Run to the Father!

In the Bleak Midwinter, Run to the Father!

I am a mess this morning with a headache, sore ribs, and anger. I am angry because I overslept and my much anticipated plans are blown up. I was angry when I went to bed and now I wake up angry again.

It would be so easy to focus on my challenges and I do, for a while. My morning melancholy feeds my Anne-rchy. But then I notice an unformed song running around in my head like background music for my anger. It was in my head last night and now again.

I don’t know the song’s name or even many of its words but the choice it gives is clear.
“Come to the Father; Fall on His grace; Come to the Father, again and again”
My demanding spirit pushes it away until I am in the car waiting to take Joe to school. Still angry, I turn on the radio and there it is again only it isn’t “Come, to the Father”, it is “Run, to the Father”.

I listen this time, at last. And as is God’s way, (and promise, in I Corinthians 10:13), He gives me a way out; a way out of focusing on myself and on my anger. He gives me the repeated opportunity to refocus through the simple words of a half remembered song.

He knows I am far too likely to ‘come’ to my anger, ‘come’ to my feeling bad, as I have proven this morning. I have been allowing my challenges to define my day and my own self, all the while God has been coming to me, again and again. He has been coming to remind me to allow Him to define me instead of giving that job to my circumstances. He doesn’t leave me alone in my stink. He provides the way out and into thanksgiving.

As Zecharias, the father of John the Baptist, prophesied at his son’s birth:

“Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, For He has visited us…to shine upon those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.”

Luke 1:68,79.

And so He continues even to this Christmas season. I who was bent on sitting in my own darkness have been guided to His way of peace. It can be as simple as a matter of focus.

What is it that has your focus this holiday?

God is calling. Will you listen?

Merry,
Anne
12/12/2019