Spring 2017 Prayer Letter June

June 2017 Prayer Letter

Spring 2017 Prayer Letter

The Little Gray Sponge

Suppose your mind is like a sponge
A little gray repository
That soaks up wondrous things you learn
Your insights and discoveries

What happens if you never wring it out?
But hoarding knowledge, keep
Adding thought to thought to thought to fill
The mind's cavernous watery deep

If never squeezed or emptied out
On life's seeds, others' thirsts
Stale knowledge rank and rancid grows
Though sweet it was at first

Moldy sponges we throw out
For ones more fresh or new
Or sterilize them in the microwave
In scarcely a minute or two

But what use can one find
For a moldy mind?

1, 1, 2, 2, 3, ...

I just had a breakthrough. Or...at least, I hope I did. It has been a while since a truly earth shattering thought has crossed my mind, but I think one just did. Of course, such a thought would happen as I listened to a lecture on my iPod, after returning sweaty from a late night run in the cold March air. After removing all the warm clothes and just before turning on the hot water to shower, I stood there shivering as the story I'm living in got ready to shift under my feet.

The professor talked about two falls of humanity--the first being the fall of Adam and Even in the garden. The second, mindblowingly, as the fall of Israel in the desert. Adam and Even were expelled from Paradise. About a millenium after the golden calf incident, Israel was exiled from their Promised Land. God chose a remnant to survive the flood--Noah and his family. God chose a remnant to survive the Assyrian and Babylonian conquest of the Northern and Southern Kingdoms of Israel.

What does this mean for us?!

It seems, as I look around, that humanity has been offered a fresh start in Jesus--but we will too be expelled from the Promised Land. Only a remnant will be saved.

Is the story of Israel a paradigm for all the nations of the world?

What and who are God's people today? A triumphant army ready to change the world...or a remnant people who need to remain faithful to God in the midst of a world that has turned from him?

I think what strikes me most is the downward slope of every epoch of salvation history. God intervenes, humanity declines and degrades.

Adam and Eve--Cain...
God starts again with Noah.
We end up in Babel.
God starts again with Abraham.
We end up in Egypt.
God starts with Moses.
We end up at the Golden Calf.
God starts again with Joshua and a new generation.
We end up in sin.
God sends one judge.
The people end up in sin again.
God sends eleven more judges.
After each the people end up in sin, eventually asking for a King.
God sends a King, named Saul.
He ends up worshiping idols and going crazy.
God sends another King, David.
In spite of his good heart, he messes up his own family.
God places Solomon on the throne, who builds the Temple.
And he loves 1000 wives and institutionalizes idolatry and overtaxes the people.
Solomon's children begin hundreds of years of Civil War
Out of 40 Kings, only 2 are true to the LORD
The Dividic monarchy is a slow slide to captivity.
After captivity, it takes Israel over a century to rebuild
And they never quite get there.

This is a very, very sad story.

I can't help but wonder...which way is history going today.
Is it moving towards hope and progress...or will things continue to decline until God does the next big thing? My heart wants history to slope upwards...

but I wonder...

Apologies for the unfinished state of my thinking.

More to come.