Perched Above My Chamber Door
GCD Weekly Newsletter - January 9th 2023
Grief can arrest and detain us as surely as any officer of the law. In his famous poem, Edgar Allan Poe explores the ways in which we try to control and subdue grief, all through the guise of a Raven perched above the bedroom door of a bereaved man1. The man, though at first entertained and astounded by the presence of the bird, becomes increasingly restless, offended, and dismayed as the Raven continues to remind him of his great loss, and how he’ll never be free from it, no matter what he does.
All of this is set against the backdrop of a door, a door the man could have left through at any time, but due to his unwelcome companion, the idea never crosses his mind. As we go into the new year, we’ll come across people who, though presented with the opportunity to knock on the door of faith (Lk 11:9, Mt 7:7) and enter into the kingdom of God, will find themselves distracted, disgusted, or otherwise deterred because of some word or work of the enemy perching above that door. For some, it will be grief, for others pain, cultural norms, embarrassment, convenience, or a whole array of other voices calling in other directions. If we used a spiritual radar around a young man on the verge of responding to the Lord, I reckon there’d be more dots than spaces. It’s heartbreaking then that on occasion, it isn’t the enemy which draws people away from the door, but us. The church has an endless supply of love available to her, drawing directly from the source, and so our capacity for loving others should be endless too, no? If only it worked like that, each of us has bad days, we have theological or political hobby horses we struggle to jump down from, and worst of all some of us can’t bear any of the fruits of the spirit until we’ve had a long black or cappuccino.
I’m not calling for perfection, but for two seconds of your time, as often as you can remember to take them. When speaking with someone at church, especially a visitor, ask yourself, “am I standing by the door, or above it?” These past few years have been full of grief for many, formative for some, and yet others have been gripped by their need for more than the world can offer, and are now looking for God—even if they don’t know it yet. Let’s, as Jen Oshman puts it in her article this week, leave “the comfort of [our] longheld and deep friendships, to ensure that every stranger receives a warm welcome.”
Grace and Peace,
Adsum Try Ravenhill is married to Anna and together they are passionate about seeing young men and women discipled within the context of the local church. You can find Adsum through his writing at The Raven’s Writing Desk and alongside Anna as the co-host of the Consider the Ravens Podcast, you can also find Adsum’s articles for GCD here.
At the tail end of last year, we released a book by Stephen Morefield on discovering the joy of heaven, called Always Longing. One of the best reviews we’ve read of the book was released just this past week by Tim Challies, who says in his review:
“I don’t think I’m wrong in suggesting that few of us spend much time dreaming about Heaven. Most of our longings extend little farther than what we can see, have, and experience here on earth. And yet the consistent message of the Bible is that there are treasures and blessings beyond this earth that are so beautiful, so wonderful, so desirable, that the best of earth’s joys will pale by comparison.”
It’s for this reason that it’s imperative that we understand the insufficiency of our imaginative capacities when it comes to dreaming of heaven, and then learn to rely on the beauty of the Bible to make up for those insufficiencies, guiding us along our way when beauty is hard to find here on earth.
Generations of Chronological Snobbery
— Adam Salloum (@adamEsalloum)
“In a post-enlightenment world in which we can (or think we can) explain so much more than our forebears, chronological snobbery is second nature. Technology and culture change so quickly in our globalized world that ideas can become outdated in a matter of years, if not months. Ideas can go viral on social media and subsequently become “problematic” in days.”
What Philippians 2 Teaches us About Welcoming Others at Church
— Jen Oshman (@jenoshman)
“[Jesus] laid himself down. He cast aside his status and poured himself out. He gave everything—his very life, which ended in a violent death—to welcome us into the family. He does not stand far off, aloof, and cold. He does not require us to clean ourselves up before coming to him. He seeks us. He left heaven and came to us. Oh, what a merciful Savior! Oh, what an unfathomably good King!”
Trusting Through Trials and Tragedies
— James Williams (@j_williams72)
“[Good] news: God is bigger than anything we face, even in our darkest hour and deepest pain. Scripture does not tell us to look within ourselves for strength, but rather to look to the Lord. He has not left us alone. One of the most encouraging promises in Scripture is that he will never leave nor forsake his people (Heb. 13:5).”
Grace and Peace,
Adsum Try Ravenhill is married to Anna and together they are passionate about seeing young men and women discipled within the context of the local church. You can find Adsum through his writing at The Raven’s Writing Desk and alongside Anna as the co-host of the Consider the Ravens Podcast, you can also find Adsum’s articles for GCD here.
“Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,
In there stepped a stately Raven of the saintly days of yore;
Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he;
But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door—
Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door—
Perched, and sat, and nothing more.”
Edgar Allen Poe