These last two weeks have been characterized by a weightiness that I have seldom experienced before. It is a heaviness that burdens me and yet it is one that I do not wish to pray away. For it is a weight of sobriety, a weight of reality, and a weight that I do not want to continue to live without. “It’s the weight of glory”, a dear friend chimed in as I was trying to explain it to her. Up until that point, I had no words to articulate it but as soon as she said it, the words resonated deep within me. I was feeling the weight of God’s glory. Without wanting to sound too abstract, let me explain some of what I mean by this.
For the past two weeks, my heart has been constantly stirred. Through a talk, a scripture, or through prayer, I find myself gripped, firmly anchored in my chair, unable and unwilling to get up, to move, or to leave the moment. I find myself seeing just a glimpse of the glory of God and it leaves me speechless. By glory, I mean the “god-ness” of God, that which makes Him God and everybody else not God, that which causes me to revere Him and to fear Him and to want to run and hide knowing that I have been living a life far less worthy than He deserves. I have seen just a glimpse and it leaves me broken and paralyzed in my response. I mourn my insufficient and inadequate response. I long to kneel down, face to the ground, and kiss His feet, but His feet are not there..
CS Lewis, in a famous sermon of his, described the weight of glory like this: “To please God... to be loved by God, not merely pitied, but delighted in as an artist delights in his work or a father in a son—it seems impossible, a weight or burden of glory which our thoughts can hardly sustain. But so it is.”
I long for my response to be whole-hearted surrender and yet as quickly as I find myself overwhelmed by God, I find myself distracted, snapping at Russell, short-tempered and irritated... another paradox, it seems. The moments of intensity followed by the most carnal moments of all have taken their toll on me these past few weeks. My body is exhausted and yet I long to enter back into the presence of God, back to where I am starting to feel more alive than I ever have before.
October 22, 2007
October 7, 2007
"that i may thirst"
God pierced my heart very early in life with the firm realization that "there has to be more" to life than what I was living. Even when circumstances were lining themselves up perfectly, I would still think to myself in the quietest of moments, “this can’t be all that there is”. I can honestly say that this realization has led me to moments (some instantaneous and some lingering) of the greatest satisfaction and fulfillment. I can also honestly say that it has led me to some of the darkest areas of sin in my life. At certain times, it has allowed me to become and feel so alive and at other times, it has brought me to a place of death. Merely knowing that “there has to be more” has become the greatest paradox in my life. I will tell you why.
You know the moments that I am talking about... the moments where you find yourself in an enormous crowd of people and yet you feel so utterly alone, the moments when you accomplished what you never thought that you would accomplish and yet it still doesn’t seem like enough. There are the moments when you peel back the layers of lies and deception that society has constructed and you peer into reality as it is and you realize that there is a meaning to life that is far deeper than what the world has told you. At these moments, I find myself convinced that there is more.
At that point, however, I set out to find, to grasp, to behold, and to seize “more”. When I have that resolve, I inevitably wind up at a crossroads. There are times when I press into what is eternal and I go after it with a longing and desperation in my heart and just touching the hem of His garment makes me come alive. There are also the times when the resolve is there, and yet the hem of His garment is nowhere to be seen and the hunger inside of me is screaming out and with nothing to latch onto, I fall. And at times, I fall hard, grabbing onto everything and anything in my vision.
Augustine once said that God puts salt on our tongues that we may thirst for Him. I believe that the gift of thirst is one of the greatest gifts that we can be given on this Earth. For my biggest fear is to become complacent in life. However, the gift of thirst is rarely given by itself. As Augustine said, thirst comes after salt is placed on our tongues. That salt, through whatever form it may come, is not something that we have to ask for. It is inevitable in this lifetime. The challenge, however, is whether or not we will embrace or reject that thirst. In addition to that, if we do embrace the thirst, the challenge is in where we will turn.
This week has been a week full of salt. I have snapped at Russell far too many times. I have been easily irritated and frustrated. I have been having “nightmares” seemingly every night. I have found myself to be weak in the face of temptation. Yet ironically enough, this week is the first week that I have been here that I am starting to feel a hunger arise from within me and a subtle desperation to be in that prayer room and to sit before my God. And for that, I am deeply grateful.
You know the moments that I am talking about... the moments where you find yourself in an enormous crowd of people and yet you feel so utterly alone, the moments when you accomplished what you never thought that you would accomplish and yet it still doesn’t seem like enough. There are the moments when you peel back the layers of lies and deception that society has constructed and you peer into reality as it is and you realize that there is a meaning to life that is far deeper than what the world has told you. At these moments, I find myself convinced that there is more.
At that point, however, I set out to find, to grasp, to behold, and to seize “more”. When I have that resolve, I inevitably wind up at a crossroads. There are times when I press into what is eternal and I go after it with a longing and desperation in my heart and just touching the hem of His garment makes me come alive. There are also the times when the resolve is there, and yet the hem of His garment is nowhere to be seen and the hunger inside of me is screaming out and with nothing to latch onto, I fall. And at times, I fall hard, grabbing onto everything and anything in my vision.
Augustine once said that God puts salt on our tongues that we may thirst for Him. I believe that the gift of thirst is one of the greatest gifts that we can be given on this Earth. For my biggest fear is to become complacent in life. However, the gift of thirst is rarely given by itself. As Augustine said, thirst comes after salt is placed on our tongues. That salt, through whatever form it may come, is not something that we have to ask for. It is inevitable in this lifetime. The challenge, however, is whether or not we will embrace or reject that thirst. In addition to that, if we do embrace the thirst, the challenge is in where we will turn.
This week has been a week full of salt. I have snapped at Russell far too many times. I have been easily irritated and frustrated. I have been having “nightmares” seemingly every night. I have found myself to be weak in the face of temptation. Yet ironically enough, this week is the first week that I have been here that I am starting to feel a hunger arise from within me and a subtle desperation to be in that prayer room and to sit before my God. And for that, I am deeply grateful.
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