nothing more than words

this morning i read a passage from the book of ezra that on most days i honestly would have just glanced over (while probably thinking about something to do with myself), closed my bible, and gone on with my day, but some reason it really made me think today. my fleeting attention was caught by something inside of me that resounded with the passage. the stark contrast between king atraxerxes' understanding of god and ezra's brings out a sad truth about human nature.

first this is an excerpt of atraxerxes' letter to ezra, notice how he refers to god.

" You are sent by the king and his seven advisers to inquire about Judah and Jerusalem with regard to the Law of YOUR God, which is in your hand. Moreover, you are to take with you the silver and gold that the king and his advisers have freely given to the God of ISRAEL, as well as the freewill offerings of the people and priests for the temple of THEIR God in Jerusalem. With this money be sure to buy bulls, rams and male lambs and sacrifice them on the altar of the temple of YOUR God in Jerusalem. You and your brother Jews may then do whatever seems best with the rest of the silver and gold, in accordance with the will of YOUR God. Deliver to the God of JERUSALEM all the articles entrusted to you for worship in the temple of YOUR God. And anything else needed for the temple of YOUR God you may provide from the royal treasury. And you, Ezra, in accordance with the wisdom of YOUR God, which you possess, appoint magistrates and judges to administer justice to all the people of Trans-Euphrates—all who know the laws of YOUR God. And you are to teach any who do not know them."

atraxerxes refers to god as "your god, or the god of israel or jerusalem." throughout ezra the king acknowledges the god of the israelites as a powerful and supreme being worthy to be praised and obeyed but makes it very clear that this god is not his god.

now compare atraxerexes' distant relationship with god to that of ezra's.

"Because the gracious hand of OUR God was on us, they brought us Sherebiah, a capable man. There, by the Ahava Canal, I proclaimed a fast, so that we might humble ourselves before OUR God and ask him for a safe journey for us and our children, with all our possessions. I was ashamed to ask the king for soldiers and horsemen to protect us from enemies on the road, because we had told the king, "The gracious hand of OUR God is on everyone who looks to him, but his great anger is against all who forsake him." So we fasted and petitioned OUR God about this, and he answered our prayer...Then the priests and Levites received the silver and gold and sacred articles that had been weighed out to be taken to the house of OUR God in Jerusalem."

ezra also refers to god as the god of jerusalem but also as his own personal god and the god of his people.

sometimes i wonder if today we can have the same view of god that atraxerxes did. do we think that because god is so huge or so holy that we have no part in him? do we ever think of god as too far removed from our reality that he is irrelevant to us or that our lives don't matter to him? i know im sick of listening to lies of the legalistic priests that live in my head. and im tired of looking up to god through these deistic eyes. for some reason we as humans have this need to explain the incomprehensible. we try to tame and confine god so we can understand him and even manipulate him. we build little god-shaped boxes that we can tuck god into and make ourselves more comfortable with who he is. but god knows no bounds, his very being has no beginning or ending. but still we try to tell god who he is. and we are not the first to do this. the human race has been doing it since day one, and god still has not been tamed or controlled. god is the ultimate paradox.

how can the god of the whole universe be the god of my heart? how can god be both completely just and all merciful? how can something invisible surround us everywhere we go? how can an inaudible god still speak to his creation? how can god hear the cries of all his people? and perhaps the most profound question of them all: how can a holy god love the sinful people that turn their backs on him everyday?

the god of ezra, the god of jerusalem, the god of the israelites, and the god of all of creation is the god of you and he is the god of me. and he is still breaking rules that we set for him. he wants to be the one we turn to and call "our god." and all this is has come to pass in his endless and exceedingly abundant love. he has done too much for us, for us to still think of him as just another religious icon.

the paralytic('s) faith

I'm sick of weeding through the social propaganda and I'm done wading in this substance less tide. I want something real and I want truth. And I don't mean the kind of "truth" we are fed and told to believe from day one. We come into the world and our first gasp of air is saturated in deception as the nurse holds you up like a trophy, "Aw, look it's so beautiful." And she says this while you are kicking and screaming in all that blood and bodily fluid. Satan himself could not have forged a more blatant lie. A newborn baby, just like this life is not beautiful. Well at least in the classic, Disney princess way we say the word. It's real and it's raw. It's vulnerable and it's exposed. And therein lies the beauty that this life is full of. We just have to look past all the lies to find it. But sadly we are often content to settle for the easy answers rather than wrestle with what's right. We start to compromise for what's comfortable time and time again and it eventually takes its place as truth is our hearts and attaches itself as the parasitic passenger in our lives while deep inside we starve for reality. And the scary thing about human nature is that when we are forced into survival mode we will devour the first thing we can get our desperate hands on, thus continuing the primitive cycle we are taught to fear. So the question must be posed, what is real? Look around and tell me if this is what you want. Is any of this real? We sit back and let the men in suits do the thinking for us. What is our purpose? Do we have meaning? What is there to all this flesh and bone? Everyday we decompose into a higher species that can fend for itself. Are you real? Am I? If I cannot love anyone more than I love myself than let me fade into obscurity, the unwritten pages of some fairy tale that sits collecting dust on some shelf too high to reach. But something tells me we were meant for more than simply existing. I only live when your breath fills my lungs, I'm only alive as my heart beats with yours. You are the absolute. You are the dream that carries me into tomorrow.

the validity of autonomy

at first glance i look much like you. i appear normal and of sane mind. i may even seem like i have everything together. i wear composure and dignity with a smile on my face but there's something different about me. there's more than meets the eye and it's been following me for oh so long. i thought i left it dead and buried a thousand miles back but it has found me in this new place. it once made its presence known while it would look deep into my eyes, but now it dresses in such subtlety. it sleeps beneath the floorboards, it hides in my shadows, and escapes right past my fingertips. i have seen the aftermath of it's grasp on my life but i've never seen its face. it has worn me thin, it has won again. i can't take this insanity, always checking over my shoulder. my eyes are bloodshot from so many sleepless nights and the paranoia is too much to handle. my weary heart yearns for rest so i'm leaving this all behind. if i leave while it sleeps there will be no way for it to find me, it will never catch me and i'll finally be rid of my demons. i will head to the hills. i will look to the cover of night for safety as i settle in the wilderness, so far removed not even my memories will be able to catch up with me. call it apathy but everything was just fine until it found me again, it always finds me. but how did it follow me all this way? maybe i was too careless when i was covering up my tracks, maybe it knew my plans. i close my eyes and try to tell myself this isn't real, but i can hear it breathing behind me. branches snap beneath the weight of all too familiar footsteps. i can't take this anymore! i'd rather die now than turn around and face my ever elusive nightmare. but i can feel it's stare on my back and it beckons to me in an inaudible voice to look at it. i pray for courage as i turn around but all bravery runs dry as my darkest fears come to life. it's body is hunched over under a million disfigured limbs. none of it's members functions like it was meant to. the stench from every carrion feast still lingers. my insides go cold as i look into it's eyes and i drown in twisted shades of pain and guilt, agony and despair. and then from behind a mouth that has been sewn shut i hear it tell me that this is what i am. could it be that it has been with me all along? right with me in every step? i'm giving up, this is all too much to take in. strip the bark from the trees and leave them bare. i will light a match and set my world ablaze. let it burn and consume every part of my existence, expose me for what i really am. let the truth of who i am be found in the ashes. you are my only hope to rebuild. you are my reality.

poolside

for those of us who, like myself, have spent our whole lives growing up in the church environment there are certain phrases and words that are used frequently that tend to lose their meaning. somewhere within all the sunday school classes, youth group retreats, missions trips, and endless sermons we become desensitized in routine. we hear certain words so many times that we just assume we know what they mean. we are like the dogs that Pavlov worked so hard to condition, we hear something and we immediately know how we are supposed to respond without first thinking about the value behind what we are hearing. we overlook seemingly simple concepts that when explored, have the power to change our lives. we let the meaning die in the familiarity of the words.

one of these all too common phrases i am rediscovering is: child-like faith. ya we hear all the time that we are supposed to have faith like little children but what does that mean? what does it look like to view our relationship with our creator through the eyes of the innocent? we have lost touch with our sense of wonder and amazement in a society that promotes "growing up" as quickly as possible. we are told to give up our dreams as kids because they are unrealistic and immature. then we pretend to have it all together and to be able to do things for ourselves. we push our kids to grow up so fast, that if we blink we miss it all. we forget that life isn't about the destination, it's about what god shows us and does in our lives on the way.

i always used to think having a child-like faith meant viewing things as simplistically as children, savoring the beauty of life and living everyday like it's your first. and i still believe that the joy expressed by children interacting with their world is still how we should approach our loving creator. but as i thought about it more, another component of the nature of children stood out to me and brought the term, "child-like faith" into a new light for me.

think about your childhood and how you handled something new. think about doing something you had never done before. think about the first time you ever went swimming. the water looked so deep and terrifying. it was unfamiliar, something completely new. you had now idea if you had what it would take to swim. or would you just sink beneath the blue depths, never to rise again? this was a new frontier. you hesitate for a moment as anxiety begins to fill you but your dad holds your hand and leads you forward, he knew what he was doing and you follow because you know he won't let anything bad happen to you. then the time come and you find yourself at the edge of the greatest thing you've ever done. the pool didn't look this big or deep from further away. you look down and insecurity and fear seize your whole body and you are struck paralyzed with the idea of the unknown. immediately your mind takes over and you turn to leave to safety but then your dad calls out to you. he looks you in the eyes and tells you that you can do it. he reminds you that he will be there for you. they are just words but that look in his eyes and how he says them gives you the strength you need and you jump in.

first you just let your dad take you around the shallow end. then in no time you are off on your own, testing your newly found courage. you abandoned all your fears and left them at the side of the pool, but you couldn't have done it alone. the only reason you jumped in the first place was because you knew your dad would be there to catch you. his love inspired you to dive in with him. and it's the same in our relationship with our heavenly father, whose love is greater than anything we can imagine. we can leave our panic and anxiety at the end of the "pool" and dive into what god has for us. we abandon fear because we know that god will take care of us and will be with us no matter what. too many times i let my desire to know what's next and to control my own life keep me on the edge of something great. but god promises to provide for and love us always. so we have the freedom to dive n and truly enjoy the full life we have in christ, knowing god is watching and directing us.

false sense of function

today is the day we realize that we were right to fear our aspirations. sometimes ambition leads to a cold, dead trail. our hearts beat like the steady drum of industry. we have fixed our ears to fit the frequency of what we want to hear while we have become deaf to the truth. we have taught our eyes to see in airbrushed pigments while we have become blind to true beauty. we have trained our hands to grasp for the synthetic while our fingertips have gone numb. if creation was meant to find significance in its creator than we have found God, and he looks a lot like us. deep inside we long for something to touch, something to love. but we are merely skin and bones and our hunger will never be satisfied as we carry on with our eyes fixed to the ground in front of us. no one will survive this destructive dance. dysfunction breeds tolerance. every effort is spent concealing the leeches that sleep and grow on the back of our necks. they go on feeding while we have become accustomed to their parasitic kiss. my brother has gone missing, and i have become indifferent while his blood calls to me from beneath the chapel. the sun goes down again and the whole world lets out a collective sigh. tomorrow we will repeat the same desperate cycle. at least we know the routine here in this false sense of function. at least we have control.

autumn

here i am again. times passes all too quickly while we blink. this is my favorite time of year. this is when the lonely scarves make their way back to kiss the necks of their sun-tanned lovers. this is a time to sit and sip warm coffee in the crisp, afternoon breeze. this is a time to reflect on the beauty of life as auburn leaves light up the sky. this is autumn and it's beautiful. even the word "autumn" has an enchanting sound to it. i think one day when i die beneath the changing leaves with my scarf tied tightly around my neck, i will tell them to write "autumn" on my tombstone. not because it has some deep, philosophical meaning or because i want to inspire thought, simply because it is beautiful. but i didn't always have such an intimate relationship with autumn. in fact i used to call her "fall." those were the days i was i love with her care-free sister, "summer." fall was the reason i attempted so desperately to build a time machine out of cardboard boxes and hulla-hoops in my backyard when i was younger. i used to wish that i could rip fall right out of the calendar. fall meant no more sunny days spent by the pool. fall meant school, homework, and exams. fall meant the end of my social life. fall was always around the corner, it was always tucked away in the back of our minds while we pretended to ignore her. fall was the inevitable. and worst of all, fall was change. it was trying to cope with the ever-changing social ladder that you never wanted to find yourself at the bottom of. it was memorizing hundreds of seemingly useless facts and dates on columbus sailing ocean blue's and 1492's. it meant faded tans and long sleeves. it meant brown bag lunches and soggy sandwiches. it meant growing up, and dare i say, "maturing." maturity, a word made up by adults to justify their boring lives. but one fateful day in fall, everything changed, like things always do. it was one of those overcast days that dares you to sleep the whole day away, but instead i was off to school so i wouldn't find myself working at McDonalds one day, according to my mom. although i would rather have been almost anywhere that there, it was usually easy enough to fake education. just sit there quietly with your eyes focused on a spot just above the teacher's head while you day dream about all of summer's simplicity and the adventures you will have when your mistress returns. but this day was different. i trudged through the halls spilling melancholy with every step, just as i always did after clocking in for another shift. i sat down in some distant seat, if it wasn't in the back row i broke out my tape measure and made sure it was no less than one thousand miles from the front. if i could read the writing on the board without binoculars i was too close. but today, instead of focusing on that faithful little spot right above the Math teacher's head, my eyes drifted to the window. and instead of my mind flirting with the past and my future, my thoughts were trapped in the present, here and now. while the teacher carried on about complex fractions and radical numbers i began to panic inside. what was happening? this is not my routine and this is not comfortable. a leaf flickering in the breeze caught my eye. i tried to tell myself that it wasn't worth my time but the way it danced there on that branch captured my complete attention. soon i felt the cool breeze come through the window and it whispered to me and told me her name. "i am autumn," she said, "and i am not here to hurt you, only to open your eyes." since that day autumn has won my heart with her love. and here is it in her familiar embrace once again. i see a golden leaf clinging desperately to the limb ti will soon no longer know as home. it holds on for dear life, terrified of what's next. scared of leaving the familiar and entering into the unknown. scared that it's not ready for what lies ahead, unsure of itself. "am i ready?" "what am i meant for?" "what if i'm not good enough?" it asks. then i watch as it receives a gentle nudge and it flutters gracefully to my feet. i look at it and i see beauty. i see courage and purpose. it reminds me how precious life is, just like it will remind countless others with open eyes, and maybe even a few still lost in summer's absence. so maybe "autumn" has a little more poetic value than i'm willing to admit. sometimes i guess we find hope where we least expect it to show up.

narcissism not narcotics

my thoughts wander nomadically through the hostile landscape in my mind, with nothing but these familiar surroundings to occupy the time. i run my hands down the cold stone walls and my fingers rest in the grooves left by maddening nights spent attempting to escape the solitude. guilt settles back in my heart as i glance nostalgically at all the dull and tarnished belongings that have defined my life. a lifetime spent collecting vague ideas. a million controlling possessions that i can't let go. i reluctantly turn my eyes to the mirror. the reflection leaves me feeling empty. this is my body, an elastic canvas stretched thin over rigid limbs. my stomach turns over as i hear footsteps in the distance. i move quickly to the door and hold my breath in my chest. i shut my eyes and pray for deliverance. but they call out to me with a voice that seems to come from inside. they tell me who i am and remind me that they are all i have left. they chant in unison and dare me to look. everything inside me tries to hold back. all curiosity died but compulsion takes over. slowly i open my eyes and pupils dilate as i look through the crack in my dark shelter out into light. my heart pumps panic into my veins and paranoia seizes my racing mind. i look out onto the charred ground and fallen ash. everything is still, instantly i am brought back to the reality of my past and this lonely entrapment. i think back to the body count left in my wake and the isolation of the pandemic. i lock the door and return to the silence. i know your hand waits for me on the other side of this door, you've come to rescue me and i hide in misery.