I'm on a plane Nashville bound. I've been off the World Race now for a little over a month, but have hardly sat still. Unfortunately my time with family was only a couple of days here, and there, and then a little under a week right before Christmas, and here it is Christmas day and I am on the move. My sister and I are going to see our family in Nashville, and then some of my world race family are picking me up to road trip to Kansas city, MO for IHOP's "One Thing" conference.
My soul is set on the Lord, but my mind and heart are constantly battling with one another about where I am going with my life. What I am doing, and feeling like I am abandoning my family. My leaving has nothing to do with a running away, but I hope they understand it's because I am running after the most important man in my life; Jesus.
I want to put myself in situations of great dependency on him, I want to be discipled by someone after David's heart; just joyously passionate for the Lord and bringing Kingdom to earth. I want his word written on my heart. I just want more. Life was not meant to be endured, but lived on the fly of our pants, stepping out into risk- risking it all, because there is no security we can count on, but the Lord. All our security lies in him and he loves taking us on an adventure. He loves the risk takers, the great dreamers, and the visionaries- people who want to create a new earth; A new eden.
Clusters of light distract me from my thoughts, but only for a moment, and I am talking to the Lord in my head again. I'm fixated on each one, and the distance between them. Is this what we look like? That cluster is an entire city, full of people with needs, broken people, people who are free, and people who are enslaved, people with dreams, and each person the Lord sees. When I am down there walking about everything seems so big, in the physical and the spiritual- I am sometimes overwhelmed by how small I really am, what can I do? But from up here I feel like I see things from his eyes a bit. Yes, I really am small, a tiny speck- that's clear from here, but also that to him the whole world is small. It's hours between these clusters of light, yet to Him it looks like the size of a fingernail from one to the next, and things are bigger than what is just in front of me, he can see it all at once. Praise the Lord he has the insight to lead us.I often wonder why He made us, do we really move him the way scripture says- what is so special about us?
I peer out the window again squishing my eyes and scrunching my face up really trying to look intently- and see from His perspective. Show me God. Show me. I see a Christmas tree in the distance, one that to me would be hundreds of feet tall, and from here looks like a small table display. All these city light look as if the world is decorated for His glory- like a neighborhood of light displays. The criss cross patterns and grids, amidst the natural mountains, valleys, and twisting rivers. All of it beauty for Him to look upon. He looks at us and sees beauty- because He see the big picture. When he looks at us- individually- he still sees beauty, because he sees the big picture there too. The past, present, and glorious future. He looks not only at who you are in this moment, but who you are becoming in the next. A beautiful thing to have eyes to see perfection in the midst of chaos.
I sat for a moment longer and began to smile. SO God takes delight in the earth, this light show, the creation he made, and especially the us- made in His image. If that all delights God then it should delight me, right? Lord I want to be in awe of who you are and what you've done. I want to choose to stop and watch a falling leaf, because it's glorious, and perfect. Would I have thought of each contour, and crevice in caves, mountains, and the unique imprints of each leaf- the delicate cell structure, the colors, or the textures? Would I have imagined stars, the waters, the sky and the moon? Would I have thought of dimples, and freckles, bone structure and making some people have attached earlobes, and others dangly ones? God is so good! Given a blank canvas- I could never have dreamed up even a fraction of this amazing place called earth. Can you imagine if there was no sunrise? No sunset? The beauty and majesty; the colors in a rainbow; All visual poetry showing us parts of His heart, and we take it for granted everyday.
I don't understand even now how he has no beginning and no end, except that I know it's truth and there is nothing that can contain him. How could we even consider this all happened by chance? Look around you- It can't be coincidence that a man should love a woman and a woman love a man, and the two fit together perfectly as one flesh. That the ocean submits to it's constraints time and time again, and the desire to create almost explodes out of our being. We don't desire to "big bang" or randomly explode into harmony, but rather to make new things, invent, design, and explore all characteristics of a creator. That's because we were made from, and by a creator God. His print is on us. We were made in his glorious image.
Some may call me foolish to believe the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob placed the stars in the sky, created man from dust, and knew me and formed before I was ever in my mother's womb. Funny thing though is it takes the same faith to believe in something as it does to believe in nothing. Nothing sounds a bit more ridiculous to me; therefore it may take more faith to reject a creator God when creation shouts His glory; screams his name. Both seem far fetched, but we have to choose. We are either for him or against him. Just look around you, he is drawing you into himself, and wants to be in relationship with you, allow yourself just to stop. pause. look around. Could this really have happened without intention in mind?
Isn't it amazing we can ask these questions? That's because the Lord has blessed us, and entrusted us with the decision to choose him or not. He gives freedom so the love is sincere, so our hearts are pure, and our desires are on Him because we choose him, not because we have to, but because we want to. Just as parents can't choose their child's destiny, only put up caution signs, promptings, and guide them along the way; so the Lord patiently and lovingly sees us along the way in our choices, but always leaves it to us.
And so I choose to choose Him. I commit to follow him. From light cluster to light cluster. Glory to Glory. I want to intentionally set my heart on him. To look at the life he has blessed me with an actually live it to the fullest. It's not by chance I am who I am, and I've encountered what I have. It is the story he thought up just for me. I love the way Donald Miller puts it in the author's note of "Through Painted Deserts." (* read the whole thing for free online.. my favorite thing to read again and again..) He says:
"And so my prayer is that your story will have involved some leaving and some coming home, some summer and some winter, some roses blooming out like children in a play. My hope is your story will be about changing, about getting something beautiful born inside of you, about learning to love a woman or a man, about learning to love a child, about moving yourself around water, around mountains, around friends, about learning to love others more than we love ourselves, about learning oneness as a way of understanding God. We get one story, you and I, and one story alone. God has established the elements, the setting and the climax and the resolution. It would be a crime not to venture out, wouldn't it?
It might be time for you to go. It might be time to change, to shine out.
I want to repeat one word for you:
Leave.
Roll the word around on your tongue for a bit. It is a beautiful word, isn't it? So strong and forceful, the way you have always wanted to be. And you will not be alone. You have never been alone. Don't worry. Everything will still be here when you get back. It is you who will have changed."
We have the opportunity to live out the amazing story he wrote for us. He is the master story teller. He's established the elements, and is always with us. It would be a shame to not venture out and see what gets written of our life. You only get one on this earth- let's make it one worthy of the creator.
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