Wrong turn - right direction

Rhona Cathcart July 22, 2017 0 1

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Psalm 119: 105-106

105 Your word is a lamp for my feet,
    a light on my path.
106 I have taken an oath and confirmed it,
    that I will follow your righteous laws.

I did a funeral for a woman once whose courtship with her husband had taken 30 years. Talk about a slow burner. So maybe Jacob didn’t have it so hard - having to work for 14 years for the wife he wanted, acquiring an unwanted extra wife along the way. Discovering his uncle was as tricky as he was, was probably a shock. And it sounds like those 14 years were spent trying to get the better of each other. 

But perhaps it was was good for Jacob to have a few disappointments, because although he was clever, he wasn’t always wise. Wisdom often grows from our failures more than our successes. Jacob made a bit of a mess of things sometimes, but through his messes, the clear line of Israel emerged and a nation was shaped. 

Lady Wisdom

When life is chaotic, 

how we long for your orderly household, 

your restful courtyards, 

and calm, cool waters. 

We forget sometimes, 

that your house sits on the street, 

that the way there, 

the only way there, 

is through the streets of the city. 

We get lost in the crowd and must find our way through.

We sit down for a game, and rise up poorer. 

We are tricked in the market, 

or waylaid in an alley. 

There are no short cuts.

We are not born with the key to your house, 

or a clearly marked map. 

But we are given a lamp, 

and in the light it sheds, 

every failure, every wrong turn, 

every lesson learned, brings us closer to your house. 

We still get confused sometimes, Lord, 

but we can hear the fountain ever more clearly, 

where Wisdom sits in quiet splendour, 

ready to welcome us home. Amen.