Another Odd Coincidence—Andrew Peterson

Another Odd Coincidence

Another odd coincidence:
I read all week in the blue book—
The one Kenny gave me—
About longing. I followed
The reading plan: prayer
About thirsting to be thirsty,
Yearning to yearn,
Then Scripture.

“O God, you are my God.
Earnestly I seek you.
My soul thirsts for you,
My flesh faints for you
As in a dry and weary land
Where there is no water.”

I read it every day this week.
This morning before church
I sat in my pajamas under
The wedding quilt and finished
The week’s reading plan.

“Yes,” I thought.
“These are good verses,
Good writings, good prayers.
I want to want you, Lord.
This is why you made me.”

Then we drove to church.
I sat down in the pew
And Russ preached on
The lame man at the pool
Of Bethesda. He asked us:

“Beside what pool do you sit?”

Jesus asked the man,
“Do you want to be healed?”
And the man hemmed
And hawed, shuffled his
Useless feet. He wanted healing,
But not Jesus.
There at the pool
He did not thirst
For living water.

And so was my week of devotion
Perfectly punctuated. I sought
Spiritual formation. I sought
Wisdom. I sought inspiration.

And in this coincidence, not only
Do I realize the futility of seeking
Any good
Without seeking
Goodness himself,

I am smacked with the sense
That you want to show me
In this alignment of circumstance,
This cohesion of my reading
With the sermon I drove to hear,

That you are with me.

Emmanuel
Is the bone-splitting Truth.
Emmanuel:
God became flesh
And dwelt among us.
Emmanuel:
Every other doctrine
Consummated in a word.
In a name.

God is a God who wants
Me to remember,
And remembering, to believe,
That he knows my every cell,
Thought, and compulsion.
His life beats my heart,
Binds my bones.

He is with me, with me, with me,
And I belong to him, belong
To him, belong to him.

What else is there?

What else could there be?

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Photo by Felipe Santana on Unsplash