Out in the open sea, sleek body slicing through wave and spray, she flies on foam; her silver-blue form bow-hugging a ship sitting high in the water, matching its speed. The water carries her song out and back again. Sun shreds golden ribbons upon the ocean surface. Life itself is golden and good. She lives free in Creation. Her natural state is to be unbound in the immensity of the life given to her.
She is no sheep in a pen nor ox in a stall. She paints an elegant line in the water. She is a brush in the hand of the Almighty artist who loves both color and freedom. The same artist in whose hands our own lives and giftings lay like light.*
It tempts us this light-life. Less sighted eyes may condemn our joy-exploding-temptation to be electrified by golden moments upon spiritual water, rising and falling back again to the rhythm of His heart. Harmonizing with sea and stars and syncronized to Heaven's pulse. We are free. We are light. We burn upon mountain and water. God-life blossoming in us, we live worshiping.
We glow with His hand upon us. Not only in the rare magic of Sunday's stone-walled jubilation but in the rising of our many mornings when bare feet touch bare life and sparks fly. Dawn calls to us to live-light. To live as light.
We think, mistakenly, that a life lived pleasing God is the hard road, a meal of dry crusts. It is, in fact, that our life lived for the pleasure of anyone other than God is what drains the pool, douses the candles and plucks the stars from our sky.
The wise words of Paul came to me in the mouth of Chuck Swindoll preaching grace and freedom:
"...through Him everyone who believes is freed from all things, from
which you could not be freed through the Law of Moses (Acts
13:38-39).
(Paul's) message included large doses of grace for the saved. Just
as the lost don't understand the Gospel, the saved rarely understand
grace. There are few activities more exhausting and less rewarding
than Christians attempting to please the people around them by maintaining impossible legalistic demands. What a tragic trap, and thousands are caught in it. When will we ever learn? Grace has set us free! That message streamed often through the sermons and personal testimonies of the apostle Paul."
Will we know it and fast our half-lives? Will we unbind our feet and curl toes into truth's damp grass? Will we live for Him and not for a building, a membership, someone else's praise or extra-biblical impositions? Ahhhh...I hear the intake of breath in some, nails dug into closed fisted palms, lips tight white lines of temperance.
Spare me the arguments. The ocean swells, the sun is full hot upon the water and the song of free Creation, full of grace, pings off my thirsty soul. I lay like light upon His outstretched arms. Grace is my baptismal water. I am undone and dead to all but Christ's full life.
"God fills my being to the brim
with floods of His immensity.
I drown within a drop of Him
whose sea-bed is infinity."
Sr. Jessica Powers
-Kat
Ask the animals what they think—let them teach you;
let the birds tell you what's going on.
Put your ear to the earth—learn the basics.
Listen—the fish in the ocean will tell you their stories.
Isn't it clear that they all know and agree
that God is sovereign? That He holds all things in His hand—
Every living soul, yes, every breathing creature.
Job 12:7-10
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_WK5NmnCiA&feature=related
(Special thanks to Christian Jeter, age 7, for using her giftings for God-things. She will join me to produce Ask The Animals Sundays, 2/19/12 through Palm Sunday.)
She is no sheep in a pen nor ox in a stall. She paints an elegant line in the water. She is a brush in the hand of the Almighty artist who loves both color and freedom. The same artist in whose hands our own lives and giftings lay like light.*
It tempts us this light-life. Less sighted eyes may condemn our joy-exploding-temptation to be electrified by golden moments upon spiritual water, rising and falling back again to the rhythm of His heart. Harmonizing with sea and stars and syncronized to Heaven's pulse. We are free. We are light. We burn upon mountain and water. God-life blossoming in us, we live worshiping.
We glow with His hand upon us. Not only in the rare magic of Sunday's stone-walled jubilation but in the rising of our many mornings when bare feet touch bare life and sparks fly. Dawn calls to us to live-light. To live as light.
We think, mistakenly, that a life lived pleasing God is the hard road, a meal of dry crusts. It is, in fact, that our life lived for the pleasure of anyone other than God is what drains the pool, douses the candles and plucks the stars from our sky.
The wise words of Paul came to me in the mouth of Chuck Swindoll preaching grace and freedom:
"...through Him everyone who believes is freed from all things, from
which you could not be freed through the Law of Moses (Acts
13:38-39).
(Paul's) message included large doses of grace for the saved. Just
as the lost don't understand the Gospel, the saved rarely understand
grace. There are few activities more exhausting and less rewarding
than Christians attempting to please the people around them by maintaining impossible legalistic demands. What a tragic trap, and thousands are caught in it. When will we ever learn? Grace has set us free! That message streamed often through the sermons and personal testimonies of the apostle Paul."
Will we know it and fast our half-lives? Will we unbind our feet and curl toes into truth's damp grass? Will we live for Him and not for a building, a membership, someone else's praise or extra-biblical impositions? Ahhhh...I hear the intake of breath in some, nails dug into closed fisted palms, lips tight white lines of temperance.
Spare me the arguments. The ocean swells, the sun is full hot upon the water and the song of free Creation, full of grace, pings off my thirsty soul. I lay like light upon His outstretched arms. Grace is my baptismal water. I am undone and dead to all but Christ's full life.
"God fills my being to the brim
with floods of His immensity.
I drown within a drop of Him
whose sea-bed is infinity."
Sr. Jessica Powers
-Kat
Ask the animals what they think—let them teach you;
let the birds tell you what's going on.
Put your ear to the earth—learn the basics.
Listen—the fish in the ocean will tell you their stories.
Isn't it clear that they all know and agree
that God is sovereign? That He holds all things in His hand—
Every living soul, yes, every breathing creature.
Job 12:7-10
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_WK5NmnCiA&feature=related
(Special thanks to Christian Jeter, age 7, for using her giftings for God-things. She will join me to produce Ask The Animals Sundays, 2/19/12 through Palm Sunday.)
* "Lay like light" suggested from a poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Presence of Love
Posts
That was a long stretch, a glass of cold water, a soft blanket, a plate of food, a cool breeze, a warm hand, a sweet sound and a clear sky! Thank you, Kat and Christian! Thank You, God-who-loves-freedom! -K
ReplyDeleteAnd God saw all the He had made and behold, it was very good! Gen 1:31a
ReplyDelete