It seems it takes a lifetime to keep our eyes from roaming to and fro.... to keep them, and our hearts steadied on one thing alone.
I say this, late tonight, sleep sneaking nearby, creeping round my cozy pile of blankets, drawing my eyelids down further with each added moment....I say it before sleep hits. Before memory steals it away.
I am not humble.
I'm not good.
Those things aren't what my disposition leans toward.
But I know someone who is good and is humble. And I have put my hope in him, that he will erase all the lies of pride, and cover me, continually.... "like a broken record" with his blood. And he will keep reminding me, keep telling me, keep humbling me-not of my own accord,but so that I will look to him, and look only to him.
It was from him I have received everything. It is from him I've been given grace, love, hope, redemption.
It's all his fault if anything wise, or true, or right exits my mouth.
He is the cause and perpetrator of our joy- and of our life.
To God only be the glory through Jesus.
Sunday, November 21, 2010
Saturday, November 20, 2010
I want to go back to India.
Some days I feel so far removed from this dream, that ends up being all it is, a dream….wavering through the fog and mist, disappearing and reappearing at sporadic moments. It’s as though I’m playing some massive game of Hide-and-seek. Not that we should build idols and enshrine them, not that we should turn our dreams into our gods. Rather, we should seek to glorify God in all we do, and if he removes something, we remain content. If he allows something to come to pass, we remain content. We are single-minded and single-focused.
I have spent the last hours of the dying night thinking about India, why did I go? what did I learn? who did I become family with? How did it change my eyes? How did I learn love from others? Who did I give love to? …..and what did I promise on that rooftop almost three years ago?
…..That promise, those words, they are still hanging on the air. They might be avoided by fear, they may have even changed perspective (in a good way). And no, I am not going to go be some hero. I am not going to do ‘mighty works’ or ‘big things’ even. I sometimes wonder if the heads of the prophets got muddled with the enormity of things sometimes, this huge expectation they felt inside themselves of what God was doing, and what he was saying? Did they ever feel crazy? ….or did they ever feel frightened by exactly how big things were? Or had they learned what I am still trying to digest?
None of what I do is big. He uses us. We are his. We are his dependents-and everything “big” is done through Him; through his power, through his love, through his life, death, and resurrection. We claim nothing, not even the breath we breathe. We are however, responsible for how we use what he has so graciously given us. And we are responsible for following him, even though he is the enabler.
The fear used to hunt me down, it pursued me as quickly as the initial excitement. It would fill me with the lies that heaped all of this supposed greatness onto my own shoulders, and said it was an impossibility too large for me to hold. And that part of the lie was true- all of this, all of anything worth doing is far too great a burden and a weight for someone as small as I.
But the falsehood was just assumed from the beginning: That the weight of accomplishing relies on me, that the weight of situations rests on my shoulders.
The fear makes the wrong assumption.
I am not the savior of the world. I am not the supplier of my next breath. I do not create oxygen or make the sun rise every morning or the stars explode every night. I don’t whisper up to the birds to tell them which songs to sing for which season. I didn’t paint the colors on all of nature. And I didn’t speak things into existence out of the vast emptiness that lay before me.
I am not the doer. I live only when I live in the blood of Christ.
The weak, the broken, the absurd- He uses us all so that there is no doubt-so that it is beyond reckoning that this power comes from him and him alone. Simply because it is an impossibility. It goes against our reasoning and comprehension. But that is the language he speaks with, and that is how we are sure that it is his power, not our own moving within us.
I am infinitely weak and small and broken.
And my God, the God of all things, He holds me in his hand. He looks on Jesus’ blood that covers me, and I am His.
So what is impossible?
Not anything that God wills.
Some days I feel so far removed from this dream, that ends up being all it is, a dream….wavering through the fog and mist, disappearing and reappearing at sporadic moments. It’s as though I’m playing some massive game of Hide-and-seek. Not that we should build idols and enshrine them, not that we should turn our dreams into our gods. Rather, we should seek to glorify God in all we do, and if he removes something, we remain content. If he allows something to come to pass, we remain content. We are single-minded and single-focused.
I have spent the last hours of the dying night thinking about India, why did I go? what did I learn? who did I become family with? How did it change my eyes? How did I learn love from others? Who did I give love to? …..and what did I promise on that rooftop almost three years ago?
…..That promise, those words, they are still hanging on the air. They might be avoided by fear, they may have even changed perspective (in a good way). And no, I am not going to go be some hero. I am not going to do ‘mighty works’ or ‘big things’ even. I sometimes wonder if the heads of the prophets got muddled with the enormity of things sometimes, this huge expectation they felt inside themselves of what God was doing, and what he was saying? Did they ever feel crazy? ….or did they ever feel frightened by exactly how big things were? Or had they learned what I am still trying to digest?
None of what I do is big. He uses us. We are his. We are his dependents-and everything “big” is done through Him; through his power, through his love, through his life, death, and resurrection. We claim nothing, not even the breath we breathe. We are however, responsible for how we use what he has so graciously given us. And we are responsible for following him, even though he is the enabler.
The fear used to hunt me down, it pursued me as quickly as the initial excitement. It would fill me with the lies that heaped all of this supposed greatness onto my own shoulders, and said it was an impossibility too large for me to hold. And that part of the lie was true- all of this, all of anything worth doing is far too great a burden and a weight for someone as small as I.
But the falsehood was just assumed from the beginning: That the weight of accomplishing relies on me, that the weight of situations rests on my shoulders.
The fear makes the wrong assumption.
I am not the savior of the world. I am not the supplier of my next breath. I do not create oxygen or make the sun rise every morning or the stars explode every night. I don’t whisper up to the birds to tell them which songs to sing for which season. I didn’t paint the colors on all of nature. And I didn’t speak things into existence out of the vast emptiness that lay before me.
I am not the doer. I live only when I live in the blood of Christ.
The weak, the broken, the absurd- He uses us all so that there is no doubt-so that it is beyond reckoning that this power comes from him and him alone. Simply because it is an impossibility. It goes against our reasoning and comprehension. But that is the language he speaks with, and that is how we are sure that it is his power, not our own moving within us.
I am infinitely weak and small and broken.
And my God, the God of all things, He holds me in his hand. He looks on Jesus’ blood that covers me, and I am His.
So what is impossible?
Not anything that God wills.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)