i know You are the calmer of the storm.
but right now the waters are strangely and unsettlingly still. and I don’t know which direction to head.
i love You, Lord. i want to serve and just like her i will go wherever. i will go anywhere. i will go everywhere. i will go. but show me what and make it clear for i am slow and blind and sinful.
i stumble about, feebly trying to obey and use Your Word as a lamp unto my path. i keep looking over my shoulder as You tell me to faith fall. i just continue knocking at a door that You meant for me to walk through months ago.
the pressure is on. and it’s stifling me. it’s smothering me. it’s strangling me. but it’s softening me. to Your presence. to Your will. i now accept it, i know desire it, i know am desperate to know just what it is.
she’s so dedicated to You. and like a boy, i am trailing after her. do ALL that You must to force me to obey You and Your will, not me and my wishes.
if that means that i stumble into Your arms whilst diving for hers, that’s grand. but if rather You choose to plant her far away and safe away from me, that You may finally have my attention, i submit to that too.
i can think of ways to “prove” my love to her. many many ways. too too many ways. ways that are noble, ways that are childish, ways that exceed every and all done before. but to You, Lord, what’s left?? how have i shown YOU i care?? i love you, you died, and with me on Your mind!! so if i do love and it’s You more than her, what can i do?? what are some real ways??
“keep My commandments” and “love your neighbor as yourself”
but i’m a loopholer and a dang good one at that. the commandment i keep is to never murder and to keep that Sabbath holy. ha. and the neighbor that i love is the one i’d really like to love. “she’s my neighbor, she needs my love” i say and always rationalize. but then i realize: love’s not love when it’s easy. and love’s not love when it’s always beneficial.
love is real and love is LOVE when it’s difficult, when it demands the last thing you wanted it to. love is alive when it hurts you to do and when you’d rather just give up.
sometimes love is being with her. sometimes love is leaving her. and ALLtimes love is giving her to the Maker.
so we don’t know what’s best and we don’t know what’s right and we don’t know to stop and we always pick a fight.
but surrender and allowance is what You demand. You decree what is good and You are true and full Love. embodiment of, You sent Your One Son. He gave and He gave and then with nothing else left, He said, “Father, forgive them. They don’t know what love is.” and He died. dead. forsaken. and left on a tree. that’s what my sin did. for all eternity.
You sighed and then we, now justified, timidly come to the throne room of God. hiding and cowering, Lord God, this is me!! it’s me and my sin, but look see who i’m with?? it’s Jesus, Your Son, and He says i’ve been freed.
i don’t know and i’m scared but.
and then You point next to me.
and who could it be but she.
and You laugh right out loud. and You slap Your (anthropomorphic) knee. wiping Your eyes You say, “never doubt Me. I said that I care. and what I meant by that was, I care about you and what’s best for your lives. I waited for you to let go and let Me, but resistant and resilient you held out for long. so to weakness I brought you and in weakness you came. remedy’s age-old but it always works well. now look and see the plans that I have ready for you!! I’m excited that, finally ready, you gave it all up. and now that that’s done you can live off of this: a poor, humble servant. a carpenter’s boy. a teacher of fishers, a man always mocked. a Rabboni to her, and a fool to some. but the King of all kings and the Lord of all lords and the Messiah, the Lamb to become the fierce Lion!! the Alpha Omega, the Word from all time. Firstborn of all new creation, at the right hand of YHWH.
and here i stand asking, “is she right for me?? should i go to college?? what’s to be my degree??”
smiling still smiling, with nail-holes still fresh, He looks down at me and nods back to You, and He picks us both up and says,
“Behold, you will call a nation, which you do not know.
and that nation will come, though they do not know you.
and all this because I AM is your God. the Holy One.
and because only by Him and through Me, you have been glorified.”
truly they are. truly (and infinately) higher are Yours. my thoughts are below. and my ways are beneath. Your ways are above. and Your thoughts are on high.
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