Before I go any further I would like to thank anyone who has taken the time to allow my thoughts to walk beside your thoughts over the years( of "God's tap on my shoulder" that so soon becomes a knock at your door). For those of you who have opened the door of your heart and welcomed me into your lives...I truly am humbly privileged by your listening. Those of you who have responded back - It has been awesome to watch the growth of your love for Eternity.
Psalm 39:1-2 - "I said, I will take heed to my ways, that I sin not with my tongue: I will keep my mouth with a bridle, while the wicked is before me. I was dumb with silence, I held my peace, even from good; and my sorrow was stirred."
There are assumptions that I walk with God on a daily basis, truth be known - To walk with Him is my broken soul's desire. I often find myself running behind Him and when I arrive in the great congregation looking for Him, I feel so disconnected that often the "corporate worship" angers me. I want to belong just like anyone else.
I do not try to be a non-conformist, but I have found that in presenting my body as a living sacrifice - the transformation of my mind puts me somewhat out-of-sorts with the desires of the flesh. Superficial religious shows truly make me feel like someone is literally scratching the blackboard of my integrity (I just want to scream!).
Psalm 39:3-5 - "My heart was hot within me, while I was musing the fire burned: then spake I with my tongue, LORD, make me to know mine end, and the measure of my days, what it is; that I may know how frail I am. Behold, thou hast made my days as an handbreadth; and mine age is as nothing before thee: verily every man at his best state is altogether vanity. Selah."
I have learned (in this walk with the King) that I carry things from my heart to the written page that when read, cause even my eyes to glaze over... and my mind to shut down in "overload". SO many times I will sit still and not speak, though there is flood of consequential verbs flooding my soul. Where is the voice of Love when so many formerly good men and women pant like dogs in heat after strange destructive lusts, rancid addictions, and illicit affairs? Where is the voice for justice when so many die daily for faith and family at the hands of barbaric hatred? And where is the voice of compassion while human beings by the millions are force-birthed into trash cans or social exile?
Psalm 39:6-9. - "Surely every man walketh in a vain shew: surely they are disquieted in vain: he heapeth up riches, and knoweth not who shall gather them. And now, Lord, what wait I for? my hope is in thee. Deliver me from all my transgressions: make me not the reproach of the foolish. I was dumb, I opened not my mouth; because thou didst it."
I have learned that sometimes God keeps me quiet so that the fallen life around me becomes a mirror of who I really am ... Fragile, weak and flawed at best. Sometimes my silence brings personal repentance that also saves me from further shame and scars. If I can face the fragility of the most noble self-serving -endeavors, then the efforts of my days will focus more on things that last forever (instead of "stuff" that feeds my momentary hunger but leaves me empty in the end).
Psalm 39:10-11 - "Remove thy stroke away from me: I am consumed by the blow of thine hand. When thou with rebukes dost correct man for iniquity, thou makest his beauty to consume away like a moth: surely every man is vanity. Selah".
I truly have a tough time with a generation that hates their Fathers and a generation that does not bless their Mothers. I see red when a generation claims that they are pure, but that generation reeks with the unwashed filth of their own life choices. I ache and cry over those that display arrogant antagonism toward faith and close their eyes to any love from above. My heart burns angrily toward the generation that gets their kicks out of disqualifying and desolating the fallen and less fortunate. But how different am I than they? The only difference will be the shorter duration it takes for me to cry before my God. My actions, like so many, are apathetically hesitant.
I weep over images of those whom I know that have "moved-on" further and further into irresponsibility, never truly considering those that they have left behind... wounded by their breach. Some of these will still watch from a distance in the future, broken, as they see media images of love growing ... But Without them.
Psalm 39:12-13 - " Hear my prayer, O LORD, and give ear unto my cry; hold not thy peace at my tears: for I am a stranger with thee, and a sojourner, as all my fathers were. O spare me, that I may recover strength, before I go hence, and be no more."
My prayer with this communication ...O Lord Jesus, please strengthen us as We live in the "Middle". Help us to love people and use things (not the other way around). Give us the miracle of time to redeem ... to allow Your Life and Love to be sensed by those who you bring into the path of our walk with You. Please let the impression left on those lives that You seek through us, be one that awes with the extravagance of Your Love offering through Jesus Christ, Amen.
HLFA,
Jeff