30 years of marriage, 28 years of raising 7 kids, 10 years’ work experience – I’m starting to get this down……not so much. I have honestly never felt more insufficient or inadequate for the task at hand.. and that’s not my British self-deprecation speaking. Whether it’s dong my job with integrity and grace as unto the Lord, providing counsel and balance to my grown girls (most of the time they aren’t looking for it, probably), or being a good wife and friend, by which I mean simply being intentional and unselfish – I’m just not feeling up to it. Looking back, I see that God has been bringing me gently and painfully to this realization. It isn’t an admission of failure as much as it is a statement of fact. I really am not up to the task, it’s not just a feeling.
I was stunned this morning by these verses in Proverbs 9 (it’s the 9th of June).
“Let all who are simple come to my house!”
To those who have no sense she says, “Come, eat my food
and drink the wine I have mixed.
Leave your simple ways and you will live;
walk in the way of insight.”
An unqualified invitation – the only requirement is that you realize your ‘simpleness’, your inadequacy. If we come with full hands, we have nothing with which to take the food and wine that has been prepared for us. Empty-handed, we can avail ourselves of it all.
Remind you of this?
“Come, all you who are thirsty,
come to the waters;
and you who have no money,
come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without cost. “ Isaiah 55:1
Or this?
“If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you.” James 1:5
We live as though we were orphans (thanks, Jack Miller), when in fact, we have been adopted by the Source of every living thing, and He has made all of it available to us for the asking. Come, thirsty ones, ask, buy, eat, drink!
