Fear not……

"Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you buy name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. I give Egypt as your ransom, Cush and Seba in exchange for you. Because you are precious in my eyes, and honored, and I love you, I give men in return for you, peoples in exchange for your life. Fear Not, for I am with you." Isaiah 43:1-5

I am back where I was a few years ago…..that place where I didn't expect to be and definitely didn't want to even consider having to be in. There are no preparations for when the world drops out from underneath your feet; no amount of previous training in the heartbreak department could ever console two hearts that seem to have strayed somehow from the trajectory of what they believed would be. In one moment, you are soaring along in friendly skies…….the next, falling from extreme heights. And you don't even have the time to figure out how this happened, let alone prepare for the impact.

Solutions pop into my head off and on like light bulbs……ideas that are nothing more than escalations of the dangerous feeling that I have and really therefore are no solutions at all. I have dropped literally to my knees in the darkness of the night and released the bitterness of the stillness to the sky, unsure and uncertain anymore if God wants to hear and even if He did, why this time He would move into the pain and sorrow and give me peace. I have bounced from sorrow for myself to sorrow for both of us to sorrow for her, reliving the t-bone crash that altered the trajectory of both our lives so suddenly and completely.

It's like in one moment, I hope not to be able to breathe the next required breath…..but I do……

That continuous drone in my head; "come on, one more step, one more day….you know that this will pass and you once again will be able to breathe freely again without the pain in your heart….come on, you can do, just like the last time and the time before that….."

Except there's the nagging fears that assault me in the silence……

Maybe this is the time where it doesn't…..maybe it will continue to be this way because you are the source of the disruption and sorrow…….

Life is on autopilot and my hand hovers over the switch, fearful of flipping it back over to manual control…..because I might not be able to keep it level and therefore would crash………

The nagging voice in my head; that hurt and abandoned child crying on the front lawn of the home on Wormer hours after my dad left……still echoes in my ears; I don't want to live here, I don't want to deal with this life, I want to be free of this……loops over and over…….draining my strength and desire to be, well, me.

It is hard in the aftermath of the explosion; shifting through the rubble of the once assured structural integrity of the building seeking answers and solutions. The villain isn't readily available, though some might say it was her ……but I can assure you of one thing, that's the only thing I'm sure of is that it wasn't her. It is hard to look at the villain when you see no mirrors and catch no reflection. The villain remains safely hidden when the villain is yourself.

When fear is an ally and an enemy, there is no way to feel peace.

In the ringing silence of the collision between reality and illusion, as my eyes continue to take in the movement and actions that are displayed in slow motion on the battlefield of this world, my ears thrum with the disconnection…..no sound, I am completely isolated from the world around me and fear wells within my soul. This is not where I'm supposed to me…..this is not who I am supposed to be……why am I here?

I am slowly brought back into the realization of the simplicity of the reason I am where I am, even in this place of heartache and sorrow that not only assaults my heart but another's as well. I am here because I am not my own. I am here because even in this place of human sorrow, I have a job to do….a light to shine….a honor to fulfill. Even as life happens and I don't like the places where it carries me, I have something I must do, something I must reclaim and something I must give away……

In the dust of the fall, my hands slowly stretch out underneath me and push into the hard rocky surface of the ground forcing my body to rise…….my knees scrabble for purchase and my eyes blink back the dusty tears…….even as I fear the pain of the injuries received in the fall….even as my heart beats painfully against my ribcage and lethargy coats my muscles…..

I stumble to my feet………dusty, battered and bruised…..

Because I am His….and He is the Lord….

Who purchased me with the sacrificial blood of His only Begotten Son….who waits by the gates scanning the horizon for the lost prodigal when I have strayed….who cries with me in the darkness of the night when the hopes and plans I had fall apart because of the fragility of the human will…..

Because even in this place, where the only villain that I can see is the one inside of me…….I am precious in His eyes.

Because even in the hollowness of my own broken and fruitless agenda…….I am honored by a loving and mighty God…..

Even as I fear the life that seems to be displayed before me, I slowly shuffle my feet into that once remembered semblance of a walk……

Because my God tells me to fear not………

He is with me………………..

Always

 

Hold whatcha got……

"But to the rest of you in Thyatira, all who do not hold to this teaching (who have not learned the so-called "deep secrets of Satan"), to you I say: I do not put any additional burden on you. However, hold on to what you have until I come. And to the one who conquers and who continues in my deeds until the end, I will give him authority over the nations-
he will rule them with an iron rod and like clay jars he will break them to pieces,
just as I have received the right to rule from my Father - and I will give him the morning star.
The one who has an ear had better hear what the Spirit says to the churches.'" Revelation 2:24-29

It is a phrase I have often heard in the ebb and flow of my life; mostly in the military circles I've travelled….as a Damage Controlman in the US Navy and a MP (Combat) in the Michigan Army National Guard but in other areas of my life as well, none as clearly though as I have in this battle in the journey home. It is the phrase I've repeated to myself many times as I've dealt with the defeats and the sorrows of this life…….

Hold what you have, just hold what you have.

What do we have, really, in this world that is worth the effort?

There is so much of the world that is temporary and fragile……too easily lost in the tempest of the storms that rage across the landscape of our simply lives. Wealth is fleeting, as many have experienced in the years of this economic disaster. Material goods, so often gained with 'get now, pay later' have been reclaimed because the payments cannot be made. Homes, boats, cars……lives have been swept into the tidal waves crashing upon the inland, once seemingly so safe from the possibility of flood. Experiences seem to gather together to defeat us and rob us of all joy……we are a people living in a groaning state for the return of our Savior.

I am single again…….in what I thought wasn't my decision but I can see now that she just uttered the words that we both needed to hear…..and when I looked to 'hold what I had,' I found there was nothing there………..

A dear friend, a ninja warrior of the Kingdom, offered me these verses in Revelation to ponder as a solace to the heartbreak I was experiencing. Just as my Esther's heart was broken……

It is interesting, in the context of this group of verses, how directly dealing God is with my own foolish human and sinful departure from the ways He would have me go; joining Him in the work of the Spirit here in the lives of those around me, through me and within me. In my family, in my friends, relationships and fellowships. The teaching that John writes here is the compromise and rationalization of actions that are sinful while seeking Christ, not caring that neither can exist within the presence of the other. Where God once was the focal point of our relationship, my Esther and I….it became a background noise, a 'when-I-can-get-to-it' priority that slowly was never 'got-to' and ignored in the compromise of what would have been for what was.

God has moved so mightily and powerfully in my life lately; in the trip to the Bowery in New York, the purchase and renovation of this doublewide, and the blessings of community and yet I can say that I've squandered most of those blessings….becoming unfertile ground for those the ground was meant to support and grow. Much like my previous post referenced, what have I done with that which was given to me to continue in the word of Christ?

Sin and Christ cannot co-exists in the same spot.

No matter how hard we try and make it so.

We work at the wrong things and in doing so, destroy the very things that we have been blessed with to have. We cannot add anything to the work of Salvation, for the work has been completed upon the Cross……in uttering that it 'is finished', Christ imposed no burden upon us…..rather we respond faithfully for what has been done for us through His sacrifice. This is the beauty and wonder of Christ……and His utter love for a people who sinned against God in the first place.

Responding faithfully means overcoming…..through the empowerment of the Holy Spirit to be blessed and powerful people for the glory of the King, Jesus.

We rejoice in the blessings that He has given us, holding them firm in the light of the Holy Spirit uncorrupted and untainted……conquering our selfishness desires to find instant gratification in our agenda and holding on to the Truth and Way that is found in the bindings of the Bible…..not for a little while, but until Christ returns…..to those who overcome, to them kingdoms are to be given to rule….because of the example set forth by the High King, Jesus Christ, who overcame Death for our sake.

In this world, we will either turn to our own sinful desires and forego the overcoming prize of kingdom rule……or we will seek defiantly after the King and remain in His shadow for the empowering of the saints destined to rule.

What is our prize, our reward for holding what we have, not giving into the temptations of the false teachings and hopes of a world corrupted and sinful? The Morning Star……Jesus Christ, His radiance and glory to shine upon our face and our world……Jesus will give Himself to His people……ruling like a caring shepherd with the right to rule, authority and strength of God.

I don't know if this makes any sense or if I'm just allowing the random thoughts bouncing in my head since I have read and re-read the verses while I sit here on autopilot…….

You decide.