Surrender

Its Thanksgiving, one of my favorite holidays, for various reasons.  I love that it falls on a Thursday.  Having a holiday on Thursday makes Wednesday feel like Friday so that when Thursday rolls around my internal clock is delightfully messed up and I feel like its Saturday, but of course it isn't. Then when Friday rolls around it feels like a bonus Friday, even if I have to work.  I am working tomorrow but it doesn't bother me at all. Actually it makes today feel even more special, not part of a four day weekend but a special day.

We are having 10 today around our table ranging in age from 3 to 89.  The turkey is in the oven, pies (pumpkin, apple and mincemeat) are waiting for a knife, stuffing, sweet potato casserole, a vegetable casserole and cranberries.  I am very, very fond of cranberries. My mother tells the story of my first Thanksgiving (I would have been 4 months) where I only ate rolls and cranberries. I can forgo the rolls now but don't get in between me and cranberries!

I love the time with family and I am so looking forward to our house filling up with more bodies more voices the stories of our lives.  I love the moments of prayer, the time to simply thank Abba for all He has given us, not only materially but spiritually as well.  There is a peace to taking the time to reflect and thank from our hearts and with our voices.

I have been thinking about gratitude, thinking about what is entailed in the exercise of gratitude.  I keep coming up with the word surrender, a giving over of myself, my family, my home and all my possessions, holding to all of Abba's blessings with an open hand.  Nothing is permanent in our lives including the breath we take on a regular basis.  There is a peace to knowing, acknowledging a power much greater and higher than we are.  It actually is a peaceful place to be, to rest in Him who loves us with, as Brennan Manning says, a furious longing for us.  I love those two words put together to create a mental picture. We are loved furiously, with abandon to the point His son came and died for us that we can simply be with Abba.

We don't know what the next moment of our lives will bring, tragedy or joy but we can know our Father who will stop at nothing to go after us wherever our decisions take us.  So today I am in a state of surrender, surrender to the love that will not let me go, surrender to a Father whose heart is good, beats for me and every member of my family no matter where they are. Today my thankfulness, gratitude, is couched in surrender.  I am His, He is mine.

Have a happy, blessed Thanksgiving surrendered to His deep, deep love.

He's Got It

This might ramble a bit, just a warning.

I've watched this past political season fairly closely. I am sure many of us have. We almost all have some opinion one way or another. There have been a couple of issues of vital importance to me, so I have a bit of "skin" in the game. To some extent, most of us do, so we are likely to come out on the other side of this day either elated or dissapointed.

I've watched a lot of mud slinging as well. I am not speaking of the candidates, both nationally and locally, but rather the words of anger and frustration, the assumption of rightness at the expense of relationships.  We just think we have so much at stake believing we are correct in our conclusions. The question then becomes, "How could anyone think differently"?

I think I've seen a lot of fear on both sides of our very divided house. Dismissal of others has been rampant. Fear that "we" will lose and what will happen if "they" win. Fear fuels the anger, the anger fuels the words; harsh, hurtful words.

So, I was driving home tonight after a very long day where I hit the ground running at 6:30 and didn't stop until I climbed in my truck for the ride home at almost 6 pm.  I was mulling over this day and realized I really am at a very strange place of peace.  I don't know how this night will end.  It does matter, yet strangely, it doesn't. Let me say it again, I am at peace.

This is a God thing.  I am not manufacturing a sense of unconcern, a very poor imitation of peace.  I really do have "skin" in the game and do have an opinion about what "I" think is the right direction. But I am holding it all very gently, with an open hand.  It really is a place given by Abba to my heart.  Here is the thing, we often go to Him in concern, anger, anxiety, fear in a manner a bit like hitting the aspirin bottle with a bad headache.  Its almost like we say to ourselves, "Let's add a bit of God to this mixture of angst and maybe I will feel better", or "Lets add a veneer of scripture over these tough places and we can overlook them".  Frankly, I no longer believe this does justice to what He really offers us.

The offer is LIFE, not an aspirin bottle, not a spiritual panacea for what we think ails us, not a bit of "something" to add with a near-blind hope all will be better in the morning.  Its LIFE offered to His followers in a time historically when those that were in charge could hang you on a cross for thievery.  He didn't offer life with the caveat that Rome would be defeated, in fact, it got worse, much worse.  So the offer of LIFE really must transcend the issues that have driven many of us to fear.

The offer is love, His love in the context of His sovereignty. He's in charge.  Do I trust Him enough to let His peace come in, not as an aspirin but as something to totally replace the anxiety about who will win this night?  Do I trust Him?  For me, that is the only good question here. And if I say I do, then I really need to let Him have this, no matter how this comes out. There just isn't any room for all the harsh words that have flown back and forth for months now.  There isn't really any room for anger or fear either. No room for gloating dismissively if you "won".  What has been won or lost, anyway?

Yes, I am anxious a bit, but there still is this very wonderful strange peace that is overruling all as I ponder Him, His hand in the future days ahead of us. He's got it.

Fence

We sit on the fence
Where our fatal games
Have been played
Games that still call
With their lies of
Completion,
Inclusion,
Satisfaction;
One word arises above
Authority

There are no tricks
No slight of hand
No magical words;
Acceptance,
Trust,
Faith
Are the postures needed
To wield the sword
Authority.

Falling we do well
Practiced and precise.
Abiding in the squalor of
Guilt
We
Trust the lie of
Self deprecation
More than the truth of
Grace.

His seeking of us when
We are at our worst,
The lifting of our heads
When we believe we deserve
A blow from
His righteous hand,
His gentle yet insistent voice
Calling us to a deeper truth;
Deeper than the mire of
Ourselves,
Alone,
On the fence.

Wine

Again, I am confessing I am not a very good Baptist boy.  I'm just saying.

One of the outcomes of helping my friend Syd with this year's grape/wine harvest is an appreciation for the care and work it takes for grape juice to be transformed into drinkable wine. As I mentioned in a previous post, my wife and I helped with the harvest and crush a couple weeks ago.  A week ago last Friday we helped with squeezing out the skins, seed and occasional stem from the crush. It was remarkable to taste the very new wine at various stages of the press, there is a difference from that which flows easily and that which comes from pressing hard the solids of the crush. When we were finished that evening there was about 50 gallons of Barbera and 35 gallons of Zinfandel.  Unfortunately Syd's Sirah was not ready and he told me Sunday at church he'd had to toss it as it had gone bad before he had the time to press it. As before, it was interesting to reflect on the work, the process little changed from wine making in the days Jesus physically walked the earth.

Syd mentioned his awe at how much was produced, how his five rows of each variety gave such abundance. The God-spoken soil is so full of life.

Of course this past Sunday was the first Sunday of the month and like most Baptist churches we celebrated Communion. I'm not writing out of criticism of our process - the tiny bit of unleavened cracker or the miniscule plastic cup of grape juice - it is what it is and we are reminded adequately of the tremendous price paid by our Elder Brother for us to have access to Abba's heart.

What did strike me was the contents of the tiny plastic cup. As we partook of the elements our choir sang a song inviting us to come taste the bread, come taste the wine. My thought was, especially after my recent work with my friend Syd, "This is not wine. Are we missing something here?"

I know well the symbolism we're taught with the bread representing Jesus' body and the "wine" representing His shed blood, but I wonder if we've missed something else as well. Wine is grape juiced transformed from something innocuous into something different, stronger. Perhaps in our false sense of religious propriety we've  missed the symbolism of transformation that real wine might represent.

We are not called to be sweet and innocuous but rather something strong and powerful for the Kingdom; Jesus' words, "You are salt, you are light", come to mind. I am wondering if we have missed a powerful reminder of Jesus' transformational power by substituting grape juice for a taste of powerful wine. His very presence, as He said to His disciples in the upper room that night, "I am in you, you are in Me", is a deeply significant and transformative reality that we desperately need to be reminded of. Yes, that monthly tiny plastic cup does represent His shed blood but it also needs to remind us of His transformative power as well.

I'm just saying.

Water Hose

A couple Saturdays ago I, along with other friends and family, helped my friends Syd and Jennifer with their grape harvest. After harvesting, dumping them into large white bins and weighing them, we loaded our trucks with the grapes and hauled the ten white bins to a crusher.

It took Syd and I over an hour to feed all the grapes into the crusher while his brother and a friend washed and sanitized the empty bins preparing them for the fermentation of the crushed grapes. When we were done we had seven bins full of heavy mashed grapes. Both Syd and I were wet and sticky with the juice of the crush but there was something elemental and satisfying about the process.

Our methods are more modern but the product is an old one, thousands of years of men and women have gone before us doing much the same as we had. It felt good to step, however briefly, into that long line of winemakers.

Cleaning the mechanized crusher required copious amounts of water and by the time we were done with the clean-up all four of us had squishy wet shoes but none of us seemed to mind. In addition, it was a warm day - mid 90's - so throughout the process we four would periodically drink cool water from the gushing hose used for cleaning the bins.

Driving the 40 minutes back to Syd's I reflected on some of this. I noticed a child-like stirring in my heart. Few things will make you feel more like a child on a hot summer's day like a gushing hose of cool water; playing in it and drinking from it. That is what we'd done, four grown men played with a water hose. My soaked shoes become symbols of long-ago childhood recaptured for a brief time.

I was reminded of Jesus' words about not losing the child-like heart we all have. Life, with its cynical twists and turns, will steal it quickly and we will think ourselves wise to let it be stolen; a mistaken notion of maturity. We want to turn His words about childlikeness into metaphor or symbol but we err in doing this. There are times we simply must return to the child in all of us. This is not childishness without the benefit of lessons learned with maturity. Rather it is childlike awe, joy, playfulness, trust.

That gushing hose on that Saturday afternoon returned me to some of those needed qualities. Maybe more of us need to put our Bibles down and go play in the yard with a water hose more often.

Empty Pages

It was November of 2006 when I spent a week with my friends Bryan and Jeff at a ranch in Colorado. Horizonquest was the name of the program, Randy was the facilitator of our week together. We spent each morning in the library talking and the afternoons playing. It was at that ranch I shot my first gun and smoked my first cigar since an awful experience with a cigar in high school. We hiked, rode horses and generally had a great time.

Our talks were centered around the material found in John Eldredge's book, "Fathered By God". He describes various phases of our journey as men from Beloved Son to Cowboy to Warrior to Lover to King and finally Sage. With pointed questions Randy asked us to take time and write what our experiences were for each of the phases. Each and every time, with one exception, I came up with nearly empty pages. In many ways it was a tough week but I was with two other men I felt safe with and they, along with Randy, helped me begin to interpret some of the profound gaps in my life.

This past summer my Pastor has gathered a large group of men on Wednesday mornings to go through two books with one being Eldredge's book. While we've not been going through the material as intently as I did six years ago, I'm still at a loss as to those blank pages.

I recently came across this quote from Calvin: "Nearly all the wisdom we possess, that is to say, true and sound wisdom, consists of two parts; the knowledge of God and of ourselves. But while joined by many bonds, which one precedes and bring forth the other is not easy to discern. In the first place, no one can look upon himself without immediately turning his thoughts to the contemplation of God, in whom he 'lives and moves' (Acts 17:28)." Much of my time in the park, at the picnic table each morning is exactly this kind of contemplation. The pages are not as blank as they once were but I do wonder, a sometimes painful wonder, at where this life is headed. Honestly, its been a rough summer. There are seasons in our lives like this, aren't there?

Little Letters

I have not written much here lately. I am not sure why but there are times I question if I have a "voice". Perhaps this is part of my lack of words here. I am not sure how to start. Something in our church culture bothers me. We live in an age where all too often the voices we listen to have little letters after their names indicating points of educational achievements. The more letters, the more apt we are to read and listen. I am not anti-education but I do wonder if we short change ourselves and the life within our church communities by not only not listening to the words of those less-educated but by a silent, tacit dismissal of those who do not posses a string of letters after their names.

I subscribe to a journal dedicated to Christ-like transformation. I get excited whenever I receive a new issue and take my time reading it's thougt provoking articles in each edition. At the end of each article is a small head shot of the writer along with a very short biographic statement. In the nearly three years I've been receiving this journal all but one of these statements lists degrees, where they teach and what they've published. The question that arises in my mind is, would I listen as carefully to what was written had the article been by someone less accomplished?

On a personal note, several years ago I was asked to apply for a position at my church. The person asking knew my lack of formal degree. The job description given to me included the language "degree desired". Due to this language I felt comfortable going forward. I filled out an extensive job application and had a lengthy interview with the search committee. The position was offered to and accepted by another candidate. When his name was moved forward to our Elder Board (I was serving on it at the time) along with a final job description, the language associated with educational requirements was altered to read, "degree required." At the time this stung deeply, but God's will prevailed; the man chosen was the right person. We have, in these years since, become good friends, a man I trust.

When I asked about the change in language I was told it was believed our church would not accept someone without a degree. Often I have wondered about this, coming to the conclusion if Jesus or any of His disciples were to arrive on the scene today, I fear we would not listen well to what they would say. From man's perspective, none had the educational credentials needed to be heard.

Again, let me say this, I am not anti-education. There is much value in being led by men and women who have spent time and achieved educational proficiencies. What I am saying is there are other voices to be heard as well, men and women who reflect a deep intimacy with God and a spirituality that transcends educational achievements. They have a voice as well. I wrote this a couple of weeks ago, not sure if I would post this. Decided to go ahead and post this. Any thoughts?

WALK

Throughout much of the gospels the front man for the twelve disciples is Peter. He's the one who most often asks the questions I suspect the other eleven were thinking. He's the bold one who sometimes argue with Jesus or makes bold statements he will be unable to support. It could be argued we know the most about him from what we read in the four gospels. Personally, I like Peter but there are times his boldness, his brashness are a bit off-putting, I tend to shy away from those who are similar to Peter. I've noticed something about John's account of the life of Jesus. There appears to be a sub-theme to his gospel, not only is it a story of the Good News of Jesus' life, words and Passion but also the transformation of Peter is told as well. Its easy to find instances of Peter's brashness peppered throughout the four gospels. Also his foretold denial of Jesus is told in much detail in each of the gospels as well. Only John addresses his restoration completing the story of Peter up to that point. John tell us of two appearances by Jesus after His resurrection; one where all but Thomas are present and then the appearance where Jesus settles Thomas' disbelief once and for all. We can assume Peter is present both times but where is he? I can imagine him holding back; his shame, remorse and brokenness have silenced him, leaving him in the background, an unfamiliar place for Peter. Oddly, Jesus lets him remain in the background. The scene shifts abruptly in John 21 to Galilee. Its easy to overlook something important. Galilee is about 70 miles as the crow flies from Jerusalem where the two previous appearances occurred. That is a significant journey, especially when you are carrying a load of guilt and remorse. Imagine our friend Peter walking every step of those 70 miles with his shame. When he finally arrives at Galilee he does what he knows best, he goes fishing. I wonder a bit if he's not decided to go back to his old life, perhaps deciding he's unworthy of the Master's call on his life. Its at this point I wonder if there isn't something for me to learn here. When we sin we often confess, sometimes very quickly. There is nothing wrong with this but this fairly long time for Peter between his denials and restoration may illumine something for me when I fail. Jesus does not want us wallowing needlessly in our guilt and remorse. We do that sometimes thinking it makes us more "worthy" of His forgiveness. Sometimes restoration takes time. Jesus could have called out Peter earlier but He doesn't. Something in His grace and wisdom knows Peter needs the long walk home for his heart to be ready for restoration. This is the first example after the resurrection of how Jesus deals with His children when they do sin. This is significant. Jesus is showing how He deals in generous restoration with the very man He said He would build His church upon. The lesson I see here is there are times I must walk my own road to Galilee in brokenness before I understand more fully Jesus' grace and generous restoration. Peter was not the same man after that breakfast on the beach. He needed the long walk home to prepare for what was coming. There are times I need the same walk home to my Abba as well.

Martha

Yeah a guy is going to write about Martha, and in lieu of paragraphs I will bold the first word of where I want a paragraph to start! Yesterday was Mother's Day and after all was finished at my house, I wanted a drink. Instead I took a nap. Saturday my wife, Gail and I, along with two other couples threw a big party for a friend's 60th birthday. We didn't get home until a little after midnight Saturday. Gail had headed up all the planning for the Saturday event so we had not planned together Mother's Day. I took on all the planning for the meal and cooked. I awoke Sunday still tired from the previous day but pushed forward with the shopping for and preparation of the food. The afternoon was nice so we ate outside and I sat and realized at the end of the table across from me was the youngest at 14 months sitting next to the oldest, my mother at 88. We had four generations around our table of 13 yesterday on both sides of our families. In retrospect it was a good scene, somthing to remember as none of us know if this will ever happen again. As I reflect a bit more I am reminded of my own inner turmoil at certain points of preparation. My daughter brought two beautiful homemade fresh strawberry pies and my niece brought a delicious salad but the rest of the meal was my gig. There was a point when I felt behind and when placing a meal on the table you always have the rush of getting all the food done at the same time. Our kitchen looks large but there really is only one small corner where the food is cooked and plated up. I felt trapped in that corner as I tried to get everything ready and on the table. I became frazzled. Looking back on the tension I felt I am reminded of Martha. She needed help from her sister Mary and where was she? Sitting at Jesus' feet. I don't know if Martha understood Jesus' response to her when she pointedly asked for her sister's help but this morning as I was at the picnic table I was a bit amused at my own Martha-ness. The important image was the scene of four generations around the table, not the near chaos of my heart in trying to get everything ready. It is a choice for me, what will I choose to dwell on. After all the food is put away, the dishes are cleaned and the kitchen put back in order, do I dwell on my own pettiness or the faces around the table? I am not sure what Martha chose but for me, I will dwell on the faces and learn from the Counselor how to better set myself aside.

WORD

(I want to start by apologizing for the total lack of paragraphs.) I'm finding John 17:14-19 interesting in that the "word" given by Jesus may mean something other than what we easily think of. I just am not so sure we are correct in jumping to the conclusion Jesus meant "Scripture" as we traditionally think. Perhaps in our rush to think "Scripture" as we know it we miss what other possibilities there are as to His meaning. Scripture, as we know it, did not exist. What might He have meant then? John's opening words in writing his gospel offers a strong clue, a different perspective behind the meaning of Jesus' use of "word". The Word became flesh. John 1:1-14 is quite emphatic about this, it really is a theme that runs through and ties the gospel together. The context, the point in time captured by John in his retelling of Jesus' prayer seems important. Who had received the strongest rebuke from Jesus during His years of ministry? It was not the obvious sinners but the religious intelligencia who had turned knowing God into a long list of rules and regulations that were endlessly debated. It became a heavy yoke never intended by Father and a way to acquire and keep power and status in a theistic society. Jesus incarnation and ministry was not about showing a better way to do what already was being done. It was the real way to live in communion with Triune God. The curtain would be torn. Word became flesh with ALL the implications of relationship. If one reads this last recorded prayer of Jesus with eyes, hears and heart opened by the Counselor, it is stunning what He is saying. He gave us Father's word - himself. We are in Him, He is in us. the love Father has for the Son, a love that was and is before the creation of the world is in us, in me. John 17:22 says we have been given Jesus' glory, glory given because Abba loved Jesus before the world was created; it transcends time and is ours to live in. Having written this, I can only conclude the word He spoke of was Himself. He revealed the Father and we are sanctified not by Scripture but by Jesus, the Word that became flesh. This is important. Scripture as we know it, is not an end in itself but is the means to the end, Jesus. So when we remember, "Thy word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin," the fulfillment is Jesus in us, us in Jesus. The key to dealing with sin is what Jesus did, and again, we are in Jesus. We are complete, whole and blameless. Although sin still is part of our mortality, it is not the over-riding factor we we make it to be. Jesus is. Living in intimacy with Him is our hope, our glory. Life is no longer about how to manage sin better but rather how to love Jesus more and letting Abba's love reign within. It is out of that reality that we stand complete in Christ when we are tempted, when we do fail. He does not abandon, He does not leave us as orphans and I don't believe He turns away. He is with us, even when we stumble, fall or wander off as a lost sheep. We can know the word (Jesus) if we listen for His voice. He is in us. He is in us. He is in us.

Paragraphs

or lack thereof...... augh! Blogspot changed some things and evidently I can't maintain any paragraphs I've entered. I've tried line breaks, line breaks and indents and indents alone. It's just irritating. If any readers are familiar with how to change this, please let me know.

Corinth #6

I'm not a good Baptist anymore. I smoke my pipe and the occasional cigar, I enjoy good single malt whiskey in the company of a few select men who can infrequently spout a few interesting words and I read writers not on "approved" lists, not that any lists exist but eyebrows would rise by some if it was known about some of my recent readings. I don't know what this makes me but when I read the first four verses of I Corinthians 3 Brothers, I could not address you as spiritual but as worldly - mere infants in Christ. I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready. You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere men? For one says "I follow Paul," and another, "I follow Apollos"," are you not mere men? I see the state of too many churches. Too often we become inoculated by the religion of church attendance and sporadic participation but aren't interested in seeing the jealousy and quarrelsomeness often running rampant. Too often church is about looking good to others controlling our image and figuring out how to control others in the bargain. We often only want to hang around those who read the same things we read and think, the same theologically passing tacit judgement on those outside of our personal orthodoxy. The phrase Paul uses just prior to the above quote, But we have the mind of Christ aught to shake us up and move us away from the simple boxes we seek to create for God. Unfortunately I don't think we easily give up our boxes. Over and over and over again Jesus challenged the religious establishment with His "breaking" of Sabbath. He inflamed the religious to the point they plotted and brought about His death. It was the only answer they had for Him, His words, His actions, His life. Now we have His mind. Incredible. I know this reads harsh. There is no harshness in my heart, only sadness. Are we really hungry for meat and not milk? I wonder what Paul would think if he could see the plethora of denominational divisions religious people have created. I think he was hinting at this with his phrase, "'One says I am of Paul,' another says 'I am of Apollos'". In our modern society fueled by the huge amount of information available to us on the internet we can find all manner of divisions. There are whole sites dedicated to pointing out theological error in others. I've heard from some who peruse those pages using what is written to condemn some of our greatest thinkers without actually taking the time to read the offending writers. It is very sad to me. I am learning to take what Jesus said about the Holy Spirit to heart. He will lead me to all truth, He will reveal the unsearchable riches of Christ. Yes, I might read some writers I don't 100% agree with, but isn't that what "meat" is about, the challenging of some of my own pre-conceived ideas about who Jesus is and the mind I now have?

Question

I don't write here to do anything but share a bit of my journey with Abba. I am not overly concerned about who comes and reads here. I am curious as I have some who have read scattered about the globe in places that surprise me. Weeks often go by when I don't write but I am thinking often of what I might put here and so weeks go by and I don't come here to check out my stats. Blogger is a bit frustrating in how it gives me the stats of where people are from in that only the top 10 countries are shown for any given time frame. This morning I opened up this blog and checked my stats and was a bit surprised to see 23 views last night at 10pm my time (I am west coast US time) and it appears they all were from Germany.

Well, no response to my question. I will have to live with the mystery of this. I am curious about some who come here though.

Corinth #5

I am feeling dusty today. I'm not speaking about the need to wash off dust but more along the lines of origins; the dust to dust phrase that sums up our mortality. Yesterday I completed 38 radiation treatments for prostate cancer. I won't know the outcome for some time but something about moving close to the age of 60 and facing this battle has drawn me to consider my "dustiness". This is about two things - my tendency towards the "dust" of my humanity and a wander towards what is yet to come.

As dust I tend too often to fall back to dusty ways. I'm in the midst of four weeks off work to recover from the side effects of the radiation treatment. I've never been good with excess time on my hands. I fall easily into laziness. While I know rest is needed and is at the top of my agenda for these days, I've hoped to use this also as a sabbath with the leisure of time to savor the richness of Abba, finding a gentle rhythm to my days. This has been a bit difficult and my weariness has turned into a silent struggle against the whisper accusing me of slothfulness. Right now this has reduced down to the notion of dust - I am dust.

I don't mean this in a dismissive, deprecating way. I am simply a mortal man who will return to dust one day.

Entering into these thoughts are Paul's words to the Corinthians in Corinthians I chapter two. I hear Paul contending with his own dustiness. It seems he struggles with the right words in a way that won't stand in the way of his readers to understand the wisdom of God, hoping his words don't keep them from a better understanding of Jesus. I read the chapter and see this struggle, a struggle I also feel at times. He finally ends the chapter with a glorious phrase, "but we have the mind of Christ".

This phrase leaves me nearly breathless, at least in a spiritual sense. Me, in my dustiness of mortality and my tendency to fall back to selfish dusty ways have been given the mind of Christ. Do I dare believe this? Do I dare live out the rest of my dusty days with this truth? It would seem, as I read and ponder what Paul wrote, the very mind of Christ makes me more than dust. Oh to live that now, that is the call on our lives.

Refuge

Just a few more thoughts out of John 10.

It’s a pen - a sheephold. Rocks stacked define the borders of the enclosure. It took a great deal of effort to build the pen; first locating, digging out of the clinging earth boulders of varying sizes then hauling to the place the pen would be built. The gagged rocks and boulders then stacked laboriously on upon another of a sufficient height to keep within the sheep belonging to the Good Shepherd.

On the east side, facing the morning sun, an opening is allowed, a void in the rocky walls where a gate is built permitting ingress and egress. The gate is constructed of rough hewn timbers, precious wood in this arid land. There is an element of beauty to the pen with it’s rocky walls showing the jagged grey and brown hues and timbers revealing brown wooden striations. The engineering of the safekeep itself speaks of a beauty and love the Shepherd had in mind while constructing the pen. It is a place of refuge for those of us who know His voice.

The pen itself offers minimal safety. Predators could leap upon the enclosure if not for the Shepherd’s presence guarding the hold. We sheep crowded in the pen would be easy picking for the hungry predators. But the Good Shepherd stands guard, never sleeping, allowing us the peace of restful sleep.

At daybreak the Shepherd speaks rousing us to activity. He and He alone opens the gate and bids us follow Him. His voice echoing deep in our hearts leads us to pasture and water, His watchful eyes always on alert for us. We may wander off as we move here and there, but if we are careful to listenwe will hear His voice guiding us where to go.

It is in this listening where I find life, abundant life listening to the Good Shepherd’s voice.

Voice

Scattered in John 10 is the notion of the Good Shepherd and His sheep who know and hear His voice. The first mention is in 10:2-18, a passage that was spoken at the end of what I imagine was a very long day. The narrative begins in 8:12 and appears to take place during the days of the Feast of the Tabernacles. Jesus again picks up the same theme in 10:25-30 while in Jerusalem for the Feast of Dedication. The time break between the two passages does not lessen His desire for His sheep, His desire that they would know His voice.

There is something intimate and unique about our voices. Some time ago my cousin David told me I had a very unique voice and he could pick it out of a crowd if he heard it. My friend Jeff and I started our deep friendship over the phone in 2005. We talked daily for the next two years. We learned much of what we know each other through those conversations, listening to one another's voices. To this day we know more simply by the sound of our voices rather than the words spoken. My maternal grandmother passed away in 1990 but I can still remember her voice. There is something about the uniqueness and intimacy of a voice.

This brings me to Jesus - His voice. How can we hear and know His voice? Do His statements spoken that day still apply to us separated by so many years? I go back to Scripture often to hear Him but this is not "study" as we might traditionally think of it. Don't take me wrong; study, the opening of our intellect to the Holy Word is important. What I am thinking of are those moments in those pages when something becomes clear in a flash that once was unclear, the revealing of the "unsearchable riches of Christ" as Paul put it in Ephesians 3:8. I call them "Ah-ha" moments. It is at those moments I hear and know His voice as the Spirit reveals something. It is a gentle whisper that can only be heard at my heart level. Out of those moments when my heart is beating in resonance with His heart I find His presence. Often in those moments I sense the intimacy in a relationship where He is saying, "This is for you, Kelly, my beloved son". This intimacy draws me up short, almost breathless in beauty.

Out of those experiences I've learned to listen more carefully even when I am not at my park table with Holy Word open. In learning this His voice becomes more a part of my day. It is a voice I have come to rely upon, to lead me, to encourage me, to simply be with me. It is touching into the mystery of Christ in me, me in Christ."My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. John 10:27 & 28.

There appears to be a connection to living out the Life He offers and listening well to His voice. I don't believe listening is any less important because we were not there that day to physically hear His voice. The implication then is that prayer, at least for me, has become more about listening than speaking. Silencing my voice helps me hear His voice.