bequest

we'll soar beyond and hunt them down.

my Eagle, my Warrior.

we'll pursue the lost and heal the hurt.

my Home, my Healer.

we'll open the doors and throw a feast.

my Host of hosts, my Provider.

we'll unveil eyes and comfort the lonely.

my Light, my Friend.

we'll groan in anticipation and bewail sins.

my Patience, my Sufferer.

we'll break their chains and wrestle for blessing.

my Liberator, my Jacob.

we'll speak from the mountain and cry out from the dust.

my Rabbi, my Christ.

we'll conquer nations and destroy idols.

my Victory, my Judge.

we'll produce fruit and offer sacrifices.

my Adam, my Lamb.

dawn

he is rising like a sun

over my souls country-scape

free, large, sovereign, full.

the depth and dents of darker, damper days

melt away in the glorious sunlight.

because words are not enough

i let his name roll around my tongue

and we sit, alive, content

one.

paul

I quite love Paul. 

Paul was God's chosen instrument to take to the Gentiles the most fatally important, most complicatedly simple, most unspeakably loving message of all time. At the dawn of his calling, Paul was literally a serial killer. But Jesus looked upon this outrageously passionate man storming around Israel shooting down 'heretics' in the name of God. And Jesus thinks, "hey I could use a guy like that". So He blinds him, sits him down and gives him a good talking to. A few days later, Paul has completely abandoned his original cause and switched to the other side. Paul stands in the synagogue bellowing out the very words he was once killing people for saying. So clearly Paul was not a fearful man. But when he first approached the Corinthians with his precious message, he was awkward, unsure, and ineloquent.

"I came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling."

- 1 Corinthians 2:3

"...I was scared to death if you want the truth of it."

- 1 Corinthians 2:3 (MSG)

I think Christians are pretty hard on themselves. We all look so closely at our failures and weaknesses. We declare it 'humility' to scrutinise ourselves, label our can'ts and meekly nod at our cans. We think ourselves too young, too shy, too uneducated, too small. We think we must to wait until we are "ready" before we can begin to serve. We sign up on God's volunteer list only for the things we (subconsciously) deem ourselves capable of. But I wonder if we truly knew who we were in Christ, if we truly knew the grace and power of the One we are hoping to serve, would we still be making claims to such fallibilities? 

Question: have you ruled out the possibility of God using you for something because you think you are not able, or "made" to do it? Do you think of yourself, your personality (faults and flaws as well as strengths and assets), as a set entity? 

I wrote a post a few months ago about the way I have limited God's power by saying I can do something without Him. But lately I have seen that when I assign myself to a certain kind of service, I am limiting God's scope, i.e. I am limiting His power by saying I can't do something, even with Him. I am saying to Him that I don't believe He is enough to stretch me further beyond who I perceive myself to be. The truth is, where I end - where I give up standing on my own - is exactly the point where God can begin. The Holy Spirit can there step in and bridge even the widest gap.  

Paul did not have a New Testament to help him to get his head around the New Covenant. He did not have years to study, scholarise himself, rehearse his sermons and fancy 'Christianese'. All Paul got was a few convos with some peeps who knew a bit about Jesus' life (no one fully understood what His death meant when Paul got on board). That, and the Holy Spirit. Paul was afraid, he stumbled on his words (much like Moses and Jeremiah). But in the ways where Paul was not able to work on his own is the exact place where God intervened. True, Paul was chosen by God and used in this way because he was unusually passionate. But it was only by his faith in God, not in himself, that he was able to fulfil his calling. If he had trusted in himself, tell me how far he would have gotten? So tell me also, how far can you go trusting in yourself? Never, ever underestimate the strength and power of God. Do not look down on yourself and think you have nothing to give or nothing of use. All God asks for is faith. If you have that, you can command mountains to move.

caged

I am trapped in the confines of a world too small for my exploding desire, my big love, my heavy passion. 

My body seems too small to hold me all in. 

I am overflowing and uncontainable.

My mind dances, bursts with need to make, to create. 

The expression of nothing, and everything, waits. Caged. 

Such a little place, so fragile and inadequate. 

Can a mind rupture? 

Can an imagination collapse in on itself if not given some release? 

Can one suffocate, or drown, for lack of an arty escape? 

Can a heart erupt if muted for too long? 

Can beauty and love and goodness pool, well up, accumulate to such a mass that it may cause it's holder to shatter? 

paradox

Good God,

We rejoice in balance, 

In finding the fine line, and teetering on the edge of it.

Help us to find the tension between knowing too much and not knowing enough,

between trusting you and being lazy, 

between seeking and being content.

Help us to learn not to label black and white.

May we learn to embrace the perplexing greys you allow in.

We throw ourselves into the freedom pool of beautiful paradox and glorious oxymoron, (and not just because we love the sound of those words). 

Let us learn to embrace those deepest mysteries not yet made known to us. 

Though your Three-ness, and other unknowables, are largely inconceivable, we trust that our refined understanding of you does not make us right, or wrong.

We ask that you would teach us so hold lightly what we do know, for the one who says he knows is the one who knows nothing at all.

We remember that one can know about you, but still not know you at all.

May we learn to not delete the parts of you that seem to contradict, for those parts are the most beautiful of all. 

Let us be both profoundly satisfied by your presence and filled with an aching thirst for more and more of you.

Amen.