Leave everything quietly to God my soul. God alone suffices.
God is everything to me, my rock, my rescue, my refuge.
For God alone my soul waits in stillness. Nothing can throw me.
parts of Psalm 62 - trans. Ray Simpson
The above text touched me this morning as I spent a little time in silence before the household got moving. I'd shut the ginger cat out of the room, as he is dragging around a cone of shame at the moment to stop him licking his leg drain wound. Confined indoors, he suffers depression. There are so many open-ended, ongoing irritations and unresolved issues in life and if we let them get to us, we might explode if we try to manage them all at once.
But God's word to us is God alone. Trust everything to the one who is creating, sustaining, redeeming God. It is God who holds all things together, who brings all things to unity. Many human systems are oppositional - politics, the courts, contemporary conflicts. Even a quick glance at the comments section of a news website will show that polarized viewpoints are all around; Maori ward seats on the Tauranga council, bikes vs. cars, the housing market. Entrenched mindsets are so easy to share and magnify online. The self-preening algorithms of social media increase our exposure to, and affirmation from, others who think like us. Indignation and self-righteousness rise up. We are right, they are wrong. The echo-chamber resounds with a sustained note.
Christians are not immune from getting sucked into loud debate, spouting conspiracy and cynicism. Where is the Spirit in this? Absent. God's ways are to draw together and speak abundant life from that which is dead, with the risen Jesus. We think we know, but we do not. Better to sit with mystery for a while;
"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." Isaiah 55: 8-9 NIV
I sit with many of my own questions today, and the rain squalls ensure my washing will sit limply on the line for a bit longer. Family and ministry issues crowd in. Yet I will 'leave everything quietly to God'...for 'God alone suffices.' Amen.