Words. The ones we love most. Want to know something? You will usually struggle with the opposite of them. We love words we long for.
Its like a call really. Like we love words that speak something we crave. Something our soul, indeed, needs. And if you want to research your core, test it. What words do you love? Start with just one. I have found this leading me to seeing things. Praying things.
For months I asked Jesus to help me calm. To show me how to live simple. And for the past three years I have prayed, " Jesus, keep me of the seeing." Because what I love doing is also a struggle. I love seeing all the ways He loves. Recording them with pen, and saying thanks. But I have to keep this prayer on tongue, because I thicken so quickly. With worries, thoughts of what others think, self condemnation, and to-dos. And when my mind gets thick, it gets hard to breathe. And when I can't breathe, I go blind.
I hate the dark.
It's amazing isn't it? What a word can reveal about our heart. Calling. Soul goals.
I have lived for so long with a crowd in my head. This is what I know. I need space. Wide open space. It's one of the top reasons Jesus brought me to Kansas. It's vast here! Earth stretches out long until it kisses sky. Sunsets can be seen wide and full. Wind, strong and free, blows endlessly across these plains. It's gorgeous. And It's home. And though it's not for everyone, I know why I needed it. Jesus brought me here... To this open space that breathes...and stripped down the lies I thought about Him. About who I was. About where value comes from. Distractions had to leave. I had to come into this open space to see. The thick had to be thinned. It's apparently how my soul learns best.
So I rocked on a porch for hours. This city girl unable to sit still. I was used to noise. Crowds. Being known. I knew boundaries... Of the city, Of the people I knew, Of what I thought I could do. The irony? I had no idea who I was. Who He was. So He took me out, and set me down on the vast Prairie. This seemingly boundless place. I watched birds and found that I like becoming part of the quiet. I sat out in the rain, watching Kansas skies build all Cumulous with God power. I cried under barren Winter trees and honking Canada geese. In essence? I began to simplify.
It should come as no shock to me that He keeps having to clear my spaces. I really have a call on my life, to stay simple. What muddles my mind, muddles His voice. And that simply won't do.
So the past few months have been tough. They have been thick with trials and hard things. Realities that seemingly trap and lack answer. All of them mangling and intertwined. Like discarded barb wire all balled and rusting. My mind was so full. I can't describe to you the level of my exhaustion. Here I was again. Blind. Craving air.
Let the thinning begin!
My crowds? Oh, lots of things really. All of ours will vary. From health to hurts. Family tumult or maybe people in general. Fiances, curve balls, old joys coming to an end, new environments, or old things that just won't let go... On and on the hard can go...
And our crowds in the head aren't always circumstantial. In fact let's add the less obvious. Like perhaps...
What our family thinks...
What our friends think...
What our church may think...
What can I do to fix...
How can I change...
What if this...
I wish I wasn't so...
How do I become more...
What if God...
Our crowds can be this horrid mixture of hard realities and endless internal voices. Result? A vortex of terror!! Lol
And when we weigh it against this craving for peace... The void between suffocates.
Jesus is so Love. He is so determined. And I am the humble benefactor. I fill my life with control issues and bad habits, and He gently unwinds me. God of my whirlwinds and swallowing storms. I melt under His kind wing. Jesus savors the coming back sons and daughters.
Often though, before we come back, we have to come to the end. The end of trying to fix what He wants broken. The end of trying to be APART of our own answer in every problem. The end of finding worth in what we have, or what we think people value us for. The end of people being first and God being second.
It's not pretty. And it's certainly not fun.
This road is lonely. When we are used to crowds...the ones we like, and even the ones we don't... Being asked to come away can be agonizing. The Lord wants to take a walk with us. This glorious unwinding of soul. This untangling into what really matters. But the noise has to be stripped. And the life has to be thinned. Because God has to be heard. Deeply heard.
I have found that in this process, one of the greatest things I face is the question. The one that affects everything.
"Will He?"
Will He leave me alone with all my loneliness? Will His voice be loud enough to cut through my inability? Will He be there for me when others can't or won't? Will He come through and make something good like He promised? Will He love me when I am lost and ask the ugly things?
This is where we have to pick up the sword. Because the enemy has already entered camp. And friend...he is snarling. satan wants you to question God's goodness, His character, what He has said. Because if he can get us to do this, we won't walk that dusty road. We won't take Jesus' hand and walk away from the crowd. The enemy is always in the tangle.
But. There are secrets.
Secrets waiting for you. Treasures that are hidden. Glories wrapped up all gift. Awaiting those who take off their shoes and walk the dusty ground. The seemingly un-paved, un-traveled, no destination road... This road is the secret.
" And I will give you the treasures of darkness, and hidden wealth of secret places, in order that you may know that it is I, The Lord, The God of Israel, who calls you by name." ~ Isaiah 45:3
Yup. It's dark. And all you have to "go on" is that gentle voice asking you to come. The voice that says you are not alone. The voice that promises, " I. Will never leave you. Nor forsake you."
We are faced with seperation. From the crowds in our head or from Jesus treasures. Because let's face it, our souls cannot have two masters. We are not made to have more than one lover. What our soul makes love too, is what we worship. This isn't crass. This is raw true. And I am guilty of the attempted double grip. This strive to have people esteem me and yet have the feet of a disciple. But it always ends me in tangle. It always ends in loss and a heightened call to simplify.
To go back to my First Love.
We all want to be anchored deep. To be strong and confident. Who wants to stay battered and tossed by the wind? You? Oh... Maybe now You feel confident and strong...because your actually holding your life together quite nicely. But know this. He says we live, and move, and have our very being because of Him. So you may be balancing your scales famously at present, and you may be keeping all your balls juggled in rhthym. But if He even stopped thinking about you for a moment, you would die. So who is really in control? There will come a day, perhaps many different days if your like me, in which He will whisper you these truths. He will talk to you like He did to Job in Job 38-40:5. ( a must ponder )
Because He loves us. So, we all must know.
Jesus is what holds. Absolutely nothing can "be" without Him. And well, applying that to a life? Well...lets just say it blows a soul wide open. And not in the empty horror your flesh imagines. But rather in a strange comfort. This comfort in knowing you aren't in power. That you can be a mess and the world won't fall. You can be weak and love won't end.
Surrendering to One... It's the back road. But it's the road of secrets. The road of treasures beyond measure. The undoing of all false security, and the coming Hope of the One thing that will never fail.
"Jesus".
This name like airs whisper. "Jesus, Jesus, Jesus." Just hear it softly. The name that awakens the essence of fullness, hope, and a future. An actual future for you that real! And it doesn't end badly. He died to make sure it wouldn't.
So you know... Maybe that dusty road that none of your crowdies is on... Maybe it's time you take it. Maybe, like me, you want more. More than what people say about you... More than what you say about yourself... More than your fears...
More than your limitations.... Maybe, like me, you just want more Jesus. More of this hope that speaks of treasures and hidden wealth.
Take off your shoes. Walk away. Because whose soul doesn't want to come home...
No comments:
Post a Comment