The Art of Wall Writing

Last night while reading my Bible I stumbled over the most delightful discovery. It really did make me laugh. It was this: God has been known to write on walls. You know, the taboo scribbling on the inner framework of a house. Well, God’s done it before. I mean this very literally, physically. With a human hand in understandable letters. He came to a palace in the Middle East and wrote on one of the walls. See Daniel 5:5. Isn’t that fascinating? Who knew a mischievous little act so prone to two year olds had its origin in the Scriptures? And not only from the pages of the Bible, but from God Himself! So, next time you find those tell-tale marks of your child’s signature scrawled across the wallpaper in flaming orange permanent marker, don’t get too upset. Remember: God did it first!

Lofty, Bleak Moorlands

I was reading today (A Man Called Peter by Catherine Marshall) and came across this simple phrase: “lofty, bleak moorlands.” Now, to a non-Scotsman, those words I am sure hold minimal and perhaps no charm whatsoever. But they affected me like an electric shock. My heart started beating faster; I literally forgot to breathe for one long, long moment. There was a deep, enormous country slanting off to the horizon before me. The loneliness was grand and solemn. I tuned my ears to the cryptic wail of the wind, tipped my face to a sky that rumbled, promising storms though perhaps not rain. A lone rider was cantering towards me, horse and man billowing with the gale and rolling upon every dip and rise of the land. Somewhere off in the rugged hills behind them, there was a solitary castle, yet holding to its faithful breast the secrets of honor and glory. The beckoning voice of the bagpipes mingled with the stern drumbeat of thunder, and they blended together like a song of God.

And all this from three simple words! You just try and tell me I don’t have any Scottish blood pulsing through my veins. You try to convince me that one of my ancestors, however many years ago, didn’t walk those shadowed moors and drink of the entrancing solitude and listen for the voice of God. But nothing you say will win me over to your point of view.

If such fiery blood, such determined heartbeat will cross the bounds of generations and hold onto one with a fastness undeterred however many the years - does it not instill within you such an earnest, a profound sense of awe, of duty? To live - to love - to serve well. To listen today for the voice of your Maker as you pray your children and their children after and on and on will listen. To be the shadow from the past - the years forgotten but the burning heart undiminished - one of the mighty witnesses from the clouds to spur on your descendants to follow hard after the God Who knows all such majestic mysteries.