a spiritual excavation

August 26, 2008

Two weeks ago, I went to Alexandria, Egypt for a few days. Alexandria was once home to the world's most famous library and to a lighthouse that was one of the seven wonders of the world. It was the home of Cleopatra. It was so great a city that Alexander the Great named it, and no other city in his kingdom, after himself. But none of this can be seen in the current Alexandria. All of that history has disappeared...or been covered up.

Many believe it is still there, deep in the ground, hemmed in by layers of concrete foundations that are the base of twenty-story apartment buildings that are now the home to millions of people. Scuba divers who are willing can see a statue head of Cleopatra way off the coast. Those of us with imagination can walk along the Corniche, looking out at the Mediterranean Sea and dream up what that city had once been like. We can never fully know. But I feel like I got a taste that made me hungry to know more.

One of the major lessons I learned this summer is much like Alexandria.

There is a richness, a depth to God's Word and to knowing Him that I fathom will never be fully discovered by one person in their lifetime. We can dig and search and excavate, unearthing some many marvelous wonders. But the full glory remains hidden. We only get a taste that makes us hungry to know more.

Before this summer, I was overwhelmed by prayer. We are told to pray for the peace of J-town, pray for our enemies, pray for our leaders, ask for wisdom, ask for our needs, confess our sins, praise Him, commit our way to Him...so many things to do in prayer! There are so many things to do in prayer that I often become overwhelmed into immobility and therefore find myself not praying at all. And that is just prayer. When I begin to consider the myriad of lessons I can learn from His word, again I am overwhelmed. Go beyond that to attempt to KNOW Him...I understand why so often I just sit still, doing nothing. Because I know not where to start in order to do something.

And so this summer, because I was so overwhelmed into a state of doing nothing...God picked me up out of my frozen state of immobility and placed me an environment of learning. I learned about prayer. I learned about the Word. I learned about Him. I learned that there is a plethora of lessons in His word that I have never even begun to consider: suffering, persecution, His protection, mercy, and favor, His patience, that running the race to win means discipline, what the Spirit-filled life looks like, the importance of the Trinity, the cross, and the return of Christ.

Alexandria was the centerpiece of the world's glory for a short moment in time. Walking among its lost history reminded me there is an abundance of digging to be done to know the Lord, whose history will never be lost. His glory will never be hidden. This summer, I tasted and saw that the Lord is good. Not just in Alex, not just in Marseille, but in my heart.