I’ve always been bad at record keeping. I easily lose track of all kinds of things—people’s birthdays, upcoming bills, items on the grocery list, and (relevant today) how many hours I’ve spent missing Rich Mullins. I know that it’s somewhere in the neighborhood of “most of my adult life”. Which, now that I think about it, may not amount to super many hours after all. In any case.
And I wasn’t even meaning to talk about Rich Mullins. But listening to Steve Bell’s music tends to make me think of him. Today I discovered “Peace Prayer”.
That thing where you stop and stare up at the sky and think how strange and short this life is and suddenly the next life doesn’t seem so far away.
It only took 32 years and I finally may begin to understand the first verse or two of “I Can’t Believe It”.
There is nothing new I could give to You Just a life that’s torn Waiting to be born
I need to listen to the whole song again, and others of his. As with Rich Mullins, there was life I had to live before I could discover the depth to the songs.
Rivers overflow Friends may come and go But You’ve been by my side With every tear I’ve cried
That bit—“Friends may come and go”. I fought that for so long, once I was even aware that it was there to be fought—I took for granted that friends stick around and that who’s close today will be close ever after. People that you have lived life with, especially in uniquely weird or formative times, seem fixtures, at least to the lazy and entitled mind. Once I knew that friends could drift apart I didn’t want to accept that it could happen in my own life.
And speaking in terms of human friends, there are friends who last for decades and (what feels like to me) multiple different lives of yours. There are ones who know you well and yet stick around and continue to know you, friends with whom you can be free and at ease and not wonder if they’re going to report the conversation to others afterward. They’re just hard to find.
God is not fully comprehended by finite human intellect and I don’t expect ever to have learned all that I could about Him and to sum up every reason I have to give Him praise. But there was a moment—so long as I’m “oversharing”, which is mostly what I do on this blog—when it so hit me that God is unchanging, that I thought: we could never “finish” praising Him for that alone.
What a contrast to us as friends is Jesus.
I know You never lie And so I’m giving up my pride So I can receive it
I have so much to learn. I need a lot more prayer and Bible reading. Maybe I could also listen to more Keith Green.
Blog Of My Sojourn 