Can’t help but be real with you>>

I ended up on the bank of the Mississippi several times this past week. I came to rest. I seem to be searching for that quite a bit these days. The first night I wandered over there after the sun had set. I got to hop a fence which made my adventurous heart hop as well. I sat there for a long while just staring at the river. It was pitch black over the water.I heard the verse, “He leads me by quiet waters”….

I loved it. The wind was about which is unusual for this time of the year. I sat and soaked it all in, moment by moment, reflecting. I felt I sat there for hours which is a great feeling when you need that “soul rest”. I looked at the Mississippi Bridge and wanted so bad to find an analogy for my life. I knew what it was immediately. I felt it well up in my heart as I studied the massive structure stretch from one bank to the other.I knew I was in one place and on my way to another… the bridge showed me my course. It represented the faith walk I am on.

I am remembering when I went to a character club at Denham Springs school. I was standing in front of a chalk board and I drew a big fat dot on the left hand side of the board and on the right side I managed to illustrate Africa in some sad artistic form. As I spoke to the kids I kept drawing this large “arch” between the two locations, the beginning of my walk with Christ being represented by the dot and Africa, my future home as a missionary for the year. The arch was the years in between. It was all the lessons, hardships, relationships, developments and pieces of my life that had to be what’s now called “the in between”. I guess that is what God was showing me about that bridge the other night. My journey to the other side has it’s course. It’s a sound, sturdy, God built and solidified path and I am walking it, SLOWLY and STEADILY>>>> With fear and awe, with new levels of grace and a beautiful intimacy that can only come from being where I feel I have lost the most.

Tonight I had intended to make it a Blockbuster night but then you know how easily you can distract yourself from a mediocre movie. So I peddled around the house… attempting to pack, cleaning the bathroom… you know exciting things for a Friday night. I ended up just spending time with some Antioch church worship music (INCREDIBLE) and then pulling random books off the shelf and reading the first page I landed on. I grabbed a goodie. It’s a collection of CS Lewis quotes. It was a gift from a friend of mine for my birthday this year. I had an idea of what I wanted to read about in this one… I went to the word “PAIN”. I flipped to the “P’s” and I read through the first 4 or 5 quotes until I hit this one and realized it was the reason that I opened the darn thing to begin with….

All of this is flashy rehtoric about loving you.

I NEVER had a selfless thought since I was born.

I am mercenary and self-seeking through and through;

I want God, you, all friends, merely to serve my turn.

Peace, re-assurance, pleasure, are the goals I seek, I cannot crawl one inch outside my proper skin:

I talk of love- a scholar’s parrot may talk Greek-

Only that now you have taught me (but how late) my lack.

I see the chasm. And everything You are making.

My heart into a bridge by which I might get back from exile, and grow man.

And now the bridge is breaking.

For this I bless you as the ruin falls. The pains You give me are more precious than all other gains.

Yes, I realize that all this “lack, pain and loss” is far more delightful than the flowers in a wide open field or the view from the top of the mountain, yes… indeed this is all more precious than and then some more than… I have read and reread Psalms 62 since earlier this week. Finding comfort when it states, “God, the one and only- I’ll wait as long as He says. Everything I hope for comes from Him, SO WHY NOT????” (MESSAGE) The last verse reads this… “You pay a good wage for a good days work”… I believe Dad, help my unbelief.

I went to the Crosses today. It’s as if anything else would just not be “right”. So my car did the driving. I get there…. only 1 other person…. no worries, I walked right passed and continued to the place I knew would make sense. It’s my favorite spot in the whole place. However the sprinklers had beaten me there. So I sat besides my favorite spt and I stared up at the massive beams of steel. I glanced to the right… really looking at where I wish I was sitting… where the sprinklers were watering the cement and there it is…. this mirage of a rainbow, faded into the brightness of the day.  Yeah, its was a beauty of a little thing and I just knew He was calming me with His sign of Promise. I loved looking over there. I loved that He loves me so much to speak to my heart with every turn of the many corners of my day. He is SO FAITHFUL GUYS>>>>I wish of course I had a picture of some sort but to no avail I was without any bit of technology to capture.

Close your eyes with me. Now picture… bad, rugged day… one of those ones like you have been “through the ringer” as some would say…. then imagine being impressed upon to go to the Crosses, the 3 largest pieces of steel in all of Baton Rouge, ending up in the grass BY THE STILL WATERS and the beauty of an afternoon that leaves you in a “wide open” space of a moment deep down in that soul of yours. Yeah, you are there… so that’s where I was sitting… hanging with Him… letting Him do what He does so well… and Be God>>>>