Falling into the Hands

I remember, with slight unease, the verse that has haunted me ever since I read it long ago.

It contrasts sharply with a lot of current prosperity God talk: "It is a fearful (terrible) thing to fall into the hands of the living God" (Hebrews).

On the other hand what a absolutely marvelous heart adventure "falling into the Hands" can mean. I think when my heart stops beating at the end of the final road, it would be great to look back and think "what a frightening but wonderful journey that was".

The Old and New testaments are full of evidence of "how fearful it was" to "fall into" the hands of Yahweh. The unnameable YHWH - as the Jews spoke it. Sometimes in our preoccupations with "living" we never get to the point of wanting to "fall into those awesome Hands".

I just watched a tv programme that is following the lives of a few men spending 6 weeks in a Benedictine monastery. The men - atheist, agnostic, criminal, skeptics - were bending and breaking, and changing with such humility and openness under the awesome Hand of God. They were beginning to "fall into the Hands" through the beautiful quietness and solitude.

It made me wonder whether our lack of solitude and silence with God, is robbing us of the greatest adventure of "falling into the Hands". Maybe we have crowded Him out with our mediocre, noisy, and often just plain activity filled and meaningless lives.