Today's been an off day.  An off day is defined, by me, as a day where I spend more hours believing lies than truth.

After work I went to run some errands and started asking God what felt so off.  He didn't tell me what was off, just what was true.  Maybe sometimes the dismantling of lies is done simply by hearing the truth.  For me, this is a season where I feel the need to get aggressive with what is true--intentionally speaking it out and believing it with my whole heart.

He told me to remember the beauty of the Gospel; the price paid so that I could walk in love and be defined by all that is good, pure, lovely.  And where I could see others through that same lens. To think that our very life is ransomed by a love so precious, words can't even give it an adequate description!  When scripture says that heaven rejoices with just one salvation, I think heaven also rejoices when believers start to actually believe.  When they start to see scripture through the eyes of Love and redemption, something changes.  And that change is dangerous to the enemy and all of his plans.  Which excites me.

Tonight I went to church, and it was the first time in probably a few years that I didn't try to escape early or find excuses to preoccupy myself during the service.  That's breakthrough.

During worship, a drum beat carried one of the songs at the beginning, and all I could think about was a story I heard while driving through South Dakota, about the importance of drum beats to Native American cultures.  They viewed the beats as something that spoke of the circle of life, that brought them into a place of almost "worship" and focus.  They were totally onto something.  There is something about how a drum can awaken you and start to realign things just by its sound and rhythm.  As the song progressed, it became a prayer, for heaven to come to earth, where all that is right and beautiful in heaven would become evident where we temporarily take up residence.

There was something about the beat and the words of that song that started to stir my heart in a way it hasn't felt in a while.  Something I've been praying lately is, "Jesus, can you teach me how to love you again" but I always meant it in comparison with past seasons that I've had with Him that have been really sweet.  Tonight I just felt Him say, "Stop trying to make right now a past season.  It's going to be a whole new one.  A whole new way of falling in love."  That did it for me.  I just wanted to stay in that church service all night because everything about His presence was so tangible and sweet, and I felt Him dig in deep and start healing places of bitterness and disappointment I've had with "church".  It was amazing, miraculous, and so good to actually not want to leave church.

Sometimes I want to be super rich just so I can buy an island and have all my friends come visit me at the exact same time, for as long as they want.  How much fun it would be!

Fingerprints are a fascinating subject.  

Earlier this week I went to the Sacramento Zoo to fill a few hours of time.  Everything about that zoo made me feel like I was back in Africa, except this time in the legit jungle.  It was a good for the heart adventure. When I got to the section with the Zebras, a sign explained that their stripes are actually just as unique as a human's fingerprint.  No two are alike.  Anywhere.  At any time. 

It got me thinking of each person's life.  The little details, like the doors we open every day, the hands we shake, the dishes we wash.  Those fingerprints are yours alone, to leave a mark on the world around you that is completely unique to who you are as a person.  Literally and scientifically, no one else in the world will ever be able to leave the exact same mark.  

Not sure where that thought will go, but at the moment, I just find it to be a huge tragedy and injustice that most of us go through life without ever discovering the unique gift to the world that's found in the fingerprint we carry. 

I used to view Psalm 23 as the scripture passage read at funerals.  Over this past year though, the words started taking on a whole new meaning. It's amazing how one day something that you've read/heard your whole life suddenly comes alive, like the words are screaming out, wanting to explode in your heart.  

"You prepare a table before me," has become the visual picture of the Father that's captivated my imagination the past few months. I am constantly seeing this scene of Him setting a table where all are welcome, all are wanted, all are His favorite.  That may seem cliche, but when it becomes YOUR picture, it becomes a reality that changes your life.  For me, it is a reality of protection, provision, total acceptance.  It is this safe place that is constantly available to me, where I can fellowship with Him regardless of what's going on around me.  His love doesn't alter.  That's the revelation of the Father that I want to have consume me.  

In Sonnet 116, Shakespeare seems to have found words for love that I think can be applied to the picture of God that is becoming alive to my heart: 

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark 
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks 
Within his bending sickle's compass come: 
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, 
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
   If this be error and upon me proved,
   I never writ, nor no man ever loved. 

An ever fixed marked.  Never shaken. That is His love for us.  For humanity.  

At the moment, I'm sitting in the apartment, listening to Graham Cooke speak on identity via a free podcast.  It's so good.

It's about 6:30 pm here, and kids are out playing before heading in for bed.  Their noise is distracting in the best possible way.  They are so happy.  It sounds like they may be playing tag.

Earlier today I was reading a book assigned in a class I am taking at church.  The book is about modern day slavery, and as much as I want to believe that the true stories in the book can't be unbelievably grotesque, I am solidly wrong in that wish.  Each story breaks your heart.  And our hearts need a good breaking every once in a while--

I recently read a quote by Mother Teresa,

“May God break my heart so completely that the whole world falls in.”

When our hearts go through a breaking, God is right there, ready to fill them with more of Him, which includes His immense, unlimited love.  If we let Him, He comes and brings wholeness that we can't even imagine.  A shalom that heals the world, shedding His hope, His vision, His character everywhere He sends us.

As I read through the stories, I am thankful for the children's laughter outside.  There is hope.  What a beautiful thing to protect, childhood.  Innocence.  And even if innocence is stolen through tragedy, what an amazing God who loves us, that He knows exactly how to restore what was lost.

Time to sign off, but Graham Cooke just said this,

"You have to run with God.  The best way to run with God is to just be delighted.  you've all been in that place of shame, pain, condemnation.  There's only one way to travel fast in the kingdom, and it's with delight. Get a real sense of joy in your heart.  God is FOR ME.  He's on my side.  Nothing can separate me from Him love.  The way we travel in the kingdom is we travel happily.  With joy, delight."

Bam.  Let's wake up to His glory and majesty.  That changes the course of history, changes atmospheres.

"it's not just about changing your story, it's about changing the way you journey with God.  You should journey with the fruits of the Spirit.  With desire, passion, delight."

"when you come into a place of favor with God, you also come into a place of revenge on the enemy.  The real revenge is that you get so free in Jesus, that you end up getting lots of other people free from the one thing the enemy always made you a victim of..."

"He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose." -Jim Elliot

That's one of the most compelling, uncomfortable, freeing things I've ever  read, and I carried that quote around in my Bible growing up. It's compelling not because it is particularly pretty, but because Jim Elliot lived those words and eventually gave his life for this truth that marked him.  There's something to the words that come out of the mouth of a laid down lover.  They are alive and active.  Transforming.

I read that quote again the other day...now feeling inspired to break out the stories from childhood of men and women who became my heroes.  Jim Elliot, Amy Carmichael, Corrie Ten Boom, David Livingston, John G. Lake, Charles Finney, and of course!  Mother Theresa, Heidi Baker (a more recent hero), Joan of Arc and the Moravians.

Actually, especially the moravians...the happy lot whose joy brought John Wesley into a life transforming conversion experience that changed everything for him.  I want that kind of joy, that kind of surrender. 

So adding to my list of things to be intentional about in this season of life:
reading the stories of these heroes who "wasted their lives" on Jesus, so ruined for any other pursuit because of the revelation they walked in of His incredible, extravagant, generous love.