“I will look to the LORD. I will wait for God to save me. I will wait for my God to listen to me.” Micah 7:7 [GW]
It grows closer and closer; not just for me, but for the wealth of America’s workforce that has been idled by the economic downturn that started years ago (whether you believe it was during the Bush era or started earlier with the Democratic demand of mortgage funding of high-risk is immaterial.) My year of UIA funds cease on the 13th of November and the future is as uncertain as the political landscape anymore. Many, frustrated with the big government and the politicians who promised ‘change we could live with’ failed in their attempt to convince us that their answers didn’t work. Now, many ‘non-traditional’ political candidates have gained entry into the political machine that has ground the future of this country into depravity. Whether they can redeem the system or become it’s victims remains to be seen but the American people for the first time in years, voted their displeasure at the typical political campaign of self-protected and demanded representation from the elected. There are those who, so disappointed with the process that they claimed ‘its broken’ and did not vote, that led to the victories of those who do believe and brought themselves to the booths.
The pundits say that the vote was made in anger; I would say it was made part in declaration and part in fear. Fear that those who are hanging in the job market and struggling to meet the increased demands in their positions because they fear unemployment will come knocking on their cubicle. Fear to become like those like me, struggling day to day to be a provider to their family and the frustrations of slowly sinking despite the bailing.
We demand from our politicians and our American way of life the assurance of being ‘entitled’ to the right to provide for our families in the manner we want to. We should be able to go to a job that makes the money that is necessary to provide the funds that pay for the utilities, the mortgage and the car with enough left over for the ‘fun’ things, the ‘development’ things for our kids and the ‘professional improvement’ for the job so that we can increase our material wealth to be on the ‘next tier’ of the tax bracket.
And we demand that from God also.
When such things aren’t provided, we reject that which hasn’t brought our ‘salvation’ from such depths of despair and seek to embrace the promise that is dangled by those who want [whether honestly or not] to give it back to us. We leave God on the sidelines when we do that, because sometimes the requirements of God don’t fit in with the rest of the package that comes with the ‘change.’
I know that I used to; clawing through the electronic ‘want ads’ and running around filling paper after paper for the employer of the moment. Discarding the dream of Seminary and getting that hard to obtain waiver for the pursuit of a Master of Divinity degree and/or pursuing some degree program at a college to get those ‘high-end’ jobs. Applying, as I have for the last six months, to anything and everything that comes close to what I know I can do, think I’ll be able to learn quickly to do, and some that I don’t even fully understand how to do. Bailing even as the water comes up to my neck, bailing because that is all I can do.
Except my mouth moves in rhythmic waves; speech they call it in the higher realms of the academic world. Prayer, sometimes desperate….sometimes joyful…..sometimes angry…….sometimes broken; prayer bubbling from my lips sometimes without conscious thought, communication to a God I believe in and have found my faith desperate inadequate to trust in even as the ocean laps against my chin and my shoulders ache from the constant bailing.
There is no illusion sustainable here.
The reality of the cold wetness of the water and the shivering of my body from the absent of warmth……the visual sight of the deck beneath the waves and the mast slack from the lack of air to move the sails. Nothing here speaks of a future, nothing here speaks of continuing. My mind locks into the rhythm of ‘stop, it’s useless to continue’ that wars with my heart’s declaration that God is here, He is on the horizon and He is even in the waves and I cannot give up because He’s promised me so much more of a future than this, promised me things to do to bring Him glory and has a plan for me which He has the authority and the power to deliver.
So even as the waves threaten to overwhelm me and I sputter with the occasional swallowed water, my prayers continue and my hope rest not in the overcoming of this disaster but in the ability of the Lord my God to do what He will even in this place…….whether I sink or swim, rise from the depths with the ship afloat with full sails or lie on the bottom of the ocean deep……even then, it is for the glory and honor of my God.
There’s a song in my heart awaiting to burst forth either way, as I hear the promises of my Lord and Savior and await His guidance.
Until then, I’ll continue to bail……
And bail well.
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