The Writing on The Wall

James 4:7-10  Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded. Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up.

Our hostel is covered in writing. Multiple languages, colors, densities, images, and profanities. I peer at the layers of scribbles as I unpack my big pack. Gap G is staying in Brashov, a dreamy mountain town 2 hours from Bucharest by train. We will spend a week here debriefing, processing, and resting before moving  to the Dominican Republic. Honestly, I’m worn out. It was with fantastic relief that I tucked myself into my sleeping bag and shut my eyes. For a world racer, I go to bed relatively early. Anyone who shares a room with me is usually irritated that I insist on the lights turning off at 10:30, so I’ve learned to just deal with the burning red inside of my eyelids and the buzz in my ears when the light is still on and my roommates stay up late chattering. Tonight, however, there was a new noise. Scratch, scratch. I roll over to see one of my squadmates perched on a chair, painting the wall.

“What are you doing?” I mummer groggily. “I’m covering this stuff with God’s Word.” She responded, not taking her eyes from the wall. I recognized John 3:16 as she outlined it against the crowded wall. I rubbed my eyes, thinking about the story in Daniel 5. King Belshazzar of Babylon threw a banquet for his nobles, and wanting to flaunt his power, ordered that the goblets stolen from the temple of the Jewish God be brought and drunk from. He, his nobles, his wives, and concubines drank wine, praising the gods of wood, silver, gold, and stone while congratulating themselves in their own importance. Suddenly, a human hand appeared and began to write on the wall, “Mene, Mene, Tekel, Parsin.” The king was terrified and sent for Daniel, who interpreted the writing, “God has numbered the days of your reign and brought it to an end. You have been weighed on the scales and found wanting. Your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and the Persians.” Even in a room soaked in prideful revelry, the Lord made His Name known. They praised the gods of materialism, while God asserted His ownership over every wall, every room, every kingdom, every human. Belshazzar was caught in the act of misplaced worship, and paid with his kingdom and his life. 

In the same way, we act as if our lives are our own, as if we can write whatever we want on our walls. When we worship anything other than God Almighty, we insist that we are exempt from the natural law that everything bows down to Him. But our hearts belong to God, and He does not tolerate arrogant self-sufficiency. He has made His home here, and everything we are belongs to Him. He is well within His rights to scratch His Word onto our walls. 

My squadmate continues to paint, and I wonder who the next person to see that verse will be. I hope their hearts are flooded with conviction, like the heart of Belshazzar was. Maybe they will be curious, about this God  so loved the world, that he gave His one and only Son. Maybe they will be encouraged in their faith. No matter what, I am confident that His Word will assert ownership of that wall, where before only careless scrawling reigned. Submit yourselves to God, Christian. Read the word scrawled into the scripture and your heart. Let Him paint over your intentions and preferences, and you will find life in abundance.