeeming language amongst us, rescuing it from the angst-filled, bullet-on-bullet thing it so often seems to be. We could relax a little. Doesn’t that sound heavenly?

     Speaking of heavenly, there’s a quirky non-ending to my conversation with the man who neither spoke nor heard. One of the placemat messages he wrote was, “I need a job.” We swapped phone numbers on one another’s placemats. I found a red-hot job prospect, thanks to one of our Cobblestone folks. I started to call the number – oops, what sense would that make? – I sent a text with the pertinent info. No response, ever. I checked with the staff at Waffle House (for there it was that the conversation had taken place… or placemat) – they had only seen him the one morning, and never since. I wonder sometimes if this was one of those “entertaining angels” scenarios spoken of in Hebrews 13:2. Maybe the Lord was checking to see if I would even try to imitate him. Or maybe this was simply a deaf-mute man passing through to somewhere else. In any case, I’m paying more attention to what plain and loving communication really is, and who deserves my very best efforts at it.

     Let me know how it works out, will ya?

  

Grace and Peace (and understanding, which is, as you know, on me),

 

John       

 

Speechless

Hey, Cobblestone,

 

    Have you written out your lament yet? Yeah, me neither. When it comes to the language of lament, I’m finding myself mostly speechless. I even gathered with a group of brothers last Saturday morning and tried to speak and teach it at the same time, but an honest observer would say we left the gathering more confused than enlightened.

     In last week’s letter, I suggested that the language of lament is in sore need of redemption. Reading through Jeremiah and Lamentations in our Bibles, we’re beginning to see how a thorough lament – looking at What Was, What Happened, and waiting on the Lord for the What Now – helped our forbears through the Babylonian captivity twenty-six centuries ago. Why, then, is the language so foreign to us now? Taking my own advice (for better or worse), I chose to not take on my biggest personal loss as a first attempt. Instead, I’ve been working on what would be called, in Bible terms, a “community lament.” I can’t say it’s been a success yet, but after another week of puzzlement, a theme is beginning to materialize. I’ll leave it to you, Church, through the witness of the Holy Spirit (or lack thereof) to decide whether I’m barking up the right tree.

     There’s a significant anniversary coming up tomorrow. The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 changed the way Americans live. In the space of a few hours, if anyone had had a concept labeled “Fortress America,” it was, for the most part, dismantled. Twenty years later, the changes are still taking place. I’ve been picking up news accounts and documentaries and asking others about their recollection of the day, hoping to put together a proper lament. One columnist, though he doesn’t know it, helped quite a bit. He proposes that we in America set apart September Eleventh of each year as a national Day of Unity, on the premise that 9/11/01 was the last time we were unified as a country. It’s not a bad idea altogether, but the premise is flawed: we weren’t. Unified, that is.

     I was there. Not at Ground Zero, of course, but the day – here in Butler County, even the weather on that Tuesday morning was very similar to the weather in New York City and Washington, DC and Somerset County, Pennsylvania: clear and mild, friendly weather, the kind of day you’d expect anything to happen other than what actually did. Once the reports became more cohesive – no, it wasn’t some unfortunate so-and-so who accidently slammed a Cessna into a World Trade Center tower – we were unified in shock… “we” meaning the crew I worked with in those days. With the second strike, and then the Pentagon, and then Shanksville, we were brought together as a community of disbelief – and we reached the boundaries of community rather quickly. Though we were of similar backgrounds and had somewhat similar goals in life, we were nowhere close on What Was or what had caused What Happened to happen. At the blood bank that afternoon, it was much the same: the staff and donors were unified by get-it-done – get this whole blood to the dispensaries, this will help somehow – but any attempt to connect on another level seemed to take us off course.

     The limits of unity were most notable at the last gathering of the day, in the late evening of the Eleventh. I was in a group of… guessing here… probably three hundred people. We were gathered in the same place at the same time, presumably for the same purpose. We were anything but unified. The shock had worn off earlier in the day, leaving no chance of unifying around disbelief; and we couldn’t get anything useful done, standing around the square looking at each other as we were. And as for a response to the attacks, I’d venture to say there were about three hundred different ideas about what should begin happening on the morning of the Twelfth. I’ve wondered for years why we weren’t able to come anywhere near unity in what seemed to be a unifying event. I’ve wondered lately why division is the outcome in other matters that show such potential for unity. Call it wisdom from above (at best), or simply an accumulation of things that make you go “Huh?” (at least), here’s what I would consider a reasonable hypothesis:

     Not everyone in the group was waiting on the Lord for the What Now.

     Outside its proper context lament means nothing – not even a community lament. The larger the group got, the less likely unity would be attained. With unity implied in community, we were not on track. As a group of three hundred, we couldn’t pull it off; what chance do we stand as a group of three hundred and thirty million? The columnist whose Op-Ed I read earlier this week might have to go looking for a different date for the national Day of Unity. And good luck with that, by the way.

 Lately, and much too late, I’m promoting a different concept of “nation” – a concept pulled from Scripture, specifically Psalm 33:

 Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people whom he has chosen as his heritage! (verse 12)

 With a better concept of nation, the community lament – and its proper context – becomes a little clearer. And in the Gospels, Jesus gives a better concept of family and community:

     And a crowd was sitting around him, and they said to him, “Your mother and your brothers are outside, seeking you.” And he answered them, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” And looking about at those who sat around him, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and sister and mother” (Mark 3:32-35).

     I’m sorry I didn’t have better words and deeds for the crew I was with on 9/11/01. I’m sorry I had nothing more than blood to give that afternoon. I’m sorry my community of faith didn’t have a cohesive and helpful message for our three hundred neighbors in the town square that night. I’m sorry my nation didn’t have someone close enough to be instrumental in the redemption of those nineteen sons of Ishmael who carried out the wicked deeds of the original 9/11. I’m trusting God to have used these intervening twenty years to form a more redemptive response in me, my community, and my nation.

     Whether this is proper lament or not is beyond my ability to tell – someone else would have to say. If not, I hope it doesn’t take another twenty years to come up with one. At this point, I’ll only ask you to join me, Church, in praying…

     “Jesus, help us with the language of lament! As you wept over Jerusalem, so let us weep over every person and every matter you’ve assigned to us, your brothers and sisters. And then, as you moved across the valley and into the work of redemption, so let us move, in your name and in the power of your Holy Spirit, amen.”

 

Grace and Peace (yes, the very peace Jesus gives),

 

John

Lament

 Hey, Cobblestone,

It is good for a man that he bear
    the yoke in his youth (Lamentations 3:27).

…the yoke of reproach, regret…

Let him sit alone in silence
    when it is laid on him;
let him put his mouth in the dust—
    there may yet be hope;
let him give his cheek to the one who strikes,
    and let him be filled with insults (verses 28-30).

…even the yoke of affliction from God…

He has made my teeth grind on gravel,
    and made me cower in ashes;
my soul is bereft of peace;
    I have forgotten what happiness is;
so I say, “My endurance has perished;
    so has my hope from the Lord” (verses 16-18).

    If that sounds like unhappy news to you who are in your youth, take it from one who is old: better to bear the yoke sooner than later. 

    Christians do many things well – mourning is not one of them. In centuries and millennia past perhaps our forbears did it better, but in this age, I rarely encounter anyone who even understands the concept. There’s a propensity to skip to the hope too soon, not because the hope is so dear, but because the affliction and loss are so unpleasant. And of course, I stand accused and convicted – of the afflictions and losses of six decades, I can’t think of even one that I’ve mourned thoroughly.

    In case you were wondering, yes, we’re still in the Receive/Reject/Redeem “Three R’s” series, and the miniseries within: Redeeming Language. There’s a certain type of language begging for redemption, and seeing virtually none, because virtually no one sees the need of redeeming it. The language of lament is a foreign tongue; it breaks out for a moment or two in times of deep distress, surprising even the speaker, but heard through the filter of the mind the tongue is loathe to utter its intonations. As people of God, indwelt by the Holy Spirit and having the mind of Christ, ours is the task of making the human mind and tongue obedient to the truth, redeeming the language of lament.

    “Buck-up and move on” is the message we perceive. It’s not universally bad advice – if you’re moving on from a skinned knee or a stubbed toe, it’ll do just fine. Moving up the scale of affliction, though, it’ll run out of steam before long, mostly because bucking-up isn’t the first part of moving on – mourning is. Unmourned losses accumulate; unrecognized afflictions pile up in dimly lit areas of the consciousness. Bucking-up builds rickety fences around them. You know they want out, want to be expressed, but they’re dreadful somehow. Reluctant as we are to enter into mourning, moving on doesn’t happen without it.

    Keying on the homework assignment Andrew gave us in the sermon this past Sunday, I’ll issue an invitation to you, Church: Write out your lament. Over the past fifty years, my ears have developed a talent for not hearing homework assignments, but this one got me, and I believe it would be healthy and helpful for all of us. Identify a significant loss in your history; describe what you had before; describe what happened to cause the loss; describe the reality brought about by the loss. Rather than leaving it solely in the realm of reflective thought, I hope you’ll do something tangible, involving your body. Two bits of friendly advice: first, don’t take on your biggest loss first, and second, don’t skip to the hope too soon.

    The Bible book of Lamentations is organized mourning. Andrew called attention to the fact that its poems are arranged in acrostic form – several acrostic forms, actually. There was so much to be lamented in the loss of the Lord’s favor that it easily populated all the letters of the Hebrew alphabet many times over. It provided structure for the mourning – countless generations have understood the glory of what was through the laments handed down to them. If we ourselves consider putting together a lament, we might be intimidated by the biblical example; on the other hand, we might be surprised at how naturally it flows.

    And how to start? Very likely, this would be your first recognizable lament. Well, there is this: for three weeks we’ve been considering the importance of regaining the language of Love as our first language, displacing the languages of Information and Persuasion as our go-to’s. Sure, in some venues the language of Love is met with curious stares, but my firmly held belief is that it has more place than we’re giving it. So let me ask: Whenever the language of lament has burst forth from you, bidden or unbidden, which of the three languages – Love, Information, or Persuasion – were you speaking? To whom were you speaking it? What sort of answers did you expect to get? My guess, informed by some of those same outbursts (unbidden, every one), is that you were speaking the language of Love. Something, or someone, or some reality was loved… and lost. Hence the need for lament. The language of lament, you see, is a dialect within the language of Love.      

    Not to be confused with the language of complaint, the language of lament takes a clear-eyed look at What Was, What Happened, and waits on the Lord for the What Now. As a young man, I was convinced I didn’t have time to wait for the Lord. I moved on, whether I had bucked-up or not, justifying my actions on the lie that I wouldn’t be able to mourn correctly until I was much older. Well, “much older” has well and thoroughly arrived and stands staring at a backlog of unmourned losses, wagging a bony finger, saying it would’ve been good to bear the yoke in my youth, however well or poorly I spoke the language of lament at the time. 

    If you’re expecting this letter to bounce back, I can tell you now it won’t be. Scroll all you want; it won’t happen today. The leading I have from the Lord is to drop you right here, Church. My prayer is, in this moment, you are compelled to become fluent in the language of lament, whatever age you happen to be.

Mercy in the Mourning,

John