Centuries ago someone said, “There
but for the Grace of God, goes I”. Who first coined the phrase is often
disputed; most attribute the quote to John Bradford.
As a little girl I wondered about that
saying.
Did that mean that the Grace of God was
better to me than to those who were living in awfully hard places?
Why did anyone suffer, I wondered --- where was God's good Grace for
them?
Later I came to understand Mr.
Bradford's meaning in the phrase. He had looked upon prisoners being
marched to their execution for a crime, and acknowledged through the
words that he too was a sinner, he too had done great wrongs in his
heart. And only by the grace of God was he not executed as well.
He realized he too deserved death, but
the grace of God was allowing him life instead.
In Judges 19 – 21 there's a terrible
but true story about injustice and death and cruelty and destruction.
And the concluding words written at the end of the painful telling
state, “In those days Israel had no king; everyone did as he saw
fit.”
That's the end of the book --- the
final words.
And I think to myself --- we've not
come very far.
Today, it might read instead, “In
these days the King is not honored; everyone does as they see fit.”
We've just come off the slopes of Mt.
Elgon and my heart is colliding with my mind. Judges is still alive,
the place where “everyone is doing as they see fit”.
It's August as these words are being
written. August on the mountain slopes is when Luhya boys are
circumcised. It's their Passage into Manhood. The age of the boy may
vary and the details are too grim to share here. But before the
actual event, the boys walk along the roadways from village to
village wearing beads and waving poms. They are sometimes covered in
a powdery dust made from crushed millet and decorative head dresses
might be worn. They're accompanied by older boys/young men who they
themselves have endured the “passage”. Older boys carrying
bottles of alcohol, it's a drunkards feast with knives and blood and
rituals far from holy. (Christian Luyha people no longer participate
in this practice.) They will inflict great pain on the boys using one
knife for all --- it will “initiate” them. Some die. Afterwards
the boys are forced to walk long distances, limping badly, hardly
able to move yet required to walk, wearing an outer sheet wrapped
round them, and carrying a small stick to prop on when needed.
They'll walk through nearby towns, enduring more harrassments from
older boys. It's insanely inhumane, but they are eager to endure,
thinking it proves them to be “a man”.
It's overwhelming to think of, but
while the boys parade about in the street the girls are secretly
hidden away as they too are illegally circumcised... and I think of
the last words in the book of Judges...“everyone did as he saw
fit”.
In another land there are other knives
used for other purposes. Recently a young person from my homeland
shared with me their concern and confusion over why almost every
woman they know has paid big dollars to have some part of her
God-given body altered. Knives used by educated surgeons meant to
restore youth or improve the ways the Creator apparently fell short.
This is NOT being written to judge or even scold. It's just a
wondering, and one shared by so many young people watching them and
learning. The young are being taught... men can fix God's errors...
And they are trying to figure out, “Is God really who people say He
is, or not?”
But living in a land where too many
work endless hours to fill stomachs, it sits sideways inside me, and
silence is not an option.
Someone recently shared with me they
have a friend who doesn't believe there are really any hungry,
fly-covered babies in this world. That the photos are all staged and
the funds are instead filling pockets of clever marketers and corrupt
companies. And that sits crossways on top of the other.
And I stumble long over these words.
How can it be ok for hungry babies to
cry themselves to sleep, while others fill their pantries with too
much? And how can it be that drunkards use knives to circumcise boys
in one place while wealthy doctors use knives to re-create
money-laden ladies in another place?
I'm not opposed to plastic surgery, NOT
AT ALL --- instead I thank God for giving millions of patients the
chance for reconstruction after breast-cancer, or repairing cleft
lips on precious babies or repairing bodies mangled in car accidents
or fires or abuse. God bless the surgeons that use their skills to
repair and restore.
But, when the enemy has lied so
strongly to a woman (or man) and convinced them that they need to
look different than how the One who loves them most made them... I
just get confused over it all. (and for any of my dear friends who
might have had plastic surgery... I'm not coming in the side door
trying to make a point to you. I honestly don't even know who has or
has not. I don't have time or energy to notice. I promise).
Isn't the drunkard circumcising the
boys just “doing what is right in his own eyes...?” And isn't the
person spending money to alter how they look not because they need
it, but because they have been lied to by society and the mirror and
“the liar”... aren't they too just “doing what is right in
their own eyes...?”
Are we really seeing the truth?
Are we willing to?
Not the truth according to anything
written here... but the TRUTH according to the One over it all.
If it “seems right in our own eyes”
does that really make it right?
I've just sat with women who have
suffered in ways that words won't fit.
And the words stuck in my veins, “There
but for the grace of God, goes i...”
In 2006 a land dispute broke out on
this mountain. The atrocities inflicted on the families here are too
dark to write about. Much like the story at the end of Judges. Some
shared with me they had been able to run away during those hardest of
days on the mountain. I asked, “Why didn't everyone run?” They
shared, “If all you had was the land under your feet, and all you
had to eat was grown on that land, if you were poor and had no where
else to go, you had no choice.” Many of the eyes looking at me had
seen monsters disguised as men --- and yet here they were smiling
back at me. They've endured. They continue to tend the fields they
bled on. They've buried their husbands under them. They've grown
crops since those days, they've filled the stomachs of the little
ones who survived. They've given birth since then. They have held the
hurt inside until their hearts are near ready to explode over it all.
And they ask, send someone who will teach us how we can forgive all
this. My knees cave, my stomach rolls and lurches inside. Lord,
surely there is another who should do this.
I've spent years learning about
forgiveness, but...
But the wrongs i've forgiven others are
kindergarten level compared to these.
Forgive the friend who lied about you,
forgive the one who talked about you behind your back. Forgive the
one who judged you hard and the one who dismissed your loyalty with
rejection. Forgive the gossiper, the betrayer, the one who thinks
themselves better and the one who makes jokes over your serious
pursuit of the Father. The one who turned from you when you began
your deepest obedience to Abba... and help me forgive myself Lord,
for all the many ways I too have wronged others.
My pitious list of practiced, sincere
forgivings feels shallow beside their deeply plowed anguishes.
But... It's not “me” they need,
it's the One who “makes all things new”. He allows Himself to be
carried about in our cracked, clay vessels. So my clay vessel will
deliver HIM. And whether the thing that must be forgiven is deep or
shallow, the enemy of our Lord cares not. He will torture and torment
over the small just as effectively as he will the big.
My knees find the floor... often.
Truth is truth whether on the mountain
slopes or in the valley.
But, we people, we can confuse each
other over it can't we?
In a world where too many “do as they
see fit”, there are gaping, weeping, wounds. And the only right
answer is --- we need a King. We will die without a Savior. We are
walking-dead because someone “did as they saw fit”. Hollywood
makes movies about the walking-dead. But they're wrong, the
walking-dead are not zombies as they portray them to be. They look
like normal people on the outside --- but they've died inside. They
don't eat the flesh of others, they eat beans and rice or steak and
potatoes, but nothing they eat brings them new life. And the next
blow comes at the hands of the “torturer” the one who will
continue their nightmare as long as they are chained to
unforgiveness.
Too many “did as they saw fit” ---
and then the destroyer comes to torment further...
The former can only be changed by
holding fast to God's TRUTH.
The latter can only be healed by one of
those very truths ---- we must forgive.
There is no other way.
Whether the wound comes at the
kindergarten level or the anguish climbs to the post-grad level ----
the answer remains the same.
We must Forgive... and then His Grace
can flow.
Now as I pray and process, I find
myself asking the question, “What seems right in your eyes donna,
that the King wants to correct”?
If we think there is nothing ----- we
are being fooled.
Jesus alone is blameless. But not us...
not me.
It's a part of the brokenness of this
world.
We move through the days and sleep
through the nights ---- and then sometimes we remain asleep even in
the day. Our eyes are closed... we are unable to see.
The old saying echoes inside --- “There
but for the grace of God, goes i” and I feel my soul cry responding
that there MUST be more. It comes from deep within.
“There but for the grace of God, goes
I...”
His grace is too good for us. We don't
deserve it.
If we've been given much, if we've
suffered less, do we pause enough to wonder why?
Perhaps there's a great reason...
If the grace of God has kept us from
deep, life-draining, nightmarish suffering ---- should we dare to
allow ourselves to simply “do what is right in our own eyes”? Or
should we run to the King thanking Him for His good graces over us
and respond by asking ---- how can I best use the great grace
you've given me?
There but for the grace of God, goes
I...
---- but because of the grace of God,
I will__________________.
we've a limited number of days to
finish those words ------- oh Lord, open our eyes, and help us to do
what is right in YOUR eyes.
©2014 Donna Taylor/Reaching for the Robe
©2014 Donna Taylor/Reaching for the Robe
