Lost Post from A Forgotten November: "And For Now..."
The litany of the everyday is becoming less and less liturgical and the "shoulds" are gripping tight. In this, the middle, it feels chaotic and yet there is routine. Or is it more like a rhythm. If it were rhythmical though it would feel different, right? Wake up, breakfast, coffee, lunches. Kisses goodbye. Quiet time. Work day. Errands. Dry cleaning, library, dinner menu, grocery shopping, Target runs for essentials. Oil changes, supplies. Life's demands pile high. The monotony can be suffocating at times. In a world where we're told bigger and better. Glitz and glamour. Proclaim your greatness for all to hear. I don't feel like shouting. More so, I have no desire to compete with competition that isn't even aware. I answer to the tug, the pull of the billboard. Advertising in place of doing. In the secret places is where it matters. And here, in my soul something is shouting otherwise. Let me live with reckless abandon. All for you. This is my prayer. Faith that forces me to do. To live. Yes, even here in the routine. The day after day. Or the valley. Or the mountain tops that may come and go. To live for the struggle.
I could write a well intentioned post about how to do this. How to go before the Lord of Lords and beseech Him. To spend the morning hours with Him so that the day is lived out differently. If I did that it might sound as though I have all the answers. I don't. Not even close. I'm learning. Struggling. Failing miserably and counting on grace to be poured out.
What I have discovered though, and just mere days after writing those first two paragraphs, is that answers to prayer, or desperation, whatever you may call it, can come in a way least expected. For me, that is only a glimpse of the magnificence of the God I serve.
I started this book. Don't really remember where I heard about it, probably from another author I was reading at a different time. That is all irrelevant. Let me just say that I am not even finished with this book, a biography, if you will, and it has stirred me. For real. While I have found myself shaking my head in disagreement over pieces of theology, I have very much felt challenged simultaneously. Motivated in a way that was not foreseen. Let me share, candidly if I may, what I wrote in my journal this morning. While still dark outside and completely quiet in this home of mine. These words may reveal my heart better than the above attempts to do. It is only a miniscule puzzle piece into the cavernous thoughts that sometimes consume and you may not even find it relevant. That's ok too. There is something to sharing this that soothes my soul. I find it obedient in a way I cannot explain.
11/13/13:
In the quiet of the morning I sit, alone and I am wrestling with some thought provoking ideas I have read recently. Thoughts on You, the Jesus I know, that are different than what I have known. And really they are not new revelations about You, but rather the church, the religions. What was said about You is true, the way You loved, love, how You served people, this notion of us v. them, separation. These are exhibited in Your teachings. No lines were drawn, no wrong side of the tracks. And yet I feel encouraged and maybe even alive at the mere thought of fleshing these ideas out and claiming my faith as my own once again. Not something I do on Sundays or Wednesdays, something I live over and over, after each mistake, during the valleys and all the in-between. Yet, in a new kind of way. Without fluff, without agenda, or image building, or any of the rumination that accompanies it. Out loud. Because of love and only with love. Full of grace for all I meet because, as I've read recently, I belong to God and so does everyone else. They should be treated as such. Biblical concept; Treat others the way you would like to be treated. Let's go a step further and do that with the knowledge that they too were created and chosen by the same God I serve and declare my love for. Within this idea unexplainable reverence overcomes me. I have always been one for smiling, making eye contact, those are important and so very much can be delivered to another through those gestures. What if, though, I paused, even if only in my head, and remembered the other person was knit together by the same Maker. He said He would be clothed in the skin of those around us and when we fed, clothed, etc. another we would be doing the same to Him. I tend to get a tad overwhelmed by this notion. Then the guilt rushes in and I remember too many times I've failed miserably at this. And yes in front of my children. In place of grace that could have been I gave impatience and frustration. Clearly not fruits of the spirit. Nonetheless, seeing me try or at the very least recognize the opportunity for what it was could be a lesson in and of itself. That's the thing here, we're all just human. No perfection. Only rough edges and depths of darkness. We fight hard to stay in the light. To keep our heads just that little bit above the water. A daily battle. Sometimes hourly and there are even minutes that can feel like a win or a total loss. But it's not. Never a loss. He hasn't given up on anyone of us and frankly, we shouldn't either.
I could write a well intentioned post about how to do this. How to go before the Lord of Lords and beseech Him. To spend the morning hours with Him so that the day is lived out differently. If I did that it might sound as though I have all the answers. I don't. Not even close. I'm learning. Struggling. Failing miserably and counting on grace to be poured out.
What I have discovered though, and just mere days after writing those first two paragraphs, is that answers to prayer, or desperation, whatever you may call it, can come in a way least expected. For me, that is only a glimpse of the magnificence of the God I serve.
I started this book. Don't really remember where I heard about it, probably from another author I was reading at a different time. That is all irrelevant. Let me just say that I am not even finished with this book, a biography, if you will, and it has stirred me. For real. While I have found myself shaking my head in disagreement over pieces of theology, I have very much felt challenged simultaneously. Motivated in a way that was not foreseen. Let me share, candidly if I may, what I wrote in my journal this morning. While still dark outside and completely quiet in this home of mine. These words may reveal my heart better than the above attempts to do. It is only a miniscule puzzle piece into the cavernous thoughts that sometimes consume and you may not even find it relevant. That's ok too. There is something to sharing this that soothes my soul. I find it obedient in a way I cannot explain.
11/13/13:
In the quiet of the morning I sit, alone and I am wrestling with some thought provoking ideas I have read recently. Thoughts on You, the Jesus I know, that are different than what I have known. And really they are not new revelations about You, but rather the church, the religions. What was said about You is true, the way You loved, love, how You served people, this notion of us v. them, separation. These are exhibited in Your teachings. No lines were drawn, no wrong side of the tracks. And yet I feel encouraged and maybe even alive at the mere thought of fleshing these ideas out and claiming my faith as my own once again. Not something I do on Sundays or Wednesdays, something I live over and over, after each mistake, during the valleys and all the in-between. Yet, in a new kind of way. Without fluff, without agenda, or image building, or any of the rumination that accompanies it. Out loud. Because of love and only with love. Full of grace for all I meet because, as I've read recently, I belong to God and so does everyone else. They should be treated as such. Biblical concept; Treat others the way you would like to be treated. Let's go a step further and do that with the knowledge that they too were created and chosen by the same God I serve and declare my love for. Within this idea unexplainable reverence overcomes me. I have always been one for smiling, making eye contact, those are important and so very much can be delivered to another through those gestures. What if, though, I paused, even if only in my head, and remembered the other person was knit together by the same Maker. He said He would be clothed in the skin of those around us and when we fed, clothed, etc. another we would be doing the same to Him. I tend to get a tad overwhelmed by this notion. Then the guilt rushes in and I remember too many times I've failed miserably at this. And yes in front of my children. In place of grace that could have been I gave impatience and frustration. Clearly not fruits of the spirit. Nonetheless, seeing me try or at the very least recognize the opportunity for what it was could be a lesson in and of itself. That's the thing here, we're all just human. No perfection. Only rough edges and depths of darkness. We fight hard to stay in the light. To keep our heads just that little bit above the water. A daily battle. Sometimes hourly and there are even minutes that can feel like a win or a total loss. But it's not. Never a loss. He hasn't given up on anyone of us and frankly, we shouldn't either.
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