When Heaven touches Earth

There are moments in this pinball life, as we bounce from buzzer to bell, lights flashing and flippers flipping, when suddenly a hush falls over it all. We see ourselves in slow motion. A wind blows, a curtain flutters aside, and we glimpse for an instant an otherness we rarely see, locked as we are in this tilted temporal arcade.
I had one of those moments this morning. I wouldn’t say my arm was in pain so much as it was making its presence known in a dull ache. Not over emoting, but refusing to step offstage. With all the horrific suffering in the world, it’s a very small thing, but it’s currently a prominent bumper in my personal pinball machine. I was thinking about how God has been using this minor annoyance to center my focus on Him and His plans. It has become a source of real discipline, and God is meeting me in the obedience. Humbled by the wonder of His ways, I paused to pray. “Thank you for pressing me into a corner, Lord. May Your will be done.”
As though following a cosmic play script, I then flipped to today’s reading in Streams in the Desert and read these words: “The literal translation of this verse (2 Corinthians 12:10) adds a startling emphasis to it, allowing it to speak for itself with power we have probably never realized. It is as follows: ‘Therefore I take pleasure in being without strength, being insulted, experiencing emergencies, and being chased and forced into a corner for Christ sake, for when I am without strength, I am dynamite.'”
Some may say it was just a coincidence–that God had no part in scripting events to have me pray in words He would immediately confirm. Some may say that, but not me. As the curtain falls again, the hush is lifted, the flippers resume their flipping and the buzzers their buzzing, I have only one thing to say.
I am dynamite.