Sick Day
More than once, one of our sick boys ended up wedged between Stacey and me in the middle of the night, and there wasn't a thing we could do to fix what was wrong. A reflection on Ephesians 4:1-16.
Ephesians 4:1-16
Phrases that spoke to me today:
• eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace
• one body and one Spirit
• speaking the truth in love
• builds itself up in love
Applying the Word to My Life:
Paul begs the Ephesians to walk worthy of their calling and stay eager for the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace - not because things are already finished between them, but because it's the thing worth protecting while everything else keeps being hard.
When Christ was physically walking the earth, His followers still had real trouble - hunger, storms, arrest, confusion about what He was even doing. What He gave them wasn't an absence of hardship. It was Himself, physically there, and that presence was enough to hold peace inside all of it. They didn't need Him to explain everything or fix everything before they could rest in it.
As a father I've had the chance to see the power of mere presence. When our boys were young, they'd wake up sick in the night and come find us. More than once we ended up with one of them wedged between Stacey and me, feverish, unable to sleep, and there wasn't a single thing either of us could do to fix what was actually wrong with him. We couldn't lower the fever by being there. We couldn't stop the stomach from hurting. He didn't ask us to explain the fever or promise it would pass by morning - he just needed us close. And something in him settled anyway, just from us being there in the dark with him.
That's not only parenting. It's what we're called to be for each other as Christians - comfort we can't manufacture, delivered simply by being present. That's what Paul means by the bond of peace, I think - not the absence of the thing that's wrong, just presence inside of it. Christ isn't physically in the room anymore, but He built a body specifically so somebody still would be.
Every part of that body - one Spirit, one hope, one Lord - exists so someone can be the hands that show up in the dark for whoever's hurting and can't be fixed tonight. That's not a lesser version of what Christ did. It's the same presence, still working, through whoever's willing to show up. Some nights that's a parent. Some nights it's just whoever from the body is close enough to come.
My Response for Today:
Today I'll show up for someone whose problem I can't fix, and just stay.