Being Wrought Anew

Definition : Wrought


1 : Worked into shape by artistry or effort.


2 : Elaborately embellished : Ornamented


3 : Processed for use : Manufactured


4 : Beaten into shape by tools : Hammered


5 : Deeply stirred : Excited

....

Perhaps a mountain can be an anvil block with only the appearance of being a mountain...Or perhaps it really is just an anvil, simply clothed in mountain-esque features.  At any rate, mountains are hard to climb without the added confusion and disruption of being something they are not.  No logical mind runs forth with the thoughts of climbing a mountain any course other than the practical and accepted course -- practical because it works, and accepted because this is the way it is always done.  Why challenge a process that needs not be changed?   Why tamper with the inevitable laws of gravity and tested proof held to dearly by those skilled in the art of mountain climbing?  These processes and rules are set in place for a reason, designed to escape the dangers in scaling these earthly giants.

But if a mountain is not simply just a mountain.... What then?  What if a mountain can exist dually as a place of rest and a place of ascension?  An internal excavation yet a climb that is backwards and upside down, breaking all the laws of gravity and normalcy? If a mountain is dually itself and an anvil block, if none of the rules in the physical world apply to it's ambush, how do you approach this anomaly?  What is the purpose of something so divinely messy and seemingly impossible?  Surely, this is the stuff of bedtime stories.

Yet we all have an anvil that is a mountain at some point in our lives.  The question is whether or not we have the integrity to recognize this contradictory place, to seek it out with purpose and ascend it no matter the sacrifice.  This mountain is an altar built on which we sacrifice ourselves, though it appears to us at first as the journey on which we sacrifice everything else.  It does not inherently occur to us that the sacrifice does not consist solely of our perceived belongings, but is all encompassing of our very beings.  Even still, this mountain is also the metal block on which we are melted down and reformed.  It is a birthing place, a temporary dwelling place, a growing place, all under the guise of being an object at rest, though inwardly living a volatile recreation.

This is the place of vulnerability at it's sharpest, most cutting moment, unveiling a courage hidden deep in the candor of our hearts.  If not for this anvil, this mountain, this sacrificial journey, we may never take the detour into ourselves to be reformed and find the integrity and courage of our lives.  We are hidden, far away from the world and far away from man, hidden in a God who sees and knows all.  In this hiddenness, we are blinded even to ourselves, until the time comes when Father God pulls Himself up to our bedside and reads us to sleep.  As we fall asleep His words steal deep into our core and we are transformed through the visions of His words bore into life. We are taken into the stuff of bedtime stories, but also into the realization that these childish bedtime stories may have a deeper root of truth than many things in our adult lives.  Upon waking we have suddenly passed from youth to adulthood. The bittersweet sting to our pride is that outwardly we were doing nothing, because all the transformation, the rebirth, the shifting, molding and momentum building was taking place inside.

This is the unseen journey preceding outward motion, and the only way to achieve true maturity on this journey is to be conceived through it with a child like heart and faith.  An entire life is lived in this secret place before even an inch of ground in the physical is claimed.  An entire heart is re-birthed and revealed in the seclusion of adoration and sacrifice before being dispelled into the world with the momentum of a fire.  Before the anvil, we exist with curiosity, wonder, and disheveled desires .  After the anvil, we truly inhabit ourselves because we are no longer in ownership of ourselves, and in this disowning we can see with new eyes the integrity of our own creation.  We suddenly exist with a fiery purpose and clarity unexplainable, and in this moment we blazon down our mountain anvils in the weight of glory, captured in Love and all it entails.  Love is so much more than simply "loving God" and "loving others" - without a love and understanding of the integrity of our own hearts in God, we cannot love the most essential part of God He wishes us to know... the portion of His being He reformed to be Us.

This metaphorical journey is a spiritual reformation, a drawing out and a pouring into of our flesh, our hearts, our understanding of God within ourselves. It is to be wrought anew, and as we traverse up this mountainside in our hearts of hearts we are really just objects at rest being heated and hammered into a new shape.  Every bit of us that existed before these moments still exists - but our composition is different.   We have been reshaped into something more beautiful than before, ornamented and birthed into something of more effective use, more face value, more visual splendor.  Our very particles have been stirred deeply into an active existence with a designated purpose and we can no longer claim ignorance to our actuality, our true desires or our longings.  We are wrought anew within so we might display our integrity without, and live forevermore empowered by and immovable from what is true.  It is a worthy and noble sojourn, though paradoxical in nature and all encompassing of our hearts.  It is true purification through relationship with God, it is deeply personal and vulnerable, and it is deeply beautiful.

It is the stuff of bedtime stories and being sung to sleep so we might undertake a journey to the inmost part of our hearts.   It is a mountain that is an anvil, and we are the weaponry and artistry passing through it's midst.

....

Definition : Integrity

1 : Firm adherence to a set of moral or artistic values :  

     Incorruptibility

2 : An unimpaired condition :  Soundness

3 : The quality or state of being complete or undivided : 

                                                  COMPLETENESS.

The Illumination of Belief

A light turns on 


in 


    the


       darkness 


                and 


  finally you can see.


 But what darkness is there that can overtake and suffocate us, pressing it's belly down upon our heads to make us believe we are so small?  Only the darkness of doubt and the oppression of worry, twining their fingers through our hair and pulling on our heart strings with malicious intent.  This darkness is thin like film exposures, and it's imprints reflect the small traces of life where we have not stepped into our Curators hands to be found, cleaned, and exposed for all we are truly worth.  These imprints bleed with disbelief and are the shadows of our discontent.  These imprints exemplify the negatives of our every experience, hardly defined by lines of clarity or reality, but so easily indulged. Our imaginations are magnificent birthing places, chalk boards of God within our thoughts - but sometimes our greatest assets can be our greatest crutches.  Our strength is also our weakness if allowed to crawl in the wrong direction and open the wrong door.  If allowed to sneak it's way into hazard, this strength is left standing alone without the company of it's family and without proper covering, in a land where it has no home and it's occupation have never been necessary or even heard of.  It is suddenly useless and all of the heart which flushed it with vitality is sunk into the desolate hollow of "irrelevant and worthless."  No strength, no dream, no man, can thrive in a place where they are unwanted and unneeded; it is the quintessential place of death for all things with a fleeting hope.

This is where the darkness of doubt and the oppression of worry awaken and prowl.  This is where they feed and grow in gluttony.  These dirty creatures, these dark clouds, huddle and hang in the in-between spaces of our breaths, in the wake of our new ideas, five footsteps behind us on our journeys forward.  They do not live in the places we are traveling, for we have not yet arrived in those places as we create them with our Father.  They do not even live in the present moments while we dream and imagine what could be, perusing through our memories and pulling out small details to build a better future out of the past.  They do no exist in our smiles, in our laughter, in our joy.  They cannot be in the presence of Holiness; they are not borne of our hearts. The darkness of doubt and worry only exist in the moment of looking back.  They find life in the moment of abandoning progress and losing focus on the promise land. Darkness swells in the moment of forsaking light - what a simple concept so easily forgotten.  A light can be of no use when our backs are turned from it, just as a photograph can tell us nothing if we busy ourselves trying to decipher the negative imprint of the real image.  


These dark things only suffocate our hearts when we turn from our dreams and forget to believe in ourselves while we pursue them.  So what is stopping us? Surely, it cannot be ourselves. 


A light turns on in the darkness and finally you can see. We are the lamps to our destinies if we would only believe it is so. The light is belief in the promises spoken during solitude, in the dreams stirring where none can see, in the journey forward that has yet to unfold.  It is the illumination of belief.  


The light is to sacrifice looking back, to shed the drab garments of disbelief, open our eyes, and  live.   

By the Light of the Sun

Always learning the art of trust, this messy, joyous, painful, colorful, all encompassing and all demanding part of life.  Without trust, where can we go? Without trust, who can we be?  And always we move forward learning about this one thing, this faith, this ability to be in the unknown and be perfectly content, perfectly peaceful, perfectly happy.  And every time we settle for a moment, we think "Aha! This time I've figured it out!  This time, I trust with everything in me, I have WON!!" And we run forward, shouting like joyful children, waving our hands and wiping our faces, eyes bright with the adventure of conquering new land and the knowledge of success - and it is absolutely glorious - for a time. Then we stumble upon the next gate, the next door, the next path, and it's a little bit harder than before, a little bit different, a little bit strange.  And we think "Oh shoot... I don't know where that one goes... I didn't sign up for this new thing..." and after casting our glances here, there, everywhere but this NEW road, this new thought, this fresh and very dark looking path, we suddenly remember Trust, that old companion whom we had thought to have had all figured out, who must be learned anew and re-appreciated for all of the intricacies which make it irreplaceable.  So with renewed vigor and determination we pick up our tiny suit cases, our dolls and our blankets, leaving behind the lesser important toys of the past; we pull out our tiny flashlights of trust and walk forward into the great unknown.

I am filled with an inexplicable joy at this new road.

It is slightly comical, upon entering this dark and foreign land with the brassy, stubborn assumption that you know your way around, to realize that you can't see anything and all you have to navigate with is a flashlight. I mean really -  to dialogue with God and be handed the flashlight of trust, to stumble upon these gates that lead to the foreign lands you have heard about for so long, which you have been promised to be granted access to, which you have so desired to explore and which for so long you yelled to the top of the skies, shouting to Him, "I'm ready!! I trust you!! I've learned everything you wanted me to... I can't wait any longer!! Please!! Please now!! I'm dying to go!!!"  And then He chuckles and suddenly there it is, everything you've been wanting, everything you knew was coming, that very THING you were dying to have and to endeavor, and it's... odd, confusing, unfamiliar.  And so... big. And all you have is your little, dinky flashlight to see it by, until you remember that it's not by your own plans, your own knowledge, your own doing that you can make this dark, limitless land into the empire you wish it to be, the empire you were building with twigs in your bedroom, the one you were King of before you got to this new place. It's the same room you used to have sleep overs in, where you made pillow forts and wore onesies pajamas.  There was probably also a nightlight, because secretly, you were afraid of the dark unknown. The twigs were practice for the real thing, which is not really like twigs at all, but like cement. Rocks. Weapons and resting places. Like wooden beams and iron rods, light rays and vast amounts of un-plowed ground. There is the sudden realization that building this real city is not like making a town of twigs by the glow of a nightlight at all. Then the sun comes up and suddenly you can see everything - every hollow of the land, every material you need to build, every thing you wondered about to begin with, and the flashlight becomes a relic of the adventure it took for you to see by the sunlight instead.  You put it away and start building until you reach the end of the land and the next gate opens.  This time, you have been building play models of a city with yarn and toothpicks.  This time, your flashlight is bigger. This time, so is the unknown land.

Trust, that funny thing. God, you funny guy.  And on we walk, into these brilliant adventures, and I don't know why we have ever feared, why we ever doubt, or why we ever look back.  Everything unravels and unfolds with beautiful timing, with inerrant measure to our trust in these promises and dreams.   We cannot be tied to the things of the past, the things which we thought we understood of a previous land, as we walk into the new.  They are wonderful things, to be celebrated and remembered, which prepare us all the more for taking the dreams we form in those places and making them realities.  But they are not all life has to offer, they are not the essence of trust.  The gates will open and on we will march, into the dark, with our trusted flashlights and our bright ideas.  The faster we learn to run to these paths with all abandonment, wielding our flashlights like swords, the faster the sun will rise.  Everything will be illuminated, in time - every word, every breath, every promise.

We are alive in our journey.  And the more we trust, the more alive we will be.

I think I am ready for this adventure.

I think I am ready for the unknown.


Because my flashlight needs using, and I fully intend on using it until there is nothing left for God to do but swap it out for the sun.

This Dancing Man of Light

There is a small girl in a white dress, hiding beneath a tree.  

She is scared and so, so young, barefoot and vulnerable, clutching dirty rags of comfort which are stained with tears and the pain of living.  Her eyes are wide in fear and wonder and she plays pretend in the shadows of the branches, never moving past the shady reach of their fingertips.  Here the years pass and she grows, huddled in the crevices of the tree which is her safe haven of exposure; the branches are too tall for her to reach and she is not strong enough to climb up the trunk on her own.  She has seen the meadow which expands far beyond the perimeter of her tree, gazing out at the horizon, desperately wanting to search out the vast land before her but too afraid to move beyond where she feels she is bound.  While she dreams of freedom decay will slowly creep through the dirt, the winter will come and the tree will be barren, and with each season of hardship and loneliness she will grow harder and harder, clutching closer the dirty rags of her comfort, which grow more tattered with every passing year. 


But she has seen the shadows of a man.


He dances through this meadow and flings His arms wide, beckoning her out from beneath the shadows of her tree to dance with Him.  He is dancing for her, all around her, in freedom that she has never known.  Her heart beats in exhilaration at the thought of touching His hand, at joining Him in this dance of freedom and life, but her mind burns with the shame of her condition.  She clutches the dirty rags of comfort closer, yearning for the glance of His eyes to match hers and devour her, to seek her out and find her, but she keeps her eyes low for fear of finding what she so desires.  But in the shadows she watches Him dance, and all the winds and the waves and the tremors of the earth could not match the burning ache she has in her heart to run with all abandon to this man who sings life into the bones of the earth and there dance with Him until all of time disappears. She watches, hungry, and clutches the rags of her comfort close, trying to press them into the spaces between her ribs to fill the longing she has to know this man, to sing His song.  


He steals glances in her direction, dancing and spinning, but does not come too close.  He steals glances in her direction and flings His arms wide, beckoning her to join Him.  And she grows and grows, clutching her rags and tip toeing towards the edges of her safe haven, watching with wild eyed wonder as He leaves gardens of life in the wake of His steps.  Tears stream down her face and water the roots of the tree which is her home - they are tears of pain and longing, of wrenching beauty that she cannot put to words, they well up from the deepest parts of her soul and come, flowing like rivers, slipping through her fingertips.  Still He dances, stealing glances at her and weaving through the gates of time, springing up mountains from His footfalls and oceans from the sweep of His hands.  He beckons her and dances closer, breathing His song like embers of fire that float to her outstretched hands. 


He is weaving Himself into her heart, though she does not yet know it.


She takes one step further, and her body quivers with the desire to be free.


He is dancing, and as His body moves all the earth begins to sing.  The rhythm of her heart begins to speed up as He dances faster and faster, all around her, and she clutches her dirty rags of comfort close, screaming for freedom from her invisible captors, wishing the roots of the tree could be dug up and the great beast torn down so that sun might shine through it's thick covering, so that she could run from it's grip.  He dances, faster and faster, and she watches with painstaking breaths, her lungs expanding with every glance of His eye, her grip on the rags of comfort loosening with His every step.  She takes one more step and looks back at her tree, back at her home, and finds that she is just outside the reach of the branches and she is safe.  He is dancing faster and faster until she catchers her breath in wonder at her nakedness before Him - and suddenly, He stops. 


All of the air is still and the earth silent, the wind hangs in the caverns of the mountains and the blades of grass that swayed with the movements of His dance freeze in perfect harmony.  The dirty rags of comfort she has held for so long slip through her fingers, finding home in the dust.  They turn to ashes and flowers begin to grow out of their remains.  She turns her face to the sky with eyes closed and all of the dirt falls from her skin as new life soaks through her being.  When she opens them, her eyes are locked with the fiery eyes of love, the fiery eyes of the man who danced for so long, beckoning her into freedom.  He holds His hand out to her and she steps forward in joy, wild and free.  Her hand finds home in His and as they dance all of life begins again and the sun rises anew, pouring light through the sky and into the world, illuminating the hollows of every shadow. 


Her only longing is always for one more dance with this man who will never let her go, and on and on they make melody with the world, dancing for eternity.  It is only after she has danced with Him for many years, learning His shape and His body, feeling His every move in her own being, reading every expression in His fierce gaze and letting Him lead her with His heartbeat, that she looks back to her own tree and sees that it has grown tall and strong, bearing fruit that is laden with gladness, watered so long ago by the tears of sadness and longing from her youth, but fed with the sunlight of her victorious freedom.  This place is now full of peace, a place of rest where she can stop beneath the branches and run her hands down the trunk, now lifted high by the strong arms of the one she loves to grasp at the fruit she could not have reached on her own, that could never have been born had she never caught sight of the shadow of a man, dancing in the light, beckoning her into His arms.  She takes this fruit and it's seeds, giving it to the winds, burying it in the sand, letting it be swept away by the sea.  Then she turns back to the one she loves and His beckoning eyes and they dance, across oceans and mountains, each day more beautiful than the one before, each melody composing creation in it's rarest, purest form, singing freedom over every heart.  


Throw down your rags of comfort, they sing together, and come into this glorious light. 

these.flames.

Flames burst from the covenant relationship you have made with your daughters.  They are flames of righteousness, of justice and power.  They scorch away all imperfections, burn away all rot and decay, sear the edges of torn flesh and meld them back together. They are the all engulfing flames of the Almighty Father, burning away lost hope and engulfing his beloved ones.  "Come and find me," these daughters cry, "Come and find me," with one voice, rising above the mountain tops, trilling with the pain of being used up beyond their capacities, robbed of love.  And flames of desire begin to enrapture them.  "This is my covenant relationship with my daughters," declares the Lord.  "That I will take back every captive heart and see their bonds as ashes - they are mine and they are found."  Deep cries out to deep and all scars melt away, as the wings of these flames lift shattered bodies from death.  All despair shall pass away in the refining fire, there is not one who escapes this purge.  It is the covenant relationship He has made with all of His daughters - to protect and hold close, to pursue with unyielding passion, to see and hear, filling with promises and restoring hope.  It is the covenant relationship with all of man, and it is on fire, lifting itself to the heavens and burning higher and higher, this vast and searing beacon of light, finding every broken heart and mending them with the heat of furious love.  This covenant relationship is on fire, it is burning out of control and cannot be contained, ravaging every heart and claiming everything.  Everything that can be refined will be refined and all the ashes of old will be swept away - new life will burst from the heart of this fire.  This covenant relationship is burning, and we dance inside the flames.

Gates

I am in a place of deep remembrance.  It is full of gladness and praise that cannot be put to words; it is in this place my deep longings find a home.  Everything is here, everything that has ever mattered and will ever be is here, only to be walked through, to be sought out and found.  Should my heart ever stop longing for this place, these sacred and wonderful moments, I would be lost. It is here you have called to me and I have lifted my head in answer, where in the landscape of my heart I first saw you.  Walking through meadows covered in ash, wandering a path shrouded in the grey rags of death with a fierce purpose and destiny.  Beside you, I have my place, and walking through this valley of shadows became beautiful.  Beside you, my hands burn with purpose, with life.  Beside you, I have found my identity. Feeling you near me, hearing your voice, these are the memories I will keep, these are the memories that are the flesh of my heart.  For it was in that time, in a place unbeknownst to anyone else, touching ashes with the one I love and watching them spring into life, that I found promise.  It was here you directed my eyes to something more and you broke down my walls to feel, to heal, to rebuild.  It was here that I lost my control and you took it from me, lifted me up, and moved me further still.  It was here that my tears watered soil I could not even see, here you spoke to me and burned yourself into my mind.  It was here you sealed your promises, carved out my aching soul and filled it with your own.   My burdens disappeared and were replaced with a purpose.  Here you showed me kingdom, and in my place of crying out you took my face and asked me, “But isn’t everything still so beautiful?”  And looking into your eyes the only possible answer was, and will always be, yes. 

It is here that I have known you – and you have known me.  And from here I can never wander, I can never forget -- yet I can never return, for it is time, and you call me to a new place. 

It is time.  These are the echoing words of now, the ones I cannot shake.  It is time – and you keep speaking, over and over, etching this into my being.  It is time to go, to move and breathe and run without inhibition into a new world.  There are no pretenses and all of the old is passing.  Doors close behind and new ones open, for it is time.  To take everything that has ever been impressed upon me and move forward without fear into moments I have never seen.  All comfort is gone and the horizon lines beckon to be explored as I gaze upon this place I have always been, this place full of memories and unfathomable love entwined in my heart. I look towards gates I have not yet walked through, and know still that I will bring this place with me and seed it somewhere deep in the sands of a desert  where life will grow, where my tears will water the valleys and you will again take my face and ask me, “But isn’t everything still so beautiful?” And as before, the answer will be yes, only now I bring with my answer the offering of promise, of history, of life, for I have known you and am in a place of deep remembrance, full of praise and gladness that only be expressed in the language of my heart.  That language is yours and with it I move forward, for as you beckon me I answer, I move, and I begin to walk through these gates.  I bring with me this place as I begin to run to you, for it is time.  

Rising

There is a garden in the deepest part of me, full of flowers thin as paper.  These paper flowers rise in song while love is racing through their stems, and every cripple here could walk and touch them, feel them, see their beauty and warmth – there is no thing here without life, for even paper flowers rise.  Like love notes they are scattered through the valleys and the mountains that no mind could ever dream of, yet every heart should know.  And through the endless valleys filled with love songs steeped in petals, all the grass is singing sweetly, full of the secrets in my heart.  The meadows sway in unison and run into the waters, waters lapping at the mountains deeply somber, standing near and bold.  They are clothed in night and climb the skies until the peaks are golden sun, running down upon their faces, back to the meadows and the sea.  The foundations of the earth are here, and hold my mountains close.  Nothing can be shaken in the deepest of this valley, and none can be moved save to rise out of darkness into glorious day, for even the cores of these mountains are illuminated.  I am hidden in the deepest parts, in the warmth of the sun of this valley, in the shadows of the mountains that rise like gates. I am folded like a paper flower, rising.  I am a love note written and sealed, waiting to be broken open, rising.  For when He speaks He calls my name and seeks me out through gardens, here, and gates.  For when He speaks, I am opened, and all my limbs unfold like petals and I am a love song, rising.  

It Is Like

What is it like, this deep and burning love?

Like the wind blowing, hot and dry, taking up the leaves and the tall strands of grass and dancing with them, curving them into the motion already shivering up their spines, pulling each beat out like a thread. It is thick and heavy like the sound of a bell that is stopped, always, on the deepest and most imploring note; a resonating melody only felt by the touch of this wind, hot and dry, taking up the leaves and the tall strands of grass, dancing with them. 

As the movement begins all the colors of the burnt melodies rise up as blush and explode out of my lungs slowly and sweetly, cascading through my veins like thousands upon thousands of grains of light.  But it is rich and full, these thousands upon thousands.  The memories of all the earth bleed out of them and into my own heart, swelling with the warmth of all the ages, overtaking my soul in a bliss that cannot be contained by breath and breath alone.  As the movement begins all of time stops, and the sun spins closely out of control, held by the chasms of air wrapped about it, swinging like a pendulum as fire on a string.  Closer and closer, drawn by the rhythm of the movement to the warmth of the winds blowing through a field, hot and dry, taking up the leaves and the tall strands of grass and dancing with them.  My heart beats with the rhythm of the winds.  My skin tingles at the touch of the stopped bell, resonating through my being. 

What is it like, this deep and burning love?

Swinging slower than all of time, hot and dry, full and sweet, rich and beating.  As my being resonates with all the wind and sound having motion within itself, the air is thicker than blood and I am awakened.  My hands burn with something irrevocable, to feel this wind that encompasses my body so, blowing through the hollows of my lungs, carving out memories of a heartbeat that has always been and will forever burn the echo of it’s voice into the walls of my heart.  It is irrevocable, this passion and burning desire, birthing the sounds of eternity deep within the spaces of my ribs.  The wind blows, hot and dry, and all my bones are taken up like the leaves and the tall strands of grass, swaying and moving with a rhythm not my own.  Bursting out of their white sockets they become living, thriving--consumed by the warmth of the sun that is settling deeply into their core.  They peel back their barrenness and out of their husks come life.  I am resonating with life. Deeply the bones go as they dance and sway and peel back their barrenness while blood spills forth as light, tearing through the shadows of a land that has long slept.  I am being pierced by a wind, hot and dry, taking up my bones, like leaves, to dance, breathing into them the sun that swings closer still, wrapping them in a heat that burns away all darkness.  Deeply moved, the rhythm sinks, seeking all those places which cry out to be found.

What is it like, this deep and burning love?

Only irrevocable; ravaging my heart into what it has always been, seeking out the depths of the world written into the recesses of my core and ruining forever the illusion of naught.  To be changed into that which burns exceedingly brighter than even the sun, which swings closer for the warmth of a single touch.  I am like the wind that blows, hot and dry, taking up the leaves and tall strands of grass, blushing scarlet with the colors of melodies burnt through my skin.  I am like this deep and burning love, for it is in me, on me, and of me, and from it I can never be apart.

Leave Your Weapons at the Door

It is wonderful to be a Christian, to be in a family you can call your safe haven.

Well, it’s supposed to be.

But what happens when our theologies become beating sticks with which to harass our brothers and sisters? 

Our safe haven becomes more like a prison. 

Oh, yes, it has the appeal and the illusion of warmth and love, a place where all can gather and enter through a door way of safety and peace; a place where the broken can slowly undress their wounds and rest tired, weary bodies.  They can take down their fronts and relax, they can shed the tears of their sorrows and come, unhindered and fully welcome, to a magnificent table of witnesses and disciples, sit, and enjoy life together.  And they can look whatever condition they arrived in, because we love and accept them for who they are, not what they are.  Besides, the more time spent at the table being filled, not by food, but by the word of God, being cleansed, not by mere drink, but by the blood of Christ, and being reborn, not by water, but by the Holy Spirit, the more that what they are begins to look exactly like who they are.  This is not an ordinary dinner table and we should not be an ordinary family.  God is certainly not a normal and ordinary God, and if He is, our "Christian walk" would be a lot easier and a lot less worth it. 

            So what is the problem here?  Why are we not doing this family the way we preach is so fundamentally important? Why are we not letting God shape us into what He longs for?

There are many, many reasons, and of course I can’t cover them all or ever fully penetrate the depth and extensive measure of the spiritual warfare happening in these places where we are not paying attention – and where I would even be bold enough to say we are kept strategically indifferent and ignorant to.  All of this, of course, by the enemy.  I do not have all the answers; I do not have everything figured out.  But, I want nothing more than to be above reproach, to spend so much time in His presence and word that I resemble Him in every possible way, to walk in the freedom He has claimed for me and to be unashamed and unabashed to love my Father with everything I have and to TALK about it – yes… even TALK about it -- with sincerity, integrity, and honesty, among this glorious body we call the Church, and not fear others made of the same flesh I myself have been borne of, or have to defend what is innocent faith.  In fact, we should be talking about our relationships with God much more than we actually do.  Because when you’re in love with someone in the natural way, what do you do? You talk about them.  Why?  Because you love them.  How often?  A lot.  Because you are constantly delving deeper into their being, trying to figure them out, spending time with them and eventually, you kind of start to even look and act like them, and you just can’t seem to get enough.  We don’t get embarrassed about that, do we?  No one jumps down their peers throat because they are loving their significant other in the “wrong way”, or “too much”, or because they use the “wrong kind of language” when they talk about them, or spend time with them in the  seemingly “wrong places”.  Yes… maybe hearing about that kind of love gets boring for those of us who haven’t found it yet, but that’s only because we don’t share a mutual love for that particular person.  However, I’m pretty sure that God whom we love and are fashioned after is the same God, the same being, the same I AM.  So I don’t really know why we would get tired of talking about the greatest love story of all time, or why we would get offended, angry, or judgmental about the extent of love another has, or even withholds, for the same being. 

And one of the biggest reasons I see for those sorts of reactions is the fear of being found lacking in ones own love, to not have found the same love others seem so captivated by – because if the focus is always pointed at another’s faults, to all of the individual and broken down details of how another is utterly and completely wrong in the way they pursue God and what they stand upon in doctrine, the focus is never, ever allowed to rest on the place that is hurting deeply for something more – ones own heart. 

            What is this terrible need we feel to bring weapons into the community of God’s people?  To be harsh, to be slanderous, to be brutal and defaming, judgmental and mocking, to those we are supposed to embrace as our own?  And what’s more, to do it all with a great glass shield, one that everyone can see through but no one can ever penetrate, with either words or touch.  Because unfortunately, the implications of this great shield and arsenal of razor sharp words, butchering others relationships with the Most High King in the name of theology and truth, are screaming that the Body of Christ is NOT a safe place, that loving God requires every last effort in our power to defend an understanding of Him that can fit into our hands, and to destroy anyone who comes bearing any thing that differentiates from what we carry ourselves.  To be perfectly honest, I don’t want to really serve a God who I think I can fully figure out and dissect, who I can fit into my pocket, and who needs me to constantly create separate ghettos to herd others different than I into and there silence them, so that I might remain safely patrolling the streets of an empty city, because I find, eventually, that in fulfilling this mandate I put on my own life, I am alone. 

I am not saying that Truth is not important. I am not saying to have a "dumb" faith and to disregard intellect, study, and proper hermeneutics for the word and all its complexities.  The word is important; God created us with brains – so those are obviously important, too, and therefore tools to be used. I do think, however, that if we really have faith in a God whose ways are unfathomable and depths impenetrable, who is that He is, and in that being is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, if we truly believe in Him, we don’t have to worry about defending the truth or finding it, because the Truth IS who we say we believe in.  If we spend time with the Truth and believe with every particle in us that we are reborn in Him, transformed into His likeness, and guided by Him, why are we so afraid that we don’t actually have the Truth? Unless, sadly, we don’t really have the faith we cling so ardently to in what we say is our entire life.  If my life is going to be thrown into the Truth, the Lord my God, then He is what He says is and I trust Him to be faithful in showing His character in and through me, because He can and says He will.  Because if we don't believe that,  what God are we saying we follow and give our lives to?  Discernment and wisdom are uncompromising abilities we must possess as Christians – but if we have faith in this triune God, then we trust He will bestow these upon us through the Holy Spirit, and from there move forward in a Christ-like manner, with these Christ-like gifts placed in our own beings. 

            Imagine what would happen if we put our weapons down.  Suddenly, our hands would be open and empty, because they would not be wielding objects having little to no use.  And if our hands aren’t occupied, our minds are suddenly clear because we don’t need to concentrate on how to best formulate our next attack.  When not thinking about our next attack, our hearts become softened because we are not moving out of bitterness, shrewdness, anger or fear.  Suddenly – we become workable material to be molded and shaped by someone more powerful than our weapons. Our hands can be lifted in praise and our eyes locked dead and center with the eyes of the coming King, because instead of trying to focus on all the things wrong with the way others represent Christ, we are actually looking at God.  Funny thing, isn’t it?  For the focus to be on God?  Maybe then something can get done that glorifies His name.  Maybe then, instead of just watching the process of transformation in others lives and trying to desperately mirror it behind our own glass shields, we can actually experience the transformation ourselves.  Because then our lives themselves become the weapons and are fully possessed by God, and the focus isn’t on ourselves or the faults of others anymore.  Instead, it is in being empty handed and humbly submitted to Yahweh.

           Unfortunately, we are required to drop our weapons when we enter the presence of God and His family.  Our family.  Or is it unfortunate?  Because it looks a lot like freedom, to me.