Consider what God made of us, What angels make of us
How precious we are in His creative, amazing sight.
And then consider what we make, of circumstances in life.
Making mountains out of mole hills and gods out of men
As if God did not say, I will never leave or forsake you
As if Christ did not say and I will send the Comforter and He will be with you and in you.
As if someone’s negative opinion of us is worth more than God’s heart of love
As if our socio economic status could invalidate us from God’s affection, like Christ, if seeing me in discount brands would someone how love me less
Oh how we stress,
When we do not get the job, or bomb the interview or fail an exam
and wonder, God, why are you doing this to me?
As if Jesus Christ had said in this world you won’t have troubles.
As if worldly prosperity was his primary priority.
As if, our true worth was in fact determined by our net worth, or how the world views us,
as if,
As if God was more alive and nearer to us on our insta story worthy days than in our hidden losses.
As if
As if God’s voice was in the wind or the earthquake or the miracle fire alone and not also in the calm, in the still, in the whisper.
As if Christ went to the Cross for the joy set before Him, and paid that cost for you but now has buyer’s remorse, fingers hovering over the undo keys as if you weren’t worth his blood.
You were.
But still
That discouragement can be too real. And our brothers and sisters in the faith have had moments where they nearly buckled under the weight.
I think of escaped slave to abolitionist Frederick Douglas. Surviving state sanctioned slavery and family separation, and later, fights with his enslavers, he stole away and escaped to Freedom. But now, He was losing faith. This nation, built on the rhetoric that all men were created equal, had actions and laws which spoke a more depraved word. Douglas bore the scars of that hypocrisy on his body. In Fells Point he tasted the gift of reading only to have it revoked because of his skin. Years later as a free man in Boston now, before a gathered abolitionist crowd, In exasperation and hopelessness Douglas voiced that his faith was running thin.
And Sojourner Truth calls out to him in Faneuil Hall circa 1874
“Frederick! Is God Dead?” [1]
And calls him back to the truth, back to faith. The great thinker and orator left for long moments speechless, then renewed.
If this man, who had been enslaved, assaulted, scarred, had his life threatened,
could be pulled back to the truth that God was God always, in his hills and valleys,
So can we, miraculously.
With that, consider this,
Ours is the only planet that we know with conditions suitable to sustain human life
Out of some estimated 700 quintillion planets, just one that’s not too hot, not too cold, Goldilocks habituation situation going on [2]
That’s a 7 –if we wanna break down 700 quintillion– with 20 zeros behind it,
And, the chances of you being born as you, again, just an estimate but, it could be approximately 1 in 400 trillion, or even less likely depending on the factors you measure [3].
it’s insane. You are a miracle,
Your life is a miracle
But grace to meet us
For while both of those things may be true,
–Our forerunners in faith bearing scars we may never, and the stability of our atmosphere and your dna statistical anomalies–
we are all of us subjective beings, we can only see the world from our own perspective,
no pain cuts closer than our own, so,
even though just having air to breathe and your specific set of lungs to breathe it may be a miracle,
Life can still sometimes just suck. And that pain is real, and those valleys bring us low. But thanks be to God that He went even lower.
And His grace meets us in our pits.
If you are in a valley, and life doesn’t feel like a miracle, but like a cruel joke, He is there. Arms open, ears open. Longing to listen
“Therefore, since we have such a great high priest who has ascended into heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess”
(even if we’re struggling still to manifest).
“For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet He did not sin.
Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.” [4]
For Jesus is Calling
Jesus had his own hills and valleys
His likes and subscribers and followers through the roof for a season
But He also had deep valleys,
Misunderstood, unfriended, unfollowed, rejected, hated, abandoned.
He gets it. And when we are in a valley, He calls for us to tell Him how we feel, and when we are on the mountain he calls for us to tell Him how we feel.
Life in the spirit is communication with the Spirit. Talk to your roomie, you’re both there together. We have freedom to have a bad day and say so and to grow into a place of, I had a bad day, but God is good, to grow still into a place of God is good no matter what my day may say, to grow into a confidence to be able to say ultimately
“I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future”
(nor the past)
“, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the Love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” [5]
and to declare it on the hills and in the valleys and the everyday roads that lie in between.
Sources, Citations, and Influences:
This spoken word was originally written to go with the song “Hills and Valleys” by Tauren Wells, (2017). We were going to weave this spoken word into a worship set with the song “Hills and Valleys”. Our worship leader found another song for this spoken word to go with which worked out really well. I’ll post more from this set in the coming weeks.
Credits and info for the video:
Festival of Booths YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbu5WwhxAcn74auGygi-ftw
Audio originally recorded on November 24, 2019 at The Light Church in Baltimore https://www.atthelight.org/
The Light Worship Team you hear in the recording:
Spoken Word: John Dorsey Jr
Keys: Rebecca Fanning
Guitar: Adeline Yong
Audio recorded on Google Pixel 2 XL
Video created on Google Pixel 2 XL using PowerDirector for Android https://www.cyberlink.com/products/powerdirector-video-editing-software/features_en_US.html
Visual for video: “Blurry Trees Background Loop 2”, via Videvo https://www.videvo.net/video/blurry-trees-background-loop-2/3505/
Festival of Booths 