Long as the Curse Is Found
Last Christmas my youngest daughter made me a calendar that I hung on my office wall all year long. The other day I noticed that I had reached the final page. That happens. Years come to an end. And so do eras when daughters hand draw calendars for their dads, I thought. It made me sad.
For me, the ending of one year always leads to as many reflections as, if not more reflections than, the beginning of a new one. And the succession of moments that continuously poured like water through my hands as I tried in vain to catch them always seems to lead me toward lament rather than hope. Maybe I’m too morose.
My recent annual performance review encouraged me to have more confidence that not as many good works slip by undone as it often seems to me in the moment. A rain barrel, as it were, positioned by God’s grace, sits under my hands and captures more sacred moments than I realize. As a new year will be here in just a week, maybe I should be more excited about the prospect of catching new moments, a huge cupful of them. After all, a new year with new mercies awaits. How can that not be exciting?
Still, I feel far from being one of those confident souls who seems to have a verse or “a word from the Lord” to identify the upcoming year, some word or another that sparks hope, optimism, and promise. On the first of January I got nothing. Every year.
For the last two years, however, I’ve found a verse from the Lord in retrospect, by accident really—if you believe in accidents.
“A solid chunk of windshield time with the Lord can be cheaper than therapy.”
Sometimes I nibble my way through a Bible memory pack while I commute to church. In both fortunate and unfortunate ways, though, my commute only lasts a few minutes. It’s nice to get back and forth quickly from work, but a solid chunk of windshield time with the Lord can be cheaper than therapy. And because I live less than a mile from our church building, rarely do I make much progress in my Bible memory beyond a few verses, even in those seasons I try to be consistent.
Through all the drama during 2020, I found myself stuck on the memory card with a few verses from Psalm 56. I would mumble the passage to myself as I stopped at the stoplight by the bike shop, took a left at the baseball card shop, drove over the hill and down again to a quick four-way stop before I coasted into my typical parking spot at the back of the church parking lot. “When I am afraid,” I’d say over and over and over again, “I put my trust in you” (56:3). A few more of the verses from Psalm 56 are also printed on the card, but these lines about fear and trust seemed to do the most to calm my anxious heart.
When I got to church, I’d put the car in park, place the memory pack on the floorboard, and go into work, doing what I could do and leaving God to do the rest. When I was afraid, I tried to trust in God.
It worked—not in the short, “screenshot version” of time but in the long, “video reel” version of time. Slowly and steadily the Psalm went in, prayers went up, and perseverance rained down.
Should I call this a verse or a word from the Lord? Well, of course it is a verse from the Lord. But is it a “verse from the Lord” in the common parlance of Christianese? Maybe it was.
That was last year. This year if I had to pick a place my heart has found the most refuge, I’d tell you it’s in the end of Paul’s letter to the church of Galatia: “Let us not grow weary of doing good,” God inspired Paul to write, “for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up” (Gal. 6:9). This verse came to my mind the other night before our prayer time at our small group Bible study. I thought mentioning the verse might encourage another member of the group, so I read it to him. But I left that night wondering if the Lord might have a word for me as well, even as I pondered the ways Christians have abused “words from the Lord.”
“Paul gives the admonition to not grow weary, I believe, because the temptation is real.”
Paul gives the admonition to not grow weary, I believe, because the temptation is real. The effort required to do the right deed at the right moment for the right reason will sap your resolve dry. And doing good to my family of eight . . . and church of four hundred with a staff of five . . . and coaching my children’s sports teams . . . and holding a seat on the school board . . . and leading strong in all things and apologizing quickly for my many mistakes . . . and making time to run a few miles and do a few push-ups . . . and maintaining the side-hustle of editing articles and writing words is what I mean when I speak of the moments like water that pour and pour and pour while in vain I try to catch them.
But, again, the rain barrel of God’s grace catches more than we might expect.
In December, as I sing “Joy to the World,” I find comfort in the lines in the third stanza about how Christ “comes to make his blessings flow, far as the curse is found.” The promise is one of saturation. One day, there will be no square inch of creation not covered with the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the earth.
As this year ends, however, I feel like I could tweak just one word from the classic Isaac Watts hymn and catch yet more biblical truth to encourage my heart: Christ comes to make his blessings flow, long as the curse is found. This promise would speak to God’s preservation and our perseverance. God will finish every good work he begins, which means we must not become weary in doing good.
So, dear reader, do not grow weary in your chemotherapy. Do not grow weary in loving a local church that doesn’t seem to love you back. Do not grow weary in praying prayers yet without an answer. Do not grow weary in loving your teenagers. Do not grow weary of coming to church by yourself as a middle-aged single. Do not become weary in keeping supreme in your heart the heaven-born gospel of peace when so many others would encourage you to replace gospel-peace with snark and suspicion.
Do not grow weary because every good deed sowed in obedience to Christ—even the ones sowed with tears—will one day reap a harvest if you do not give up. Continue, in the words of the prophet Hosea, to press on to know the Lord. As you buy new calendars and hang them on office walls, know that there is no date in the next year, or any year, where God is not both sovereign and good. As long as the curse is found, he comes to make his blessings flow. Let us not grow weary in doing good.
Maybe you feel my word from the Lord is a word for more than just me. Don’t worry; it won’t bother me to share. King David and the apostle Paul shared theirs with me.
* Photo by Artin Bakhan on Unsplash