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.