“In the full light of day, and in hearing of the
music of other voices, the caged bird will not sing the song that his master
seeks to teach him. He learns a snatch of this, a trill of that, but never a
separate and entire melody. But the master covers the cage, and places it where
the bird will listen to the one song he is to sing. In the dark, he tries and
tries again to sing that song until it is learned, and he breaks forth in
perfect melody. Then the bird is brought forth, and ever after he can sing that
song in the light. Thus God deals with His children. He has a song to teach us,
and when we have learned it amid the shadows of affliction we can sing it ever
afterward.” -- Nature Lessons /MH
472. {VSS 461.2}
We all have a pretty good idea understanding the concept of
being taught lessons. From almost day one we’re dealing with them; at home as
children, and then at school, as adolescents, and even later, as young adults,
in college, one lesson after another. Then? We get a job. More lessons.
So it should come as no surprise that many of us approach our
spiritual walk, our faith, in much the same way. We study, read, observe and
apply almost everything we learn into a paradigm of learning, with God as the
teacher, handing out lesson after lesson, and we as the students, trying to
learn them and “make the grade”. At some point we begin to sense we have this
wrong, so like any good student just trying to survive, we avoid the letter
grade and go for a “Pass/Fail”.
Then we fail.
Maybe it’s a health issue, or someone dies, or someone lets
you down. There are so many ways to have your heart broken in this life. I
could type for ten hours straight, trying to list them all, and barely scratch
the surface. But whatever the cause of our pain, we act like good students. We
respond to it with our knowledge, will, study, scripture, understanding and all
those lessons we’ve learned.
And it doesn’t work.
Because God has not brought you this far to teach how to
think, He’s not about "head space". He wants to teach you how to sing and feel.
He’s about "heart space". What if every dark moment of your life, as painful and
radical as it may sound, was God covering the cage over your heart (the cage
you built with your own two hands, by the twisted metal of your sins) not only so
that you WOULD listen, but also so that you COULD listen. In all the noise of this world you would then hear God whispering to you a tune of surrender, patience, presence and love.
What if the only lesson we’re ever really meant to learn is
simply how to sing that sweet song of grace?
