Ta-Dah'ing In the Middle {31 Days of Celebrating Middle Age}

Ps 92:12 The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree: he shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon. Those that be planted in the house of the LORD shall flourish in the courts of our God.

Flour - ish: 1. To grow luxuriantly: THRIVE. 2. To fare well: PROSPER 3. To be in one's prime.4. To make bold, sweeping movements.

I think I might pull back at the idea of a truly flourishing God. Somehow, I grew up with the vague idea that God is a Yankee, who stoically makes do with what He has got in this narrow earth, and grudgingly uses the lives of sinful people to accomplish things He could have done better had He done it Himself, alone.

I cannot contain the image of God as one who plants new universes, and they branch out in all directions, twining their way through outer space like squash plants, or like the morning glory in my garden. They keep growing. There is no "first frost" to stop them.

My sensibilities balk at a God who would not allow His people to thriftily collect and store more manna than they needed for that day. Why not store some for tomorrow? Wouldn't that mean He didn't have to make as much for them all the next morning? And those twelve baskets of leftovers, after He fed the five thousand...where did I get away with the idea that God saran-wrapped it all, and trotted around the desert with it, just in case anyone else in the crowd got hungry again? "Here - have a half-eaten fish head...ah, and here's a bit of bread. This should tide you over until we get to Martha's house."

Sin-limited brains slow at the image of a God who poofs New Universes into existence, "just because", or who demands that we, flour-less and hot and grumpy, eat fresh bread every morning, or a God who saves the best wine for last. A flourishing God, whose people can be a flourishing people, if they'd but abide in His house.

And what of those "bold, sweeping movements"? Mymymy, if we didn't stop short of an abundant, bread-and-wine-making God, we screech to a halt at His waving His arms in any sort of dramatic gesture. Our thoughts of God are more....decent. Down-to-earth. Dignified. A "flourish" sounds too much like a "Ta-DA!"

God may very well wish me prosperity and all, but I am sure He would definitely not have me ta-da'ing about. Would He? Sounds a bit childish.

Ps 92:14 They shall still bring forth fruit in old age; they shall be fat and flourishing...

Something tells me that ta-da'ing my way past middle age, and into old age, has nothing to do with a larger dress size or a red hat. Thank God.