Deep Things

(1)
O Spirit, no one knows the thoughts of God besides You.
You search the deep things of YHWH, the deep things of the I AM,
the riddles, the rhymes, the profound mysteries.
You, O Spirit fathom the absolute, infinite, beloved King of Glory

And Christ has gifted You to me, O Spirit,
that You would dwell within me, that I may be Your resting place.
I am Your abiding place, and You are my promised Revelation.

And it is because of You, O Spirit, that I know Christ, I know God Almighty
It is because of You that I know Him personally, I know Him deeply,
I know Him intimately.
Deeply, deeply, deeply.
By You, I venture deeper in intimacy with Christ.

(2)
I am the Bride, and You are the engagement ring
I am the Bride, and You are the Spirit within me.
You are the holy echo of my spirit -
a heavenly echo resonating from the depths of my soul
You and I are the depths of the earth that call out to the depths of heaven
You and I are the fervent yearning, the unquenchable desire.
You and I desperately long for the Bridegroom
And You and I passionately cry, "Come, LORD Jesus, Come."



xo


Currently Listening: to awesome anointed worshipers practicing for tomorrow's service.. I'm so wrecked by His love!
Currently Reading: I Cor 2.6-16, Eph 1.13-14, John 14.15-31, Rev 22.17

Prunes, Dates, and Humiliated Grapes

[Raisins] used to be fat and juicy and now they're twisted. They had their lives stolen. Well, they taste sweet, but really they're just humiliated grapes.
- Benny and Joon

I think the only dried fruit I actually like are dried cranberries, and that's just if I put them into my cranberry-walnut muffins (to make the name legit). But this is not going to be about shame, or dating, or the credibility of muffins. And not so much of prunes either...

This is about pruning.
[my irrelevant titles/tangents/excursions do eventually merge.]


There's an incredible move of God happening in THIS generation, that I WILL see with my eyes. And I have felt the growth in myself, and seen repercussions in the people around me - people getting healed in church, friends suddenly diving into a relentless crave for God, dreams unfolding, signs that make you wonder... It's all real.

The beauty of the New Covenant is that we live with the executable power that came from the resurrection. But that's just it - to resurrect means you'll have to die first.

I once heard Bill Johnson say this:

The reward for growth is to be pruned, because that allows for more fruit in the next season.

It's one of those glorifying-crucifying statements that I love and hate (but genuinely love), where we dreamers and optimists revel in clinging to the hope of "fruit," but practicality yanks us back into the realization of Jesus' uncompromising command to pick up your cross and die daily (Luke 9.23). I'll be honest - there are times that the "dying" part makes me groan. "Uh, Dad, I kinda don't want to die today. I've been really drained and I would prefer a nap over bloody sweat." (Because seriously, I do feel drained, and I could use a nap.)

For shame.

I can hear God tell me, "Endure it, woman." (sigh.) And He's right. After all, in order for a plant to be healthy, it needs to be pruned. Why waste nutrients on injured, infested, or dying areas of my life? Why feed the parts of me that don't glorify God, or bless others, or encourage my spirit? To prune is to encourage fruit development. In the end, it's more worth it to see the abundance of the Fruit of the Spirit (and fruit of your prayers, whatever "fruit" means for you), than to live with mediocre fruit, and a whole lot of dead stuff.

He cuts off every branch IN me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even MORE fruitful.
-John 15.2

It's to be expected, that because we live in such an exciting time in history, the junk must be made known - and chopped off. The intensity of Light sheds reality on all the dark things going on in our insides. The influx of His beauty calls for a purge of our ugliness. The increase of glory evokes an increase of attacks - everything worth fighting for will be fought over.

I say all these things as encouragement to myself and others, that the humiliation of being stripped of our beauty [uh.. raisins?], of our lives being flogged as a spectacle, of suffering, of a broken heart, of pain, of death - it is all a part of process to find the glory and power of the resurrection.

I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.
-Philippians 3.10-11

That's all...
OK let's go die!



xo


Listening: "To Be Alone with You," on Seven Swans, Sufjan Stevens.
Reading: The Pentateuch

O Broken Man

O the Broken Man on the Cross,
You have offended our minds to reveal our hearts

So we have crucified You,
that we may no longer be confronted by our great sin of fear;
to resume our idolatry - worshiping our doctrines, traditions, and self-attained holiness
to remain unchanged

So we have disowned You,like a faithful member of our gullible, pliable society
like everyone else who seeks entertainment, not conviction
as if You are a passing trend (like WWJD bracelets)

Broken Man, how can You tell us to eat Your flesh and drink Your blood?
How can You use the unclean spit to clean a man's blindness?
Why did You not fight for John the Baptist's freedom from prison?
What if we would rather sing the dirge than do a dance?

Broken Man on the Cross,
You gave Your mother away.
You say a thief will enter Paradise.
You ask forgiveness on our behalf from G-d Himself (and we did not ask for it)

This Authority!
Who ordained You? Where did You get Your license? Show us Your credentials!
(Where's that Pastor ID Card....)

We don't like You.



So die.



And now, Broken Man, as You are on the Cross,
Is this so much what our hearts have desired?

Broken Man, we have heard it said one way, and You say another.
We say retribution, You say absolution.
We say regulations, You say invitations.
We say sow and reap, You say favor.

We say half, You say whole.
We say a lot of lies.
You say a lot of Truth.
And it has offended our minds, but revealed our hearts.


For we say death, but You say Life.


O Broken Man,
You ruined every funeral,
You will surely ruin Your own.




xo

Listening: Upstairs by Shane & Shane
Reading: A Severe Mercy by Sheldon Vanauken

Who's Having a Baby!?

Beyond all question, the mystery of godliness is great:
He appeared in a body,
was vindicated by the Spirit,
was seen by angels,
was preached among the nations,
was believed on in the world,
was taken up in glory.

I Timothy 3:16

Oh the beauty and the mystery of the Incarnation!
These days Christmas is either commercialized, patronized, or adored. And for those who adore, maybe we smile or acknowledge, or weep in advent and awe and love. But the fact still remains, this happened to humans. Mary, Joseph, and Jesus - all people.

Meaning, Mary, pondering all these things (Luke 2:19), could have easily said, "That's God kicking in my belly!" Max Lucado actually poses some 25 beautiful questions he'd like to ask Mary [plus some additional commentary by yours truly]:

1. What was it like watching Him pray?
2. How did he respond when he saw other kids giggling during the service at the synagogue?
3. When he saw a rainbow, did he ever mention a flood?
4. Did you ever feel awkward teaching him how he created the world? [Hey Jesus, on day 1, You made heaven and earth!]
   
5. When he saw a lamb being led to the slaughter, did he act differently?
6. Did you ever see him with a distant look on his face as if he were listening to someone you couldn't hear?
7. How did he act at funerals?
8. Did the thought ever occur to you that the God to whom you were praying was asleep under you own roof? [More like, "Father God - can Jesus hear me right now? I mean, beside the fact that He's in the other room..."]
   
9. Did you ever try to count the stars with him...and succeed?
10. Did he ever come home with a black eye? [If Jesus said to turn your cheek, did He let other kids beat up on Him? Would He heal Himself? Or did He have the power to restrain them?]
    
11. How did he act when he got his first haircut?
12. Did he have any friends by the name of Judas? [I think of Mr. B's thought of painting kid-Jesus and kid-Judas playing tug of war...]
    
13. Did he do well in school?
14. Did you ever scold him? [Well... wasn't He perfect?]
    
15. Did he ever have to ask a question about Scripture?
16. What do you think he thought when he saw a prostitute offering to the highest bidder the body he made?
17. Did he ever get angry when someone was dishonest with him?
18. Did you ever catch him pensively looking at the flesh on his own arm while holding a clod of dirt?
19. Did he ever wake up afraid? [But there is no fear in LOVE! HE is love!]
    
20. Who was his best friend? [...God?]
    
21. When someone referred to Satan, how did he act?
22. Did you ever accidentally call him Father? [or LORD?]
    
23. What did he and his cousin John talk about as kids?
24. Did his other brothers and sisters understand what was happening? [Talk about living under the shadow of perfection! He always made His bed, put things where they belong...]
    
25. Did you ever think, That's God eating my soup?

Sacrilegious? I think not. In fact, I'm absolutely humored - perhaps even more in love with Jesus trying to grasp the fact that He was human. And He had human limitations. He probably had an awkward stage ["awkward" by societal interpretation, as it always is]. And Mary, seeing these things with her very eyes, treasured these things in her heart.

And yet, she could have also pondered the following: "If He is God, why does it hurt?" If this is a divine birth, why must I experience pain? Why must I bear weight and be so stretched? If this is God, why do I have to let Him go? If this is God, why must I watch the One I love so torchered and beaten and killed?


Don't we find ourselves in that place? Aren't there moments where God longs to place His desires in our hears, and so we say "Let it be unto me according to Your Word?" And then, only to find that this Word, this promise, this command, this calling - sometimes, it hurts. It's like a weight we carry, a heaviness, a burden. Stretching our limits. Testing our patience. Keeping us awake at night. And sometimes, we eventually question, "God, is this really You?" Maybe our Joseph - the ones closest to us - will question too, "God, are You sure this is Your Spirit and not her way of sneaking out of a sin?" Yes, we face the public, who might disbelieve us or mock us. Yes, temptation will come to doubt or fear. But above all else, we recall the beautiful declaration of promise:

Blessed is she who has believed that what the LORD has said to her will be accomplished.
-Luke 1:45

Post-pregnancy is the joy of a Child. Post-death is the joy of the resurrection. Post-struggle is the earned reward. Post-endurance is the fulfillment of a promise. We are not to keep this pain like a trophy, like a reward for playing the victim - even if we're still in the struggle. We need to recognize that we are part of something greater - we aren't commissioned to build walls, we are commissioned to build cathedrals. Vision gives purpose to pain.

2009 was prophesied as being the year of the womb (among other things), and I am holding out for that. I do believe that the promises God has given me will bear fruit. I believe that the pain I had to endure this past year will be forgotten. For me, '08 had to have been the most stretching and the most ridiculous, and also, the most I've ever fought for Love. And when you fight for Love, you have Love.


One facet of the Incarnation was that it was an act of relentless pursuit - that God so desired to be among us, and wanted us to know that He wants to be closer. It definitely leaves me awestruck to compare the joy and peace found therein, to the human fight for life. I hope with all hopes, that I won't abort this Promise, because even if I experience pain, God is still here, and eventually I can say,

My eyes have seen Your salvation
-Luke 2:30

xo