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.