Monday, April 30, 2007

Abiding

You know, I like to talk about my life lessons on here a lot. Things I have learned or am learning as I take walks, drive around, sit like a lump, or while working. I am sure just like normal people I wonder… why am I here?

So…Why am I here?

What am I supposed to be doing?

Where am I going?

To be honest, I don’t have an answer. Sorry to disappoint. What I have come up with…at least I think…is how we go about waiting to find out the answers to those questions.

I started thinking about the word “Abide”, it actually comes up quite a bit when you are reading. Think about what abiding means. The dictionary says it means to remain, to continue, to stay. Doesn’t that sound like what we are doing here? I mean we are abiding here on this earth; we’re kind of waiting for the next step, kind of wondering where we are going. If we were to look at the ancient Greek, the definition wouldn’t change much. It still means to wait, to not depart, and to endure. However, it also means to await or await someone.

So what? Where are you going?

I know, I know, we’ll get there hold on.

You see in ancient Israel, which is why I bring up the Greek (because a lot of the Jewish history is recorded in Hebrew and Greek) the custom went something like this. Two fathers would come together, one who had a daughter and another who had a son…get where this is going? The father of the son offered a dowry to the father of the daughter, if accepted they would have a huge party with both sides of the family, friends, etc. At this party they would…well…party, and at some point in the evening when the boy had worked up the courage to walk across the room he would. He would walk over with a cup with wine and set it in front of the girl who had the dowry paid to her father. When the cup was placed in front of her, she had the choice to drink the cup or to reject the cup.

MAN this is dripping with imagery.

If she accepted the cup, the boy would say in an almost verbatim speech that almost every young man would say if accepted, “I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to myself; that where I am, there you may also be.” He would leave after the party and go to his father’s house and either build on to his fathers house or build somewhere on his fathers’ property. He would take about a year to do so, and at some point after about a year, but only when the father gave the go ahead, only the father (Grooms) could give the go ahead. The Groom-to-be would go to the Bride- to-be and say basically “HEY, it’s time.” And if I have the custom right, she had better be good and ready!
You may ask, “Well, what would happen if her bridesmaids weren’t ready?” Actually, if anyone came to the ceremony late, like after the doors had closed, they didn’t get in and missed the whole thing. Even if they had been waiting for a LONG time…they were left out.

So what!?!?!

Well here we go, you see I look at us as the bride, we are here and we have accepted the cup if you will. However, in this time we have a groom that is preparing something bigger and better for us. It is up to us to use this time wisely. So what are we supposed to do? Well, we may not know the details, but there are certain “duh” things we know we are supposed to do. A bride knows that when she is to be married, she needs to get a dress, a hall, bridesmaids, their dresses organized, and so many other things. She ABIDES in the understanding that she is taken, she is no longer her own but she is given to someone else. When you become engaged you don’t go out dating someone else, you are somebody’s spouse-to-be. There are certain responsibilities that go with abiding in the engagement period.

My proposal is that we are in the abiding stage even now. We know some of the basics, the “duh” things we are supposed to do, and so we should do them to the best of our abilities. As we do that and communicate, connect, and concede our desires to the desires of our Groom, we will assuredly get some of the guidance we have longed for.

I guess my question then is, how are you abiding? Are you abiding in a way that would please your groom? I have found myself to be a poorly abiding person.

So ponders the simpleMan.

1 comment:

Brian Vinson said...

Once upon a time, Adam updated his blog. The end.