questions
So many thoughts swirling. Headlines dancing and screaming. Debates stirring. Sometimes they converge and a theme unfolds. Bursting the seams of our nice neat little world. Or is it so nice and neat...?Heavy issues hit so close. Issues with a face and a name. They stir up angst. Beg the questions deep in our souls. Maybe questions we thought we knew the answers to... But when our emotions and racing thoughts are not in line with what is true, maybe we're being gently invited to know that truth at a deeper level.When things threaten our health, our safety, to be painful, what is our gut response? The cry that wells up from deepest places, maybe places we did not know existed. Or worse...when these things threaten those we love. When the hands of our never-stopping love are tied.I ask these things from a comparatively easy place as I have not experienced personally the ache directly. But I have loved and do love those who have. I have looked into the eyes of terror before it was unleashed fully. I know people who have stood on the mountain rescuing those trapped by terror. I have read messages written directly to us, not knowing if it would be their last, of witnesses of terror killing children who would not deny that Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life...in front of their parents. I know people who have been faithfully loving and serving a disease swept land...some who have had to leave. Some who have gone back in. I know, more sweet lives than I have the capacity to recall right now, those who have died of terminal illness. Some still so fresh in my memory, the ache brings hot tears.
So these "issues," these "headlines," this "politics," are people I love. People I have loved.Coming with questions is my only desire here. I believe only One has the answers. And in these tender places, the places maybe most tender for you, would you be willing to ask these questions as well? And even more bravely, would you be willing to listen when the door is opened and you are invited in?Are my health, safety and being free from pain really the values that trump all else? Does Love cease when terror or disease or pain come?There is an artist whose music our weird and wonderful band family loves. We were first introduced to Matthew Perryman Jones' music while in the middle of recording our first studio album. We would literally drive back and forth to the studio overcome with beauty and longing, finding ourselves crying. Tumbling out of the car arriving at the studio overcome by something we could not explain. In his song "Waking Up the Dead" there is a line that says,"Kill your heart and never take a chanceLock it up inside a picket fence-The illusions of control"The illusions of control... Could it be that terror and disease and pain threaten us and our illusion of control in this life? Over this life? Over the lives of others? Over our very life itself? Over what the dignity of life is?That fear wells up where perfect Love has not yet been allowed to permeate? (1 John 4:18)That peace is not known because I have not let it be the mediator in my heart (Colossians 3:15)? This Peace is a Person (Ephesians 2:14) Who is the same yesterday, today and forever (Hebrews 13:8). So peace is not based on circumstances, but the person of Jesus Christ and it is always available...because He is always available.And here is where it gets even more tender...God the Father did not even spare His own Son from horror on earth (Romans 8:32). Yet Jesus was His beloved Son in Whom He was well pleased (Matthew 3:17). So I ask gently, is the beloved spared? Or more personally, are we always to be spared?Somehow, when Jesus looked at the cross coming before Him, He was able to look at it with joy (Hebrews 12:2). He did not seek out a cross, in fact He pled with the Father asking if there was another way...so He could be spared (Matthew 26:39). Yet He had joy? He had joy.Love. Peace. Joy. Brave victory over terror, disease and pain.When fear presses, would we be willing to let Love come closer? When angst grips, would we let go and let Peace reign? When sacrifice is the manifestation of love we are called upon to demonstrate, would we have joy?I cannot give you answers to satisfy your heart. Especially if it is worn weary. But together may we be willing to let loose the grip of our illusion of control. And I'll leave you with one more Matthew Perryman Jones song...[vimeo 40319898 w=500 h=281]