Lest You Dash Your Foot Against a Stone

Today on Facebook, someone posted a meme asking, "Who starts a hymn with 'you who'?" which got stuck in my head.

The priest at mass mentioned how sometimes you can read a Bible story over and over again and yet still, all of a sudden, a certain verse jumps out at you.  The one that jumped out at him wasn't the same as mine, especially primed as I was to think about "On Eagle's Wings".

Because I never put that together, that the fourth verse, "For to His angels He's given a command: to guard you in all of your ways.  Upon their hands they will bear you up, lest you dash your foot against a stone" is not about the angels having to turn away from helping you because you have turned from God's blessings like Moses dashing the stone that was giving water in his anger.  After all, Moses used his staff, not his foot for that.  That's the image I've always referenced though.

And I'm sure "Eagle's Wings" is based on the psalm the devil is quoting in Jesus's temptation...but boy oh boy did it make me wonder about all of the songs in church today about calling on God in distress.  "Be With Me Lord" had a moment that stuck out to me.  "When I'm in trouble and I don't know where to go."

Jesus tells the Devil that it would be putting God to the test, that it would be unworthy to force God's hand.  That going around jumping off buildings because you think God should protect, well, it just makes you that man who's house is flooding.  Who dies praying for God's help and goes to heaven to be told that he turned away the news report, the truck, the row boat, and the helicopter that God sent.

What we should pray to God for help with is withstanding temptations.  Be they obvious but still seductive, like Jesus endured in the desert, or subtle, fast-moving, and easy to miss like they seem to appear in ordinary life.

Jesus demonstrated in a dire situation that you don't demand that God turn rocks into bread even though He could.  You don't demand a boon.  That the rules of the world be granted.  Yes, He has a history of doing it.  But you don't get to set the schedule for your own convenience.

And you don't make a show of His power on your whim or for your pride or to make your job easier to do.

And you don't even pray away the existing structure and nature of the world.

Not because it's good enough.

Because that's our job, our work.  Of course God could wave it all away.  And sometimes that's all I want Him to do as well.  But God and His angels don't run around keeping stones out of my path.  I believe they give me spiritual comfort and strength.  I believe they've helped me find my peace in moments of trial.  To reach for my best self.

With difficult parents or students to make that little mental checkpoint of, "Okay, how would I have responded to that request if they had made it respectfully?"

Praying for strength for yourself to endure the world makes sense to me.  And I have been spiritually cradled in God's hand (or eagle's wings if you prefer).

But I won't ask Him to turn the stones in my path into bread or distort the laws of gravity to allow me to float gently down from a great height.