Walking with Papa is a very slow thing. I am very handicapped and I don't think it was ever about going deeper, further, faster. It was never about getting stronger, or more able. Learning Papa is a process of excruciatingly slow hobbling. And yet, the beauty of the whole situation is that Papa stays. He doesn't get impatient and walk ahead. He doesn't think about other things in his lack of interest. He never pushes for faster, He never even glances away. Papa's attention is on me, on us, in the right here, right now. I don't understand. When I think about who God is and how he runs the entire universe, how good He is, and how free He is, I get upset to think that he would walk so verryyy slowly with me. 'Why are you doing this?!' I beg him to go ahead, to be as free as He should be, to be untethered. I don't want him to let me a be a burden to him, because if we're honest here, He's literally GOD, He can be doing literally anything at any point in time. Very truly I tell you, there are most definitely much better, more important, and more fun things to be doing that standing here with me, waiting to make sure I don't just fall right over with every single step I take. Seems I've managed to walk about a foot in distance in the last 5 hours. 5 days. 5 weeks. But God, for some reason, is still here. And now I'm more upset, because I know I'm not worthy of this. 'Please go. Why are you here God?' It almost seems unwise of him. So I focus on doing a better job taking steps, maybe I can go a little faster, and it wont be so bad for Him. Continually my heart feels more and more burdened and tangled... -until I see his eyes. Until He lifts my chin and says "Child, look into my heart". His eyes are bursting with hope and gentleness. He is completely secure, and sure in Himself. He has no anxiety, He feels no need. He is full and there is nothing that is not secure in Him. Inside his heart there is an abundance of life and of growth. He is free, He is not tethered to anything....ever. He doesn't lie, because he doesn't have to. He's in no rush. And his intentional choice, in his freedom and his own willing, is to be closer to me than my own skin. There is no place he'd rather be. It seems to me, that there is nothing that God values like he values relationship. He values the 'us' more than the 'everything else'. It is much more important to him, that his and mine hearts are fully wrapped in each other's, fully tangled together, and that above every other possible thing, He needs me to know that He loves me. God values my heart, not my achievements, my goodness, or how far I've come.
This is something I come back to over and over- this difference in value systems. It seems so basic, but the reality is, living in our society here will change your values right quick about what is good and acceptable, and worthy of love. To stay on the heaven value system means training your brain to think differently of God. And as celebrated as it is, to go against the grain in this hipster day and age, genuinely living differently is relentlessly hard. This biggest misconception that we have about God, is that He is like us! We are created in His image indeed, but He is completely other than us, and our expectations of him seem to be expectations we'd put on another human. But God is much different, and there is not actually a need to understand him, there is simply a need to know him. We must simply always let him love us. If we refuse relationship with him because we cannot understand, then that is just fear of the unknown. Yet we can know him! Knowing him is trusting him, and that is the part that is so different from the world. We are trusting something we can't understand, can't see, trusting him to not leave us out in the cold, to not leave us hungry, to not leave us wanting, to not leave us alone. If we can take God at his word when He says he's coming back, or when he does miraculous signs and wonders, then we can take at his word with what he says about us, and what he says about himself. If He says to you, "you are enough", and the world, your society, and even your own brain and heart scream "Be More! Be More!", you obviously have a choice to make. Truthfully, the hardest battle will always be against yourself. You will always fight yourself more than anyone or anything else, to get yourself off the throne of your heart and give it back to God. Here's a question. Does God lie? Really? Ever? If your answer is no, then he must be telling the truth. My second question to you, is how much authority does the God of this universe who created you and everything you see, mountains, brains, organs, animals, weather, lightning, who speaks and the waves obey....how much authority does he have? Actually? And so your choice is between God's truth, which sets you free, and gives you no pressure, and the worlds truth, which demands things which you will never achieve. When you choose God's truth, what then do you look like to the world, and how much importance do you place on that? Are you willing to step higher, to breathe deeper, and to sing louder, at the expense of your own image? At the expense of your own name, your own glory, and in exchange for love, for life, for fullness and for something real? All of this goes to show what it looks like to change your perspectives on God, on life, and training your brain to think like heaven. So I'll leave you with this truth. (The choice to trust it is yours.) God not only loves you, but he likes you. Your heart and your relationship with him are of utmost importance, and there is no place( I repeat, no place. It doesn't matter where you are) he'd rather be, than with you. Because there is one thing He needs you know to know. He Loves You.
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