just August 29, 2009

Small. Such smallness, still illuminated. Countless stars. Known from a distance. Such smallness packed with enough Hope to start a big bang. Such smallness that evaporates when the world rubs its eyes and yawns, stretches a morning stretch to reveal how vast this life is. How huge this sky is. How big the universe is. I disappear, the scale of proportions do not have a facility for me. Me who is not visible when viewing the earth from space, no matter how high I jump. Me who is not even visible from the nearest big town, not even visible from across the road. Small.

Big. On soul radar I beep every time the luminous green second hand sweeps around the clock face. I am big. My soul is recognised. In these scale of proportions I am visible from Heaven. I do not have to jump to get noticed. My lungs breathe in, my frame swells, I am known. I am seen. Visible from the sun, visible from the moon. Visible if I stand in hurt, visible if I bruise myself on tragedy. I am visible always, I am known always. I am seen always. Big.

One. A partnership. A merger. A unity. One. I travel to Him. He is in me.

eye doll June 28, 2009

Travelling from one station to another, my suitcase knocks against my knees. Set down at the prodigious information board, I wait. I stare at the flickering display. A breeze drifts in from the south exit, sailing between the islands of commuters. My suitcase address tags dance a tethered dance, just for a few seconds. The labels read; “DO NOT FORGET”, that is my constant, my silent chaperone.

The sound of a million dominoes setting each other off as the widescreen board {click here} changes content. Platform numbers exchanged, destinations erased, then brought back to life again somewhere else.

The overarching criteria is time. Time, yes, the metronome of the stations. Without the accurate adherence to time, by all the networked stations, chaos would ensue. A central station is required to be a lynchpin. A standard. An example in its design, efficiency and timekeeping.

I pick up my case and join the slow moving mass, like a bubble of honey we drip through the barriers and onto the platform, only then thinning out as carriage doors are opened and slammed. Clocks everywhere, reminding me of the time.

I must not forget, where I have come from and where I am going. A circular journey. From Him to Him via life. My compression from distortion to gem stone. I must not forget to choose this journey every day. Life is fragile. To forget the choice, leads me onto another platform, following another, not Him. Compression halted, rewound. Becoming more twisted, not less.

My train hauls itself out of the station. I stare out of window, my reflection superimposed on the outside world. My destination secured, for today. Tomorrow is another set of choices.

trainspotting June 16, 2009

What bankrupt words have Sin, Love and Confession become. Chopped up and diminished. Washed up in a gutter, the pious detritus and the meaningless reassurance.

I was an Office to Let, I was a shell waiting to be refurbished. Armed with cardboard boxes I am clearing out the junk. I rest in the release of it all.

Love is a word that has lost its shape. Once incisive and creative now prosaic. We use love. Abuse love. Ignore love. Restrain love.

Love is as much the I DO and I WILL that pepper our wedding vows as it is the emotion. Love is the consistency in actions that back up our words.

Love is a command, not under duress, but with an attention to detail. Love is the demonstration of faith by actions.

True Love, Real Love, Endless Love, Undying Love, they all mean nothing, they are empty words, unless they have consistency in all areas.

There is no bankruptcy of my faith. There is real love. So much love. So tall that everything cools in the shadow cast. So deep, that it has been to hell and back. So wide that it stretches from humanity to divinity. So strong that it changes lives, hearts, souls, minds.

So should I be surprised that He spends all his currency on products of distortion. Good love, real love spent on twisted and broken hearts. Does that make me wonder?

He unties my knots straightens my coils. This is the compression from distortion to diamond. This is life.

On that day when dust rises, what does my life come down to?

I can choose to breathe life, speak truth, make untwisted choices and live without distortion. I can choose to Love God. This is my choice. This is trusting in Him, using a currency that was forgotten a long time ago.

DO. NOT. FORGET.

true love ways June 15, 2009

Love.

Too often Love is reduced to feelings. Emotions that are stirred. This can be the beginning of love, although there is a strength and resilience in Love that rarely attains the healthy profile it requires to breathe.

In Hosea God invites His people to know Him. To Love Him. Love in this context is as much the I DO and I WILL that pepper our wedding vows as it is the emotion. Love is the consistency in actions that back up our words.

Love is a command, a new command from Jesus (John 13-34-35), not under duress, but with an attention to detail. Like a husband is called to love his wife. Not just in emotion, but in action, in thought and deed, in putting the other first. A marriage requires this love to breathe. God requires this love to breathe in us. This is not a chore but a product of a relationship freely entered.

Love is the demonstration of faith by actions. Love is not always easy, love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.

True Love, Real Love, Endless Love, Undying Love, they all mean nothing, they are empty words, unless they have consistency in all areas.

lip June 14, 2009

Do my actions sustain what I believe or do they fly in the face of  everything I profess?

In Jeremiah nine and Hosea eight, I read about a God who has been forgotten or worse still, in John eleven, a God whom His disciples didn’t even know.

When life is oppressive it is easy to reach out, when the soul starts to infringe the body it is easy to throw your hope onto Him. What about the next day, and the next day, what about when life gets better. What about a year later when that moment of clarity has been forgotten? What then?

What hurts God? I think, like the prodigal son, like the disciples with Jesus, like Jonah; what hurts God is when we do not recognise Him anymore. When we think we know Him and put Him in a box marked God/judgement/wrath/sin and run a mile in the opposite direction or when we spend our lives serving Him but actually never know Him. When we spend our lives ridiculing Him when we never knew Him. When the prodigal son returned He never expected his father to react in that way. He didn’t know Him. When Jesus wept, when he broke bread, when He prayed in Gethsemane, He did so knowing that the closest people in His life still didn’t know Him, they still had to wake Him up in a storm.

When God hears a cry, when He sees hurt, He responds  spiritually. Isn’t that my story, our story? In the darkest times, we pray, we hope for a deliverance from a situation and when it comes? When deliverance comes what then? The three words that support almost every bible story, the reason for every bible story.

DO. NOT. FORGET.

worth June 13, 2009

A man once told me that anything is only worth what someone wants to pay for it. A footballer to a baker is worth nothing, to someone else, eighty million pounds. Worth, value all subjective. A great holiday? What would I pay for a black tie? Worth. Value.

What is my worth? Who can pay this? What is my value? Love is a word that has lost its shape. Once incisive and creative now prosaic. We use love. Abuse love. Ignore love. Restrain love.

Love is the only currency He uses. It is what everything else is measured by. Sacrifice, Obedience, Mercy, and Forgiveness. Real love conquers all.

So should I be surprised that He spends all his currency on products of distortion. Good love, real love spent on twisted and broken hearts. Does that make me wonder?

Finally I am at peace in my own skin. I can be loved. I can love. Only now do I see the trading. Why did I hunt for scraps in dustbins when there was someone emptying their love for me?

I am worth real love. To live, accept, gift and follow.

heart ache June 1, 2009

Somehow the books of Lamentations and Psalms offer me a portal into another world. A telescope to look back to earth through permanent eyes. Where the temporary can fill in the blanks. When reading Lamentations 5, Jeremiah writes of great anguish, one that Jesus speaks of in Luke. Both are talking about God’s people, Jeremiah about how they have been forgotten, Jesus about how he would want to gather them up, a brood safe under His wings. Same people differing perspectives. And the enemies that Jeremiah speaks of, Assyria and Egypt are these not the same Assyria and Egypt that Isaiah foretold would worship God? That their unity would be found in worshipping Him? Same countries different perspectives. Where I position myself reveals more or less of what is before me. What I am learning about every day is that balance is imperative. To be able to hold Jeremiah, Isaiah and Jesus in tension needs balance. Action. Reaction. Faith. My faith is balanced not on a precipice but on a wide expanse that is permissive and safe. Secure and free. Not a slave, a human. I spent my life watching the world from vantage points but couldn’t get a decent view. My life, restricted view. Obscure. His kingdom is the only place that I can see it all.