weep.

I'm sorry. I really am.

See, I have discovered the Old Testament. Or you would think so from listening to me talk about it. Last week, when the story first broke, I got on the phone with my Dad, like, "Man, did you know about this? This is wiggedy-wackety!" (That's a slight paraphrase.) Or gmail-chatting my friends, saying things like "Dude, I know that you don't crack a bible, but you have got to check this out. The stuff that goes on is craz-ay." (Not at all a paraphrase).

So, I am sorry because if you know the Old Testament, you're going to have to sit tight through some posts about stuff that might not be exciting to you. You know the stories. You know how they end. I pray, though, that my extreme enthusiasm for this new venture stirs something in you. That, though you already know, as I didn't, why people are a bunch of Jezebel haters, or what Esther's deal was, you'll catch my fever. That you'll feel a sort of giddy fascination at the prospect of the gift of reading His Word.

Having said that, let's talk second favorite story: Josiah.

The greatest thing about the Old Testament thus far has been the details. They jump at you, shouting some truth or other, demanding that you rejoice in closeness to Him. In the details, I find my own experiences, echoing forward through millennia, reminding me that my God is One over time, and over place, and over all of the constructs that we create to convince ourselves that we are different.

In 2 Kings, the detail is this one: "...and because you tore your robes and wept in my presence, I have heard you..."

Josiah sends his boys out to take care of some temple business, and in the process, they find The Book of the Law, which they bring back to Josiah to read to him. Josiah gets jacked up over it. He realizes straight away that his people, um, well, haven't been so lawful. So he sends the posse to a prophetess who says: word to your mother--God is ticked, and He's gonna wipe Judah, but because your king is repentant, He'll spare him from having to see the whole nine yards. So Josiah cleans. up. He doesn't just hear the Law, he calls everyone, top to bottom, and reads it to them too, and has them all pledge to stop being heathens. Then the dude goes all out medieval up in there. He purges his territory of every vestige of unlawful worship, slaughtering priests, and burning idols, and doing all sorts of groovy stuff that Quentin Tarantino could make one heck of a movie from. It's intense.

Tucked there in the middle, though, is my detail. "...because you tore your robes, and wept in my presence, I have heard you..." The Lord hears Josiah. Josiah weeps. God hears. Josiah weeps. God hears. Incredible.

Reading these words, and seeing how Josiah's heart was moved by knowing how his people had spurned God, I think about my own encounter with God. And I remember that the time in which I was closest to God, the moment in which He most fully revealed His love to me, was that in which I had allowed myself to be most broken in repentance.

These days, we have a funny sort of connotation with the word "repentance." At least in the secular, liberal culture from which I come. Repentance has to do with canvas tents in Mississippi fields, and money-hungry preachers shouting at the top of their lungs, and hate-mongering, and ignorance, and defenseless kinds of faith that always end up on the news in the quake of a tornado.

That's a sad turn. I don't have anything clever to say about repentance. I don't know why people misunderstand it, or what to do about it. But, I will say, I would be broken ten thousand times over if only to have one more moment like that I spent with Him in love.

Sometimes, I think I don't really get the big picture of sin. I'm so caught up in what a funny little word it is, and how odd it sounds to my friends to talk of "sin," and so busy coming up with more pleasant-sounding euphemisms and explanations, that I miss the call to repent. I ignore the effects of my sin upon my relationship with Him--how it destroys my heart, and pulls me from His presence. I rarely weep, because I rarely see. Or worse, I see a little, but not all, and I toss off an apology to God, as though a tossed-off apology is what He asks of me.

I wonder if I would be one of those kings of Judah who did alright in the eyes of the Lord, but left up the high places. I think I'd rather be one like Josiah, who destroyed the unlawful, and lives in repentance to Him.

Hear me, Father. Bring my heart to weeping, for myself and the world around me, that I might come closer to you.