Adventure.

unfurl my sails
shake out their dust
too-eager canvas
fuels wanderlust

hoist the mast high
feel the wind surge
reel in your anchor
let the ship diverge

the fear of being free
of holding nothing back
oft times keeps me from going
off the beaten track

i am not running away
just running for the sake of feeling the wind
i am not lost nor am i astray
just running so restlessly after Him

as swimming in deep salty waters
overcome in tumultuous ocean
so His love drowns my fear,
His grace moves me on,
and His mercy gives this ship motion

Chasing leafy winds...

He clutches the bundle of colorful leaves all gold and red. 
He laughs, not a care in the world besides catching all of them as he chases the wind
laughter bursts out in wide happy peals.
“Get them, get them!”
I urge him on, smiling.
“Dawww, darn it.” he says in his four-year old lisp.
He can’t run fast enough to catch the leaves in mid-air.
I try to encourage him-
“You have to be faster, the leaves are so quick!
but don’t worry, the wind is always around.
More leaves will fall...”
I look around and breathe in the brilliance
the colours that hide all year and then are revealed
when the chlorophyll fades away.
“God’s always around too.” I think,
remembering how I chase him like a child,
eager to touch the wind, grasp it.
And though I never will,
I run all the same after an ungraspable God-
the kind of Creator that you cannot fit into a box.
And the swirling leaves and the blessings 
are the evidence of the wind,
the shadow of Jehovah as he passes by,
giving me something to run after.
Greyson and I walk home and he picks up big yellow leaves,
gasping each time he finds a prettier one.
And of course, each one is more stunning than the last.
“Oh, Esther- look!” he holds up a bright scarlet leaf.
His big blue eyes make me ache,
because I long to be like a child 
and wonder the way that I used to.
Why does the world make us so unresponsive to glory?

So today, as we walked home with an ever-growing bouquet of that glory, I resolved to be enraptured, to live with eyes that see beyond the surface image of life and let myself be filled with wonder. Child-like wonder. 
 


Lord, I want to see.

Soul-Quenched.

As water roaring from a rock,
from the rock that is higher than I
nourishment flows never ceasing
a river of holy communion.

O my soul, come to the water
bathe thyself in grace.
immerse yourself in his goodness
drench your dry thirst, drink in His love.

Saturation of all of my senses,
I am satisfied in you.
The absolute end of a search,
the resolution, the consummation...
The Omega.

Hallelujah, praise God;
He has saved my soul and enlarged my heart.
Do you thirst, does this life leave you parched and dry?
Do you hunger, your soul a moaning cry?
Come to the water. Eat of the bread of life.

Yahweh; holy, exquisite, passionate, eternal, just, compassionate, merciful, patient, jealous, steadfast, impossibly huge, awe-inducing, fierce... {to name a few of the attributes of an indescribable God.}

1“Come, all you who are thirsty,
   come to the waters;
and you who have no money,
   come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
   without money and without cost.
2 Why spend money on what is not bread,
   and your labor on what does not satisfy?
Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good,
   and you will delight in the richest of fare.
3 Give ear and come to me;
   listen, that you may live.
I will make an everlasting covenant with you,
   my faithful love promised to David.”
{Isaiah 55}

Thanksgiving-joy and all it produces.

    Eucharisteo; the giving of thanks

Beholding God

Joy

Being filled with love

Fearlessness

Desiring to serve others

When you give thanks in all things, you behold the blessings of God and you become filled with gratitude at the grace he bestows. And we are able to give thanks in all things because all is grace.

Oxygen, butterflies, the Gospel, the way our mouths conveniently produce saliva when we chew food, papercuts, origami, tangerines, the stomach flu, the ocean- all is grace. You can give thanks when you are hacking up a storm in the bathroom just like you can give thanks when you’re feeling salty ocean wind on your face.

We get so used to grace that we take it for granted. Every day we do this, about so many things. That’s why we become so discontent and restless when we forget to look, because we become blind to grace. Love, though...it stands out because it’s the most powerful grace of all.

None of us deserve it.

When we marvel at grace, it brings us joy- overwhelming joy comes from that gratitude. It is not happy people that are thankful, it is thankful people that are happy. And as you behold the grace of God and His love for you...you become filled with that love. You can’t help it. When you give thanks and behold God and are filled with joy, love just happens. It pours in.
Beholding is becoming {John Piper} and so as you behold the love of your Creator you become filled with it.

Two things {to name a very small amount...} can happen as a result of being filled with this perfect love. You will be fearless, because perfect love casts out fear. {1 John 4:18. Hallelujah!} Love casts out fear, literally throws it out of your heart. It is the antidote for the poisonous fears that take over.
And you will have a genuine desire to serve others; to be compassionate- because the love of God dwells in you. {1 John 3:17}

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Basically...Give thanks, Behold God in the process, Find Joy in Him, Be filled with the Love you have beheld, Take that love and let it cast out your fear, and drive you to serve others selflessly.

This means using my five senses to experience the goodness of God, Being still; ceasing to strive. Giving thanks continually; in every situation. Finding joy in Christ.
Look, be still. See love, give thanks, find joy, behold, be filled, become.

Any circumstances+Thanksgiving=Joy.
Beholding=Becoming
Beholding God’s love=Becoming filled with it. Fear=gone.
Love>Fear.
Hope>Depression.
Love>Depression>Fear.
Love conquers all.

{2 Corinthians 3:18} “And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.”                                

Com·pas·sion

(noun)
1. a feeling of deep sympathy and sorrow for another who is stricken by misfortune, accompanied by a strong desire to alleviate the suffering. {Dictionary.com}

Compassion is the virtue of empathy for the suffering of others. It is regarded as a fundamental part of human love. {Wikipedia}

We as Americans are pretty awful at taking care of the poor and the hungry. We as Christians are even worse-considering that it’s our job and it’s not getting done.

James says that faith without works is dead. When we have saving faith but we don’t live it out, proclaim the Gospel, help the sick and homeless, care for widows and orphans- our faith becomes stagnant. It doesn’t matter one bit how sound your theology is, or how structured the liturgy of your church is if your faith is dead. If your faith is dead, how will you move mountains? How will God bless a church that has dead faith?

And when you stand before the face of God, that’s what will matter- whether you claimed to follow Christ and believe or whether you followed Christ, and lived out your faith as an expression of that belief. If faith is what saves you, will dead faith save you?  

“Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world.” {James 1:27}

Are you so caught up in yourself, so dead, that you drive by the homeless man on the sidewalk, making a snide remark about how he should work harder, and how he probably doesn’t even have a sick wife? I know I have, countless times. It’s so easy to become a judge and harden my heart.

{1 John 3:17} "But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him?"

It is hypocrisy to be a believer and to not have compassion on others, the way it is hypocrisy to be a believer and be unforgiving. God has had compassion on us and saved us, and it has changed our lives. It should change everything about our lives- spur us on to be radically compassionate to others because of the overwhelming compassion our Heavenly Father has demonstrated to us.

I was reading Isaiah 58 earlier this week, and I saw this:

6“Is not this the fast that I choose:

 to loose the bonds of wickedness,

to undo the straps of the yoke,

to let the oppressed go free,

   and to break every yoke?

7 Is it not to share your bread with the hungry

   and bring the homeless poor into your house;

when you see the naked, to cover him,

   and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?”

“Bring the homeless poor into your house...” How many of us do that?
 
How many of us would stop and ask the homeless man home for dinner and a night in a soft bed? We don’t like to get our hands dirty, we don’t like to get involved, we don’t like to invest our time in unfortunate strangers...so we ignore our conscience and we drive.
Rolling down the window and asking, “Do you have a place to sleep tonight?” is....messy.

Compassion hurts because it is empathy- feeling the needs of others and their pain and then ACTING on it. Compassion is not a noun, as Dictionary.com would have us to believe. It is a verb. An action word. It is not a feeling, it is an action. Having compassion does not mean having an ache inside of you- it means having empathy that spurs you on to act and alleviate a need or the suffering or pain of another, the way that we avoid pain ourselves and go to great lengths to be comfortable. That is what true compassion is.


 
When we have compassion on others, we are blessed. Isaiah 58 continues by saying:
 

8 Then shall your light break forth like the dawn,

   and your healing shall spring up speedily;

your righteousness shall go before you;

   the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard.

9 Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer;

   you shall cry, and he will say, ‘Here I am.’

If you take away the yoke from your midst,

   the pointing of the finger, and speaking wickedness,

10 if you pour yourself out for the hungry

   and satisfy the desire of the afflicted,

then shall your light rise in the darkness

   and your gloom be as the noonday.

11 And the Lord will guide you continually

   and satisfy your desire in scorched places

   and make your bones strong;

and you shall be like a watered garden,

   like a spring of water,

   whose waters do not fail.

When we are compassionate we are blessed beyond our imaginations.
We are like watered gardens, the Creator God guides us continually; he makes us strong. When we cry out God answers us and he is our rear guard, we are satisfied in him. Our gloom is as the noonday- what a picture.

And yet this is us, every day: 
 


Walking past. And even if you’re convinced in your heart that you would never walk past and turn away from this pitiful starving man, how many times a month do you walk past and turn away from this:


 

How many opportunities to be compassionate to we pass up, daily? Our apathy is sickening.

I am done walking past and I am done turning away.
I am ready to be radically compassionate, to pour myself out for the hungry; to satisfy the desire of the afflicted.

Are you?
 

34 Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, 36 I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ 37 Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? 38 And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? 39 And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ 40 And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’ 41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ 44 Then they also will answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?’ 45 Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ 46 And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

{Matthew 25:34-46}