A Movement

There’s a stiff breeze that’s sending ripples through the fabric of our very American way of life. Our reality has been upended, our perceptions of certainty and the importance of our schedules, shaken. But in the background, constant and immovable, stands the reality of the Cross. 

I took an ordinary walk down my ordinary country road. When all the to-do’s are erased, when the calendar gets wiped, when future plans are all tentative and subject to the most unprecedented of times, there’s no looking forward. The future is stagnate and stuck. So, I walked. At least, I pondered, my body was moving forward.

I passed a massive army of thorns at the edge of the woods. They were quietly strangulating the helpless and vulnerable in their path. I noticed the remains of a final fall harvest, carcasses of former corn stalks, still lying where they had been mowed down. Then, there stood the massive oak, crooked and bent, leafless and lifeless. And the gate to the church cemetery: foreboding and restricting.

But then the wind tousled my hair. Its gesture firm, but warm. I looked up and smiled at how very blue the sky was today. The sun’s rays wrapped around me in a way I hadn’t taken note of before. Birds at every turn were relentless in their “ode to joy” repertoire. The clover was fragrant, the chickweed, abundant. Though planted within the boundary of my neighbor’s fence, the forsythia had spread out her branches lavishly, reaching out towards me with beauty.

There was movement all around me. Though life’s movement on the calendar had come to a dead calm, nature was telling me a very different story: Spring was breaking through. There are some things so elemental their power cannot be contained. 

On the world’s stage, there is much that is ominous. Much that is frightening, and absolutely unknowable to any of us. Our country, our world— ripples with anxiety.  But as in C.S. Lewis’ book, “The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe”, when the Pevensie children observe the power of the White Witch thawing as they hear that “Aslan is on the move”, we can be sure that our God is on the move as well. He is always accomplishing His purposes. 

What is He about? Is it the humbling of the West? Is it the awakening of His church? I do not know. But I do know He is steadfast and immovable and desires for His people to be so in a similar way: “…be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.” 1 Corinthians 15:58.  We can’t cower at uncertainty and cease being a part of what He is about.

I know that, like Lewis’s character, Aslan, —“He is not a tame lion, but he is good.” He’s no genie in a bottle waiting for our bidding and prioritizing our plans. He is uncontainable. He is infinite in His knowledge and wisdom and power. And, He is always GOOD. We can only speculate on what He may be about in the midst of our circumstances, but we can certainly be “watchful in prayer with thanksgiving” (Colossians 4:2), looking all around us at the evidence that “in Him we live and move and have our being” (Acts  17:28). We can pray for eyes to see His purpose for us, right in this unprecedented moment. 

“Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!

For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?

Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?

For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.”

Romans 11:33-36