What 1.5 Million Blogging Hits Have Taught Me

1.5 Million hits. It’s not the numbers I ever hoped to reach, but the voice inside of me that asked for words to define Him.

The person that sat mute, deep in silence, that wanted to have a say, but didn’t know the way to pave that might someday take us to His resting place of peace.

I never cared about entertainment, never wrote in terms of what others asked demanded of me….

It was this raw sense of this keyboard, seeking a sound, typing, making a melody that gave feelings others needed…

But most of all, I was desperate for faith to rise.

The blog life hasn’t been my platform for books or speaking engagements (Although it has led to both) or a way to set myself up to become somebody on a stage, one others have already been fighting to stand upon.

I like the shadows, the quiet, the beat of my own heart, the sound of my own soul in unisome with The One who made it.

And yet, even messages created in darkness, need a way out, to find freedom in the light.

There once was a day I thought I’d never reach a hundred followers. Yet now, often a thousand/thousands come to this space each day. This place, where I meet Him and He heals the echoes and the shadows.

This white space I fill with words so that I can see my own reflection, find the clear image of a God who has called me not just to live this simple gospel, but speak it out with unapologetic words.

First, I admit, I too can be a struggling Pharisee. I can be the outcast, hiding myself in some building, too impure at times, I hesitate entering His Holiness.

Other times I cast lots or am like Peter, a denier. I hoard my second cloak and can forget the place Jesus came was not just some temple building, but to the undefendable, broken hearted and most hurting.

And it is in the aching He has met me. It is here on this white space my soul finds rest and freedom.

Someone echoed in pain the other day in a text, “I want a church where I can find Jesus.”

“Oh friend”, I responded without thinking…

“If you want to find Jesus, go to the outcast and the broken, pursue the needy and orphan, search out the least of these…

That’s where Jesus dwells regularly.”

And yet, we miss Him…I miss Him, daily in the presentations.

I see the followed, the carefully edited photos, the ones who boast in their own image, hoping to spread the luring that their brand is worth following….

When, Jesus calls the last to be first.

He brings down the proud. He wants to promote the humble, those who own nothing of themselves…

But attributes every good gift they have to God. A Father who gives them gifts of grace.

So why do we run to the crowds? Isn’t Jesus often found away from them?

Isn’t He found in the quiet space where the shadows of our mind lurk with questions and uncertainties, a humbling aching from humanity?

And if we don’t admit to any weakness, then why would He ever come to meet us? Jesus came for the sick, my friends. The healthy don’t need a physician.

And I have often been sick. I have ached with words bursting deep from within me. Because the saviors of this world; popularity, purchases, other people or position…never saved me.

Jesus is the hope and the way. He asks if He can lead us….lead us into a peace that surpasses our understanding. He calls us into the heart of hope, beckoning us into a space where love saturates everything.

I never asked for earthly follows.

I didn’t want the world to look to me, but to recognize the God who pulled me from the pit and put my feet where I don’t stumble.

I am weak and needy. My prayers are not long and eloquent, but more often a desperate plea for my family…for my children, for those I love around me.

The nothingness afterall, makes way for His grandiose presence?

And His love that swallows up death has already conquered all. We don’t need to work and strive and follow man.

We just need to lay down our lives and ask the One who paid for sin, lay upon a cross and torn the veil for us…to come in…..

Lord, flood these empty spaces.

1.5 million hits later, I am still the broken and needy. I am not some blogging giant, not some writing hero, not some faith-filling savior for you to bow your head to.

I am but a servant, pointing to a Savior….

A sheep, following the good Shepherd. I am the needy, revealing through my words that regardless of where you are or where you’ve been, regardless of what you have done or what you have said….

Jesus can without a doubt save you. He is the answer. He is the hope and the peace and the resurrection power.

Won’t you look to him today?