Lost the Story, Part I

With every step of our lives we enter into the middle of some story which we are certain to misunderstand.
-G.K. Chesterton

It’s been a difficult weekend, with so much of our deeper life and movements in the Kingdom of God opposed and thwarted. Homework this weekend has been soul-killing in its intensity and its propensity to steal time for other things, like sleeping and spending time with De. And I have not fought well for my time with God in the disciplines needed for my training in living well in this Kingdom, in my growing up into God: study, prayer, journaling, fasting, silence and solitude, service, and the like.

And I think I know why it’s been especially difficult to follow Him into those places of connection. The epiphany came while taking some time away from homework to take a walk with my niece and nephew who were spending the weekend with us. Being the imaginative kids they are, it’s hard for them to stay on the street when walking. And being the imaginative kid-at-heart I am, it’s hard for me to keep them on the street. We found a cement culvert that had collected all sorts of paraphernalia during the last storm. Walking among the mess, I saw a broken shield on the ground. It was in three pieces, and I only found two, but it was evident that it had been some kid’s play shield, made of plastic. The most striking feature of it, though, was the image embossed on its crest. It was a lion’s head, with full mane, and its face a mixture of kindness and ferocity, as if were this lion to come alive and step outside its plastic barrier you wouldn’t be able to decide if you should run from it or hold your breath in anticipation and hope that he would speak to you. It was clear who this lion was. Even the kids knew. It was Aslan. My nephew exclaimed, “This was Peter’s shield!”

My pulse quickened. It’s an odd thing to become alerted and aroused at the site of a plastic bit of trash, I know, but you should have seen it. It looked almost real, and only its flimsy thinness gave away the illusion. I longed for it to be real, to be heavy with iron and steal and leather. A real shield. For a real battle. In a real story.

And then I realized why my devotions are so hard to pursue lately. They are not necessary training, mission-specific orders, a place to have battle wounds healed, the interior tent where the Commander awaits our meeting, a time away from the front lines to regroup and recharge and reassess. They are a disconnected set of duties that have little to do with my life because I have lost the story of the Kingdom advancing upon the dark forces of the Enemy by the violent-hearted for the rescue of God’s precious ones. For were I to have my eyes opened, my ears attuned, my heart laid waste by that reality, I would be a fool to miss one weapon or one moment or one command the Lord of Hosts, the Commander of this Invasion, would give me, and I would set my face like flint to seeking Him for my life and, by way of it, for the lives of others He has it in his heart to rescue.