The Way Of The Quiet Sandal

The more intimate I become with Christ, the more I realize the horrifying reality that He is not in many of our churches. Leonard Ravenhill said of the text at Revelation 3:20, when the Lord says to the lukewarm Laodicean church, "Behold, I stand at the door and knock," that it has nothing to do with sinners and a waiting Savior.  But that it is the tragic picture of our Lord at the door of His own lukewarm church trying to get in.

I see many big, happy, shiny, busy churches, but I see no Christ in them.  Not the real Christ.  I see a lot of self-promotion disguised as gospel promotion.  I see the Americanized version of Christ that just wants us to be happy and blessed, but not Jesus from Nazareth Who teaches us the way of the quiet sandal.  I don't see the Jesus of the Bible-- the One Who isn't calling us to be great, but rather Who is calling us to be nothing.  I don't see the real Jesus Who said to gain life, you must lose it (Mark 8:35).  I don't see a lot of people saying, "I want to be great in You, but not with a heart that longs for greatness, but with a heart that longs for You."  I don't see a lot of people saying, "Let my greatness be in humility, love, obedience, truth, discernment, and wisdom."

What if God isn't calling you to be great?  What if He is calling you to quietly serve Him in obscurity?  What if He is calling you to be faithful in the mundane?  What if God isn't calling you to build that mega-church or gain that huge following?  What if God's blessing on your life isn't that perfect career?  What if God's blessing on your life doesn't look like what the Laodicean church says it should look like?  What if God's blessing on your life looks like being confined to a wheelchair for the rest of your life so that He can show His power in you and through you?  What if God's blessing on your life is for you to endure the despair and unknowns of having a young daughter with an inoperable brain tumor so He can show His faithfulness and provision through you?  Because I know people whose blessings look like that.

What if God's desire for you isn't to be happy but to be holy?  Because I can tell you, the real God of the Bible will always forfeit your happiness if it threatens your holiness.  He will not rip our idols from our hands, but He will burn them away with the holy fire of His presence.  John the Baptist cried out to the masses that Christ "will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire" (Matt 3:11; Luke 3:16).  Jesus said, "I have come to cast fire upon the earth, and how I wish it were kindled already!" (luke 12:49).  How I wish this fire would be cast into our churches, to burn away all that is not of the real Jesus.  To burn away all our empty blessings and selfish pursuits and replace them with the want to be made holy.

To have deep, genuine intimacy with Christ, you must know loss.  He said so.  Jesus said we must lose to gain (Mark 8:35).  That is what carrying your cross means.  The cross was not yet a symbol of hope and salvation when He preached, "anyone who does not take up their cross and follow Me is not worthy of Me" (Matt 10:38).  When Jesus said that to people during His ministry, they understood the cross to be a symbol of torment and death.  At that time, the cross was the symbol of ultimate loss--  loss of self, loss of dignity, loss of status, loss of comfort, loss of life.  Those who died by crucifixion were considered cursed by the world-- a world that cannot comprehend a God Who can turn a curse into a blessing.

What Jesus was telling them was that to have deep fellowship with Him, there must be death.  Jesus was telling us that to truly gain intimate knowledge of Him, we must know loneliness, rejection, and loss.  Paul says that we are heirs with Christ, "if indeed we share in His sufferings in order that we may also share in His glory" (Rom 8:17).  What Paul tells us here is that to share in Christ's glory, we must first share in His sufferings.

When you take up your cross to follow the real Jesus of the Bible, you must walk the way of the quiet sandal.  You must tread the lonely desert.  You must climb the jagged mountain and sit atop in silence.  You must embrace the position in which you must get the answer from God, and God alone.  You must become completely unsatisfied with the things of this world, so that you can find your only fulfillment in the things of heaven.  You must lose your life in this world, so that you can find it in Christ-- you must die to self so that you can live for Him.  The way of the quiet sandal leads only to the door of the furnace, it has no other destination.  And when you get to that door, you must close your eyes, lift up your head, and step into the furnace as you say in your heart, "You are my God.  I believe that You can save me from this blazing torment.  And even if you do not, You are still my God."

"If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and He will deliver us from Your Majesty's hand. But even if He does not, we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up." (Daniel 3:17,18)

"I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to Him in His death, so that I may somehow attain to the resurrection from the dead." (Phil 3:10,11)

"We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. For we who are alive are always consigned to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our mortal bodies." (2 Cor 4:10,11)

"But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed." (Luke 5:16)

"After He had dismissed them, He went up on a mountainside by Himself to pray. Later that night, He was there alone." (Matt 14:23)

"Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where He prayed." (Mark 1:35)

The Madness Of His Glory

A Pastor in Florida has recently caused quite a stir by his claim to have met the risen Jesus over the past Easter weekend.  Over the last few years, I have also heard claims that Muslims in the Middle East are having dreams and visions of Jesus that are leading them to faith in Christ.  Are these claims valid?  Can Jesus appear to us in person, and does He?  I can only tell you what I know.

Scripture records many appearances of Christ after His resurrection.  He appeared to Mary Magdalene and other women (John 20:16,17; Matt 28:8-10); to two men on the road to Emmaus (Luke 24:13-43); to Peter and six other disciples (John 21); twice to His disciples in the upper room (John 20:19-29); to more than five hundred believers at the same time (1 Cor 15:6); to James, the brother of Jesus, and many other Apostles (1 Cor 15:7); to Paul four times, first on the road to Damascus, where Paul never actually saw Christ, but only heard His voice (Acts 9),  and three times in visions (Acts 18:9,10; 22:17-21; 23:11); to Ananias in a vision (Acts 9:10-16); and to the aged Apostle John an unknown number of times while he was writing the Book of Revelation.

We know that Jesus' appearances to Paul, Ananias, and the aged Apostle John were after His ascension, so it is interesting to note that those appearances were quite different than His pre-ascension appearances.  Post-ascension appearances are always in some form of vision or dream, and several descriptions we are given of Christ in these visions are quite mind-numbing.  After Paul's first encounter with the ascended Christ, he spent three days afterward blind and did not eat or drink the entire three days.  The Apostle John gives us the most riveting description of our ascended Lord, and tells us that his own reaction to the presence of Christ was that he "fell at His feet as though dead" (Rev 1:17).

I think the most important thing we are to understand about these post-ascension encounters with Christ is that their purpose was always and solely for the furtherance of the Gospel and, for the most part, were always to someone who endured extreme circumstances for the furtherance of the Gospel-- people who were imprisoned, under great duress, or eventually to be martyred.  According to Scripture, Jesus never appeared to anyone to hang out with them or give them comfort.  Even when Jesus appeared to Paul to encourage him at Acts 18:9,10 and 23:11, both times Jesus' purpose was less for comfort and more for telling Paul to keep going forward in obedience and spreading the Gospel:  "keep speaking, do not be silent" and "you must also testify in Rome."  In all of Jesus' post-ascension appearances, He is all-business, direct-and-to-the-point, there are no comforting conversations about His love, and there is always a sense of erect and immediate obedience from those to whom He appears.

No encounter with the post-ascension Christ was ever warm and fuzzy, buddy-buddy, or for the purpose of ministering to a personal, emotional need.  None.  In every encounter, specific instructions were given that related to the furtherance of the Gospel and that would ultimately minister to the Church as a whole, not individually.  Nowhere in Scripture are we given a portrait of a smooth talking, back patting, emotionally endearing Christ-- whether during His earthly ministry, after His resurrection, or after His ascension-- never.  Scripture says our comfort and help come from the Holy Spirit, not visions of the post-ascension Christ (John 14:16,26; 15:26; 16:7; Rom 8:26,27).  And no encounter with the post-ascension Christ was on a regular basis, it was always and only on rare occasions of extreme necessity, all of which....you guessed it....were directly related to the furtherance of the Gospel.

Jesus warned us that many would come in His Name and deceive many (Matt 24:5).  Luke 21:8 adds Jesus' instructions: "Do not follow them."  Jesus actually prefaces His warning by saying "Watch out that no one deceives you..." (Matt 24:4) and "See to it that you are not deceived..." (Luke 21:8).  Growing up, I always assumed that Jesus was talking about other human beings who would claim to be Christ.  But I think a more accurate understanding would be any being other than Christ-- human, spirit, or otherwise-- who claims to be Christ.  The Apostle John also warns us not to believe every spirit, but to test them to see if they are from God (1 John 4:1).  I can attest that this is necessary because I have had an encounter with a spirit that presented itself as a benevolent entity, but when I said, "Jesus is Lord" and it did not reply in agreement, I knew immediately that it was a deceiving spirit that I had initially trusted simply because of its appearance (1 Cor 12:3).

I have never had a vision of the risen Christ.  And although technically we are in a "type" of God's comforting presence through the Holy Spirit during prayer, we are not in His literal, actual presence.  It is more of a "filtered" presence, with the person of the Holy Spirit acting as a protective shield from God's actual presence.  I know this because a scant few times during intense prayer in the Spirit, I have merely approached that presence and all but one time I asked God to save me from it because I couldn't bear it.  There was no warm and fuzzy feeling, there was only the crushing weight of His holiness and the abject horror over my own unworthiness in light of it.  Any feeling of His love was vaporized by the magnitude of it and muted by the feeling that surely if I got any closer I would be utterly undone.  Like what a planet must feel when approaching the event horizon of a black hole and the sheer force of incalculable gravity begins to take over and disassemble matter on a molecular level.  Nothing is left, even the memory of it having been erased as if it never existed. 

In the scant few times I have sensed any approach to the actual presence of Christ in prayer, I felt a humility that words simply cannot express.  They don't exist in the human language.  Even to try to express it in human terms seems ridiculous and absurd.  That is part of what Paul is talking about when he tells us that the Spirit intercedes for us "with groans too deep for words" (Rom 8:26).  The scant few times I have approached His presence in prayer, I fully understood why human beings cannot look upon God and live.  The human heart cannot withstand it-- whether in the body or out-- and all those whom Scripture records as being in that presence were only sustained from their own utter obliteration by His saving grace.  I forget who said it, but I once heard someone say that God wasn't necessarily saving us from hell through our faith in Christ, He was saving us from Himself.  This I understand, and to this I can attest.

When I look over the scriptural accounts of those exceptional few who experienced a vision of the post-ascension Christ I see a common thread-- a common thread that I can attest to, despite my ridiculously infinitesimal experience of Christ's presence.  In Scripture, we see that for those who had a genuine encounter with Christ, nothing else mattered after-the-fact.  In every scriptural account of the post-ascension Christ appearing to someone visually or audibly, we see a person in whom every atom of their being was standing in rapt attention for their orders from their Creator.  Nothing else in their life ever mattered again, other than Christ and His Gospel, because they had encountered the very purpose for their being.  For those who behold their Creator, a madness begins to seep in, an obsession to glorify Him and to serve Him takes over all that they are.   You will know them by their fruit.

"Beware of false prophets. They come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. By their fruit you will recognize them. Are grapes gathered from thorn bushes, or figs from thistles?" (Matt 7:16)

"Therefore I want you to know that no one who is speaking by the Spirit of God says, 'Jesus be cursed,' and no one can say, 'Jesus is Lord,' except by the Holy Spirit." (1 Cor 12:3)

"Jesus answered, 'See to it that you are not deceived. For many will come in My Name, claiming, "I am He," and, "The time is near." Do not follow them.'" (Luke 21:8)

"Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God. For many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you will know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming, and is already in the world at this time." (1 John 4:1-3)

"The hair on His head was white like wool, as white as snow, and His eyes were like blazing fire. His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace, and His voice was like the sound of rushing waters. In His right hand He held seven stars, and coming out of His mouth was a sharp, double-edged sword. His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance. When I saw Him, I fell at His feet as though dead..." (Rev 1:14-17)

"...I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the train of His robe filled the temple. Above Him were seraphim, each with six wings...and they were calling to one another: 'Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of His glory.' At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke. 'Woe to me!' I cried. 'I am ruined!' For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.'" (Isaiah 6:1-5)

"And He said, 'I Myself will make all My goodness pass before you, and will proclaim the name of the Lord before you; and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show compassion on whom I will show compassion.' But He said, 'You cannot see My face, for no man can see Me and live!'" (Ex 33:19,20)

Drinking From The Cup Of Stillness

I'm a fighter.  I'm a doer.  I'm a problem-solver and a victim-saver.  I'm a protector and a defender.  Fight or flight, you ask?  I'll answer with a sword slicing off your ear.  We give Peter a lot of grief for abandoning Jesus on the night of His trial, but we too soon forget that it was only Peter who defended Jesus when the mob came to the Garden of Gethsamane.  A mob of men had come to harm Peter's best friend, teacher, and Savior, and Peter's natural, initial response was to pull out a sword and start swinging.  We should remember that Peter's initial reaction was to defend Jesus, not to abandon Him.

But Jesus didn't ask Peter to defend Him, He asked Peter to be still.  Peter's focus was supposed to be on Christ, not on the danger.  When we focus on the danger, our vision and purpose become blurred and we come out swinging when Christ would prefer us to be still and drink the cup.  This is because God saves us whether we are fighting or standing still.  And sometimes He waits until we are still.  There is a time to swing a sword and there is a time to keep it in the sheath, and we can only discern the difference if we have first sat in stillness with our eyes on Christ. 

Sitting and drinking the cup of stillness requires faith.  The more Christ wants to instill faith in you, the longer He will allow you to remain in situations in which the answers to what you seek require stillness.  Sitting in stillness is agonizing to a fighter.  It is agonizing to a worrier.  It is agonizing to those with a busy mind and even busier hands.  It is contrary to every inclination of our flesh.  Which is exactly the point.  To grow in the Spirit, the flesh must die.  They are contrary to one another, therefore growth in one means the demise of the other. 

There is an old Native American folktale about two wolves that reside in each person-- one good and one bad.  One day a child who discerns this struggle within himself asks an elder, "Which one will win?"  And the elder replies, "Whichever one you feed."  We either grow in the flesh by feeding fleshly desires, or we grow in the Spirit by submitting to it in obedience and faith.  But we cannot have both.

"...Then the men stepped forward, seized Jesus, and arrested Him. At this, one of Jesus' companions drew his sword and struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his ear..... 'Put your sword back in its sheath!' Jesus said to Peter. 'Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given Me?'" (Matt 26:50,51; John 18:11)

"Therefore, brothers and sisters, we have an obligation-- but it is not to the flesh, to live according to it.  For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.  For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God." (Rom 8:12-14)

"I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, Who loved me and gave Himself for me." (Gal 2:20)

"You, however, are controlled not by the flesh, but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. But if Christ is in you, your body is indeed dead on account of sin, yet the Spirit gives you life because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of Him Who raised Jesus from the dead lives in you, He Who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit, Who dwells in you." (Rom 8:9-11)

The Properties Of Prophecy

I often get asked to teach on eschatology.  Eschatology is just a fancy theological word to say, "The study of all the stuff that happens at the end of the age or the end of humankind."  It comes from the Greek words ESKHATOS, meaning "last", and LOGY, meaning "the study of."  Therefore, eschatology involves the study of end times, which would include topics such as Christ's second coming, His millennial reign, the Great Tribulation, the rapture of the Church, the fulfillment of the Time of the Gentiles, the Time of Jacob's Trouble, the Day of the Lord, the resurrection of the dead, judgment, heaven and hell.  

Although I am interested in end-times study and have dabbled in it for over ten years, I am not all that interested in teaching on it.  I have only taught one thing about it on this blog that I posted in a seven-part series, and even when I posted it I made it clear that I had prayed to God to grant me understanding of a particular matter and what I wrote was what I felt to be an answer to that prayer.  What I wrote was still "my" understanding of how the pieces of the puzzle fit together.

And that is the reality of eschatology.  Anyone who teaches on it is teaching their personal understanding of it, which is why there are so many variant takes on what the end times will look like and how it exactly plays out.  No matter what is taught, it's still speculation on how prophetic Scripture should be interpreted.  I received a message the other day from a friend lamenting over Christians arguing over a pre-, mid-, or post-tribulation rapture.  That is another reality of eschatology-- people arguing over speculation.  

Here is the thing that people need to come to grips with:  the Pharisees of Jesus' time were experts in Scripture and in interpreting it, it was their job, their lives revolved around it, and they had done it for hundreds of years, they had a rock-solid interpretation of what the arrival of their Messiah was going to look like and what He was going to do, so that is what they were all looking for and teaching others to look for......but they were wrong.  Every Jew during the time of Christ was looking for a Messiah who would be a great warrior that would overcome their oppressors.  They were looking for Messiah Ben David (the conquering King) so they missed Messiah Ben Joseph (the Suffering Servant).  And it never occurred to them or even entered their minds that Moshiach Ben David and Moshiach Ben Joseph would be the same person.  Something that is clear to us now, after-the-fact, was unfathomable then.

This is what I think about when I see people teaching their interpretations of eschatological Scriptures as fact.  Or writing books that lay out a scenario based on their interpretation of Scripture.  Or arguing over their particular interpretation with others who have a different interpretation.  Could any of these interpretations be possible?  Sure.  Are these interpretations certain?  No.  

The prophetic genre is both forthtelling and foretelling.  Forthtelling prophecies were messages for a prophet's own audience about their own day or the near future (1).  Foretelling prophecies are messages for a future audience about their own day and time.  In both instances, the prophecy is meant to be understood by the people it was written for in the time for which it was written.  Meaning, foretelling prophetic Scripture will only be properly understood at the specific time with which the prophecy is dealing with and afterwards.  For example, the prophecy at Isaiah 17 about the destruction of Damascus will only be properly understood and interpreted around the time that it actually happens, and not before.  And there will certainly be a clear understanding after-the-fact, which is one of the functions of prophecy.  The fullness of understanding is more-so meant to be after-the-fact, as a sort of "let the record show" that God was in control the entire time.

Prophecy glorifies God and His sovereignty.  It shows that He always has a plan in place, no matter what choices we make.  It confirms that He is the Alpha and the Omega, knowing the beginning from the end and the end from the beginning (Isaiah 46:10).  It doesn't negate human will or human decision, it merely shows that there is nothing we can do to take us outside of God's sovereignty or omniscience.  No matter what choices we make, He will always be there working around them in such a way that leads us to an outcome of ultimate good.  Prophecy has been given to us as a gift-- a gift of warning, a gift of knowledge, and a gift of hope.

"Remember the former things long past, for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is no one like Me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times things which have not been done, saying, 'My purpose will be established and I will accomplish all My good pleasure;'" (Isaiah 46:9,10)

"I declared the former things long ago and they went forth from My mouth, and I proclaimed them. Suddenly I acted, and they came to pass." (Isaiah 48:3)

"This is what the Lord says-- Israel's King and Redeemer, the Lord Almighty:  I am the first and I am the last; apart from Me there is no God. Who then is like Me? Let him proclaim it. Let him declare and lay out before Me what has happened since I established My ancient people, and what is yet to come-- yes, let them foretell what will come. Do not tremble, do not be afraid. Did I not proclaim this and foretell it long ago? You are My witnesses. Is there any God besides Me? No, there is no other Rock; I know not one." (Isaiah 44:6-8)

(1)  Klein, William W., et al. Introduction to Biblical Interpretation. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, Inc., 1993.

Twilight's Pearl

On the dusky evenings I walk along the dirt path to my chicken yard, I feel the uneven dirt beneath my flip-flops.  As I walk along the pitted and clodded path, I look at the deep, uneven footprints made by my rubber boots the last time it rained and I had to walk out there in the ankle-deep mud.  When it's wet, the thick mud pulls against my boot with each step, as if pleading with me not to take another step forward.  But most nights, the mud has quieted down into dry, uneven terrain that leads to my chicken yard.

As I walk, I look down at the uneven dirt

As I walk, I look up at the twilight sky

Not quite day, not quite night

In this twilight limbo, time seems to stand still

In this twilight limbo, everything is in-between

In-between light and dark

In-between seen and unseen

In-between wake and sleep

In-between the uneven dirt and the twilight sky

In this twilight limbo, I look down and think about the coarse, earthen dirt God used to make us

In this twilight limbo, I look up and think about His heavenly abode, way up high beyond the stars

The first stars of the night are usually out and they twinkle from where God has them positioned, unfathomable light years away.  So far away, that they cannot be touched, or experienced, or felt, other than their twinkling.  I think to myself, "Sometimes God feels like that."  The stars are so far away, but here on earth, in my chicken yard, I am so very close to the smell of grass and chickens and approaching night.  Here on earth, in my chicken yard, I am so very close to the cool, evening breeze that tousles my hair.  God, stars, earth.  All are equally real, but so differently experienced.

I breathe in deeply.  I cannot breathe-in the stars, but I can breathe-in the earth.  So I breathe in deeply and think about God breathing deeply into the earthen dirt He used to make us, like the uneven dirt beneath my flip-flops, breathing His Spirit into the dirt to give it life and consciousness. 

I look down at the dirt.

I look up at the sky.

And I breathe in deeply as I walk to my chicken yard.

I stand at the rusty, crooked gate, and I look around at this little spot tucked away like a shiny pearl in a pocket of God's robe.  The long, flowy robe of an unending universe.  Galaxies made out of heavenly buttons and solar systems made out of divine thread.  The flowy robe of a Master Tailor, spinning and sewing a magnificent wardrobe of exquisite creations.  A divine, unsearchable robe, with all sorts of pockets full of secret, simple treasures.  My chicken yard is one of those treasures.  It is a treasure of simplicity and complexity, of mundane and wonder.  Inert dirt and old wood and scattered rocks mixed with grass and chickens and trees, making a concoction full of life and potential and creation.  It is a place I treasure because it is a place where my life stands still, away from the electric, away from the frantic, away from the overwhelming pace of modern-day life.  A place where pause, ponder, marvel, and majesty embrace.  It is a place that makes me think of the moment that God stood on the earth and looked down at a clod of uneven dirt in His hand.  The moment just prior to making the creature that would tread upon such uneven clods in a pair of flip-flops and ponder their potential.  A moment that, perhaps, was not quite day and not quite night.  A moment that was in-between.

In-between light and dark

In-between seen and unseen

In-between wake and sleep

In-between the uneven dirt and the twilight sky

In this twilight limbo, perhaps God looked down at the coarse, earthen dirt He used to make us

In this twilight limbo, perhaps He looked up and thought about His heavenly abode, way up high beyond the stars

The twilight limbo where time stood still

In the moment before He shared His image

While the angels looked on

And all of creation held its breath

While He breathed His Spirit into the dirt

And pause, ponder, marvel, and majesty embraced

Creating a treasure of simplicity, complexity, mundane, and wonder

"Then God said, 'Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness'....so God created mankind in His own image, in the image of God He created them; male and female He created them." (Gen 1:26,27)

"Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being." (Gen 2:7)

"When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have set in place, what is mankind that You are mindful of them, human beings that You care for them? You have made them a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honor. You made them rulers over the works of Your hands; You put everything under their feet." (Psalm 8:3-6)

"Praise the Lord, my soul. Lord my God, You are very great; You are clothed with splendor and majesty. The Lord wraps Himself in light as with a garment; He stretches out the heavens like a tent....How many are Your works, Lord! In wisdom You made them all; the earth is full of Your creatures." (Psalm 104:1,2,24)

"Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in Your book before one of them came to be. How precious to me are Your thoughts, God! How vast is the sum of them!" (Psalm 139:16,17)

Dirt Covered Treasure

I come to You, offering You my heart

I reach toward You, offering all I have to give

My heart, my dirt-covered treasure

I come to You like a child

Holding out a grubby handful of wildflowers with dirt clods at the ends

You can have it, my dirt-covered treasure

It's a little dirty, but it's Yours

It's a little dirty, but it's all I have to give

Maybe it can be Your treasure too

You stand there in perfection

Your garment gleams radiant

I stand here covered in smudges and stains

I reach for You with my dirty hands

And I marvel that You don't shrink away

As I come towards You, I falter and stumble

Wearing garments of sin and ignorance

Your garment gleams radiant

You stand there in perfection

I come to You, offering You my heart

I reach toward You, offering all I have to give

Like a woman who has known loss, and pain, and hurt, and rejection

My wounds, my scar-covered past

You can have it

It's a little dirty, but it's Yours

It's a little dirty, but it's all I have to give

You look down at me and say, "I have known loss, and pain, and hurt, and rejection too"

I look up at You and say, "Maybe we can be each other's treasure"