gathering

I went home for the holidays. Did you? How was it? Good? Bad? Survivable?
The odometer in my minivan shows that my 8 day holiday travel blitz racked up 1215 miles. Most of those miles were in the company of a ton of toys, a tired wife and 3 pretty happy kids (santa was more than a little generous.) As I was driving back home from central Georgie the other night, my wife and kids were asleep and so, in the rare silence, I took some time to reflect back over my interaction with the extended family.
I’m not going to lie to you, it was hard. I left with a pretty sad heart. Why? Well, the food was good, the presents were more than we deserved, the weather was awesome... but.. I found myself grieving. What was the problem? Well, I have a silent dad.
He’s not dead in the physical sense of the word, he was physically there during Christmas. But, most of the time, he was in his recliner hiding behind the newspaper. Disengaged. Unable to enter into my six year olds celebratory dance upon unwrapping her new ‘heelies’. Unable to share my two year olds fasination with the wrapping paper and bows. Unable to take may nine year old for a walk around the farm.
You may think I’m feeling sorry for myself. You may say.. ‘your dad never beat you, did he?’ No. ‘your dad never left your mom for some other flavor of the month did he?’ No. ‘your dad provided for you didn’t he?’ Yes. Maybe I am feeling sorry for myself. My dad is a great dad in many respects (Heaven knows I’m not a perfect dad!). I know he is proud of me from a distance, I know that he loves me, but he is silent, he doesn’t know how to tell me or to show me. Words of encouragement are alien to him. Questions of curiosity about the lives of others aren’t part of his vocabulary. He is imprisoned behind an inability to engage and to love and to risk and to weep and to laugh. I grieve that.
I have to fight to believe that God isn’t a lot like my dad. Now, I know the verses that would tell me otherwise, I even know them in Greek and Hebrew! But I struggle to believe God isn’t a lot like my dad, way up there in Heaven, sitting in his divine recliner, hiding behind the newspaper, t.v. remote close at hand.. largely disconnected from what’s going on in my life, or too busy being God to care. Detached. Maybe disinterested. Worst of all, silent. Do you notice me? Do I matter? Do you really care? In my struggle to embrace a God that characterizes himself as the perfect Father and who has adopted me as his beloved son, I am challenged by Zephaniah 3.17. Have you ever read it? Probably not. Zephaniah is one of those short, hard to pronounce books in the back of the Old Testament. Like most of those books (called minor prophets... not because they were 2nd stringers, but because the books are short) the book is mostly about judgment, but is sprinkled with reminders of grace. Zephaniah 3.17 is one of those reminders. It says this: ‘the Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness, he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with LOUD SINGING’
We have a God who sings. Did you know that? A singing God. Jesus sang too, you can check it out in Mark 14.26. Do you hear God singing over you? A song of delight.. not one of remorse. A song that longs for you to believe in his love for you. A song that allures you to stop living like an orphan, to stop living like someone who has to make it on their own, and a song that calls you to start singing over others even as he is singing over you. His song is written throughout the story of scripture. It is a love song that is greater and more passionate than any other love song that has ever been written. It tells of the greatest pursuit.. the pursuit of your harlot heart, the greatest cost paid, the greatest gift given, the greatest love displayed. Be quiet. Listen. Do you hear the singing? It is that singing that frees you from sin and self-contempt. It is that singing that enables you to hope for and love your silent father. I pray that the volume of his singing will be the soundtrack of your soul this year.