Not when I trace the working of God in boyish cursive now 15 years old…
Not when I ask a question, hear in His gentle whisper a familiar strain, and then find the original answer… Written 7 years ago, to the week. 7 years before I asked.
Not when I can understand in retrospect (as if it were the simplest thing in the world) why there was always reason to praise through bleeding days. Always.
I promise you, if you can’t trust Him with your today, it’s because you’ve already forgotten yesterday.
Write. Read. Remember.
You can’t tell the future. That’s why God has given you your past.
Go get yourself a journal.
Luther. Tyndale. Huss.
Lenin. Stalin. Hitler.
Winston Churchil. William Wilberforce. William Pitt (the Younger)…
Names all that ring down the halls of history.
World changers.
Extraordinary? Certainly.
All particularly advantaged, talented, clever, wealthy and wise?
Hardly.
But they shook the world. Their tread resounded across the borders of countries and continents. In their day, greatly loved or greatly feared. In ours, household names.
They brought the horror of great darkness, or returned the people to light.
And they all had this in common:
They faced unbelievable odds, and failed more times than you and I have tried.
But they were relentless men.
Relentless men.
______
There is a reason my iPhone chimes at 11:00 am on Sundays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays reminding me to go outside and run. And it’s not because I don’t have other things to do. Ok, so exercise is good. But for this pilgrim, there’s way more strategy in it than just that.
I’m a mercy-loving man. But sensitivity being one of my stronger points, in my natural personality I sometimes have far too much mercy on myself…
I need to learn relentlessness. Just as thoroughly as I study what it means to be a world-class gentleman. Or, . . . never be a world-changer.
So I’ve set out to do just that.
That’s why I get up when I do.
That’s why I put on neon-blue Nike+ shoes and run 8 miles, Sun, Tues, Thurs…
Every week.
I don’t love running that much.
That’s exactly my problem…
______
What makes us think God is going to train us for service while we sit here?
God has no intentions of doing for us what we can do for ourselves.
Grace enables.
You decide.
Yes, you.
Some songs keep singing long after the baton is back in its sleeve.
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Jared Westbrook |
In one, my heart strains after more perfect service, and my lips silent form the morning’s plea.
In the other, the lyrics to my all-time favorite choral anthem run over and over; warm, fill.
I roll out of bed.
My thoughts merge on the 8th Psalm. I play the words of the incredulous poet over in my head.
Wait.
What’s the word?
Neato (the iPad) comes into service. I memorized the 8th Psalm as a boy, but perhaps it was a different version.
Hey, were did my praise word go?
I switch to Strongs.
The word is Strength. The word is also Praise.
Same word.
Same thing?
I squint at the screen, thinking, not seeing. My finger dances at the edge of discovery.
Strength and song go together.
Wait… Give Him strength? Make that praise.
I lean back in the futon, satisfied.
Praise is strength. Song is strength.
It “stills the enemy and the avenger.” (Ps. 8)
That’s perfect service.
Both trains of thought are satisfied.
To praise Him perfectly is to serve Him perfectly.
I never thought I would be stranded just a stone’s throw from home…
But here we are.
Midnight:I awaken with a start in the post office parking lot where we have taken refuge from the storm. We were on our way to Texas, now we’d just be glad for a place to lay flat. A mere hour and a half from home, and now we can’t go forward, and we can’t go back. Mother and Chantée who left earlier and were to meet us are likewise stranded in Albuquerque, both interstates closed. We roll our window down to talk to the policeman who is quickly becoming our friend…
“You guys ok?”
Oh boy. We’re fine… But are you going to get that car out of this parking lot?
Joshua and I end up white from head to foot after pushing the unit out of the drift created by our very van. We decide to get out ourselves before we’re drifted in…
And in the biting wind of the worst blizzard I have ever lived through, I think:
Boy, so near, yet so far! If only we could get home…
I mean, I just drove through the worst conditions of my life to get here, but I’d still give anything to be able to head back towards my room right now.
Snow stings. I squint as I make my way back to the car.
My heart strains at receding red and blue lights. The kind policeman promised he’d see us again.
But just before I yank the frozen-closed driver door open, (to go back to “sleep”) this little thought thunders me–
He could have gone home. But He didn’t.
He stayed stranded in a cold world, on a cold night… By far the worst “blizzard” He’d experienced. Like me, part of Him probably wondered at the circumstances he found Himself in. But the stronger part embraced them.
And he didn’t run home, though He could have.
He came here, He stayed here, by choice…
Merry Christmas.
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usually, there’s a road there. |
p.s. this really is real time blogging. Posted from back in the selfsame Post Office parking lot. No idea when we’ll get out of here… Did I tell you this GYC wasn’t going to be average?
I simply cannot tolerate disconnect anymore… Not now that I know what it feels like to be full and free. I don’t care what I’m in the middle of doing. When I need to drop everything, I do.
I just do.
My thumb swipes left then right across glass, taps “Reminders.”
Check, check. Check. I scroll for the next thing.
These are days unbelievably full in this house. Unbelievably full. With not one, but four young minds straining over plans for the honor of God in Houston next week, (hours a day) there is never a dull moment.
Or a relaxed one.
But we’re honored to serve… Honored to go to war with darkness, as indeed such it will be.
But I glance around my room, across my desktop, through my inbox(es) for the next most pressing emergency. And I suddenly become aware of an emergency of a different character altogether.
It’s this little heart of mine. Something’s not quite right…
I don’t brush past a call anymore. I can’t tolerate being disconnected from heaven any more… It’s the worst torture. I glance at my watch. Almost noon.
I pocket my iPhone, tell my mother I’m going out for a while, take my little sister by the shoulders and ask her if she’s prayed today…
And I go out.
And what I learn on the snow-covered hillside I expect to take with me all through life.
I awake early. I’ve slept for only a few hours, but I am charged…
I blink at a dark room, pause to pray. To consider. To remember–
again.
I have no idea what time it is. I don’t check.
Instead, I count God’s mercies, and beg that He will keep us His… always.
That nothing will ever induce us to chose another life. That no success, no opportunity, no open door, no pain or loss, or suffering will distract us from His claims on this little family of mine.
Hours pass. I don’t know how many. The light of dawn finally glows in the east. I reach into the leather bag I set down by my bed at 11:00 last night, pull out a book, open to December 18.
“And we know…!” Not we think, or we hope. Not even we have faith that…
No, we know.
I know. I’d love to tell you just how, sometime…
I keep reading. But I’ve been fed already.
My mind wanders back over hours of prayers in the dark. There is only one condition in this verse before my eyes. “Love God.” For those who love God, one day (quite possibly much sooner than you think) all the darkness will be understood to be exactly what it really is– a gift.
Some day when every wrong is made right, I will understand the true weight of today. For now, let’s just say it was one of the best days of my entire life…
I step out, zipped and buttoned. Black wool and cashmere reach earthward almost to my knees. The very air is alive with vigor, somewhat like my insides… I go to meet my God in a beautiful field, on a beautiful farm, this beautiful morning of mornings.
I sit on sandstone at the spot where two friends of mine became one months ago, and read…
And my journal, this spiral bound book with my handwriting in it, this book that records the secrets of my broken-hearted moments, this book my Nana gave me, it opens my eyes to the goodness of my God.
Every moment I have lived, every mercy I have tasted, every tear I have shed, every battle I have fought, every dream turned to ashes, was for today.
Today.
Without them, the new dreams springing up would have nothing to root in; to feed on. Because of them, I love my God more than I love anything else in this great wide world. And I love all that is (are!) His…
Hours pass and I wander around the pond; ponder why my heart is here today anyway…
It was just a pebble.
Just a friend who doesn’t even know it happened. But just because they love Jesus, because they love what is high and holy and pure, and just because I was blessed to catch a glimpse of it when I was momentarily unsure of what to do with my sword, just because of that; them…..
Some day when every wrong is made right, I will understand the true weight of today.
Mean time, I will never again underestimate the power of influence…
Even if it does seem like just a pebble…
Like all gifts, Heaven’s almost always come with the price tag removed.
And that’s no accident. Because one shouldn’t be able to casually calculate the cost of giving…
Crickets sound and I quiet my iPhone in the dark. It’s not long before I’m smiling.
Thanksgiving day.
Best day of the year.
Gifts pile up all year long, and of course we say thanks along the way…
(I hope.)
But today is different.
Today we sing over our gifts, and keep singing.
But there’s more than that…
Because a step back to take in a full year’s worth of grace gives us a little bit better sense of the cumulative cost of the giving.
You know, the price tags are always removed before the gift is wrapped up pretty… Heaven does that too. Even if we were informed of exactly the purchase price, we wouldn’t remotely be able to compute…
So we’re given another way to understand.
Gratitude.
There is only one kind of person in the world that can grasp the value of a priceless treasure.
It’s the man or woman who rejoices over the gift they don’t understand until their own hear bursts with giving-back.
In that place between wakefulness and dreams, I suddenly hear in his words an agony of earnestness that makes my heart stop. I breathe. Heave breathe; roll onto my side to get the weight off my chest. But it will not leave…
An old man, bent and nearly blind* is pressed down the corridor.
The step that once was firm and free is encumbered by shackles, the joints beg for mercy from the damp cold. This man is innocent. One look at his face is all it takes to prove it. But he is going to die.
You are in Rome. And this, is Nero’s dungeon.
Ruthless hands. Ruthless hearts.
The steps of the guards fade into silence and in my mind I am there.
There to see the great man grope about his cell; call out for his companion.
He calls for parchment, but he can’t see to write. Faithful Dr. Luke will write for him, this last will and testament. His hands tremble, his voice trembles, but this heart is strong.
Stronger than the Roman Empire.
It is Nero’s heart that trembles upstairs. (AA chap 48, “Paul Before Nero”)
But his frame is tired. And with the knowledge that he has not long to live, highest priorities becomes only priorities.
He wants to see his boy.
I do not know how the good doctor took the dictation without soaking the parchment with tears.
I couldn’t have.
I read the letter now, this last letter ever written by the Apostle to the Gentiles, this last will to the world, this letter to his boy, and I want to weep.
“I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith” (II Tim 4:7)
Indeed you have, sir. Indeed you have.
I hear his chains rattle. And I hear a cry that is half audacious challenge, half daddy’s heart.
I can almost see the hand upraised, silhouette of shackles against cold stone. And my heart stops…
Don’t be ashamed, my boy.
Oh, don’t be ashamed of my chains…
And don’t be ashamed of the Gospel. **
Luke writes. I read.
My heart leaps, as Timothy’s must have.
Timothy, who most likely did not make it back to Rome in time…
I hug my pillow. Pray—
Oh my Father…
let me never be ashamed.
*Many scholars believe the “thorn” of II Cor 12:7 was in fact near blindness…
**See II Timothy 1:8
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