Meditation and a Vision

“But his delight is in the law of the LORD, And in His law he meditates day and night” (Ps. 1:2).

To meditate:  To be attentive to God in order to see Him as He is and in turn, see ourselves in light of God’s revealed word.  We meditate to give God’s Word the opportunity to penetrate not just our minds, but our hearts, our emotions – the places where we hurt, and our will – the place where we make choices and decisions. 

“Be still and know that I am God” (Ps. 46:10).

How desperately I need to find myself lost in God’s presence every day and to allow His love to surround me as He reveals Himself to me afresh.  There are times that life is downright confusing and I seriously question if everything is going to turn out all right and God assures me it will if I follow Him.  I tell Him that I need His help and He knows; that’s why He meets with me and asks me just to sit with Him for a while and to remember that He is God. I hear Him ask me if I trust Him.  I tell Him I want to and He says I have to let Him work and that it will require my cooperation; that He will give me the strength, but I have to be willing to set my own will aside.  I ask Him how I do this, for this is not an easy task.  “Come to Me everyday and lay everything at My feet.  Leave your every thought and concern with Me and I will care for you.”  He reminds me through a song that I don’t understand the fullness of His love and how He died upon the cross for my sin; that I don’t realize how much He gives me and how He would do it all again just to be with me.  He has done everything.  There is no price He did not pay; He gave His life away just to be with me.  Why at times do I feel so numb to that breathtaking truth?  Is my heart that calloused?  Have we as believers heard the story so many times that it has lost its depth of meaning?  I am ashamed by my lack of emotion at times when I think about His death and resurrection and feel that if I really grasped its awesome truth, my life would look so very different.

I want to see Him - I mean really see Him.  I want all that His is to penetrate my heart to its core and not leave me unchanged.  Nothing in life should matter as long as I am with Him.  I want Him to be my hearts one and only desire.  I ask Him to teach me how to live and walk with Him - He gives me a picture – a vision of sorts.  We are walking on a road together and I do not know where we are going but I don’t need to because He is there; we are together and that is all I want – all that matters.  But then I see things I want to bring along; things I feel I need on my journey - things I’ve been searching for all my life.  He tells me no – that I need to trust Him to provide; that I am not meant to take these things for myself but I am convinced this is it so I take what I want and it seems so perfect but what I thought I desperately needed soon becomes heavy and slows me down.  I have to work extra hard to try and keep up with my Lord but I find myself quickly falling behind.  I stumble and I fall; I’m so weary but I don’t want to let go - I need these things.  I hear the Lord calling for me - He’s calling my name – He sounds so excited and tells me to come quickly, you must see this; leave everything behind and hurry before you miss it.  I pause and in that moment of hesitation I see a multitude of creatures approaching me from all directions whispering enticing lies vying for my attention and devotion.  They begin grabbing at me and the load I’m carrying.  I try to fight them off but by this time I have little strength left.  Is it too late to escape, I wonder?  I cry out for the Lords help.  I yell out His name telling Him I need courage and strength to let go of what I’m holding onto.  I tell Him that I want Him; that I just want to enjoy His presence again and the freedom that comes from walking in His ways but I’m so weak – I can’t do it on my own.  I see Him come running down the path for me as I continue calling out for His help.  He speaks something I do not understand and shackles of heavy chains fall off my wrists and ankles; the creatures disperse and run for cover and my Lord picks me up in His arms - His eyes filled with both pain and love and asks me in a gentle voice if I’m ready to come with Him – if I’m ready to trust Him.  All I can do is shake my head in agreement as I lay my head against His chest.  As I hear the beating of His heart I feel peace once again – I know that I am where I belong – I am home.

Now to make it more than just a vision...

“Teach me, O LORD, the way of Your statutes, And I shall keep it to the end.  Give me understanding and I shall keep Your law; Indeed I shall observe it with my whole heart.  Make me walk in the path of Your commandments, For I delight in it.  Incline my heart to Your testimonies, And not to covetousness.  Turn away my eyes from looking at worthless things, And revive me in Your way.  Establish Your word to Your servant.  Who is devoted to fearing You.  Turn away my reproach which I dread, For Your judgments are good.  Behold I long for Your precepts; Revive me in Your righteousness.  Let Your mercies come also to me, O LORD” (Ps. 119:33-41).

Special moments

When the weather is cooperating, I enjoy going down to the river for my quiet times.  For the most part, I do the majority of my bible reading and studying in the comfort of my room but I find that my moments of deep solitude and prayer with the Father take on more meaning when I am out in His creation.  There is just something about being in the fresh air and wide-open spaces that make me feel nearer to Him and more focused as opposed to being surrounded by four solid plain walls.  I know He is there too in the confines of my room and I have had some wonderful times with Him there as well but I enjoy His presence when in His creation as opposed to mans.   This morning as I headed out, I found myself slightly disappointed to find that the river has submerged my beautiful bench with its rapidly moving current.  No quiet time on the river today but as I watched the flood waters rushing by trying to think of another place to go I was reminded of the summer in my apartment when the creek flooded and buried the bike trail with its depths.  After a little coercion, I talked my roommate into ‘playing’ in the floodwaters with me.  Oh my goodness!  We had so much fun that day.  I can not tell you how happy I felt in that moment frolicking about in the water like a little kid.  In those moments of traipsing through the flood waters it was as if the rest of the world had disappeared and we had somehow managed to transport ourselves to a whole new world and we were on some crazy expedition through the jungles and the swamps.  My roommate may have laughed at me a little but I know she enjoyed our little adventure J  Makes me smile and laugh just thinking about it.  But the cool thing is that I think it made God smile too.  I think He likes to watch us ‘play’ and use our imaginations and just be silly sometimes no matter how old we may be.  He created life to be enjoyed and He wants to enjoy it with us, for He is the source of joy.  You know, the other day I was painting the bathroom ceiling and I had put on some music and just asked the Lord to join me in painting….and He did.  Having finished painting the ceiling and moving on to do the walls; I stood up on the counter to reach the top of the wall and managed to knock my head on the ceiling and not only was it painful but I ended up with white paint all over my hair and as I stood there murmuring about my pain and the mess I had made of myself, I felt like I heard the Lord chuckle at me and in the midst of His chuckling, ask me if I was ok and then I couldn’t help but laugh too.  Had someone come walking in at that moment, I am sure they would have thought me crazy for standing alone in the bathroom on top of the counter with paint in my hair and holding my head seemingly laughing at myself and my pain but it was a random and unexpected special moment shared with the Lord and I have not forgotten it!  It’s an amazing thing to know that the Lord shows up when we invite Him and that He cares enough and loves us enough to want to share in every moment of our life no matter how insignificant it may seem.

This Day

We each need to discover for ourselves how to live ‘this day’ in faithful surrender to God as we continue to ‘work out our salvation with fear and trembling’ (Phil. 2:12).  "One day at a time," that’s what I keep telling myself.  I am in a place in my life where I really feel that God is asking me for my time.  It’s a very difficult thing for me to ‘be still’ for so long.  I have been home from the mission field for about four months now and still have no job or real direction for the future and yet I feel God telling me to be patient and wait on Him.  I know He is teaching me so much and that I desperately need this time with Him and I hope to continue to take inventory of what He's been saying, to process it, to study it carefully, and to allow it to transform me, but this takes time and effort and focused attention and is not accomplished without a battle.  I still feel the need to be ‘doing’ something.  I’ve done some exploring and have looked into various job possibilities and ministry opportunities and have asked the Lord for His direction each step of the way.  Some things He says no to right away while there have been other opportunities that He has let me explore further and take steps to getting involved and yet it always seems to come to an end.  This last opportunity I was exploring, I was very excited about and yet I did not have peace to pursue it further so I started asking God why and I heard Him whispering, "you’re not ready, there is more I want to do in you."  But I have so many people asking, "what are you going to do?"  "What comes next?"  "What's your plan?"  And the truth is...I simply don't know.   I don't have a plan but I find myself wanting to give them an answer, not just to satisfy their curiosity but more to make myself feel important again - to make it appear that I'm needed and wanted somewhere - that I have something to offer and then I am reminded of how easy it is, especially in this culture to establish and look for my identity and value on the basis of some defined function rather than in the God who created me for nothing less than Himself.  This world is so full of noise that claws at a person's soul seeking their attention and devotion.  I believe we are all in desperate need to hear more of His divine voice, to hear His comforting whisper that restores our sense of balance and guidance, that reaffirms our personal value in heavenly terms so that we don't need to seek value from any other source.  If God is asking me for my time and devotion and I am indeed hearing Him speak in ways that I often don’t hear when my life is busy, why would I ever want to fill my life with something that I know will begin to drown Him out?  Some may view that as being irresponsible, some may think its just plain lazy but I want to learn how to better rest in His presence, trusting Him to guide me in ‘this day,’ knowing that my life is in His hands.  My first priority in life needs to be pursuing Christ and this requires deliberate pursuit and attentiveness.  There is nothing else that really matters.  “He who says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk just as He walked” (1 Jn. 2:6).  This is the question I am asking of the Lord, "show me what it means to walk as You walked, not according to my culture, not according to my church, not according to my upbringing or even the other believers around me, but may I learn to look only to You and Your Word, to hear Your voice as You speak directly to my heart, and to allow You by the power of Your Holy Spirit to work out Your life through me as I learn to surrender daily to You, trusting that Your grace is perfected in my weakness and though I will still fail, You continue to be God and Your calling on my life remains the same."  More on this idea later…

Celebration of Life

Today is my birthday and I thought, what better day to write my first blog post.  Twenty eight years….crazy!  What a journey I have been on.  My life thus far has been one full of adventure, beauty, intrigue, betrayal, deceptions, joys, sorrows, victories, failures, and the faint whispering in the midst of it all; an often unidentified ache within my soul, something I was born desiring and which beneath the rise and fall of all other desires, passionate moments, and times of silence; night and day, year by year, I have looked for, watched for, and listened for.  I have never had it but I continue to yearn for its complete unveiling.  All of the things that have ever possessed my soul have been but hints of it, echo’s that seem to die away as soon as they reach my ear but if it was ever to fully manifest itself, I would know in my heart, that here at last is the thing I was made for.  I am discovering that this seemingly unattainable desire, this life I so desperately long for, this deep craving that is harbored in my soul, can only be experienced as I step outside of myself; it requires a continual act of self-abandonment.  My soul has a shape like no other soul; it was created with a particularly shaped void and only the Lord Himself can fill its intricate contours.   As I give Him access to those secret chambers of my heart, that unidentified ache begins to be filled as He lifts my head to meet His gaze.  He reminds me of the promise that one day all will be restored and in Him alone will I find myself fulfilled; it was Him that I was created for and He alone gives true life.  Oh, how many times I have searched for that life elsewhere.  I stand back in wonder and humility at His unfathomable grace that continues to draw me back to Himself, His total forgiveness of all my sin, and the strength from His Holy Spirit to get back up and finish the race as His presence encompasses me.  Thank you for this life Lord, thank you for Your life.  Come back soon so we can experience perfect life!