Strategy, Plan, Beauty, Art

No longer any clue as to up from down and perhaps that is ok

Maybe I am not meant to have such a tight grip on the way that things ‘ought to be.’

I used to believe certain things about my life, about myself, about the way that my heart looks and I used to swallow the ugly things that you would say

I used to identify my worth as though it were up to you and your opinion changed from left to right, from yes to no, oh so fleetingly

I would like to believe that I have come so far, that I am a warrior and that I have pulled myself out of despair and destitution by my bootstraps

But in reality I have been saved by grace and by a Savior

I am humbled and tearful as I understand in a new way that my heart would still be marred and devastated with holes and gaps

If not for YOU I would be completely dependent on my exterior

Passionately I advocate for those who are in danger of, or may have already gone through what I went through

Wonder if I am running in circles against the height and breadth of what is not just an issue but a vast system and network of darkness

I can’t fix it and what is it that I am to do?

Is there peace to be found where there is endless potential to be restless?

YOU oh Lord see the heart of every child, girl, boy, woman, and man who is part of this broken system

YOU know the pain that sears

YOU are the King of wisdom

And with YOUR gentle hand you wipe away the unseen tears

I beg of you to see what we can’t see and have grace on our paltry efforts

Have mercy on YOUR children whom YOU love

This journey is long and the road is hard and sometimes it just really hurts

May we be both the serpent and the dove?

Passion that burns in the hearts of those who love YOU- let it burn with YOUR purpose and YOUR plan

Let us be YOUR hands and feet and eyes and heart

We know that YOU are both spirit and man

And Lord – praise you. You are strategy and plan the same way that you are beauty and art.

Soil Forever Tilled

To move in step with You I must abandon myself

And I can no longer see myself through my eyes

I can barely recall why I used to regard my plan with such esteem, why I used to try to circumvent Your plan with such stealth

Why did I used to replace Your truth with my silly lies?

I am in such a broken place and I need Your utterance

I need You to speak on my behalf

There is a difference between yearning for what I want and just yearning for You: I am learning that there is no such thing as contingencies and there is no such thing as clairvoyance

Makes me wonder how many times in one calendar day I make You laugh

I used to think that purpose was so nebulous and mission was ill-defined

That my life just really wasn’t that important

I may not be able to do take-backs or push rewind

However, I can speak truth and I can name the elephant

I can follow the sound of Your voice to the ends of the earth

And I will

This life is filled with sorrow and filled with mirth

Yet through the seasons I learn to be still

Surrender is a choice and also a posture to be learned for the rest of days

Funny how I thought it would be a quota filled

Something I will learn in a million ways

A soil forever tilled.

Everybody Had a Breaking Point

Everybody has a breaking point. My breaking point has been about a month in coming.


A relationship with God ebbs and flows through different seasons just like any other relationship. However, the relationship with God adds a different dynamic, because it requires complete surrender. Absolute surrender. Surrender past the point when you didn't think you had anything left to give....and then He asks you to give more. He asks you to do more. He asks you to operate in a space wherein you are no longer using your own strength but you are utterly reliant on Him for your day to day.


Surrender past the point when you think that you are absolutely exhausted and unable to surrender that thing - that thing you can't live without. That vice you can't survive without. That piece of control you thought that you had. Those delusions and illusions. And then He asks you to give them up. 


I find that I am in a period of surrender.......and  I am not the only one. God is doing something interesting and exciting around here. I'm not sure what - but I feel an anticipation that can only be God-breathed and God-activated.


We are doing a churchwide fast starting July 14th. This could not have come at a better time for me. As I have been learning firsthand - thanks to Pastors Heather and Mark and Romans 8 - my humanity is fundamentally at odds with what God is trying to do in my life. I need to fast and pray and hear from God. I think that the practice of fasting and being quiet gives God an opportunity to speak to me in ways that He would not otherwise have in my chaotic, over-committed, loud, and busy life.


Not sure what the take-away is here.......but I do know that there have been many, many times over the past month or so when I have said to myself "What would I do if I didn't have God?" 


Seriously - what would I do if I didn't have God?  Yes - the journey is intense and the surrender is hard, but without Him I would be without purpose, without mission, without vision....and without a host of other things.


So yeah- everybody has a breaking point, but God is there to redeem that brokenness, and I would rather be here than anywhere else.