Whirlwind
ABOUT THE SONG
This past Sunday we concluded our Lenten teaching series at Forefront Manhattan on The Story of Job.
As an (often) melancholy individual in a constant state of spiritual deconstruction, Job's story has always been one of my favorites. It reads like a metaphor for my life - a story that I seem to be living over and over again.
I think I've arrived. I think I've finally learned the meaning of it all, and then my life is swept out from under me, only to fill me with questions for which I have no answers. And it is in these places, at the bottom of bottoms where God meets me to remind me that he is God and I am not - that I am "child" and he is "Father."
The song on the players above is a song I wrote based on the part of Job's story near the end where God speaks to Job out of a whirlwind - smashing to bits everything that Job thought he was so sure of.
The passage reads,
“Then the Lord spoke to Job from the whirlwind:
“Brace yourself because I have some questions for you, and you must answer them. Will you discredit My justice and condemn Me just to prove you are right? Are you as strong as God? Can you thunder with a voice like His?”
Then Job said to the Lord: “I know that You can do all things and that nothing is impossible for You. You asked, ‘Who is this that questions My wisdom with such ignorance?’ It is I—and I was talking about things I knew nothing about - things far too wonderful for me.”
“You said, ‘Listen and I will speak! I have some questions for you, and you must answer them.’ I had only heard about You before, but now I have seen You with my own eyes. I take back everything I said, and I sit in dust and ashes to show my repentance.””
Whirlwinds. That's where God speaks to us. I think we'd just often have him speak to us while we're laying by the pool or walking along the beach. If only it were that easy.
The greater truths lie just beyond the event horizon of the whirlwind. But we must stand there in the desert of our lives and let it envelope us, strip us, and reduce us to the core of who we really are. For this is where we meet God as God is.
Enjoy the music. And above all, never stop searching in the desert.
Selah.