Wednesday, April 16, 2014

offering

Rain falls gently on the skylight as I ponder...

This is holy week. Today I pour out my alabaster jar and worship the risen Christ, not a dead god but a risen Lord.

Many hours, many days, many years... it has taken a lifetime thus far to reach today.

Our business here is to live right on, to be presently here where we are, fully attending to the things before us while always in prayer and worship. This is a tough thing, this living, uncommon and awkward. We prefer action and activity over it. We prefer to believe we have a lot of say in how things go... And so our living ebbs and flows..

Well, my living ebbs and flows. You may be a saint. 

But today, today... I will take a moment today to pause. Maybe a good long moment...

Pause to truly give honor to the one who gave me this life... this living before me.

I was asked last night what my life was like before Christ. "dead" I said. I have no other words than that all encompassing word.

And so I think about this living. This love, this grace, this wonder. This hope, this joy, this peace.

And I think too, of my pride, my selfish ambition, my lack of humility... so many words to describe my entangling sins flash before my eyes when I pause to celebrate.

They shout UNWORTHY...

They prick at my living and weaken my faith...

I know whom I have believed in... and he is able...

So I breathe deeper, draw quieter... Releasing all of me into the hands of my redeemer....
and weeping, pour my offering at his feet. 

Saturday, April 12, 2014

Easter, Christ, and the Cross

This is a post about love.

I have been inhaling some new-to-me books I bought which were written by James Stewart. His simple and clear language is a delight to me as I process through this season.

Easter is around the corner, and the blood of christ has been on my mind.  The blood shed by a king so loving that he shed it for me...  The nails and the sweat and the blood... each step saying, this I do out of love for you.. but do you love me?

I confess that many times I do not love Christ as I ought. I go about my days, bumbling and busy as I always appear, and I fail to pause. I fail to recognize the simple sweet reality that I am his.

Not this year. This year I have been mesmerized by this Jesus. Jesus, who in his very nature God, did not let equality with God to be his goal, but rather put on the flesh of a simple human... taking our form, walking in our world, being like us. Jesus, who brings life from death. Jesus, who loves us when we know not, cares when we cannot, and persists when we dare not.

This Jesus speaks to me. He says, come to me. Walk my way. Trust in me. He says, I know your world, your ways, your options...but my ways and my world are so much more... Don't fall for the trap that this is all there is, that there is no hope, that there is no future. Walk with me and I will take you farther than you can begin to fathom.

This Jesus. He drew a handful of men from the wildest of groups... giving us a first look at the church, with a tax collector working alongside fishermen alongside the rest... He didn't collect them from the proper realm; no, that would have been too easy, too much like the rest. He took those that couldn't see themselves and called them by name.

Just as he does to us.

Just as he did Paul - who says so many times that the love of Christ compelled him... Once Saul, once an adamant pharisee;  now Paul, willing to do anything to teach, to encourage, to share...

The love of Christ compels me.

As we draw close to Easter, let us not forget that it was love that paved the way to the cross.