The God of gods, the mighty Lord himself, has spoken!
He shouts out over all the people of the earth,
In every brilliant sunrise and every beautiful sunset, saying,
“Listen to me!”
(Psalm 50 The Passion)
Category: Sky
Keep Your Head to the Sky
Sometimes God’s voice shows up in the strangest places. I expect to hear him speak through the Bible and through people who spend a lot of time in his presence. God also speaks to me through nature and through innocent children. Both can be remarkably profound. I’ve learned to pay attention to dreams that stand out and to listen to hymns and worship songs that play in the night and on repeat during the day. But movies and pop songs always surprise me.
Today God spoke through a chance encounter with a Mariah Carey song from the last decade. But first some background…
Beautiful friends prayed for me last night. I was glad I sat at the back of the auditorium because I cried through most of the service that ended a conference where I feasted on solid food. The speaker talked about Jesus setting a pattern of descending in humiliation and ascending in exaltation. (I will probably write more on this as I process the image of Jesus as our great high priest.)
Part of Jesus’ descent involved taking on human form with all its frailties. Satan attacked his identity when he was in a weakened state in the wilderness after a forty day fast. Christ’s exaltation involved ascending to heaven in his glorified body where he sits on the right hand of God as one who identifies, intercedes, and intervenes on our behalf. He made a way for us into the holy of holies with his own perfect blood sacrifice.
One of my life verses has been “That I might know him,” but I can’t ignore that the scripture combines knowing him with “and the fellowship of his sufferings.”
Life on this road is full of ups and downs – ascents and descents, mountain tops and valleys. I have known the elation of seeing God perform miracles before my own eyes. In the past year or so I have also known what it is like to be misunderstood, misrepresented, rejected and even had false accusations levelled at me. I have not always handled these well. Mostly I have not handled them at all (other than to ruminate and drive my husband to distraction with rehearsed re-enactments). I’ve been withdrawing and becoming emotionally and spiritually numb. (Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference between shunning negativity and outright denial.)
Last night I began to realize that Christ was allowing me to share his experience in a tiny homeopathic-size dose. He knows what it is like to be misunderstood, misrepresented, rejected, hated, and lied about. I wanted to experience the ascension to a new spiritual height after a wilderness experience, like others talked about, but all I felt was pain. The pain of not fitting in anywhere. My pain. His pain.
I wept.
And I thanked him.
Afterward a kind man and two women who love the Lord and understand this journey prayed for me. They told me what the Lord was showing them. Amongst other things (precious and private) they mentioned they saw me as one who was meant to live at altitude, like a bird living above earth-bound entanglements in the presence of my Creator, but that striving will not get me there. I thought of the scripture, “Humble yourself in the sight of the Lord and He will lift you up.”
Prophetic words are usually a confirmation of what the Lord has been saying to our hearts all along, but words we have forgotten or ignored or dismissed as something meant for someone better than ourselves.
I didn’t tell them about having dreams of being a song bird that flew to the top of trees where the growling predators couldn’t reach, or of the very dramatic vision of a bird with bright red feet. When I asked what that was about I was told it was a “red-footed booby.” I had to look it up. It’s a sea bird that spends years at a time in the sky, riding on thermals, living on fish and touching land only to raise its young. I remembered encountering these things when I was trying to understand my identity in Christ and asking God how he saw me.
Today I came across the lyrics of Mariah Carey’s “Fly like a Bird.” I heard the Holy Spirit repeat the message in some of the phrases:
Weeping may endure for a night
But joy comes in the morning
Trust Him
Somehow I know that
There’s a place up above
With no more hurt and struggling
Free of all atrocities and suffering
Because I feel the unconditional love
From one who cares enough for me
To erase all my burdens
And let me be free to
Fly like a bird
Take to the sky
I need you now Lord
Carry me high
Don’t let the world break me tonight
I need the strength of you by my side
Sometimes this life can be so cold
I pray you’ll come and carry me home…
Keep your head to the sky
With God’s love you’ll survive…
Carry me higher, higher, higher
Carry me higher, higher, higher
Carry me home
Higher Jesus
Carry me higher Lord
I don’t know how long the descending bit of the road is, but I know Joy comes in the morning. I trust him.
I also know I am not the only one in this place. If this is also you, keep your head to the sky…
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To Worship is to Change
In worship an increased power steals its way into the heart sanctuary, an increased compassion grows in the soul. To worship is to change.
– Richard J. Foster
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Let All the Earth Rejoice
The splendor of the King
Clothed in majesty
Let all the earth rejoice
All the earth rejoice
He wraps Himself in light
And darkness tries to hide
It trembles at His voice
Trembles at His voice
How great is our God, sing with me
How great is our God and all will see
How great, how great is our God
– Chris Tomlin
This morning I am downloading photos from my camera as I listen to live streaming of a gathering of believers from around the world. A delegation of Koreans is praying for North America. They were singing Holy, Holy, Holy and How Great is Our God as this photo came up.
My heart cries out to the Lord with them. With tears.
How I love the Korean Church. They can pray!
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I hear you
I decided to re-post a poem I wrote several years ago. The day I wrote it I was sitting outside writing a letter to God. I couldn’t quite talk to him yet, but I was daring to write down my feelings and mail them to the fireplace. My page was full of angry accusations. In places my pen tore right through the paper. While I was crying a sudden squall blew in. I was so utterly at the end of my rope I didn’t bother moving. It felt like the storm raging in me was now raging around me.
The sun broke through while it was still raining. When the shower stopped I picked up my strewn papers and my wet Bible. It fell open to Psalm 18 where David writes about God wrapping himself in storm clouds on his way to deliver justice to his child. “Wrapped and hidden in the thick-cloud darkness, his thunder-tabernacle surrounding him, he hid himself in mystery-darkness; the dense rain clouds were his garments. Suddenly the brilliance of his presence breaks through...” (The Passion translation) And verse 19 “His love broke open the way.”
I’m publishing this again because this week I’ve read several excellent blogs by people younger than I who ably describe their frustration with church experience that involved competition, consumerism, hypocrisy, political manipulation, performance-oriented faith with impossibly high standards, dogmatic theoretical faith without power, and lack of demonstrations of love.
Yes, I know the saying that you get out of church what you put in, but change means admitting there are things that are not working for everyone. Many people are happy where they are, but there are also a lot of hurting people out there who feel no one hears them. They are expressing their disappointment with their feet. To those young people who are walking away I want to say, I hear you.
I think the largest “mission field” in North America is among those who have known spiritual abuse, from mild coercion to dastardly deeds worthy of criminal charges. I define spiritual abuse as the act of exploiting a vulnerable person’s longing for connection with their Creator for the purposes of acquiring personal power -usually by a person with some degree of authority or responsibility for nurturing them. It is far more prevalent than anyone wants to admit. Repentance means to change the way we think. And we do need to repent. All of us.
The first step toward healing involves admitting there is a problem. If you have been a victim, express your pain, but don’t park there. Keep searching for the God who loves you as you are. He is not disappointed in you because he understands human frailty. He sent his Son, Jesus Christ, to show you what he is really like. He never expected you to be good enough to earn his love. He is the One who heals our wounded hearts and showers our lives with loving kindness.
We are incapable of loving God until we know his love. When you know you are loved and forgiven you can afford to take your hands off the throats of those who owe you. That’s when the world will know we are Christians – by our love.
Mourning
I cry, Oh God! Oh Christ! Oh Jesus!
Where are you when the ones who say
they speak for you –those who squeeze us,
press in on every side, demand
that we respect authority,
obey their rules, come (cash in hand)
to hear their words, as only they
have got the regulations straight at last?
Where are you when the weak are hurt,
aggrieved and stumbled in your name?
Don’t you see what they have passed?
I sit entangled with the chords
of bitterness around my feet.
A plant blows over on the boards
that fence me off from outside world.
The petals scatter on the grass
and now the gust of wind that swirled
their frail wings in electric air
becomes a greater blast of rage
that showers ashes in my hair.
Flash tears the sky –breath rent apart,
and splits the veil of one who mourns,
with lightning striking to the heart.
Deep groaning rolls across the vale
from craggy peak to worn down ridge
and rains pours down –beats down in hail.
The sun withdraws beneath a cloud.
and saplings hang their weeping heads
as thunder rails against the proud,
who dare to claim the earth their own,
–and in the woods from hill to hill
creation echoes back the moan.
My tears obscure the sky from view.
Oh God! I cry. God! Where are you?
My child, I hear. I weep with you.
(written during the struggle)
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Burnin’ Grace
The sinner is not the one who uses a lot of grace…
The saint burns grace like a 747 burns fuel on take off.
-Dallas Willard
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My Heart an Altar, and Thy Love the Flame
Teach me to love Thee as Thine angels love,
One holy passion filling all my frame;
The kindling of the heaven descended Dove,
My heart an altar, and Thy love the flame.
(from Spirit of God, Descend Upon My Heart by George Croly)
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This Now Place
This Now Place
The fog wraps itself around me
like soft flannel encircling a child who twists to see.
Mystic air muffles the crying crow,
the howling wolf.
Damp cloud strokes my cheek
and covers my brow.
I catch a glimpse of mountainside
floating like a memory of the future in the sky.
Then silence.
Beside secret stream,
as in a dream,
I walk on wood chips,
sainted cedars,
lives laid down
to cradle my steps.
The shoulders of giants hush my footfall.
Between fervent moss clinging to rock
the fountain flows, in unexpected joy
between somewhere and somewhere,
beauty colouring only this place,
this now place,
this here place.
I settle my soul upon Your breast and breathe Your love.
The mountains stand
shoulder to shoulder
like guardian angels around the valley.
Whether I sleep or wake,
whether You hide Yourself
or gently wake me to see Your glory.
I trust You.
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Outside the Lines
Don’t assume that God will always work in your life the way He always has. A sunset is proof that God colors outside the lines. He has no status quo. Even the laws of nature are His to interrupt. As many times as you’ve prayed before, today may be the day when God sends the answer so swiftly-so divinely-that you’re windburned.
– Beth Moore
Charis: Subject to Change 