The bleakness of the outsider
The Lord is the strength of his people;
He is the saving refuge of his anointed. Psalm 28:8
Read Jeremiah 14:7—9
Why should God come to me as a homeless stranger? (I mean that God is the stranger, not me. Why?) Why should God be like a wanderer, like the man or woman east of Eden,[1] God himself like the man and the woman cut off from walking with God? A stranger within his own creation. Somehow as I enter into the penetrating thought, the picture that came to the prophet, I feel there is a false heroism that tempts our whole culture, the era in which I live, in its very secularity. It seems heroic to turn the tables on God, to exile God, and to live in the bleak and dreadful loneliness that results, the heroism of the outsider who chooses to have no saviour. But this is not heroic. It is childish. It is avoiding responsibility and it is avoiding the deepest truth, which is joyful communion. Yes, true life is, at heart, joy! True being is, at heart, home.
Prayer
Father, I thank you that you have come to me through the Son. You have come to me in the Spirit because it is your nature to live in communion. It is your heart’s purpose that I should know you as you are. Therefore this night my place of prayer is a meeting place with you, by your decision, within your purpose. You take pleasure in me so that I can take pleasure in you. You have overcome my forlorn defiance. No iniquity of mine has kept you out. You call me by name, and you call me beloved, and I love to be loved by you.
[1] Genesis 3:24