My overwhelmed heart resonates with the psalmist…
Overwhelming. Life can be so very overwhelming. Intense beauty is all around us. Darkness too. I reeled as I heard of a dear friend’s sudden loss of her life partner. I watched as young people in my community heard the shocking news that they had lost a friend in a car accident. I grieved as I heard my darling mum realise that her frailty was not going to be mitigated any longer by some marvellous medical intervention. And I picked broccolini from my garden, absorbed the fragrance of jonquils and wattles in my garden, bathing in sunshine as I tended to our garden. I met new friends and pondered the marvels of the gospel… that brilliant and baffling story of the Jesus. I was nudged (compelled) by the Spirit to leave behind a stinky attitude to someone. Overwhelmed by destruction from without and destruction from within I found myself in worship, just like the psalmist. God answers our frailty, our pain, our wonder with his awesome action in becoming one of us (v5) of drawing us near to himself.
Just when I felt separated and lost, overwhelmed, I felt the Spirit drawing me near (v4). Overwhelming. We are people not left out in the cold to fend for ourselves in the wasteland, as TS Eliot calls it, but a people who were once so far away from God, and yet today are pulled close by the marvellous persons of God. The Father chose us, Jesus became one of us, dying and rising for us and the Spirit who lives within and among. Who is this God that would choose us for nearness?
This God is the most marvellous creator who stills the roar and breaks the dawn and drenches the land in sunshine and showers. I rest overwhelmed.
– Monica O’Neil