I read these words of John Paul Jackson today, “our wholeness depends on our closeness with the Creator.”  We will never, my friends, be whole until we allow the One who created us to define us.

As long as we seek to find our worth in the acceptance of people, things and statuses we will never find the fullness of the treasure we are to inherit.  We will forever be searching for the gold, silver and precious jewels of our destiny but settling for a few copper pennies instead.

Trinkets instead of treasures.

For we are all created to worship something and because of that innate desire we will find something to worship.  We fill our lives with baubles and noise.  Distractions will always steal the place of Truth.  We mistakenly place too much stock on what we know, who we know and what we can get.

Death is naked before God; Destruction lies uncovered.  He spreads out the northern skies over empty space; he suspends the earth over nothing.  He wraps up the waters in his clouds, yet the clouds do not burst under their weight.  He covers the face of the full moon, spreading his clouds over it.  He marks out the horizon on the face of the waters for a boundary between light and darkness.  The pillars of the heavens quake, aghast at his rebuke.  By his power, he churned up the sea; by his wisdom he cut Rahab to pieces.  By his breath the skies became fair; his hand pierced the gliding serpent.  And these are but the outer fringe of his works; how faint the whisper we hear of him!  Who then can understand the thunder of his power!  (Job 26:6-14)

I love to stand on the shore of the ocean.   As the waves crash along the coast, their rumbled power echoes through the million grains of sand and the lap of their reach causes me to sink deeper and deeper in.  This place, for me, is the outer fringe of the throne room.  In the distance where the earth falls into the horizon I believe He sits waiting, patiently.  Waiting for us to seek Him above all else.  Waiting for us to allow Him to call into existence the very truth of who He made us to be.

We live in the outer fringe of His work and look right past the beauty He has created.  He roars in the thunder and we hear only the faintest of whispers.

This may be all we get but truth be told, it is all we can take.

It is all we need.

Yet, we don’t seek the fringe and we don’t listen for the faint.

Do we fear it would never be enough?

We compete with each other rather than live to be the one He desires us to be.  We forgo our destiny for trinkets rather than laying hold of the treasure He has planned.

He has chosen our inheritance for us…(Psalm 47:4a)

It is good.  It is waiting.  It will always be more than enough.

The question we must ask ourselves is what are we choosing?

Prisons are unkind places.

It matters not how the walls are built because those that rise from disappointment, dereliction, discomfort and discrimination stand as sure as those made from brick and mortar.  These walls, no matter how they were constructed, cause us to doubt who we are and all that we have ever known.

John the Baptist was a man on a mission.  He stood in the wilderness and in the water preparing the way for the One to come.  When this One came and Heaven spoke, John’s job was done.

Endings are rarely easy, no matter how they appear.

Not long after, the pages turn and John is found sitting in a prison – isolated, dark and foreboding, I am sure.  A place where time holds one hostage and thoughts fall incessant as tortured drops.

Drip

Maybe I should have done this or that instead?

Drip

Why am I here?  What did I do wrong?

Drip

He is not doing it like I thought it would happen.  Is He really the right one?

Drip

Prison walls hold tight their contents until they gnaw away even the most stalwart of heart.  We may wonder why John so quickly doubted within the walls what he knew to be true in the water.  But truth be told, we do the same.

Life encircles us in ways we never expected.  As the calendar pages turn, we hide our hurts and disappointments with the intention to move past.  But instead they burrow their way deep within the walls and there they find the perfect place to fester.

Infections like these weaken even the strong among us.

Yet John, in his wisdom, knew the question was worth the ask.   The answer was the antidote to the ailment seeking to poison.  Jesus didn’t avoid the question.

God never does.

We just far too often avoid ask

Further reading:  Matthew 11:1-6

I am sure I have prayed these words a million times and yet, they seemed so unfamiliar.  It happens when things become rote and ritual.  Their power lost in our inattentiveness.  We stop seeing.  We stop hearing. 

Today, however, I saw and it shook me to the core. 

You see, it’s easy in this world of social media sound bytes to rattle off opinions and proclaim judgements.  We may think our voice is drowned out in the sea of millions but to the One who hears all things it plunks like a pebble in a sea of glass.  The ripples go farther and longer than we ever anticipated.

We speak before we truly understand.  Our perspective is tainted and one-sided at best.  We hold tight to what we know but no matter what we think – we don’t know it all. 

Only He does.

And yet, we spew our words and toss our judgements as if what we are saying is etched in stone and more worthy than another.   Pictures, memes and comments fly on our pages faster than the mind can think, the heart can ponder and the soul can respond.

I wonder how different we are from those who rattled opinions and proclaimed judgements on Christ himself.  Those who lived by the law and failed to see the fulfillment who stood right in their midst.  Those who lost sight in their own myopic vision to see eternity living and breathing among them.  Do we consider ourselves of better stock and pray His words with conviction, “Your Kingdom come Your will be done on earth as it is in Heaven.” 

I fear we beg Heaven to come but live as if it never will.  God help us!

The One who looked at his disciples and said, “Why do you see the speck in your neighbor’s eye but do not notice the log in your own eye?”  Looks at us and says the same. 

Very little has changed.

We seek forgiveness to ensure our eternity and fail so quickly to give to others what we crave.  Our vision is blocked by our own arrogance and ignorance.  Thoughtlessly, we continue to pray, “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”

We prattle rote words that fall from our lips but never touch our heart.  If the ritual became real then we would be more mindful of what we pray to the One who answers.

“Forgive us … as we forgive.”

We speak as if we know what we are saying but if we truly did, would our world, our home and our heart not be different.  If those words carried their truth from our lips to our heart we would know that what we pray for is also the measure we ask for.

So the question is…do we really want to be forgiven in the manner in which we forgive?