The Quiet, Corner of Our World, Where God Calls Our Name

There is a piece of his house, this heart, that only the angels see. Here in the waking of my dreams, and the dying of my will.

In the disruption of my purpose, I hear His voice most clear….hear, now, in this moment of eternity…

Not in tomorrow, or yesterday, not in the grasping or gripping, ripping, or demanding….

But in the waiting….where no one else sees….I hear His song of surrender calling me, deeper, come closer, abide in His purposes…

And it is here, now I make the decision, to follow or refuse bending.

To take this cup He has given, or follow my own map, to my own plan, and my own destiny….where the ending is usually unbeneficial, to anyone.

The road we grind and power through and demand endlessly to follow. That road we carve from the sweat of our own brow, to form…

Despite God’s silent, still small call to go the other way.

And yet, His path is thin, not wide. It has no visible destination, we can glimpse at with human eyes.

His road is long and hard. And often it’s there, a prowling lion follows…

And yet, the fear comes, not in the slightness of our road, The One few follow, or a road steeped and filled with thorns as reminders of the cost He paid…

But it is the dark, the hollow blackness surrounding the speck of light He gives, that blinds us in fear from all that He has.

It is the unknowing that grips us, rises in us a control, to turn, shift, and take the way appearing bright, known, and wide….form our own chiseled destinies.

And yet, can’t you just hear the Good Shepherd whisper, “Come, follow Me”?

He beckons all his disciples, at the shore, under the bush, wherever He find them; in prisons, homes, or steeples around the nations….

And isn’t it the “follow”, the laying-down our desires, questioning if God is good, the asking, “Is God real”, that blocks our every step?

Doubting….Is He safe? As our mind plague with thoughts from when we trusted Him and He seemed to fail us? Or when someone who said they were Christians, modeled their own face, instead of that of Jesus….

And we scraped the skin, bled within. lose our faith, or pride, our own desire to turn the other cheek, forgive…

Rise again from our bloodied mess….

Seeing our own weaknesses, our own failings, leading us to doubt our God, a perfect Father that never leaves or forsakes us.

Do we will-ourselves, have we been taught, “Pull up your boot straps”, “Rally yourself”, “Get back in the game”? Or have we found it is in the laying down, emptying, surrender, where He calls us to our perfect place in Him?

Isn’t it after we have exhausted all strength, His wind beneath our sails, that’s when we can walk in our destiny?

But layed low, broken, lost, or forgotten are not scars of bravery where, proclaiming them are the very thing that led us to Christ….

It is not a person, or place, or book, or situation we exalt for doing the work only He can do.

Don’t all things actually come through Him, and any, even the smallest ounce of faith is simply a gift He gives?

And if our mouths have confessed, our very lives have been stripped to where we identify with His stripes, if our pain has been magnified so loud that we run to Him to drown the noise, take the scars, rid us from the plaguing fears that have gripped us for far to long….

Isn’t it Him who should get all the praise?

Isn’t it The One who said He identifies with us, in every cause and temptation, The One who deserves the glory?

And yet, there can be a place in the corner of our worlds, in the corner of our hearts, where we forget the angels sing.

That place that silence breeds something we don’t understand, and the shadow of ourselves faces us in the brisk of spring…

And we long to know the Son in a stronger, deeper way…

It is that bending, that calling, that aching for more than “empty” that takes us to His cross, reminds us of The One born in a manger, laying there weak and helpless, we trust we can know and relate to.

He faced the cold, the needles of pain compared to the paded glory of heaven, to pledge His love for us.

And this love? This love isn’t made so we can “do church”, walk aimlessly in and out of some building on Sundays, forgetting Him the rest of the week.

This love is radical and life-giving, and powerfully the reason, we can worship with all our lungs…not just Sunday, but every single day we have breath.

It is the cornerposts of each building that testifies to Him coming to put an end to sin and death. And each God-breathed preacher is meant to point us to His ressurection, and the weight of His eternal glory.

Because, we have enough carnal in each of us, to get lost in endless hopelessness. We have enough aching silence to remind us of our pain and weakness, failings, and history that brought us to the curbside, begging for one more chance. 

We need the Hope of His glory, the face of the One who came and died, and shed His blood so we can rise each morning, not begrudgingly, but with hope and expecation….

A God who dances over His children, delights with all His heart in our victories, not weaknesses or shortcomings….

And if God in all His perfection can look on us and see His righteousness, how much more should we change the faces of our mirrors? See His reflections as we stare into our carnal selves with wonder?

This breath. This breath in the places nobody sees, with stories, nobody knows, in silence where nobody hears….

This breath that we lay awake with, asking, “What am I hear for?” That is the portal to a Heaven, directing us to The One who has all the answers.

And it’s His road to wonder and fulfillment, purpose, power, glory and content perfection….if we will be brave and walk its path.

Step like a sheep, in companionship with The Good Shepherd, trusting He sees the next step, even when we don’t.

And we can loose control of walking in the wide, flesh glorifying path…stepping only where He leads. Even if it means, we live in the quiet corner of our worlds….with no fanfare or praise, no worldly recognition….

But only angels see…

And God, quietly calls us by name.