Crushed yet fragrant
When I crush lavender on my fingers, that’s when the fragrance comes. The Lord spoke to me this month that when I offer myself to him and to others in my crushed state, it is the most fragrant sacrifice of all to him.
To be honest, I still prefer feeling strong but I am beginning, far too slowly, to grasp what it means to know his power in the midst of weakness, to know his richness in my poverty of spirit. When I dare share it, healing comes to me and others.
Again and again, God calls his beloved to see that our poverty and hunger and thirst can be a blessing when they bring us to the place where he can strengthen, enrich and fill us.
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."
“Blessed are the hungry”
“Blessed are the thirsty”.
The challenge is to recognise it. When my boys were younger, sometimes they would come in from school starving but they had got past the point of knowing it and inevitably an argument ensued. I know for me, I can be out of sorts but not recognise that it's because deep down, I am starving for God.
Will you take some time this week to connect with that deep-down hunger for the one who satisfies?
There is no cost to us; all cost to him. God says, "Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat!”
Blessing comes when our poverty meets God’s generosity, when our hunger takes us to the feast, our thirst brings us to his sparkling water.
This deep dependence that all comes from him brings the deepest joy. His breath breathed the word that made this splendid world and all those I love. His breath is the impulse behind the giggle of my little godson. His breath gave me my first and sustains my next, his dying breath gave me eternal life and today it is the breath of his Spirit that enables me to pray. All is gift if I am humble enough to receive.
Our part is simply to acknowledge our desperate poverty. Mary Kissell does that beautifully in this clip, the first of several that I will share in the coming months – you can see it on the Wisdom of Elders page on the Gift of Blessing Trust website or on www.youtube.com/watch?v=IJAAE1rSV_s. May it inspire you to seek God.
