Grandeur in the Gradual and the Granular
From Psalm 144 – 1 Blessed be the LORD my Rock, who trains my hands for war and my fingers for battle – 2 my loving kindness and my fortress, my high tower and my deliverer, my shield and the One in whom I take refuge, who subdues my people under me. 3 Lord, what is man that you take knowledge of him? Or the son of man, that you are mindful of him? 4 man is like a breath; his days are like a passing shadow.
Jonas Blaine was the grizzled but wise veteran master sergeant on the television show The Unit. He checked any draft toward complaining about the grind of improving in the soldierly profession with the observation, "The more we sweat in training, the less we bleed in combat."
King David in the Bible knew something about the sweat of training for high-stakes excellence. Like Jonas, he saw beyond the pain and present rigors. His gaze went past Jonas's, past success and preservation in battle. Few jobs have more dramatic downside than that of a soldier, yet even in the ability to learn the detailed aspects of that job, David saw reason to turn his thoughts Heavenward and express gratitude to his God.
Christian student impatient with classroom requirements between you and the glories that may await in the real world, can you turn your thoughts vertically as David does to the God who helps you to learn and gives you the opportunity? Professional putting in extra time to adapt to the changes in your field or ruling the mistakes or difficult people God often uses to produce humility perseverance, and the more determined awareness of His glory in the everyday, can we find resolution in Psalm 144:1?
For, look what lies just on the other side of this determination to see God at work in the scut work of sharpening one's professionalism! Because God met him in particular in the armory, the soldier's classroom, David's affection for God in Psalm 144:2 is personal, deeply rooted, and ongoing. There are stages of our development educationally, professionally, relationally, spiritually that offer no amusement or reward in themselves. They, like the soldier's repetitive and sometimes arduous training, often require the exclusion of other sources of satisfaction. Yet, when God meets us and demonstrates His character where few others can or would be of help, we begin to look for Him everywhere else.
Little wonder, then, that David's disciplined contemplations of God's glory in the mundane chapters of his own life are able to widen still more. Where we might divorce the abstract if attractive musings of theology from learning to do the tasks every day requires and then faithfully executing them, David sees continuity. It is when he considers that God has been alongside him specifically, individually at each stage of one man's growth and maturation that David's soul is taken up in ecstasy.
His heart launched from God's indisputable interest in a phase of David's development his own brothers no doubt derided, he marvels in Psalm 144:3-4 at God's vastness compared to one man's small interests. Not just a god would amuse himself with mortal doings and then toss them aside, but THIS God. There is no scale which can compare us to the Divine. There is no Self-interest that would compel the Godhead to address some unmet need in Father, Son, or Holy Spirit, yet they draw near, they take more interest in our tottering and techniques than we do.
Jonas Blaine was the grizzled but wise veteran master sergeant on the television show The Unit. He checked any draft toward complaining about the grind of improving in the soldierly profession with the observation, "The more we sweat in training, the less we bleed in combat."
King David in the Bible knew something about the sweat of training for high-stakes excellence. Like Jonas, he saw beyond the pain and present rigors. His gaze went past Jonas's, past success and preservation in battle. Few jobs have more dramatic downside than that of a soldier, yet even in the ability to learn the detailed aspects of that job, David saw reason to turn his thoughts Heavenward and express gratitude to his God.
Christian student impatient with classroom requirements between you and the glories that may await in the real world, can you turn your thoughts vertically as David does to the God who helps you to learn and gives you the opportunity? Professional putting in extra time to adapt to the changes in your field or ruling the mistakes or difficult people God often uses to produce humility perseverance, and the more determined awareness of His glory in the everyday, can we find resolution in Psalm 144:1?
For, look what lies just on the other side of this determination to see God at work in the scut work of sharpening one's professionalism! Because God met him in particular in the armory, the soldier's classroom, David's affection for God in Psalm 144:2 is personal, deeply rooted, and ongoing. There are stages of our development educationally, professionally, relationally, spiritually that offer no amusement or reward in themselves. They, like the soldier's repetitive and sometimes arduous training, often require the exclusion of other sources of satisfaction. Yet, when God meets us and demonstrates His character where few others can or would be of help, we begin to look for Him everywhere else.
Little wonder, then, that David's disciplined contemplations of God's glory in the mundane chapters of his own life are able to widen still more. Where we might divorce the abstract if attractive musings of theology from learning to do the tasks every day requires and then faithfully executing them, David sees continuity. It is when he considers that God has been alongside him specifically, individually at each stage of one man's growth and maturation that David's soul is taken up in ecstasy.
His heart launched from God's indisputable interest in a phase of David's development his own brothers no doubt derided, he marvels in Psalm 144:3-4 at God's vastness compared to one man's small interests. Not just a god would amuse himself with mortal doings and then toss them aside, but THIS God. There is no scale which can compare us to the Divine. There is no Self-interest that would compel the Godhead to address some unmet need in Father, Son, or Holy Spirit, yet they draw near, they take more interest in our tottering and techniques than we do.
This is humbling and reassuring. Sometimes the best and most needed lessons are those we think we already know. Thinks for this much needed reminder as I paint on my smile and continue along my valley journey. Its tempting at times to stop and lie down on the cold, wet, shadowed valley ground instead of keeping my eyes on the sunbathed peaks while depending on Him for another step forward.
ReplyDeleteThanks for thinking of me