Devotion 317 - Reason

So I start my week searching.

I search for moments.

I see how the dishes pile up,

 as well as the mail.

 I don't look for more to do but for more moments.

I read a blog about taking good care of the fringe moments, the early hours or very late hours to read or craft or do whatever calls you to His presence.  To spend time nurturing the soul, to glorify Him and thank Him for one day more to draw breath and rejoice.  It’s a dangerous thing… these moments.  They start you thinking about not just the moment, but what brought you here to this moment, to this time, this space, this thought.

I had one of those moments at two in the morning.  I was amazed when I looked at the little red digital numbers.  Somehow I was grateful it was a time I could remember, not some weird 1:14 or 3:46… it was 2:00 o’clock, on the dot.

Somehow even though I desperately did not want to be awake, I felt I had arrived on the hour, on time.  I thought of all the things I could rise and do and then I thought about how much I would regret not sleeping. 

I did all the things I normally do to return to sleep and realized at about 2:14 none of them were working.  I asked the Lord why I was awake.  My mind went to the some fourteen cups of tea I had drunk that day.  The freezing air has brought out the tea pot not just the random tea cup.  My mind went to the dozen or so problems at the office I could try and discern in the stillness of the night. 

Then my mind traveled to a friend, desperate to get well.  I wondered if this moment had been reserved for her for me to pray for her and I did.  With wild abandon, I prayed for her, for her healing, her peace, her family and for that moment I was grateful I had not wasted that starlit hour.

I could feel the lost sleep as I went to work, but I remained grateful.  I raced through my morning messages, emails and blogs.

 

I read the name Blaise Pascal.  He hadn't written to me.  He had written this thought some four hundred years ago, and now I found in one of my emails.

Le cœur a ses raisons que la raison ne connaît point.  

The heart has its reasons that reason does not know.  

I had read those words in college.  I was a senior, so incredibly unsure of what the world held for me.  My mother unwell, my career not started and my academic life about to come to an end.  

I had studied all the French grammar and verbs I could muster and had finally moved on to French authors.  I remember those words.  Something about them grafted me in.

As the shadow cannot separate from the body in the presence of the sun, so our spirit cannot separate from the soul as we worship.

I remember so clearly understanding that I was not alone, that my heart did not quiver without His hand to calm.  He would lead, He would direct, He would whisper and fashion my heart according to His.

My Father, my living, loving Jesus, takes up residence in my heart, causing me to think and ponder things that my mind simply cannot understand, that I cannot reason. 

Reason tells me to sleep, He reminds me to pray.

Reason tells me to work, He reminds me to rest.

Reason reminds me of schedule, He tells me to go back in the school and hug the child that has had a rough morning. 

Reason tells me to listen, He causes me to hear.

I cram my heart full of ideas of home, success, family and fortune, but the heart has its reasons that reason does not know because no matter how much, how fast and how furious I stuff my heart with what I feel is urgent or important or good. 

God gives my heart a reason that reason cannot know. 

He gives us eternal desires and equips us with supernatural weapons.

The mother who grieves can praise with His peace.  The father who feels inadequate can conquer with the heavenly Father’s compassion.  The child who struggles gains friends through grace.  The believer who stands before His executioner can still yell out the name of his Savior.

The heart has reasons that reason cannot know and in a moment, everything changes.  We wonder why our life has the image it has and then we see the fingerprints of His craftsmanship. 

The blessings for which we are so undeserving.    The love that is learned only through Him.     The mercy that follows us every moment.

And we realize we have arrived here.  Here is a sum total of all the moments, the decisions, the meetings, the relationships.  It is unreasonable.  Because the Heart of the Father has reasons that reason does not know.

Let love and faithfulness never leave you;
    bind them around your neck,
    write them on the tablet of your heart.
Then you will win favor and a good name
    in the sight of God and man.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart
    and lean not on your own understanding;
in all your ways submit to him,
    and he will make your paths straight.  Proverbs 3:  3-6

There is a God shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be filled by any created thing, but only by God, the Creator, made known through Jesus.   Blaise Pascal