“Our Father in heaven knows our frame and remembers that we are dust. He knew our inborn treachery, and for His own sake engaged to save us (Isa 48:8-11). His only begotten Son, when He walked among us, felt our pains in their naked intensity of anguish. His knowledge of our afflictions and adversities is more than theoretic; it is personal, warm, and compassionate. Whatever may befall us, God knows and cares as no one else can.” ---Tozer
We are dust. The rain is pouring heavily tonight. And with it, a furious wind pushes itself through the tiny neighborhood, toppling over potted plants and trashcans while stirring up autumn leaves and brushing them down the street. It's a ghost town. Everyone is hunkered down for the night in their snug homes—me included. Inside the brick house, down a dimly lit hallway, and behind a closed door, I have found myself alone. All alone. I feel lost, unseen, not knowing who I am or where I belong. This past year has felt like a graveyard of missed opportunities, more losses than wins, and only a few pennies to my name. I imagine the world crumbling around me, and the only place of solace that I know will hold my tears is here on the bathroom floor.
It's safe here, I tell myself.
This tiny shoebox of four walls encasing me makes the big world out there a bit smaller in here.
In the dark space, I lay on the cold linoleum. My body curls up as I pull my knees to my chest for warmth. It's a tight cocoon of solitude. The draft, the unforgiving chill, lingers in the room, running up my spine. Shivering, I can see my breath escape like a frosty vapor. The light from outside is fading fast, and the darkness encloses the tiny space around me. Hidden behind pale, grey rain clouds, I can see a hint of the silvery moon. Although obscure, it still manages to cast a soft light through the windowpane and onto the tile floor. I feel a deep ache within me, as though razor-sharp claws are tearing my insides apart. My heart. It feels the tug, the heaviness, the physical pain of sorrow.
Tears pool up in my eyes. I can no longer contain the sadness; like a flood, it spills onto the floor. If you pay attention, our cries carry their own melody—today, it sings in the minor scale, like a slow ballad of lament and agony.
Some time has passed, although I can't be sure how long I have labored in my tears. I've cried so much that my eyes are now swollen. I've exhausted myself to the point that all my overwhelming thoughts have become white noise. The silence surrounding me becomes deafening. Even the sound of the pelting rain has stopped. And the wind has hushed to only a whisper, no longer causing my front screen door to beat against the house. It's quiet in here. It's just me and this dark room.
I wonder, have you been here too? Alone. Crying. Unseen. Unheard. Certainly someone in the world out there is also filling their bottle with tears.
Then, just as the stillness begins to stir up my anxiety, respite comes. I hear the ticking sound of the furnace burners igniting—click, click, click. It slowly begins to rumble and groan, and then it finally relents, blasting hot air through the heater vent. The warmth of its breath exhaling from the old metal grate covers me like a comfy blanket while its voice, like a baritone singer, begins to hum, lulling me to sleep.
But then the morning comes.
It's slow and persistent, reminding me that new mercies do not wait for an invitation (Lam 3:22-23). I should be grateful, but in my visceral state, I sense the need to hibernate a bit longer in my suffering.
The sun's rays peer through the window, pushing away the dark shadows into tiny corners and crevices of the room. It makes no apologies for shoving itself into the darkened room. Moving and etching itself against the wall and slowly along the floor, the light eventually finds me. Where can I hide (Ps 139:7)? As I try to pry my teared-shut eyes open, I can see it—tiny specs of dust move through the rays of what feels like inconsiderate sunlight. It is a rude interruption to my near unconscious, feeble state. I can't move.
I don't want to move, I tell myself.
Instead, I watch as the small particles dance through the air—a simple reminder that I am but dust.
From dust I came, and to dust I will return.
I can catch a small glimpse of Job, who, in his torment, ripped his clothes, put on sackcloth, and sat among the ashes saying, "nothing but dust and ashes"
(Job 2:8, 30:19).
After losing his favored child, I think about Jacob, who "tore his clothes, put on sackcloth, and mourned for his son many days" (Gen 37:33-35).
I remember David's daughter, Tamar, who had been raped, and after being left alone in her brokenness "put ashes on her head and tore the long robe that she wore"
(2 Sam13:19 ).
Finally, I recall Mordecai, who ripped his clothes and put on sackcloth and ashes when receiving news that a decree would annihilate the Jews (Est 4:1-2).
Dust. Ashes. Sackcloth. Suffering.
Was there something to their story of dust, the dead cinders, and the garment of lament that might teach us a valuable truth about our suffering?
The use of dust, ashes, and sackcloth was an ancient ritual most often linked to suffering. Dust reminded people of their origin—the first man, who God formed and shaped from the dust of the earth (Gen 2:7). The use of dust was most often seen as a way of humbly acknowledging one's human frailty and mortality before God (Gen 3:19; Job 4:19, 10:9, 17:16; Ps 103:14, 104:29 ). Although there were different reasons to use dust, it was common to sprinkle dust on one's head as a sign of mourning, shame, or defeat (Josh 7:6; Lam 2:10; Ezek 27:30; Rev 18:19). Ashes, on the other hand, were often used for purification (Num 19:9-10; Heb 9:12), or a symbol of destruction (2 Pet 2:6). Typically, one would sit in a heap of ashes, or they would sprinkle it on their head as an expression of sorrow and mourning (2 Sam 13:19). Additionally, ashes often coincided with the wearing of sackcloth—an uncomfortable and rough material made typically from black goat hair. Commonly, people used sackcloth and ashes in mourning or lament (Gen 37:34; Ps 30:11; Jer 4:8).
Sitting in a heap, in the cinders of a dead fire, covered in dust and ash while clothed in sackcloth, was a physical expression of one's desperation for God's intervention.
Job, Jacob, Tamar, and Mordecai each expressed their suffering to God as if to say, "Lord, don't you see the horridness of my condition? I am abase, I'm helpless, I've been left empty with no recourse. Can't you see me? I'm humbled before you; nothing but dust and the ashes of ruin are being heaped upon me. Please – see me! Hear me! Act on my behalf!"
As I lay here, I readily admit that I don't know how to hold suffering well, much less sit in it or be clothed in it.
Instead, I shed a few tears, expecting the problem to somehow find a resolution. The problem with this faulty thinking is that not all my problems will be fixed in the way that I want, but they can be felt—they can be suffered. And so, I suffer in and through the ashes, recognizing the frailty and brevity of my human existence. As I descend into the dust and ashes, feeling the ache of loss and desperation, I am reminded that I have fallen short of God's glory (Rom 3:23). I deserve Sheol, death. I can now understand why Job would say, "I am of small account, I am unworthy" (Job 40:3-5). I am nothing.
However, is this what I am left to in my suffering—dust and ashes?
Toby J. Sumpter writes,
"God became a man, and embraced this world and made it holy again through his life, death, and resurrection. The incarnation means that the ordinary is lifted up. Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return, but also remember that you in your dust have been lifted up to glory. And because of the goodness of creation, and its goodness restored in the resurrection, it is already lifted up. You are already ascended with Christ. And yet in some way, this ordinary glory (that is now lifted up to the Lord) drives us further up and further in, it still drives us to chase a glory we will never fully realize or comprehend."
It was out of His compassion that God sent His Son, Jesus, down to earth to suffer death—to become dust Himself—so that He might redeem, remake, and resurrect the lost particles of dust and ashes that I have become. He has lifted me up!
I am not left to dust and ashes.
Instead, He meets me here in my sorrow and human frailty. He isn't just a God of the universe who stands above me, detached from my heartache. Instead, He is the God, who, in his Sonship and humanity, is with me. He knows me. He sees me as I am. He cares for me. He tells me that I can rest here in His mercy (Ps 86:15,145:8--9).
I am more than just the dust that floats through the air unattached and aimless, without any significance. Instead, as many scholars before me have beautifully captured, I am "glory dust."
He has lifted me from the mere dust and ashes that I am, removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy," (Psalm 30:11) "a garment of praise" (Isa 61:3), and instead of ashes, has given me a crown of beauty (Isa 61:3) and glory (1 Pet 5:4).
Sit here a little longer, I tell myself.
I feel the warmth of the morning rays filling the room as I lay unmoved on the dust and ash---or what is currently my cheap linoleum floor. The heater is still rumbling; its melody carries the same tune. The room is a mix of shadowy shapes and whisps of light. I sit up and lean against the peeling wallpaper of an uneven wall. The morning finds me, and I close my eyes to feel the ache and yet the warmth of God's peace—it's a mix of emotion. Hazrat Inayat Khan writes, "There can be no rebirth without a dark night of the soul, a total annihilation of all that you believed in and thought that you were." This was my dark night. Instead of trying to find my way around the pain, I know that I need to allow God to do a work through it---to recreate something new within and through me. I can't get up yet, but I know I will.
I sense the necessity and the beauty of descending here in the dust and ash, not as a place to live but as a place to rest and then---to rise.
We are not just dust; we are "glory dust."
CLICK THE LINK BELOW TO HEAR "AT THE FOOT OF THE CROSS"
"There is not one piece of cosmic dust that is outside the scope of God's sovereign providence." --R.C. Sproul
Works Referenced: Toby J. Sumpter. Job Through New Eyes: A Son for Glory (“Glory Dust”)
Comentarios