avalanche
©10-26-15 hannah mclean
all i can do
is cry
as piece after piece
of me falls
as the days pass by
i wonder
what will be left
when this avalanche
ends
will i be able to mend?
or will i simply be lost
spread across the years
crushed beyond repair
in the descent?
Tuesday, October 27, 2015
Wednesday, October 21, 2015
Dignifying the Lord's house.
My health has stripped my physical body of its dignity.
It has diminished my body to a state
so painful for me to dwell upon
that years ago,
I simply separated myself from it.
I simply separated myself from it.
As though it was of no worth,
had no benefit to offer me.
Naught but a cross to bear
until I am made whole in eternity;
death seen as a welcome release
that will one day solidify the split.
My health has brought me pain;
deep wounds with great emotional collateral.
Unable to better my physical person
I chose instead to set it aside--
an amputee of sorts--
investing in the things this side of heaven
that will join me there.
Desiring instead to
“let your adornment be the hidden person of the heart
with imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit,
which is God’s sight is very precious.”
In God’s sight.
Over the years I have learned to live before the Lord alone,
perhaps first pressed by broken reasons,
but acceptable to Jesus none the less.
But there are weights that entangle,
causing our steps to trudge
and keeping us from running the race before us.
Good things that didn't begin as weights,
but that arrived there
when they began to hinder freedom.
In God’s sight.
I live before Him now for other reasons;
reasons that allow me to look into the pain
and reclaim the dignity my health has stripped me of.
I have become vividly convicted of the fact
that God made me
a soul, a spirit AND a body.
My body is a third of who I am;
and while it is but dust,
it bears the image and likeness of my Creator
and holds within its walls
the Spirit of the living God.
It is not just a body,
it is a temple.
And not just a temple,
but a temple of the living God.
Until I reach heaven,
where I get to physically worship
in His physical house,
He has chosen to enter into me
and make me
the physical dwelling place of the most High.
1 Corinthians 6:19 “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God?”
Armed with such a declaration,
I look upon this broken piece of flesh,
one I have averted my eyes from again and again.
Undignified by earthly standards.
I look upon this temple
laid in ruin for many years.
And carefully
I set aside the words
I have spoken to it again and again.
I set aside the expectation
of what it is suppose to be to be acceptable.
And instead
I let it stand just as it is,
accepted by the One who made it His own;
accepted by the One who made it His own;
a pile of bricks strewn upon a strong foundation
ready to be built back up.
And I place around my neck a cross
as upon a steeple
declaring to the world that
this is a house of the Lord.
Psalm 84:1 “How lovely is Your dwelling place, O Lord of Hosts!”
I marvel as these words You gave me years ago
flow through my mind,
“You restore to me
dignity.”
Monday, October 5, 2015
PICTURE: The wall of stones
This is the picture the Lord gave me during a time of prayer surrounding the verse from Matthew 16:18, “I will build My Church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”
In the picture, there was a wall of a building made of many stone bricks. The stones were in rows, one atop of another. As I looked closer, I saw that many of the stones were out of place; some were slightly askew, while others were mostly dislodged.
----
1 Peter 2:4–6
“As you come to Him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For it stands in Scripture: “Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”
----
The wall was part of the “physical” Church we who believe are being built into. As stones, we are to align with our “cornerstone” (Christ). As I prayed, about this picture, the Lord pressed upon me how the stones would realign (and/or remain aligned) with their foundational first stone: Scripture.
As a whole in this country, those who profess Christ have neglected the Bible. Why is that? The Word is where God is revealed; His heart, His desires, His Truth. We are to align our lives with Him; if we are separated from scripture (His revealed Word), how can we do that accurately? We can’t; without the knowledge of Him revealed through Scripture, we won’t really know WHO He is, what He is like, what He desires, how He loves, etc....we can only guess or assume, and when we do that, we end up worshiping a god we have created instead of the one true, living Yahweh. As I was reminded in a sermon recently, “If your spiritual experiences aren’t pushing you into the Word, there is a disconnect.” This should be a red flag for us; if we “want Jesus” but aren’t growing in our desire for the Word of God, we need to question if the former is actually true of us.
Read the Word of God, know the Word of God, align with the Word of God. Because without scripture to guide us, we as stones will become “slightly askew;” and if already slightly askew, we will become “mostly dislodged;” and if already mostly dislodged, we will become completely separated from Jesus.
In the picture, there was a wall of a building made of many stone bricks. The stones were in rows, one atop of another. As I looked closer, I saw that many of the stones were out of place; some were slightly askew, while others were mostly dislodged.
----
1 Peter 2:4–6
“As you come to Him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For it stands in Scripture: “Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.”
----
The wall was part of the “physical” Church we who believe are being built into. As stones, we are to align with our “cornerstone” (Christ). As I prayed, about this picture, the Lord pressed upon me how the stones would realign (and/or remain aligned) with their foundational first stone: Scripture.
As a whole in this country, those who profess Christ have neglected the Bible. Why is that? The Word is where God is revealed; His heart, His desires, His Truth. We are to align our lives with Him; if we are separated from scripture (His revealed Word), how can we do that accurately? We can’t; without the knowledge of Him revealed through Scripture, we won’t really know WHO He is, what He is like, what He desires, how He loves, etc....we can only guess or assume, and when we do that, we end up worshiping a god we have created instead of the one true, living Yahweh. As I was reminded in a sermon recently, “If your spiritual experiences aren’t pushing you into the Word, there is a disconnect.” This should be a red flag for us; if we “want Jesus” but aren’t growing in our desire for the Word of God, we need to question if the former is actually true of us.
Read the Word of God, know the Word of God, align with the Word of God. Because without scripture to guide us, we as stones will become “slightly askew;” and if already slightly askew, we will become “mostly dislodged;” and if already mostly dislodged, we will become completely separated from Jesus.
Saturday, September 12, 2015
waiting for healing: day 286
day 286
©9-12-15 hannah mclean
questions repeating
beating
and beating
upon this strained mind
desiring to find
the answers to alleviate
and obliterate
the pain of not knowing.
what is happening to me?
i wonder as i blunder
from one day to the next
hiding
from the internal chiding
degrading me
as degradation plagues externally
determined to win
at convincing me
my brokenness is as much within
as without.
and daily i must
entrust myself
to the Truth
and to the Father
to which He leads.
o Jesus,
Healer of the broken
You have spoken
words over me
with authority
and i await
from this helpless state
unable to turn away
i lay
before You
forevermore.
©9-12-15 hannah mclean
questions repeating
beating
and beating
upon this strained mind
desiring to find
the answers to alleviate
and obliterate
the pain of not knowing.
what is happening to me?
i wonder as i blunder
from one day to the next
hiding
from the internal chiding
degrading me
as degradation plagues externally
determined to win
at convincing me
my brokenness is as much within
as without.
and daily i must
entrust myself
to the Truth
and to the Father
to which He leads.
o Jesus,
Healer of the broken
You have spoken
words over me
with authority
and i await
from this helpless state
unable to turn away
i lay
before You
forevermore.
Monday, September 7, 2015
Ugly moments and the beauty of God
I had a hard day this past week. In the middle of it, I stood in the shower and yelled at God.
I yelled at Him; I doubted at Him, I threw teenage-quality accusations at Him; I wept like a baby and the water washed my tears down the drain and muffled out the sounds of my sobs.
I’m not proud of it, my feelings were not in the right place (because God owes me nothing and has never wronged me, He has never done wrong in any capacity).
But I am not ashamed of it either; most importantly because I am in Jesus and my sins are covered, but also because my HEART was in the right place--raw and honest and in the presence of the One it longed for.
Because here is the thing, if we want to be with Jesus, and all we have to bring with us at the moment is anger or pain or frustration, He wants us to come anyway. He doesn’t say, “No, go get yourself together and then you can draw near.” Instead, He says, “Come to Me, all you who are weary...” And if all we have to offer Him is the ugliness of a broken soul, then He will draw near and receive it as an offering of worship. Not because He deserves it--no, He deserves alabaster boxes of sweet perfume, houses of extravagant beauty built to Him, gold, frankincense and myrrh, animals without blemish and songs of thanksgiving (to name a biblical few)--but because He is a God of grace who, in spite of His infinite worth, remembers we are "but dust" and rejoices over the widow’s pennies as they fall into the offering plate, receives food at the table of the outcasts of society and immortalizes the worship of Job.
As I stepped out of the shower that day, my heart landed upon Job and I opened up his book and began to read. And Job 1:20 reverberated through my body like a glorious, hopeful sigh.
“Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshiped.”
Job--a man the Lord Himself called “a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil”--had just suffered a string of immense losses and felt within himself blow after blow upon his heart; he lost all that he had and almost everyone that he loved. His expression of sorrow was intense and aggressive; he tore his clothes, he shaved his head. He did not hide his feelings, he expressed them fully and fiercely.
And then it says Job “fell on the ground;” the weight of what he felt took all strength from him and he couldn’t stand beneath it. Perhaps he didn’t even try to because sometimes the burdens are just far too great to place upon our backs, the heaviness of the sorrow far too immense; so under the trials of life, he simply fell on the ground.
Job’s ground was solid; he fell onto the expanse of the One in Whom he trusted. And from this place, weak and weary and wounded, unable to stand, torn open...Job worshipped God. He offered his sorrow and he acknowledge his Lord. And to God, this was worship.
There was no exuberant joy required, no withholding of receiving until the heart was indeed thankful and accepting of the losses, no setting at arms length till the confusion was resolved...No. The Lord received his weakness and his sorrow and his acknowledgement as an offering of worship. We know this because He repeated His accolades of His servant Job in 2:3, calling him again “a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil.”
And that is reason 14 gazillion why God is so incredibly glorious. Because I can yell at Him in the shower when anger, confusion and despair are all I have to bring Him at a moment when I just want to be near. I can acknowledge His holiness, love and kindness in the next breath as I speak His truth over my weary soul. And I can leave our interaction feeling as though He took my words and my tears and my weakness as worship.
These are the moments when I understand why the KJV bible often translates “steadfast love” as “mercy.”
I yelled at Him; I doubted at Him, I threw teenage-quality accusations at Him; I wept like a baby and the water washed my tears down the drain and muffled out the sounds of my sobs.
I’m not proud of it, my feelings were not in the right place (because God owes me nothing and has never wronged me, He has never done wrong in any capacity).
But I am not ashamed of it either; most importantly because I am in Jesus and my sins are covered, but also because my HEART was in the right place--raw and honest and in the presence of the One it longed for.
Because here is the thing, if we want to be with Jesus, and all we have to bring with us at the moment is anger or pain or frustration, He wants us to come anyway. He doesn’t say, “No, go get yourself together and then you can draw near.” Instead, He says, “Come to Me, all you who are weary...” And if all we have to offer Him is the ugliness of a broken soul, then He will draw near and receive it as an offering of worship. Not because He deserves it--no, He deserves alabaster boxes of sweet perfume, houses of extravagant beauty built to Him, gold, frankincense and myrrh, animals without blemish and songs of thanksgiving (to name a biblical few)--but because He is a God of grace who, in spite of His infinite worth, remembers we are "but dust" and rejoices over the widow’s pennies as they fall into the offering plate, receives food at the table of the outcasts of society and immortalizes the worship of Job.
As I stepped out of the shower that day, my heart landed upon Job and I opened up his book and began to read. And Job 1:20 reverberated through my body like a glorious, hopeful sigh.
“Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head and fell on the ground and worshiped.”
Job--a man the Lord Himself called “a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil”--had just suffered a string of immense losses and felt within himself blow after blow upon his heart; he lost all that he had and almost everyone that he loved. His expression of sorrow was intense and aggressive; he tore his clothes, he shaved his head. He did not hide his feelings, he expressed them fully and fiercely.
And then it says Job “fell on the ground;” the weight of what he felt took all strength from him and he couldn’t stand beneath it. Perhaps he didn’t even try to because sometimes the burdens are just far too great to place upon our backs, the heaviness of the sorrow far too immense; so under the trials of life, he simply fell on the ground.
Job’s ground was solid; he fell onto the expanse of the One in Whom he trusted. And from this place, weak and weary and wounded, unable to stand, torn open...Job worshipped God. He offered his sorrow and he acknowledge his Lord. And to God, this was worship.
There was no exuberant joy required, no withholding of receiving until the heart was indeed thankful and accepting of the losses, no setting at arms length till the confusion was resolved...No. The Lord received his weakness and his sorrow and his acknowledgement as an offering of worship. We know this because He repeated His accolades of His servant Job in 2:3, calling him again “a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil.”
And that is reason 14 gazillion why God is so incredibly glorious. Because I can yell at Him in the shower when anger, confusion and despair are all I have to bring Him at a moment when I just want to be near. I can acknowledge His holiness, love and kindness in the next breath as I speak His truth over my weary soul. And I can leave our interaction feeling as though He took my words and my tears and my weakness as worship.
These are the moments when I understand why the KJV bible often translates “steadfast love” as “mercy.”
Wednesday, August 26, 2015
"O my Lord, I am not eloquent" and other faulty reasons for silence.
Has the enemy ever
told you something along these lines: “You can’t tell people what God is
doing in your life because you aren’t very good at articulating your
thoughts. Keep it to yourself. Let the eloquent speakers share; what
they have to say is of more value because it sounds prettier coming out
of their mouth. That person has letters behind their name, you should
just listen. If you want to speak, get some credentials. Until then, you
should ignore any inclination you have to speak about your walk with
Jesus...I mean, who do you think you are? Are you so proud? Do you
really think you’re so 'special' that you have something to ADD to the life
of the Church?! God wants you to be humble, that means you be quiet and
listen. A teachable person listens and doesn’t speak, you want to be
teachable and humble, right? Besides, that thing you were considering
sharing, in the whole scheme of things, it’s nothing; why would anyone
want to spend time hearing about your little struggles or your little
victories or you little life? Head down, mouth shut...that’s want
‘living a quiet and peaceable life’ means.”
If he has, I just want to remind you of one little thing: The enemy is a big, fat liar. Yes, a liar. And not just a slimy, twisting liar, but a being in passionate pursuit of destroying the people of God, stealing the glory of God and hindering the power of God from playing out in the broken world.
I think it is important to get a conversation going, this requires words. For me, because God made me introspective, I am completely uncomfortable when I don't understand how I am doing or where I am at. I confront my emotions and deal with the circumstances of my life because I am unable to stuff things (for better or for worse). Because of my reflective nature, I embrace the invitation to stand before the Father in Christ with boldness and without shame--just as I am--with great joy. I process through my emotions and pains and confusions and questions in the presence of the Lord and the Truth of His word. I know who I am before the Creator God who defines me. That means, if I can boldly stand without shame before God, I can express the things I am struggling with and learning about with boldness and without shame before people. And I have found that the more I see and understand about what God is doing in me and around me, the less I can hold it in. But the more I share it, the more I hear the reasons why many around me AREN’T sharing. They are silently living their lives with Jesus because they "aren’t very eloquent of speech," the things they’re learning "are just too insignificant," they "aren’t qualified" to have a voice in people’s lives, etc. etc. (I can understand believing all of these things, I’ve been silent because of them far too many times myself.) So I find that while many people will listen to my life and my revelations and my struggles and my victories, they hold back from sharing with me their own.
But what is unfortunate about this one-sided conversation (other than the fact that I desperately want to hear from them), is that I firmly believe that the act of articulating your thoughts and the work God is doing in you is a wonderful way of observing them fully and allowing them to solidify in your heart and mind. I honestly think it’s a vital step in completing the process of the work God does in each of us: Put it in words--eloquent or ineloquent is not the point--and share it.
I would encourage each of you to line up your excuses (such as the ones listed above) and shoot them down with Truth. Here is an example:
LIE: I’m not good at articulating myself.
TRUTH: In the book of Exodus, God told Moses He was going to use him to free His people from slavery, the largest exodus of all time. Upon hearing this, barefoot in the presence of a holy God, Moses presented Him with lots of reasons why he wasn’t the right man for the job; after all, he wasn’t just ineloquent, he was slow of speech and tongue. Was God’s hand shortened because of Moses’ deficits? Absolutely not. God took what Moses DID have (ie a simple staff and an ineloquent, slow tongue) and freed 600,000 male slaves (if you add the women and children, the number could have been around ~2,400,000).
Because here is the truth: The work of God in our lives belongs to Him. His work in us points to Him, magnifies Him, glorifies Him, and reflects Him. It is not self-exalting to share it because ultimately, it isn’t about us; it’s about Jesus. And the power of our testimony doesn’t lie in the eloquence of our words, it lies in Jesus. So we can offer up the words we do have--jumbled or stumbled or stuttered doesn’t matter--they are filled with potential because they are backed by pure, edifying power of our magnificent God.
All this was really just a very long way of exhorting you to fight your excuses! Put the enemy in his place, why should he get to dictate what comes out of our mouths and what stays in? Let's let the Lord direct our tongues. Can you imagine how much potential there is for growth and for an offering of praise and glory to the Lord if we would boldly testify to one another and invite each other into the inter workings of our daily walk with Him?! Jesus said, “For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.” If the work of God in your heart DOESN’T overflow out of your mouth, then I would encourage you to ponder it until it does.
And then tell me about it. :)
If he has, I just want to remind you of one little thing: The enemy is a big, fat liar. Yes, a liar. And not just a slimy, twisting liar, but a being in passionate pursuit of destroying the people of God, stealing the glory of God and hindering the power of God from playing out in the broken world.
I think it is important to get a conversation going, this requires words. For me, because God made me introspective, I am completely uncomfortable when I don't understand how I am doing or where I am at. I confront my emotions and deal with the circumstances of my life because I am unable to stuff things (for better or for worse). Because of my reflective nature, I embrace the invitation to stand before the Father in Christ with boldness and without shame--just as I am--with great joy. I process through my emotions and pains and confusions and questions in the presence of the Lord and the Truth of His word. I know who I am before the Creator God who defines me. That means, if I can boldly stand without shame before God, I can express the things I am struggling with and learning about with boldness and without shame before people. And I have found that the more I see and understand about what God is doing in me and around me, the less I can hold it in. But the more I share it, the more I hear the reasons why many around me AREN’T sharing. They are silently living their lives with Jesus because they "aren’t very eloquent of speech," the things they’re learning "are just too insignificant," they "aren’t qualified" to have a voice in people’s lives, etc. etc. (I can understand believing all of these things, I’ve been silent because of them far too many times myself.) So I find that while many people will listen to my life and my revelations and my struggles and my victories, they hold back from sharing with me their own.
But what is unfortunate about this one-sided conversation (other than the fact that I desperately want to hear from them), is that I firmly believe that the act of articulating your thoughts and the work God is doing in you is a wonderful way of observing them fully and allowing them to solidify in your heart and mind. I honestly think it’s a vital step in completing the process of the work God does in each of us: Put it in words--eloquent or ineloquent is not the point--and share it.
I would encourage each of you to line up your excuses (such as the ones listed above) and shoot them down with Truth. Here is an example:
LIE: I’m not good at articulating myself.
TRUTH: In the book of Exodus, God told Moses He was going to use him to free His people from slavery, the largest exodus of all time. Upon hearing this, barefoot in the presence of a holy God, Moses presented Him with lots of reasons why he wasn’t the right man for the job; after all, he wasn’t just ineloquent, he was slow of speech and tongue. Was God’s hand shortened because of Moses’ deficits? Absolutely not. God took what Moses DID have (ie a simple staff and an ineloquent, slow tongue) and freed 600,000 male slaves (if you add the women and children, the number could have been around ~2,400,000).
Because here is the truth: The work of God in our lives belongs to Him. His work in us points to Him, magnifies Him, glorifies Him, and reflects Him. It is not self-exalting to share it because ultimately, it isn’t about us; it’s about Jesus. And the power of our testimony doesn’t lie in the eloquence of our words, it lies in Jesus. So we can offer up the words we do have--jumbled or stumbled or stuttered doesn’t matter--they are filled with potential because they are backed by pure, edifying power of our magnificent God.
All this was really just a very long way of exhorting you to fight your excuses! Put the enemy in his place, why should he get to dictate what comes out of our mouths and what stays in? Let's let the Lord direct our tongues. Can you imagine how much potential there is for growth and for an offering of praise and glory to the Lord if we would boldly testify to one another and invite each other into the inter workings of our daily walk with Him?! Jesus said, “For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.” If the work of God in your heart DOESN’T overflow out of your mouth, then I would encourage you to ponder it until it does.
And then tell me about it. :)
Wednesday, August 19, 2015
Passionate ranting and sobering questions
We ran into a wonderful, godly man the other day. We had a moment to catch up, and he and my husband shared with each other some of the devastated lives they encountered in their work and ministry. As we unwound these broken situations, we looked behind the actions and considered where the cracks in their lives started; the young addict whose mother had shown him how to shoot up heroin, the 27-year-old man who was shown pornography as a 6-year-old boy on the playground at school, the suicidal young woman whose father walked out many years before...
As we spoke, questions arose. Questions like:
“Is there even hope to restore a life so broken?”
“Can someone emotionally and mentally come back from a place like that when they’ve never been equipped with the tools to cope?”
“Even if they’re freed from their addiction, could they live a normal life?”
To which I, perhaps annoyingly (at first), answered, “But we get to bring Jesus!”
We get to bring Jesus! The hope for a life broken beyond human repair; the hope for someone ill-equipped during their developmental years to live a purposeful life; the hope for redeeming the lost innocence of a child...that hope it Jesus. After my 3rd or 4th, “But Jesus,” we started to talk about Jesus. We talked about the power of Jesus to free; and not just to free, but to restore; and not just to restore, but to build up to bring freedom and restoration to others. Because Jesus’ healing power is thorough and amazingly beautiful to behold. We talked about how we don’t have to know the answer to details of the brokenness, we just need to love with the persevering, steadfast, redeeming love of Jesus poured out; how that love redeems the lives of the ones it lands on. We talked about how watching this process is “the greater thing” that Jesus told us we will see (He raised the dead, there’s no way you can get a bigger physical miracle than that), He was talking about us bringing His healing, redemptive, life-transforming love on the cross to a broken world and watching its power land upon needy souls bringing pure beauty from the ashes of the aftermath of sin.
Because THAT is what we bring when we answer the brokenness of the world with a relationship with Jesus. Scripture says we are “Ambassadors of Hope.” That fact should make our hearts leap; it should cause our feet to run into the darkness because the Light we carry has the power not just to dispel it...but to heal all that has been broken there.
Jesus is beautiful and He is enough!
And at the end of our conversation, the man was brimming with encouragement and he asked me,
“Have you told anyone this?”
And I can’t shake this question...”Have you told anyone this?”
I can’t shake it because he wasn’t asking me if I had told the lost, the bound, the weary in the broken world, he was asking me if I had told the Church.
I can’t shake this question. I can’t shake it, not because I don’t tell anyone who will listen to my passionate rants, but because my answer is simple. It is simple, yet so sobering I tear up every time it comes to mind:
“I thought they knew.”
As we spoke, questions arose. Questions like:
“Is there even hope to restore a life so broken?”
“Can someone emotionally and mentally come back from a place like that when they’ve never been equipped with the tools to cope?”
“Even if they’re freed from their addiction, could they live a normal life?”
To which I, perhaps annoyingly (at first), answered, “But we get to bring Jesus!”
We get to bring Jesus! The hope for a life broken beyond human repair; the hope for someone ill-equipped during their developmental years to live a purposeful life; the hope for redeeming the lost innocence of a child...that hope it Jesus. After my 3rd or 4th, “But Jesus,” we started to talk about Jesus. We talked about the power of Jesus to free; and not just to free, but to restore; and not just to restore, but to build up to bring freedom and restoration to others. Because Jesus’ healing power is thorough and amazingly beautiful to behold. We talked about how we don’t have to know the answer to details of the brokenness, we just need to love with the persevering, steadfast, redeeming love of Jesus poured out; how that love redeems the lives of the ones it lands on. We talked about how watching this process is “the greater thing” that Jesus told us we will see (He raised the dead, there’s no way you can get a bigger physical miracle than that), He was talking about us bringing His healing, redemptive, life-transforming love on the cross to a broken world and watching its power land upon needy souls bringing pure beauty from the ashes of the aftermath of sin.
Because THAT is what we bring when we answer the brokenness of the world with a relationship with Jesus. Scripture says we are “Ambassadors of Hope.” That fact should make our hearts leap; it should cause our feet to run into the darkness because the Light we carry has the power not just to dispel it...but to heal all that has been broken there.
Jesus is beautiful and He is enough!
And at the end of our conversation, the man was brimming with encouragement and he asked me,
“Have you told anyone this?”
And I can’t shake this question...”Have you told anyone this?”
I can’t shake it because he wasn’t asking me if I had told the lost, the bound, the weary in the broken world, he was asking me if I had told the Church.
I can’t shake this question. I can’t shake it, not because I don’t tell anyone who will listen to my passionate rants, but because my answer is simple. It is simple, yet so sobering I tear up every time it comes to mind:
“I thought they knew.”
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