I had a teacher once--when DVDs were a new thing--who believed that they would last hundreds of years.
He was wrong.
I just want to watch one scene from the last Lord of the Rings--I mean, I want to watch the whole movie if possible, but at the least the final, triumphant Return of the King.
Not to be my fate tonight...
But then again--who really wants to see the ending without the beginning and the middle and all thats in between?
It's a tricky thing, living.
Sometimes you think your best days are just around the corner and you want to live all the rest out on fast forward, to get to the ones you think you will really love, the triumphant, love wins, joy filled moments when heaven comes...
...but Jesus asks us to be in on the fight, dancing with Him through horrendous moments, knowing His closeness and nearness as the ones around us seem to be going through hell but He's there and we can let them know.
If I got to the end...and hadn't lived out all the parts in between...it wouldn't be much of an ending.
This is a call to live well your fight--for a King is coming--and we are asked to stay faithful, steadfast, trusting in His words and His love for us, even when the world is just war.
Because endurance only comes from having to endure something--and patient endurance only comes as we patiently endure the trials of this life. Joy follows pain--the first is deadened without the wreckage of the last...and though we would like to skip all the suspense and see our King return and heaven come immediately--the middle parts, all the living, is where we grow into the Queens and Princesses, Warriors and Gallant Men that we always were and will be.
This road is no easy straight path to glory--let me never over-simplify the journey--but the pain and joy have purpose. Each step, when consecrated to our King (and that is my word for this year, He keeps asking me to give this year back to Him, my hands off of everything and no more trying to figure it all out on my own) when I choose to live that kind of life, He has promised to turn it all to His glory.
Glory--He will work all things for my good--when I am consecrated to Him, existing for His purposes and listening for His words to me. Will you join me into this journey into the dark? He promises to be a light in dark places, the one guiding us home. He promises us rescue, He promises favor and He promises His Presence--will you take Him at His word and enter the dark, enter the world, shining out light?
He'll be waiting...
Pressing into the dark.
Showing posts with label waging war with Jesus. Show all posts
Showing posts with label waging war with Jesus. Show all posts
Sunday, January 26, 2014
Wednesday, January 15, 2014
Letting Go Love
My life has been crazy for the last few months...
Have you ever noticed that you have to step back from a situation/problem to really realize how it has affected you and what it has done deep down in your soul? Yeah, that was this weekend for me.
I lost my faith these last few months. Faith in the little God who liked to sprinkle fairy dust through the air and trip alongside us singing...but that faith was replaced by a Faith in a God who knows us to the core of who we are and still desperately longs to let us be known and to know Him. He will stop at nothing to get at your heart (even deep pain) and exists solely in your life to breathe on your dreams and shape you into them--and that will take a lot of gasping, enormous breaths and groaning as we emerge through the storm (wind, rain and tears) with only the Promise that He will be there and we have nothing to fear.
And we have nothing to fear.
To be our best selves, our most complete selves, our true selves comes out of a deep, aching vulnerability. A facing of all your worst fears with the ability to move forward out of them unscathed. It's a completely bizarre and intensely rewarding process that God only blesses His warriors with. If you were made for the battle, you will go into training.
That's where I've been the past few months. Continuing to take orders and follow His commands in the middle of miserly, dire circumstances where hope should (and often was on the verge of) being snuffed out. But we kept pressing forward, He and I, every once in a while coming clear into the light, able to see each other's smiles and He'd laugh and say, "We're not through it yet."
At moments I hated the "We're not through it yet." It seemed a soggy waste to go on when there was no progress--but that wasn't the point. The point is never how many people you find to love and hug on you back--its to learn the letting go love, the love that Jesus showed us for the first time on the cross, where He gave everything He had in a loving, desperate act and then stepped back and let us figure it out. How would we react to this strange giving of all He had? Would we choose to believe that He had indeed opened a way for us to be a part of a mystical "here" and "not-yet-here" kingdom? Would we love Him back?
The choice is everything, but the choice is never forced. It is simply offered, to believe trust and fall into or to walk away from. I have seen many of both and in my loving, in my giving of my best over and over again for His glory I have seen some love me desperately back (you know who you are, the ones who give me long hugs and pray with me until we get kicked out of church and talk with me as I mourn what could have been) and there have been others who crushed me and my dreams and sang as they walked away. And I have continued to love both.
Because my example is Jesus. always will be (O Perfection!) and He reminds me that I love them because He first loved me. Joy will come as I keep looking to Him in hope, holding my empty hands out again to be filled with His love and then spread it everywhere He deigns it wonderful for me to be. They can do as they like, the love will never stop and thus the throwing out His love every place I encounter will, by the same token, never have its end.
And I am grateful.
These last few months have been wonderful scary and hopelessly dramatically full of His love. I love the work He is doing, despite the pain, and I will continue to follow His course as many days as I have breath.
Join me.
Have you ever noticed that you have to step back from a situation/problem to really realize how it has affected you and what it has done deep down in your soul? Yeah, that was this weekend for me.
I lost my faith these last few months. Faith in the little God who liked to sprinkle fairy dust through the air and trip alongside us singing...but that faith was replaced by a Faith in a God who knows us to the core of who we are and still desperately longs to let us be known and to know Him. He will stop at nothing to get at your heart (even deep pain) and exists solely in your life to breathe on your dreams and shape you into them--and that will take a lot of gasping, enormous breaths and groaning as we emerge through the storm (wind, rain and tears) with only the Promise that He will be there and we have nothing to fear.
And we have nothing to fear.
To be our best selves, our most complete selves, our true selves comes out of a deep, aching vulnerability. A facing of all your worst fears with the ability to move forward out of them unscathed. It's a completely bizarre and intensely rewarding process that God only blesses His warriors with. If you were made for the battle, you will go into training.
That's where I've been the past few months. Continuing to take orders and follow His commands in the middle of miserly, dire circumstances where hope should (and often was on the verge of) being snuffed out. But we kept pressing forward, He and I, every once in a while coming clear into the light, able to see each other's smiles and He'd laugh and say, "We're not through it yet."
At moments I hated the "We're not through it yet." It seemed a soggy waste to go on when there was no progress--but that wasn't the point. The point is never how many people you find to love and hug on you back--its to learn the letting go love, the love that Jesus showed us for the first time on the cross, where He gave everything He had in a loving, desperate act and then stepped back and let us figure it out. How would we react to this strange giving of all He had? Would we choose to believe that He had indeed opened a way for us to be a part of a mystical "here" and "not-yet-here" kingdom? Would we love Him back?
The choice is everything, but the choice is never forced. It is simply offered, to believe trust and fall into or to walk away from. I have seen many of both and in my loving, in my giving of my best over and over again for His glory I have seen some love me desperately back (you know who you are, the ones who give me long hugs and pray with me until we get kicked out of church and talk with me as I mourn what could have been) and there have been others who crushed me and my dreams and sang as they walked away. And I have continued to love both.
Because my example is Jesus. always will be (O Perfection!) and He reminds me that I love them because He first loved me. Joy will come as I keep looking to Him in hope, holding my empty hands out again to be filled with His love and then spread it everywhere He deigns it wonderful for me to be. They can do as they like, the love will never stop and thus the throwing out His love every place I encounter will, by the same token, never have its end.
And I am grateful.
These last few months have been wonderful scary and hopelessly dramatically full of His love. I love the work He is doing, despite the pain, and I will continue to follow His course as many days as I have breath.
Join me.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)