Broken Birdsong

It has been a day of deep thought. The kind that stirs the soul ... almost in a literal way, scraping the sides, bringing down what was stuck up ... making something new. A new thought. A new way of thinking. My mind and heart are overwhelmed. I felt God near and I heard His sweet voice. He reminded me of things I already knew, things I'd forgotten, and things I was just learning, and fit them all together to form something new. It was like that moment in a crime show when they're about to solve the mystery. A new piece of information comes up, seemingly unimportant, but they look into it. They dig deeper. They remember another obscure fact from earlier on in the case. They weave a story that makes sense, and then they fight to find and prove the truth. Excuse how my brain works, but I am going to invite you into the full reality of my thought process. It's scary. You've been warned. A friend told me this past week that our God is the only One who can say "alwa...

The words are in me. I am full of them to brimming, and if I do not pour, I will burst. I pray they are not my own. We hear of presenting our bodies to God as living sacrifices. It is a pretty vivid picture, right? But we've turned it into a mere cliche. It stirs us, but do we even think about it? A living sacrifice. We have the idea of a dead sacrifice somewhere in the corners of our minds, at least. A bloody lamb on an altar. A naked Savior on a cross. But when we think of a living sacrifice, we become much more tame. This is us, after all. No need to be graphic. We form simple thoughts of handing ourselves to God. Constantly. Because if we're alive, then we're obviously moving, right? So we must keep coming back to God and offering up our desires and opinions. But where are we returning to, again? Where do sacrifices go? Oh, right. An altar. The image I get is of Aslan tied to the stone table. Of Jesus nailed to the cross. We weren't supposed to have gon...

It baffles me how in the most extraordinary moments, God uses the most ordinary things. I sat here, begging for Him to move and speak, and the words, "oh, how He loves us so" played through my headphones. It doesn't get any simpler. Nor does it get any more revolutionary. It is His love that defines all else. Every significant thought or action in my life must first be rooted in His love. This is the love that overwhelms me. That wooed me to repentance, then drew me back to Him when I was most fully aware of my undeserving self. This is the love that died for me, but didn't stay in the grave. The love that moves mountains. Love that calms storms and stirs hearts. He is love and He is here, and what else matters, really?

I am numb and distracted. Inconstant and inattentive. When faced with pain, I have tried to drown it out or become unaffected by it ... and in the process I have lost much more than I bargained for. And I dare confess that I didn't even mind the absence; I hardly noticed. And then one day, I did. I heard His voice clearly, and I realized He had been speaking all along ... I had simply drowned Him out. I didn't listen. My prayers were performances and duties, rather than intimate conversation and bloody battle. In the midst of struggles, I ran elsewhere. In the midst of pain, I sought other comfort. In discouragement and drought, I went to those who had been to the Well, rather than to the source Himself. My every act ignored His name and lordship. And He still speaks. He still waits for me. Still, He loves me with a Love unlike any other. I've counted up the cost , and You are worth it.  Worth everything He could ever ask me to give up. Worth losing my reputation o...