Sticks.

Sticks.

The King walks outside of the Garden,

Among the forest trees.

It’s different: damper, darker,

In the Garden, nothing is broken.

But The King has left the Garden.

Still, the forest echoes his own perfection,

His intended perfection.

He gathers up the broken sticks.

He holds them in his hand.

He rubs them, removing dirt, decay and broken bark.

He smoothens them.

He marvels at how far they have fallen.

He smiles knowingly at their weakness.

He looks up at the trees and takes in the beauty of his creation.

The contrast of the dark, fruitless, dead branches 

Against the vivid forest canopy above is beautiful to him.

Against.

Against is a reality.

The snake slithers away up ahead.

His Majesty smiles again knowingly.

But he aches.

He aches for the broken branches, 

They do not know where they came from.

They do not know what they are made of.

They do not know where they belong.

Still they lay there, comically defiant: 

A stick raging against the Universe.

He takes the broken, decaying branches,

He sears against the death lying within.

He burns at the destruction of his perfection.

He gathers the kindling for a final funeral pyre.

But he fashions a Cross instead.

A Cross is not a tree.

A Cross is not perfection, but a declaration

Among the broken branches.

A Cross is fashioned,

The broken branches held fast by the splintered man,

Iron driven into the extremities, spanning the Cross. 

The sky is broken.

Death is broken.

Wrath is satisfied.

The Cross is not a tree,

The Cross is for thee,

The Cross declares, God from the Garden:

“You belong to me!”

Waiting.

I wait here, thinking I'm patient.  I'm waiting on the Lord I tell myself.  Things will be better soon.  I list in my mind all of my worries and tell myself that they won't always be there.  I think of how the world needs to be in order to accommodate me.  These are sincere thoughts and desires and yet they seem so silly as I write them out now.  I know better don't I?  Do I?  Apparently not.

I wait.  But even in my waiting I stop short of the Glory of God.  Almost immediately after I feel God's work in my life, his presence and revelation, I start to think about what it means for me.  This isn't what I'm built for.  I'm not here to work on my career, my family, my rapier wit.  I'm here to work for, Love and be Loved by the Creator of the Universe.  In finding my true place, I find myself blessed beyond all measure.  That's just who God is: Good.

But still I wait.  And I think it a noble sort of waiting.  But here is what I realized today: I'm praying and waiting for God to reveal something about me.  The better portion would be to ask God to reveal TO me, something about himself.

"Hey Mozart, man did you compose some amazing music.  Instead of learning more about you, I'd like you to hear the three chord song I wrote on my guitar."

I have chosen the lesser portion.  I have chosen myself.  Jesus is infinitely more interesting than everything else in the Universe combined.  And yet I thought I had known all of him.  I was getting frustrated trying to apply his teachings without desiring to know him.  I was plucking away at the Turkish March hoping to impress Mozart.  But when you have an audience with Greatness, it is better to sit and learn.

When we wait on the Lord, we should expect more than learning an interesting tidbit about our spiritual development.  We should expect nothing less than the Great and Might King to overwhelm us and teach us about himself.

Mary chose the good portion.

Luke 10:38 As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him. 39 She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said. 40 But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!”

41 “Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, 42 but few things are needed—or indeed only one.[a] Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”

Hands up: Surrender, Obedience and Worship.

Obedience, at its core, is simply a step in the right direction.  It needn't feel like you are required to move the mountain, pick and ax.  Instead, think of it like being buried alive and deciding to reach your hand out of the soil.  That is obedience, and it is God's good pleasure to lift you out.  But he cannot do so if you decide to remain in the dark, thinking yourself too bad or too good to make an effort.  Maybe you don't think enough of Him to hope that he will rescue you.  Faith is evident in the action.  Though efforts are not the same as believing, you can hardly express the simplest of beliefs without some sort of effort.  Belief stirs to action, even the beginning of belief.  A seed laying dormant pokes it's leaf out of the soil and to the light to grow.

Much like the Mustard Seed of Faith, it only takes a small amount for Christ to work.  In some cases, obedience is simply to stop moving in a direction that you know is leading you to destruction.  Let yourself be found!  Give him a chance to rescue you!  

You are being called, his Spirit is crying to you, into you, reverberating throughout your bones, rattling you from the inside.  His voice is calling you out of the darkness, raising you up to something greater.  There is an evil voice at work as well.  This condemning spirit of Satan bids you to stay put, to dig yourself deeper.  He tells you that you cannot be loved, you are not worthy or worse yet, telling you God is not Good.  

Which voice will you respond to?  It is not easy to take that first step out of darkness, out of comfort and seemingly out of control.  But in that moment which you realize you cannot do this alone, reach for him in hope and faith and you will not be disappointed.  Simply calling on the name of Jesus is enough.  An out-stretched hand will find the warmth of the Savior who has been there waiting for you all along.

James 2:15
Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and daily food. 16 If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? 17 In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.

18 But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.”

Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds. 19 You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that—and shudder.