Everlasting Rest

As I take to my knees to write what is in my heart, I desire to understand what I am giving up for. 
This sacrifice of my life, this pain, this letting go, must be something I do for a great reward.

The joy set before him, led Jesus to die. The cross where He suffered is now where I died.

Long ago, I gave up the life I once had, to take from Him what He died to give.

Now, in fear that by following in to things I do not know – that I may never understand,

I am forced to once again trust Him with my life and reach out with empty hands.

The good that I had, I left all behind. Now with nothing, O Lord, I come.

Give, give me all that I desire. I desire more of You. I desire only You.

My one great reward and my one great treasure is to know You, to hear Your voice.

Nothing inside me understands this call. It seems like I have given up the world.

Sometimes I wonder if I will look back one day and wonder what fantasy it was,

That drives me to give everything away. Abandoning the life I could have, every day.

Like the ancient ones of faith, I desire a kingdom that is not of clay,

But I don’t know if, like them, I can spend my entire life waiting for someday.

The pressures around me to conform to the attitudes and lifestyles of normality,

Remind me at once of the gravity of my situation, the futility of life, the morality of choice…

And, by the grace of God, the absolute hopelessness of my situation apart from Christ.

If I were not first drawn into the desire to have what is best, I could not enter rest.

But the rest eludes me in the struggle of war. To keep the faith is tough.

When life is easy, I get careless. When it is hard, I am tempted to let go.

But one thing keeps me holding on, pressing in. I have found a treasure in a field,

An unshakeable kingdom, a promise that is sure, and a fortune that will not be taken away.

In order to buy, I must give up all that I possess. Including my life. Nothing less.

This payment not to buy, but rather be given. The reward is priceless - sacred by blood.

For me this treasure is free, but I cannot with hands that are full of pleasure

And a heart that is full of pride, find room for a vision that could overflow my life.

So giving up, emptying out, losing what most desire to gain, I complete the suffering, know joy.

I buy with a great cost what is already mine to possess: Salvation through Jesus Christ. 
Everlasting Rest.

Note to self

Dear Me, 

Why should you be such an important figure in my life? It seems like every time I go about trying to become passionate about something you get in the way by appealing to personal pride, or face or something else. You are the reason why I so often find it necessary to carefully craft and then flawlessly project an unrealistic of myself to those around me. Is it for fear that I will not be accepted that you force me into this shroud? Why am I so concerned with trying to protect your feelings when all you ever do is demand more of me? Is my view of the world so small that the problem you have with feeling like the most important person in the world becomes all that consumes my life?

If I were to for just one day forget about you, I might see that all around me there is joy, there is suffering, there is pleasure, there is pain. Achievement to be won and souls to be affected, success is mine to have, but you would have me just reject it? Why? Do you offer something better than putting my life into the service of something greater than you and receiving the satisfaction of actually making a difference somehow?

Upon reflection I find that you are too concerned with self-image to give any sort of thought to the bigger picture. It is not a window you are looking through, it is a mirror that shows you only what you want to see: your magnificent reflection. However, that reflection cannot always be so perfect. In a quiet moment, you find that there is no one to admire your beauty. In the middle of your triumph, you question whether any of the attention you receive is actually genuine. In the end, you know that living a lie can never produce the kind of fulfillment you are seeking; yet you cannot let me choose the alternative without seriously considering what it will do to your image.

Pfffsh, your image. This is my life, we’re talking about here. Image got me nothing and nowhere. In fact, by trying to submit to your ideas about what it takes to be happy, I had lost all sense of purpose whatsoever. For one can never find his own approval in his peers. There must be something else to support a man; some dream or vision that is grander and much more fulfilling than you are. The enjoyment of an image is like the vision of a flame, ever changing and completely untouchable. To willingly sacrifice you to achieve something of value – that is where true happiness is found.

Yes, there will be problems, but these are the building blocks to success. In reaction to my passion, some people will no longer wish to be my friends. However, this is the only way in which I can discover who is truly a friend. I will be required to give up my comfort and even some of the good things I like, but these are simply the enemies of that which is better. To every man a choice has been given: to spend his life serving you, or to spend you to achieve what can truly be called a life worth living.

So, here’s goodbye to pleasant roads, sweet dreams, and easy living. Farewell, to perfect image, plastered smiles, joyless pleasure, and mere survival. I choose to live; to sacrifice everything I have for something worth obtaining, to give up what you want for a cause of my own choosing; to exchange the image for the reality; to do what no one else has dared to do. So that mine will have been a life truly lived.

Desire

April 15, 2012

Am I going to make excuses or am I going to make something happen?
Am I going to make my life count or am I going to waste it?
Am I going to make my life about what I have or about who I am?

What if it isn’t a dream. It isn’t a movie. What if this longing is for something that has not yet happened? For what will be in the future. What if it is the present reality of what will soon come to be? I have felt this before. It can’t be satisfied by anything that I try. The only place it actually comes close to being fulfilled is back in the presence of God. A knowledge that everything is perfect that comes through giving up everything, letting go of whatever I hold dear, and completely trusting that He is good and He is all.

The question remains that why with my understanding of the situation, I consistently choose to ignore the one answer I know in search of one that I can’t discover. Have I become so short term oriented in my thinking that I cannot bring myself to fight for what cannot be won in a moment? Am I so distracted by my feelings of discontent that I cannot bring myself to go after their solution?

It’s that moment when you realize watching someone else achieve their dreams is not going to cut it anymore. You have to go out there and do it yourself. Dreaming isn’t good enough, you’ve got to get out there and live it. IT’s my life. It’ my time. It’s my destiny. What do I choose? Will I buckle under the pressure or will I plow through it, rise above it and see the stars above the clouds. Will I push past the last available breath to the one I never saw coming that will take me to places I haven’t dreamed of yet?

When do I reach the point where I realize my dreams have been too small? That what is unrealistic is much easier to dwell on than what is achievable, but it is also much less rewarding. Certain things in life always hold true like the level of input determines the level of output. The level of risk determines the level of reward. The level of patience determines the level of success. I will not become tomorrow what I am not already becoming today and I must plot a course that will deliver me to the destination I choose rather than the destination I will reach by default.

There are choices that must be made and lived with. Decisions that will affect the rest of my life. These do not appear in earth shattering moments with ominous music in the background, but in split second choices that shape my priorities and my character. Right now they are taking me a direction I do not want to go. I have certain things I am learning from following this direction, but I also have things I regret.

One thing I have learned, I need balance. I cannot work all day one day and relax all the next. I need to fill my life with a little bit of everything I need. I also need the discipline to say no to whatever is not profitable for me.

How do I change? Do I make a decision to never go back to this frustrating position I so often find myself in? Do I eliminate whatever is holding me back? Do I give in to what I feel because it is naturally me? What do I have to sacrifice to achieve what I truly desire?