What Do I See?
By Richard McElroy--
What do I see? Baby chicks hatching! Hot brown grass, screaming, thirsty for want of water...summer chores awaiting...and thinking about meeting my four brothers and sisters. What will I see? It’s been almost two years since my younger sister, my two older brothers and another sister have been together. I am looking forward to looking them in the eye and seeing. I long to take a full measure of their faces, their hearts and spirits: how has this season of isolations and separations traced its way into their lives?
You see we look forward to the end of each decade with a special yearning, anticipating celebrating another decade of life and familial love. We are all close. There’s a special week between late August and early September where all of us share the same age: 2010 found us all in our fifties. So here came 2020: my baby sister JoJo just turning 60 and my oldest brother trailblazing into the 70’s on his September 4th birthday. But Covid broke that multi-decade tradition. But next week, Susan and I will be on our way to see them all!
Most years, we would just drive up the I-5 corridor to Bellingham, Washington, an hour’s pause before the Canadian border. But it seems fitting to reconsider how we best might travel. What might we see differently and experience with a deeper appreciation due to the last many months? Our perception has changed how we view life. Our perception and value of time has tilted towards more urgency. Our heart for those around us has moved slightly away from what was routine.
I am looking at a map showing ways to travel to the northern parts of Washington state. The long peninsula to the west and the small hamlet of Port Townsend has caught my eye. There’s a blue-aqua line skimming across the waters in the Strait of Juan De Fuca. It marks a ferry boat route from the peninsula to Whidbey Island. I remember as a child crossing a bridge from this island to Mt. Vernon. That’s it. This route will bypass all the asphalt and congestion of Portland, Vancouver, Olympia, Tacoma, Seattle and Everett. I imagine salt-water inlets, orca pods, islands, and cooler, ocean-fed breezes pushing us along to see my family. It will be worth the time when I consider the older, traditional freeway slog.
That bridge we will drive over from Whidbey Island to the mainland safely arches 180 feet over one of the most dangerous passages of water in all the San Juans. The narrow channel offers one of the quickest passage out into the Islands. But the volume of water and tides create an impossible swirl of whirl pools and eddies. One captain describes, “Two million cubic feet of water rush through the pass at peak flow per second. One cubic foot of seawater weighs about 64 pounds. So, at peak flow, more than 127 million pounds of seawater, or nearly 64,000 tons, flow through Deception Pass per second. To put those numbers in perspective, that is about eight times more water than the average flow of the Columbia River.” Dangerous waters unseen below!
Why share all this? It puts me in mind of Ezra and Nehemiah. Their journey and lives flavored by travel and new tasks ahead of them. When Ezra praises God for His favor in the midst of their struggle to reestablish God’s prescribed means of worship, I hear an echo of all that Greg’s been sharing. God sees us! He is for us! He will be our safe passage.
Marcus is leading our youth through the book of Ezra as a parallel study of this Israeli remnant returning from captivity. Ezra prays the following prayer: “But now for a brief moment favor has been shown by the LORD our God, to leave us a remnant and to give us a secure hold within his holy place, that our God may brighten our eyes and grant us a little reviving in our slavery. For we are slaves. Yet our God has not forsaken us in our slavery, but has extended to us his steadfast love before the kings of Persia, to grant us some reviving to set up the house of our God, to repair its ruins, and to give us protection in Judea and Jerusalem. (Ezra 9:8-9 ESV)"
I see the praise for God’s favor, calling a small group of people to Himself, blessing these people with security and blessing them with the means to endure the current form of enslavement. There’s a sweet praise to God for His steadfastness in that ever-present love. The prayer describes a brightening of the eyes: a picture of being fed in such a way that there’s health both physically and spiritually. As to the slavery, I am quickly put in mind of my own shackles to my old sin nature. I can trace the ruins and scars of past selfish choices but know Jesus is repairing my heart, mind, body and soul, as surely as Ezra’s crew repaired the temple and Nehemiah’s crew rebuilt the walls. There’s protection in their place. And am I not now the greatest benefactor of His protection...and into all my future, into His eternal place? Isn’t His protection offered to all of us from today and into His perfect future, for us all? And why? Ezra’s prayer holds the hint of the better. God has not forsaken us in our slavery: God’s extended steadfast love came in Jesus living the perfect life, becoming the perfect sacrifice, and guiding our very souls out of the death-currents of sin’s hold.
Most people in my life seem to be more in the rough waters, swirling between beliefs, fears, circumstance, personal wounds and pitfalls; all caught up in the world’s whirlpools and eddies. Impossible forces are exerting unbelievable pressure on every part of their minds, bodies and souls. While above, a safe bridge of passage awaits; a span clear of any splash or hidden death. Jesus is our span. Jesus is our hope; Father’s best provision.
What do I see? An opportunity to share with all that there’s a way out of the torrents that overwhelm the soul. What do I perceive? God has placed an urgency in this new season to measure His favor and seek to share His better plan with those who need to hear. Will I act my part in reviving other’s hope? Will I risk revisiting the traditional ways of the past and allow Jesus’ spirit to reign, to move in His new leading?
The family gathering is a year delayed, but is now coming. I know that I will be a different brother. I will see with a sharper perception. I will be loving, listening and sharing the more important things. I pray we all feel the touch of Jesus tracing a better future for us all!