Eat The Word

Past all doing. Past all striving. Take me. Past all of me. Into you. Take me. Leaving all my piles. I did this. I missed that. Take me.
 Emptying my pockets. Nothing left to keep. Take me.


Take me with you, to be with you, where you’re going. Where you are. Take me.

No more trying to get it. I can’t think hard enough. I can’t beat my own heart, or stop it. Take me.

No more planning it out. No more controlling my life. Take me. Take me through your plan. Lead me from song to song. From fragrance to fragrance. From your love to your love. Take me.


Take me with you, to be with you, where you’re going. Where you are. Take me.

Growing up, I often felt alone. I was a peculiar kid with a funny imagination and a weird sense of humor. My family was broken with alcoholism and different kinds of abuse twisted my parent’s understanding of love. It was tough. Not the toughest, but it was tough.

On the hardest days it felt undeniably, inexplicably true that I would be alone without an advocate, without a true guardian, forever. I adopted the religion of buddhism when I was 16 as a reinforcement of those beliefs. Life was suffering. Life is an illusion. I would hope to one day freely float back into the misty force of life and finally forget all that plagued me.

This morning I’m pressing into some big life decisions mostly concerning work. I’m walking and praying and I am not alone. I’m praying and I’m startled to remember the stark truth that is sometimes accompanied by a feeling. He’s always with me. My faithful High Priest, making intercession for me. He leads by the hand, because he’s gentle, and because he’s given me need for a hand to hold. He breaks my stubborn spirit, so that the Liar will not bind my soul, so that I can hear his perfect voice. He sings the ancient song of a son and a father to my wanting ears and I am knit together, again, and continually, and once and for all.

I am not alone. You are with me. Give me ears to hear. Give me eyes to see. Lead me with your voice.

IHOP

5 When no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up—for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground,6 and a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground—7 then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.8 And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed.9 And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Genesis 2:5-9

In the an empty space, only land and sky, there lay man and his God, God and his boy. Man was empty and lifeless, but prepared, ready, kinetic. In a moment, the Father pulls his boy to himself, face to face, and breathes from his own life to offer life to his Adam. Face to face, like a kiss, but weaker, and from the life-giver, to the life-life needer life is poured.

This is my God. This is the one I worship. The one whom from the beginning gives to us from nothing. The only thing I have to offer him, is the life he’s given me. I repent this morning for trying to own my life. Forgive me Life-Giver, forgive me, and heal me of my self-righteousness and idolatry. And now in love, help me offer life to the lifeless by the real power of your Spirit.

Amen.

IHOP prayer room