The Watchman

Have you ever felt torn between two extremes?  Like maybe you're split down the middle, a two-faced comic book character of emotions on the inside (minus the creepy evil vibe).

Equally too much and not enough
Restless and complacent
Terribly clumsy and too careful
Full to the brim and insatiable

All at the same time.

And I cannot, for the life of me, make sense of any of it.  I cannot explain it any other way than…feeling like I'm at a screeching halt in the middle of a Nascar race.

Like when you can't choose between fight or flight—you freeze.

I wait for the Lord, my soul waits & in His word I hope; 
my soul waits for the Lord 
more than the watchmen for the morning,
more than the watchmen for the morning.  
Psalm 130:6   

I don’t know a single person who likes waiting. Waiting is an in-between.  Both a sacred & hard place to be. I mean, they have entire rooms for this: waiting rooms. It’s a thing. Waiting is such a thing there are certain spaces created for it for everyone miserably waiting to wait together.  I’m too tired to decide if that is kind or cruel.

Anyways, after some quiet sitting tonight, here is what I’ve decided about my waiting, even when I don’t know what I’m waiting for: Somewhere in the mess of me He makes it all make sense.  Somewhere transposed safely in the middle; He shoulders my excess and gives to my need.  There is equally too much and never enough of Him.  He transcends space or time, so I wait knowing He'll show up and fill in the spaces—and not a second too soon or too late.

Maybe it’s grad school...it has been the weirdest & hardest & best thing lately.  Maybe it’s that everything about my life feels like an in between right now.  I can’t quite explain it, but I feel like I’ve been in one big pause. Just sitting frozen on the race track while everybody else speeds by.

I’ll be the first to admit I don’t know everything about the Bible & I don’t read it as often as a lot of people I know (I’m always trying to get better at this).  I’ll also be the first to admit that there is some super weird stuff in there (looking at you, Genesis).  But sometimes when I read it, it settles in all the right places of my little human heart & gives me something to put on loop in my feeble mind.

“...more than the watchmen for the morning.”  

I’ve been in love with that simple phrase. Something about it makes sense to me right now. It’s the one thing I find re-orienting me in this weird little space.

So I did a scholarly google search (kidding...I just did a regular google search) and read about watchmen. They did exactly what it sounds like: they watched over things.  Mostly at night. They kept watch over cities, crop fields, anything that needed protection during a vulnerable time.  They were on full alert during the night time, and morning was their end of watch.

I don’t know why times of waiting feel like night time, but they do.  And we’re just waiting for the morning to come.

So, shoot, I feel like those watchmen. Just on guard trying to keep everything in order until the morning comes.

Any time I get antsy & restless or frozen & stuck: I am somehow reminded that I want to always anticipate Christ more than I anticipate anything on this side of Heaven. I hope He is what I wait for the most in whatever I’m waiting for at all.  I don’t even know if that makes sense to any of you reading this, but it makes sense to me tonight.

So regardless of what my life looks like at any point, I hope I always watch first and most for Jesus. It might be cheesy, but it’s my truth, y’all.

“...more than the watchmen for the morning.”