Write Me

When we are not willing to sit in the dim light of unknowing, but race around the seemingly small room looking frantically for the door, we miss the pen of God, coming to meet us, ready to write something profound on our hearts.  He is willing to reveal mysteries if we will just hold still a while to receive them, to transform us if we will give Him the space.  The reason it seems to happen in the places we fear, is that His pen is piercing and we mistake it for a weapon.

Come Play With Me

The wedding at Cana  was a time of celebration, a time of toasting, a time of new beginnings, both between a man and a woman, and between heaven and earth.  At this beautiful and lavish event Jesus even spoke of it in terms of time. One moment He responded to His mother, “my time has not yet come,” but only a few heartbeats later He heard a holy cue and stepped right into the call.   

The miracle of water being turned into wine, reveals a reality of our God—that He is not bound by either a clock or a calendar.  He had already promised things to His people like returning the years the locusts had eaten, and showed things like bringing a few dead bodies, and a pile of dry bones back to life.  Those were pretty strong messages that  He was more than able to work with our past. But now He seemed to be making quite a statement about having rule over the future too. 

Normally, water flows down into the ground, and the roots of the grape vines slowly drink up its goodness. The plant does it beautiful growing process, and grapes slowly form, then little by little, begin to bulge with heaviness.  A harvester gathers the clusters of ripened fruit and sets them on the slow road to fermentation.  It will be many days later, that a Father can uncork the bottles, fill the glasses, and offer toasts to new brides and grooms.

But it wasn’t like that here.  Not at this wedding.  Not with this guest.  Jesus unknowingly arrived with quite a gift.  He apparently didn’t come with the knowledge that He was about to make this one of the best weddings on record.  Obedience allows surprises like that.  We just never know what opportunity will be in our day when we carry obedience in our pocket, ready to be plucked out at a moment’s notice and used as He weaves us through life, the warp of need and weft of provision and joy intersecting at unexpected turns. 

At Cana He offered the groom and his bride six large containers of wine.  And He offered us, in the same expression, a Kingdom we haven’t earned and fruit that someone else had farmed in some heavenly garden.  Jesus just had to hear well, and then receive what was being sent His way to release on earth in this moment.  Our opportunities come exactly the same way.

Believing brings us to the door.  Obedience is the key to its unlocking.  Joy is the anticipation of what He will do as He walks with us through it, Him holding the bundle, but needing us to hand it out.  Our work on earth is not to create the wine He offers.  He has done all the labor and invites us in to share the delight of seeing the results of it and also being colored by what we experience in the giving.  That part is a gift too. He did the blood, sweat, and tears, then steps back and lets us serve it.  

Old Paths

Sometimes we need to forge our way through the wilderness, but sometimes we need to get ourselves back on the well-worn path of those who have gone before us, remembering the solid ground on which they walked that took them through the fires and storms of their generations.  He walked with them and has not lost the energy or commitment or desire to be as faithful to us in our time.

Learning to Hear

When was the last time I had the courage to let God set the agenda of the conversation when I went to Him in prayer?

A Toast to the Buddy System

The first month of baby 2015 is not yet over and we may find that our budding diapered toddler is already wandering off her own way.  Many of us have probably already strayed from that well-intentioned New Year’s resolutions list, which probably had things on it we really do want to do. 

Maybe before slipping into another year of just abandoning our good intentions by February 1st, we may want to consider that doing difficult things on our own is tough, and maybe we are entering the kindergarten stage of our year where an organized plan of learning something new also involves finding a friend.  Since we are made to live our lives together and help one another along (and admittedly we all need it), maybe we could ask someone to be alongside while we really give our intent another try.  Get someone in on it with you.  Be honest about your need or struggle.  Don’t just have a hope; make a plan.  Invite some accountability with someone who will root for you, and yet help you keep moving forward.  Don’t give up yet on the possibility that you can really turn a corner and press this out.  

You’re heading somewhere good and though it will likely take some effort, it’s worth it.  Let’s get there!

We Need You

 Though we were made to be strong, beautiful, and complete, it seems our current condition has revealed a flip side of the coin that the Fall produced.  Man was made of the ground and filled with God’s breath (soft things).  Woman was made from the rib of the man (a firm thing).  Was that told to us in Genesis so we would be assured that He sees those parts of our humanity and gender as good?  But Man, with his built-in capacity for tenderness, seems compelled to prove his strength, and Woman, with her built-in inner strength, is always trying to catch her breath.

Some of the most twisted things on the planet can be men’s misused power and women’s misused voices, but the world desperately needs the blessing of men’s good strength (oh how we need your courage, gentlemen) and women’s good voices (you have so much that needs to be heard.)  

Growing Young

A quote by G.K. Chesterton:  “Grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony.  But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony.  It is possible that God says every morning, ‘Do it again’ to the sun; and every evening, ‘Do it again’ to the moon.  It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them.  It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.”

Breakthrough

Hands brought together in prayer are not for pleading and clutching for the things that will keep us feeling secure, but to point skyward and pierce spear-like to cut through the barriers, to believe for the freedom He promised, and actively participate in the release heaven’s gifts to the needs of earth. 

Hands raised in worship both offer and receive, letting go of the burdens of the week so there is room for the fresh provision for the week ahead.  

The gifts He gives will often be deposited in us to be given through us.  Watch for what He has brought you, then watch some more for the places you have been brought to share it.

Leaving Easy Street

Christianity is not for the faint of heart.  It is not a quick fix for our most recent layer of  problems.  It is not a life where answers suddenly make all the puzzle pieces fit nicely.  It is not a life where His promises fall out of the sky the moment we have a need. 

It is for the persevering.  It is for the courageous.  It is for those whose hearts burn wildly enough that even when so much doesn’t make sense, they are compelled to follow, even when they stumble as they go.  He is faithful.  He is trustworthy.  But He doesn’t come in a tidy package.  His ways are not our ways.  Our well being doesn’t arrive in the comfortable containers we’d imagined and hoped for.  And prayed for.  Transformation of a human being apparently requires some degree of us being pulled through the wringer, led through the desert, left, it would seem, in the wilderness, until our crying out is spent, our wills worn out, our efforts exhausted, our throats parched, and we can finally notice the song of the bird overhead, the soft trickle of the water coming from the spring that is right there, and the kindling scrap within a heart we thought had died.  He is with us.  He is surely with us.  And He wants us to know Him as He is.

If you decide you want this life, you’re in for a ride.  He will take it, and take you for all you’re worth…this life of yours which, by the way, He thinks was worth His own and for which He has a dream you couldn’t even imagine.

Enter Here

We are a bloody mess, and it was only a God willing to come low and get bloody too that would qualify as Savior to lift us up from the tragedy we had made and the death we have died.  But He doesn’t remove us from the scene of the crime.  He nestles us on His lap right there, draws us up next to His strong chest to hear and feel His heartbeat, then gives us a blessing in a breath close enough to fill us and enliven us again, and sets us down, asking if we’d be willing to help Him get it put back together.  

We sometimes think that serving is always going to be exhausting things, but usually it is the remarkably easy ones that crop up in a typical day.  Most of the time it will be simple responses we are totally able to do…offering a cup of water (or a cup of coffee), sitting with someone who is in pain, some practical help to a friend or stranger in need, an arm around someone who is afraid, reminding them they are not alone, or looking a person in the eye and saying "I'm sorry."  We don’t have to be an expert, we just have to notice what is around us and be present.  

He crossed the gap for us.  And He calls us to step over all the red tape that makes it seem complicated or the yellow tape that too easily gives us a reason not to go.  Cross.  It's why we're here.

Listen Up...and Down

We would probably hold a far better understanding of life if we had regular conversations with both octogenarians and four year olds.

Twinkle Twinkle

Yesterday my friend Doug posted the link that NASA has released of the largest picture ever taken.  Have you seen it?  If not, take a look at the link below.  I watched it.  And I was blown away.

http://www.theloop.ca/nasa-just-released-the-largest-picture-ever-taken-and-you-wont-want-to-miss-it/

So let me talk about the stars for a minute.  You know those little twinkling things in the sky that we usually pass under every night on our way from here to there without so much as giving them a second thought..  You know the sun, our closest star?  It is 93 million miles away, a simple fact we learn in elementary school before we have much of a concept of what a million is. 

But think of it…if we spend a few hours outdoors on a hot day this distant star burns our skin.  Burns.  It BURNS our skin, from 93 MILLION MILES AWAY.  That’s evidently some kind of power that we sort of take for granted.  Oh yeah, we think, the sun.  Sunscreen.  Whatever.

Seriously, 93 MILLION MILES away?  That’s some heat.  That is some intensity.  And that is ONE star.  It’s ONE single PIECE of a magnificent creation that sailed into being from the mind and mouth of God. 

And God breathed out galaxies and galaxies FULL of them  (Andromeda was the one in the photograph) AT THE SOUND OF…HIS...VOICE.    He could have been holding His hands behind His BACK on this one for heaven’s sake!  He has that kind of power? And imagination? And intention? And then, asks us (ASKS us) if He can come to live in us. Oh, LORD, what might happen if we let Him have His way?  What in the world might He do?  Don’t you dare think it would be insignificant.  It may very well be that the will of a human is the most rock solid thing in all creation.  Yet yielded to His plan, and made available for what He could do through a yes?  I can’t even begin to imagine what all He would do with THAT.

Spelling Practice

Some of my favorite people to be around are those with wrinkled shirts and tousled hair, who have lost sleep in their own nights of wrestling with a God who didn’t fit their box, who admit to being confounded by He who tugs at their heart and yet cannot be contained in it.  They have been willing to draw close to Him in spite of the fact that instead of answering the question they asked, He tends to pose a different one (the one that really matters), and instead of making them endlessly comfortable, helps them to find comfort in being stretched. 

These courageous, humble, and seemingly (at least sometimes) crazy people have come to accept, even to love a God whose edges they cannot reach, and are learning to let go of the handles of the satchel they had tried to squeeze Him into and carry.  Until we grapple with the differences between us--size,  importance, and perspective all being high on the list--we may have simply fooled ourselves into thinking we have a superhero buddy who will happily wag a tail and bring us our slippers when we whistle.  “Come here, boy” is no way to address the Creator of the universe.  We sometimes act like He should be grateful that we’ve thrown Him a prayer to fetch, indicated by the way we just fling requests into the heavens without pausing to be amazed at the power of whom we ask.

We all risk trying to wrap a resurrected God back into swaddling clothes.  Fascinating to me are those rare individuals who are trying to meet God on His own terms.   Let’s work on getting the letters in the right order.  It's G-O-D, not D-O-G.

A Moment of Silence

I was thrilled to discover that people around the globe have been increasingly pausing in random places of all kinds, public and private, their heads bowed and hands brought together for moments of silence…until I realized that everyone was just checking their text messages. 

Face to Face

Let us not forget that along with a keen eye, wisdom also has a beak that will tear truth from lies, and talons that are ready to grip us firmly away from stupidity.  She is not mean, but will look us square in the face if we want that much honesty.

Just like with most other things, we tend to soften her down to a sedate and nearly silent advisor.  

But that is not her job.

If we want her, she comes with all her raw beauty.

Who Is Your Potter?

Each day we get shaped.  Our circumstances affect us.  Our relationships certainly do as well.  So do a lot of little things that weave through our lives and whose messages we see and hear and feel.  We are marked by them.  

Also significant is the attitude we have, and whom or what we allow to make the impressions on us, for we don't have to be thrown on the wheel of any old potter who comes along.  Whose thinking do we embrace?  What do we spend our time and money and effort doing?  What do we value?  What do we cultivate?

In some moments (we usually call them “crisis”) we find ourselves in the heat, and just like with clay, those moments can set something firm into our lives. Typically the heat will harden something in us, and it will most likely be a settling in of what we’ve allowed to have the most influence.  We normally can’t predict when some of the most intense fires will be upon us, which makes it seem all the more important that we try to practice daily choosing with care who and what we allow to have such an imprint on us and what kind of thinking is dominating our minds.   We do have some choice, after all, as to how useful and beautiful the shape of our life will be.  

Stick Stuck

I must be careful about the sticks I walk with on slippery slopes.  If I keep feeling the risk of the muddy incline, grabbing this and that to keep good footing, they can easily start to become plunged in around me.

We are all prone to carrying too much. Fear does that.  The sticks that are to be a momentary help toward the next step can too quickly become a weapon in our hand, a fence of protection, or, in extreme cases, a prison we may not even recognize we are in because we can still see through its bars. 

Some are learning to let go of the sticks and looking up to see a companion who reaches out a hand to help.

Creating Beauty

When you feel like you’re going in circles, God might be making something beautiful.

Trust Issues

This God, whose holiness would strip us of all the synthetic drapings we cling to, all the wobbly foundations we insist are essential, all the decorations we claim are beauty, challenges us with this idea that He is Love.  No wonder most of our primal issues are about trust. 

Only those who dare to begin to think that He could be telling the truth, and start on a toddling journey to touch what others fear is dangerous, will discover that it begins to have weight.  Observers call it faith.  Insiders know that though they still can’t see exactly where He is leading or what He might ask in the process, they believe—because they have begun to taste Him along the way—that He will be with them and that He is astonishingly good.  And that is enough.

Finding the Well

He is Father God who is infinite and beyond me, whose heights and depths I do not grasp, but who invites me to continually reach for all the fresh and powerful elements that are waiting for discovery.  He is Son of God who is alongside me, ever present, walking with and guiding, a companion for every part of my life, whose way I can seek when I do not yet see, whose presence I can feel even when I do not understand.  He is Spirit God who is dwelling inside me, giving whispers and nudges that I can learn to increasingly notice.  It seems this triune One has me well covered. 

“Where can I go from Your Spirit? Where can I flee from Your presence?  If I go up to the heavens, You are there; if I make my bed in the depths, You are there.  If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there Your hand will guide me, Your right hand will hold me fast.”  Ps 139 8-9

I instinctively prefer a God who would meet me by tucking my comfy blankets in around me and checking for monsters under my bed and giving me a warm kiss on the forehead and a pat on the shoulder, assuring me that all is well.  He instead continues to invite me to come to the wilderness and while in the adventure with Him to discover that I don’t have to be afraid, and to learn in that journey that all is truly well.

Choose Well

Why do we instinctively try to adjust the universe to the expectation that it should deliver happiness to us when the walls of frustration we inevitably bump into are actually doors to a different understanding? The reality is that life here is often difficult.  It hurts sometimes.  It doesn’t behave.  It certainly doesn’t seem to have our preferences as top priority.  And here we are in the thick of it with a God who has entered it too, to walk with us, cry with us, move along with us as we journey and teach us as we go.  We are offered guidance in our confusion, hope in our desperation, and truth in our lands of delusion. 

The world is also a gorgeous orb, a floating zoo, an alive and ever-changing art gallery.  It is an orbiting nature reserve, and a Petri dish we reside in where we get to decide if love is something we’d like to experiment with.  But love doesn’t have much room when fear is filling so much space.  And the only antibiotic to the infection of fear is Love, which casts it out and heals us.  Kindness is the thing of comfort.  Love is the stronger wiser brother who works for our good.  We are destined to wrestle out our tug of war between love and fear and decide which one we truly believe is more powerful.

Into the Deep

We can swim around the shallows of the faith, staying where the water is warm and the things on the beach that we’ve packed along with us are within easy reach.  We come to get tan, but bring our sunscreen.  We come to enjoy the heat, but have a cooler of icy beverages in tow.  We come oh so near to the waters, but have unrolled our towel to lie on the sand.  We get so close….and stay so safe.

We could swim out into the deeper waters where darker blue and startling cold awaken our pampered bodies and where we discover far more of who He is.  It is as we dive into the places where our feet cannot touch bottom, where the movements of these ocean pulls shift us more at their call and less at ours. Yes, there are dangers out there, but there is a cost to staying on the shore as well.  It is only in the deep that we are likely to experience otherworldly scenes as part of our reality and what, to the wading crowds, will always be undiscovered treasures. 

Random Acts of Kindness

Random act of kindness--definition: an unexpected, undeserved, generous gesture that one might experience due to the thought and action of a stranger.  

Some have been the recipient of these lately through the Starbuck’s drive thru or another commercial location.  We’ve actually been receiving these daily throughout our lives.  Sometimes more recognizable by the nicknames Coincidence and Luck, her birth certificate actually reads Grace, and she’s a beauty.

She’ll probably be sent your way today in a surprising provision, in the call of a friend at just the right moment with just the right words, in the strength to get through a tough day, or through the gorgeous scene of a pristine snow covered landscape, the song of a bird, the pulse of ocean waves, or a star-filled sky twinkling its stunning message in a heavenly Morse code.  However it arrives, it’s got your name on it.

God loves to send this daughter to us with messages sometimes so subtle we may overlook them.  We may be tempted to only think it could be Him if it is packaged in loaves and fishes printed wrapping.  Those come more rarely and are like His long love letters.  Grace is His heart’s note written specifically for you for the moment you need it, pressed like post-its all over your day.  You may have an abundance of them if you are in the midst of difficult circumstances and easily miss them.  But be watchful, my friend, for they are there waiting for you to find.

Ten Gifts

Before we get to the specifics of the list, the ten commandments usually hit us on more general terms.  We naturally bristle at being told what we can and cannot do.  We don’t really like having our preferences challenged or our sacred independence limited by an outsider.  We want to do what we want to do and chase after the things we are sure will take away the gnawing need inside and bring us happiness.   A list of rules handed to us just isn’t much to our liking. 

Our first error is that we trip over its specifics without having gotten to the bigger reason He gave them.

This Designer who made mankind and whose delighted reaction immediately afterward was that this part of His creation was very good, formed us with depth and emotion and an ability to respond to Him and all of life around us.  But with that amazing gift for living widely also came a vulnerability in us to be enamored by things that couldn’t really meet our inner longings, and if they satisfied us in the beginning, would pull many of us into their steely web, letting us discover too late that we’d been imprisoned.  The evening news is full of stories of adventures gone down the back alleys of selfishness or deception.

He knew how quickly and easily we would have our eyes dimmed, our hearts infected, our thoughts askew, and our consciences compromised.  He didn’t want us to suffer for chasing the things He knew would do sometimes irreparable damage, for we couldn’t always find our way back out of the maze we had entered.  And so He gave us clear warnings of the things that would do such damage to us.  We couldn’t see the provision that it was, though we would more readily receive such beneficial direction in other contexts…weather warnings of blizzards or ice storms or tornado or tsunamis coming, detour signs on roads where bridges are out, instructional manuals that come with electrical appliances.  All those are things we acknowledge are for our protection and well-being.  But with the things of the heart, we so easily resist guidance for what will keep us whole.

This God dared to form us with a great capacity for emotions and it has not been without risk.  We have all suffered from wayward hearts.  And yet what would have been the value to Him of making small robots who only followed on command without choice.  He was a passionate enough God to take the chance.

Getting to Know You

Maybe God stays somewhat hidden so that as we relate to Him, it will be a mutual choice and gift to reveal ourselves to one another.  

Intimacy happens that way as trust and care grow, as we believe we are safe, as we are spurred to be better selves, as we recognize junk and desire to let it go, and as we dare to speak our dreams and hope for their tender seedlings to eventually come to fruition.  The company of a friend is a beautiful place and one that invites both the comfort of understanding, the amusement of irony, and the kick in the pants we sometimes need.   

For all His brilliant holiness, He patiently works with my fearful heart and coaxes me to come closer and have tea and paint and play.  In my life He isn’t just about the work of bringing forth a truer version of me; He seems to also want me to discover that there are times (lots of them) when all we need to do is dance and laugh.  

Walking Together

It seems that at the beginning of our journey, we in some authentic way come to believe that God is good.   That is where we all begin.  We can grow on that milk, cutting our teeth on early opportunities to trust, and after practice, and gentle guidance and time, hopefully with good companions, eventually get some kind of meat on our bones that He can be trusted to be doing good here.  But the picture is never totally clear and trust remains an essential part of the path onward.   It is only after building some strength and experience with Him that we can begin to realize without fainting or running away that He is also holy. It can be a terrifying revelation.

He is holy and coming our way.  (Does that sound scary to you?)

Only when something has been built under us and established as a new foundation beneath us, far more solid than our self-preserving ground, do we dare to let Him really close and into the more hidden layers of who we know we are.  We can’t, however, invite Him to come that near without some awareness that He is in charge, and ready to overturn us.  Can we trust Him with that?  We don’t know what that will look like or how turbulent the storm will be as we go in our ridiculously small boat of understanding onto His sea.  And yet, that is where He asks us to come. 

We will never be fully ready--we can’t wait for that.  (It would mean we believed we could handle the situation instead of allowing Him room to be God in and for us.)

We must not be looking for some great reward that is anything but Himself, for He seems to not have our comfort as the primary goal, ease of the path as a priority, or sunshine and roses as a necessity for each day, though He will graciously send them to remind us that this really is a magnificent love story.  He has dared to be present in the darkness, to come to earth, to enter into the chaos of our week to show us how to live forward.  He doesn’t work some kind of transport magic where a wiggled Holy nose takes us far away from the challenge.  He walks with us so we can be together as we go, gathering others He will surely bring, sharing our reason to hope, helping one another, as we have been helped, to strip off the layers of our entangled selves and find our truer ones.

I am not suggesting that we go diving into a deep place that He has not called us to.  He knows what it is time for.  But when He is calling, or tapping at some thing we’d prefer to ignore, listen to the call and follow Him there.  We will find His goodness and His heart that bursts with pride at our willingness to believe Him.   In all of eternity, our short span of time on earth is the only opportunity we will ever have to offer Him the gift of our trust.  Today will have some of those moments.  Let’s not miss them.

Walking in Faith

We desperately need to lean in to faith so as to experience what He will do in the material of our lives.  So much about Him is in the unseen or in the so familiar world of the natural that we easily take its rhythm for granted.  But when we pray, when we trust, we get to sink our teeth into the meat of our beliefs. 

We get to watch Heaven enter earth. (I wonder if our words of supplication actually allow something to come into being in some kind of similarity as His did when He spoke the specific name of a celestial star and it actually was there, a magnificent blazing orb in the velvet sky He was ready to fill with them?  He has not made us to do what He did?)  When we trust with active hearts, we get to hear something in the atmosphere change as voices shift from weariness to strength.  We get to taste the simple manna or lavish feast that has come forth when the ingredients of our confession of faith and the muscle of faith in motion are combined and produce something that even though we asked, amazes and humbles us.  This is our God.  The One who longs for our confidence and trust. 

I notice that the ground is not spewing out the screeches of seeds that are always and inevitably dying in their process of birthing the new life they hold.  I wonder why we resist and run from the possibilities that our own lives and circumstances offer.

It will be good for us to remember that beginning the day on our knees, being willing to be planted into the soil of life that is called Today, will bring a bit more goodness to earth.  Being on yielded knees is a holy act indeed, and one He will never take lightly.  It is earth’s gateway to all He promised.  Jesus has finished the work.  He is waiting for believers to tap into its delivery to the planet by actually living what we profess to believe.  

Night's Invitation

We need the night.  We need its quiet and its stillness.  We need the lush thickness of dark that gives us a pause from our hectic pace.  We need the break from the clamor that pushes its way on us in the busyness of every day so that our minds can notice the whispering things that are tugging at our hearts where our truer selves reside.  When the noise dies down we can discover the messages that are streaming ever so slightly under the surface and almost inevitably running the show, determining how we live out our daylight hours.  Something drives us, and for many of us our fears are holding the reins. 

At night we unwrap ourselves from the drapings of the day and settle in to less restrictive garb.  We can also unhook the deceptive “have-to” leashes and the worry that threatens to totally entangle us. 

It is so easy to live in a hide and seek existence where we tuck away all the things we’d rather not face.  But if we will resist filling the night with the same day-buzz distractions and let the quiet have its way, we can find a wonderful intimacy of our most tender and small and honest selves meeting the One who can remind us of a bigger truth, who has already spread all the stars as guiding lights, promising to love and help us along our way.  We can whisper our fears to Him and snuggle in the safest place while He helps us sort them out.  We can receive the assurance that we are not alone, that Someone good truly cares, and even though He will not keep us from the challenges of life that stretch us and drive us crazy sometimes, He will be endlessly present with us every day, and there also waiting to welcome us back home at night, even if we’ve had a prodigal day.

The night offers us more than to collapse onto our beds in exhaustion only to rise coffee-charged to do the rat race all over again.  The night invites us to be, to know and be known, to find that we are loved and be released into the reality that we too can love.    

Patience in the Moonlight

I wonder what would happen in my life if I more often responded to the gentle nudges of His call instead of turning to distractions and running to hiding places.

I wonder what would happen if I turned this year to the subtle things He brings to my attention instead of making the excuses of the urgency of my to-do list, because I fear what He will ask is too difficult.

I wonder what would happen if I didn't snap into "fix it" mode, in whatever recipe that happens to be in my life with my fears, and let Him have more room to resolve an issue His way as I followed Him on that path.

I wonder what freedom could be found, what peace could be mine, what gifts there would be to share if I entered the waves with Him when He rolled them gently my way, trying to get my attention to something He wants to say, something He wants to heal, something wonderful He'd love for me to discover about a greater depth of who He is.

I think He is asking me to sit with Him in the moonlight, waiting for His pace and the turning of the seasons more patiently.  The sunlight can be dazzling, but it can sometimes also be a scorching place when He has also provided me a cool of the night and the glimpse of the stars and wants me to rest quietly with Him there, seeing in new ways the galaxies of His heart of which I've barely scratched the surface.

Blessed Contractions

I am a created being, set in time and space by His design.  I am in a relationship with the God who envisions and unfolds, though I see it so thinly, and I am filled with His Spirit who brings joy and purpose into the years and days and moments for Him to catch them and tenderly hold the most precious things we can give—our true selves shattered though we may be.  I, WE, have received the invitation of the King, an endless treasure waiting to work His beauty and strength into us and into the world.

But the message is somewhat in disguise, and certainly challenging to our human tendencies of self-preservation.  We are asked to take part in the great things He imagines and empowers to be.  In the midst of this amazing opportunity to live in His company, I am vulnerable, wounded, broken, and sometimes disappointed.   Living hurts and I can only see both the things of earth and of heaven in part.  And right in the middle of that perspective He asks me to be willing to trust Him. He knows it is in the rebirth from the shrouded womb of veiled understanding and foggy eyes that gains me glimpses of the light of truth, the breath of His Word and call, and the ability to stretch and move and play and twirl that can only be discovered when I am free from former prison bars.  This journey often feels like death.  It too often feels scary and constricting and harsh, until we have progressed through the birthing canal of obedience and perseverance and trust, and finally feel more tangibly His warmth and muscular arms holding us and celebrating our life on the other side of these particular contractions.   

Remarkably, old wounds can be healed in new time.  Lost days can be redeemed in these new calendar pages.  Years that the locusts of our lives have consumed can be restored as we sit with Him and let Him tell us the stories of all that He sees for the coarse fabrics of earthly life and the damage that we, and others, have done. 

As I consider time and the passing of years, blessings He has given, and missed opportunities, I realize again that He IS the beginning and the end and the One who is equally present in all, through all, over all.  A day or a moment are only limited for His glorious fingerprints by the width of the doorway I offer Him.  But when I will believe and welcome Him in, I feel again the power of His nearness, the deep assurance of His delight, the beauty that is HERE that fear would have had me miss.  

He has brought back to mind twice recently a word and vision that made a significant mark on me back in the fall of 2000.  “Come play with Me,” He said.  And it is in trusting the One I discovered in that moment, a Savior who delights in our companionship, that He really is a God of resurrection work.  The tomb of Lazarus, the burial place of Joseph of Arimathea that He briefly borrowed, and the seeming deaths of our own lives are not barriers for Him if we will come out of our tombs when He calls our name.  He is the God of “never-too-late”.  When He is present, anything is possible.