more. a poem.

more and more i hear

the sound of rifts and

rending people

shouting people clamoring

Cinderalla stepsisters

ripping beads off the broken

Bride

He calls

He weeps for His

defiled

beauty

promised to Him however we

leave her

shattered and shards

pieces of mirror reflecting our own

right

to rightness

or the fine

needle

work of saints

on knees washing

feet

emptying alabastar

adding beads

of pearls once grains of

sand now rounded

pure

by grace

alone

less theology

eschatology

exeggesis

more holy

more holy 

more

HOLY

more child

trusting

in awe

stepping back from the Holy

into the arms

of freedom

faith

more of Thy Kingdom

more of Thy power

more glory

more forever

more amen

This post is part of the One Word at a Time blog carnival on “more.” Be sure to visit them for more and better blogs than this today.

three red birds

Before I knew what life could do to a person . . . before I knew what had been done to me . . . I felt peace. I remember it, whole and holy, round and full, like the weight of a newborn infant in a mothers arms.

It was the sort of peace that comes from a youth undented and undaunted by the hammers of hurt.

The sort of peace that lives in a heart that has not yet realized people really are capable of evil . . . of lies . . . of betrayal . . . of stealing innocence, no matter how old we are when someone snuffs the last piece of us out.

Holed out, hollowed and spent, fear fills us first.

Unless we believe God and His promise to pour His Holy Spirit into us.

Unless we believe His promise to never leave us alone.

Only then, by releasing the clutch of our unbelief, can we let fear, unfettered, flee from our hearts.

The other day, I realized the depths of my unbelief as fear and shame overwhelmed me once again. I ran down the path in town, spindly brush, naked trees and silence surrounding me.

Help.

Me.

Overcome.

And then, unrequested and unrehearsed, the birds appeared.

Bright, red cardinals. Chests bursting and fat with downy, winter feathers.

First one.

Then a second.

Then a third.

Three cardinals stained red flew wild across my path. And I remembered God has something important to say when He says it in threes.

I died for you, He said.

I died for you, He said.

I died for you, He said.

So, what do you think? With God on our side like this, how can we lose?

If God didn’t hesitate to put everything on the line for us, embracing our condition and exposing himself to the worst by sending his own Son, is there anything else he wouldn’t gladly and freely do for us?

And who would dare tangle with God by messing with one of God’s chosen? Who would dare even to point a finger? The One who died for us—who was raised to life for us!—is in the presence of God at this very moment sticking up for us.

Do you think anyone is going to be able to drive a wedge between us and Christ’s love for us? There is no way! Not trouble, not hard times, not hatred, not hunger, not homelessness, not bullying threats, not backstabbing, not even the worst sins listed in Scripture . . . We’re sitting ducks; they pick us off one by one.

None of this fazes us because Jesus loves us. I’m absolutely convinced that nothing—nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable—absolutely nothing can get between us and God’s love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us.

Romans 8:31-39 (TMV)

So you might know

So, a little sporting event has arrived in my town.

Playing interactive games, whizzing down zip lines, finding celebrities and exposing self and family to once-in-a-lifetime events–these are all the rage in my town.

I hear thrill in the voices of friends as they post Super Bowl 46 adventures on social media outlets. I see their pride as they take photos in front of giant, Roman numerals. I feel their adrenaline as they describe the wonder in their children’s eyes.

And I wonder.

Is this what God does with us when He asks us to go?

When he asks us to go and do and see things we’d never dreamed of seeing?

Like an earthly father who can’t wait to show his child something new and big and shiny, does God long for us to push past our terror and fears so He can see our joy and wonder when we catch a glimpse of His work first hand in places like . . .

Haiti orphanages

Katrina-ravaged bayous

the eyes of special-needs kids in Ukraine

I feel Him asking me to go.

Do you?

But I am afraid.

And I suffer from unbelief.

Do you?

Lord, Abba, Father, help us overcome these things. Take our hands and help us go where You would lead. So we might see and report and be changed into people more like You through the wondrous things You are doing among us all.

“You were shown these things so that you might know that the LORD is God; besides him there is no other.”

Deuteronomy 4:35