Sunday, July 20, 2008

Ever Thought of Writing a Letter to God?

It might seem a strange idea, given the fact that even before a word is on your tongue God knows it completely (Psalm 139:4). Yet don’t you suppose that it might delight him to get a letter from you even so? On this Sunday evening I am delighted to share with you one such letter, written by my father years ago while looking out over the lake below with the sun setting on another day of rest for him at our summer cabin in Wisconsin. I have a whole file of such letters, written in his own hand, and I hope in the future to publish more of them, perhaps under a separate link on this website, as an encouragement to consider writing God yourself. It’s what the psalmist did, out of all the moods of his life. Why not you?

Dear God,

Why did you rest on the seventh day? Were you tired? That question makes me laugh. I have seen you at work too long to believe that. I have seen too many dawns break and too many sunsets, and too many winters and springs come and go, too many tides rise and fall, without any signs of weariness to believe that you needed to rest.

Had you finished your work? Is that why you rested? Your Son, when he was here, said you were still working as he was. That has always comforted me because we are in desperate need of your perfect strength. I suspect that you rested because you wanted us to rest. You sat down in your strength so that we might sit down in our weakness, so that you might restore our strength again.

Help us, dear God, to sit down beside you, or by the side of your son where he sits, weary by Jacob's well, a further expression of your accommodation to our weariness that you tasted … yourself in order still better to understand us. Help us, however, not merely to sit, but to enjoy you and thus replenish our lives. Forgive us that we miss our rest as if we did not trust you to keep on working and finally bring us into your kingdom.

Eric G. Hawkinson (1896-1984) Letter to God (unpublished)
Former Dean, North Park Theological Seminary