Something Else (Intercession, part 2)

A couple days after posting my last entry (Intercession), I was watching the video of U2 playing "40". I noticed that for this song Adam Clayton and The Edge had switched positions on stage and also switched instruments. Adam played lead guitar and Edge played bass. I found this intriguing and I just couldn't "let it go". As I wondered about this, I vaguely remembered reading something about it. I checked with Wiki and it says that this is their routine.

"During live performances (of "40"), Adam Clayton and The Edge would swap instruments so that Adam played guitar and Edge played bass, and the band members would progressively leave stage, with Bono the first to depart, then Clayton, then Edge, and finally, Larry Mullen, Jr. The crowd would often continue to chant the refrain of "How long...to sing this song?" even after the band had left the stage." -Wikipedia

As I thought about this and reflected on "Intercession", I heard the voice again (or maybe I should say I saw a vision). What I was seeing on video was in some ways similar to what I had witnessed in my friends as they reached out of their struggles to lift up someone else. Had I posted a video illustrating what I had been experiencing without knowing it? (I had initially included a different song (Yahweh) with the post. I switched it to "40" because, well, I felt it gave me the words to pray for my friends. How long?)

Quoting myself from my last post, "I don't know how things like this "work", but it is here that faith happens for me. The fact that people can bear the burdens of others while they are struggling under the weight of their own, engenders a belief in something Bigger and Better, but somehow similar to people, to human beings. It inspires in me, belief in a being whose likeness surrounds me."

Adam and The Edge were playing each others guitar. Adam was "bearing the burden" of The Edge, and vice versa. They were doing the work of each other, with each other. The writer of Galatians said, "Carry each other's burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ (NIV). Theologically, this gets way above my head in a hurry. But in my heart it seems good, and right, and true. I "understand" it in my heart.

The response in me to watching those I love carry the burdens, heartaches, and struggles of others was the encouragement or prompting to have faith in God and a desire to lift them up to Him. It also encouraged me to reach out to them and try to help "bear their burdens". And finally it prompted me to type a blog, post a video, and share this with you. Why? I don't know.

I used to wonder whether these "voices" and "visions" were just me, or coincidence, or something else. Now, at age 41, I am finally beginning to believe, thank God, they are Something Else. I hope this fact somehow helps me (and us, if sharing it with others helps them, or you) to bear our own very real burdens, and also the burdens of others.