Filling in the blanks. That’s what this is. We are constantly filling in the blanks of what we think God is up to instead of asking him. It isn’t helpful. It’s taking the ball and running with it, leaving God behind. Ask the next question, remember?

For the past couple mornings when I’ve sat down at the table to have a quick bowl of oatmeal, I’ve opened my Bible to read a bit, and both times it just opened to Psalm 41. Here is what I read: “I said, ‘O Lord, have mercy on me; / heal me, for I have sinned against you’” (41:4).

Do you hear David’s approach to God? He doesn’t expect to get slammed. He doesn’t just promise to repent and do better. He knows he has turned from God, and he knows what he needs is healing. So this is what I prayed: I ask you to heal the things in me that have led to this self-obsession, this looking to my ability to get it done, get it right, stay on top of things. Forgive me. I want to be centered in your love in me. You in me. Heal me.

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Only yesterday our vet told us that our sweet golden retriever is very ill, and tonight we’re supposed to go out to dinner with some friends. I’m torn, because we’ve been scheduling, canceling, and rescheduling this dinner for six months, and part of me really wants to go. But part of me is dealing with the loss of the family dog. What I’m aware of in this moment is how often I need to put my soul aside in order to carry on with the demands of life. We all do. Life goes on, despite our personal struggles. You lose your father on a Wednesday; corporate America expects you back at the office Monday. It’s hard on the soul. It’s hard on our life with God.

But tonight I don’t need to put my soul aside. Our friends are understanding; we can reschedule. The question is, why is practicing kindness towards my own soul so unfamiliar that it would be easy to ignore something as precious as the death of our dog to “carry on with things?” This world requires us to keep going at such speeds that we end up having only one emotional state towards everything — a general, haggard, hazy condition of “on.” I’m on for this meeting; I’m on for this call with my mom; I’m on for the news the vet has. There’s no margin for anything else.

So we praise God for the glorious grace he has poured out on us who belong to his dear Son. He is so rich in kindness and grace that he purchased our freedom with the blood of his Son and forgave our sins. He has showered his kindness on us, along with all wisdom and understanding. (Ephesians 1:6–8 NLT)

God is rich is kindness, and he has showered kindness on us. This is so lovely and life-giving, we need to pause and reflect on it. Kindness. Such a simple virtue, it often takes a back seat to more dramatic qualities like bravery, holiness, or love (kindness sort of feels like the younger stepchild to love). And yet kindness is such a wonderful thing to receive.

Don’t you love it when people are kind to you?

I sure do. In a world growing increasingly angry and hostile, a little bit of kindness can make your day.

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In Acts 9, when Ananias came to pray over Saul, he proclaimed the Lord’s intentions there: “Then Ananias went to the house and entered it. Placing his hands on Saul, he said, ‘Brother Saul, the Lord — Jesus, who appeared to you on the road as you were coming here — has sent me so that you may see again and be filled with the Holy Spirit’” (v. 17).

Interesting — we don’t see Ananias pray to God for Saul; instead, we see him “proclaim” God’s intentions over Saul, and that is sufficient to see them fulfilled. The Scripture is mighty and powerful, and proclaiming it as we consecrate has mighty and powerful effects.

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But there is also something fearful. We face an enemy with vile intentions. Is anyone in charge? Someone strong and kind who notices us? At some point we have all answered that question “no” and gone on to live in a smaller story. But the answer is “yes”—there is someone strong and kind who notices us. Our Story is written by God who is more than author, he is the romantic lead in our personal dramas. He created us for himself and now he is moving heaven and earth to restore us to his side. His wooing seems wild because he seeks to free our heart from the attachments and addictions we’ve chosen, thanks to the Arrows we’ve known.

And we—who are we, really? We are not pond scum, nor are we the lead in the story. We are the Beloved; our hearts are the most important thing about us and our desire is wild because it is made for a wild God. We are the Beloved, and we are addicted. We’ve either given our heart to other lovers and can’t get out of the relationships, or we’ve tried our best to kill desire (often with the help of others) and live lives of safe, orderly control. Either way, we play into the hands of the one who hates us. Satan is the mortal enemy of God and therefore ours as well, who comes with offers of less-wild lovers, hoping to deceive us in order to destroy our heart and thus prevent our salvation or cripple our sanctification.

These are the stage, the characters, and the plot in the broadest possible terms. Where do we go from here?

We are faced with a decision that grows with urgency each passing day: Will we leave our small stories behind and venture forth to follow our Beloved into the Sacred Romance?

The choice to become a pilgrim of the heart can happen any day and we can begin our journey from any place. We are here, the time is now, and the Romance is always unfolding. The choice before us is not to make it happen. As Chesterton said, “An adventure is, by its nature, a thing that comes to us. It is a thing that chooses us, not a thing that we choose.” Lucy wasn’t looking for Narnia when she found it on the other side of the wardrobe; in a way, it found her. Abraham wasn’t wandering about looking for the one true God; he showed up with an extraordinary invitation. But having had their encounters, both could have chosen otherwise. Lucy could have shut the wardrobe door and never mentioned what had happened there. Abraham could have opted for life in Haran.

The choice before us is a choice to enter in.

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You have made known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand. (16:11)

As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God? (42:1–2)

O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you;
 My soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you,
 in a dry and weary land, where there is no water. (63:1)

Ask yourself, could this person be promoted to a position of leadership in my church? Heavens, no. He is far too unstable, to passionate, too desirous. It’s all about pleasure and desire and thirst. And David, who wrote most of the psalms, was called by God a “man after his own heart” (1 Sam. 13:14).

Christianity has nothing to say to the person who is completely happy with the way things are. Its message is for those who hunger and thirst — for those who desire life as it was meant to be. Why does Jesus appeal to desire? Because it is essential to his goal: bringing us life. He heals the fellow at the pool of Bethesda, by the way. The two blind men get their sight, and the woman at the well finds the love she has been seeking. Reflecting on these events, the apostle John looked at what Jesus offered and what he delivered and said: “He who has the Son has life” (1 John 5:12).

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Think of it: you are a shadow of the person you were meant to be. You have nothing close to the life you were meant to have. And you have no real chance of becoming that person or finding that life. However, you are forgiven. For the rest of your days, you will fail in your attempts to become what God wants you to be. You should seek forgiveness and try again. Eventually, shame and disappointment will cloud your understanding of yourself and your God. When this ongoing hell on earth is over, you will die, and you will be taken before your God for a full account of how you didn’t measure up. But you will be forgiven. After that, you’ll be asked to take your place in the choir of heaven. This is what we mean by “salvation.”

The good news is ... that is not Christianity. Oh, I know it is what most people now living think Christianity is all about, including the majority of Christians. Thank God, they are wrong. There is more. A lot more. And that more is what most of us have been longing for most of our lives.

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We can have joy, no matter what sorrow or suffering we are currently enduring, because we have been chosen by the Father and He will never turn His face away. We are loved. Forever. And nothing can ever separate us from that love. 

We can have joy because we are engraved on our Father’s heart and on Jesus’ nail-scarred hands, and in Christ we are victorious. The suffering doesn’t have the final say. In fact, God is going to use it for even more good to come into our lives. 

James 1:2–4 tells us to “consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.” 

God is growing us up. He is committed to making us the mature bride of Christ:

And not only this, but we also exult in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance; and perseverance, proven character; and proven character, hope; and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us. (Rom. 5:3–5 NASB)

The sorrow and grief that come are real, and we have a God who is well acquainted with them. He doesn’t ask us to ignore our grief but to invite Him into it that we might bear it together.

No matter what, we can know an internal defiant joy because death has been defeated. Life has won. There is suffering, yes. But always there is the potential for joy.

In the face of the ultimate reality won for us by Jesus, we don’t have to pretend that life is better than it is, that we don’t hurt as much as we do, or that we feel happy when we are not. We are invited to be fully alive, awake, alert, and oriented to the truth, and to know that because of Jesus, we can be defiantly joyful.

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Are you able to hold on to your faith when only some prayers are answered?

It takes genuine maturity.

Most people don’t even try to learn the ways of the kingdom; they just go about their days with a practical agnosticism, hoping things work out, tossing up prayers like they hope to score on a Jesus lottery ticket. They have little to show for it. Others discover the possibility of breakthrough for sons and daughters, allies of God; they begin to experience breathtaking results. Then their Eden-heart gets confused about what it means to be victorious.

We can always be victorious — it just depends on what you mean by victorious. Or better, it depends on what God means by victorious.

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One example should suffice. I was at a garage sale, looking for some tools. There was a table saw at a wonderful price. Another fellow was sort of browsing around, standing in front of the saw but not seeming particularly interested. I opened my mouth and made the fatal error: “Wow, that’s a great price on that saw.” You know what happened next. Immediately, his nonchalance became intense interest, and since he was there before me, he drove off with a table saw that five minutes earlier he couldn’t have given two hoots about.

The constant effort to arouse our desire and capture it can be described only as an assault. From the time we get up to the time we go to bed, we are inundated with one underlying message: it can be done. The life you are longing for can be achieved. Only buy this product, see this movie, drive this car, take this vacation, join this gym, what have you. The only disagreement is over the means, but everyone agrees on the end: we can find life now.

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Every time we choose to love, we take a step closer to God; it’s like he’s right there. Every time we choose something else, we take a step away.

I want God, so I choose love.

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Don't be fooled by the apparent innocence of the object you've chosen as an idol; what is the function of it? Most of our idols also have a perfectly legitimate place in our lives. That's their cover, that's how we get away with our infidelity. The prophet Isaiah gives an example of this when he marvels at a man who cuts down a tree in the forest, and then puts it to two very different uses:

Half of the wood he burns in the fire;
 Over it he prepares his meal,
 He roasts his meat and eats his fill.

Nothing wrong here. That's the perfectly appropriate use of wood. But it doesn't end there (it rarely does):

From the rest he makes a god, his idol;
He bows down to it and worships
 He prays to it and says,
 "Save me; you are my god."

The prophet is incredulous. "Doesn't he see what he's doing?," he wonders:

No one stops to think,
 No one has the knowledge or understanding to say,
 "Half of it I used for fuel;
 I even baked bread over its coals,
 I roasted meat and ate.
 Shall I make a detestable thing from what is left?
 Shall I bow down to a block of wood?
 He feeds on ashes, a deluded heart misleads him;
 He cannot save himself or say,
 "Is not this thing in my right hand a lie?" (44:16-17,19-20)

So there you have it: No one stops to think. No one wants to take a good, hard look at what they are really doing, for then we might see the lie. We would see the water hole for the muddy puddle it is. Our idols become the means by which we forget who we truly are and where we truly come from. They numb us.

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Because for most readers today the phrases "the Lord of hosts" and "God of hosts" have little meaning, this version renders them "the Lord Almighty" and "God Almighty." These renderings convey the sense of the Hebrew, namely, "he who is sovereign over all the 'hosts' (powers) in heaven and on earth, especially over the 'hosts' (armies) of Israel."

No, they don't. They don't even come close. The Hebrew means "the God of angel armies," "the God of the armies who fight for his people." The God who is at war. Does "Lord Almighty" convey "the God who is at war"? Not to me, it doesn't. Not to anyone I've asked. It sounds like "the God who is up there but still in charge." Powerful, in control. The God of angel armies sounds like the one who would roll up his sleeves, take up sword and shield to break down gates of bronze, and cut through bars of iron to rescue me.

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I really like that prayer. It has a genuine humility to it. We find ourselves facing something that overwhelms our personal resources, and we cry out for help, for strength. The man who casually answers his phone on a Tuesday afternoon only to hear that his family has been killed in an automobile accident. The woman who, at a routine exam, learns she has Stage IV breast cancer. The caregiver who day after day labors under the crushing load of providing for every need of their incapacitated loved one.

Give me strength, Lord.

Jesus liked that prayer.

He instructed us to pray it, and he prayed it himself. (Hebrews 5:7) Toward the end of his days on earth, he began to give his disciples clear instructions for living through extremely hard times, knowing they would record those instructions for future generations — including you, dear ones. He assured us in no uncertain terms that this story would sweep toward a climax, and that those days would be especially hard on the human soul. He urged us to ask for the strength that prevails:

Notice the fig tree, or any other tree. When the leaves come out, you know without being told that summer is near. In the same way, when you see all these things taking place, you can know that the Kingdom of God is near. I tell you the truth, this generation will not pass from the scene until all these things have taken place. Heaven and earth will disappear, but my words will never disappear. Watch out! Don’t let your hearts be dulled by carousing and drunkenness, and by the worries of this life. Don’t let that day catch you unaware, like a trap. For that day will come upon everyone living on the earth. Keep alert at all times. And pray that you might be strong enough to escape these coming horrors and stand before the Son of Man. (Luke 21:29–36 NLT)

Strong enough to escape — that’s who and what we want to be. Strong enough to be the survivors, the triumphant ones. To make it through the storm.

This is no ordinary strength Jesus is offering. This isn’t optimism, this isn’t simply feeling refreshed for a new day. Hard times require something more than willpower. Jesus warns us, urges us, practically commands us to ask for strength. The Greek word used here is katischuó and it means

to be strong to another’s detriment; to prevail against;
to be superior in strength;
to overcome;
to prevail.

This is a valiant strength. It implies a fight, an enemy we can and will prevail over.

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The author was making a claim that our enemy has a secret hold in each one of us, an access point from within. That got my attention; we’d been dealing with a great deal of spiritual attack, and I was eager for new tools that would gain us a more lasting victory. The author went on to say that this trap door, this inside access the devil has in every person is the Self. Part of me knew it was true, so I read on.

Satan’s fall was brought about because he chose to exalt himself over God:

How you are fallen from heaven,
O shining star, son of the morning!
You have been thrown down to the earth,
you who destroyed the nations of the world.
For you said to yourself,
“I will ascend to heaven and set my throne above God’s stars. ...
I will climb to the highest heavens
and be like the Most High.” (Isaiah 14:12–14 NLT)

Later, he found in mankind something of the same weakness, stubbornness, and self-centeredness, that he successfully leveraged to have us follow his lead: we chose to disobey God and reach for what we want, and so we exalted ourselves over our Creator Father. We replaced God with Self on the throne of our life. The author of the little book I was sent went on to explain that the devil doesn’t particularly care what your personal sins are, how he gets you to stumble; what he delights in is this internal access he has, the precious Self. For while we entertain the Self, pamper it, let it have its way, we crowd out the life of God.

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No comment of mine could add to the beauty of this moment. Nor to this one:
Two others, both criminals, were taken along with him for execution. [...] One of the criminals hanging alongside cursed him: “Some Messiah you are! Save yourself! Save us!” But the other one made him shut up: “Have you no fear of God? You’re getting the same as him. We deserve this, but not him — he did nothing to deserve this.” Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you enter your kingdom.” He said, “Don’t worry, I will. Today you will join me in paradise.” (Luke 23:32–43 TM)

What is stunning to see in these brief accounts is that people who knew themselves to be anything but holy found the holiness of Jesus winsome, open-armed, and utterly compelling.

Is this how you have understood holiness?

It changes everything when you do.

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The human heart and soul were designed for Eden. We live far from it, far off in a war-torn world that assaults the soul from the moment we take our first breath. (Even beforehand; in the womb a child can experience rejection, fear, even abandonment as their mother feels and projects those things into the pregnancy.) Sometimes the harm we experience in this world fragments the heart. Parts of us break off and remain stuck at that particular age until Jesus comes to heal them.

We can call these areas of brokenness “young places” precisely because of the childish ways we respond when those areas are retraumatized. For example, someone gets mad at you, perhaps even yells at you. Part of you wants to run and hide in the closet— not the mature response of a forty-seven-year-old woman but that of a six-year-old girl. Or, the compulsion you have for ice cream whenever you are feeling anxious—not the mature reaction of a thirty-two-year-old man but rather the cry of a little boy who only ever felt loved when he was given ice cream. Most of us have had the experience, usually triggered by an upsetting event, where our internal world suddenly feels much younger than our current age. This is indication of the fragmentation caused by trauma, and let me add that when we are young it doesn’t take massive trauma to fragment our heart.

Becoming aware of young places within you is a widely accepted practice in the therapeutic community. But our Creator foretold this centuries ago when the coming of his Messiah was announced in Isaiah 61:

The Hebrew for “brokenhearted” as used here is not a metaphor. It is blunt and vividly descriptive. Leb is Hebrew for “heart,” and shabar the word for “broken.” It is referring to a reality, not a poetic image. Elsewhere Isaiah uses shabar to describe a statue that has fallen to the ground and shattered into pieces. Actual fragmentation, not metaphor.

Jesus chooses Isaiah 61 to announce his purpose in coming when he steps into the synagogue for his first public moment in Luke 4, placing the healing of our fragmentation at the epicenter of his mission to the human race. This is good news beyond our wildest hopes.

Remember now—Jesus is your Creator. He planned on you, fashioned you in your mother’s womb, knows everything about you and everything about your story.

Jesus is also able to access hidden things within us, for he knows the depths and mysteries of our being. With his help, and the help of the Holy Spirit, we can locate our fragmented parts and give Jesus access to them for their restoration.

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I arise today
 Through a mighty strength, the invocation of the Trinity.
 Through belief in the threeness,
 Through confession of the oneness,
 Of the Creator of Creation.

I arise today
 Through the strength of Christ's birth with His baptism,
 Through the strength of His crucifixion with His burial,
 Through the strength of His resurrection with His ascension,
 Through the strength of His descent for the judgment of doom.

I arise today
 Through the strength of the love of cherubim,
 In the obedience of angels,
 In the service of archangels,
 In the hope of resurrection to meet with reward,
 In the prayers of patriarchs,
 In the predictions of prophets,
 In the preaching of apostles,
 In the faith of confessors,
 In the innocence of holy virgins,
 In the deeds of righteous men.

I arise today, through
 The strength of heaven,
 The light of the sun,
 The radiance of the moon,
 The splendor of fire,
 The speed of lightning,
 The swiftness of wind,
 The depth of the sea,
 The stability of the earth,
 The firmness of rock.

I arise today, through
 God's strength to pilot me,
 God's might to uphold me,
 God's wisdom to guide me,
 God's eye to look before me,
 God's ear to hear me,
 God's word to speak for me,
 God's hand to guard me,
 God's shield to protect me,
 God's host to save me
 From snares of devils,
 From temptation of vices,
 From everyone who shall wish me ill,
 afar and near.

I summon today
 All these powers between me and those evils,
 Against every cruel and merciless power
 that may oppose my body and soul,
 Against incantations of false prophets,
 Against black laws of pagandom,
 Against false laws of heretics,
 Against craft of idolatry,
 Against spells of witches and smiths and wizards,
 Against every knowledge that corrupts man's body and soul;
 Christ to shield me today
 Against poison, against burning,
 Against drowning, against wounding,
 So that there may come to me an abundance of reward.

Christ with me,
 Christ before me,
 Christ behind me,
 Christ in me,
 Christ beneath me,
 Christ above me,
 Christ on my right,
 Christ on my left,
 Christ when I lie down,
 Christ when I sit down,
 Christ when I arise,
 Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me,
 Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me,
 Christ in every eye that sees me,
 Christ in every ear that hears me.

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The Gospel is good news because the healing of our fragmented souls is available in Christ anywhere, anytime, to anyone in the world. “Through him all things were made and without him nothing was made that has been made.”

Including you. Jesus Christ was intimately involved in your creation. He knows everything about you. That is why he can be so essential in our healing. He is the Integrating Center of all things, including your very being. As the fourth-century mystic Athanasius wrote in his beautiful essay On the Incarnation,

The Word of God came in His own Person, because it was he alone, the Image of the Father, Who could recreate man after the Image.

Salvation is re-creation. Such hope is contained in this simple idea. As the twentieth-century mystic Leanne Payne repeated over and over again, “The soul is healed through union with Christ.”

The mystic says, This is the answer to everything! O Jesus—re-create all things in me.

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The refuge is always available; the refuge is something to be seized.

I’ve made intentional references to trauma throughout the preceding chapters because I do believe that humanity’s deepest need is to find how union with God can address even our trauma.

I would say the same of your humanity—your humanity is a fragile thing also, and when that coral reef is bombarded with chemicals, or when that fawn must constantly run from forest fires, the effects are traumatizing. As a metaphor, this is our daily experience on the planet. If we are truly to find the full refuge of God and his Kingdom, we must find healing for the vulnerable and traumatized places within us.

Now don’t get anxious; Jesus has you. The Gospel is truly gospel, for the soul is healed through union with Christ, and that is available to every person, anytime, anywhere.

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God’s love is so passionate, so pure, so explosive, it is not merely like a consuming fire—it is a consuming fire. It consumes everything unholy. A mystic I know told me that sometimes when she visits the heart of God in prayerful communion she sees fire all around!

And we should remember that many times in the Old Testament, when God promises to rescue his people, it is said he will come down as fire:

Fire goes before our Jesus and consumes his enemies on every side. In a violent war like this, where foul hatred is coming against you every day of your life, you need to call upon his fire! When it comes to foul spirits, demonic hatred, and things like every cruel, merciless power that may oppose my body and soul, incantations of false prophets, black laws of pagandom, false laws of heretics, craft of idolatry, and spells of witches and smiths and wizards, by all means call down holy fire-love against it! Call down the consuming fire! Consume it!

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Now here is the problem—as soon as I say the word “love,” many different things come to your heart and mind.

We all have a story of love, how we learned love in the world. Most of those lessons confused our hearts and souls about the nature of love. We need to allow Jesus to heal our story of love as we take refuge in his love. So when I say we need to protect love, I am only talking about love as we see modeled in Jesus Christ. He has the ability to move toward people, move against people, and move away from people as true love guides him.

“And this I pray, that your love may overflow still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment” (Philippians 1:9 NASB). By all means, we need to be discerning in love. Sometimes that means distancing yourself from toxic people, setting healthy boundaries. But never out of cynicism, never in offense, and never in hatred. If love seems to be growing cold in your life, that should get your attention. Rush to protect it. I often pray,

Protecting love in your heart includes your love for God. Satan hates your love for Jesus and your Father; he will try to poison it. His favorite tools are suffering, chronic disappointment, or something that feels like God has betrayed or abandoned you. You must not let the enemy do this. So I have had to add this to my prayers as well:

I cleanse my love of God with the Blood of Jesus and the River of Life.

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You are safe and secure in the refuge of God. That is the major theme.

The minor theme is the war raging outside, which we do need to take seriously. The enemy is arrogant, and he loves to intimidate us by making the war seem like the major theme. It is not. So let’s return to love.

This is breathtakingly beautiful. God our refuge is unassailable love; as we intentionally choose to live in love, we secure ourselves within God and his refuge.

So I often find myself praying,

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But of course.

You’re standing in the kitchen of your home one evening, doing dishes. Your toddler is playing on the floor nearby, when out of the corner of your eye you spot a scuttling movement on the tiles. You quickly turn to see a scorpion crawling toward your child, claws out in crablike fashion, poisonous tail raised to strike. How would you handle the moment?

You would stomp on it.

You would crush it without a moment’s hesitation.

This is the promise, the assurance and the directive of our Lord Jesus on how we are to deal with foul spirits. It sounds a whole lot like Patrick’s Breastplate!

We probably ought to admit that this is very different from the usual attitude taken by most followers of Jesus toward demonic assault (and “every cruel merciless power”). Most folks want to ignore spiritual warfare. The simple proof: How often do you pray directly against foul spirits? If it’s rarely, you’re ignoring it.

But we are looking for the refuge of God, and he makes it clear that crushing the serpent is essential to finding shelter and staying in it. If a scorpion was scuttling across the floor to your toddler, you would not think twice; there would be no hesitation. You would stomp on it, making your home a safe place again.

This is probably a good point in our journey to talk about authority and commanding “in the name of Jesus.” Christ has made it very clear that he has given his authority to us, and it is we who will “trample on snakes and scorpions and ... overcome all the power of the enemy” (Luke 10:19).

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It’s interesting to know that El Shaddai can be translated God of the wilderness:

 
“You are with me in the wilderness, God of the wilderness; you are my stronghold, God of the mountain crags.”

Now picture the evil one circling Jesus’ camp like a leopard or panther, just outside the firelight, watching intently, listening to the man he does not yet fully understand as the incarnate God declaring Psalm 91 aloud. I believe this is why Satan throws it back in his face:

Folks, the very next verse foretells his downfall:

Clearly, clearly the reader is meant to understand the lions and cobras of Psalm 91 to refer to foul spirits. Satan knew that he was the very serpent Psalm 91 promises victory over, for he was the serpent in the garden that Almighty God promises would be crushed by a coming messiah!

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God has intervened for us with such thorough and everlasting victory in the work of Jesus Christ—his Cross, Resurrection, and Ascension.

I don’t think most postmoderns understand this, or they feel far from it, but the mystic heart runs to take refuge here, in the fact that we have already been included in the Cross, Resurrection, and Ascension.

What greater fortress could we ask for than this? What greater deliverance? A new life, a new identity, situated with Christ right now in the heavens, in his authority? Father, thank you! Thank you, God! We take refuge in it! Show us how to actively participate in it!

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“This I declare.” God is making a proclamation, and a very important one.

Declarations are both reminders to the soul and acts of defiance against the enemy’s constant lies. Of this verse Spurgeon wrote, “To take up a general truth and make it our own by personal faith is the highest wisdom ... to say he is my refuge, is the essence of consolation.”

What I’m strongly suggesting is this: Before you head out the door into your day, after your morning prayers, take a few more moments to declare out loud,

And so on.

This counters the narrative assaults of The World, the cunning lies of our enemy, and it is also how we get out of the madness of allowing our feelings to dictate what is true and false for us. The saints and mystics through the ages held this to be an essential part of our fight for refuge.

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Against our loving God, who gave his own life for us, Satan always says something to the effect of “No, he’s not.”

Against your own heart Satan always undermines your identity, just as he tried to do with Jesus during his wilderness trial. “No, you’re not” is his essential message.

On and on it goes. You know very well the personal version of this, the voices you wake to in the night or first thing in the morning.

Dear sons and daughters of the Living God, you cannot talk yourself out of this poison. You must shut this assault down just as Christ showed you when he countered Satan’s lie upon lie with truth upon truth.

Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone.’”

The devil led him up to a high place and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. ... “If you worship me, it will all be yours.”

Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.’”

The devil led him to Jerusalem and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down from here. For it is written:

“‘He will command his angels concerning you 
to guard you carefully;
they will lift you up in their hands,
so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’”

Jesus answered, “It is said: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’” (Luke 4:3–5, 7–12)

And with that, Satan left.

You don’t reason with demons; you silence them with the truth.

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“Consecration” is choosing to dedicate something to Jesus to be his and his alone. The Hebrew word is qadash, directly related to the word qodesh, which means “holy.” Biblically speaking, the first act of consecration takes place on the seventh day of creation in Genesis 2:3, when God blesses and sanctifies the Sabbath day. From that point on, consecration becomes the precondition for God’s filling something. You can consecrate your body (and please, your sexuality), your money, your time, your dreams and aspirations. The refuge life is a consecrated life, which is to say we choose to bring our lives and all that is under our care into God’s Kingdom and under the rule of Jesus.

Now, of course, consecration is both an act and a lifestyle. We choose to dedicate our bodies to God, and then we live that decision out as we operate in holiness in our sexuality, our appetites, and how we treat our bodies (we are not allowed to abuse them). The same holds true for anything “in our kingdom,” anything under our direct supervision.

So, for example, my morning prayers begin this way:

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Then, a recitation of the many ways that El Shaddai will protect us. Rescue from every trap and protection from deadly disease, the terrors of night, the arrow that flies by day. Oh to experience it! How humanity needs this in such a wicked hour.

Nine verses in, there comes a critical turning point:

That “if” is revelatory.

The refuge of God and his Kingdom is only for those who choose to take part in it. This fact is so irritating to human nature. We just want to get on with our life and have God cover us. That’s not quite how things work.

Hmmm ... Jesus is laying out conditions for a flourishing life. Were you aware there were conditions?

He goes on,

There is that irritating “if” again. If we remain in him, the refuge and resources of God are ours.

Here is the simple fact: You can choose to leave the protection of God. People do it all the time. You can choose to live within God and his Kingdom refuge, or you can choose to live outside of it.

“Remain in me,” Jesus urges. You can almost hear the plea in his voice: Stay in Me; don’t operate in anything outside of me. But we are stubborn creatures, we humans.

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And it happens; it takes place in the hidden realm.

As you learn to be an ordinary mystic, ask the Holy Spirit for his help:

As you grow in this practice, it will become the doorway into the intimacy, communion, and refuge your soul longs for. I want you to turn to Christ with your heart, right now. Turn away from all that holds your attention and turn toward Jesus with your heart.

You can turn to Jesus by your side or you can turn to Jesus who dwells within you. He’s always right there. Give your heart’s attention to him. Give your heart’s affection to him.

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She turned toward him. It is one of the best lines in all of Scripture. In her trauma and grief, she turns to face Jesus.

I adore this story for so many reasons. Jesus chose Mary Magdalene—a single woman he invited into his inner circle, something no rabbi at that time would have even considered. He chose this very special friend of his to appear to on Easter morning before anyone else. Even before Peter and John. This is so beautiful I cry every time I read it.

It is a very mystical story, by the way. Mary speaks to angels; she sees the resurrected Christ and speaks with him as well. It is all reported as quite normal. So we will have to include Mary Magdalene among the first of the famous Christian mystics. She is experiencing the Kingdom and its King.

Jesus simply says her name, “Mary!” And she turns.

That is all we need to do as well. This is the basic practice of learning to take refuge in God, this turning of the heart. The practice is closer, simpler, and more accessible to you than you might think.

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Harriet Tubman had to hide from her enemies as she guided slaves to freedom along the Underground Railroad during the American Civil War. Her stories sound a lot like David’s; she, too, was a mystic because she heard the voice of God, trusted it completely, and followed him through many dangers: “’Twasn’t me, ’twas the Lord! I always told Him, ‘I trust you. I don’t know where to go or what to do, but I expect you to lead me,’ an’ He always did.”

In times of desolation, David turned to God with all his heart and found him to be his true refuge before anything in his circumstances changed:

The mystic can access God anywhere; this is very good news. This was the secret of the beautiful life of Brother Lawrence, known for his book The Practice of the Presence of God:

The maturing mystic is not satisfied with anything short of union with Christ. This is what our humanity was made for and this is what Christ invites us into: “I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one—I in them and you in me” (John 17:22). “Then they’ll be mature in this oneness” (John 17:23 The Message).

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The word for “shelter” in the opening verse (“Those who live in the shelter of the Most High”) can be translated as a “hidden place” or “secret place”—the very experience children are searching for when building forts: “This is my secret, special place.” A great deal has been written about the secret place of God by mystics through the ages, some of it exquisite and some of it so vague as to be unhelpful. If we are invited to take refuge in the secret place, it can’t be so mysterious as to be beyond finding.

What is the inmost place of God? What is the absolute center?

His heart. Just as your heart is the very center of your being, so our Father’s heart is the center of his.

As the twentieth-century mystic A. W. Tozer reminds us, “God is a Person, and in the deep of His mighty nature He thinks, wills, enjoys, feels, loves, desires and suffers as any other person may.” (The Pursuit of God)

The secret place of God is his heart, and we are invited to take refuge there! What privilege, what intimacy, what joy!

Trailing clouds of glory you came from the heart of God, and you can return to his heart. This is the truest and greatest homecoming of all. The presence of God—Father, Son, Holy Spirit—and the vast resources of his Kingdom are always nearby. But we do need to make conscious choices to take our refuge in God and his Kingdom. Otherwise we are taking refuge somewhere else.

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But God is a God of process. If you want an oak tree, he has you start with an acorn. If you want a Bible, well, he delivers that over the course of more than a thousand years. If you want a man, you must begin with the boy. God ordained the stages of masculine development. They are woven into the fabric of our being, just as the laws of nature are woven into the fabric of the earth. In fact, those who lived closer to the earth respected and embraced the stages for centuries upon centuries. We might think of them as the ancient paths. Only recently have we lost touch with them. In exchange for triple-venti nonfat sugar-free vanilla lattes. The result of having abandoned masculine initiation is a world of unfinished, uninitiated men.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. We needn’t wander in a fog. We don’t have to live alone, striving, sulking, uncertain, angry. We don’t have to figure life out for ourselves.

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When we think about God as our strong tower, I think we assume something fixed and immovable, like a castle or those round towers in the British Isles. But war is savage and traumatizing, and this passage takes place in the midst of war. Demonic assault, I believe, is even more terrible; it is dark and overpowering in sinister ways. Rescue and deliverance are very different experiences than the static safety of a great fortress.

Perhaps our understanding of God as refuge needs to mature to accommodate something very active and dynamic. What I want you to grasp for this moment is that the refuge of God is not a static thing. Not one and done. You live in a story, friends, not a painting. It is played out in the harsh realities of a dangerous world. And all of the Kingdom of God is involved in our rescue.

Maybe, if we learn to find refuge in the midst of this wild and dangerous world, we can discover for ourselves what the mystics have known to be utterly and reliably true.

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When seeking clarity we will almost always ask for the Spirit of wisdom and revelation. Both are needed. Sometimes, wisdom holds the answer. Other times, we need a revelation from God (as did Ananias, when the situation seemed to shout, “Don’t go near Saul!”).

The key to receiving answers to prayers for guidance is to let go our constant attempt to “figure things out.”  Really, it is almost incessant; I will be in the midst of seeking the God of four hundred billion billion suns on some issue of guidance, and in the midst of asking him I am thinking through the options, trying to figure it out as I pray. I’ve been in hundreds of meetings where Christians gathered to seek God’s counsel on some matter, but they spent the entire time trying to “figure it out.” I must be forthright here: God has some rather strong feelings about those who choose to walk in the light of their own counsel: “Let him who walks in the dark, who has no light, trust in the name of the lord and rely on his God. But now, all you who light fires and provide yourselves with flaming torches, go, walk in the light of your fires and of the torches you have set ablaze. This is what you shall receive from my hand: You will lie down in torment” (Isa. 50:10–11).

Lord, help us; Father, forgive us. Forgive us for trying to figure it out even while we are in the motions of seeking your help. We surrender figuring it out; we would rather have your light and your counsel.

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I will tip my hand—the refuge described here is not merely a state of mind, an assurance for the heart. It is an ontological experience—palpable, enjoyable, an encounter with God. Our being can actually take refuge within the being of God. We can experience being surrounded with the presence of God and his mighty Kingdom in the same way we can jump into the ocean. Situated there, we can go on to experience many other realities of our God and his heavens.

Psalm 91 may have been written by Moses; some Jewish traditions believe so. The previous psalm (90) is attributed directly to Moses. Think of the conditions that Moses, his family, and his community were living under when they experienced in the fullest sense God as their refuge. They were slaves—the children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren of slaves—wandering in a barren wilderness something like the surface of the moon for forty years. Forty years. They were hunted, constantly vigilant against nomadic raiders, having no clear vision yet of the Promised Land.

I would suggest it was somewhat traumatizing (living in constant uncertainty is traumatizing).

And yet Moses, a mystic who spoke with God face-to-face, “as a man speaks to his friend” could say of God, “you have always been our home” (Psalm 90:1 GNT).

God is the home of every human soul. We are from him in every sense of the word. He thought of us before he created the world; he knit us together in our mother’s womb; he breathed the Breath of Life into each one of us. All the days of our life were written in his book for us before one came to be. The mystery of this is exquisite, moving the poet William Blake to say,

This is key to embracing the reality ourselves, for if we come from God, then returning to him would be natural; we would be welcome there. We might even remember the way, in our heart of hearts. Can we forget the prodigal son, who though lost and dissolute could still turn for home? He knew in his heart it was still there.

The Most High, our Father, is the ultimate dwelling place. Here we discover true comfort, security, and rest. But even more, he is the source of all healing of human trauma. He truly restores the soul as we take refuge in him.

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When you live in a system of rules and regulations, it’s easy to think you are righteous because you are keeping all the rules. It’s pretty tempting to feel better about yourself by comparing your ability to get your act together with somebody else who’s not doing so well. “I’m on time to work every day. Jones over there is a royal slacker; he’s always late.” What you don’t know is that Jones has an autistic daughter he has to take across town to child care, and you, my arrogant little poser, live five minutes from work. When it comes to true holiness, Jesus had been saying, “It’s the condition of your heart.” Now he spoke to the issue of looking at someone else’s life. Notice that he didn’t say, “Never acknowledge there is a speck in your brother’s eye.” He said, “Deal with your own life first, and then you will be in a position to help others deal with theirs.”

Most Christians know the passage, but they think it means, “Don’t ever let yourself get in the mind-set where you think you’re right and someone else is wrong.” But, how will we know when we are right? And how will we help someone who is wrong?

Jesus also said, “Stop judging by mere appearances, and make a right judgment” (John 7:24). Wait a second. Now Jesus is telling his followers to judge, and carefully. The context of this passage is Jesus’ healing of a blind man on the Sabbath and the Jewish leaders being so upset about it that they wanted to kill him. Talk about missing the point. They had come to worship the law, not the God of the law. As with the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus shows them that they missed the spirit of the law entirely. “You circumcise a child on the Sabbath. Now if a child can be circumcised on the Sabbath so that the law of Moses may not be broken, why are you angry with me for healing the whole man on the Sabbath? Stop judging by mere appearances, and make a right judgment” (7:22–24).

Jesus says, “You guys just don’t get it. I established the Sabbath for your restoration. A day of rest so that you may be restored. Now you’re angry with me for restoring a man on the Sabbath?! I want you to start making the right distinctions and not the wrong ones.” He does not say, “Don’t make any distinctions.” He says, “Start making a right judgment.”

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Cloud forests cannot abide desert conditions. Coral reefs cannot tolerate freezing temperatures. The examples are nearly infinite—each beautiful creation has its perfect habitat.

We do too.

Human beings are meant to live within the safety of God, drawing our nourishment from our union with him. Not only believing in God but living within him.

We are also made to flourish in the fullness of God’s Kingdom, part of which is this world we see—coffee with friends, bike rides, a good book. Part we cannot see but is equally necessary—the refuge of the Almighty and the vast wonders of God’s Kingdom.

Not only is the world we live in constantly pulling you out of the habitat for which you are made, it is conditioning your soul against finding your way home.

The life of the ordinary mystic will help you get back.

That’s what we are after.

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After years of ignoring this reality and paying for my ignorance (which is often in us a chosen naïveté), followed by decades taking up sword and shield and fighting the good fight for myself, I have come to adore something Jesus says shortly before Gethsemane and the cross. He urges us not to let our hearts be afraid. Then he says to his close companions, “I will not speak with you much longer, for the prince of this world is coming. He has no hold on me, but the world must learn that I love the Father and that I do exactly what my Father has commanded me.” (John 14:30–31)

He has no hold on me?!! Do you have any idea what a relief this would be? Just imagine for a moment if you were fortressed to all the ploys, accusations, temptations, snares, assaults, and deceptions of the enemy. What would it be like if they had no effect on you? Your life would be a joy to live.

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You probably built forts as a child. A refrigerator box was an absolute gold mine of a discovery, for with a few windows cut out and some duct tape on the doors it was an instant fortress.

The building of forts is a universal childhood practice that researchers have become intrigued by. Carol Stock Kranowitz, author of The Out-of-Sync-Child, explains, “Forts help children reset their stressed bodies and brains. The darkness inside a fort eliminates the stimulus they do not need and intensifies what they do need ... physical comfort and solitude ... safety and control. We seek out comfort. We need to restore order.”

Simply put, it’s a way of making their world smaller for a while.

And children are mystics by nature. They don’t need to understand global weather patterns to find the evening snowfall utterly enchanting. They don’t need to know the brain science behind their parents’ love for them; they simply feel safe being loved. And yes— those forts aren’t actually fortresses; they collapse rather easily. But the little mystic within experiences a level of comfort and assurance that I think most adults are famished for.

Everyone needs a place to feel safe.

Everyone needs somewhere to go to tuck in, where the world can feel small again or at least shut out for the time being.    
                                   
It might be good to pause and reflect: What is your current safe place in the world? Where do you go for refuge—not only physically but emotionally, psychologically, spiritually?   
             
We can be situated securely in Jesus Christ and in God our Father, not merely as a symbol or metaphor but in actuality. As the French mystic Jeanne Guyon assures us,    
                    

                                       
Easier than breathing—wouldn’t that be lovely? This experience of God’s presence and refuge is entirely available to you. Friends, we live in times just as dangerous as those of our ancient forebears. Let us not be lulled into a false security by the material comforts around us. We must, we must learn the practice of Jesus as our refuge. And here is where it will prove helpful to allow yourself to become a mystic. If you can suspend your disappointment, skepticism, and fear for even a moment and allow your heart to turn toward Jesus, run toward him, you can experience refuge in him.
                        

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Then comes Adam, the triumph of God's handiwork. It is not to any member of the animal kingdom that God says, "You are my very image, the icon of my likeness." Adam bears the likeness of God in his fierce, wild, and passionate heart. And yet, there is one more finishing touch. There is Eve. Creation comes to its high point, its climax with her. She is God's finishing touch. And all Adam can say is, "Wow." Eve embodies the beauty and the mystery and the tender vulnerability of God. As the poet William Blake said, "The naked woman's body is a portion of eternity too great for the eye of man."

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But we lost that home, and we have been seeking refuge ever since.

There are many riches, wonders, and adventures to be had as an ordinary mystic, a friend of Jesus, living in partnership with him in this hour. But I think we need to begin by getting into a safe place. We are meant to live within the refuge of God.

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And this feeling is not your true heart.

Friends, this is so helpful to understand: that weariness you’re feeling, that Not now; maybe later, that sense of being overwhelmed, that Why bother? Who cares? — this is the enemy, not you. When you know that, you’re much better prepared against it. You can more clearly choose to resist. I reject this feeling of Why bother? Who cares? and I reject this feeling that I don’t even want to fight. I do! I choose the strength that prevails! I don’t want to be one of those folks who get taken out at the end.

Some people seem born with a greater measure of resilience. John Muir certainly was. He would leave camp before dawn with nothing more than a hunk of bread in his pocket and hike for thirty miles. The Comfort Culture doesn’t exactly foster that kind of physical and mental toughness!

But resilience is also something that is bestowed, something imparted by God into our frail humanity. That’s truly good news.

“My strength is gone,” [Daniel said,] “and I can hardly breathe.” Again the one who looked like a man touched me and gave me strength. “Do not be afraid, you who are highly esteemed,” he said. “Peace! Be strong now; be strong.” When he spoke to me, I was strengthened. (Daniel 10:17–19)

The first fruit of katischuó (the strength that prevails) is the ability to not give up. It imbues us with that Churchillian grit: Never surrender; never give up! The strength that prevails — this mighty, combative warrior-strength — first comes to us simply as the strength not to quit. Because when you’re tired, when you’re beat up, you just want relief — a bag of chips, a bottle of wine, to lie on the couch and binge on Netflix. Jesus urges us to be on our guard, “so that your hearts will not be weighed down. … praying that you will have strength to escape all these things” (Luke 21:34, 36 NASB).

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It is full of sudden gestures evidently significant except that we hardly know what they signify; of enigmatic silences; of ironical replies. The outbreaks of wrath, like storms above our atmosphere, do not seem to break out exactly where we should expect them, but to follow some higher weather-chart of their own.

Oh, but they do make sense, when you understand that this is a man on a mission. That the same man who could be so playful is also a man on fire. If you would know Jesus, you must know that this — his fierce intentionality — is essential to his personality.

Nature bears witness. Picture an African lion, stalking through tall grass, closing in on its prey — the ruthless focus, the vigilant keenness. Or the gaze of a silverback gorilla when he turns to confront an intruder crossing the hidden boundary of his band. How about a mother brown bear when her cubs are threatened? Six hundred pounds of unrelenting fury. Now imagine you are watching one of these scenes not on the nature channel but from thirty feet away. Oh, yes, we find a very fierce intentionality in nature — reflecting the personality of the Artist.

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It was inevitable that years of Internet life would shape our souls whether we wanted it to or not. As a friend said, “It’s not that we’ve done something wrong; something wrong has been done to us.”

Discipleship to the Internet has shaped your soul to expect immediate answers to your questions; given you a deep suspicion to all forms of mystery; fueled your addiction that the “practical” is the real stuff of life; while eroding your confidence that you can know anything for certain because yesterday’s facts are savagely overturned. We are all worn out from this way of operating in the world because there is no life in it.

There is no life in it.

No wonder people have a hard time experiencing Jesus.

If you tell a child, “We’re going to the beach tomorrow!” their immediate response is not, “Yeah ... maybe. We’ll see. Did you even check the weather?” That’s the adult response. “Maybe we shouldn’t—did you see online that there is a sewage issue on the coast this year?” A child simply receives the promise of adventure, and they will have the joy of both a day full of anticipation of going to the beach as well as going to the beach itself! Double the joy! Because children don’t operate from a posture of weary skepticism, cynicism, and “I’ll believe it when you show me the science.”

Maybe remembering this will help us grasp what Jesus was trying to address when he said, “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 18:3).

Never enter are pretty strong words. Never?

Jesus often acts like a firefighter rescuing victims trapped in a burning building. He says extremely serious things because the situation is extremely serious.

Here he is trying to rescue us from the barrier to experiencing God and his Kingdom that has been formed within us by the time we reach adulthood—the weary, skeptical cynicism ... the guardedness. Jesus says, “I have so much to show you, so much to offer you. But you’re going to have to let go the cynicism, skepticism, and pragmatism. Open yourself up to belief again. Simply trust, like a child does.”

You can do this, friends; you really can.

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A beautiful picture. The canal runs dry so quickly, shortly after the rains subside. Like a dry streambed in the desert. But a reservoir is a vast and deep reserve of life. We are called to live in a way that we store up reserves in our heart, and then offer from a place of abundance. As Jesus said, "Therefore every teacher of the law who has been instructed about the kingdom of heaven is like the owner of a house who brings out of his storeroom new treasures as well as old" (Matt 13:52). I'm thinking, Storeroom? What storeroom? "The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart…for out of the overflow of his heart, his mouth speaks" (Luke 6:45 emphasis added).

I'm afraid I live spiritually like I live financially — I get a little, and go spend it. I live like a canal. I look like a reservoir when the rains come, but shortly after, I'm dried up again. (My financially responsible readers have just congratulated themselves on living a more disciplined life. But may I ask, are you using those reserves to do things that nourish your heart? Many a Scrooge has filled his coffers while starving his soul). 

"There are very many canals in the church today," laments Julia Gatta, "but few reservoirs." One woman deeply involved in ministry wrote to me recently that she is "burned out to a crackling crunch." She has been a canal. She hasn't cared for her heart. She is not alone.

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George MacDonald described it this way: 

 ’Tis hard for man to rouse his spirit up—
 It is the human creative agony,
 Though but to hold the heart an empty cup, 
 Or tighten on the team the rigid rein. 
 Many will rather lie among the slain
 Than creep through narrow ways the light to gain—
 Than wake the will, and be born bitterly.
 But he who would be born again indeed,
 Must wake his soul unnumbered times a day,
 And urge himself to life with holy greed;
 Now ope his bosom to the Wind’s free play;
 And now, with patience forceful, hard, lie still, 
 Submiss and ready to the making will,
 Athirst and empty, for God’s breath to fill.  (A Book of Strife in the form of the Diary of an Old Soul)

The only way we can wait is if we are holding fast to the hope that we will not be waiting forever. 

Waiting requires trusting. We will be able to wait with expectancy only if we believe that a great good is coming.

It’s an exercise of faith. It’s an opportunity for our desires not to be quelled but to rise, for our hope to become heavier, more substantial, anchored more solidly in the belief that a goodness beyond our wildest dreams will come to us when our Jesus arrives in glory. And He is coming. We are promised His ultimate return, when He will put every enemy under His feet. 

And even now Jesus is coming. He is present in the waiting. We do not wait alone. We do not wait in vain.

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The eradication of mystery would also be shocking to our spiritual forebears. We feel that in order to experience Jesus and access his help, we need to understand the spiritual like we do nutrition, exercise, or retirement plans. A friend asked me this week, “Yes, but how do I love God? How do I take refuge in him? I mean, practically speaking?”

It is the question of the person discipled by the Internet.

As soon as you hear the demand for the practical, in simple, clear immediate steps, you know you are talking to a Disciple of the Internet. It is a very different question, a different posture than someone approaching a saint of ages past and asking, “Teach me to commune with God.”

If I told you, “The Bible says that prayer is powerful,” you would say, “Sure.” If I told you, “I saw this study on how prayer rewired the brains of older nuns into a more peaceful frame of mind,” you would say, “Wow. That is so cool. I think I want to pray more.”

It’s madness, this addiction. My friend was asking how in the same way he would ask, “How do I change the water filter in my refrigerator?” His question (I know him well) was filled with demand for the mechanics, as in, Make God like my refrigerator—not mysterious, but concrete. Give me the practical. Make it practical. Give me the latest science or I won’t believe you; in fact, I hardly believe you now.

Do you understand that to make Jesus and his Kingdom practical is to strip it of all wonder, mystery, and power?

It’s like asking for the mechanics of falling in love, enjoying sunlight on the ocean, comforting a frightened child. It’s like refusing to trust laughter until someone explains the neuroscience. Honestly, asking, “How do I love God?” is like asking, “How do I love my son, my daughter?” The heart knows how to love without being told the latest research, for heaven’s sake.
This is the bind we’ve been discipled into—our weary, skeptical pragmatism keeps us from experiencing the God we are dying without.

And there is a way out.

Thank God, there is a way out of the madness and into the joys of daily, rich experiences of Jesus. God and his beautiful Kingdom are much more accessible than your cultural moment has conditioned you to believe and experience.

This is very, very good news.

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[Sam]   Should you have killed a lion before you commit? Many traditional cultures like the Maasai require a young man to prove himself before he can marry or own land. He needs to "kill a lion", so to speak. It seems wise. What do you think? 

[John]   I am a big believer in having a vision for where your life is headed before you get engaged. You don’t have to land the Big Job or own a house first, but when you ask a girl to marry you, what are you inviting her into? A proposal is not just, “Hey — we like hanging out together. Let’s do it 24-7!” (Or more often than not, for committed Christians, “We want to have sex — let’s get married!”) A proposal is an invitation into a shared life—so fellas, what exactly is that life going to be about? That girl has a right to know where you are headed, cowboy, before she just up and rides off with you. Mom and I shared in the adventure of the theater company we were starting; we knew this was the city we wanted to be living in; we loved the church we were committed to; and we had a healthy community around us. I don’t think a young man should marry hoping that once he does everything else will just sort of fall into place. When she broke up with you, Susie insisted that you address your aimlessness. 

Back to what we were saying earlier — one firm foundation you do want to have going into a committed relationship is a good sense of your identity. Your fiancée or wife cannot resolve that for you — nor can you for her. This is something you want for both of you — you want your fiancée to have the opportunity to settle some of the deeper issues of her heart and her identity before you marry, and you want some sense of who you are as a man. Now there is grace here; you don’t have to have everything figured out. God loves beginnings. Adam and Eve needed each other to live the life he had for them; so much of the joy of young lovers is discovering together all that God has for you. Don’t picture yourselves as architects coming in with a complete blueprint, but rather as adventurers, trying to decipher a treasure map together.

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But there is more. Life on the road takes us into our heart, for only when we are present in the deep sentences can God speak to them. That’s why the story is a journey; it has to be lived, it cannot simply be talked about. When we face trials, our most common reaction is to ask God, “Why won’t you relieve us?” And when he doesn’t, we resignedly ask, “What do you want me to do?” Now we have a new question: “Where is the Romance headed?”

There is another great “revealing” in our life on the road. We run our race, we travel our journey, in the words of Hebrews, before “a great cloud of witnesses” (12:1). When we face a decision to fall back or press on, the whole universe holds its breath—angels, demons, our friends and foes, and the Trinity itself—watching with bated breath to see what we will do. We are still in the drama of Act III and the heart of God is still on trial. The question that lingers from the fall of Satan and the fall of man remains: Will anyone trust the great heart of the Father, or will we shrink back in faithless fear?

As we grow into the love of God and the freedom of our own hearts, we grow in our ability to cast our vote on behalf of God. Our acts of love and sacrifice, the little decisions to leave our false loves behind and the great struggles of our heart reveal to the world our true identity: We really are the sons and daughters of God.

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Faith looks back and draws courage; hope looks ahead and keeps desire alive. And meantime? In the meantime we need one more item for our journey. To appreciate what it may be, we have to step back and ask what all this is for. The resurrection of our heart, the discovery of our role in the Larger Story, entering into the Sacred Romance—why do we pursue these things? If we say we seek all of this for our own sake, we’re right back where we started: lost in our own story. Jesus said that when a person lives merely to preserve his life, he eventually loses it altogether. Rather, he said, give your life away and discover life as it was always meant to be. “Self-help is no help at all. Self-sacrifice is the way, my way, to finding yourself, your true self” (Matt. 16:25, The Message). Self-preservation, the theme of every small story, is so deeply wrong because it violates the Trinity, whose members live to bring glory to the others. The road we travel will take us into the battle to restore beauty in all things, chief among them the hearts of those we know. We grow in glory so that we might assist others in doing so; we give our glory to increase theirs. In order to fulfill the purpose of our journey, we will need a passion to increase glory; we will need love.

Memory, imagination, and a passion for glory—these we must keep close at hand if we are to see the journey to its end. Dragons and nits and the noonday demons lie in wait. But the road is not entirely rough. There are oases along the way. It would be a dreadful mistake to assume that our Beloved is only waiting for us at the end of the road. Our daily communion and intimacy with him, together with the gifts he gives us along the way—these are more than enough to sustain us along our path.

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And I still haven't found what I'm looking for. (U2)

There is a secret set within each of our hearts. It often goes unnoticed, we rarely can put words to it, and yet it guides us throughout the days of our lives. This secret remains hidden for the most part in our deepest selves. It is simply the desire for life as it was meant to be. Isn't there a life you have been searching for all your days? You may not always be aware of your search, and there are times when you seem to have abandoned looking altogether. But again and again it returns to us, this yearning that cries out for the life we prize. It is elusive, to be sure. It seems to come and go at will. Seasons may pass until it surfaces again. And though it seems to taunt us, and may at times cause us great pain, we know when it returns that it is priceless. For if we could recover this desire, unearth it from beneath all other distractions, and embrace it as our deepest treasure, we would discover the secret of our existence.

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God’s response to the Tower of Babel uprising was cunning — confusing the languages of the earth. It was certainly better than taking away the faculty of speech. Men could make some headway, but they would have a heck of a time uniting the world again in a rebellion against God.

Setting eternity in our hearts was cunning, so that every last one of us would be haunted all our days with unmet longings that would cause us to seek the only Fountain that can quench our thirst. I think the movement of the Spirit in the church is cunning — first here, then there, keeping men from systemizing it, keeping the enemy from squelching it. It’s like a game of rugby.

Jesus is holy and cunning.

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“Prosper! Reproduce! Fill earth! Take charge! 

Be responsible for fish in the sea and birds in the air, 

for every living thing that moves on the face of the earth.” 

Genesis 1:27, The Message

Notice the mission is a blessing, as anyone longing for a sense of purpose knows — give me something to do. Something important. The meaning of the passage goes way beyond farming and fisheries management (though they are noble callings). The spirit of the mission is this — we are God’s regents here on earth, sent here to bring his Kingdom in all the many ways his Kingdom needs to be brought. Oh, the thrill that comes when we begin to realize we have a role in this great Story; that there is something we must accomplish with our lives.

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We are in such a vulnerable moment.

We must, we must, we must choose single-heartedness, where we desire Jesus above everything else — above all our other “lovers,” our false Edens, our passing comforts.

If you want to become a wholehearted person, you must reach the point where happily, lovingly, you give absolutely everything over to God. You make Jesus your everything, your all-in-all. Not only is this the fulfillment of your heart’s created destiny, it is the source of all recovery and resilience. Nothing can be taken from you because you’ve already surrendered everything.

Those flowers on the porch that I’ve been nursing? I noticed this morning that dry rot is creeping over my favorite hanging basket. And in another pot some pest is munching holes through every bloom. You can’t hold on to things, friends; there’s no looking back. It doesn’t do any good, but it can do an enormous amount of harm. Remember Lot’s wife.

You can’t go back, especially at a time when God is moving things forward. He wants us to come along with him.

I give everything for your everything.

This is now my prayer.

I give everything for your everything.

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When our hearts turn to him, that is opening the door to him ... then he comes in, not by our thought only, not in our idea only, but he comes himself, and of his own will. Thus the Lord, the Spirit, becomes the soul of our souls ... Then indeed we are; then indeed we have life; the life of Jesus has ... become life in us ... we are one with God forever and ever. (The Heart of George MacDonald)

Or as St. John of the Cross echoes:
O how gently and how lovingly dost thou lie awake in the depth and centre of my soul, where thou in secret and in silence alone, as its sole Lord, abidest, not only as in Thine own house or in Thine own chamber, but also as within my own bosom, in close and intimate union. (Living Flame of Love)

This deep intimate union with Jesus and with his Father is the source of all our healing and all our strength. It is, as Leanne Payne says, "the central and unique truth of Christianity."

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I have some wonderful news for you: Nope. Not even close.

Life is built on the dailies. Consider love, friendship, and marriage.

Love, friendship, and marriage are not built on skydiving together, trips to Paris, kayaking the Amazon. They’re not. Perhaps once in your life you might do something like that, but the fantastic is not your daily. Love, friendship, and marriage are nurtured in the context of simple things like coffee together, hanging out, getting a burrito, holding hands, taking a walk, doing the dishes, reading to one another, or just reading different things while you’re together in the same room. It’s the little things that build a beautiful life.

I love adventure. I love the ocean. I love rock climbing, canoeing, mountaineering, and motorcycle riding. But here’s the deal–if you want to go to Yosemite and fulfill a lifelong dream of being a big wall climber, your daily doesn’t look dramatic at all; it looks like doing pull-ups at home. If you want to take a motorcycle adventure trip through Scotland, the daily looks like getting on your bike and riding around town. Just going out and getting used to it. Dodging the neighborhood dog that always runs in front of you and stopping when the old lady brakes without warning. You’re making it second nature, so that when you do go out, you can handle the big wall climbing, the remarkable trips.

This is how life with God works, dear friends.

I think God has amazing things for us, I really do. I’ve been part of some extraordinary experiences with God. I’ve had global adventures with him. But I don’t live there. Getting there, just like getting to love or anything else that’s wonderful in this life, is in the dailies. It’s back here in the little things we do. That is how we practice kindness towards ourselves — in the dailies.

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C. S. Lewis’s personal secretary was a man named Walter Hooper. He described the Oxford professor and creator of Narnia as “the most thoroughly converted man I ever met.” (God in the Dock) What a wonderful thing to be said about you. Lewis was a man whose entire being — heart, soul, mind, and strength — had become almost thoroughly inhabited by Jesus Christ. His fragmented self was nearly fully reintegrated in Christ. (Nearly, because none of us are utterly whole until Christ returns. But my goodness — nearly is fabulous.) Many people fell in love with the presence of Dallas Willard for the same reason.

Let me pause on that thought for a moment, because while this is known to the saints, the Comfort Culture framed within us other goals. Does your heart tell you that it agrees with this — that the goal of your life is to become the most converted person your friends and family know?

Or does your heart prefer the goal to be something else? Perhaps, “I just want things to be good again, and let somebody else live through the end of the age”? Ouch. That hits close to home.

The battle taking place over the human heart can be described as Satan using every form of seduction and threat to take our hearts captive and our loving Jesus doing everything he can to form single-heartedness in us. This often plays out in thousands of small, daily choices. Which is kind, really; we want to develop single-heartedness before the severe testing comes.

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I stand at the crossroads, and I am afraid of the desire. For forty-one years I’ve tried to control my life by killing the desire, but I can’t. Now I know it. But to allow it to be, to let it out is frightening because I know I’ll have to give up the control of my life. Is there another option?

The option most of us have chosen is to reduce our desire to a more manageable size. We allow it out only in small doses — just what we can arrange for. Dinner out, a new sofa, a vacation to look forward to, a little too much to drink. It’s not working. The tremors of the earthquake inside are beginning to break out.

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Except this man. He is Faithful and he is True.

Having given this some thought, perhaps we are better prepared now to understand why God answered Moses the way he did when he spoke from the burning bush. In the midst of the very unnerving encounter, Moses asks him, “Who are you?” God simply says, “I Am.” In other words, Me. Myself. An answer that is holy and full of integrity, wry and dumbfounding all at the same time. But it is the best possible answer he could have given. God is utterly himself.

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Let that sink in. God doesn’t merely give us joy. He gives us Himself. Joy incarnate. And we are able to receive more of His presence when our hands and hearts have been uncluttered and purified by fire. Oftentimes that purifying hurts. But none of it is without a greater good. And whatever is going on within our lives or around them, we can live with a heart that is expectantly waiting. A heart that is grounded in hope. 

“May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit” (Rom. 15:13).

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Sanctify your imagination to him, all your spiritual gifting, and ask him to reveal to you pictures of the coming kingdom. Be specific — if you want to see the city, ask to see the city. If you want to see those waterfalls, ask to see them. You will need to be open to being surprised; do not “script” what you think you “should” see. I dreamed of ships last night—great, three-masted sailing ships. The day was clear and bright, and we were tacking into the trade winds, driving our prow through the surf at a wonderful speed. I saw other ships to my right and left, and I realized we were racing. The ocean was aquamarine, clearer than usual; I could see marine life below us, keeping pace with us. It helped to shatter my lingering religious fears that heaven is going to be boring!

Stay open to surprises; keep asking for glimpses of the kingdom any way God wants to bring them. This is how we reach into the future to take hold of the hope that is our anchor. The more our imaginations seize upon the reality, the more we will have confident expectation of all the goodness coming to us.

And if you want to take a really big risk, for an even more beautiful and encouraging picture, ask Jesus to show you as he sees you, as you are, in his kingdom. That one might take a little waiting for, because we are so fearful, but wait for it. It will be worth it.

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You can talk about sunshine and live your life underground; you can even go to the sea but never dive in. A great deal of what is adamantly taught about Jesus is taught by people who frankly don’t know him very well.

Question: Are your leaders close friends of God? People who actually know and experience this Jesus, helping you to know and experience him?

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There were no real sources of food in that desert. Water was about as scarce as it is on the surface of the moon. A “barren wilderness — a land of deserts and pits, a land of drought and death, where no one lives or even travels” (Jeremiah 2:6 NLT).

This is more than a moment in Jewish history. It is recorded for us as one of the great analogies of human experience, our journey from bondage to freedom, from barrenness to the promised land. Ultimately, it is the precursor to our journey of salvation, from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of God.

It is a story about the Primal Drive for Life — where will we take our thirst?

This is the choice, the test. Always has been, always will be.

This Primal Drive for Life was so compelling it caused thousands of those rescued slaves to mount a rebellion to go back to bondage in Egypt just to have their familiar ways back. Sobering.

“The heavens are shocked at such a thing
and shrink back in horror and dismay,”
says the LORD.
“For my people have done two evil things:
They have abandoned me—
the fountain of living water.
And they have dug for themselves cracked cisterns
that can hold no water at all!” (Jeremiah 2:12-13 NLT)

The great alarm the Scriptures are sounding is that our longing for life to be good again will be the battleground for our heart. How you shepherd this precious longing, and if you shepherd it at all, will determine your fate in this life and in the life to come.

We must lovingly shepherd our famished thirst back to the source of life.

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And if you operate for the most part with neither, you are in real trouble.

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Really — beauty is all around us. In the shimmering shadows sunlight creates through any foliage. The intricate pattern and color of tree bark (stop and look; touch it). The way sunlight falls on your kitchen table in the morning. The grain of wood. Songbirds in your neighborhood. Fabric. Candlelight. The infinitely creative patterns of frost. The frost on the stalks of dried grasses this morning looked like tiny gladiolas made of glass or the calligraphy of fairies. Water in almost any form. Water on a blade of grass. Water drops on leaves. Leaves themselves — their shape, texture, the lacelike patterns running through them. A field of grass, especially as the wind plays through it. Fields of corn, wheat, any crop. The stars, the moon in all its phases. Rainwashed streets in the city at night, drops of water on your windshield. Human faces are infinitely beautiful. And I have not even mentioned flowers, vases, music, fine art, and the beautiful things we use to decorate our homes.

Given beauty’s healing effects, given how it soothes the soul and opens us up to the goodness of God, I hope you will intentionally do two things:

Receive it for the gift it is! Pause, and let the beauty minister to you. I receive this into my soul. Too often we just notice and go on, like a pedestrian who steps over a hundred-dollar bill lying on the sidewalk. Stop and pick it up! In these moments you open yourself and receive the beauty, the gift, the grace — receive it into your being. Let it bring to you God’s love, his tenderness, his rich goodness. We live so braced, not openly, but quite subtly — braced for the day, braced by the assault on our attention, braced by the noise around us.

Pause when you are offered beauty and make the conscious decision, I receive this grace. We open our clenched soul to let it in. To find God in it. I will often pray, Thank you for this beauty. I receive it into my soul. And with it I receive you, in it, by it, through it — your love, your goodness, your life.

That receiving part is key.

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My tears have been my food
     day and night,  

while men say to me all day long,
     “Where is your God?” 

These things I remember
     as I pour out my soul:  

how I used to go with the multitude,

    leading the procession to the house of God,

with shouts of joy and thanksgiving
     among the festive throng. 

Why are you downcast, O my soul?
    Why so disturbed within me?

Put your hope in God,

    for I will yet praise him,

    my Savior and my God. (Ps. 42:3–5)

He admits it, he pours it all out with raw honesty, but he does not allow himself to stay there. Don’t you love it that David talks to himself (“Why are you downcast, O my soul?”)? That makes me feel a little more sane, because I talk to myself all the time. He reminds his own soul that things have not always been like this — and isn’t that where we begin to make the fatal shift? When we are in the darkness, we begin to feel like we have always been there. But it is not true. David reminds himself that God has been faithful in the past; God will be faithful again. He urges himself to put his hope in God, because the morning will come.

The Cry of the Heart is a beautiful and precious form of prayer. But there is a danger to it (just as romance and friendship have their dangers). The honest release of emotion can at times become a whirlpool that sucks you in. I’m trying to keep you from making agreements while you give yourself permission to have a full, emotional life with God. “I feel forsaken!” is very, very different from, “I am forsaken!” “I feel overcome” is much different than “I am overcome.”

Notice how David escapes the shipwreck of the soul: he turns his attention from the debris of his life in a much healthier direction; he turns his gaze toward God.

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Think back to that great big lion in that tiny cage. Why would we put a man in a cage? For the same reason we put a lion there. For the same reason we put God there: he's dangerous. To paraphrase Dorothy Sayers, we've also pared the claws of the Lion Cub of Judah. A man is a dangerous thing. Women don't start wars. Violent crimes aren't for the most part committed by women. Our prisons aren't filled with women. Columbine wasn't the work of two young girls. Obviously, something has gone wrong in the masculine soul, and the way we've decided to handle it is to take that dangerous nature away ... entirely.

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Some people love what they do. They are the fortunate souls, who have found a way to link what they are truly gifted at (and therefore what brings them joy) with a means of paying the bills. But most of the world merely toils to survive, and no one gets to use his gifts all the time. On top of that, there is the curse of thorns and thistles, the futility that tinges all human efforts at the moment. As a result, we've come to think of work as a result of the Fall. You can see our cynicism in the fact that we've chosen the cartoon character Dilbert as the icon of our working days. His is a hopeless life of futility and anonymity in the bowels of some large corporation. We don't even know what he does-only that it's meaningless. We identify with him, feeling at some deep level the apparent futility of our lives. Even if we are loved, it is not enough. We yearn to be fruitful, to do something of meaning and value that flows naturally out of the gifts and capacities of our own soul. But of course — we were meant to be the kings and queens of the earth.

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[Sam]   “We live in the age of information,” says the old recording of an announcer in my head; so why does finding direction feel like a parade of hopeless metaphors? I’m drinking from a fire hose and snorkeling through mud. I’ve been handed a spyglass and told it holds the key, only to gaze through and find the chaos of a kaleidoscope. 

More information doesn’t seem to help. I feel like I’m drowning in it. I just learned how to tie a shemagh, found the best noodle bar in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul airport (Shoyu), and discovered twelve tips to the ultimate workout (it always involves buying something, which is weird). When I look for a job or try to map out my dreams, or some other future-oriented activity, somehow it almost always feels futile eventually. 

[John]  Yes, it feels that way. The twenties sure feel like the decade of decision making, don’t they? Money, jobs, women, love, revolutions, dreams—everything we have been talking through is going to require some serious and sometimes constant decision making on your part. And though I feel our decisions are weighty, they aren’t nearly as overwhelming as they feel when we are faced with them. I have never found pressure a good motivator for making decisions, nor found decisions made under pressure to be particularly good ones. So let me first try and lift some of the pressure off the decision-making process. 

The truth is, the options before you are limited and that is a great relief. The open ocean is beautiful to look at, but terrifying if you have to navigate it in a small boat. But you are not facing the open ocean. God puts us within a context, with a limited gifting and limited resources, and that is immensely kind.

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Such a simple thought, but so helpful. Sometimes we get so caught up in the process we forget to ask. We have not because we ask not (James 4:2). Ask and you shall receive — that’s the promise (Matthew 7:7).

So throughout my day, and over the course of a week, I will pray for the very thing I need most:

Father, Jesus, Holy Spirit — I need more of you, God. I need so much more of you. My soul cries out for you. O Father, Jesus, Holy Spirit — fill me with more of you, God. I need more of you; I pray for so much more of you. Saturate me.

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Has God abandoned us? Did we not pray enough? Is this just something we accept as “part of life,” suck it up, even though it breaks our hearts? After a while, the accumulation of event after event that we do not like and do not understand erodes our confidence that we are part of something grand and good, and reduces us to a survivalist mind-set. I know, I know — we’ve been told that we matter to God. And part of us partly believes it. But life has a way of chipping away at that conviction, undermining our settled belief that he means us well. I mean, if that’s true, then why didn’t he _______? Fill in the blank. Heal your mom. Save your marriage. Get you married. Help you out more.

Either (a) we’re blowing it, or (b) God is holding out on us. Or some combination of both, which is where most people land. Think about it. Isn’t this where you land, with all the things that haven’t gone the way you’d hoped and wanted?

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They knew he was merciful. They knew they would find forgiveness.

As will you. God’s promise to us is total forgiveness if we will come to him and ask for it:  If we confess our sins he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:9)

This offer is for everyone. It is for you and for me. And it is our only hope.

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A good king also fights for the security of his kingdom, battling assault from without and sedition from within. That's why he must be a Warrior first. Look at how tireless David is in bringing security to Israel's borders:

In the course of time, David defeated the Philistines and subdued them…David also defeated the Moabites … Moreover, David fought Hadadezer son of Rehob, king of Zobah … when the Arameans of Damascus came to help Hadadezer king of Zobah, David struck down twenty-two thousand of them (2 Samuel 8:1-5).

Think of a Churchill, unyielding to the Nazis, and the pacifists in his own government that would not hold fast. Or Lincoln, and his unrelenting efforts to preserve the Union. A family with a good father feels protected. Spiritually, emotionally, financially, physically, he is the one to bring peace and covering to his family.

All this in order to bring blessing to his people. "From the fullness of his grace we have all received one blessing after another" (John 1:16). Nehemiah discovers that his people are being fleeced by their own officials, and demands their grain, oil and lands be restored. He refuses even to take the booty allotted to his role. David insists that the plunder from the Amalekites be shared among every man, those who guarded the baggage and those who fought. A good king wants his people to share in the prosperity of the realm. Bad kings build their own off-shore bank accounts.

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The earth is rigged for adventure, like a sailboat. And our hearts have adventure written deep within, like sailors hear the call of the sea.

A good story has adventure to it. An unknown terrain explored. A wilderness survived. A mountain won. A destination reached. And the story of how it all unfolded — or unraveled — told over and over again. Sometimes risk is involved. Sometimes danger. Often deep beauty. Adventures can be had on our own or with a group. They can entail discovering a new city or acquiring a new talent. The right kind of adventures help us to become more the person we long to be.

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If we were to find ourselves living with total freedom, Jesus informs us through his summary of the law in Luke 10:26-28, we would find ourselves loving God with all of our heart and our neighbors as ourselves. Jesus said further, "You will know the truth [me], and the truth will set you free."

The Enemy knows this as well, and his strategy to capture us is simply the opposite: to disconnect us from our heart and the heart of God toward us by any means possible. It is what he no doubt had to do to his own heart to bear the loss of heaven.

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The loss of sensitivity that Paul is referring to here is the dullness that most people accept as normal. It actually leads us into sin, to sensuality and lust. The deadened soul requires a greater and greater level of stimulation to arouse it. This is, of course, the downward spiral of any addiction. What began as an attraction to Playboy ends up for the porn addict in some really horrific stuff. Just look at the progression of television drama over the past thirty years. What we have now would have been considered shocking, even repulsive, to an earlier audience. Networks have to keep adding more sex, more violence, to keep our attention. We have become so sensual. This is why holiness is not numbness; it is sensitivity. It is being more attuned to our desires, to what we were truly made for and therefore what we truly want. Our problem is that we’ve grown quite used to seeking life in all kinds of things other than God.

“For example, God wants to be our perfect lover, but instead we seek perfection in human relationships and are disappointed when our lovers cannot love us perfectly. God wants to provide our ultimate security, but we seek our safety in power and possessions and then we find we must continually worry about them. We seek satisfaction of our spiritual longing in a host of ways that may have very little to do with God.” (Addiction and Grace)

And so, Gerald May says, “The more we become accustomed to seeking spiritual satisfaction through things other than God, the more abnormal and stressful it becomes to look for God directly.” Our instrument is out of tune from years of misuse.

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[Sam]   You know, I was really good at thinking only about myself pre-marriage, but sacrificing for the Other really has become a joy. If you had told me that a couple of years ago, I might have rolled my eyes at you. It seems to be something I could only learn through experience, kind of the rule for marriage thus far.

Susie has been looking at grad school for a while now, and her program will require all of her time, which means I would need to be working to support both of us. This actually got me really excited. I know it would be a sacrifice of my time to work more while Susie pursues the education she needs to reach her dream, but it doesn’t feel like wasted time to me. I need purpose in my work, and supporting both of us for a couple of years would put work into a larger context. Another example that comes to mind is church. I don’t always feel the strongest pull to go every Sunday morning (how’s that for political phrasing?), but I know Susie really loves it. So we go. And the joy she feels after having been is something I get to share in. By sacrificing my wants for hers I experience the joy of doing something for her, not to mention how happy she is when she gets to go.

Choosing to sacrifice for her sake has become a love language in its own way. I want the best for Susie, and sometimes the best isn’t something I would have chosen were I single. But man, loving her by laying down something of my own and seeing her light up (especially if she doesn’t know it was a sacrifice) is one of the greatest joys there is.

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Frodo, the little Halfling from the Shire, young and naive in so many ways, "the most unlikely person imaginable," is the Ring Bearer. He, too, must learn through dangerous paths and fierce battles that a task has been appointed to him, and if he does not find a way, no one will. Dorothy is just a farm girl from Kansas, who stumbled into Oz not because she was looking for adventure but because someone had hurt her feelings and she decided to run away from home. Yet she's the one to bring down the Wicked Witch of the West. Joan of Arc was also a farm girl, illiterate, the youngest in her family, when she received her first vision from God. Just about everyone doubted her; the commander of the French army said she should be taken home and given a good whipping. Yet she ends up leading the armies in war.

You see this throughout Scripture: a little boy will slay the giant; a loudmouthed fisherman who can't hold down a job will lead the church; and a whore with a golden heart is the one to perform the deed that Jesus asked us all to tell "wherever the gospel is preached throughout the world" (Mark 14:9). Things are not what they seem. We are not what we seem.

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Then imagine it all on the day it was born.

It's Tolkien's Shire in its innocence, Iguazu Falls in the garden of The Mission, the opening scene of The Lion King.

And it doesn't stop there.

Into this world God opens his hand, and the animals spring forth. Myriads of birds, in every shape and size and song, take wing — hawks, herons, warblers. All the creatures of the sea leap into it — whales, dolphins, fish of a thousand colors and designs. Thundering across the plains race immense herds of horses, gazelles, buffalo, running like the wind. It is more astonishing than we could possibly imagine. No wonder "the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy" (Job 38:7). A great hurrah goes up from the heavens!

We have grown dull toward this world in which we live; we have forgotten that it is not normal or scientific in any sense of the word. It is fantastic. It is fairy tale through and through. Really now. Elephants? Caterpillars? Snow? At what point did you lose your wonder at it all?

Even so, once in a while something will come along and shock us right out of our dullness and resignation.

We come round a corner, and there before us is a cricket, a peacock, a stag with horns as big as he. Perhaps we come upon a waterfall, the clouds have made a rainbow in a circle round the sun, or a mouse scampers across the counter, pauses for a moment to twitch its whiskers, and disappears into the cupboard. And for a moment we realize that we were born into a world as astonishing as any fairy tale.

A world made for romance.

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You are a “branch.” Branches have no unending source of resilience in themselves. They need to draw all of their life and all of their resources from another — they need to receive nourishment just as a child does at its mother’s breast. God is the fountain of life. The only fountain of life. His glorious life is meant to flow through us every day — healing us, filling us with creativity, courage, joy, playfulness, and resilience. It comes through attachment, bonded love, the soul’s union with God.

The goal of Christian faith is so much more than church attendance or holding certain doctrinal beliefs. The destiny of every human soul is union with God. As the Scottish Puritan Henry Scougal wrote, “[Christians] know by experience that true religion is a union of the soul with God, a real participation of the divine nature.” (from The Life of God in the Soul of Man)

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I tell you the truth, the man who does not enter the sheep pen by the gate, but climbs in by some other way, is a thief and a robber. The man who enters by the gate is the shepherd of his sheep. The watchman opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice.”...“Whoever enters through me will be saved. He will come in and go out, and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” (John 10:1–4, 9–10)

The sheep live in dangerous country. The only way they can move securely in and out and find pasture is to follow their shepherd closely. Yet most Christians assume that the way to find the life God has for us is to (A) believe in God, (B) be a good person, and (C) he will deliver the rest. A + B = C. But Jesus says no, there’s more to the equation. I do want life for you. To the full. But you have to realize there is a thief. He’s trying to destroy you. There are false shepherds too. Don’t listen to them. Don’t just wander off looking for pasture. You need to do more than believe in me. You have to stay close to me. Listen to my voice. Let me lead. Now there’s a thought: if you don’t hold the same assumptions Jesus does, you haven’t got a chance of finding the life he has for you.

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Anytime an army goes to war or an expedition takes to the field, it breaks down into little platoons and squads. And every chronicle of war or quest will tell you that the men and women who fought so bravely fought for each other. That's where the acts of heroism and sacrifice take place, because that's where the devotion is. You simply can't be devoted to a mass of people; devotion takes place in small units, just like a family.

We have stopped short of being an organization; we are an organism instead, a living and spontaneous association of individuals who know one another intimately, care for each other deeply, and feel a kind of respect for one another that makes rules and bylaws unnecessary. A group is the right size, I would guess, when each member can pray for every other member, individually and by name.

This is the wisdom of Brother Andrew, who smuggled Bibles into communist countries for decades. It's the model, frankly, of the church in nearly every country but the U.S. Now, I'm not suggesting you don't do whatever it is you do on Sunday mornings. I'm simply helping you accept reality — that whatever else you do, you must have a small fellowship to walk with you and fight with you and bandage your wounds. This is essential.

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So much healing took place in my life simply through my friendship with Brent. We were partners, but far more than that, we were friends. We spent hours together fly-fishing, backpacking, hanging out in pubs. Just spending time with a man I truly respected, a real man who loved and respected me — nothing heals quite like that. At first I feared that I was fooling him, that he'd see through it any day and drop me. But he didn't, and what happened instead was validation. My heart knew that if a man I know is a man thinks I'm one, too, well then, maybe I am one after all. Remember — masculinity is bestowed by masculinity. But there have been other significant ways in which God has worked — times of healing prayer, times of grieving the wound and forgiving my father. Most of all, times of deep communion with God. The point is this: Healing never happens outside of intimacy with Christ. The healing of our wound flows out of our union with him.

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He wraps you in goodness — beauty eternal.  He renews your youth — you’re always young in his presence. (Psalm 103:4–5 The Message)

Death is utterly swept away at the Great Restoration. And not only death, but every other form of sorrow, assault, illness, and harm we’ve ever known. You will be completely renewed — body, soul, and spirit. How do we even imagine this? Take it in small steps; think of some recovery you have experienced. A piercing headache can be debilitating; you know the sweet relief when it vanishes. Surely you have had some nasty flu, and you know what a joy it was to get your strength and appetite back. These little glimpses of our restoration are taking place all the time, hints of what is coming.

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We get hours of it, every day. Hundreds and hundreds of gallons.

Remember — the heart of the artist is revealed in their work. Here and there and everywhere, the creations of Jesus explode like fireworks from a fairy tale over the earth. Dragonflies? Porcupines? Musk ox, their great shaggy kilts hanging round them and mighty horns swooping down, look like creatures if not from Norse mythology then certainly from ancient times. Not something walking around this moment just north of us. Really now — what do we have here? Who do we have here? The whole earth is filled with his glory.

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Think of it. You are the Son of the living God. You have come to earth to rescue the human race. It is your job to communicate truths without which your precious ones will be lost ... forever. Would you do it like this? Why doesn’t he come right out and say it — get to the point? What’s with all the stories?

We children of the Internet and the cell phone and the Weather Channel, we think we are the enlightened ones. We aren’t fooled by anything — we just want the facts. The bottom line. So proposition has become our means of saying what is true and what is not. And proposition is helpful ... for certain things. Sacramento is the capital of California; water freezes at 32 degrees Fahrenheit. But proposition fails when it comes to the weightier things in life. While it is a fact that the Civil War was fought between the years of 1861 and 1865, and while it is also a fact that hundreds of thousands of men died in that war, those facts hardly describe what happened at Bull Run or Gettysburg. You don’t even begin to grasp the reality of the Civil War until you hear the stories, see pictures from the time, visit the battlefields yourself.

How much more so when it comes to the deep truths of the Christian faith. God loves you; you matter to him. That is a fact, stated as a proposition. I’ll bet most of you have heard it any number of times. Why, then, aren’t we the happiest people on earth? It hasn’t reached our hearts. Facts stay lodged in the mind. Proposition speaks to the mind, but when you tell a story, you speak to the heart.

And that’s why when Jesus comes to town, he speaks in a way that will get past all our intellectual defenses and disarm our hearts.

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Hearing the voice of God is essential to Christian discipleship.

It is not optional.

It is not for a select few.

For one thing, Scripture teaches it on nearly every page, whether by the example of saints past or by direct command to all who believe.

What would we think of a father or mother who never spoke to their children? Imagine that these parents provided for their children’s needs and spent time with them but never spoke a word to them. We would call it child abuse, neglect, or abandonment. It would be terribly traumatizing. Nor would we be satisfied with an occasional word; we would insist that the relationship involve regular, intimate communication. The same would be true for any marriage, any friendship. How could you call someone your friend if they met you for coffee and spent an hour with you but never spoke a word? Never asked you how you were doing? Never laughed together over shared stories?

Friends, we are created in the image of a highly relational Being, a God who is triune in relationship! 
That is why we are highly relational beings ourselves. It is absurd and blasphemous to accept a theology that makes hearing the voice of God exceptional or occasional.

If this isn’t central to the scriptural witness, nothing is.

I’m saying this with great emphasis because I know too many dear, dear lovers of God who have, for one reason or another, written this off for themselves. Sometimes because they found it difficult to learn the practice and concluded it wasn’t for them. Or perhaps more frequently because they saw it abused by others and withdrew from it. Or because their spiritual leaders told them it isn’t available, which is of course poor theology and completely detached from reality.

Let no one steal this from you, friends. It is too essential in an hour like this one.

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As C. S. Lewis explained, “The soul is but a hollow which God fills.”  In place of hollow I like the word vessel, something beautiful and artistic. Our souls are exquisite vessels created by God for him to saturate. I picture the round, curved basin at the top of an elegant fountain, with water spilling down all sides, running over with unceasing life. Wasn’t that the promise? “As Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them” (John 7:38).

And so it follows that if we can receive help for restoring and renewing our weary, besieged souls, we’ll enjoy the fruits (which are many and wonderful) of happy souls and also be able to receive more of God (which is even more wonderful). We’ll find the vibrancy and resiliency we crave as human beings, living waters welling up from deep within. And then — we’ll get our lives back!

But the process needs to be accessible and sustainable. We’ve all tried exercise, diets, Bible study programs that began with vim and verve but over time got shoved to the side, lost in the chaos. I have a gym membership; I rarely use it. There’s those books I haven’t finished, loads of podcasts too. Rest assured — the graces I am offering here are within reach of a normal life. I think you’ll find them simple, sustainable, and refreshing.

God wants to strengthen and renew your soul; Jesus longs to give you more of himself. Come, you weary and heavy laden. “Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life ... and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly” (Matthew 11:28–30 THE MESSAGE). You can get your life back; you can live freely and lightly. The world may be harsh, but God is gentle; he knows what your life is like. What we need to do is put ourselves in places that allow us to receive his help.

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The effect has been disastrous, not only for individual Christians, but also for the message of the gospel as a whole. People aren't exactly ripping the roofs off churches to get inside. We see the Enemy's ploy: drain all the life and beauty and adventure away from the gospel, bury Christians in duty, and nobody will want to take a closer look. It's so very unappealing.

David Whyte calls this the "devouring animal of our disowned desire." It is the reason behind most affairs in the church. The pastor lives out of duty, trying to deny his thirst for many years. One day, the young secretary smiles at him and it's over. Because he has so long been out of touch with his desire, it becomes overwhelming when it does show up. The danger of disowning desire is that it sets us up for a fall. We are unable to distinguish real life from a tempting imitation. We are fooled by the impostors. Eventually, we find some means of procuring a taste of the life we were meant for.

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We need more than a silver-lining outlook on life. Much, much more. We need an unbreakable, unquenchable hope.

Standing at the window for my morning vigil, the amber light of dawn was turning every fall color an even richer hue. It looked like something from a painting — transcendent, mythic. And for a moment it all felt brimming with promise. You’ve probably felt that promise too, as you stood in some favorite spot, watching the beauty of the waves, spring flowers in the desert, walking the streets of Paris at night, sitting in your garden with a cup of coffee. Something keeps whispering to us through the beauty we love.

“Many things begin with seeing in this world of ours,” wrote British artist Lilias Trotter. “There lies before us a beautiful, possible life.”

I savor those moments; they are among my most treasured memories. But whatever it is that speaks such promise, it seems to slip through our fingers every time we reach for it. I know that simply wanting this year to be over isn’t the answer, because who really knows what next year will bring? “Each day has enough trouble of its own,” said the most compassionate man ever.

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I was sitting out back yesterday morning sipping coffee, watching the young chipmunks chase one another at breakneck speeds across the deck. One clever daredevil, hoping to get the advantage, jumped up on the fence rail and continued the chase from above, leaping at the last moment upon his littermate like a Hollywood stuntman. This morning one of them adopted a new strategy. The little rascal found an ambush spot, clinging from the side of the house, where he waited for his playmate to wander by unawares; he then pounced, and the two somersaulted off the deck and into the grass, squealing. Only to dash off and do it again. And again.

Now — what does this tell us about the personality of Jesus, who created these little dynamos with striped masks and boundless enthusiasm? What do they say about his heart? Polar-bear cubs will hurl themselves down snowy hillsides headfirst and upside down, just for fun. Spinner dolphins love to romp in the bow-wake of a boat, cavorting, leaping into the air and, well, spinning. Otters play tag. Our horses play tug-of-war with a stick — which is really quite funny when you think of how nobly a horse normally likes to carry himself.

Who gave your puppy his impishness, as he snatches your slipper and races round the house with you in tow? God is more playful than we are.

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Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness. For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace. (Romans 6:12–14 emphasis mine)

There is hope of freedom because of what Christ has done. Now we have an option. But we do have to stop presenting ourselves over to sin as best we can. Our choices matter. We need to renounce the ways we have presented ourselves to sin, and re-present ourselves to Christ. It is only a beginning, but this is very important.

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There is a whole lot more going on behind the scenes of our lives than most of us have been led to believe.

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And so you’ve celebrated Christmas, the coming of Jesus to this world. And what a thing to celebrate! The entire pageant comes down to this: Jesus took on a genuine humanity.

And of course, this late in the Story, I hope it’s nearly impossible for you to celebrate Christmas without your heart turning toward his return. One day soon, Jesus will return to this earth, with his army, to make a final end of evil and to usher in the coming of a Golden Age. This is referred to as the “Second Coming.”

But what struck me this Christmas was this: the Second Coming is actually ... the Third Coming. Christ came to Bethlehem. And then he comes to dwell in you. The Second Coming is actually in you—right now.

Christ was first formed in Mary’s womb; now he’s being formed in you. It’s a truth unique to Christianity and no other religion. “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27 nasb). Jesus made his first invasion into Bethlehem. His second great act of indwelling happens when you open your heart to him.

Think of it—Jesus Christ is inside of you this very moment. The incarnation didn’t finish but continues ... in you.

———————————
I receive it, Lord! I receive Jesus Christ into every part of my life and my being! Yes, Lord—come and be formed in me today!

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He comes to heal. He comes to save.

“For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost.” (Luke 19:10)

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Just as we must fix our eyes on Jesus when we pray, we must also fix our hearts on this one undeniable truth: life will win. When you know that unending joy is about to be yours, you live with an unshakable confidence it will almost be a swagger. You can pray boldly, without fear, knowing that, “If this doesn’t work now, it will work totally and completely very soon.” We can have that kingdom attitude of Daniel’s friends, who said, “God is able to deliver, and he will deliver. But if not ...” we will not lose heart. Period.

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Whenever we are with our friend Jan, there is always an offer and an invitation. She really wants to know how we are, what battles we’ve been facing, what God is doing in our lives. And she truly offers herself. Sometimes it’s her laughter and a wry joke. Sometimes it’s her tears from an old sorrow. She offers herself, her beauty, to us. She invites us to live above the striving of the world. She gives something of God.

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I absolutely love this verse; I love the hope of my entire being made pure by the Spirit of God.

I realize that holiness is a word with a lot of baggage for many people, but we can get past all that if we look at the gorgeous life and character of Jesus — he was simply good through and through. His character is so alluring, so win- some, and whenever you see him relating to people you are watching true holiness in action. Women who everyone had used and abused came to Jesus, threw themselves at his feet, and he was only loving toward them. Sometimes the crowds loved him, other times they shouted for his head, but he didn’t let it faze him. Jesus’ goodness in the Gospels is captivating.

When his own time of severe testing came, that goodness was his shield. Just before the secret police came for him, before the grisly scenes that follow, Jesus told his disciples, “I will no longer talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming, and he has nothing in Me” (John 14:30 NKJV).

The enemy tried every angle he could find on Jesus— seduction, rejection, threat, the fear of not having enough, even torture. Nothing worked, because Satan had nothing “in” Jesus to use as his hook. Imagine the sheer relief of it.

It probably feels like obtaining even a fraction of that goodness is beyond you, but the promise of the Christian faith is that God will reproduce Jesus’ goodness in you: “I feel as if I’m going through labor pains for you again, and they will continue until Christ is fully developed in your lives” (Galatians 4:19 NLT).

The goal of God’s work in us is Jesus taking up residence in every part of us. Nothing left out. No little pockets of resistance. (And did you notice? Paul, with the Holy Spirit through him, is “mothering” these dear followers of Christ toward the beautiful goal. He is “in labor” with them, for them!)

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And oh, how we yearn for another shot at it. Flip with me for a moment through the photo album of your heart, and collect a few of your most treasured memories. Recall a time in your life when you felt really special, a time when you knew you were loved. The day you got engaged perhaps. Or a childhood Christmas. Maybe a time with your grandparents.

Hold your memory while you gather another, a time of real adventure, such as when you first learned to ride a bike, or galloped on a horse, or perhaps did something exciting on a vacation. Now, we were meant to live in a world like that — every day. Just as our lungs are made to breathe oxygen, our souls are designed to flourish in an atmosphere rich in love and meaning, security and significance, intimacy and adventure. But we don't live in that world anymore. Far from it. Though we try to resolve the dilemma by disowning our desire, it doesn't work. It is the soul's equivalent of holding our breath. Eventually, we find ourselves gasping for air.

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Yet one of the most surprising things about human beings is how all that resilience can evaporate in a moment. One day the resources we have to sustain the Primal Drive for Life simply run out. The mother who for decades pours and pours into her family, and then one day up and has an affair with her best friend’s husband. The minister who for decades served up banquets from the Word of God suddenly decides he doesn’t believe in Jesus anymore.

It has to do with reserves.

We tap into our deep reserves to endure years of suffering and deprivation. Then one day our heart simply says, I don’t care anymore; I’m done. We abandon the fight and go off to find relief. I fear this is what’s happening now on a global scale.

Human beings are at the same time both resilient and unpredictably fragile, like camels. A better test for how vulnerable we may actually be is to check on our reserves. For we can rally, and we have rallied. Way to go, everybody! But every time you rally, you tap into your reserves, and though you might feel like you’re doing pretty well on any given day, you’re still burning through precious resources and your reserve tank is precariously low … like the drip, drip, dripping water bags of Wilfred Thesiger’s party, way out in the middle of the desert.

This is the trauma cycle. We rally in the face of harm, and when the harm subsides, we live in denial of it and go off in search of some taste of Eden. When our efforts are thwarted, rage surfaces — which is common to trauma responses.

This is why rallying can actually be deceptive. Reserves tell the true story.

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The Nativity scenes were particularly ridiculous.The classic art depicting the infant — themes now repeated on Christmas cards and in the crèche scenes displayed in churches and on suburban coffee tables — portrays a rather mature baby, very white, radiantly clean as no baby is ever clean, arms outstretched to reassure the nervous adults around him, intelligent, without need, halo glowing, conscious with an adult consciousness. Superbaby. This infant clearly never pooped his diapers. He looks ready to take up the prime ministership.

Why did it make me angry?

Because when we lose his personality, we lose Jesus.

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Of course the book didn’t actually vanish. The light simply turned off. It had to do with an unreliable switch; it was explicable.

So how do we explain this on-again, off-again experience most people have in their search for God? Sometimes God seems so near, but not always. Other times he seems to have gone elsewhere. It’s hard on the heart and soul. I do say seems to, for God never really vanishes, no more than the book I was reading. He’s always, always near:

Be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age. (Matthew 28:20 NLT)

Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you. (Hebrews 13:5 NIV)

In him we live and move and have our being. (Acts 17:28 NIV)

God surrounds us; we swim in God like we swim in oxygen. He is by your side right this very moment, as you read this sentence. Despite this reality — and what a wonderful reality it is — we don’t always feel him near; don’t have a consistent experience of his presence (some people rarely experience his presence). It can be so disheartening; I hate that rollercoaster.

But I don’t think we understand what’s happening. We think God either presents himself to us or doesn’t, according to some rules of the spiritual game we aren’t entirely sure of. So we go about our days waiting for the next appearance, like people who missed the 5:15 train and are milling about till another one arrives. Like stargazers waiting for the next shooting star.

Yet God is always here — not only around us but within us:

I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, who will never leave you. He is the Holy Spirit ... he lives with you now and later will be in you ... you will know that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. (John 14:16–20 NLT, emphasis added)

Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him (Ephesians 3:17 NLT, emphasis added)

And this is the secret: Christ lives in you. (Colossians 1:27 NLT, emphasis added)

We are never apart from God. He is both around us, and within us. How much closer can he get?

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Jesus Christ gave his life to give each of us a hope above and beyond all former hopes. Every action and teaching of his brilliant life were very intentionally directed at unveiling this hope to us. Late in the gospel of Matthew he described it with breathtaking clarity:

Truly I tell you, at the renewal of all things, when the Son of Man sits on his glorious throne ... everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life. (Matthew 19:28–29)

At the renewal of all things?! God’s intention for us is the renewal of all things? This is what the Son of God said; that is how he plainly described it. I can hardly speak. Really?

The Greek word used here for “renewal” is palingenesia, which is derived from two root words: paling, meaning “again,” and genesia, meaning “beginning,” which of course hearkens back to Genesis. Genesis again. Eden restored. Could it possibly be? Sometimes comparing the work of various translators gets us even closer to the meaning of a passage; let’s look at two more:

Jesus replied, “Yes, you have followed me. In the re-creation of the world, when the Son of Man will rule gloriously, you who have followed me will also rule, starting with the twelve tribes of Israel. And not only you, but anyone who sacrifices home, family, fields — whatever — because of me will get it all back a hundred times over, not to mention the considerable bonus of eternal life.” (THE MESSAGE)

Jesus replied, “I assure you that when the world is made new and the Son of Man sits upon his glorious throne, you who have been my followers will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And everyone who has given up houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or property, for my sake, will receive a hundred times as much in return and will inherit eternal life.” (NLT)

The re-creation of the world. When the world is made new. A promise so breathtaking, so shocking and heartbreakingly beautiful I’m stunned that so many have missed it. Oh yes, we’ve heard quite a bit about “heaven.” But Jesus is clearly not talking about heaven here — he is talking about the re-creation of all things, including the earth we love.

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Any honest person knows this. We know we are not what we were meant to be. Most of the world religions concur on this point. Something needs to be done.

But the usual remedies involve some sort of shaping up on our part, some sort of face-lift whereby we clean up our act and start behaving as we should. Jews try to keep the Law. Buddhists follow the Eightfold Path. Muslims live by the Five Pillars. Christians try church attendance and moral living. It never works. It never will. For heaven's sake — we've given it several thousand years. You'd think we'd have gotten somewhere. Of course, the reason all those treatments ultimately fail is that we quite misdiagnosed the disease. The problem is not in our behavior; the problem is in us. As Jesus said, "For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander" (Matt. 15:19). We don't need an upgrade. We need transformation. We need a miracle.

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One day the young man Moses, prince of Egypt, went out to see for himself the oppression of his kinsmen. When he witnessed firsthand an Egyptian taskmaster beating a Hebrew slave, he couldn’t bear it, and killed the man. A rash act, for which he becomes a fugitive, but you see something of the warrior emerging in him. Years later, God sends him back to set all his people free, and, I might add, it is one intense fight to win that freedom. David also fights, battle after battle, to win the freedom of his people and unite the tribes of Israel. Something in the man compelled him, that same something that wouldn’t allow Lincoln to simply sit by and watch the Union tear itself apart, wouldn’t permit Churchill — despite the views of many of his own countrymen — to sit by and let the Nazis take over Europe unopposed. For he knew that in the end they would have England, too.

There are certain things worth fighting for. A marriage, for example, or the institution of marriage as a whole. Children, whether they are yours or not. Friendships will have to be fought for, as you’ve discovered by now, and churches, too, which seem bent on destroying themselves if they are not first destroyed by the enemy who hates them. Many people feel that earth itself is worth fighting for. Doctors fight for the lives of their patients, and teachers for the hearts and futures of their students. Take anything good, true, or beautiful upon this earth and ask yourself, “Can this be protected without a fight?”

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What if? A large golden eagle in this world can carry a sheep. What load can a renewed eagle bear? I would love to ride a golden eagle, with their permission of course. And friend—what about the angels? Heaven comes to earth, and the angels shall walk in fellowship with man. What do the angels have to teach us? What sort of games do they play? The entire earth will be our playground.

This is why you don’t need a bucket list. It’s all yours, and you can never lose it. To wander the beautiful places, without the end of vacation always looming. You’ve longed to see the fjords of Norway? Done. You’ve secretly hoped to wander the jungles of Africa? Yours too. What next? It shall all be yours.

Good thing you have all the time in the world that has no time to explore and tell the tales. To take up new adventures with those who want to sail the seven seas or climb the peaks of the Andes or range the universe itself.

You think I am being fanciful. I am being utterly serious. I am being as serious as Jesus when he warned that only the child-heart can receive the kingdom. It was your creative Father who gave you your imagination; and his creative majesty will certainly do yours one better in the world to come.

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Do you have some secret dreams you are hoping will come true for your life? Now you know—those will be fulfilled! You don’t need a bucket list because your life is unending!

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Boyhood is a time of exploration and wonder, and to be a boy is to be an explorer, from the time when the little guy figures out how to crawl up the stairs (he is gone in a flash), to the time he discovers that if he jumps over the back fence he can get down to Jimmy's house, where they have a secret fort. When God set Adam in the Garden of Eden, he set his son in a world that was, at the very same moment, safe and secure yet full of mystery and adventure. There was no reason whatsoever to be afraid, and every reason to dare. As Mark Twain said, "There comes a time in every rightly constructed boy's life when he has a raging desire to go somewhere and dig for hidden treasure." (How many of you, when you were a boy, thought there was treasure buried somewhere in the yard, or stowed away in your grandparents' attic?) Evil is — for now — held at bay. Such is the world God intended for the boy. And that world is created under the sheltering strength of a father who makes you feel safe. For this is the time in life when we were meant to come into the knowledge that we are the Beloved Son, the apple of our father's eye.

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[Our] original shimmering self gets buried so deep we hardly live out of it at all ... rather, we learn to live out of all the other selves which we are constantly putting on and taking off like coats and hats against the world's weather.

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The Breath of God, the Breath of Life. This is how we came to be, how life was imparted to us by our Creator—he gave us his own breath. This essential relationship between Creator and created, the gift of breath given and received, is repeated throughout the Scriptures:

O Lord, what a variety of things you have made!
In wisdom you have made them all.
The earth is full of your creatures. …
When you give them your breath, life is created, 
and you renew the face of the earth. (Psalm 104:24, 30 NLT)

When the tragic human story plunged all humanity into death, God had a plan for our re-creation. He showed his friend Ezekiel, prophet and mystic, a vision about the coming re-creation of humanity, the new life that God would impart to those who come to Christ, who are indeed born again.

I said, “Sovereign LORD, you alone know.”

Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones and say to them, ‘Dry bones, hear the word of the LORD! This is what the Sovereign LORD says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the LORD.’” (Ezekiel 37:1–6)

The breath of God creates us, and it re-creates us.

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