Off the Ash Heap

Monday, August 7, 2017

 A friend has been going through a difficult time lately, and because of it his weaknesses were getting the better of him, adding to his distress. He sought some consolation and/or advice from me. What I offered him, first of all, was one of my favorite passages from the Book of Isaiah, chapter 43:

Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;

I have called you by name, you are mind.

When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;

and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;

when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,

and the flame shall not consume you.

. . .

Because you are precious in my sight,

and honored, and I love you.  (Is 43:1b-2,4a)

It is so easy for us to be weighed down by stress, by failure, by shame or by guilt that we have a hard time grasping the reality that we are precious in God’s sight.

But that is what we are, and He has told us that again and again, and demonstrated it to us in very graphic ways.

Now, what about those weaknesses—and we all have some, don’t we—and sometimes they trip us up and, like St. Paul (whom I quoted last week), sometimes we do the very things we hate and don’t manage to do the good things we want to do? Paul, if you remember, ended up calling himself a wretch! And yet he is a saint!

Well, the weaknesses that we have are precisely the points where God comes to meet us. God loves us with our weaknesses, not in spite of them, and always remember, as Richard Rohr teaches, God loves us not because we are good but because God is good.

God is infinitely kind and infinitely patient and his mercy is infinite as well. He meets us are our weakest point and raises us up above the heap of sludge and mire that our lives can be at some times. Consider Psalm 40:

I waited, I waited for the Lord,

and he stooped down to me;

he heard my cry.

He drew me from the deadly pit,

from the miry clay.

He set my feet upon a rock,

made my footsteps firm.

He put a new song into my mouth,

praise of our God.

And finally, Psalm 113:

From the dust he lifts up the lowly,

from the ash heap* he raises the poor,

to set them in the company of princes,

yes with the princes of his people.

Note: Remember that the ancient Hebrews would dress in sackcloth and sit in ashes as a sign of repentence and mourning.

Think on these things this week.

God bless you!