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..."