Waiting...For A Downfall

Oh, Lord.  There's so much that seems wrong in the world and so little that seems right.  It's one of those seasons where every time I'd like to turn right, everything else goes left.  It's almost enough to give up sometimes and say, forget it.  I'll just do what I want because following you and following the rules only seems to bring me more heartache and difficulty.  Why do you make it so hard to follow you?  Why do you keep blessings for those who chase after you so far out of reach?

 

Once upon a time, you seemed quicker to set things right.

 

The prodigal son had his fun, to be sure, but then he got a pigpen.  He was reduced to slop and mud, and it was enough to bring him home.  Running home, that is.  He had done something wrong, and you made it right.

 

David was an adulterer, a killer, and a liar, and his comeuppance came in the loss of the child he conceived with his mistress.  A grief that buckled his knees and retaught him how to pray and beg for your mercy.  His wayward heart was no match for your bold switch of discipline, and he was reborn unto you.

 

Saul murdered those who loved you, and you met him plain as day on the Damascus Road.  You flattened him and blinded him until he gave into the concept of you.

 

I've read how you can quiet money changers with the flip of a table.  You've silenced a nation with waters of blood, painful boils, and swarms of locusts.  You've parted an entire sea for your children and then sewn it back together to drown the chariots of their enemies.  You've flooded the earth to rid it of sin, sent a disobedient prophet into a fish belly, and penalized the entire world over the failed temptation of a piece of fruit.

 

It should be so simple that the downfall of wrong satisfies the good of you, Lord, and makes everything right.

 

But why do you makes us wait for that downfall?  Why do you make the wronged wait so long for things to be made right?

 

And yet, there's some kind of magic happening behind the scenes of the wrongs that hang around too long.  There's some reason Joseph didn't lose his mind or end it all during the years and years he waited for justice in the dungeon.  There's a reason Paul's writings in his prison cell are some of the most magnificent and memorized pieces of Scripture or that his words are loaded with the most powerful charges to faith, gratitude, and holiness. 

 

There's a reason that the wrong Jesus patiently endured shook the earth to its very foundation.  And there's a reason it rewrote the future for those of us who choose to believe.

 

You always right the wrongs, don't you?  Eventually.  But in the meantime, I see you giving all the tools the wronged need until you straighten it out.  You never leave us truly helpless while we wait for you.

 

And those who wait the longest in the hardest of situations--

 

Aren't they the ones who make the biggest difference?  Who have the greatest impact?  And though it seems like your hand is harshest upon them, perhaps it's because you find them favored? 

 

Maybe you won't make it all right with pigpens or slop or blindness or pain.  Maybe you'll make it all right by showing the world that those who love you can sit in a pile of wrong with their heads held high.  Maybe you want the world to see that "all right" can coexist with madness.

 

Maybe you won't deliver the justice with the violence of a thunderous storm, but in the quiet, commanding assertion by the lowliest and most wounded of all that there's nothing to be worked up about--for this isn't how it will end.

 

Oh, my heart, Lord--it is waiting for you.  And it's waiting.

 

Waiting.

 

Waiting for the downfall of whatever won't bow to you.