Over the next couple of weeks, I will be posting three essays I wrote privately during Holy Week (when I still lived in California). So often I get distracted after the season has passed and simply forget how profoundly reflecting on the Cross can be. Last week was the first. This is the second.
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Some days, it is hard enough to get me out of bed for church – let alone drive anything over an hour to go. But when my friend Susan asked me to attend the Holy Week services at her church in South Pasadena I was more than willing to trek the 62.4 miles (one way) from my South Orange County abode. And to do it several times this week. Susan’s church seemed similar to St. B’s, plus I’d get to escape the OC bubble all week. And of course, I wanted to be very intentional about listening to what God is telling me during this season of renewal.
As I wrote in the previous note, Palm Sunday was the official beginning of Holy Week. I went to St. James’ evening service – a sparsely attended service lit mainly by the glow of candles. I took my seat next to Susan in an old, wooden pew and looked up at the light fixture above me. The light fixture above me was identical to the ones at St. B’s.
I grinned as I sang.
Standing up during the rest of the songs, I allowed my hands to grasp the back of the pew in front of me, feeling each and every crack in the smooth wood. I wondered how many people have clinched this pew because of how lonely they were, just waiting to hear something – anything – from God.
“Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”
I imagine a nervous mom who’s worried about her son rubbing her thumbs across the top, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”
I imagine a girl new to LA, trying to find work and praying she doesn’t lose her apartment. “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”
I imagine a husband whose wife has just passed, leaving him and their children behind. “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”
I think of the person who just found out the test came back positive with cancer. “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”
No doubt this pew had received it’s share of sweaty palms and fingers over its day. The wood was smooth and worn because of human flesh, slowly, weekly, perhaps daily, rubbing over it desperately, grasping for anything.
The priest stood up to share on Matthew. If you’re not familiar with liturgical tradition, there typically is no 30 minute “how-to” sermon. It’s more of a reflection on the liturgy for that day and leading into that week. He spoke about Jesus’ last week (which I found interesting given I had just written about it hours before) and then he said a phrase that has forever lodged into my head:
The Slow & Inefficient Work of God.
He illustrated it with waves of the ocean, moment by moment moving in from the vast sea to land. In one wave, this motion does nothing. But slowly and inefficiently, whatever is in the ocean’s way becomes worn smooth.
I thought back to Sunset Beach on Saturday night – the sand was smooth…so remarkably smooth. The closer to the ocean I got, the smoother it got until it felt as if I were walking on silk.
The slow and inefficient work of God.
I thought about the pew in front of me, worn and glassy. Those who had rubbed past the gloss, through the stain, and worn the wood down to satin in their desperate fingers.
The slow and inefficient work of God.
I thought about my heart. It’s crag-like and rough. If you were to walk on it, there are sharp edges that would cut your feet. I want God to change my heart. Now. I want him to take away my impatience, my entitlement to not feel lonely sometimes, the way I can impose on others. Take it away, God. Now?
He gently says no as one, single wave of his grace washes over.
And then another.
And then another.
I could move my heart farther from the ocean and let it live untouched and unbothered by this seemingly unproductive task. I could build a dam around it and not let the waters in. Or I could simply sit and let the waters of grace slowly, moment by moment, smooth my heart out.
The slow and inefficient work of God.
“Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.”
Comments
19 responses to “The Slow and Inefficient Work of God (Part 2)”
Amazing how biblical words like this can penatrate so deeply! thanks.
Thank you!
Beautiful words, Anne, thank you. “The slow and inefficient work of God” is such a fitting phrase for a liturgical faith; we repeat the same prayers over and over as our ritual, and wait, and repeat, and wait, and in time He hears and moves. Much like your waves on the sand.
But somehow, again like the waves of the ocean, God’s slow, methodical, moving is an immense comfort to me. And it teaches me to slow my heart and rest in Him.
Today as I was getting ready for work, I began sensing the need to confess some things in prayer. I realized it was completely in the format of the liturgical confession. There was something special about that for me. Don’t know why. But your comment reminds me of that.
Amen.
Kenyon, that was the same response my heart had. Amen.
Exactly what an tightly wound, impatient person like me needed to hear today. Takes the edge off my, “it’s Monday, gotta list of stuff that has to be accomplished” day. Thank you for sharing your heart.
What a great reminder. In our world of efficiency and our everything now lifestyle I think we can let those same tendencies seep into our spiritual life. Sometimes, maybe most times, it’s a slow wearing of our hearts that makes a change over time and not the explosion of feeling that we get from reading a book, attending a Christian event, or even some of our modern church services. His movement in our hearts may not be radical or grandiose, convenient or calculated, but it is powerful.
Thanks for the post.
The explosions can be addicting, and I don’t doubt God has us experience mountain tops for a reason, but the mountain top is just 1% of the landscape. There are valleys, the climb (insert Miley Cyrus song here), and walking downhill…I wrestle with the tension of knowing what the mountain top feels like and desiring it all the time when the other 99% has a solid purpose and is all part of growing us to be more like Christ.
WOW! Having just led a youth discussion on prayer and the importance of “waiting” on God as opposed to puking out all our wants that we phrase as needs, this is a great word and one my ADHD mind could stand to hear again and again.
Thank you for sharing yourself and your experience. May all our weeks be “Holy Week”!
I puke my wants out a lot. I think one reason I am reposting these publicly is because I need the reminder as well… :)
Beautiful.
I rushed through this latest reading of yours, desperately trying to get through it in record timing. Especially since the way it’s titled makes me think I’ll have to concentrate a bit more. But through the very repetitive, liturgical way you shared your thoughts, I was reminded that Christ will bring new life. Ever so slowly, and painfully lonely at times. Yet, He is keeping His promise. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for the comment. I didn’t think of the way I wrote it being liturgical but I can see that now. Very encouraging. thank you for reading. be well.
Thank you so much for sharing this!!! your posts are so powerful, and mean so much when you are willing to be true with your feelings. thank you, that really hit home.
[…] and simply forget how profoundly reflecting on the Cross can be. Two weeks ago was the first. Last week was the second. Here is the third and […]
How beautifully poignant. And how amazing our God is, that though His work is slow and inefficient, it is effective.
[…] confess… I stole the title from the amazing Anne Jackson who wrote a beautiful post about the slow and inefficient work of God. I stumbled back across it today and took a minute to […]
[…] confess… I stole the title from the amazing Anne Jackson who wrote a beautiful post about the slow and inefficient work of God. I stumbled back across it today and took a minute to […]