Dream-Sermon: Sing of God's Doings

Christian friends used to ask me, "What has God been doing in your life?" 

It felt like a trick question, or a set-up for a lecture. I didn't want to answer.

It wasn't meant as an accusation, many probably thought it a theologically correct cool substitute for "How are you?"

I would answer, and nearly always receive disapproving comments.

My friend-group and lifestyle have changed a lot. It's been over three years since somebody has asked me that question. I'm glad. And yet... I now ask myself, what is God been doing in my life? Sometimes I self-reprimand, but often I simply just don't know. Is it good that I'm happier? What does this mean? Was it wrong to leave behind all things stifling?

I feel the realness of holy ground all about me, no longer sequestered to a single building. At last, I am functioning more in my giftings and callings. And still, just what is God doing in my life? What are words when I'm living them.

I've been thinking a lot about hope and honor, and what their bond creates, and how they need one another in order to be pure. Honor without hope is mere prestige. Hope without honor is blind naivety. Hope is Honor's strength and sustenance; Honor is Hope's protection and pleasure. Hope purports Honor's mission and she in trade is rooted. Honor grasps at Hope when she appears but a speck of dust in the wind. He plants her and discovers she is a seed ready to grow and bloom: the mustard seed becomes a field of flowers.

Together they make Home and offer Hospitality.

Years ago, a friend handed me a 1000-page book by Brandon Sanderson. I wasn't into epic novels, yet. 

He said, "Read it. I'll get it back when I visit next month."

I said, "I don't know if I can finish it in a month..."

"You can." 

I did. 

It was a beautiful story called THE WAY OF KINGS. Still one of my favorite books. A main character, Kaladin Stormblessed, lives a life fueled by honor but tainted by pain. He is saved by a small fairy, a creature who is hope embodied. Without him she'd be a bit of breeze. Without her he'd have died. Together they become a beauty unstoppable.

I think about them as my heart swells with much hope in a world so dangerous and ready to throw me to the wind. I think about all the noble people who are suffering and dying because they can't see hope.... the breeze is too soft... too soft to tell them to step away from a precipice. Or too harsh to show them that this is their dream, this is the way. 

This Earth is holy ground, blessed by God and given to man. But it's muddied, we're stuck in the mud, unable to be a complete working body, unable to unite in hope and honor. The mud pulls deeper the more tears we add to this Earth, and all God asks is for us to stop and see what He is doing. 

Let alone the questions, and come together. 

I remember things I've left behind, praying and hoping over them. I think of how I left a single church to spread my community wider, and I ask God, "What are you doing in our lives? How will I bear all this hope? How will any of us  live up to our blessings and virtues? How will you heal us and this world?" 

Whenever I knit a long work, I feel a kinship with Madame Defarge. I work blessings and curses.... am I sharing my hope, or am I releasing bitterness? Good-will or contempt from my heart through my fingertips to this other person? I decide how to share my hope. I decide whether God's holy ground remains dry and firm under my feet. Or do I muddy up yet another part of God's creation by taking vengeance into my own hands.

And I ask, "God what are you doing in this person's life?" 

And I hear a gentle disapproval. Why am I asking this question? 

Do I also desire to release condemnation? Where is my faith, my hope, when another needs strength?

Job 12: 7-9 But ask the animals and they shall show you, and the birds of the air will sing to you. Speak to the Earth and it will teach you. The fishes will declare to you, "Who knows not that this is the Lord's doing?" 

I do not want to offer a long-winded testimony, nor to be asked questions. I desire only that the colors of my flowering hopes and the simple song of my life be so blatant people need not ask, "What are you doing for God?" 

My performance shall speak for itself. Do not preach to the choir; join it and sing. 

What if this is what God is doing in all our lives? Teaching us to sing songs of hope and honor, that we might praise Him wholly in Heaven, and that Earthly homes will host space for Holy Ground.