The heat has really picked up. The shadows aren’t what they once were. Three digits, they say. The sun doesn’t hold back weight.
The sky doesn’t grace us with clouds, blocking the loud, painful rays, scorching the land below.
And I have never seen a time, when everything hidden has so been revealed.
When what once lay in secret, becomes so uncovered, even the silent are dangerous, and those masked in lies, come riding on their own frustrations in the backyard of the internet.
We used to dance at our own maskeraded balls. Dressing up and pretending, wearing what suits us, taking a tune and making it into some magical melody tranquilizing all.
But then, the music stopped.
The world stopped, and everything hiding us began to be pealed from the comfort of our own easy chairs.
Nowhere to run.
The once-beautiful call out in hate, spew their rage, don’t even pretend to be masqueraded from modern day politeness, respect and courtesies…
And yet, somehow haven’t we all been aching for raw, real, leading to greater transparency that makes the earth bow low into a much more even playing ground?
The beggar rises in praise, stands from his stooped place, while the “have’s” become have-nots, and the mountains seem to be cast down into the deepest sea.
What is happening to this land? This beautiful place where the flag once flew high and revered?
The place my grandfather did rise, carrying the wounded who gave their life for the freedom many now flaunt like spoiled teenagers, demanding what it not theirs…
Taking, what they did not earn.
I weigh leaving the west coast. We all do. My brother in Idaho said people are fleeing like the exodus in Egypt there. People know and recognize oppression, but where are their voices?
And what happened to a people that were free and brave? Did fear cause them to give up their power and lay down their steeples, hiding in empty places, masked, so intimidated by fear?
Without the church, we are all weakened.
You can take away our sports, our jobs, our homes even. But when you take away the church, the people scramble for a Shepherd instead of just opening their Bibles…
And that same evil that hailed satan on the steps of Washington’s capital building many months ago, has now seemed to gain power and momentum.
In fact, our nation started crumbling that day satan was hailed on the capital steps. And man sat by and did nothing.
Where are God’s people? Why are they silenced, unwilling to rise up and claim…love is stronger than hate?
And is this how Moses felt? Leading a people into the dessert, from their own oppression, only to be mocked and scorn?
People grovel and mourn, longing for the days when they were controlled and chained, held captive and made to live as well-fed slaves.
We are all servants, really. The questions is, “Who are we serving?”
Our own comfort and ease? Our own oppression and pain? Our own slavery, that makes us feel needed and safe?
Where are the legs that stand in power? Rise in victory? Move in strength where He is leading?
Too many see where they should be blind. Like the Israelites, waiting in the desert, looking at the giants, and trembling as wandering refugees with nowhere to lay their heads or hide.
Are our giants bigger than our God? Are my giants bigger than my God?
Where is the One who spoke the world into being? Small? Shrunk? Invisible?
And can’t you almost see why they built a golden calf as a kind of representation, a physical being the people could see, touch and feel in their desperation?
When the winds take everything you once looked at, you can long for a substance to fall against in your weakness, something for physical eyes to see, a tangible representation of a God unseen.
Yes, they were doubting. Yet, how many are doubting still?
We linger in the desert of our own misery, longing for a way out, when there is none. Just stillness, waiting to capture the doubts.
But then, they sang. The people of God began to rise up in praises without weapons or steel. They learn that the God of all ages is for them. He is still with them. He is near…
Despite their losses and misery. Despite their leaving what they’ve known and wandering into a desrt of
wide open sand and unbarrable heat.
They rise, using their legs, putting weight on their human vessels, now surrendered to the God above.
And they walk, walk as He calls. Not toward anything physical, but around, in an eternal representation of this life as we know it….
Circular, infinite, complete, spiritual.
And there, in their faithful shouting to the One that redeemed them, in the dusty lands with empty hands void of any earthly abudance or possesssions…
God’s children finally learn the key to all power. The hope to stand. The faith it takes to bring down the captives…
Still alive in their very own hearts.
They learned, their victory wasn’t in where they phsyical bodies stood or what they externally had.
Their victory came, because of the God-man who was and is and is to come.
They knew He lives eternal, He feeds them manna, he walked them through unbeatable waters, parting the seas with His mighty right hand…
And we are not lost either. We are not destitute. We are not barren. We are chosen, loved, possessed by His goodness…
And it is in that faith, the walls of Jericho came tumbling down.
He is here still
It is hot out here today. Blazing like the sands we all crush under our feet, daily.
Yet, there is a God above. The same God of the once chained captives, who has given us a path to freedom….
It’s a path that requires us to lay down our weapons, to take up humility and repent of our love of being owned by a system that may give us bread, but offers it at a price.
Isn’t it better to be free and starving, that fed and imprisoned?
When will we not love our luxuries so much that we leave what’s convenient….Growing to not despise the desert, but know our own barrenness is the real path to freedom.
Open skies. Fire at night, leading us the right way.
Clouds to give us shade. And the name above all other names, calling us home, away from comfort, to the mighty place Jericho falls and the people of God possess the land….
Not because we are deserving, but because we serve a mighty God who still sees us, who continually leads us, who is near a people consecrated, set apart, chosen, and loved…
And His love still breaks down walls.
We can stand on hills and win the victory…because The battle is won. The battle is His.
And that is where I put my faith.
So, let’s rise this day. Let’s lay our weapons down. Let’s hold back nothing; drop our masks, pretense and self-defense…
Assured of this faith in a God that sees us still. The evidence of His glory lay like jewels behind each one of our paths.
People of God, worshipping in unisome, rising in grace and love, because…
Jericho waits. Sitting high on a hill. And friends, it’s ours for the taking.
So, lets lay down our weapons, lift our heads to heaven, and worship.
