The March Hare

Near the end of his book Waking the Dead, John Eldredge invites his readers to ask God what they should do to care for their hearts. Eldredge believes that God speaks to people today through Scripture, through mythology, and through others. For instance, over the course of a few days Eldredge had a number of people randomly talk to him about Moab, Utah. He took that as an inkling that God was telling him to take his boys camping in Moab and he found the experience to be a spiritual milestone.

Now I’ve had the same sort of experience in my own spiritual journey. Sometimes it’s been pretty loopy, like the time in my life when I was up to my eyeballs in Pirsig, Castaneda and Tales From Topographic Oceans. Add a little Lebanese hash to the mix and you’ve got a prescription for a pretty mad tea party. God started speaking to me through rabbits, something I can’t possibly explain in a blog post, except to say that this period in my life was marked by an intense synchronicity involving rabbits. And the upshot was that God took me on some pretty interesting adventures. (BTW, that synchronicity link is worth a click.)

OK, so what the hell. This is a long trip around the barn to say that I decided to take Eldredge’s advice and see what happens if I ask the question “God, what do I need to do in order to care for my heart?”

I decided to start looking for the answer in Psalms, mainly because I’m lazy and that’s what we’re studying with the High Schoolers. The answer came back hard and fast, a little bit like being hit in the face with a hammer, repeatedly.

• Psalm 1: Blessed is the man…his delight is in the law of the Lord
• Psalm 2: Blessed are all who take refuge in him
• Psalm 3: The Lord sustains me
• Psalm 4: You alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety
• Psalm 5: Let all who take refuge in you be glad
• Psalm 6: Turn, O Lord, and deliver me
• Psalm 7: O Lord my God, I take refuge in you
• Psalm 8: What is man that you are mindful of him?
• Psalm 9: Have mercy and lift me from the gates of death
• Psalm 10: Do not forget the helpless
• Psalm 11: In the Lord I take refuge
• Psalm 12: O Lord, you will keep us safe
• Psalm 13: I trust your unfailing love
• Psalm 14: the Lord is their refuge

And that’s as far as I’ve gotten. Not so much about seeking your heart’s desire is there? Instead there is a preponderance of versage that talks about taking refuge in God. If I was a scholarly sort I might know that this is about more than hiding under a scrap of canvas during a rainstorm–it likely has something to do with the notion that the office of King is to provide a refuge for the people. My hunch is that there is a LOT of stuff packed into the notion of refuge. That it’s a very big idea. And maybe it’s a rabbit trail I should pursue in coming blog posts?