Too Close for Comfort

O LORD, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory
above the heavens.

When I consider your heavens,
the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
which you have set in place,

what is man that you are mindful of him,
the son of man that you care for him?

-Psalm 8:1, 3-4

Can you imagine what the enormous black sky, peppered with a million bursts of light, must have looked like to David as he peered into it? No other lights to compete with its glory. No light pollution to drown out its splendor. The only noises those of midnight bugs and bats and prairie animals. He is overcome as he beholds its magnificence. His heart explodes with wonder as he ponders it all. Its vastness. Its beauty. That God had time and creativity and enormity enough to create it all – not just once upon a time, but this night, right then where David was. Unique. Never again would he behold it exactly as it was then. Everything would move. All would be different the next evening as God set out again to lavish his universe with His creative passion, expressing Himself to his children, pursuing their hearts. David got it. In this moment, he was captured by this God-of-Love. He recognized God’s pursuit and wooing, and collapsed into it.

“What is man that you are mindful of him?” he asks as his jaw drops and his breath stops in his throat. “How could you even have time for man?” his heart wonders. And yet… And yet… God not only had time for David, but he did it all for him, to have his heart.

But for our modern, sophisticated, educated minds it is too much to think that God would create such a lavish universe just for us. Sadly, we come up with anything we can to distance ourselves from His passion: scientific reasoning to explain away His creations, stuffy academic postulations to push back His passion; equations and formulations to eradicate His desire. Explain it away. Keep our distance. We are "enlightened" to learn that the earth is not the center of the universe at all and translate it to mean that we are not the center of God's heart or longing or the point of His creation. We become insignificant specks of particles on an insignificant planet held in place by the awesome force of gravitation (not the power of God Himself) in an insignificant corner of one of a limitless number of universes. To translate, it means that we have become not the center of a cosmic battle, an invasion, a rescue, a Redemption, but meaningless and pointless accidents in a sea of atoms and subatomic particles.

We come up with our scientific posits because the Reality is too much to bear, much like those in C.S. Lewis's The Weight of Glory who cannot bear to walk upon the grasses of heaven as they are because the blades are so substantive, and they only shadowy wraiths, that they puncture their feet and cause great pain. They are unwilling to grow in their soul-substance by standing in the blinding light of the unbearable glory. We rearrange the order of the Psalm to read not "what is man that God is mindful of him," but "what is God that man is mindful of him?"

I understand. I do the same thing. I often wake and rush off to my checklist of things to do rather than stand or kneel in the Presence of the Creator. I dabble in distraction rather than confide or be confided in by this Friend (see Psalm 25:14), to know His deep heart. I work to secure my place in the world and with the people around me rather than revere the Lord God (revere = adore, applaud, treasure, worship, wonder at, fall for, cherish, embrace, cleave to, enjoy, desire, grab a hold of, run after). I suspect we all do this. The disciples did. On the Mount of Transfiguration, Peter, James, and John witnessed the astounding glory of Jesus revealed. Jesus took off his veil, so-to-speak, and Moses and Elijah were there, too, in their full glory. Peter and the other two were terrified and fell face down on the ground. Peter told Jesus that they could erect three shelters, one each for Jesus, Elijah, and Moses (Matthew 17:4). Tents, in other words. Tabernacles. Something to hide their blinding glory from the three disciples. It was too much for them. God honored their fear and sent a cloud to veil the glory from them. He will, it seems, only give us as much of Himself as we can bear.

But what happens when we pause and really consider even the work of creation? Spend half an hour doing nothing at all except staring out into the starry night. Don’t try to discover the constellations or name the objects you see; just let yourself be pierced. What do we discover when we do? That God is glorious. Copernicus gave us the heliocentric model of the solar system, that is, that the sun is the center and we orbit around it. We took that to mean that we were not the center of anything at all. That is where we got it wrong. Deadly wrong.

We are the center of more than we think.

Why would the earth need to “tremble before Him” (Psalm 96:9)? Why would “the heavens rejoice” and the “fields be jubilant” and the “trees of the forest sing for joy” (v. 11 & 12, 1 Chronicles 16:33)? Because the Lord “comes to judge… the peoples in his truth.” Or, in the words of Eugene Peterson’s Message paraphrase, “He comes to set everything right on earth.” Because of His redemption and rescue of His people… because He has set His heart on bringing us home (see Isaiah 44:23). Everything that God does is to bring us back to Himself (see Ecclesiastes 3:14).

God has made us for Himself. Adam and Eve lived in glorious union with God. But God’s enemy and ours came and stole God’s love from Him. Adam and Even fell from grace – that is, they fell from God. And now, a cosmic battle has ensued in which God has come with fierce intention to free us back for Himself. We are the center of a great cosmic battle. All of the earth is to shout to God with joy, you see, because He is powerful enough to cause His enemies to “cringe before Him” (Psalm 66:3) and to win us back from them. He is not only a restless Lover in pursuit of the bride that His enemy took from Him (that’s us), but He is also a Warrior with enough courage and power and strength to win us back. He will find us. He will win us. He will have us. Jesus coming, dying, and rising again has proven that much.

What is man that God is mindful of Him? Man is in fact God’s whole desire. His whole heart is bent on us. On you and me. Intimacy and communion and the adventure of His love is the whole purpose of God for us. That is the purpose for which we have been called (Romans 8:28).

God will give us as much of Himself as we will allow. Jesus is the glory of God fully revealed to us (Colossians 1:15). Through Him we can approach even God's throne with confidence and boldness, without fear or hesitation or reserve (Hebrews 4:16). We can come back to our Lover. We can come back home. This is the invitation of God to us through Jesus. This is our place. This is the beginning of our life -- the adventure of walking with God.

The Best for Now

You have saved the best till now.
-John 2:10, italics mine

The final project from singer/songwriter Rich Mullin’s prolific career, The Jesus Record, came about because he felt compelled to spend time thinking on the life and words of Jesus. Though there is much to think of in this journey with God, and much he did think of – grief and sorrow, battle, friendship, growing up and growing old and even growing young – this one thing he felt compelled and drawn to: Jesus’ life and His initiation and invitation and ransom through it.

I find that really instructive, and so that’s what I, too, and compelled to do. It was another saint who said that we should “fix our eyes on Jesus.”

So, here’s what I am seeing recently. When I look at people around Jesus, those who interacted with him in the gospels, I see basically two types: those who eventually fell in love with him and gave their lives to following him, and those whose hatred toward him and the kingdom he came to announce became murderous. There was hardly any middle ground. In fact, Jesus himself said as much – “He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters” (Matthew 12:30).

Out of the four main socio-religious groups of the time – the Essenes, the Herodians and their friends the Saduccees, the Zealots, and finally the Pharisees – Jesus didn’t fit in. He couldn’t be categorized and so he wasn’t so easily dismissed. It’s interesting to note that those who hated Jesus were those whose fury came from their inability to own him, who couldn’t use him for their own agenda. Rich’s words are true here, that “the world can’t stand what it can’t own and it can’t own you ‘cause you did not have a home.”

Jesus came, of course, to bring his kingdom to us, to announce it so that we may be invited in. To open up for us a new way, a new reality, a new world order. His kingdom opens up for us the possibility of a new heart and with it a new and intimate relationship with ourselves, with each other, and, of course first with God. In Jesus, God stooped down to look us in the eyes and say, “I want you to be mine now. Join me. Become my friend.” [Incidentally, the Hebrew for “unfailing love” in Psalm 6:4 (“…O Lord… save me because of your unfailing love”) denotes befriending.] A better picture is God lifting us up to where He is, to a "high and holy place" - Isaiah 57:15. It is a new order outside of ourselves but coming from within, from hearts full of life (Proverbs 4:23).

While all of this is baffling and more than a little shocking in its implications, perhaps the most scandalous notion of all was the kingdom’s availability and presence. All good Jews in Jesus’ day knew something about a kingdom coming. This language wasn’t unfamiliar to Jesus’ hearers. For centuries, prophets have been describing and foretelling this kingdom. Many of the prophets before Jesus spoke on behalf of the poor and oppressed, the rejected and outcast. With prophetic tradition, Jesus spoke of the inward sincerity of the heart and authenticity – again, nothing too unfamiliar (though mostly forgotten) to his hearers. And, of course, just like the prophets before him, Jesus spoke of the coming judgment – that evil would be exposed and named for what it was. Finally, Jesus emphasized the coming of a new order of things, a time in which “in that reality, the poor and rejected will be embraced and valued and brought back to the community. In that new era, what will count is what is in the heart – not merely what is projected, pretended, or professed. In that new realm, evil in all its forms will be exposed, named, and dealt with. In that new kingdom, justice, integrity, and peace will overcome” (Brian McLaren, “The Secret Message of Jesus,” p. 23).

Most of the Jews should have known this much already, but only in the sense that it was far out in the distant future. That’s why for many – Nicodemus perhaps being one of them – Jesus’ arrival (and with him, the kingdom) was such a shock. It exposed their unbelief. When John the Baptist announced, “Repent!” (Matthew 3:2), not much of a raucous was raised. But he finished his pronouncement with, “for the kingdom of heaven is near.” What a fool he must have sounded like! Who would really expect the kingdom to be at hand, really? That came as a contradiction to what everyone thought and expected. No one expected the kingdom of God to happen now. “It could only happen then,” writes Brian McLaren, “after the Romans were ejected or eliminated, which in turn couldn’t happen (for the Zealots) until later, after the Jews were militarily mobilized and led by a great military liberator (or messiah), which couldn’t happen (for the Pharisees) until later, after the prostitutes and drunks and other undesirables were either reformed or otherwise eliminated. Put together, these conditions were so hard to imagine actually occurring anytime soon that they were considered (by the comfortably adjusted Herodians and their similarly comfortable friends, the Saduccees) completely improbable, no, practically impossible. The Kingdom of God? Maybe in some distant someday. At hand, here and now? No way!”

Yet it was just a few days later when Jesus strolled right in front of John and John yelled out, “This is the one I meant…!” The kingdom of God, indeed, is near – standing right before him. Standing right before us.

We get to live on this side of that amazing invasion by the King into enemy territory to bring about this new kingdom. And yet, we often do with it the very same thing those contemporaries of Jesus did. The kingdom of God can only happen then, after… fill in the blank. I go to college. Get married. Buy a home. Have children. Accomplish something big in my career. Get more money. Find a community. Be healed or feel better. Beat depression. The list goes on.

We miss Jesus in our midst because of this, and in the process miss everything that he won for us by the kingdom come – his reign and rule, living in the freedom and fullness of a new heart, offering love and invitation and truth to others. Essentially, we are not really living at all unless, and until, we live in and out of the kingdom of God now here, established in and from us by the King and by our Intimate One.

Father God, it’s true. I have bought into the lie that I have to wait until things change or get better before I can really live in the kingdom. I have squandered the most startling and amazing gift ever given that is fully mine to have, fought for and won for me by Jesus – life, life to the full and free and all that it implies: heart intimacy with you and with others, full expression of your character, glory and honor to you, and the beauty and dire need of your kingdom being established here throughout my own home and community. I have missed it. Why… and how in the world…? Forgive me, Lord. Jesus, come again in the fullness of your Spirit and establish me again into your kingdom as a citizen of it and may your kingdom in turn be established here, in, through, and from my heart, my household, and my domain. I give all of myself back to you: body, heart, soul, mind, spirit, strength. I am yours. Reign here. Move here. Speak here. Bring your presence and blessing here. Open my eyes and ears. You have saved the best for now, indeed. I am taken. I love you. I love you. Amen.

Holy Ground

“Trembling and bewildered, the women went out from the tomb.” -Mark 16:8

Trembling and bewildered. That is the only honest response to what the women encountered and discovered that day in the tomb. It is now the only authentic response to what is revealed in us: that this same risen Jesus has come to dwell with us and in us.

Some of my favorite woods to walk in are nestled behind my childhood home about half a mile, down a steep embankment that extends about 200 yards through thick underbrush, and past an open field. Beyond this lies something out of Lord of the Rings. It is Fangorn, and walking in it I half expect to see an Ent or a Urukai come out from around the bend. It is beautiful and inviting and mythic. The forest itself borders a river that slices and sluices its way through the wilderness like a fledgling Amazon.

I know these woods well; I grew up exploring them and playing army with my brother and cousins in their dark mysteries and overarching canopies.

The long, endless summers of my boyhood days had gone down to the cool of early autumn, and I returned to the company of these old trees as a grown man. I had been drawn to this place by the Lord God. He had summoned me here in his fierce pursuit of my heart and desire to be near me. And he was after something else this day, I suspected. There was something else he wanted to say.

Near the river’s edge I found a large fallen sycamore to stretch out on and enjoy the surroundings and settle my heart into listening, into quieting down. “What do you want to say to me, Lord?”

Nothing. I waited. Nothing still. I waited longer. Still, nothing. The sun was now settling in for the night, and I could no longer stay. As alluring those woods are at day, they are haunting at night.

As I set out and walked halfway through and among those giants of the forest, I heard the Lord very plainly say to me, “Take off your shoes.” It was so clear that I dared not argue. I stopped and removed my shoes. The bare ground was cold and prickly with twigs and small rocks. I stood again, and waited. “This,” he continued slowly and emphatically, “is holy ground.”

Whoa.

As soon as I heard this, I burst into tears. I understood immediately that the holy ground he was talking about wasn’t the forest; it was me. Unbelievable. Simply unbelievable. I think then and there I understood for maybe the first time that this was the invitation of the gospel: a completely new life, a new heart, and God himself living and moving and breathing inside with so much reality that our old life is as substantive as a shadow. We are invited into life with God.

St. Augustine of Hippo once stated that, “Jesus departed from our sight that he might return to our heart. He departed, and behold, he is here.” This is as bewildering and holy a reality as the empty tomb was for Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome.

Trembling and bewildered, I stood there in my bare feet as the sun set in the west across the water, casting deep and distorting shadows across the pasture to the east. I saw a bit of my own shadow stretch across the barren earth, and I set off walking again, shoes and socks in quivering hand.

One Good Memory

And even if only one good memory remains with us in our hearts, that alone may serve some day for our salvation.
-Alyosha, The Brothers Karamazov

I love this line. As the “hero” of the story, Aloysha is the moral and relational center of the novel, and Dostoevsky considers his way of life the way of the heart in relationship to Christ and centered in His life. And Aloysha could not have been more right in stating that “good memory” may serve one day for our salvation.

It is memory that Jesus speaks to in these days through his Spirit. It is recognition. Remember that right before Jesus left he said that the Father would send the Holy Spirit in his name who would teach us all things and remind us of everything that Jesus said to us.

C.S. Lewis was right to understand that we need more to be reminded than instructed. He was not only speaking to believers by the way. Yes, those of us granted a new heart that now beats very much in rhythm with the heart of Christ will be compelled to follow Him simply by memory of where He has gone and what He has spoken to us. Have you ever noticed a bead of water on the windshield during a rain shower will usually fall in line with the one that went before it, forming a kind of wet trail on the glass? This is what Lewis meant. We have not yet tread where Jesus has gone, at least not fully, as there is always more – more depth to explore and more vistas with God to enjoy. But there is a memory of that life, an imprint, a path, a trail. And it is the work of the Spirit to bring us into it.

But Lewis was speaking also to unbelievers there (in “Mere Christianity”), and actually he did not try to make much of a distinction between the two. This is the reality that Lewis knew, that the human heart itself, wicked or not, deceived or not, was made in the image of the Living God. There is a kind of memory there of another life, or at least some better life, than the one we have. It is often only a phantom pain of something better, like the pain in the “hand” of a man who has lost his arm. But it is still poignant. Just take a look around. Almost everyone you see is engaged in a struggle to make their lives better. We want an increase in pay, or a better-fitting career. We often think that children will make our lives better or happier, or maybe moving to a new city or trying out a new wardrobe or a new kind of drug. And this is not just the American Way. I have been to the remotest villages in Africa and have seen the same. It is something intrinsic in the human soul. We know life as it should be, and we do not have it.

That is the dilemma – that somewhere deep inside we know life as it should be, or at the very least we know that somehow this isn’t the life we were meant to have. Not all of us have arrived at that realization yet, but we will. It’s a guarantee that nothing we use to delude ourselves against that reality will last long. Almost everyone you see is in the struggle to have it. The greatest tragedy, however, is in thinking that we can secure it for ourselves. Didn’t Jesus say that this would never work? “If you seek to save [secure for yourself] your life, you will lose it.” (Matthew 16:25)

So what do you do? What do you do with the thought that this life is not the life you were meant to have, that you were meant to live? What do you do with the fact that we are haunted by eternity, and to make it worse, there is nothing we can do to get there. We cannot sneak our way back into Eden, though we would sell our souls if it meant we could.

If you let that sink in and if you left it there, then it would lead you to despair, then cynicism, then despondency, and finally to madness. Some have gone that way. Think of Nietzsche and his philosophy of nihilism, which states that there is no objective meaning or purpose to our existence. Secretly, this view is held despairingly by many.

But there is another way. It is the Way of Jesus…

The Long Stretch

And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.
-Romans 5:5

'I saw the Lord always before me.
Because he is at my right hand,
I will not be shaken.
Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices;
my body also will live in hope,
because you will not abandon me to the grave,
nor will you let your Holy One see decay.
You have made known to me the paths of
life; you will fill me with joy in your presence.
-Acts 2:25-28

I've been looking at the differences between longing (or desire) and hope and faith. I've come to think that longing is something that I will live with now in my new heart, that like an imprint it's there in my heart - like treated lumber as a frame for a house. It's just in there and I must learn to live with it. But it's not enough. Longing or desire is only that unless I do something with it. It's like hunger pains. It doesn't mean anything unless it leads me to Food. Hope is the expectation that you will find that Food and be filled. Faith is enduring in that hope, despite persecution and temptation to take the play off-broadway, in the face of a shortcut or a substitute to sedate the heart or slake the thirst.

I'm somewhere between the longing and the hope. I have plenty of longing, so much that it nearly takes me out. I think this was Jeremiah's condition of the word of the Lord being like a "fire in his bones." But longing by itself leads only to disappointment, then desperation, and then inevitably to despair. Only by allowing hope to grow within will that longing produce in us what Jesus wants: our hearts. That hope brings us deeper into Christ and further along on our journey.

I don't have enough hope that I will one day have what I long for, and that in this life it is my inheritance to have that very thing (deeper, richer, and more abundant life in God). This longing for life is the source of all of my heart's discontent, but the hope for it is the source of all my heart's joy. Hope is essential. "Hope is to the soul like breathing is to the body," says philosopher-theologian Gabriel Marcel. And so this is what I'm taking to Jesus, that I will be filled to the full with "all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit" (Romans 15:13).

We continually remember before our God and Father your work produced by faith, our labor prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.
-1 Thessalonians 1:3

No Small Role

What is it about days upon days of busyness that steal so much of what it means to really live? I'm always amazed at how long I can go on fumes, coasting in my most important relationships – with God, with my wife, with friends.

One of the most astounding works or results of the Cross is that the veil was torn away. Nothing separates us any longer from that most treasured and long-desired place of intimate communion with Christ. He came to seek and to save what was lost – what was lost between us and Him, what was lost in ourselves, and what was lost between each of us. He came to rescue and restore all of the lost fellowship of heart that we gave away at the Fall. It has been more than restored, but we must act on that deep work. We must appropriate it and enter into it and ask the Spirit of God to bring it into and over us daily. Otherwise, we end up living in a kind of casual agnosticism where we begin to think of the world as a disappointing but benign place to live and of God as a distant Sovereign King but not an Intimate Friend.

The Invitation of Christ has snapped me back into reality, back into the recognition that there are only two kingdoms in this world, and they are both fiercely opposed to each other, (Colossians 1:13 - For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves…) and back into the reality of our place in it. (You might call the gospel of Christ simply Reality, capital R, in line with Brennan Manning's reference to Christ Himself as "the Really Real.")

This Invitation is 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. And it is a role we share.

I recently watched the new X-Men movie. I'm not a huge fan of Marvel comics and all of that, but here's something that blew me away about the story. Essentially there were two factions (or kingdoms) in the X-Men world – those who supported the mutants and those who wanted to oppress them. And you had to be on one side or the other. Those who weren't were sort of just pawns, really, or extras to make the cities fuller and seem more lifelike. They were not important characters. The movie builds to a final battle, one to end all battles. Ultimately, it came down to (no surprise here) the "good mutants" fighting the "bad mutants," but neither side fought alone. Each character had his or her skill or specialty or gifting, and each needed the gifting and call of the others in the battle. Each had their own sphere of influence and authority over certain things in the world – one could manipulate metal, one could manipulate the weather, one could manipulate fire, one could run through walls… you get the picture. To watch any one of these figures you begin to think, "Wow. I'd want that power." And then you see another one and you think, "No, I'd want that one." But then there would be another. Soon enough you begin to realize that, as glorious as each of these characters were in living out their identities, and as powerful as they could be, they are humbled by the giftings of others. The ultimate reason, you see, that each of them had these powers to begin with is because they were needed.

What a picture of our place in the Kingdom of God. Our roles are not small. And neither are they solitary. We will be taken out so quickly if we begin to think they are. Casual agnosticism is a deadly poison, and our Enemy will use the subtle erosion of busyness and distraction (the two greatest weapons used against us in our culture) to slowly euthanize us away from Reality.
"We must reawaken and learn to remain awake," warned Henry David Thoreau, and he couldn't have been more right. How? He finishes with a call away from the busyness and distraction that our modern world offers and into the hope that is the gospel: "Not by mechanical aid [or we might say by the aid of technology or entertainment or programs], but by the infinite expectation of the dawn."

The dawn is coming, sooner than most of us think, when all will be set right, when all manner of things will finally be well. Until then, we walk before the Lord in the land of the living (not the sleeping or the dead, Psalm 116:9) with our eyes firmly fixed on the Rescuing One, whose life is our light in this dark place (John 1:4).

Who Am I Becoming?

The other morning I read from Romans 12:1, a familiar passage to me. "Offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God – this is your spiritual act of worship." I've read that verse a hundred times, and the word that always struck me was "sacrifices." We are to offer ourselves as sacrifices. But that word didn't strike me this time as the most important in the verse. The word this time that bounced back at me from the page was "living."

We all know that the early disciples and apostles and the early church believers were persecuted, most of them killed in gruesome ways, because of their faith in Christ. So often the church and parachurch ministries hone in on the sacrifice of these believers. "They were the great ones in the faith," I've heard proclaimed from pulpits. "We need to be able to die for Jesus like them." We've all no doubt heard enough of this kind preaching.

But I don't think that's how it went down. I don't think those brothers and sisters just clenched their teeth and bared it, willing themselves to go through the torture and death and all of that. I think they found and latched themselves to a secret, and I think that secret was life. I think they had begun really living, and living more and more in the Kingdom, so that when the time came for them to choose something else there's no way they could. They had tasted, and were now wasted, for life, the real thing, the full deal. They didn't choose death at all; they chose life.

And I think the law of the Spirit of life in Christ works like that. It's easy not to steal, but it's a quite different thing to give generously out of a full heart. It's easy not to murder, but it's another thing to love someone to death. It's easy not to curse God, but it's another thing entirely to walk intimately with Him. That's the work of the Spirit within; that's the work of Christ and the New Covenant.

That's what is happening in me. I am to be a living sacrifice, a living icon, a walking, breathing, loving, living Friend of God. In all the beautiful and often painful and wonderful ways that can look, that's what I'm becoming… a living being, walking more fully into that new life in God.

My journey with Christ for the first year was like Lazarus hearing Jesus call his name from somewhere outside the dark tomb. When he heard Jesus' voice, I imagine Lazarus started feeling electricity running again through his arms and legs. His eyes opened and tried to adjust to the darkness of the tomb. He sat up. He stood. He began stumbling his way to the tomb entrance. He came alive the moment Jesus spoke his name. But he was still in the tomb. He was still wrapped in death shrouds.

Lazarus then came toward the entrance and stepped into the blinding light. The disciples came over to help unwrap Lazarus from the shrouds so that he could walk again. That's where I've been over the last couple of years… until recently.

Now I'm hearing Jesus' invitation to walk with Him, to ride with Him, to "soar where the eagles are scared to fly," as Josh Young's song has it. That's what I want, that's what I'm after. My heart is very much alive, and His blood has covered so many wounds to make me whole. The death shrouds have largely been removed and I'm stretching my muscles in the light of the new day. Now life begins. Now the invitation is heeded. Now the desire born deeply in me years ago is spoken to, drawn out, and set free to take me to God.

This weekend I took a walk at the Falls, this area just south of town where the river forms a waterfall that stretches about 50 yards long and 20 feet high. The bedrock along the bank is rugged and rough, with fissures and crevasses formed by the rushing waters of the river when rains would overfill it and cause it to flood its banks. This day, all was bright sky and cool breeze and the hammering song of the water forming a backdrop to the event, while I explored the area with my trusty iPod as a companion. I had tuned into some worship, unsure at first whether I should just listen to the music of the falls or sing along with Josh Young. I gave into the latter, and tuned into his song, "Can You Feel It." It was answer for me from the heart of God in response to my question to him that day, "Who am I becoming?"

Here are the lyrics, with emphasis placed on the portion that pierced me especially with God's response:

All across the world
The river is flowing.
There's a passion that's growing
For the things we have not seen.

All across the world
the Spirit is moving.
There's a sound that's resounding
in the hearts of you and me

Can you feel it?
The rain is falling
Children dancing
Freedom's shining down
Can you feel it?
It's a celebration
The Father's laughin'
He's drawing us to Him
Can you feel it?

Inside our hearts
A new life is growing.
There's a warrior that's rising
With a need to be free.

Can you feel it?
The rain is falling
Children dancing
Freedom's shining down
Can you feel it?
It's a celebration
The Father's laughin'
He's drawing us to Him
Can you feel it?

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

To my rescue...

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

Chronicles of Freedom

I feel this morning a bit like Prince Rilian in The Silver Chair, the sixth book in C.S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia series. He was held captive by the evil White Witch, who put a spell on him. Every day, if I remember right, he truly believed himself to be hers, owned and sealed in her service and cruel kingdom. But at night, the enchantment broke for a few hours. He would remember who he truly was, what the White Witch was about, and his place in Aslan's domain. Each evening, then, they would tie him up to a silver chair deep in a cave so that he could not act on this deep truth. By morning, he would have forgotten it all once again and would be free to roam about unchained, the guards knowing he would remain enslaved to the witch through her spell on him. But finally, in a dramatic scene, the children free him from the chair and so broke forever the spell on him.

That's my story. Something has come under cover of night broken a little more the chains binding me to the chair. I see a bit more clearly today. It's almost beyond imagining what the Rescuer can do even with our sin, our hiding, our refusal to leave the slums for the offer of a holiday at sea, in Lewis's words. In my current favorite song (Missing Love by PFR), there's a line that says, "Teach me to live as one who's free." Yes, that's it.

I remember a story of a lion in a zoo that had been pinned up several days in a small cage for repairs to his larger (though still constricting) domain. He had room only to pace in a circle, which he did continuously through his imprisonment. When finally the zookeepers opened the door, he didn't step out, but continued to trace his circle in the floor of the cell, his head so drooped that he couldn't see that the door had been swung wide open. To free him, they had to prod him from the far end of the cage. He first seemed to take it as cruelty, and became angry and violent towards them. Only finally did he find his way to freedom.

Father God, I want to go on in my journey, and to do so I realize a couple of things I need to see.

First, I need to see it as good, and as a journey You have invited me on, equipped me for, and will see me through, a journey where You have wanted me to embark on, with Yourself, for such a long time. It is a journey of healing, of restoration, of intimacy and friendship, of fellowship and battle, danger, mystery, and staggering beauty. And as such, it requires my heart fully engaged -- worshipping, seeking, finding, desiring, hoping, seeing, following, leading, discovering, expressing.

Second, I need to see it as a journey that I'm not disqualified from taking. Not my sin, not anyone I know or don't know, not any snare of this world, not all the work or intentions of the Enemy -- nothing -- can keep me from Your love and all of the friendship and intimacy, all of the work of redemption and restoration of my heart, all of the heroic battles and adventures that come with, spring from, and lead toward Your love.

Open my eyes, Glorious Father, and give me deep conviction of the truth now of my place in You and the invitation and new heart and all that -- the Gospel, as it's called. I recieve You, Christ my Lord, as the Truth and the Full Revelation of the heart of the Father and of my own identity as Your image-bearing one. I love You, trust You, worship You, and say Yes! and Amen! to You.

I think my thought, and fancy I think thee.
Lord, wake me up; rend swift my coffin-planks;
I pray thee, let me live -- alive and free.
My soul will break forth in melodious thanks,
Aware at last what thou wouldst have it be,
When thy life shall be light in me, and when
My live to thine is answer and amen.
-George MacDonald, Diary of an Old Soul