Felix Vallotton. The Wind. National Gallery of Art.
While tending his sheep one day, Moses saw a fantastic sight; a bush was burning but was not being consumed by the flame. As he stepped closer to look at the anomaly, God called to him from within the fire. “Moses! Don’t come any closer. Take off your sandals, for you are standing on holy ground. I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” God then told him that He had chosen him to save his people from Pharaoh and be His intermediary. In that extraordinary moment, Moses became the first human being to dialogue with God. And Moses’ incredible response was, “I can’t do it——I’m not worthy—they won’t believe me—send anybody as long as it’s not me.” For an entire week, he resisted and argued with God. Finally, God got angry and said, “Fine; then I will send Aaron with you.” And finally, Moses gave in.1Moses was not being modest; he was skeptical of God Almighty.
Moses’ resistance to the struggle for his soul might have succeeded and negatively impacted the history of the world—or perhaps God would have moved on and found someone willing to do the job—but God chose Moses, and Moses finally let go. Our commission may not be so consequential. It may be a strong call to stand against injustice or a quiet inner guidance asking us to let go of an old resentment or express love to someone we don’t feel like loving. Refusal to flow with the circumstances we find ourselves in can change the history of our lives and the lives of those around us. Learn from the power of the ocean. When the surf is rough, it kicks up a lot of foam that glides noiselessly over the sand, moving with the flow of the wind and the water as if it were on ice. The foam doesn’t resist the wind—so light, so free, claiming nothing.
Our most profound work on this earth is to stop our resistance and be willing to endure the pain of inner death before the end of our physical lives. What is dying in the darkness is our false self. What is being born is our true self. We have all been perfectly created to be part of the world’s redemption. It is not ours to choose how God wants to use us. Putting down our distractions to listen for the Voice and obey what we hear can be frightening, but it also frees us and stands us on solid ground. Jesus told the crowds following Him that anyone who heard and acted on His words was like a wise person who built his house on the rock. The rain and floods came, and the winds blew and slammed against that house, but it did not fall.2 It is there, in our man-made house built on the promises of God and the truest expression of our adoration, that God dwells.
It requires great courage to move against our ego’s need to control. For most of our lives, we have carried the illusion that we could protect ourselves from pain, but prayerfully, we will wake up and begin the work of breaking through the walls of our resistance tiny stone by tiny stone. We listen for the Voice and obey what we hear, trusting the wind of the Spirit to carry us through the dark hours of not knowing. We take off our sandals and stand patiently on the holy ground of our healing, listening intently for the Spirit’s whisperings in us. Progress feels slow, and we fail often, but as we persevere, we begin to experience the glory that follows the pain. We find a new freedom, a new sense of who we are and what we were created to do. And in the process, we find we are becoming an encouragement to others because we have moved ever deeper into an understanding of our shared brokenness, opening us to merciful compassion.
I love the dark hours of my being.
My mind deepens into them.
There I can find, as in old letters,
the days of my life, already lived,
and held like a legend, and understood.
Then the knowing comes: I can open
to another life that’s wide and timeless.
So I am sometimes like a tree
rustling over a grave
and making real the dream
of the one its living roots embrace:
a dream once lost
among sorrows and songs.
~ Rainer Maria Rilke