The Haunting

I am recently experiencing the Haunting of God through the edgy, sharply raw sounds of Alanis Morisette's voice and the music in her song "Wunderkind" from the Narnia soundtrack. I'm being awakened, again, into some epic story going on to which I know almost so deeply you can say instinctively that I play a part. A large part. Not by default, and not one I will enter into passively. But I am destined to a place, to a role, in a story where, as Alantis sings, "great will be done."

And this calling is beckoning me to take it, to press beyond all the earthly stuff that has kept me bound and forever attempts to coil my legs with his tentacle hands: those things of work and worries and dreams and will they survive to see the life of day? This Calling says intrinsically not to kill those dreams or desire but to let them go a bit so that they can be found again in a greater context - the context of my life lived in the Kingdom and in this calling. "Seek first this Kingdom," it seems to be stating through the fog of sleepiness and fear. "Abandon yourself to the mystery of who you truly are. Embrace that. Embrace Me," is spoken through the music and words by the Great One who is both present here and hauntingly beyond drawing me toward that life.

And this Beckoning - it is deeper, so much deeper than words, so that I find it difficult to even feign an attempt of accurately capturing it with words. Indeed, I'm finding that impossible, to capture it. So maybe a hunt to the thing, like a roadsign to a beautiful city, is all I could hope to do. And the response itself, like the calling, demands something deeper than words as well, a response that is authentic and to be so must come from the core, the heart, and must come from all of it.

This morning while listening to this haunting I find myself praying without trying and even without wordding any thought. It is deeper speech, and I'm almost basking in the listening, the hearing, of my Savior's utterances that are, once more, deeper than words, like the unspoken years and wooings of a groom's winking eye toward his bride and for him the golden rays reflected from her hair as she swivels her head in his direction to catch a glimpse of him, and their eyes momentarily lock and they know what no one else knows, that something and everything that binds them at the level of soul. It is the unspoken acknowledgement of a father sitting somewhere in a sea of onlookers as he nods his proud and approving head in the direction of his staged son who, after stretching all performance long, finally catches his dad's face, suddenly knowing that all along his eyes were never averted or diverted or distracted from his son, and the dad's delight stretches into the years when the boy will grow to be a man himself. O stem, O stock. And like a comrade's smile held by something known and about to be revealed to his friend as he quickly tilts his head in the direction of this something with the invitation to follow to this shared secret. Something between them, like shared battle strategies between army generals. No words are spoken. No words are necessary. In fact, the moment may be dimished by them. There is sahred excitement, shared knowing, shared joy, shared pleasure.

Jesus is saying this to me today. "Saying" is a limited word, as it is not speech, but then all these words are limited. He's inviting me to let myself be haunted and all things lost in me to be hunted and captured and rescued and freed. I feel Him saying to me to be still and let His voice come undiluted and even unchallenged by my own voice. This is my daily prayer today. It seems I have all today and that He has made all provision necessary without my asking anything, though I'm asking for Everything. Today I am to let my heart be taken in and filled with all He wants to bring me, and I am to stay with Him in it. Come, Lord Jesus. Bring all to my heart today of the Life, present and full, that You have come to bring.

To understand the words of our Lord is the business of life. For it is the main road to the understanding of The Word himself. And to receive him is to receive the Father, and so to have Life in ourselves. And Life, the higher, the deeper, the simpler, the original, is the business of life.

-from George Macdonald, Unspoken Sermons

Out of the Shadows

The idle flapping of the sail is doubt;
Faith swells it full to breast the breasting seas.
Bold, conscience, fast, and rule the ruling helm;
Hell's freezing north no tempest can send out,
But it shall toss thee homeward to thy leas;
Boisterous wave-crest never shall o'erwhelm
Thy sea-float bark as safe as field-borne rooted elm.

-George MacDonald

A few days ago I was driving home from work and the Scripture came to mind about how the world will know us. I think in one of John's epistles he says that "they will know you by your love." I've always taken that to mean our love of God, our love of each other, our love of others, that kind of thing. And while I think that's still the gist of it, I realized something I've been missing.

John says that we will be defined by our love, that in a world full of despair and cynicism, hatred and fear, we will be known by those around us as those that still love, that still in some deep way have a capacity to love. And love what? Certainly God, certainly people, but I think we'll also be known for loving the things that are worthy and noble and true that Paul points out. I love chocolate molten cake hot out of the oven with vanilla bean ice cream melting quickly on top, spreading like some gigantic glacier sitting atop a volcano, and drizzled high with magma-like chocolate syrup. Mmmm. I love the way that the sunset each night invents new colors to threw into our sky. I love my wife's eyes, because in them I see the deepest and most beautiful heart I've know here. And I love God's Kingdom. I love to live in it. I love to learn of it. I love to express it.

For some time, I've had a real urgent and potent desire to walk in a specific calling God’s given me, to follow in that “tap on the shoulder,” as Calvin Miller calls it. I think God has given me some moments of clarity and I've been faithful to take note of them when they come, but for the most part I've hidden them away because, over and louder than the voice of God I have heard the voice of a thousand enemies shouting and taunting a thousand lies in my ears. I've been disqualified on every ground.

But after a very long and weary night of battling these same lies, I awoke to hear God speaking again. Compared to the noise and shriek of the others, His voice is the music of a snow-covered winter landscape, where all noise is muffled into a crystal silence and everything, no matter how scarred, is blanketed with beauty. He reminded me of some of the things He's already spoken to me and, maybe more importantly, reminded me how much I really want to walk with Him in the unique calling of my life, to set out with Him. Or better, to really continue on with Him, having already stepped out on this adventure.

It's more than a job or a career or a “calling” in the modernistic meaning of the word. It's journeying with God and His friends. It’s battling side-by-side with the hosts of heaven. It’s entering into the life of God. It's coming alive. I've been driving down the road with the radio off. Oh, I'll get there, but the journey is a rather long and boring and tedious one. Or, I'm at a movie theater watching some incredibly fascinating flick... with my eyes closed. Opening I find it's my very own life I'm half-watching scream by me on the movie screen.

So, it's time I jump in, let go the ropes of control, and set sail. I'm reminded of Thomas Aquinas's experience with God toward the end of his life when he stopped writing. Puzzled, others came to him and asked what happened. "Compared to the reality," he said, "my words are but straw." Earlier, God had spoken to him saying, "You have written well of me, Thomas. What would you have as your reward?" In the soulful response of a lover of God, he replied, "Only You, Lord."

Onward, then, and upward.

The Weight – and the Wait – of Glory

This is a work in progress, but I want to put together some thoughts on our place of response to the Gospel and invite some dialogue…

Hearing the great invitation into the Gospel Story that God has been telling since before time began, with all its extravagant beauty, its breathtaking adventure, its bold intimacy, is not enough. It requires a response. Jesus will arouse our desire for that life with God, and He will invite us in, and then He asks for our initiation, our acceptance of the invitation. “Behold, I stand at the door and knock,” he says, and he very well means us to open wide the door. This is Romans 10. Paul says that the whole point in anyone being sent to preach is not just that others would hear the Really Incredible News, but so that they would “call on the name of the Lord and be saved.” Saved from death. Saved into Life. That’s the deal.

This reality bears an incredible weight. Although the provision has been made for our place in the kingdom, Jesus has left the response up to us. Oh, he’ll run after us, he’ll haunt us with desire and thwart our efforts to garner life elsewhere, and he’ll pursue and romance and woo us – boy, will he – but he will not force us in the end. We are asked to believe, and to just show up.

Here’s how Jesus describes it. He tells about the kingdom in the parable of the wedding banquet in Matthew 22. He says,

The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son. He sent his servants to those who had been invited to the banquet to tell them to come, but they refused to come.

Then he sent some more servants and said, "Tell those who have been invited that I have prepared my dinner: My oxen and fattened cattle have been butchered, and everything is ready. Come to the wedding banquet."

Ultimately, no one who was invited in would come, and they eventually killed the servants the king sent to invite them in. Enraged, he sends his army against them and kills the murderers. In a stunning turn, the king turns to the remainder of his servants and says, "Go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find."

Picture it. Vagrants. Street sweepers. Prostitutes. Drunks. Normal folks just on their way to and from market. Street people. These are the ones the king chose to attend a wedding banquet fit for a prince.

Now, this is no ordinary wedding banquet. We are talking an all out, no holds barred celebration. Nothing is held back in the months of preparation for this event. There are decorations and ornaments, entertainers from afar, music and space for dancing, and a table laid out with food fit for a king - fruits from distant lands in all their exotic flavors and aromas, oxen and cattle (notice the plural) butchered and prepared for the occasion, wine, no doubt, prepared and cultured and fermented in stone casks for weeks just for this one event. This is going to be a real celebration to remember.

And those that come must remember to come ready. After all, this is no ordinary dinner. This is a feast, a banquet, and all of the most famous and well-known and important in the land will be there – the king himself, the prince, his bride, together with all the nobles and the land’s most notorious rulers.

And now, all is ready, all is waiting, and in walk the guests…

Now, they would have no doubt been doted over and prepared in advance. They would have someone to clean them up and prepare them to be in the presence of such important folk. They would have been bathed and dressed in the finest linens, ready to celebrate with the prince and his bride.

Here they stand, here they sit, mouths open in astonishment at the extravagance of the place. Never have they seen such beautiful and expensive and ornate decorations. Never have they seen such exotic food and dancers and musicians.

Just when they thought they had surely seen it all, in walks the king himself to meet them. Jesus picks up the story from here, “But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes. 'Friend,' he asked, 'how did you get in here without wedding clothes?'”

“The man,” Jesus said, “was speechless.” Yeah, that’s an understatement. The king himself walks up to this man, who just yesterday was out on the street corner scouring through the waste of fallen human indignity for some scrap of food and money, selling himself or someone else for a bowl of soup, and today he walks among royalty. But what’s more shocking to him than that reality is that he failed to get ready. His once-in-a-lifetime shot at being in the presence of the king, something so very few ordinary folk get to do, is blown. The king commands his guards to tie his hands and feet and throw him back out into the street “where,” according to the Storyteller, “there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

Why? Good Lord, what crime did this man commit in the presence of the king that the punishment would be this severe? Simply because he wasn’t wearing the right clothes?!

No. It was not that he wasn’t wearing the right clothes. It was that he hadn’t prepared, he hadn't believed, and his pride was the dishonor of many. Upon him had been lavished the most extravagant and unlikely of gifts, an evening of festivity in the presence of the king and his son. He had been given every opportunity to get ready for the event, and he had not. Why?

Because he didn’t believe it. Not until he stumbled into the room and met the others who were wearing their attire, and not until he smelled the food and choice wine and witnessed the months of preparation the king had undergone for this event, and not until the king himself appeared before him did he believe any of it. He wasn’t going to be duped. He wasn’t going to be shoved back onto the streets and hear the mock and scorn of his friends saying that he was a fool to believe that he would ever be invited in. Who was he that he could be in the presence of the king? No, he wouldn’t be foolish. He would be ready for the hammer to fall and the punch line to be delivered. He would be the butt of no joke. He was expecting to go back out onto the streets once this hoax was revealed for the sham it was.

And that is exactly what happened. He got what he expected – shoved back out into the streets where he came from.

Jesus finishes this strange parable by stating, in reference to the Kingdom and the Story he is telling, “many are invited, but few are chosen.”

This man was chosen. He came into the banquet hall not because he belonged there by birthright or heritage or accomplishment, but because he was invited in by the king himself. But that, apparently, wasn’t enough. The invitation itself wasn’t enough. He had to believe it, accept it, in hope against hope and beyond the cynicism and pride he had built up over the years. He had to enter in, fully, ready, dressed, as it were, for the occasion. Not because he deserved it, not because he earned it, but because it was his for the taking. If he had been honest enough with himself, he would have realized that there was no other place on the planet he would have rather have been but in on the festivities. But he couldn’t bring himself to participate.

In the end, he got what he wanted, or at least what he feared. He couldn’t bring himself to admit his desire to be a part. He played it safe, he didn't take the risk to desire, and what he dreaded overtook him (Proverbs 10:24).

Always, always, Jesus will invite us into something really fantastic by stirring our desire for life. Whatever else you think you want, and by whatever other name you know it – recognition, money, rest, peace, love (and your idea of it), sex, booze – what we are really after, all of us, is life. That is set within us, burned into our hearts (Ecclesiastes 3:11). He will so often ask us, as he did to many of his disciples and friends and street people of his day, “What is it you want?” Believe it or not, Jesus says, this is us. We are the men and women of the street invited in to join the celebration of the wedding. And we are so much more…

Who, exactly, do you think it is that the prince is marrying?

I think the most difficult part of the Christian faith is also the most important: hearing, and believe, exactly what is said about us and our role in the Story with God. That’s really all that’s asked of us. “Come with me,” is the offer, “and I will show you life” is the promise. Do we want that, and do we believe that it is really available, really? Would he really do that, is his heart really that good? Could it really happen for me? All the rest of the work of the Spirit of Christ in us is to bring us into that reality and, ultimately, into that Reality that we are being prepared for.

I want to open this up to conversation. What are your thoughts, your stories, your hopes, your fears? What are some things that God has spoken to you regarding the invitation, and the acceptance of it. Has he spoken to you about it? How has he pursued you and invited you in? In what ways is he preparing you to take your place in this Great Coming Banquet?

The Undone

It’s 3:00 AM when I awake. The apartment is a winter day quiet, the kind where fresh-fallen snow has muffled the sounds of the day into an almost tangible silence – you can almost feel it like you can the cold under your feet. The padded carpet makes little noise as I stumble, half-awake, into the living room where soft light from the parking lot filters in through the slats of the window blinds. The cooler air making its way in through the door jam betrays the frigid temperatures of the night air outside. Autumn came in suddenly this year, and is leaving quickly, as if Winter is elbowing its way in with its long, icy fingers and soon with long, icy months.

But, in all its untamed nature – or because of it - winter brings with it a certain romance. Stepping outside this early morning I am immediately transported into a different scene than the softly-padded carpet and whitewashed walls of the living room. All is real here, and in-your-face. My naked feet feel almost instantly frozen, and the air is biting like a thousand piranha assaulting my body. But I feel, and that is the point, I think. Having just barely awoken minutes before, I am now wide-eyed and aware. It is dangerous to stay long in near-freezing temperatures without protection, but the danger itself tells of something true. Out here, I am plunged into reality. My eyes scan the horizon and then the darkened sky. Closing my eyes, I hold my head up and stretch out my arms in amazement that I am this alive, that I can see and hear and feel and sense and that, in a deeper and more important way, I can love and enjoy and experience and know, intimately.

Stepping back into the warmth, I am struck by the twilight between summer and the colder months, how one has not yet left and the other not yet fully arrived. I am tight-rope walking as they play tug-of-war. And it’s not the only war occurring this night.

I am in twilight as well. There is, of course, the twilight between what I am and what I will one day become, between what I experience now and what I one day will know. That’s an anticipatory twilight, a hopeful one.

But there is also the twilight between the two kingdoms, an interval or a distance that is quickly fading into the advancing day as the armies of both advance upon this battleground. I find myself most days fighting between giving myself over to the Wild One, the Lover God, and being pulled by my own flesh, by the Enemy of my heart, and by this world quickly fading. I am walking a tight-rope in a tug-of-war between the Worlds: that of the kingdom of darkness, and that of the Kingdom of Christ. I have been given over to the Kingdom of Light, no doubt, but how far am I willing to walk as a disciple with Christ? It is as Watchman Nee had it, that a person given partially to God is of no more use to the world, but a person not yet given wholly to God has not yet come fully into His kingdom, and as such is of no help by God.

My knees hit the padded floor and I cry out in repentance. Oh Lord, there is life to be had, there is One my heart was made for and my life is to be lived for. I am yet undone, Lord. You bid me come, and I come. Expose these regions in me that are yet cold and unyielding, that I might be made whole and holy by Your love. Until the day dawns, Christ Jesus, and the morning star rises in my heart.

Song of the Soul

The following is not a recent #1 pop hit, a gushy romance between a man and woman, nor even a Shakespearean love sonnet. It is an expression of a love between a man and his God. It is a picture of the kind of intimacy we are invited into, each. It reminds me of a present-day tryst between a disciple and his God.

On a dark night,
Inflamed by love-longing-
O exquisite risk!-
Undetected I slipped away.
My house, at last, grown still.
Secure in the darkness,
I climbed the secret ladder in disguise-
O exquisite risk!-
Concealed by the darkness.
My house, at last, grown still.
That sweet night: a secret.
Nobody saw me;
I did not see a thing.
No other light, no other guide
Than the one burning in my heart.
This light led the way
More clearly than the risen sun
To where he was waiting for me
-The one I knew so intimately-
In a place where no one could find us.
O night, that guided me!
O night, sweeter than sunrise!
O night, that joined lover with Beloved!
Lover transformed in Beloved !
Upon my blossoming breast,
Which I cultivated just for him,
He drifted into sleep,
And while I caressed him,
A cedar breeze touched the air.
Wind blew down from the tower,
Parting the locks of his hair.
With his gentle hand
He wounded my neck
And all my senses were suspended.
I lost myself. Forgot myself .
I lay my face against the Beloved's face.
Everything fell away and I left myself behind,
Abandoning my cares
Among the lilies, forgotten.

-by St. John of the Cross translated by Mirabai Starr

Fullness of Life and Discipleship

The following is taken from Seize the Day with Dietrich Bonhoeffer, by Charles Ringma, © 2000 Charles Ringma

Proverbs 28:14

I am sure we honour God more if we gratefully accept the life he gives us with all its blessing, loving it and drinking it to the full, grieving deeply and sincerely when we have belittled or thrown away any of the precious things of life.
-Letters and Papers From Prison

Discipleship does not mean that we live a life of deprivation, but rather a life of appreciation, thankfulness, and sharing. It is only the person who has drunk deeply at the well of life who can voluntarily lay aside things for the sake of others. But even then, one needs to return again and again to be filled, stimulated, and encouraged. Discipleship is not throwing blessings away in order to be able to identify with the poor and needy. It is drawing others in to share in the blessings that God gives.

The Father (Audio)

Recapturing the Wonder (Audio)

Note: It's actually hundreds of square yards worth of an old mining area, not hundreds of square miles.

That We Might Live

A dear friend of mine and companion in this War Between the Worlds recently invited me to participate in a battle for the hearts of men in the Kingdom. I know none of them… yet… but they are no doubt key warriors, prophets, kings, and lovers of God, needed so desperately in this hour.

And I’m struck by the invitation. My response was an immediate, yes. What else would it be? What else would I want to give my time and energy to?

I feel like Thomas who said, in response to Jesus' insistence of going back to Judea where the disciples just knew he would be killed (and they with him), "Let us also go, that we may die with him" (John 11:16). Where else would they go, after all? (John 6:68). This was life for them, that they would know Christ, and part of that knowing came in walking right into the line of fire if that’s where He was headed. It makes me think of Paul who said that his worship of God was intrinsically tied to his serving Him, which meant that he would make this good news known (See Romans 1:9 in The Message.) The Amplified reveals what Paul meant by serving, “rendering priestly and spiritual service.”

I know by past experience the richness of encountering God in this type of battle. It is the glory of knowing a commander and being invited to participate in the strategies of war with him. It is the privilege of being a part of a Grand Rescue. And it is a part of the process of becoming “whole and holy” in the image of the Lion of Judah and by his awesome love, hotter than fire, more alive than breath.

Invited in, initiated in, I head into battle once more, for the treasures Christ came to ransom and set free. Through it all, I find it is me, as much as anyone, who is being won and known (Psalm 139:23)

The Question: Jesus' Pursuit, Part 1

Be prepared to meet Him Who Knows How to Ask Questions.
-T.S. Elliot

When Jesus speaks to the disciples (who really, at that point, weren’t yet disciples) in John 1:38, he asks them, “What do you want?” Now, that in itself isn’t necessarily all that profound. I’m asked that question quite a few times a day. I ask it of myself when I’m in the drive-thru line or the 16 year-old kid with the Taco Bell hat asks it of me when I’m in line thinking seriously about one of those yummy crunchy tacos they have. My wife will sometimes ask it if me in the evening when we have a wide open few hours to do whatever we want to do together. Even the little dog on my computer screen that pops up when I need to search for something has a bubble above his head and the question, "What Are you looking for?"

So what’s so special about this time when Jesus says it? (As a sidenote, I’m just going to start living like everything that Jesus says carries a really deep truth, because I mean, afterall, he is the Truth, so it seems natural that just like a fountain gushes water because that’s what it does, Jesus is going to gush truth. It’s Dallas Willard’s contention that the reality that Jesus is the smartest and most clever man that ever lived doesn’t often enter our minds when we think of him as Teacher and Master of Life, and that is tragic.)

To get a clear idea what Jesus is really saying, and why, let’s set the stage a bit…

Continued in Setting the Stage: Jesus' Pursuit, Part 2


(Thanks, K, for the T.S. Elliot quote)

Your Love Is Amazing

Taken from Desperate for You, A 30-Day Worship Adventure by Integrity’s iWorsh!p
And Roberta Croteau

DAY TWO / SEEK / Hallelujah (Your Love Is Amazing)

“Neither a lofty degree of intelligence nor imagination nor both together go to the making of genius. Love, love, love, that is the soul of Genius.” -Mozart

Hallelujah (Your Love Is Amazing)

Brenton Brown and Brian Doerksen

Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah

Your love makes me sing

Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah

Your love makes me sing

Your love is surprising, I can feel it rising

All the joy that’s growing deep inside of me

Every time I see You, all Your goodness shines through

I can feel this Godsong rising up in me

Your love is amazing, steady and unchanging

Your love is a mountain firm beneath my feet

Your love is a mystery how You gently lift me

When I am discouraged Your love carries me

The cosmonaut landed his capsule bravely back on earth and declared there was no God. He had sailed through the heavens and saw no sign of Him. Too bad they didn’t send up a poet – he would have seen God everywhere.

Through the centuries scientists and artists have searched for God, each in his own way. One sits in a lab and waits for the smoke to clear to find the proof; the other sits with pen in hand and finds Him in the fog.

And even though He is the one who set the atoms abuzz and swung the cosmos into orbit and designed all the ebb and flow of life within and without us, I still think God is more poet than scientist.

I have yet to understand the science of god. I can’t prove Him there; I can’t understand His logic – sometimes it takes everything within just to believe He might really be.

The poetry of God I do see. I can fathom the epic truth of love degrading a Creator enough to step in for the death scene. I can see the rhyme, even when I can’t see the reason. Love is an amazing catalyst. It can send mere mortals to reach for unimaginable heights. It brought the Maker of the Universe down to an unimaginable depth.

“For God so loved the world” is the beginning of poetry – when the old world started dying, and the new world began. He is the poet who sees the promise of life in the ashes and the artist who can find the starlight in an empty sky. His science is too expansive for me to embrace, but I can see His art in every atom, hear it in every sound, feel it in every heartbeat.

I guess it’s not so strange that the wanderers who watched the sky and followed the road under it are forever remembered as “wise men.” Their wealth of wisdom didn’t stop them from taking on the quite illogical task of following one bright star through the dark, cold nights of foreign lands. And their reward was to find what the whole world seeks – God in a box – proof you can touch, a flesh-and-bone stranger who knows them more than they know themselves.

And that same singer, dancer, poet, painter of earth and heaven still flings Himself across a million miles of sky. Send up any contraption you want to search for the place He lives and you’ll still come back empty-handed like the cosmonaut. But I’ll bet you God was there all right, dancing in His heavens. And if you had looked with more than your eyes, you just might have seen Him there.

His Handiwork

I will never forget the day my wife told me that the same God who carved out the Grand Canyon, who spills onto the canvas of the sky the beauty of the sunset, unique and gorgeous every evening, who springs up daisies and daffodils with his endlessly creative flare, knit me together in my mother's womb and is the Perfecter of my faith.

We are his handiwork (Isaiah 19:25), crafted and spun and birthed and breathed into being with more delight even than He takes in creating the heavens (Psalm 8:3).

Early Will I Seek You

If you wake me each morning with the sound of your loving voice,
I'll go to sleep each night trusting in you.

-Psalm 143:8, The Message

How we need this. How desperately we must awaken each day into the Gospel Narrative, to be reminded deeply of our place in it and God’s heart toward us in announcing the Kingdom come for us. How quickly we forget.

In his book One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marques tells the story of the Buendía family, and through them the rise and fall of the township of Macondo. At one point there was a plague of insomnia that swept through the town. No one could sleep, and so the people began to slowly lose their mental facilities. Because they began forgetting things, they wrote down the names of objects around them and stuck them all over town. “Cow,” “Door,” “House,” etc. Then, they realized they could read the names of objects but not know what to do with them, so they described them further, “Cow: Milk in the mornings,” “Door: Push to open,” “House: Enter for shelter,” etc. On the outskirts of town, they even posted a sign to help them remember, “God Exists.”

John Eldredge tells about reading this story and finding it so ridiculous… until he realized how much like his own story it is. He wrote that he wished he had a sign posted above his bed in the morning so that when he woke up the first thing he would read was simply, “God Exists.”

That’s all of our stories. We wake up… and forget. God knows this. How He must know this. The Old Testament is full of stories of God in fellowship with his children that forgot him constantly.

And so here’s one of the greatest provisions of the New Covenant: He’s provided for this by giving us the Spirit of life to remind us and teach us as the disciples and apprentices we are called to be (John 14:26). How cool is that!

“You are all [children] of the light and… of the day… So then, let us not be like others, who are asleep… “ 1 Thess 5:5-6

I love how St. Francis of Assisi reminds us to “remember at all times – it is God himself, breathing within, who woos us and calls us to live as His sons and daughters.”

And so, we pray with Brennan Manning: “Jesus, Son of the living God, anoint us with fire this day. Let your Word not shine in our hearts, but let it burn. Let there be no division, compromise, or holding back. Separate the mystics from the romantics, and goad us to that daredevil leap into the abyss of your love.”

Being awakened is, of course, just the beginning. We come into the Life that Jesus promised us.

The psalm finishes:

Point out the road I must travel;
I'm all ears, all eyes before you.

-Psalm 143:8, The Message

Taking the Leap

Speaking about some great Invitation and about the Life that is found in God – with all the intimacy and beauty and mystery of Him – is great, and so vital for our time. Dallas Willard explains that in order “to trust in God, we need a rich and accurate way of thinking and speaking about him to guide and support our life vision and our will.” He says that biblical language provides such way of thinking of God, of course, but so too has this language “continued to be carefully crafted in the works of Christian writers well into the twentieth century.” And, I would add, on through to our time.

But, until we take those leaps following after the Risen One, we run the risk of just talking. Words must be accompanied by experience, or better, preceded by it, and then followed through with real action. As Rich Mullins once pointed out, “faith without works, baby, it just ain’t happenin’.”

I usually balk at such talk, because I feel like it normally comes from folks scared of words and naive about their power (because they do hold such power as images and metaphors and expressions of our desire). It’s accurate to say that Jesus holds a high regard for words and the stories they tell and the responses they can elicit for those that are open to them. The Word of God is called the Sword of the Spirit for good reason. And his miracles were always illustrations of his sermons. That is to say, in the gospels we find that he was not just full of talk. He was full of the life and power and presence of God. (And still is.) With all of that, He is also intimate and conversational, personal and direct, defined by love and truth.

So, this is where the rubber meets the road. I came across a journal entry this morning from an author of a book, and, well, I gotta say that I feel that God led me right to his entry to read what living a life of risk might look like for me:

Jeff Taylor: Author?

It would appear so, I guess. I never really thought about it until now. I was looking in my archives from last July and here is what I said on July 7th (a year ago yesterday):

"I took a big step yesterday. That is all I am going to say for now."

What was the big step? Sending in a book proposal for the xx-xy affair, which soon became Friendlationships: From Like, to Like Like, to Love in Your Twenties! A year ago I took a risk. I risked rejection and everything and now, one year later, I am days away from the book hitting shelves nationwide. Friend, if there is something you want to do, just go and do it.

Back in high school, I was on my school's Academic Decathlon team. We were ranked first in the state going in to the state competition. In my mind, we were going to win. I did not allow any thoughts of losing enter my mind. One of my coaches told me that he admired my ability to stare failure in the eye and spit right in its face.

What are the things in life you want to strive for? Are you wanting that new job that you might not be qualified for? Are you wanting to ask that hot girl out that will probably turn you down? Just go for it. Jump right in and try it.

You need to realize that God wants you to experience joy in your life. He wants to be glorified through your risks. He wants to do great things through you. So, look shame and the fear of failure in the eye and spit right in its face. You could lose (like I did at that state competition) but you will at least know that you tried.

I may not sell a single copy of the book. It may get horrible reviews. But I tried.

Can you say the same thing about yourself?

(found at http://www.jefftaylorministries.org/)

What I can say about myself is that I find in me desires that are hard and fast and real. Those are meant to be stoked and fanned into flames (2 Timothy 1:6). I am beginning to see that I must live a life of risk to pursue those desires heartily. That pursuit will lead me into the calling and purpose of my life… and ultimately to Him.

I want to write. I want to find and redeem that language to help guide and support our vision and will as we pursue Christ. There, I admitted it. Now to taking the leap…

The Best Invitation

And like a consumer I’ve been thinking
if I could just get a bit more -
more than my 15 minutes of fame
then I’d be secure...
-Caedmon's Call

My wife was just talking about one of the greatest lies of the Evil One that causes our steady walk with Christ to become a schizophrenic and desperate search for life outside of Him. That is the lie that life is somewhere else, somewhere outside of God. It sounds often like, "I would be happy if only I had fill in the blank. More money. More friends. Maybe a little fame. Maybe even just a little peace.

It's not that any of the words that fill in that blank are bad in themselves, its just that that sentences more than any other causes us to divert our eyes, if even just subtly, from God. We begin looking in a thousand places for something we think we need and divert our eyes ultimately from Life himself, forgetting the secret that Pascal discovered, that our hearts will remain largely empty until Christ Himself fills them.

Something from the verse from Hebrews that mentions "setting our eyes on Christ, the Author and Perfector of our faith" speaks volumes regarding this. I was taking a picture of something the other day, and I needed to focus on the object within the viewfinder. We all know what happens next, of course - everything else became blurry. But the photo was a beautiful turn-out. The object in the picture became brighter and easier to see.

Saying "yes" to God's invitation necessarily means we will be saying "no" to everything else. That's how Rich Mullins once put it, succinct and direct as it sounds. But saying yes to Him necessarily means saying yes to life and freedom and the most extraordinary adventure of a lifetime, of intimacy beyond our wildest imaginations of a God that has wooed us from before time began.

I think Peter put it the best when he wrote in 2 Peter 1:3, "Everything that goes into a life of pleasing God has been miraculously given to us by getting to know, personally and intimately, the One who invited us to God. The best invitation we ever received!" (from The Message).

Another version has it, "His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness..."

Everthing for life and godliness. To that... what else could we say, but (trembling, with sweaty palms and much anticipation) "Yes, Jesus, yes...."


The fine print:
There is a final element to this that is possibly the most staggering truth of all. Pay careful attention to what Peter says there. "Everything that goes into a life of pleasing God has been... given to us..." So, if you want to know how to please God and what a life that pleases him look like, check this out, follow along, read further... "by getting to know, personally and intimately, the One who invited us to God." So, our getting to know Jesus is exactly what pleases God. And, to finish off the verse, our getting to know Jesus intimately and personally is "the best invitation we ever received!" Another way to put all of that is that what our hearts most desire (knowing Christ intimately and personally) is the mind-blowing invitation already given to us by God himself, and what He most desires and what most pleases Him is our simple acceptance of that invitation. Our hearts' desire and pleasure and hope fulfilled is God's greatest delight. That is awesome.

Extravagant Promises

I was praying over these, thinking maybe someone needed to read them as much as I did. At any rate, I remember that 'all the promises of God are 'yes' in Jesus' and that He will never break His promise ('He has written it upon the sky!')...

Proverbs 16:3
Commit to the LORD whatever you do,
and your plans will succeed.


Psalm 91:1
He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High
will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.

Isaiah 40:28, 31
Do you not know?
Have you not heard?
The LORD is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary,
and his understanding no one can fathom…
…but those who hope in the LORD
will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint.

Jeremiah 33:3
'Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know.'

Zephaniah 3:17
The LORD your God is with you,
he is mighty to save.
He will take great delight in you,
he will quiet you with his love,
he will rejoice over you with singing."

Psalm 32:7, 8
You are my hiding place;
you will protect me from trouble
and surround me with songs of deliverance.
Selah
I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go
I will counsel you and watch over you.

Stretching to a True Height

I love my heart. I mean, I love the treasure that it is, the imprint of the Living One there. More than an imprint - his Life, with all the fullness of Him in his desire, his passion, his love of life and risk and me and his bride. That it looks different than everyone else's, that it's unique in that it has nuances and quirks and a story all its own and words spoken to it personally that bring it to life like some spring rain for the barren fields, that it likes what it likes and dreams and beats its own slightly different rhythm... this is not its shame, but rather its glory. It's like those mighty pines stretching on the ranges of the Rockies - they're made from the same stuff. And from afar, they all paint the scenes some brilliant green. But close up, they are all unique, bearing different scars from the wildlands and some curvature from restless winds. But they are all mighty as they dive straight into the sea of high sky above. They clap their hands in adoration of their Maker.

I want to step out today. Have you noticed the nearer you draw to the edge the louder the voices of condemnation and accusation become? Good grief. I know it's His voice calling me out of the cave, out of the shadows, but I can't remember now what it sounded like (and I just heard it yesterday, but today it's only an echo, which just shows me how much I can lose in one night). I feel like that boy whose house caught on fire late one night. His parents grabbed him and ran with him downstairs to safety, but fightened, he pulled away. His parents made it outside and screamed for him, only to see him on his 2nd-story window's ledge. His room now consumed with flames, the only way to freedom and rescue was a freefall into the night. His dad below yelled for him to jump. Gagged and blinded by the billowing smoke, the son could only choke out, "But Daddy, I can't see you!" "I know, son. I know," he cried, "But I can see you. Now, jump!"

It's time to come out of the shadows. Time to stretch to my true heigth and stature, next to the enormity of this Awesome God, desperately dependent upon him to come through, for his breath and living water. "And like a volunerable bud on a wide western plain, whose hopes outreach its strength as it streches for the sun and laments for the rain..."

This is my heart's cry in this day, Lover of my Soul. Rescue me.

All Eyes, All Ears

I've been thinking about a Bible study I went to several weeks ago per a friend's invitation. I was excited to go, excited to really dig in and learn some things. More than that, though, I wanted to go for this friend of mine. He hungers for God, but he came into the church through fear of his own flesh and never really got past that. The meeting took place in a man's garage (so far, so good). There are 6 others, my friend, and myself. Great guys. We get to know each other a bit, laugh, tell some stories. And then we get all serious to read a chapter of Ruth and go down this list of questions like "Why did Naomi tell Ruth to go to Boaz?" "What character traits does Ruth possess that are good?" "Have you ever given up something you wanted in order to server God? Explain." And the whole time we're going down this list of questions all serious-like, I'm getting the feeling that we're really missing something amazing here. One man, Rich, pipes up and says sort-of out of the blue in a real moment of honesty, "I don't have faith in God like Ruth did in Naomi." Seems like that made some men uncomfortable. I was like, "Hell yeah! That realness sets me free! Way to be done with the religious bullcrap!"

Then, something awesome happened. God showed up. Several of the men kept taking these rabbit holes to talk about hearing from God, discerning His voice, all that, which had nothing to do with the topic at hand. The leader was trying to get everybody back on course, but couldn't evade the desire set out there to talk about walking with God and hearing from Him. There was a lot of weird stuff said, like, "I know when God talks to me because what he tells me is the very thing I most don't want to do in the world."

Huh?

Then I decided to pipe in. To one guy's thought, "Wouldn't it just be cool if God would just speak to us? I wish He would." I said, "But isn't that exactly what Jesus promised? I mean, check out the disciples. These guys walked intimately with Christ for three years. Granted, most of the time they were dumbfounded, but they walked with Jesus, learned from Him the art of living. Jesus taught them to live in the Kingdom and to be His own. He called them his friends. To Peter, he gave a name and a place and restoration to his heart. To John, he invited him to recline against his breast. And Matthew - this scalawag got to leave all his money-minding hustling on a dime and follow the Living God up and out and into all that was real and true and most alive. And Jesus Himself said it was better if He go so that the Spirit would come and be with us, teach us, remind us, counsel us. That sounds pretty damned intimate!" And then I talked about how David walked with God like this. One of my favorite Psalms says, "Lord if you wake me in the morning with your loving voice, then I'll go to bed at night trusting in You. I'm all eyes, all ears before you." And then again in Psalm 119, something about "God, I'll remember ever word You've spoken to me about life; I'll treasure them; I'll not let go of them." Finally, I just talked about some of my own experiences with hearing from God and how intimate it gets and how inviting it becomes. Yeah, I'm taken by Him. Yeah, I want to go down to the village. Hell yeah.

It was a thrill to see where God wanted to take things, and then just go with Him there. Other men started speaking up about the same thing, about their own experiences walking intimately with Christ, as if they had permission finally to actually desire communion and friendship with God.

I love pushing past the religious bull that I see around me most days, push past that into something Real.

Nothing 'Till I Give It To You

Christ, I have learned so much of the ways of this world. I have seen things I wished I’ve never seen, learned secrets I wished I’d never learned. I’ve learned how to lie, how to scheme, how to fake it.

But I’ve also learned how to dream and how to face the truth and what it means to be made real by your love.

All that I’ve learned, everything that I know, well it’s nothing till I give it to you. These words from Air Supply’s “Making Love Out of Nothing at All” is my prayer to you...

I know just how to whisper,
and I know just how to cry.
I know just where to find the answers
and I know just how to lie.
I know just how to fake it,
and I know just how to scheme.
I know just when to face the truth,
and then I know just when to dream...
And I know the roads to riches,
and I know the ways to fame.
I know all the rules
and then I know how to break ‘em,
and I always know the name of the game...

The beating of my heart is a drum, and it’s lost
And it’s looking for a rhythm like You.
You can take the darkness from the pit of the night
And turn into a beacon burning endlessly bright.
I’ve got to follow it, 'cause everything I know,
Well it’s nothing till I give it to You...

With Loud Cries

I’m wanting to awaken tonight. Or better, reawaken. I want to wake up to all that is real and lasting and eternal, to take at heart what Thoreau once said, that "we must reawaken and learn to remain awake, not by mechanical aid, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn."

Dan Haseltine, the lead singer of Jars of Clay, wrote that there are three things in the universe that are eternal. God, of course – His overreaching reign, His infinite (in both quality and quantity) love that He lavishes on His own, His pursuit… that pursuit that rocks the religious and knocks the prodigaled off their feet, His desire that names him a "jealous lover." The other two are the human soul – that part of us most living, and the human heart – that deepest and truest part of ourselves, which is constantly expanding (2 Corinthians 6:11).

But I’m not wanting to write about that. In fact all I want to do, all I feel I can do, is just utter a plea to the Eternal One born from longing and molded loosely by words like some bit of moist clay on a wheel. I want to pray.

My Lord Jesus Christ,

My greatest desire is to be with You. You are the Bread of Life, who came down from heaven in order that I might live, the Living Water for my parched and weary soul. You offer Yourself as the Living Hope, the Only Way, the God of my heart and soul. In You, and in You alone, my Christ, do I find all that I have ever longed for and desired but have never found in this world or in myself or even in others.

I attest that you are the Sovereign Lord of my heart, the creator of the Universe and my soul, the One who knit me together in my mother’s womb. In You, Jesus, is Life… and that Life is the light of men. And by You and by You alone do I see.

Lover of my Soul, Holy One, Almighty God, here and now I die to my flesh and to the world. I am crucified with You and yet I live. Not me, but You who lives within me. I die to my fears and denials and regrets, to my pride and unbelief and idolatry. I crucify upon Your cross my shame, guilt, blame, and deadness of spirit. And I live to You, my Lord.

Thank you that the Kingdom of God is really here, really here, within me. Because You have come and have bridged the gap that would have forever separated me from You. Now I am convinced that nothing can separate me from the love of God in Christ Jesus. And I rest in that. Though I cannot contain You, and though I cannot fathom such a foolish kind of love (such a ruthless, reckless, raging, furiously tender kind of love like You show and like You are, that You would care so much for me and delight so much in me, that You would call and equip and make and surround and delight in and rejoice in and dance over me and give everything to ransom me), I rest in it. I trust in You. I lay here at Your feet, face first, because I know that I am empty, and having nothing to offer You except my heart and my life and my affection.

And I am painfully aware of my need of further grace from You. I desire so much more to abide more deeply and move more freely in your Spirit. Open my eyes again, Jesus. Reawaken me deeply. I press on, ever more, toward the prize… which is You, my reflection in Your eyes. I set my heart on home, my face heavenward like flint, my soul alive in Your hands. I lay all down for and to You. You have loved me with that awesome, everlasting love (that I don’t understand but know I am made for nonetheless).

Lead me on with Your love. Shake me free and blow through me. You have called me. You have opened my heart to Your deep love. Come, fill it. Bring the full ministry and presence of Yourself here, right here.

You are Lord, Life, Love, the Way, the Truth, the Almighty Maker of Heaven and Earth, and the Lover of my heart and soul. You are a wild God, and I am Yours (because, in all Your wildness… or maybe because of all Your wildness, You have rescued me). I love You and cry out for You. I come home – limping and hungry, desperately hungry. I come home.

I ask for Your abiding Spirit and Your grace to abide more restfully, more deeply, more presently in heart and mind and spirit in You. Here I am, O’ I Am.

Amen.

And now, I want to pray with the way I live this night out. With how I treat the most startling image of God I can know outside of Christ – my wife, and the depth of beauty she brings to me and to this world. With what I do with my time tonight. With how I treat my next-door neighbor. With what I do with my heart, that little treasure of the Kingdom for which Christ died. Will I open up to the freedom and life offered to me tonight by God in the face of Christ? And how will I live in the Kingdom tonight? Will I run free "because [the Lord] has always stood up for me" (Psalm 63:7, The Message). Will I bring down strongholds and trample on the snakes and scorpions of this present darkness? And what, ultimately, will I do with Jesus, that one who gave His everything to be my everything?

All of heaven awaits, with, I think, bated breath.

It’s time to pray.

The Endless Immensity

And Peter answered Him and said, "Lord, if it is You, command me to come to You on the water." So He said, "Come." And when Peter had come down out of the boat, he walked on the water to go to Jesus.
-Matthew 14:28-29 (NKJV)

"Come." It is perhaps the simplest command ever uttered, and likely the most frightening. Jesus' words, the very call on our lives, echo off the caverns of our hearts. It is here we feel a weight so far unknown to us, as we peer from the edge of the our rickety boat of safety and comfort into the wild unknown Waters – a promised land full of mystery and depth.

"The call of God," Oswald Chambers reminds us, "is like the call of the sea. It can only be heard by those who have the nature of the sea within them."

The waves swell and the winds howl and somehow we know our place is with Jesus, wherever He is, even in the midst of the storm. Our call then is to simply come, to walk where Jesus walks, to live as He lives. And He lives with deep passion and compassion.

May we then like Jesus long deeply for the immensity of our Father God. And may we, like Him, pray "with loud cries and tears" (Hebrews 5:7) to our Rescuer as petition of, and for, and from our deepest hearts.

I agree with what Antoine de Saint-Exupery once declared. "If you want to build a ship, don’t herd people together to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea."

I am honored to be in your fellowship, walking on the swelling water in our longing to be with the Living God.

Restored Deeply

Thinking on the awe-inspiring, jaw-dropping splendor and glory of the Parthenon in Athens as it stood tall and proud centuries ago, the chapels in Rome at the height of the Empire - their ceilings painted frescos, their architecture ornate and powerful, and the bold stature of the pyramids of Giza and the wonder of their inception, it's no wonder that Francis Shaeffer used the phrase "glorious ruin" to describe our condition. We were once glorious as we walked with God, our hearts knit intimately and passionately together, bearing the image of this Wild Lover in our beauty and strength and splendor. Our aliveness was His glory, our hearts His greatest treasure.

And so it is still. His all-consuming desire, compelling and provoking the greatest invasion ever known, is to have us restored.

"You will no longer call me Master... but husband... and you will be called Sought After, the City No Longer Deserted."

This is what the Lord says – your Redeemer, who formed you in the womb... I am the Lord... who says of Jerusalem, "It shall be inhabited," of the towns of Judah, "They shall be built," and of their ruins, "I will restore them.’
-Isaiah 44:24, 26

I will restore them. His intention is clear, and not all the forces of hell can stand between Him and his mission... our restoration. To Him, with Him, in Him. To be His, fully and wholly and completely.

And not just restored, but set free. "It is for freedom..." That, from the heart, we are set free (and set loose) to live fully and abundantly, intimately bound with this Lover, following Him into the battles and adventures ahead.

And this, for those of us who are His, is the work that Christ began in our hearts and continues still. Apparently He means to complete it (Don't believe me? Reread the prophets!)

I just wanted to share that with you. I learned something from C.S. Lewis - that people need more to be reminded that instructed. That's my experience, too. I forget.

Don't lose heart. Don't become discouraged or drained. It's tough here, I've found out. Discouragement, though, leads to desperation, and desperation to despair. But not all the fiery volleys of the Evil One nor the intentions of deceived men can thwart the abandoned and lavish intentions of Christ for you.

Remember that the Wild One is crazy after you today, and He will have his way with you. No matter what. Not even you can stop 'em, not now. There is one thing that you're not disqualified from, and it is, I think, the coolest of all: deep, from-the-heart, intimate, life-giving friendship with the Master, the Commander, the One Who Wants You, the Wildest Lover ever known.

Calvin Miller tells the story a trip he took to the Great Barrier Reef off the coast of Australia. He and his wife snorkeled to catch glimpses of the beauty of the reef and underwater coral life. Their son, though, scuba dove. Later that evening they shared stories of what they each saw. Calvin realized that really, they both saw the same things. But, Calvin saw them from a distance, and in exchange for the opportunity sported a sunburned back; his son explored the intricate textures of the immense reef and all the life it had to offer him, and in exchange was burned forever with the imprint of extravagant beauty... which was only a hint at the real Beauty.

The Invitation, then, is to explore the depths of riches and shimmering treasures that lie at the heart of the Father. The adventure awaits. Let's reach to the depths, for surely that is what, in our original splendor and restored glory, we were made for. It's Him, all Him.

More to Say

"I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you. All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will take from what is mine and make it known to you.
-Jesus of Nazareth

I remember Martin Luther saying that God wrote the Gospel in the Bible, yes, but He also wrote it in the trees, and the sky, and the birds… and I would add that He wrote it in the great stories of all our lives.

Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. There is so much in it that I hardly know where to start. When I try to put it into words, I stumble and stutter, because there’s more of a swirling and burning of something deep inside than there is language in which to utter it. It’s like the roar of a waterfall, deep calling to deep. The silence, maybe before some great storm on the horizon, or the stillness in the eye of it.

What is it about the story? It’s an epic. There is real heroism. Good versus evil. The crucial roles of the characters in the story. The drama – will it be good, how will it end, what will become of them? The great battles that draw a man taut like an arrow in a bow, and then release him to soar with courage and strength – that pull him into something big and heroic, where he knows his part and lives true to his name. The fellowship and brotherhood, and the joining in with others of like mind and spirit on a quest and adventure of deep mystery and purpose, each giving everything of themselves out of a bond and trust and love. The great evil that lurks and hunts and preys, and the good that ultimately wins, even though all may be hanging on the faith of just one.

In the characters of Legolas and Aragorn, there is so much that I long for. First, I want to be like them. There’s a part in the Fellowship where they are in the caves of Moria running from the Balrog, and Boromir runs down a short staircase that ends in a drop-off, and he’s nearly lost his balance and is close to falling. Legolas runs behind him, and wraps his entire body around Boromir’s, and pulls him back to safety. It’s not a gentle tug; Legolas doesn’t just grab his clothing – he throws himself fiercly onto Boromir, and then pulls him back with all his might. Later when they are jumping over the break in the staircase, Legolas jumps first, then turns to help the others across. He first grabs ahold of Gandalf as he jumps across. When Gimli jumps, he nearly falls, but Legolas grabs ahold of him and pulls him, too, to safety. When Aragorn jumps across holding onto Frodo, Legolas again throws himself around Aragorn and steadies him until he is able to run. Only then does he lead them the rest of the way down the staircase.

I want to live as Aragorn does. His true identity is in his kingship, but the darkness of Fangorn Forest, the battle at Helm’s Deep, the bottomless crevices of Moria and the snares within the deep caves, the hot fires of Mordor, all foreshadow the inner haunting within him and the fierce war against his own identity. Will he come into his own? Will he step into his place as heir and offer his heart for the kingdom of Middle Earth? Even as a tracker, he lives to serve and protect and lead, even though he could live to be served… much like the way Jesus lived, coming as a bondservant. And as king, Aragorn returns to rule and reign over Middle Earth with honor and justice and, after the war to end all wars at Pelennor Fields, with peace. Much like the coming return of our King. Is this not a picture of the real Kingdom, the Greatest Story?

And to that, the greatest of all stories, the one today I am called up into to live in and out of, I tip my hat, I raise my glass, I sing my song. To that King, the King humble enough to shadow Himself into Hollywood pictures, to come so far to make His home here, (right here!) and generous enough to invite us to ride alongside Him in this Battle Between the Worlds, I offer my heart and all of my life.

All I love of Legolas and Aragorn, and all the other great heroes in the stories I cherish, is Jesus - the Heart behind them all.

The Call of the Wild

The vitality of thought is in adventure. Ideas won’t keep! Something must be done about them.
-Alfred N. Whitehead


No matter what anyone tells you, words and ideas can change the world.
-Mr. Keating, Dead Poet's Society


Herein lies my life, the call of the Wild, the road to freedom
and cost of it; begin here and never stop, or else
stop here and never set out.
-me

It's been a long time since I've heard words that call forth life instead of stagnating it, fencing it in. Words can do either one. But not the words of Life, not the words the disciples heard day in and day out, even the ones that cut to the bone, as often they must do if they genuinely are words of life. Those words are soft, like the wings of a mother hen enfolding around her chicks, and at the same time sharp and jagged, like the slicing rain pouding with a biting horizontal wind.

I've been wooed, as so many are, by the love of God in Christ. Broken by it. Pierced and filleted open. But today, I stand (stripped, as I often am) watching this Savior love, and I'm busted by it. Because, as much as this love is mine, is for me, as much as the cost of the extravagant sacrifice is for my own freedom and invitation into the heart of things with God, it is also for my neighbor. My own call is to love like this - gently, wildly, sharply, with abandon, unto death.

At least part of that love is displayed in speaking the truth, which always gets one in trouble if the truth is what, and all, that is spoken. Speaking the truth in love means, necessarily, that it is spoken in love for the hearer as well as in love for the message. That it is spoken as a whole truth, and holy.

And so, a part of the invitation of Christ is to go it with Him, to ride with Him on his white horse, to go after the hearts of His beloved bride. And He has given me so much to pour out - life in my bones, fire in my belly, desire deep in this beating heart of mine. Ideas and gifts and talents, passion and faith and love, filling this heart of mine that He's also given as a gift... both to me and to the world.

Jesus, yes. Again today, yes. Where else would I go? You have the words of life. And into me You pour them, you offer them, spoken in flesh, written in blood, given in Spirit. I know so little of what it means to really walk with You... but I have seen it, some. Like Job I cry out, "My ears had heard of you, but now my eyes have seen You!" I co-labor with You in this Kingdom for the hearts of Your wildly pursued and extravagantly loved bride... as Your friend, as Your "Sought After," as Your man. I give myself over to You, my life a living worship to You.

Ready to be Taken

If you're going to worry,
worry about The Holy. Fear GOD-of-the-Angel-Armies.
The Holy can be either a Hiding Place
or a Boulder blocking your way,
The Rock standing in the willful way
of both houses of Israel,
A barbed-wire Fence preventing trespass
to the citizens of Jerusalem
-Isaiah 8:13-14, The Message

You are the Shelter from the rain, and the Rain to wash me away. -Jars of Clay

He is the Rain and the Shelter, the Wind and Storm and Raging Sea and the Safe Place, the Fear and Dread, the Holy, the Anointed, the Passionate and Determined, Restless and Relentless. The Lord is a Warrior. The Lord is his name.

I am really, really weary of the religious bullcrap going on around me. Very weary. And I am desperate that God keep me from the snares of cynicism. You know how the Catholic church believes that the bread and wine actually become the body and bread of Christ the moment it's blessed? Some of my friends balked at that the other day. They're more holy because they understand and box and ship our Lord. And I think, really? How can you take what is so far beyond our ability to comprehend, a Mystery far too great to analyze and compartmentalize, and try to break it down into something reasonable and safe? I remember most of the folks who had gathered around Jesus when he was talking of safe things and sweet things of heaven and the Kingdom and loving one another and God's love for them. They loved it - warm feelings inside. And then He says to them that His body is bread for them to eat and His blood is wine for them to drink. And most of them scattered. That was it - too much. Whoa, Son of God, we were okay with you discussing cozy things, but this you've taken too far.

But I'm starving, and God allowed his Son's bones to be ground to make my bread. To share the cup of communion and to take Him up on the offer of marriage is either completely insane... or the only real sane thing there is. Either we say yes to His life and that offer, that invitation, or we turn to what is safe and analyzed and made in our image by our hands. But what of those things that make us? But what of the Passionate One who sweat blood in the dark night, alone?

"The Spirit reveals the deep things of God."

All my life I've been disqualified from one thing or another. I don't have what it takes by someone's or something's standards. Not tall enough. Not short enough. Not smart enough, kind enough, courteous enough, safe enough, wild enough, loving enough, hating enough. Not something enough. But this... but this. Here I stand, barely... stripped and flogged and condemned by those holding the stones. And, amazingly, this One stands here, too, taking it on. Taking it all on. And, after all is said and after all is finished, who is condemned? And still, still I hear the invitation and the cup raised towards heaven for me. "Do this to remember me. I have come. Will you follow?" All acts that the Hebrews would very well have understood to mean, "Will you marry me? I have come to abide with you as the most intimate of friends. Will you with me? Will you ride with me?" Not a word of my sin. Not a word of my indiscretion. Only the Invitation, true and deep and real.

This great Mystery is at work in me. It's as if the Blood I just sipped this morning, the Bread I dined on, is working in me to make me holy, set apart. I have human blood swooshing through my veins, sure. But there is more. I am also awashed in His blood. I bear another name, born of another time and place that's my real Home. Somehow, I'm not disqualified. Not this time.

There's One greater than all the rest to fear. Those who accept His proposal, who give their hand to Him, learn that life is for them a freefall and a surrender, leaving them gaping-mouthed, sweaty-palmed and breathless. And hungry, desperately hungry, and never sated.

There is a river who makes glad the city of God. And the waters there are rapid, wild, and free. I am bone-dry and ready to be taken.

I will lift up the cup of salvation
and call on the name of the LORD .
I will fulfill my vows to the LORD
in the presence of all his people.
-Psalm 116:13-14

A Third Testament

The only serious quest here on earth [is] for God, and [the] way to Him [is] charted in the Old Testament, sign-posted in the New, and illuminated by faith.
–Malcolm Muggeridge

Malcolm Muggeridge in his book "A Third Testament" offers in brief a look at the spiritual journies of six disciples of Jesus, St. Augustine, Blaise Pascal, William Blake, Soren Kierkegaard, Leo Tolstoy, and Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Each of these men lived in different times, distinctly different cultures, and had very different personalities, but each also had a particular tang to their lives, a spark, a call as a prophet of God. Each of them carried the light of the Gospel like a torch through darkening times of their age and surroundings that it might survive and burn bright for the next generation.

Muggeridge makes a point that each of these guys (and many known and unknown before and since) called people back into a life of faith and abandoned trust in the One Who Saves, much like the prophets of the Old Testament. Jesus was himself, in a sense, his own prophet in the gospels, calling His own people back to His heart and the heart of the Father. Then comes, of course, the disciples and the apostles. But, although the canon of the Scriptures have closed, the testaments of our own lives lived in the Light of Christ have not. They continue on as testaments to this Awesome God who wildly desires His own to know Him and be known by Him. These men pointed out by Muggeridge, and, I would add, dozens of friends that I have had the privilege of getting to know in my brief stint on earth, declare by their lives and by their love the one Reality of the Gospel. They are prophets. They are the Third Testament declaring the love of God unto the ends of the earth and unto the ends of the age, even all the way to me.

There is room for my own life lived large and bold and abandoned for God. There is room and need for my own words and passion and love and dreams. The world needs my heart fully alive. Since the Cross, it has always been, and remains so still, by the blood of the Lamb and (remarkably) by the word of our testimony that we will overcome. And overcome we shall.

And so I will continue to find and use my voice, live out of the passion of the deep well of my heart, and desire wildly my God and learn to love those He loves with a fierce, jealous devotion.

Unto Him, then, who is able to keep us from falling and who is able to present us spotless as a bride before her wide-eyed groom, may we throw off everything that hinders us and fix our eyes on the Author and Perfector and Pursuer - the One who will have His way with us, no matter what.

Heart pounding, I sing my Yes to You, Jesus. Come, that my life may declare Your praises and be lived as a living worship -and testament- to You.

Calling

Pete Greig in his book "The Vision and The Vow" tells a story that cuts the oft-discussed issue (or what we make an "issue") of our calling in Christ right to the bone...

I was giving a friend a lift in my car, and we go to talking about life. "I don't know what God's calling me to do," he confessed, and asked me to pray about what it might be.

"Why?" I asked. "I already know what Jesus wnats you to do!"

"You do?" he gasped with excitement. "So, what is it? What's my call?"

I paused, enjoying the suspense. Drums rolled. String quartets tuned up. My friend held his breath...

"Your call," I said slowly, "is to be a worship leader ..."

He looked pleased, really pleased, so I continued: "...but not necessarily with a guitar in your hand."

"Okayyy," he mumured.

"Your call is to befriend that funny little lady at the end of your street..."

He seemed less pleased with this prospect.

"Your call is to feed the hungry and to spend yourself on behalf of the poor..."

By now he was looking distinctly troubled.

"...and to offer hospitality to strangers who just turn up in town needing a place to crash."

Consternation.

"And it's to fast."

He was starting to look furious.

"And it's to pray so long and hard that you run out of words and tears."

There was no going back:

"Your call," I continued, "is to preach the good news of Jesus to every person who will listen and a few who won't. Your call is to go somewhere, anywhere, wherever, whenever, for Jesus, and never stop. Your call is to love people no one else loves and to forgive them when they treat you like dirt--or worse. Do your job to the very best of your ability without grumbling about your boss or whining about your colleagues. Your call is to pray for the sick, and when they are healed, to dance all night. And when they aren't, to weep with them and love them even more."

I glanced at him and was relieved to see that his expression was beginning to mellow.

"Your call is to honor your parents, pray for your leaders, study the Scriptures, and attend plenty of parties. Be a peacemaker in every situation: when the fight breaks out on the bus home late at night and when the gossip starts to circulate at church. Your call is to pick up litter in the street when no one else is looking, to wipe the toilet seat, to pull the gum off from under the desk. It's to get to meetings early to put out the chairs."

By now he was smiling.

"Your call is to make disciples and to teach them to obey everything Jesus commanded. And don't forget to minister grace to them when they sin. Which they will. Your mission is to baptize and to cast out evil spirits. Your call is to bind up broken hearts wherever you find them, and you will find them wherever you look. It's to visit prisons. And hospitals. And to..."

"Yeah, yeah," he interrupted good naturedly, trying to shut me up, but I was on a roll--and I knew he couldn't leave, because I was driving the car.

"Your call," I continued resolutely," is to listen more than you talk and to listen with your eyes as well as your ears."

He was shaking his head in mock despair. I carried on: "It's to do the chores again and again without grumbling. It's to buy ethical coffee and to recycle your bottles. And while you're at it, don't forget to leave anonymous gifts on people's doorsteps."

By now we were both laughing, and I was finally running out of steam: "And when you've done all that," I grinned, jabbing him in the ribs at each syllable, "come back and see me, and we can spend a little time praying about Phase Two!"

In other words, the call of God is to come alive, more and more alive, and keep coming alive each day, to walk deeper and further in the truth of who we are, who God is, and the reality of the Kingdom Jesus came to reveal to us and bring us into and is even now waking us up to live in.

It's an invitation to watch and be confounded by the way Jesus loves, and then be broken by our call to love the same, knowing that to walk where Jesus walks is to inhabit a far more dangerous and far more glorious (and sometimes far less noticeable) role in this world than we ever dared fear or hope for.

I missed it last night. I totally missed it. My wife and I have neighbors that are pretty rough-around-the-edges. Their story goes way back, a tragically common saga or brokenness, abuse, and abandonment. A single mother is trying to raise two boys, the youngest just barely a teenager. He's lost, this young man. His world is all anger and fear and hatred, so much so that he loses it with his mom and older brother and then can't even remember why. He was alone when we got home from work, wondering the streets alone. He came up to us to talk. I told him we were going to start making dinner, and his face lit up. "Can I help?" he asked, excited and hopeful.

Great, I remember thinking. I'm tired. I want to just chill out alone with my wife right now. I don't want to be bothered. I made up some lame excuse. No, it was worse than that. I could have taken the opportunity to love him and invited him to have dinner with my wife and I. Instead, I tore him down with one of the stupidest things I could have possibly said: "It would be too crowded with you in here." What a knife to the heart. In other words, "You're just in the way, kid." A sentence he's no doubt heard in a myriad of ways from too many people in his life.

I ended up loaning him some game to play. It wasn't out of generosity, I'm sad to say, but more out of hopes that he'd smile big and say, "Gee, thanks!" and run off and play happily so that I'd be relieved of my guilt. Instead, he sauntered home, shoved out of the way of adults once again.

I tried to think of a way to redeem the whole situation, but the moment was gone. Soon his mom was home and we were packing up our leftovers. The damage was done. I know there's grace for me, and so must be grace for him. But I missed it. I could have found Jesus in the face of a hurt young man who would've given anything to share a meal with my wife and I. I could have loved extravagantly like I see my Savior loving me, sharing with me a home I could never have earned in a million years.

Annie Dillard got it right when she wrote, "On the whole I do not find Christians, outside the catacombs, sufficiently sensible of the conditions. Does anybody have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies' straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping god may draw us out to where we can never return" (Teaching A Stone to Talk).

Indeed, the "sleeping god" has drawn me to where I can never return.

What I couldn't redeem last night, Jesus did tonight. I got a chance to talk with the younger brother, tell him about the love of God and the Father he's got. Who was it that said "your actions speak so loud I can't hear your words"? I hope mine don't. I hope to grow into Jesus, to abandon myself to that love that "expects nothing, but demands everything," in Brennan Manning's words, and to pour it out on behalf of this broken and hurting world, starting with my next door neighbor and not ending until I come to the end of the road. That's the only way to live in this Kingdom. "What you do unto the least of these, my bretheren..."

Deep Calls to Deep

I have never been to the Niagara Falls. I hear, though, that it is something to behold. I have heard that the roar is deafening, that when you stand on the look-out rails, even those several hundred feet from the bottom of the falls, you get soaked by the spray. I’ve never been, but I want to go. Someday, I will. And I think that I will break down weeping when I do.

In the deafening roar, in the blinding spray, there is an untamed wildness, a primal power that somehow calls me. The stories I’ve read of people hurling themselves over the falls in barrels – I understand that. Not that I would do that, trust me, but there is something in me that wants to be thrown into that – to be consumed, overwhelmed, defeated, plundered, and washed away, swept away.

I think if I visited there, I would understand better the Psalmist who wrote that “deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls” (Psalm 42).

Most of my days, I stand at the look-out tower and peer into the depths. I am enamored, enchanted, in love with the idea of loving God. And I have discovered that if I stand close enough, I can still hear the roar, feel the tremble, get soaked by the spray. But, I am never plunged into the Water.

I think God is a lot like that. And I think that His constant invitation and calling is for us to plunge in. He’s not promising us safe waters, or an easy time at it, but He is promising us life. The promise is that our thirst will be quenched, our souls filled, our hearts resurrected, even as we are crushed and swept away by his “reckless, raging, furious” love.

Living the life of God, or living life with God, is I think a lot like the scene in one of Monty Python’s movies. Jesus is talking to the crowds, and a couple in the back can’t quite make out what he is saying. One of them utters, “Blessed are the cheesemakers?” It’s the spray, not the rushing, pounding waters – the scraps, not the banquet table, we find ourselves in when we just stand at the perimeter and not press in, when we come to the edge and not jump off.

There is a great image in C.S. Lewis’s “A Horse and His Boy” when Wihn, a talking horse from Narnia, finally meets up with Aslan. Thinking him not really a lion, or at least a nice, tame one like so many have told her, she can’t imagine how big, how glorious, and how dangerously beautiful he is until he appears before her. Trembling, she approaches him and says with a quivering voice, “If you must eat one of us, please, eat me. I would sooner be eaten by you than fed by any other.”

And that is, I think, the experience of all of us rough and ragged ones who finally meet up, face to face, with the Lover of our Souls. We are left naked, alone, surrounded by a circle of stones fallen from accusing hands and some scribbling in the sand, facing a Savior who looks at us with eyes deep and knowing, hearing Him say, “Go now, and sin no more.” We are just amazed to even be alive. We are confused and wonder, “Could this really be the Messiah – He knew everything about me and still offered to me something I’ve never had,” and leave our own water buckets to run back to our villages, full of hope and wonder. We find our hearts burning within us, because somehow, in ways deeper than words, we realize we knew all along He was really here with us, right beside us, more alive than we ever dreamed he could be. We are blinded by Light, and then we see that we were always blinded, and it is now that we really see. We are caught in a Storm so wild, but find all we have to hold onto is all there ever really was. In awe, in wonder, stupefied, and blown to dust we saunter up wobbly-kneed, and with a rapidly beating heart say the only thing that can come out of our mouths, out of our hearts, “I would sooner be eaten by You than fed by any other; I would rather be crushed in Your hands than whole in desert lands.”

Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your waves and breakers have swept over me.
–Psalm 42:7

Keeping it Safe

Yesterday afternoon I was coming home from the Y, alone, and it hit me that I keep myself from relationships a lot. I keep myself safe from people in different ways. From my wife, from my friends, from my God. There's a lot of mystery in relationships, and I've been hurt so many times before. It feels crazy to open myself up to others. And so, I often hide in cynicism or judgment, becoming one of those critics standing outside the fire instead of the man in the arena, his face marred with blood and sweat and dust, striving valiantly.

I've been living life far too safely. I'm sick of that. I want to feel again, and live. I want to know the deep pain of having loved the hell out of people. I want to feel the hard rock beneath my boots and the soft dirt in my hands. I want to remember what it's like to lay my head down at night exhausted, ready for a full night's sleep after hours of having lived an adventurous, sunburned day. I want to shed all the plastic, K-Mart versions of life out there, those mirages in a desert of desire, and instead set out again toward the sea, that scandalous scent of salt air guiding me and hope burning in my heart like a raging fire in the night and the joy of the Great Reunion ever before me. I want to know Christ, really know Him, as the intimate friend He calls me, overwhelmed by the love He lavishes and awed by the way He lives and loves and pierced by the Invitation to do the same alongside this Lover so true. And to be known by Him - ah, to come totally out of hiding and into the Light. To really fall into that jaw-dropping truth that He knows my heart and He knows my soul, knows my coming and going, that He knows it all, and He desires me still more than anyone ever could.

Staying Alive

I watched some of The Last of the Mohicans over lunch today. The tape was already poised at the waterfall scene. Seeing Nathaniel's intensity as he squared Cora in the eyes and commanded her to "stay alive" hit something solid in me, and I broke down weeping. I am in two places at once: I am Cora, watching as my Rescuer leaves but with the promise for my ransom and return to take me back. And I'm also Nathaniel - or, at least, want to be: a man with steetly determination, courage, vigor, life, here to rescue the beloved wherever she may be held captive, "no matter how long it takes, no matter how far." To come after her, to find her, to win her back.

And that's what makes me come alive. I've never felt more alive than when I am living from my heart for the hearts of others, pouring out my heart and soul that others may go free. Why do the important things fade so quickly? Why does Reality seem to darken, as if I were losing precious blood from some hidden wound or gasping for air after being slammed in the chest, and so my days are defined lately by struggling just to breath and raging, as the poem puts so well, "against the dying of the light"?

It's been almost non-stop since January, this battle. And the Enemy - the Thief... it's like that game I played when I was a boy where I put something in my hand, clenched tight my fist, and then held it out to someone smaller, like my little cousin, and dared him to try to break open my fist and retrieve the prize. And sometimes I would feel that he was winning, and my fist is opening up and I can't do anything to stop it, except maybe grab it with my other hand or just try running away from the offender (surprised, all the while, that he had the strength to do that afterall). Something precious is being stolen... I can feel it. And I'm desperate that it not be.

Holy Spirit, give me the gut-level courage to abide in You this day, to stand in You, to submit to You, to learn of You, to watch You, to be loved by You, and to resist Your enemy and mine.

Waking the Heart

The business of busyness

I feel so busy lately. Busyness. The business of busyness. It’s like a distant relative that one day shows up at your door, and you feel obligated to let him in. “Just for the night,” he promises, lugging behind him his old leathery bags full of laundry long due for a wash, a few aluminum cans, and some miscellaneous knick-knacks he’s accrued along the way. What can you say? Of course you’ll let him in. After all, he’s an old familiar face, though for the life of you you can’t remember his first name.

One night turns into two, two nights into a week, a week into a month – how long now? It’s his voice, the baritone monotone deafened-tone bellowing that grates at you, but whose noise you can’t seem to speak above. He’s taken over now not just the spare bedroom, but almost the entire house. You’ve had to retreat now to a corner of it. You’ve kicked him out several times, you think, but you were never really able to hear yourself saying it above his clamoring for attention, his neediness and distracting. You try again, louder this time. But he stays, and he lounges himself across the furniture and smears his own grease all over the house.

Tsk Tsk (Tĭsk Tąsk)

Even this journal entry cracks me up. I’m typing it. Typing it, right here on my computer screen at work. I have other programs running in the background. Programs. I’m “multitasking,” as they call it, because I cannot stop even for a few minutes and steal away to a quiet place to breathe. I can only give my heart the room it needs to stretch and yawn and awaken within the confines of a plastic keyboard and glaring monitor. And it begins to slowly feel like a Hollywood version of an insane ward – sanitized, stale, bland. Devoid of creativity or energy or passion or spontaneity or fiery strength. Just… stagnant.

Last night my muscles wouldn’t stop cramping. I could hardly sleep all night. I’d get up to stretch them, and that seemed to help for an hour or so, before I’d need to get up again and walk around the apartment. I was really tired, but still felt like taking a jog might relieve some of the tension. My legs felt like coiled springs that needed release.

That’s the state of my own heart. And really, some of the busyness that shows up at my door isn’t really bad at all. There are good things out there that I have secretly desired for a long time to give a swing at – expressions and worship and giftings taken flight. At times, though, they have a way of nagging at me, attaching themselves like tentacles or smothering vines to that coiled spring within, until full release no longer becomes possible and the aim becomes askew. It’s like mistletoe, legendary for its association with Christmastime romance and long used to decorate dancehalls and fireplace-lit living rooms, but whose real existence is as an energy-draining parasitic plant that attaches itself to (and cannot live apart from) another living organism to derive its mineral nutrients and water. Naturally, it’s a perfect design, a balancing act between tree and plant that offers both what they need. But mismanaged, or introduced to the wrong environment, a mistletoe plant can destroy its host, and kill itself in the process. And where is the romance in a bit of splintered, rotted-out, mushroom-infested tree – once glorious while it stood, now fallen and shattered and dead.

The Violence of Reality

And let me just say now for my own heart’s sake some inkling of truth that is always stolen away from me so quickly. Giving room for my heart to stand up and stretch and awaken will not equate to opportunity or meaning. Meaning and purpose aren’t found in my heart coming alive. Rather, it’s simply that my heart will never find meaning and purpose without first waking from its cramping, restless slumber. My heart coming alive isn’t the end. It’s the beginning. It’s the starting-off place. In order to live – which necessarily involves journey and battle – my heart must come awake.

The Kingdom is at hand, no doubt. Living in it requires a fierce and steely intention. “Violent men,” said Jesus, “take [the kingdom] by force.” Not half-alive, half-engaged, sleepy men. Violent ones. Ones alive with great emotional force, intense with conviction, propelled into life with God by the reality of their insatiable hunger for Him.

Jesus, this is you: the most violent and fully alive man ever to have walked this earth, who now walks the lands of heaven and of my own heart. Dwell here. Awaken me to take my place in you, with you. Rescue me from the busyness of it all and settle me into the life you’ve desired for me since the foundations of the earth. That’s what I want.