An ocean has passed underneath this digital bridge of bytes since I last wrote any of the rambling incoherent thoughts that spark around in my brain. My life has been turned upside-down. What was once laziness and blissful inactivity has been transformed into smothering activity and responsibility. But that is fine by me.
The refining fire of my God's molding is painful and awkward. It leaves nothing left as it was. It reveals those things which I thought most sure to be whisping shadows of the truth. The wall that I was is now being, brick by painful brick, taken apart.
And I welcome it.
The thought occurred to me last night as I was entrenched in a four hour long bible study that nothing of which I hold on to most dearly is my own. I owe it all to another, namely God. As I saw a member of the study, who I have thought to be full of potential but not living up to it, take hold what was being discussed, where we find our satisfaction and if we are even satisfied at all, and turn it upon us all as a call toward accountability and change. The desire for personal holiness was one that was finally grasped at some measure last night. And none of it was my doing. I have tried to be diligent in my time spent pouring into the guys, but I feel as if I have failed so far in being a true discipler. I know God has given me the ability and desire to teach the word, but the human connection is one that I let slip by so many times. And I was feeling so last night, but then God moved. Or should I rather put it God moved us. Moved us to desire the close spiritual bond between brothers who want to be real with themselves and with others. I count myself privilaged to be used by the Lord to accomplish his goals.
On a completely different note: It's a fine line I tread between reality and emotive expression on this page. Bare facts are too bland and pure sensationalism is just a cover to make up things that never occured or were felt. I feel what I have done is to find a way to express the feelings of a moment on virtual paper. Extending periods of time that took seconds but felt like eternity and shortening eons that went by with the blink of an eye. It is one of the most profound things I have found, to be totally consumed in a moment. To where time slows to a stand still and everything you feel is deeper and broader and more expansive than you ever thought imaginable. The rest of the world may continue to move at its sickeningly fast pace, but you have been caught up past and above it to catch a glimpse of things as you've never seen them before. I've never been one to base my beliefs or convictions off of a moments emotion, but it is in those times where I frequently find myself at the feet of the Lord. In a moment I am taken from my feet to my knees pouring out my heart to Him. Maybe tears arise from joy, maybe from sorrow. Maybe they don't come at all. Maybe I am just still and silent before the author of my story. There is no formula, no twelve-step plan to this, it can only come from a deep desire for something transcendent beyond yourself and in searching for it finding Him standing and waiting. "Be still and know that I am God" It is there, in that moment, in the presence of the holy, that creation is made as complete as it will be this side of eternity.
But for everything there is a time and to try and grab hold of this and make it last forever is the worst thing that you can do. You become a junkie of emotional experience. You desire the feeling over the meaning of and for it. You become the worshiped one instead of He who is the only one to be worshiped. You whore yourself out to anything and everything that will make you feel this way. Your perception of God and when He is speaking and moving becomes distorted and you can no longer hear Him because you are trying to. It it no longer about Him, but about you.
And that is the greatest evil of this age...
We have made ourselves god...
and he is dead...
where does that leave us?
