Unsatisfied By Average

The Musings of a Stubborn Believer

Author: Seán (page 9 of 31)

Obvious Invisible

November 2, 2012 / / 4 Comments

“For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made…” (Romans 1:20)

His heart is written out in face and flower and framed in full color of falling leaf…It’s everywhere. 

If I cannot understand the heart of God, the purposes of God; If the invisible is a mystery, the cause lies with me. In me.

It’s that time of year again. I sit arms folded in my leather desk chair to keep my warmth in. 
Who knows what the temp is in here. 

“…So that they are without excuse.” (ibid)

Little lights shine like stars where the wall meets the ceiling. My eyes wander from one to the next.

Invisible, visible. Invisible, visible. The obvious impossible. Unthinkable. 

I start up. Take up the book again, scour the page with something almost like a glare.

If this problem is all mine, you had better believe I will find the solution. 

 “Invisible…visible.” They did, they didn’t… (verse 21)
Ah.

because they didn’t. They didn’t give Him His due. They didn’t “glorify Him as God” of their lives. And so they couldn’t see Him, where He was indeed to be found. 

 He was there, but their eyes were darkened.

We see Him, when we give Him what is due Him.

Everything.

Never Stop Believing

November 1, 2012 / / 4 Comments

“The just shall live by faith.”

Not “we should live,” as though there were actually another way…

But rather–
that unshakable confidence in the promises, in the Providence, in the power of the Almighty is like the air that sustains our very life. That without it, we turn grey and cold and waxy hard.
For death is only life minus breath…


“The just shall live by faith.”

…and that this confidence all consuming, this believing that grips so deeply it necessarily changes the believer himself, shall not alone be the air that fills lungs with life, but also the spring from which newness of life flows… “For therein is the righteousness of God revealed, from faith to faith.”

“The just shall live by faith.”

…and that the necessary result should be fidelity.
Because the end of faith is faithfulness.


“The just shall live by faith.”

Never, never, ever stop believing.

Gift of Bravery

October 24, 2012 / / 4 Comments

But I’m afraid.

Oh, but why?!
It’s fear, you know, that gives these giants (my enemies) all their strength.

Destroy the fear, destroy the giant.
They’re made of paper anyway…

– – –

I cross rocky hillside to a favorite old spot. The boulder sits just where it did last time, warmed by the mountain sun.
Some things never change.


Years change though. And ages.
And I’m here both to ponder and to give thanks.

It’s strange how much birthday wishes can move a soul. (or is it?)
I give thanks for them. And for the friends that gave them, and for the promises they have claimed over this little life.

But even more, today I’m thankful for one thing:
Bravery.

For blue-green eyes more than a fist full of years my junior, brave enough to stand up to me and say they expected more, better, higher, from me their friend.

And I reel and wince, and then I melt. Because I know they speak the truth.

For a little voice, rarely heard, barely raised in the babble that broke my stressed-out reasoning into pieces.
That broke me into pieces–

“In brokenness we find blessings.”

And I stop and stare, and then smile. Because I know they speak the truth.

For another, strong and quiet, warning me of my own fearful power to destroy while I treck across western plains.
Half “I’m right here with you,” half “you have absolutely no excuse.”

And I realize, I need more of this. I crave more of this.
I might need it more than the rest of the world put together.
I need to be pushed, challenged, reminded.
And not just by my critics.

I need it from my friends.

I need more brave friends.

These three? they’re keepers.
And they’ve given me the best of the best this birthday.

thanks guys.

Because He is, was, does. [Glorious Fast – Part VIII]

October 19, 2012 / / 1 Comment
“Then shall thy light break forth as the morning,
and thine health shall spring forth speedily:
and thy righteousness shall go before thee;
and the glory of the LORD shall [go behind thee]
Then shalt thou call, and the LORD shall answer;
thou shalt cry and He shall say
‘Here I am!’

Then shall thy light rise in obscurity
and thy darkness be as the noon day:



And the LORD shall guide thee continually,
and satisfy thy soul in drought.

And thou shalt be like a watered garden
and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not.

And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places…
and thou shalt be called
‘The repairer of the breach'”

Enough said. 
Light, and strength, and holiness. 
A front runner and a rear guard. 
A new name out of nowhere. 
A confident step. A satisfied soul.
An unfailing spring.
A rebuilder of dreams? 
God’s dreams?
How can that even be?

Surely there must be more. 
More than brokenness. More than choosing to go hungry.
More than gut wrenching chain-cutting.
More than mercy with power to undo.
More than following Him back to finish off my tormentors.
More than giving away my only slice of bread.
More than opening my arms to hold what’s dying,
         to see it raised up, or love it till it’s gone.
I mean, that’s a lot. But that can’t be all.
No, it isn’t all. There’s one more thing.
To realize that after all this, I’m still nothing, will always be nothing.
And I’m saved, and I get to help save, 
because He is, was, does, all this.
“Is this not the fast that I have chosen?”

Yes. 
And I choose it too.

Relentless Pursuit

October 18, 2012 / / 3 Comments

We waste hours and days in pursuit of answers from God.

When the answer to every question is to be found in the pursuit of God.

That’s what I learned this morning.

– – –

Memories from the past week, compliments of Instagram (seannebblett)

The sight sister and brother-in-law will see from their balcony in Oklahoma farm country

Reunion of 8 out of 10 sibs.

Stick up to the knee wall, post and beam from there.

Andrew working his chain saw art

balancing act, on a wobbly floor joist, with an iPhone

fabricating things most people buy from the hardware store

sparklers at Chantée and Luke’s Oklahoma reception

uncomplicated. little ones. (love)

And off they go!

Love With Your Eyes [Glorious Fast – Part VII]

October 9, 2012 / / 7 Comments
“…and that thou bring the poor that are [afflicted] to thy house?
When thou seest the naked, that thou cover him, 
and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh?”


There are times, many times, when answers are not enough.
When the most eloquently chosen words are still a mockery…

Because what are words when I am dying of leprosy, and you are not?
What are words when I am naked, and you are warmly clothed?
What are words when we could have been siblings, when our fates could have been reversed, but you turn away because you’d rather not see my open sores?

I’ll tell you exactly what words are then. Even, at times, the well meaning ones…

Shame. Shame and mockery…

Ok, whatever. So I won’t talk.
Oh, but what is silence!?

–  –  –  –  –

Many feel as though they don’t have the words anyway.
I’m here to go on record saying that that is no limitation.
You can still “bring,” you can still “cover…”

You can still open your arms and wrap them around the neck of a dying, reeking, sick child the Highest, and hold them to your heart, unguarded.
You can look steady and strong into the eyes of the naked and afraid, and prove to them that love can see past their lack.

Oh, and you might get the stench of death all over you.
But you might also release a soul from the grip of shame.

Dirty work? You might call it that. I don’t.
You know Jesus touched the leprous skin to make it whole.

Oh, love with your hands, your arms, your eyes…
And if your hands get covered in grime, no matter.

Have you ever, have you ever watched darkened eyes light up?



Love Gives

October 5, 2012 / / 18 Comments

Ten days out. Long days of school, a trip to the east coast for a funeral, late nights, early mornings, (over and over again) and emails and work and volunteering piling up unmercifully–

Joy is still on the throne.

I can’t explain it. Why we trip down the road at twilight the five of us that remain, and laugh instead of cry.

I can’t explain it except to say that our joy is unutterably full.
And it doesn’t even seem like they’re gone.
They aren’t really… They’re closer than they were when she slept upstairs.
Even if we only exchange maybe one email a week.

The joy of giving far outshines the joy of having.

I can’t explain it.
I feel no need to try.

Almost every table and windowsill in the house boasts their faces in some form.
And almost every conversation includes references to “Lukey and Chantée.”

Something tells me that for some time, that’s how it’ll stay.

If You Have a Crumb [Glorious Fast – Part VI]

September 17, 2012 / / 2 Comments

“…Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry…”

– – – –


Arms open wide, I try to embrace them all.
Canis Major, Aries, Lepus, Orion, Columba…
All in their undimmed glory against the blackness.
And Venus and Jupiter, brightest of all.

Head tipped back, I spin; take it in.
Try to grip infinity while the earth grips me, twirls me through the universe like a daddy does his child.

And it’s just me. Me and my dog.
On a 36 degree morning. At 8,000 feet.

I break into a smile.

And I whisper to myself; to Him–

No sooner has a child of the Highest yielded to transforming grace, than he is made an ambassador among men.*

No sooner!

– – – –


“But I have nothing.”

If you have a crumb of bread, you have enough.

It doesn’t say you must be a wholesale broker of baked goods.
Nor does it say that those goods must be the finest pastries.
Nor does it say that you’ll need a flawless record of lifelong fidelity to be trusted with the job…

Because no sooner has a child of the Highest yielded to transforming grace, than he is made an ambassador among men.

What it does say, is that this bread, this simple fare passed down to sustain life–

It’s not just bread you picked up somewhere for general distribution.
This was yours.
Your next meal.

“…Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry…”

Beautiful is this truth. A terrible beautiful.

If you have a crumb of bread to eat, (and most people do) you have enough to give away.
And if you would see men free, and full, and overflowing,
you must.

– – – –

At hill’s top I turn, greet the dawn.
Embrace the empty expanse with my whole heart.
This is fullness.


*See page 2.1 of Mount of Blessings…

To Finish the Job [Glorious Fast – Part V]

September 13, 2012 / / 4 Comments

“… and that ye break every yoke?…”

This is no halfway freedom we’re talking about.

This is undeniably the most audacious face of the conflict–
It’s grace, returning to finish the job.

Because “if the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.”

So it is that the trembling (but oh, so happy) child of God (only recently in chains) awakens one morning to a flurry of activity, and while yet rubbing sleep from the eyes an angel brushes by and says the Commander is waiting…

“For what– 
        For me??”

Yes. Because just getting clear of the door of that prison is’t enough for this General.
Today they’re going back to crush the fortress to a thousand pieces.

And He wants to take me with Him.

So we set out. Me with my little coil of rope, and Him, strong as ten thousand times ten thousand bulldozers. And I look up in awe while we trek– still thinking this is a dream. The One, the Invincible Soldier. The other, the admiring little boy, still in his pajamas…
And He looks down and smiles.

He doesn’t need me.

But He glories in making the weak, strong.
            –in setting them over their enemies.

And after all, don’t I know where the pillars in that place rest, better than most?


Chained by Fear [Glorious Fast – Part IV]

September 10, 2012 / / 8 Comments

“…and to let the oppressed to free…“

“There is nothing in the world to fear, but fear itself.“
–words to a trusted friend those.

Fear substantiates the false claims of every captor.

Because when I fail, this jail I find myself in is horrible…
But even more horrible is the fear.

Fear keeps thousands in prison, when the door is wide open.
Because worse than jail itself is fearing “how God will treat me” when I get out…

But to say that God is anything like fear describes is as wrong as calling the devil a savior.

Nothing could be farther from the truth.

The truth is, God loves.
only. loves.

 But the fearing can scarcely be blamed for disbelieving that at times…

We’ve taught them to.

 Yes. You and me.
We teach the weak to fear.
By our actions. When we’re supposed to be representing Jesus Himself…

And that keeps them in prison even when the doors are open.

“…and to let the oppressed to free…”

 Not just by getting the door open.
By helping them believe they’ll always find open arms on the other side of the threshold.

Always.

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