Angst

 The Power of Time...

It has been a long long while since I wrote a blog. 

There are times when silence is the loudest friend to the spiritual sojourner.

It has been a decade since I published some of these last blogs. All the social media experts of course, counsel us to keep ourselves ever before the face of the reader. Keep a regular rhythm, a weekly time where wisdom is unveiled and insight is revealed.

That however may not be the divine rhythm of a Heavenly Father, whose timetable does not reflect social trends. "Be still and know that I am God", is one of tough texts where we have to place ourselves firmly in the hands of the Almighty...well as Gerry Breshears would say "let Jesus do Jesus stuff"

As I sit here in my home in Costa Mesa CA, the photos of the family are a decade old. Little ones have been added to our clan. Wrinkles and scars tell of frontline spiritual combat in the last decade.

The pregnancy of this decade has also given us the most extraordinary privilege of richness added to our lives. Meryl is thriving as a Marriage and Family Therapist. We have started a little Jesus Community and watched her blossom. Genesis Collective is the language we are using to tell the story of a group of friends loving and laboring together to get the gospel to the 4 corners of the globe, longingly committed to leadership growth and development and of course, planting new Jesus communities - well, anywhere and everywhere.

One decade...that is all it took.

One decade, saw God walk us out from the abandonment of those we loved deeply, to a beautiful blend of new and old friends. This was a God interruption. Neither were planned or strategized. His promise was to "give us beauty for ashes", and beauty he has given us.

Of course there are many times I still sit and wonder if any of this could have been different - you know, what we humans are like. We feel we have such good questions that surely deserve, some really good answers. Yet an ear attuned to heaven hears nothing but the scream of silence.

I know my Heavenly Father is good, kind, lavish. I know that he is personal, intimate and he speaks. I do know he is trust worthy and that he "works all things together for the good for those called according to his purpose". Yet there have been times I have needed more, but it has been forth coming.

Sometimes the "power of time", does not sit well with this troubled soul of mine. My human need to control matched with my hungry faith and short sightedness, gets me vulnerable and fragile.

Now a decade later...the pictures need to change. The wrinkles are deeper, the hairlines are receding, the scars are more plentiful and the stories have at least one more chapter added.

And me...well I am grateful. My heart was fully broken - both physically as well as emotionally. I developed cardiomyopathy and atrial fibullation (known by some as the broken heart disease). This tender condition brought with it humility and vulnerability.

My heart was broken by those who abandoned me so easily and readily. But then two magnificent God words broke in "but God". From Ephesians 2:4 "But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us", only when one gets to that space and place, does "but God..." mean anything at all.

Meryl and I are living in the "but God..." chapter of our lives - and how glorious it is. We deserve nothing. we are owned nothing. we have achieved little to demand this. 

I guess that is why everyone one of our Genesis peeps in the community here in Costa Mesa, looks so beautiful to us - even those who have given us a hard time.

And every one of the churches we walk in "partnership in the gospel", are collections of humans, who love Jesus so extravagantly and desire to embrace his adventure so readily. We don't deserve this.

What did it take? A period of time is all it took. The wrinkles are deeper, the hairline receding and the scars more plentiful but to be in the center of His sacred glory, is beyond comparison.