God's Child Trembles

Isaiah 26:3 (NKJV)
³ You will keep him in perfect peace, Whose mind is stayed on You, Because he trusts in You.

I long for peace in my inward parts, but I find this calm illusive. There is a popular Christian false piety that promises a Zen-like blissful and passionless state of mind. Anything short of that indicates a sinful lack of faith. (In theory this is correct.) In reality it is a lie, even our Lord sweat drops of blood when his heart was troubled by the prospect of an atoning death. I have enjoyed moments of peace; they are precious but they are fleeting. When I see my grandchildren fearful I will offer them a comforting embrace and calming words of assurance. I say, “There is nothing to fear.” It rarely produces its intended result. When I see them joyful and content, my heart feels the same. I am joyful, knowing their joy. I think it is the same with the Triune God. His desire is our peace. Yet, in His providential wisdom, he allows our peace to be disturbed.

Anne Steele (1716-1778) could have written these words yesterday. It is so true that the Christian heart is not governed by time. We are as all Christians were. They have experienced all our anxieties and joys.

If pain and sickness rend this frame
And life almost depart
Is not Thy mercy still the same
To cheer my drooping heart
If cares and sorrows me surround
Their power why should I fear?
My inward peace they cannot wound
If Thou, my God, art near.

I am sitting in our new home. I just finished setting up a study. With every passing day, I feel more and more distant from the PC(USA) in general, and, the Minden Presbyterian Church specifically. Now the physical distance from Minden remains a constant but the emotional or relational distance does change.

Friday their rascal in residence calls me. I missed his call but he left a message on my phone. He wanted to know if the supply preacher could bring an inflatable mattress to the Church Manse (What Presbyterians call a home provided for a pastor, what the Episcopalians call a Vicary, the Methodists a Parsonage, and among Roman Catholics the parish priests reside in the Rectory.) Part of my pre-retirement benefits was a three month paid leave of absence and the use of the Manse for that period. We are in transition. We still have many items of personal property in the church's house. Some items we intend to dispose of through a sale; others remain to be moved to our new home, and remainder we will give away to the Goodwill.

When I heard the voice of the Rascal in Residence my insides gave off a signal indicating fear or worry. This feeling I am told is caused when the brain releases a hormone called neuropeptides. You feel it in various ways. Peristalsis is a response in the digestive tract to various stimuli. This only happens when the brain registers a threat or is excited in some joyful way, as in the case of young love. While it is not possible to feel what another is experiencing, I suppose that everyone experiences this physical response in varying degrees and caused by various circumstances. With me, it has its own incomparable quality. I have experienced it first when I was a child and my father would decelerate while going up and then accelerate while going down a hill. I called it, “a tickle in my tummy.” When peristalisis is short lived and associated with a non-threatening circumstance, it is benign at least and pleasurable at its best.

Because we can now communicate from long distances and that communication does not need to be contemporaneous, it is impossible to physically fight the person causing your stress or flee from their presence. The lapse in time and distance of space makes such a gratifying response impossible. So how does one respond when another is evoking an unpleasant feeling in the pit of your gut through a voicemail or email? Since the methods of deliverance are virtual, so must be your response. They fight with words; you flee by ignoring their messages. Not everyone intends to trouble me; yet sometimes I am disturbed by their words. I see this as their awaking my slumbering anxiety.

Just so you'll know, I called the Raschal back to tell him that we would rather that the Manse remain vacant until we are completely moved. He actually offered to "get some of ladies from the church to help us with our sale." My only response to this insincere offer is the Greek word "Skubala!." Paul uses the word in Phil 3:8 - it is various translated as "refuse" or, better, "rubbish" or best "dung."

My God’s peace reign in the heart of all His frightened and angry children.