We Who Wrestle With God--Exodus 14:26

Day 21

Finally, I think it's time for me to take my leave of Dr. Jordan Peterson and We Who Wrestle With God: Perceptions of the Divine,

I’ve grappled enough with his perspectives of some of the greatest stories ever told in the Old Testament.

I’m not even sure that the title of his book or my use of his wrestling metaphor is quite accurate for me though. Wrestling implies a winner and loser and while Peterson’s use of language and purely psychological tilt to his perspectives made me feel intellectually malnourished at times; I don’t feel like I got pinned or defeated.

What all this sweaty reading and thinking and writing did do though was accentuate–once again–the depth and complexity of my own spirituality.

I think, and maybe I think this because I can literally study my cat for hours (and sometimes do), that I’m special in some sort of way in how I perceive my world, this world–but I’m not.

I’m not really in any sense, more special than you or anyone else who is sentient.

We just choose different thoughts and fragments of thought and fragments of our experience to focus on.

Today, Karen and I are focused on doctors’ appointments for both of us and the inconvenient fact that water to our whole building will be shut off between 8:00 and noon so someone can replace the plumbing in their unit.

So our daily ablutions will have to be completed here shortly. 🙂

That seems like enough to grapple with, doesn’t it?

A simple day, seemingly, but we know that any moment a burning bush may light up our night.

And we don’t really know if and when an entire army of life’s events will chase us across the deserts of our lives like the Egyptians pursued Moses and the Israelites.

Those days happen too–when our houses burn down; when our spouses pass away, when we lose our jobs or when we lose our friends and family to cruel diagnoses.

Actually, our sense of self is on the hook every day and to stand tall in the fray is to grapple with God’s will and make ourselves understand that His will is ours

And sometimes, when we are being pursued relentlessly by this world bent on our destruction, we all but have to wave our hand and our destruction is held in abeyance.

Is avoiding personal destruction just that easy?

Notice what the Lord says to Moses in Exodus 14:

Exodus 14:26 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Reach out with your hand over the sea so that the waters may come back over the Egyptians, over their chariots and their horsemen.”

Seems simple enough. 🙂

Charles Spurgeon describes the Israelites terror as the Egyptian army bears down on them in the desert in Forward, Forward, Forward!:

“I think I see those poor Israelites crowding together, all alarmed and afraid, whispering to one another some such trembling words as these— “I saw them. I saw my old master on horseback riding after me. I looked, and I saw regiment upon regiment of warriors marching in long red lines.” “I heard,” says another, "' the sound of their war music. I heard the clash of their spears; we cannot stand against them. We are only defenceless multitudes, and they are the well-trained sons of Mizraim; their swords will be drunk with our blood.” They huddled together as a company of doves seeking to escape the hawk. Alas! what can they do?”

Haven’t you felt that way about your day before?

About your life?

I still tear up anytime I see a funeral in a movie or television show. I can still remember the abyss I stood over during Dawn’s funeral mass and I can scarcely believe that somehow the Red Sea was parted enough for me to escape the clutches of grief and death.

I’m finishing Peterson’s take on the Bible’s foundational stories with a final loquacious quote that echoes Charles Spurgeon’s admonition to move forward, but really echoes Moses exodus from slavery and death:

“We perceive not the dead and meaningless material objects of the world in their endless multiplicity, but the way forward. If our aim is true, the pathway is cleared for us precisely by the spirit of the highest, as our perceptions, patterns of attention, and actions are specified by our aims. The spirit we most truly call up on is inevitably the spirit that emerges to guide us. This is true technically as well as metaphysically. Perception itself is motivated. The true leader calls on the eternal spirit of being and becoming to specify the destination. The pathway through the waters that would otherwise destroy us thereby makes itself known. Firm ground appears magically beneath our feet as we walk forward courageously and in good faith–eyes heavenward–toward the promised and proper destination. Those who are by contrast possessed by the spirit of their own machinations will find themselves flooded, drowned, and destroyed.”

We cannot call on ourselves to part the seas of our troubled existence.

We hold no such power.

We must call on the eternal spirit of being that is God, that is Jesus Christ, that is the Holy Spirit to specify our direction.

Our way becomes clear then and we can face each day of our miraculous journey from the slavery of our worldly existence with confidence and courage.

And I have 15 minutes of water to get ready for the whole day. I need to part that sea right now. 🙂

Lord, help us to remember that no obstacle in our lives is too great for You to overcome, no path too dark, and no enemy too strong for Your divine might to conquer.

Lord, help us to recognize when you are making a way where there seems to be no way. Teach us to trust in Your timing and Your methods.

Amen.

PS. Because I’m silly and a little bit breathless with the romance of this time in my life, I thought I would look at 5 or so of the most romantic verses I could find starting tomorrow You know, really embarrass myself for Valentine’s Day. 🙂

Onward!