Why this one, Lord?
You’ve walked us by here three times in as many months—maybe You think I didn’t notice, but I did. Why can’t we stroll through the other parts of the garden today, like we normally do?
The pleasant parts. The peaceful paths. The places You’ve made into bountiful wonderlands. Flowers and greenery, lushness and rich, dark soil bursting with color. There are so many familiar trails criss-crossing former graveyards. You’ve restored so much already—brought so many dead things back to glorious life—that we could walk for hours without having to come here.
And yet, You keep bringing me back.
There are old graves past this gate. The hush of old bones long buried—so long under the ground that the sunken bodies have become a part of the landscape, the bumpy earth reformed around bones so ancient they’ve disentegrated. The deadness is acceptable here, devastation so far in the past that both the sting and the stink are gone, and I’m long past any desire to see resurrection.
Can’t we just keep things the way they are? There is so much pleasantness in our time together, walking in the peace and the stillness, admiring what You’ve already done. Watching life flourish. Resting.
Why do we have to contemplate yet another construction project that will upset the whole garden, dispersing a layer of dust and death across everything that now breathes easy? We’ve done this before, You and I, countless times. I know You’d have to tear up the earth and rip the death from it piece by piece. It’s excruciating. It’s exhausting. It makes my knees weak just to see Your fingers twitching in that familiar way, ready to start digging.
I know You can wake these bones, that’s not the issue, but why bother? Why can’t we leave well enough alone?
Why this one, Lord?
Last week in church we sang Graves Into Gardens, which I have enjoyed in the past, but all of a sudden I was hit with the image above. We all know God can resurrect dead things and bring dry bones back to life, but sometimes we don’t want him to. Sometimes we want to ask, why can’t we leave well enough alone? Let sleeping dogs lie. Or maybe that’s just me?
One of the many things I love and appreciate about the kindness of God is His pace and His persistence—oh wait, that’s two things. Neyse*.
Even though we’re all basically derelict, condemned structures when He purchases our souls, He doesn’t overwhelm us with grand soul improvement projects. Surely it would be more efficient if He’d just raze us to the ground and build something new entirely—that’s what I would do if I saw a building that looked approximately like my soul. But instead, He goes slowly, piece by piece, little by little, holding us gently the whole time.
And He doesn’t ever seem to say enough is enough—maybe not until heaven. He keeps healing, probing, excising sin and hurt and ancient poison. Moving us ever onward toward the vision of who and what He created us to be before our first cell divided. Increasing the livable territory in our souls. Leading us into newer, fuller, and more robust spaces to dance and breathe easier and praise His Name.
*Neyse means anyway in Turkish. I wish you would all learn it, because it comes to my mind in the space where ‘anyway’ used to live. 🤪
Yes...the process of being holy.
Hebrews 10:14