Bad Hair Day?

Bad hair Day?

What is all this fuss about hair anyway?

I guess, in this cosmetic culture, it’s just another way of asking if you’re having a bad day.

But there might be more to it.

Did you know that Jesus said, “the hairs of your head are numbered.”?

I can hear someone saying it now. “Yah! Right! Like God’s got nothing more important to do than count people’s hair!”

Actually, I believe that if this is information which might be necessary sometime it will be available. But there is something about this statement that is of great importance.

This is information you’ll not likely permit just anyone to have. It’s very intimate, and personal. Something you’d rarely want anyone to know other than a close Friend or at least someone with whom you’re familiar, or confident you can trust. And it’s intricate. An aspect of our personal makeup that only intense attention to the complex, interrelated facets of ourselves can know. The point Jesus is really trying to make is that God’s profoundly attentive to the finest details of our lives and loves us intimately.

There’s a story out of the life of Abraham which reveals just how intimately; how intricately Our Father, the Lord, looks out for us.

God promised Abraham that he’d one day be the Father of a great Nation; a people more numerous than all the grains of sand on every seaside beach. In time his Wife came to him and said, “I cannot conceive! … If you’re going to Father even one Child you’re going to need a surrogate.” With that she urged her Husband to take her Egyptian slave-girl as his Wife. He did so. And the slave-girl conceived. Immediately turmoil entered the tents of Abraham. Wife and Servant were alienated. Distraught by her Mistress’s abuse the slave ran away.

In despair and deprivation she sat hopelessly by a stream in the desert. An Angel found her there. The words he brought her were from the Lord. They immediately dismissed her hopelessness. She would be the Mother of another vast Nation. Though her Son would be wild, and troublesome he’d become a powerful Man and the Father of a significant Nation. The angel told her to return to her Mistress and serve her loyally.

Moved by the attention and care the Angel had shown her the Slave-girl gave God a Name. “El Roi” … “the one who sees me.”

As far as I know this name was never used of God again. But the stream came to be known as, “the well of the Living One who sees me.”

Bad day, or good, “He sees us.” He “sees us” so intimately, so intricately, that He knows everything He needs to know to make something beautiful even out of “messy hair,” and the more serious messes we make of our lives.

A Granddaughter's Smile ... Her Playfulness

“Beauty,” Lewis writes “descends from God into nature … Man appreciates it with worship and sends it back to God ... .”

Few of us cannot understand how God’s “beauty descends … into nature.” It’s visible everywhere in nature. Whether in the majestic mountain, or the translucent wing of a hummingbird, the diverse loveliness of our Creator surrounds us.

How, though, do we appreciate such magnificence in our Worship? How do worshiping creatures send beauty “back” to their Creator?

This Christmas I experienced something which gave me insight into how this happens. Shirley and I were able to visit our Kids in England and Maine. This meant we would meet 2 Granddaughters we’d never met. Sophia Rose, Jim’s and Korenne’s daughter was the first little Lady we met. Oh how lovely she is! My first words, on seeing her were, “You are beautiful!” Her initial response was expressionless. I tried to not overwhelm her. Gradually Shirley and I sensed her warming to us. I will never forget her first smile! Her lovely face radiated with an expression of delight that warmed my heart as few have! I knew I was being accepted, … as if she was returning to me the admiration I felt for her!

Fast forward a Week to Cape Elizabeth Maine where our Son Jonathan and his Wife Larina live. Shirley had already met their Daughter Sara Joy. I had not. She’s their third Child, Sister to two Brothers, Jonah, and Luke. She is younger than Sophia. My expectations of our meeting were uncertain. She too is very beautiful! Because of the miracle of her birth I held her as soon as her Mother passed her to me. She looked at me with a quiet serenity that instantly put me at ease. I walked with her; played with her; watched her trying to crawl and making progress beyond her months; she danced, chattered, and laughed in her jumper. She was comfortable with us and showed it in her playful delight with what was her life.

Sophia and Sara taught us how worship “gives back” to God the pleasures He gives to us. I couldn’t help but admire Sophia Rose. I felt her admiration in the unforgettable first smile she gave me. Our admiration for God, expressed in those private moments we share, and our Worship as His people together; admiration like that of a Child’s smile, sends back to God the adoration He shows us in the wonders surrounding us. Sara Joy, with her easily playful enjoyment of life, despite our strange presence, demonstrated a heartfelt trust as precious to us as any gift she could give us. When our trust in God puts us at ease with life despite his formidable, and sometimes unfamiliar presence; serene, joy-filled acceptance of life as He gives it to us, He is pleased; as pleased as when we formally proclaim that trust in the forms and rituals of our collective Worship.