Tracing The Divine: On being 26

This was a very special birthday to me. I haven't been home for my birthday for what feels like a very long time and home has become more and more where I love best to be. With a kindness almost humorous, God sent a snow storm that kept us all indoors in the cozy quiet together for three days of reading, talking, music, scrabble, sermons and good food. The only time I left the house was to take a long walk in the dazzling brightness of the snow under the kind of sunshine that only comes after snow storms.

This kind of quiet divine kindness has seemed to come from every corner lately. On the day before my birthday, I saw it again when I found myself troubled without a singular cause I could lay my thoughts on. But despite recent successes on the work front and a happy settledness in being home, I still felt out of sorts. The only facet I could see clearly was that I did not feel like being celebrated. I saw so much selfishness and pride in my life...so much thoughtless indulgence undergirding choices so long pursued that they had become habits of attitude I had not even recognized as separate from personality for some time. Now seeing them once more as choices and myself as the arbiter between selfish passion and the just and beautiful possibility of sanctification, I saw only the bribes of instant gratification I had taken and the destruction they had purchased. All individual acts of sin faded into peripheral insignificance in comparison to the new layer of my heart I was seeing. And this was my birthday eve. I shrunk dejectedly from the thought of the festivities to come the next day.

But then I read Daily Light and the evening reading included this dear passage:

"The Lord thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; he will save, he will rejoice over thee with joy; he will rest in his love, he will joy over thee with singing."

I was humbled and melted to tears. Here I am declaring indignantly that I do not deserve to be celebrated...that perhaps I can atone for my self absorption by slipping along quietly past any recognition. Surely sackcloth is the appropriate emotional garb for this day considering my birth. But He declares his love over me. Of course I'm right in a way: I don't deserve to be celebrated on my merit. That is all dust and ashes. But my Mighty Savior is rejoicing over me with singing.

One phrase in particular caught my attention as I read the passage in this translation: "he will rest in his love." When I first read it, I thought I had mixed the words. At a glance, I assumed it was saying that we rest in his love...that it is in his love alone we find our true rest. This is of course true and the intent of the line includes this conclusion. But this is not precisely what the prophet says. As I pondered the line, I looked up what Matthew Henry wrote on this passage so many years ago and it humbled me once again to tears:

"He will rejoice over thee with joy, will not only be well pleased with thee, upon thy repentance and reformation, and take thee into favour, but will take a complacency in thee, as the bridegroom does in his bride, or the bride in her ornaments....He will rest in his love, will be silent in his love, so the word is. "I will not rebuke thee as I have done, for thy sins; I will acquiesce in thee, and in my relation to thee." I know not where there is the like expression of Christ's love to his church unless in that song of songs, Cant. 4:9, Thou has ravished my heart, my sister, my spouse, with one of thy eyes. O the condescensions of divine grace! The great God not only loves his saints, but he loves to love them, is pleased that he has pitched upon these objects of his love. He will joy over them with singing. He that is grieved for the sin of sinners rejoices in the graces and services of the saints, and is ready to express that joy by singing over them. The Lord takes pleasure in those that fear him, and in them Jesus Christ will shortly be glorified and admired."

I set my face into this year with the prayer that I would be faithful in repeating to my heart the truth that God tells us about himself and the truth God tells us about ourselves. I've been seeing the truth of my sinfulness. But on that late night by the fire through my tears, I saw again that my God rejoicing over me is truth too. What a delight to realize that I can participate in his joy by believing this truth about my condition because he delights to delight in us. We are his good creation, we are his redeemed bride, we are bound up eternally in his promise to finish the work he has started, and we are the object of his love. True: I'm not worthy to be celebrated based on my actions and attitudes, but the unconditional, redemptive love of God for me is a joy indescribable, and to sing the praises of the One who sings over me...that is celebration indeed. Is this not love at its best and dearest?

A very special surprise birthday gift in the mail!!

An early birthday dinner with new friends from church. Their birthday card was pretty hilarious :)

PC: Daniel Weddle

Say what you will...it was delicious!! (And yes that was a clean bowl put out for the purpose the night before during the magical midnight first snow moments)

PC: Daniel Weddle

Birthday dinner

Out our bedroom window

Sunday morning, Church was cancelled due to the snow and ice so we gathered around the piano for a hymn sing and then around the table for a Ravi sermon