I Don’t Want to Miss Him

Silence blankets the earth as the rising sun peeks over the horizon. Crisp air already smells like the sounds of summer.

Feathered friends announce the morning light, as my heart wakes to the fullness of His peace running over my sleepy eyes.

I used to chase the noise, live in the city with siren’s bellowing; music, faces, people scrambling…

But now, the earth wakes in stiller moments.

My heart longs for something deeper than frequent passings, vain projections, the superficial rise of wordly assets.

I see Him in the stillness….The same stillness I used to flee and run from. The weight of my soul echoes in the morning light…

Calls to the one that takes those dead and brings them life.

They call it religion. But I don’t much like the rituals of man dictating a God who refused to shrink into man’s hand.

Yet for years, for fear of being labeled “heretic”, I danced to the sounds, and did the things others asked…

But my heart always longed to be free.

Free, to find Him in the reflection of His image, here in the created, out where man has no limitations, except in it’s own wicked heart…

And I see myself clearer, see Him clearer….

When all the fluff is blown away, the sounds of man’s ranting and raving, is turned down…

There, where He calls in the early morning light.

I hear Him as my head rests light upon my pillow.

I long to know Him, in a way that doesn’t box up some Jesus, or makes vain images of Him, isolated in man-made containers….

He touches this earth as my husband plowed with a bulldozer yesterday. My Jesus didn’t race through this earth with one purpose and smash the people like pebbles underneath…

He stepped slow and intentional. Jesus ballanced people and His time connecting with His father. He moved at a pace, even the low and outcast could reach Him and humbly seek His face…

Either from a tree, touching His cloak, or riding to him in pursuit of the only one who heals.

This earth is annointed to give life. Fruit comes alive on the trees around me. God made all of creation to rejuvinate and reproduce.

Yet, man? Why does he destroy not only his own vessel….But the earth who was made to feed Him? The land that was blessed to be a blessing?

And then, we hold, our vain swords towards one another too?

Oh, how my heart grieves at the mess we’ve made. The pain we’ve caused. The implosion of our own egos…

When all He wanted, was that we might find Him…

And willingly seek His face.

Will we find Him? Will we strip away all the noise. Turn off the sounds coming from a thousand devices and lay still in the quiet and simply wait for Him to speak?

He is speaking, continually. Jeremiah tells us…

But who is listening?

Who is absorbing the call from nature, the open Scripture, the way He whispers in the depths of our very souls?

Who will quiet the world, and welcome Him to come, in His still, small voice?

I don’t want to miss Him….

Yet, the world beckons for me to be in the center, like the city that once destroyed.

It finds satisfaction in poverty, homelessness, the devestation breaking us down, until we impeed our losses on the most least deserving…

But, isn’t there another way? A way of love?

Isn’t there a cost to what He has called us to? A sacrifice to making this world better when we leave it?

When will we stop taking and begin to start really giving? Giving to others. Giving to Him. Giving our whole selves for the sake of something perfect…

The perfect love of God.

And if we knew this love…

Light and life and power would come from all the places we see Him. Life would rise within us and we’d disperse something beautiful with every single footstep.

Weren’t we once called, image barrers? Lights, meant to be set on a hill, undimmed by the weight of the cloud of this world’s selfishness?

I wake this morning to the hope He gives. And I see Him everywhere. In the glory and in nature, but also in pain and in the aching…

Yet, His promises are true. He tells me as I open His word. His redemption is near.

And oh, how much we need a breathe, His breath of fresh air to revive us. A spark from heaven to remind us of why we were ever called to exist.

We have lost purpose. We need vision.

Oh God, thank you for giving us everything we need for life and godliness….

We have enough, in you.

Oh, that we might be wakened, not just physically, but in the depths of our spirits.

We are, have, or will ever be nothing….

Until we have opened our eyes to see you.

Until we come alive to peace, and stop warring in the pain, wrestling with our vain pursuits…

Until we lay ourselves down, like the blanket of dew that knows its place in the early morning…

We will never know love, until we accept, we are the created, You the Creator.

Our only hope and purpose. True life is only found in you.

And I don’t want to miss Him…

How about you?