White hands strayed across the piano keys and whispered soft to me. Do you feel the thunder humming? Do you hear the sizzling of the wires as they pass messages up and down the years? Do you see the lights off the northern coast gleaming through the fog? Do you smell the woodsmoke of the bonfire that crackles on that Hawaii beach? I wish I could write a story that would encompass your trials and tribulations and yet still hold you safe within its arms. Yet my ability to do such is outmatched by my vivid vision and I fear that anything I write will shrivel in your presence and turn to stone under the stars. Yet perhaps even that stone will stand the test of time better than some other scribbles and perhaps the star-washed etchings will someday bring tears to a pilgrim’s eyes. So should I not attempt it and see what this feeble hand can bring forth? Should I not at least break out my notebook and try? I put my hands upon the keyboard now and cry to heaven. I get on my knees and pray for aid this night. Why do you call me to account now for what I haven’t written? Why do you look at me with such tender compassion when I know my failures are even now within your sight? Oh I must with diligence press on for that for which I’ve been called to do. Do I believe it possible that I can craft this gem of steel and starlight? Do you? Please don’t text me asking for an answer. I walk this path even now wondering what I shall say at the end of all things. Thankfully I don’t need to present a justification. The price has already been paid. Do you smell the scent of roast chicken cooking? Do you see the light of the candle on the coffee table that flickers this night? Do you hear the tapping of the keyboard as I write this prologue? Do you feel my arms around you holding you as you cry? The lightning struck outside and I turned the record over.
Tag: passion
Passion
So…baseball Opening Day was yesterday. Sadly – I did not go to any baseball games, but surprisingly(and probably for the last time this year), all three of my teams won! Rays had a comeback victory over Boston, Baltimore took out the Twins in the 11th with an Adam Jones homer…and the Astros just plain dominated with Verlander pitching like the Hall of Famer he is. So I am happy. Yay baseball! Spring is now officially here.
But…far more importantly…today is what is commonly called Good Friday, despite the fact that the event it commemorates is horrifyingly brutal in the extreme. The day man decided (once again!) that they knew better than God. The day humanity decided (once again!) that they were better off without God. The day we killed God.
And as shocking as that turn of events was…in the end it truly was a Good day. For it was the day that God sacrificed Himself. For us. For all of us who put our faith in Jesus. For all of us who give up our lives in submission to the only true God. For all of us who bow the knee to the One who saves.
In honour of the events of today, I much enjoyed reading Philippians this morning…many many verses kept striking me with their brilliant truths, but I shall only quote a few of my favourites this day. Despite the filth and lies we are surrounded by…remember:
But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ.
More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ
Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish
so that I may gain Christ,
and may be found in Him,
not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through
faith in Christ,
the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith,
that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings,
being conformed to His death; in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.
and…
For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Saviour,
the Lord Jesus Christ;
who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the
body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject
all things to Himself.
-Philippians 3:7-11,20-21
Let us remember these things. Let us pause this day in the midst of our frantic lives and ponder and meditate on the One who did not consider equality with God a thing to be grasped – even though He is God – but instead emptied Himself and became a Man and lived and died and rose again. For us.
Amazing love, how can it be – that Thou my God shouldst die for me!?!
