Psalm 23, Refurbished

Psalm 23, paraphrased by Dena Dyer:



The Lord is my shepherd—
In the midst of the war on drugs,
the war on terrorism,
and the spiritual warfare in my soul.
I shall not want—
with him as my Savior and provider,
I'm perfectly content.
While others strive for and worry about
a bigger house, a newer car, designer clothes and jewels,
I will rest in my calling and purpose—
knowing God and making him known
in this hurting, harried world.

He leads me beside still waters—
Cool, clear streams of peace
in the midst of orange alerts, space shuttle disasters, stock market fluctuations,
and baggage inspections.
When emotional baggage threatens my sanity,
he renews my mind.
When grief and despair descend,
he heals my heart.
When doubts and fears assail my tranquility,
he restores my soul.

Yea, though I walk through the valley
of the shadow of death—
filled with threats of biological and chemical warfare,
nuclear bombs and ghosts of past regrets—
I will fear no evil.
Not AIDS, or smallpox,
not child abductors or doomsayers.
Thou art with me—
even when I feel alone in a crowd.

Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me—
especially when I read the paper or watch the news.
(Why do I read or watch? I know the ending!)
Thou anointest my head with oil—
the oil of gladness and peace,
with a calling to be
light and joy in a dark, fear-filled world.
Help me to be a peace-full, grace-full person, Lord,
in the midst of a chaotic world.

Truly, my cup runneth over.
You have blessed me so much!
I have friends and family who love me,
a warm bed, freedom, grace, (more than) enough food,
and a fulfilling purpose.

Surely goodness and mercy—
your grace, love, forgiveness and compassion—
shall follow me all the days of my life.
Every second, every minute, you are before and
behind me, with your arms of love outstretched.

And one day—when all wars and pain,
terror and shame
will come to an end . . . (Come quickly, Lord Jesus!)
I will dwell in the house of the Lord,
your glorious kingdom,
where you've prepared an eternal home for me.

I'm Just Me

Lately I've been feeling a bit... small. Misunderstood. Grumpy. Irritable. Far from use in the Kingdom. I wrote the following as an exercise some time back when I was in a similar place. I'm posting it now so I can bring it up often in these days of myopia and reread it until the light of the truth of God's love of and call for me blind me from myself and give me clearer vision again of the life offered me. The life I, on my best days, find myself even now walking in. The life that extends into eternity and finds its source in Jesus Himself. Here's the confession and the promise...

And I'm just me. I'm not a spiritual giant. I have no special real estate on God. I'm often irritable, grumpy, and unloving toward others. Mostly because I often fail to fall into the wild, crazy, furious love of God in the face of Christ who has come so far in pursuit of me. But even that doesn't keep me from His love. I'm not always passionate in seeking after God - often lukewarm and displeptic. I don't spell everything correctly. I sometimes don't make sense when I talk. I get confused, weary, jaded, and cynical. My teeth aren't as white as I want them to be. I am skinny and not well-built. I can be exceptionally lazy. I tend to whine and complain when comforts I feel I deserve somehow pass me by. My mind can be a haze of jaded and cynical thoughts, usually resulting in biting judgementalism toward others. I can lie and steal and hate. But somewhere, down beneath all this that makes me a broken and fallen human being, deep within my core, dwells the Living God, the Alpha and Omega, the Beginning and End, who, in all His annoyingly and life-giving persistent love makes all things new. He heals and restores and rescues and brings life again. Even in me. One day I will be like Him. But that hasn't yet been revealed. I’m on my way, but I haven't made it yet. Not yet. But it’s coming. And one day He will take my hand, and pull me up, and all that I once feared that wouldn’t happen and dreaded that would will melt away and all these illusions I’ve held to will fade into the eyes of my God as I peer into His glory. A glory even I will share in. A glory generously poured out for me, so that I will know life. And in these days between now and then, I get to participate in that Something Big. I get to love like He loves. I get His eyes when He wipes mine with mud. I get to live big and live free because, even though I am so far from perfect, I am His. Forever. Promised. Sealed. Delivered. I get to know God and let that be my greatest and truest desire. Whom have I in heaven but Him, and what else could I desire here? And when all is said and done, that’s all I’ll be able to hold to anyway. And that’s so much that I won’t have room to hold onto anything else. Amen, and come, Lord Jesus.

A Confession and a Plea

There’s a lot that I need to process, to unpack, to bring up into conversation with God. Some of it I already have. Some He has brought up with me. Some I have faced through unavoidable circumstances, reminding me of what Frederick Buechner said about God speaking to us through the daily events of our lives. But now, I’m not even quite sure where to begin.

Maybe this is the best place to start… Jesus, what… where do we go? What do you want to speak to me? What do I need to hear?

Richard Foster says that we should pray about whatever it is we and God are doing together. And so it’s here that I have a confession. I’ve bought into the subtle notion that there’s not a whole lot Jesus is doing here, with me, in and with and through my life and marriage and home, that the real work of God is out there somewhere in major ministries and movements. Of course, that flies in the face of Paul’s revelation that we are to be conformed to the image of Christ, “predestined” – destined! – to that end. That’s our destiny. More that that, it goes against the very present reality and promise of the Evangel, that God is here, engaged, inviting me to live life, and live it large. Not meaning to go out there somewhere, but to “come,” to be home with Him, to pursue and seek Him, to learn the new language of the New Way, to be conformed to His image and transformed into His likeness – by His grace and to His glory.

I’ve been seeking the Lord God on a particular decision, needing so much to hear Him say to go either this way or that, and I’ve been frustrated and angry for not being able to hear Him speak. Is He silent on the matter? Am I unable to hear Him? Is there too much warfare or noise pollution around me? In the midst of these looming questions, my wife broke in with a brilliant thought last night: “Maybe you’re asking the wrong question. Maybe God doesn’t want you to ask which way to go, but rather what His heart is for you.” The implication is, of course, that His heart for me is where He wants me to go. It leads me to the freedom to follow Him wherever it is He’s going.

And so I need to hear from you, Father, not about next month or the one after that. Not even about tomorrow. I need to hear Your heart for me. I need to lean close to hear Your heartbeat. Help me hear You. I am Your sheep, and I hear your voice. I am Your servant and son. What’s more, I am Your friend in whom You confide. Reveal to me what You are doing and what Your desire is. Reveal Your heart for me. Show me the way, Jesus.

Amen.

Welcome Home!

When it's all said and done, I'll stand before the Living God and He'll ask me, "Did we know each other?" When that's asked of me, I want there to be a glean in His eye, and a widening grin come across his face before we both burst out laughing, He runs to me and knocks me down with a tackle-hug, looks me square into my eyes with that soul-piercing, all-knowing, all-loving intensity of His, and says (barely, before He starts laughing again so hard He can hardly get it out), "Welcome Home, my dear friend. Welcome Home! Come, enter into the joy of the Kingdom with us."

And then life, real and full, will begin...

Read more in Yet To Be Revealed

The Stormy-Hearted

The sea is never still; it pounds on the shore, restless as a young heart,
hunting. The sea speaks, and only the stormy heart knows what it says.
-Carl Sandburg

The community Jesus has invited us into as we share fellowship is the company of stormy-hearted ones, who have set their faces toward the Wind. The sun sets past some distant land, and the haze and glow of twilight settles first over the mast, and then the trim, and then our faces. The rope that once rested in our hands, with one end tied firmly to the dock, floats now on the restless sea. We have let go, deciding to let the breeze that's kicked up this evening give its all into these sheets. The wind of God's passion for us has taken us out onto the High Seas. We have set sail away from predictable, "responsible," organized, sanitized beliefs and lives, pushed out into deep waters, because we are ready to walk humbly with our Lord. We are ready to push toward and pursue others' hearts, just for the sake of their hearts, for freedom, and because we know they are worth it and they matter, because we matter and have mattered to God and we really believe and set our hope in that.

We have decided to trust in this wild, unfettered, unflinching, humiliating kind of love and model our lives after it. We are ready to move with the Spirit of Christ -- to be motivated, to be changed, to be daring enough to live in freedom and bold enough to believe it for others even when they can't believe it for themselves and love even if it doesn't immediately change things and to be meek enough to rejoice in inheriting something great from the Kingdom... maybe even, maybe even Christ Himself. And maybe, just maybe He is after all our hearts' greatest desire, underneath everything else. Maybe He really is our hearts' true home, the Lifter of our Heads, the Joy of our Salvation.

This kind of believe can be hard -- hard enough to take all the guts and violent faith within our hearts. The Kingdom advances by these violent and stormy hearts of ours.