Heroes

 

A soldier, far from home on a moonscape of rock and sand, prays to be a good warrior without hardening his heart against the loving and gracious Spirit of his God. He presses hard in prayer to the Maker and Humbler of nations to be the husband and father he cannot be while he follows the life he believes is directed by God’s Will.

An X-ray technician adventures in faith, traveling half way around the world to be surrounded by the poor and the forgotten. Using the most foundational energies of Creation, he exposes the extent of the brokenness that has crippled the lives of the people who pass before him. He seeks to reveal what is hidden because he knows that real healing requires relentless truth.

A single mother of small children, falls asleep in prayer. Even when she is surrounded with friends and family, she is still alone with God to wring every last drop of strength, hope, and faith from her body and spirit… every last drop, every single day.

The warrior fights unheralded battles striving to do what is right, to stem chaos with order. His steps are ordered by a nation whose ideals he seeks to sustain. Yet, it is still just a nation as profoundly flawed and futile as any that has preceded it or will follow.

The technician brings only truth, not healing itself. That is for others. His heart is drained by the endless sea of suffering and want. The desperation that brought them all before him seems to be sorrow past knowing.

The mother pours herself down the mouths of her children opened like baby robins almost swallowing their own heads in their endless hunger. Her only fear is that there will not be enough of her to last.

Each offers the worn and torn deeds of their faith to God who will take, bless and multiply them into blessing that sustains life. Our greatest work is to do every deed, whether we deem it great or inconsequential, with faithfulness, seeking to be in concert with God’s heart in our attitude and choices daily… hourly.

Imposed order, relentless truth, love poured out, all offered at a great cost. Together they make a chorus of prayerful deeds, each person offering up the moment they are in as an act of fellowship with God who walks and works in them and even through them. In the physical and emotional exhaustion they sometimes feel, it is hard for them to believe that their love is not lost in the noise and confusion of life. But they are part of a chorus making a music that is still being rehearsed… a choir that has not yet sung in full force.

I have sung in our community choir for six Christmases now. I have experienced that the real glory of any voice in a choir is not in its own part but in the overwhelming beauty and power of the whole choir. When the rehearsals are done and the sanctuary falls silent, our conductor (a man of greater faith than I) lifts his arm and releases the music he has heard all along in his head… music we had no idea we had in us! Likewise, no faithful person has any idea of what God is bringing together in His Church. When God lifts His arm and brings about the order, truth and love He has heard all along in His head, Creation will be perfected in a way that brings healing to the nations. Every faithful person will be joined and fitted together into a new Creation that God himself will dwell within.

Knowing that, I don’t need… I don’t even want to be a great man, but I do very much want to be a faithful one!

Each month a member of the Cook County Ministerium will offer Spiritual Reflections. This month’s contributor is Pastor Dave Harvey, who has served as pastor of Grand Marais Evangelical Free Church since February of 2008.