Time experienced is so different than time expected — if I’m not aware and awake, I’ll let the time slip right through my fingers, the stories I’ll mention below only to become frames decorating the vacant sleepiness of my heart.
Really, it’s not time that I try to grasp ahold of. I reach for control. I reach for belonging. I reach for strength. The passing of days has a way of eroding and exposing even the strongest of us for the humanity that suspends our bones. My writing this month could go countless ways, but one theme emerges: in the darkness of divine mystery, when the things that are secondary burn and the cliches are exposed for their emptiness, the depth of humanity’s great love answers the call from humanity’s deep darknesses. What a mercy it is to be torn down and held up by a bottomless love, to be thrown into the tenderness of a God who will not share space in my heart.
To refuse to be lulled to sleep by the ease, comfort, and lethargy that entices so many of us (Americans) is to engage in battle. Unrealized blindness is a tragedy. Willing ignorance is a rampant epidemic that every follower of Jesus once walked in. I am inspired and challenged by those who return to the darkness that they were plucked out of with light, genuine love, and transcendent peace.
He also told them a parable: “Can a blind man lead a blind man? Will they not both fall into a pit? A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone when he is fully trained will be like his teacher. Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me take out the speck that is in your eye,’ when you yourself do not see the log that is in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take out the speck that is in your brother’s eye.”
Luke 6:39–43
My posture this month is reflected in a song I’ve found solace in:
“So take me back to where I started, take me back to when I was in your heart — in Your home before I went out on my own. Tear this house down to its foundations, break what you must break in me. On the shores of your salvation, cast my manmade kingdom into the sea.”
So here, two months later, I welcome springtime after this cold winter. But more, I welcome the burning of the things that are secondary, so that what is unshakable would take deep root. May the hardships I observe allow me to recognize Him with healed sight, that instead of vacant sleepiness, rivers living water would flow from my heart.
I thought I came here for work. But it seems as though God is doing more than that — He is at work within me.
