Sometimes, the order of things matters. When making a PB&J, it helps to put on the peanut butter before the jelly. When making a new recipe, it helps to see if you have all the ingredients needed before you begin. When painting a room, it helps to tape around the ceiling, trim, and fixtures before dipping your brush in the paint.
Someone passing by may not have noticed the order of things during an art lesson I led for first graders. Desks were filled with little scraps of tissue paper, glue, waxed paper, construction paper, and more. I volunteered for the day for a program introducing students to artists and their art. We had learned about Marc Chagall and were almost done creating our own “masterpiece” inspired by his stained glass windows for the Fraumünster Church in Zurich.
To help my young artist friends, I had a sample and guided them through a step-by-step process to recreate it. When we arrived at the step of assembling the “glass” with tissue paper, each student could try to copy the sample or make their own design. However, in a situation like this, someone often deviates from the order of steps. When this happens, the results are different. If someone forgot to add the glue to the “window,” the glass pieces fashioned out of tissue paper would slide out when raised to the light. The order of things can lead to positive outcomes.
I have been thinking about the order of things. I enjoy praying through the psalms each year. Recently, I began anew, starting with Psalm 1. Psalm 1 prepares you for the Psalms. It is a lesson on meditation and suggests there is an order or a way to read the Psalms, as well as the whole of the Bible. Robert Mulholland believed that the Bible is meant to read us as much as we are supposed to read it. (1) The Bible can form us into a new creation, but for that to happen, we need to learn a new kind of reading where things not only inform our minds but grow in our hearts.
It’s important to keep this in mind because when you get to Psalms 4 and 5
you are challenged to go a step further and order your days differently. Similar to my first-grade friends, you will face moments of truth in your life. You will have before and after moments when you suddenly see if things will hold together. You discover if the life you are creating will endure or all the little pieces will fall like tissue paper without the proper glue.
Jesus tells a parable about a wise and foolish builder. The wise one builds his house on the rock, and the foolish one builds his house on the sand. (Matt 7:24-27) Remember, this is a story. If you looked at these two houses, they may have looked the same. It is possible to believe you have built your house well. You may think your house is in order and your life is secure. Jesus tells us that we discover if we’re atop shifting sand or secure on the rock when the storms come. The shifting sand may look like a loss - the loss of livelihood or life as you know it. It may look like burnout or deconstruction as you realize the way you lived or the things you believed are crumbling.
Building a life that can endure the storms, one built on the rock, depends on how you think and live. When you turn to the Psalms, you discover that creating a life that endures may involve ordering your days differently.
I experienced this firsthand while serving as a caregiver to someone going through a life-threatening experience. During something like that, when there is a lot of uncertainty, life can feel like shifting sand. Life is different in the middle of the storm. When I found myself there, I had a sense of hope. The words of Julian of Norwich rang true: “All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well.” However, for me and my loved one, the storm was long.
After a while, I wanted something more; the sense that all would be well someday was not necessarily comforting. As Shakespeare said, “Each new morn, new widows howl, new orphans cry, new sorrows strike heaven on the face, that it resounds.”(2) However, as the reality of our situation resounded and I worked my way through the day, I experienced grace and active hope. By evening, I felt at peace.
As I reflected on this, I began to realize that while it is true that all things shall be well, it is also true that all is well. It is not the circumstances of your life that matter but how you respond to them. We do not have to wait until… All can be well with your soul now!
There is a pattern of living that leads to this. (3) We are created for it. We learn about it in the creation of the world. Genesis 1 says, “There was evening, and there was morning, one day.” We also see it in Psalms 4 and 5. Psalm 4 is an evening prayer, and Psalm 5 is a morning prayer. In Psalm 4, we learn the importance of turning everything over to God in prayer. In the evening, we cast all our cares, worries, and burdens on God. We entrust everything to God, find peace, and can sleep. In the morning, we wake knowing God is present and has already been at work. Even though all our worries, cares, and burdens may still be there, God holds them, and we are invited to join in God’s work on them in the new day. Eugene Peterson explains:
“The Hebrew evening/morning sequence conditions us to the rhythms of grace. We go to sleep, and God begins his work…We wake and are called out to participate in God’s creative action. We respond in faith, in work. But always grace is previous. Grace is primary. We wake into a world we did not make, into a salvation we did not earn. Evening: God begins, without our help, his creative day. Morning: God calls us to enjoy and share and develop the work he initiated. Creation and covenant are sheer grace and there to greet us every morning.”(4)
Learning to live in God’s order of evening and morning can lead to a life that endures. The simplest way I know to explain it:
Place everything in God’s hands in the evening.
Open your hands to receive what God has for you in the morning
and then watch for and expect God to be with you throughout the
day.
Sometimes, we can create our trouble. According to Martin Luther, if you obey the first commandment - You shall have no other gods beside me - you will naturally follow all the rest. It is easy to base your life on something other than God - success, image, relationships, approval, or any number of things. To build your life on these things is to build on shifting sand. The alternative is surrendering to God and letting him be your rock. I like how David Benner describes it: “Surrender is being willing rather than willful. It is a readiness to trust that is based in love. It is relaxing and letting go. It is floating in the river that is God’s love.” (5)
To be all that God created you to be, there is an order of living you can follow that will endure, even when the storms of life come. God’s order is experienced through evening and then morning. The order is significant because the first step is to place God in control. You put everything in God’s hands in the evening and sleep. You wake in the morning and open your hands to receive what God has for you in the day ahead. It is an order of surrender and anticipation. You are trusting God and expecting God to be present and at work.
In time, this rhythm does something to you. It forms and grows you as you catch a glimmer of God's wonder and grace. This order of letting go and watching expectantly becomes like a glue that holds you together and builds you up into something even better than you imagined; his light and love can begin to shine through you, making even the broken parts beautiful. You do not have to wait. All can be well now.
There is evening and there is morning…it is good.”
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M. Robert Mulholland Jr., Shaped By The Word: The Power of Scripture in Spiritual Formation
William Shakespeare, Macbeth
Others who write about this pattern: Dallas Willard, Life Without Lack: Living in the Fullness of Psalm 23; Eugene Peterson, Answering God: The Psalms As Tools for Prayer; Eugene Peterson, Working the Angles: The Shape of Pastoral Integrity
Eugene Peterson, Working the Angles: The Shape of Pastoral Integrity
David G. Benner, Surrender to Love: Discovering the Heart of Christian Spirituality