Between the Cracks

"How come everyday, I'm waiting for the change?

How come I still say, give me strength to live".

Pavement Cracks - Annie Lennox.

Outgunned, outmanned, outnumbered, outplanned.

Is it any wonder we sometimes gain a sense of paralysis!

When we read the narrative of those who desire to do something beyond conforming to the ugliness of life, it is most certainly like looking for something rare amidst the broken highways of the world. Where is the strength that cuts iron bars, breaks apart those brazen gates of bronze, and turns mountains taller than Everest into smooth paths to walk on? Where is the precious bounty from the deep places that, surely, should accompany those times of trial and hardship?

God's hero's and millionaires are often those that serve amidst the broken places. They are the richest of people, because they have discovered how to be grateful in the most common things of life, because the deepest wealth is when we share unmerited love amongst all of us broken souls. Genuine, everlasting love is something way out of our control, that brings a sweetness and beauty that wonderfully transcends all the pain and the misery. It makes us thankful to be alive.

God's house is a refuge for those, notes Chad Bird, who know of the 'streaks of blood upon the floor, from the wounded who drag themselves there after a week of addictions, griefs, and family fragmentation. Scratches are evident on the walls from those seeking to claw their way free from the demons they harbour within. Vomit is on the carpet from women seeking to free themselves from men ruined by anger. Everywhere you look there are faces marked by the trails of tears upon children longing to be freed from the famine of despair' (Unsexy church).

These should all be present, he notes, because beneath all the veneer of our exterior 'niceness', we are wretches marked by filthy rags, needing the singular salve of the blood of Jesus, over and over again.

This is our only Bethel, our only hostel at the gateway to what is so far, so very much 'higher' than us. 

The vital truth, notes Chad, is that the Lamb of God stands firm in our midst, taking away the sins of the world. That is the stone upon which we can rest and see heaven open.

The people of God have often been a band that you would not look at twice on a normal day, but behind all the hobbling and the need, there is the blood-bought mantle of God, making them a army, fierce in prospect, arrayed in banners.

May we be so clothed today in all our 'small corners'.