Feeling the Weight (Wait?)

In my days B.C. (before Christ) – or at least before my awareness of the Risen Christ within - the greatest pain I experienced was lonliness and utter lostness, the fearful drowning in the dark waters of terror. Since coming to Him, receiving Him, the greatest pain seems to be being misunderstood. Especially as I grow in my familiarity with my own heart and my understanding of the heart’s centrality in the Story in which we’re living (or should be living, because it’s Reality), the more my heart is missed or minimized, the more painful it becomes.

This week has been full of misunderstandings – initiated in various ways by the Adversary, by the Accuser of the bretheren. I don’t know what to do with the pain all this brings… Except that these lines bring some level of hope and courage: “the pain is an ocean, tossing us around, around, around, but You have come, Greater Waters, and Higher Mountains have come down…”

Indeed, the mercy and life and love of my tender wild lover God is like a waterfall, his tides and breakers washing over me in swelling waves (Psalm 42:7).

I long to feel this: the strength of my body, the passion of my heart, the prowess of my mind. I want to feel the weight of truth behind my words, the muscle behind my fists, the intention behind each step, the hope behind my faith. I want to be in touch with the core underneath the visceral, the desire underneath the seen. Christ, You are the What and the Who I want. You animate me, give me life and heart, breath and passion and the invitation into the greatest romance… and these are what I stay alive for.

Emmanuel, God with Us

It is perhaps one of the greatest understatements of all time, full of hope and mystery, and ushering in the greatest raucous that has ever burst forth on this earth. To a fearful group of wayward shepherds, keeping weary eyes open to watch their sheep late on a clear night, appears a powerful member of the Angel Armies who, upon seeing their shocked and trembling countenances, says, “Don’t be afraid. I bring you good tidings of great joy…” And so, on such a small introduction follows the greatest promise we can have, given to the lowliest and poorest of us all.

God has come. He has traveled the furthest distance from the Throne room to an unknown cave, fighting through all the forces of the Evil One arrayed against His plan, to make Himself known to the humbled, to the fringes of the population, heralded by goats, by sheep, and by astrologers from the east. Here, in this tiny infant – vulnerable, helpless, needy – rests not only our hope for life, but our restoration as well, our invitation to take our place once again in the story God has been telling for a long, long time. It is a Story of heroic proportions, of daring rescues, of passion and pursuit, of battle and adventure, and of intimacy beyond our wildest imaginations. Of heroes masked in wrappings of spittle and enemies masquerading as angels of light. It is a Story that begins, “Once upon a time” and ends “And they lived happily ever after…”

We are they. And the depths of our hearts burn with the anticipation of all that awaits, of all that began so, so long ago, of all that concludes with our full release into all we were created for…