August 22, 2010

• {dust.}
  
  “. . . and so it was that the animals first saw the visiting duck, quivering by the willow trunk. Her eyes glinted young and eager; her tail feathers anxiously pricked; her beak stretched into a curve, roughly similar to a human smile.
  None of this the animals saw, however. Their shallow eyes were drawn away by the strange flecks of color scattered through her feathers—the traditional brown replaced by golden yellow and orange. Her feet were oddly discolored and smaller than usual. A single green feather sprouted from her tail like a shoot of grass.
  She was certainly different than any duck they had ever seen.
  
  And because the animals rarely saw new things, they thought this new duck was unnatural. And because she was unnatural, they thought her strange. And because she was strange, they decided they should not like her. And so they did not like her—not at all.
  
  The old willow, who was always watching and listening, sensed this unspoken decision at once. She felt suddenly saddened, thinking of years and years ago, before any of the creatures had ever come to the pond, before the apartments had been pulled up around it, before the road had been paved and the fountain erected. She thought of herself, just a tiny seed. She thought of how glad she had been to find the small pond with its sweet water and warm earth. She thought of how sad she would have felt had the ground chosen to dislike her. But of course it had not, for dirt rarely thinks itself better than others. . . . “  ~Dust, by Bryn.

  
  
  
  An excerpt from a children’s book I read late in the night Friday.
  It’s simple truth rolling over in my mind.
  Like one turns a penny from side to side examining it in a distracted, yet deliberate way.
  
  I felt the spirit collide with my flesh as old wounds resurfaced and freshly scabbed ones were pricked… having that contradiction within myself of desiring a deeper walk with God – KNOWING that it is often through suffering He draws me closer. Especially, it seems, the acute sting we experience at the hand of others… being judged. misunderstood. criticized. talked about. even blatantly ignored.  And yet finding myself as I’m being drawn to Him, and having this strange sense of gratefulness for the circumstances… all at the same time and in the very same moment having the pangs of bitterness tighten the doors of my heart and any Christ like response fades in an instant. And suddenly, I’m simply tired of trying.  
  
  And as I flipped my penny of thought back and forth I found myself asking why it seems the one thing that God said was the greatest of all is the hardest of all for us to do?
  
  On the other hand it seems fairly effortless for Christians to follow after things that have absolutely no chapter or verse behind them- and yet that which God says is most important. first. above everything else. that He addresses repeatedly. refers to as our trademark. and even prays Himself for it to be our defining difference… like that hard rubber ball bouncing around a room and each time it hits the wall of the world they hear the loud echo of it’s power… somehow we minimize it’s meaning. mechanically give it lip service but don’t truly follow after it in our hearts.

  
  “This is how everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” jn.13.35
  
  “The entire law is summed up in a single command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” gal.5.14

  We focus so much on exterior things but miss the very framework that holds every other principle of the Bible together!

  But simply knowing truth does nothing to change us.
  It’s what we do with that truth.
  And it’s certainly not in simply trying harder- it’s in knowing Him more.

  so. how do I forgive when I’ve been hurt?how do I keep my heart open to others?to not turn in judgement on the ones judging me?how do I love when nothing in me feels an ounce of love towards that person?

  Only.
  By living at the foot of the cross.

  

  When I came to this thought I stopped and remembered something a friend wrote to me 4 years ago.
  It was during a time when our church was going through alot of nasty backbiting and disunity.
  It’s copied in my journal and I went and dug it out because she says it so well~

  “When I survey the wondrous cross
  On which the Prince of Glory died
  My richest gain I count but loss
  And pour contempt on all my pride
  
  Nothing else can do it. When we see ourselves as God sees us – “high” standards, or “low,” – that nothing but the Son of God on the cross can save us, we should be humbled to the dust. Can we look at others as God does? I would say no. Not without standing right next to the cross of Christ. How many of us claim to be there? How many of us are really clinging to that cross… how many of us see others as God does?
  
  Everytime we look at the cross Christ says to us, “I am here because of you. It is your sin I am bearing, your curse I am suffering, your debt I am paying, your death I am dying.” Nothing in history or in the universe cuts us down to size like the cross. When our focus gets off the cross, we can easily see where changes need to be made in all sorts of places in the body of Christ… we’re not focusing on what God wants to do in US, but what we think he should do in others.
  
  All of us have inflated views of ourselves, especially in self-righteousness, until we have been sitting long and hard at a place called Calvary. It is there at the foot of the cross that we shrink to our true size.
  
  I know we,( I ) , would find in that realm, in God’s presence, that all that we thought we knew, we knew very little. In His presence is fullness of joy. All spiritual rest is stolen away when we take our gaze off of Christ, and focus our gaze on other’s faults.
  
  I’m learning in my own spiritual life that we all have a place of repentance we need to find — that we don’t take the verse “take the speck only after you see the log” as an excuse to quickly say, “Oh, I’ve got problems, sins, not always right…. but here now that I’ve said that, let me help you with your many specks…” and the pecking begins.
  
  When we are next to the cross and see ourselves as God sees us (yes, even all us conservative high standard folks) we see logs. Yes, LOGS. IF, God is gracious enough to reveal who we are so that we can be right and close to Him. If we aren’t seeing those logs and focusing on them, rooting them out of our lives, we’ve got to wonder if we are really on track with God! And usually, from my own experience, it takes awhile to deal with logs. A long while sometimes. Usually, by the time I’ve half way been workin on that log in my own eye, the speck in someone else’s doesn’t look even big enough to peck at.
  
  Revival starts in individuals. Not through high standards, not through new commitments to new issues, not through straightening out the “crooked,” not through knowing all the right answers, knowing that you know you are right about Scripture — it comes by seeing our own spiritual dryness, our need for mercy, our total dependency on the infinite God who is willing and waiting to answer if we will humble ourselves and cry out to Him.”

  
  
  
  AT the foot of the cross where the ground is level and we’ve all come the same way…
   
  there.
  may.we.remember.

  to extend the same mercy we have found iN Him, and continue to find, to those kneeling in the dust around us.

  It’s the only way to stay focused on Christ.live with eternity in mind. give up the illusion that any of us are better than the other. quit pretending. and start admitting. we’re all imperfect and in need of grace. 
  
  
  
  

  “Let us therefore follow after the things which make for PEACE…”  rom. 14.19

  
  ¸.·´¸.·¨) ¸.·¨)
  (¸.·´ (¸.·´ (¸.·¨¯`♥ amber 

  
  
  

  • 9:26 am
  • 37 Comments