Tag Archives: redeeming love

Till the end of the age (holech)

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Isaiah 35:7-8 KJV
[7] And the parched ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water: in the habitation of dragons, where each lay, shall be grass with reeds and rushes. [8] And an highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called The way of holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it; but it shall be for those: the wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein.

Like many Christians all over the world, I long to see Jesus face to face.

He is my best friend, Rescuer, and Pearl of great price. And, let’s face it—this world can feel like a sinking ship. Sometimes it can be hard to wait.

The Bible encourages people who love Jesus to long for and look for his return, so I think I am supposed to be searching the sky and praying and hoping He will come back today, as-soon-as-possible!

And yet, I need to be trying to tell people about Him. He has been such a good friend to me, I want everyone to know him. I cannot imagine the loneliness and horror of my life without him.

This morning I had a dream with a field in it. The field was full of grass or wildflowers referred to in the dream as “holech.” I don’t speak Hebrew, so I looked the word up phonetically. Holech in Hebrew means

If you are walking in Jesus, keep walking and bring your friends with you. We are all called to lead people to Him.

And if you don’t know Him yet? He is our Rescuer, the Ransom for our shame, and “the friend who sticks closer than a brother.“

Don’t take my word for it, just ask Him. Tell him your doubts. Ask Him to answer all your hardest questions. He has. He will. He always does. Listen for His voice. He speaks the language of each person’s heart better than we do ourselves. (See idiolect https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/idiolect)

Matthew 13:37-43 KJV
[37] He answered and said unto them, He that soweth the good seed is the Son of man; [38] The field is the world; the good seed are the children of the kingdom; but the tares are the children of the wicked one ; [39] The enemy that sowed them is the devil; the harvest is the end of the world; and the reapers are the angels. [40] As therefore the tares are gathered and burned in the fire; so shall it be in the end of this world. [41] The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity; [42] And shall cast them into a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth. [43] Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. Who hath ears to hear, let him hear.

Luke 21:25-28 KJV
[25] And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring; [26] Men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken. [27] And then shall they see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. [28] And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh.

Romans 10:9,11-13 KJV
[9] That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. [11] For the scripture saith, Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed. [12] For there is no difference between the Jew and the Greek: for the same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon him. [13] For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.

Childhood Friend

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She was a strikingly pretty college student with a disconcerting way of saying truly disfiguring things as though she was doing an elevator pitch for a rom-com puppet movie.

She said the “idea was based on a childhood friend,” and that the horror movie centered on the omniscience, omnipotence, and omnipresence of the Christian God (wait for it)…being the malevolent antagonistic killer!

Quite. A. Plot. Twist!

Somehow in the process of writing a home-cooked horror movie she managed to pull off an egregious character assassination of both her childhood “friend” and mine.

I listened aghast as emblems of rescue and redemption were suborned for a Mean-Girls-meets-The-Shining revenge plot.

At one point the thinly-veiled childhood-friend-turned-megalomaniac-killer-omnipotent-deity murders the protagonist after repeating a common Christian invocation of the Trinity.

She got a fan-girl response from many in the audience with questions about whether her movie was going to be produced, possibly with the support of the university?

Afterwards, I broached a few questions—

Was she concerned about alienating over a billion Christians?

Had she shown the manuscript to the “childhood friend?”

Had she considered making a fictitious murderous-god-antagonist to vilify instead of the explicitly stated Real One?

Had she or would she run all this by Him?

It is a gut check to have to listen to someone you love get raked through the fire of untrue and scourging misrepresentation.

But this was not Jesus’ first rodeo.

He paid the price for my ransom and hers, and whether she could or would see it, his drowning snd destruction in the abyss of human violence and folly was, is, and will be our only way out of it.

It is “a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God,” not primarily because we are so broken, but because he was-for us, and that should require a response.

My childhood friend has saved me from the deep end so many times. I would be lost without him.

Thank you, Jesus.

The Face Recognition Game

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Pretend for a moment that a woman who vaguely resembled Condoleezza Rice had once been in love with the spitting image of a youthful Bill Gates, what if they met years later, at a cafe, perhaps in a train station, people going from here to there in a hurry, what would they say to each other, would they recognize their former selves in the people they had become? Would she touch his face tenderly? Regret the years which came between them? Or would they just pass each other by, as though someone else’s face had been taped hastily across

All they had been together?

You are greatly loved

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I have a dear friend who signs notes to me you are greatly loved. Which is cool, right?

On one of my phones I have played with the tag phrase at the end of emails. I am not sure anyone needs to know I have sent this from my iPhone, but perhaps they need a Bible verse, and exhortation of some sort, or to know they are greatly loved?

Sometimes I forget it is there. Sometimes I read it and think this snarky email I am about to send needs to be edited for snark if I truly believe the recipient is greatly loved. Sometimes I acknowledge it but then delete each letter because the mayor or the police chief or the college professor or college president already thinks I am crazy as a loon and annoying and foolish as well.

The phrase itself is not the strongest iteration of the idea. It is in passive voice. The active form is just I love you, which can be the most exposed and committed utterance when rendered true.

When we love someone enough to fight for them

When we intervene on their behalf.

When we are willing to be desperate or look foolish for them.

When we are willing to be misunderstood to keep them safe.

When we go hungry for them

Or give up jobs and honors for them.

Or when we call for help on their behalf.

When we give them our voice because their voice is young or small or taken from them.

They are greatly loved because love demands fierce and extraordinary things.

…..

A few days ago I was in deep mourning thinking about the sheer number of people who have decided that either I was not good enough for love, or worse, that God was not good enough for love.

I cried over this, and opened up YouTube to pray and sing through this grief. Matthew Mole’s You are loved appeared without a search or a place on my history.

God does that. He leaves signs all around us that we are greatly loved. He sends leaves falling over us, pennies shining on the pavement, songs which feel like lullabies, setting and rising suns–all love letters with the same matchless

guarantee–

You are greatly loved.

–John 3:16

Letters for Strangers

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What if people (at least four dimensions, mandatorily eternal) could be reduced to letters? You might me a J or a d, I would be the more stolid E, B, or m. But there would be others, people we knew from yesterday or long ago. People like K or even another J or two.

We look for meaning in things like letters, and we are right to do so–meaning is everywhere, the meowing cat left behind to remind us of his master–Living God, whose own call is both fluid and foundational at the same time–living water and corner stones, foundations not washed away by floods.

M asked me how I knew J was gay. I told her an odd story about a single wistful look caught in a rearview mirror–oddest thing always knowing it was you, not me he would have loved.

It did not matter. He was both four dimensional and a parable of letters, sometimes numbers too as he sat in the sun by the pool trying to extract meaning from a single fortune cookie when the inimitable light of the sun through clouds was a painting lit for him by the frickin God of the Universe.

I grew exasperated–Why are you looking for direction from a fortune cookie when His love is right there for the asking? His attention so focused and ransoming?

See so many letters, when you know the real story is much more like a very good doctor doing whatever, whatever he can to save a dying kitten

For love.

Love Will Find You

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Voice in your head

Kinda sounds like you but…

Kinder, wiser, more forgiving

Bright penny on the ground

In the most unlikely places

A posse of leaves long wrung from living limbs

Dance, alive in the winter wind

Sing your name

No matter 

A big impossible 

Promise unless it is Truth

Kind that sets a body free

Not unlike those ephemeral leaves

Dry bones

Bits of things found

In the unlikeliest places

Love will find you

No matter what.

“There’s no base!”

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“there’s no base!” 

Exclaimed the girl–green shirt, tiny dog resembling a toy…

only real in the crook of her arm

And suddenly I get atheism–

Darwin shouts in the  schoolyard– 

no base!

And unhinging the game from…

well, base-

Another name for

The trunk of the branching oak

we rest beneath

breathing hard

before someone says

One, two, three, get off my father’s apple tree

Not to be confused with 

That one inimitable player who says

One, two, three, base all over me

And somehow, miraculously

Means it.

The Distance Between Us

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Bet everybody loves a good

love story 

Boy meets girl or something…

Only that is not enough

You once asked me if there were monkey bars that went all around the world

Could you do it?

I could do the math

24,901 miles around

Oddly specific last mile the hardest

Arms tired by the miles of 

Arm-swing-leg-swing-hang repeat

131,477,280 bars

Feet

Hands and arms so tired

After an eternal day in the sun

The girl is such an ordinary thing

But the boy is one-of-a-kind

Worth looking for

The man who could, would, did and shall

Make this love story

Luminous.

The unconditional lullaby

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i will stay with you forever

No matter what you

say or do

I will see you as a baby

Despite your sin and stink or view

I will never bring up “maybe”

When you ask me if I do

Love you here forever

When you have squandered like a fool

All the treasure I have never

Ceased to give to you

No act of yours can sever

The strength of love renewed

Dearest heart, eternal child

My one and always you.