We are resigned to obligation because we think being good and staying in line are inescapable facts. We won’t grant this to ourselves, but we will operate in this mindset every day, performing menial tasks for which I have no heart in an effort to maintain and foster a relationship that seems important to me. This is heartless. ? I am a free agent, spirit-driven and empowered to overcome all things that come against me because it’s not actually me that hardships come against, but my father, and who can stand against my father?
In the stillness you speak. Hovering on the face of the deep, I realize I’ve always been looking directly into your eyes. Seeing what I wanted to see, I looked through you without knowing you. I made myself what I thought the world needed to see, what I thought I needed to be, and became an unpaid actor with all the stress and none of the satisfaction. The implication here is that there is a truth that is yet, to me, undisclosed. Everyman has been adding layers of makeup like Elizabethan Gentry that they’re buried in, when I have been told I can actually wipe that crap off and breathe. There are others who’ve done this, those who’ve gone before me: spiritual men who don’t believe the world, but believe in the lightness of being. God says ‘I am that I am’, and that’s all. He is. He settles into himself and is illuminated. If I identify with that I walk free.
A perilous dream
The edge of a knife
one misstep and to darkness you fall,
(but like The Black Pearl)
A twist of perception,
a wrench on reality,
the darkness becomes Light without changing at all.
You find that every step you take is into new light.
You think you’re changing sides and stepping into the void, but a new and solid ground meets your foot with every motion. And so you walk, a perpetual motion machine – you move at all and you’re moving forward. There’s nothing to miss, just gratefulness to partake of, because he meets you wherever you’re at and wherever you choose to go. If you can’t find him, it’s not because he deserted you: he’s been everywhere first.
See your life afield, a wide moor to be traversed, an adventure awaiting. Walk on, knowing you’re guided well. There’s another side, but you’re goal’s not there. There are mountains ahead, and you must cross them, but you’re goal’s not there. There’s a desert sun to face, but your goal isn’t to reach the port-town on the other side. You are moving, and every day is today, this day. For now, just now, a truth that transcends anything you could be doing that’s too important to place anywhere else, too important to put in some other time or place, with other people, or in other circumstances. Right now’s all you’ve got. If your body passes in one minute, will you be satisfied and expectant for whatever comes? Will your story have been one of intentional growth and focused determination? We have pointed to the horizon and said ‘Onward!’ slogging every day to get there. Rather, it is the horizon that pulls us onward, and together in loving company we travel; we face and overcome hardships, serve one another, and become a contingent of warriors and brothers, a family. But if I think I owe anything to another man, I am mistaken. If I think he will esteem me if I do this for him, or if I just want to be nice, my heart has been misplaced and I become an obstacle to those I most desire to serve because my focus has shifted from the horizon to my brothers. I get tangled in our ranks, and do deeds at importunate moments. They begin to resent me because I am slowing progress, not performing the function for which I was included – that being simply myself. I have tried adopting a new form and face that I believe those close to me will admire and adore. I love these brothers! How could things have gotten so convoluted? I wanted only to serve them and they resent me.
You can only focus on your goal. Together you walk, facing forward. Don’t be discouraged that you’ve been mistaken – it will happen again and it will happen to others. Do not resent them at the time, but help them. The purpose in the cross-trek is so that your heart may be redirected, corrected, brought back in love with reproof. Grow together as a body is whole, each bone neatly joined. When one piece is out of place it is reset or it is cut off. But every part makes a whole. You can continue with one leg or one eye, but it is a little rougher. When a brother commits to being your strength, and another to your redirection, you are again complete, held aloft and brought forward, continuing on.
So my walk this day (whatever day this is of ever) is into freedom proximal to those I am with. If they support me, I serve them as myself, my neighbor, me loving my own body. If they do not support me, I forge onward toward my goal, and they are free to cross in their own direction with my blessing. I love because I am where I am, aware of my surroundings and not beleaguered by them. I am home where I am because I am whole, dwelling with the promises given, the blessings I am handed, the unfailing Truth that keeps me moving, and the light that makes my path Eastward easy.
So sometimes I fight and lose, sometimes I rely on my back-up, and I grow to remember God’s the one bringing me through my lands – every place he’s given me - and there to face my enemies. It’s never been his intent to remove them – but for them to become small and inconsequential in my eyes, because they’ve got nothing on Him but deception. If I can be turned aside, I will be. So I re-turn to my Father, and am grown by it. I rely on Him more and more, and my brothers help me in my longevity of faith. Onward! I cry, and we walk together.
But it takes time and dedication. The transition from ‘focus on the end’ to ‘focus on the journey with intent still on the Purpose’ is a practice. It looks the same, but my heart is changed as I walk. Those I encounter along the way are either submitted to the same spirit as I or they are not, and I continue on. I can offer them life, because that’s what I have, but if my intent is to change anyone or hold anything over them, or, God forbid, lift myself up, then I am turning from the course. So I grow in humility to be corrected because it’s not in my heart to be a deceiver. By speaking aloud do I discover what I believe and by my own mouth I am delivered.
Every man is responsible for his own walk – it’s utterly up to him. No man can walk out another’s salvation. But we can’t do this alone and every man’s walk is the same. The circumstances change and things look entirely different, but our hearts are all the same, and to the Father they will all return. In order for this to happen, the depths of iniquity we have permitted must be uprooted and we have to face them. God permits hard circumstances in which we must look at ourselves and bear witness to the things we highly esteem, things that are not of Him and which don’t bring life. Then we choose life now or to continue in what we’ve walked. He doesn’t shake his head or tire of bringing us to the choice, because He remains in Faith that everything is for our benefit. He’s not ashamed of me and so I’m not shamed. I am loved. Every day in every way, through every circumstance and trial, through every poor choice and every conversation, the things I suffer and through the things that go easily for me. I am in Faith and there for people when others cannot find peace; I am there to seek peace others have when I cannot find it.
Relinquish your control: you can’t cause the sun rise or make another man do anything. All you can do is coerce, and that is not the spirit of the Father. With whom do you identify? Where is your trust?
Light the fires! Get your life out of the barn and into motion! Get your gears moving and set your fears on trial! They will not stand! You have a history – your history doesn’t have you. Grow by everything because there’s grace for all of it.
Jesus is a friend, a husband, a brother, a best friend. Confide and trust in Him. To lift Him up as something idyllic other than an awesome example of peace is to elevate a man as an idol. The cross, too, has become an idol; rather celebrate life, that Jesus lives and shows us the way. Power! Resurrection for all things! Bring them up to Prove God in His promises. In this way we can bear witness to his power over death in my daily life.
I am an open book for anyone to read. You can put it down whenever, or you can ask me about it. You can go to God with it and grow to understand what your reactions are all about. What emotions strike you? Why do you think I’m unrighteous? Where do you get upset? Where do you sympathize and where are you frightened for me? Where do you see yourself in me? How do you see me overcome and falter, and how can you mount up over the things that have had you? It’s like a book study. Hold up examples and see how the light hits them: what is our Father doing in you?
Or to you.
You say I can haz sauna?
That’s terrible.
Sometimes the work God does in us, for us mind you, feels like death. And it is, really. Death to the old man – his holy fire purges anything that can burn. I know he is light, and that where there is light darkness cannot be, so let the light shine bright and hot, cleansing this mind and temple of dark and shadow. So I walk lightened because the past is done and has nothing on me. That said, his work is intentional and quite purposed because there is a work to be done in every man, and a purpose to bring to fruition in every season. For those who are awake to it. But free will says you have to choose this. He will perform his works (because the world is His), but you don’t ever have to acknowledge Him or receive any of it, you’ll just be frustrated as hell. No, really. That heat in your belly? That’s pressure to point you to life – you can either go find life to get it alleviated, or stew in it and point the finger: somebody’s got to be at fault here. And you’ll stay the same, growing a little more bitter and more hateful at your coworker, or your dad, teacher, child. It doesn’t matter. You carry your issues wherever you go. Unless the root of a frustration is dealt with, the spark will always cause a fire. We only get lit up when we think we’re right, or someone else is wrong. This is only a problem because there is no right and wrong in God: He’s all life. There’s only life and not-life. No judgement on either (but life’s better). (And by better I mean feels delicious and liberating, light and fulfilling, and is um the reason for living (?)) In God, un-life can turn to life because of Grace, where grace is to change from what you’ve chosen to another choice, because there are always options. No man can make you do anything. Did you procrastinate on a job so it bit you? Next time do it betimes, et voila! Life. But often we choose to do the same thing again because it’s easier, or we’re lazy, or we just don’t want to open our eyes to change, and we get bitten again. Then we get angry or despondent and blame someone else for our problems, or think we’re worthless because we never do anything right. And even in this, life can be had if you will hear. But you must desire life, and that not of yourself, but the life that is found in a way because God is always constant and always true. Seek, inquire, listen, hear, grow, move in faith, grow, inquire, hear, implement, move in faith, find success.
This is a little unfocused. A loaf of unfocused. But life. Questions? Ask. Explore your heart. Find life that’s not of yourself but true. Seek it out from those who have it, because when we need something we go where that thing is found. God is constant but we’re out of practice. Get with him.
I don’t care about how the world was formed, though that’s neat. I don’t care about dinosaurs, though they’re amazing. I don’t care about evolution, because I have learned to adapt to situations. All I can say is that every day I am created again in the father. I hear him or lose sight of him and remember to receive Him again.
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