Stir it Up

I'm not starting this with anything in particular to write.  It's just that I haven't written in awhile so I'm going to stir the pot and see if anything of substance rises to the surface.  Saying something has never been a problem.  It's saying something worth saying that's the issue.  I've been in a season of listening and hearing, seeing and perceiving, this morning in particular spent digesting Psalm 27.  The writer makes a stunning declaration when he says, "one thing have I desired of the Lord and that will I seek after..."  That's the part that's stunning to me.  More than what He seeks, it's that he reduced his entire life down to one thing.  It's that refined focus that vocalizes that I'm alive for a single purpose.  Have you reduced your life to one desire?  Is there one cry in you that encompasses it all?  The one thing is to live in the manifest presence of His glory and from that place make Him known.  It amounts not just for us but for the impact of His glory to shape the world around us.  "...that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in His temple..."  What just rocks me about this is that the fulfillment of that one thing leads to another quest.  To be in that place of beholding is what qualifies you to inquire.  It's what grants you access to the place of greater breakthrough in wisdom and revelation.  The Psalm finishes up with a common admonishment in Scripture.  Wait on the Lord.  There's a few meanings that can be applied here and they're all profound and though different, all work.  One is to exercise a measure of patience, to surrender your agenda to His plan. (Prov 3:5,6)  Another is to attend to serving Him.  To bring to him what He desires as the master at a table and you, His servant.  (Ezekiel 44, Luke 17)  Still another is to set an ambush.  To set an ambush for God? That's about living in such a way that your direction can be diverted, spontaneous, and stripped of a predetermining agenda. Dip your toes in Psalm 27, stir that prayer around, and see what comes to the surface for you.

Agape

If you dare to squint the eyes of your heart to see the good in people, you may get blinded by the twisted, the broken, the parched, the frayed, razor edges of their darkest garbage thrown at you by the wind of their God empowered will. The blood of the Healer is a theory unrealized beyond our mind when it’s chosen a path from which culture won’t allow you to recover. We stumble and fall, we fall hard and far, and we are lost.

Lying broken and bent on the canyon floor of our fallenness, the walls of the chasm bearing down on us, taunting us to climb with limbs shattered and jutting from gaping wounds of guilt and shame. Jesus’ words echo down the walls and grace comes like the rain and the sun together conspire to cure the cold and the thirst that sin has left us with. When we did it right we hated the Healer who resurrected our scapegoats. We tore into Him with more than words. When we did it wrong we found no other friend than the one hanging next to us on the cross. 

I have been the common thief hanging in a state of guilt next to sinless perfection. I catch His eyes and I know, Jesus loves me. Jesus doesn’t have to squint His eyes to see goodness in me. It’s all He sees. He put it there. And now I know that I’m not meant to remain in this state. Redemption and resurrection conspire to restore and regenerate until we are lifted beyond even where you were to heights above the clouds where shadows of darkness, secrets, and lies have nothing more to hide behind. Born in flight upon eagles wings, the Son of righteousness carries you in healing into a resurrected abundance with Him. And there you are at rest in the agape of the Father forevermore.