Today, I heard Him say,

"Make no mistake; I will pour My grace over your failures like the majestic waterfall before you. 

But crowns I give to the victorious."

"Heel-Catcher"

The first  stage is denial, right? Well denial looks, sounds, and feels different to everyone…  ...to someone who is an expert at denying things, the denial doesn't even seem present. One of these days I’ll learn to slow down at the slopes and dips and not take them full speed ahead. 

New seasons. Well, if it’s true, it’s starting out kinda rough. And I’m sure there’s a promise in that… The sky is darkest right before dawn. This will not compare to the joy before me. I get it.

And it’s probably true. 

But I feel like crap right now.

But… 

But Sovereignty. 

But God.

All of this is but how the chess pieces move. The means to accomplish a good end. The only way I’d learn. Yeah, there’s sarcasm there, and that’s because I’m a cynical piece of work. But that doesn’t mean I don’t believe it. And I know I believe it… My heart beats at the thought of the plan of the Most High King coming to fruition. I’m thrilled to be a part of it. 

Its the whittling, shaving, breaking, re-shaping part I want nothing to do with… But He will win. I will surrender, and though part of me will fight until the bitter end (and lose), the other part of me can’t wait. 

I can’t wait until God changes my name.

Orual

Sometimes I feel as if eloquently describing emotion, wrapping it in a bow, and sealing it with poetic words of articulate wisdom somehow qualifies it. 

If I can talk about the realest crap in me in the most thought provoking way that somehow allows people to peer into their souls and ask themselves why they never thought of describing that state in that way themselves, then I have mastered the state, its emotions, and ultimately its course of action.

Stupid, huh? Or maybe not. Who knows and who cares.

 So apparently I never learned how to not be frustrated at myself. My “inner dad,” if you will, is nothing more than carbon copy of the mere man who taught me how to hate myself. Why are our minds so fragile? A design corrupted, a process gone wrong. Even in this, You are here, aren’t You?

So now what. I’m tired of running, sick of crying. I refuse to die, but I’m too weak to fight. This sip is too hot and too bitter, and I won’t swallow.

Yet I will swallow this drink, that my life may learn to become a drink offering. 

I will overcome biology. 

To the bitter end, I will fight.

The Prodigal's Ramblings

Was it really 2 years ago? It feels so recent. It feels so near. 

The Earth has circled the Sun twice. 

Not a day goes by that I don’t think about it. I live each day with my heart broken, missing a piece that I left in You, and a piece I left there. Oh, that time would not be so cruel and drag on so slowly. Sanctification, like death, stings all the more when brought about slowly. 

I stand here now, the goal always in sight, towering above the fog, but the way there riddled with mines and steep curves. The road winds on and on around rocky cliffs none can climb. Each day, miles and miles unravel before me. But I will get there. This I know. Though I flew here thousands of miles an hour, and though I must walk back, I will get there.  

But today, I am here. And I am not alone, nor will I be, nor was I ever. Here, Lord, teach me. Take me and mold me. Put me through the pain I must experience. Kill the parts of me that must die. Prune me, wash me, and show me Your salvation. 

Make me into the man You've called me to be. 

For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.

Safe.

Do not shrink back at my wrath; do not fear and tremble (as the enemy of your soul would) at my power— it is what sustains you. My power is terrible to some, to you it is mighty to save. A sword of judgment to many, and impenetrable shield to you. Lion and Lamb. Mighty, fiery thunderings. Still, gentle whisper. The unfathomable strength you are prone to fear is the very strength in your weakness; the Spirit that raised Christ from the dead... The seal, the guarantee that I will complete what I have started. I am the only one who can know your deceitful and desperately wicked heart of stone, and I have replaced it with a heart of flesh. I am not overcome by this world; my light shines in the darkness, and the darkness cannot overcome it. What can separate you from my love? I have engraved your name on the palms of My hand. Learn which one my Voice is as my sheep. No one will snatch you from my hands."

Still.

In these moments, I must be still.

When the thoughts of despair overwhelm me

I must be still.

When the outcomes of very action and lack thereof point to doom

I must be still.

When I cannot believe what I know

I must be still.

While my heart races, and my body tenses

I must be still.

When it is heard to breathe

I must be still.

When my body fidgets, and my feet are restless

I must be still.

When only the Spirit prays in my favor, with groans too deep for words

I must be still

I must be still and know. 

Know who You are. Know what You are. What You are like. What You have said. What You have done.

Know that You are God.

Wilderness and Tender Words.

In the year that King Uzziah died...

I took a road trip to the Grand Canyon last weekend. There was really no reason for it. No real conscious “leading.” Pure impulse based on the notion that in my 29 years of living in reasonable proximity of it, I had never been. And, of course, the allure of escape every man occasionally experiences. 

It’s hard to find words for the sensation you experience as you peer over the ledge, but not in an “oh, it was so indescribable,” kind of way. The Grand Canyon itself is describable. An articulate man could describe the layers of colors, the picturesque backdrops, and the creatures that nonchalantly inhabit it. But this was more of emotional sensation because the sight of beauty is one of the times that men freely allow themselves to nod at their emotions. This one was a raw emotion that only comes from a million thoughts swarming through your brain. All of your senses respond to an an incredible stimulus before you, and all the emotions you have ever felt activate to form a sort of equilibrium. An equilibrium that almost looks like numbness in the same way that an airplane engine in full motion must look. Those are the times of no words for men.

It was everything everyone said it would be. Breathtakingly beautiful. Fearfully majestic. Crazy big. There was something about it that inspired courage too. There was something that made you want to spread out your arms and stand before heights you would never otherwise stand on with such defiance. 

Exhilaration, euphoria energy. I’m here. I almost felt a part of it, a part of its might. Men like those feelings.

and then you get even closer, and maybe a little too close. Close enough to the ledge to find that a few loose pebbles can trip a mighty man. 

It’s sobering to become aware that to call yourself a man, is really to say I am JUST a man. And a man is not part of the mighty cliff but susceptible to its dangers. There’s something sobering about remembering your mortality and seeing the all too possible plunge you would take down the steep cliffs. Sobering enough to want to admire from a distance. Perception of strength is not immunity. Humility is painful to the pride of man. 

The other day, I read in Hosea about what God had to say to Israel. “Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her.” Coming from a not-so-perfect relationship with my father as a boy, I don’t know how to react to the tender words. But in my hated moments of fear and insecurity, I learned why they are necessary, and why the wilderness itself is necessary. I learned why Peter needed to know that he needed to be rescued from drowning. And something strange happened there.

In that mili-second, I learned that to a man, beauty can me consumed by majesty. Beauty can be lost in overpowering strength and power. Beauty is hidden from me while my sight in consumed in the terrible, colossal, splendor before me.

And You will show not Yourself to me any less. You are mighty, powerful, holy. And inexplicably so, You will not conceal Your beauty from me either. You will not allow me to see you as any less than Mighty and Beautiful. Judge and Savior. Lord and Father. King and Friend. One to be feared and loved. Lion and Lamb… 

Wilderness and tender words. 

...I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted upand the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!”And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!” Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth and said: “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.”