Doors

I love the doors. A knock comes. A phone rings. Someone writes a note. Someone stops by. The key is the angle of repose. The key is the rested posture. The seat in the embrace of my Father passes through, effortlessly through every holy doorway.

So the key thing to work on, apply love to, is the leaning, the resting, the trusting of God. I will cling to my King. I can only go wrong by doing it myself.

Father, hold me very tight. I trust that if I will refrain from struggling to escape, nothing can take me from your embrace and I will walk in the direction of your kingdom and glory and power. All that is right is you. I hear. I will stay near and keep your scent in my nose.

Why?

Coming here is the best thing there is. How to introduce others goes back to love. So I will rest here, soaking in love. When I leave, every experience of me will be enhanced by the love that saturates me. So I rest here in love, in the arms of love, in the river of love, hearing the voice of love, soaking and saturating with love. Clinging to love for dear life. Being rewired by love. Having my soul restored by love...and coming away as a carrier, a vector of the infatuation infection.

I sit at rest here in love. The oil of joy facilitates going over under and around obstacles, taking love in where it is needed. To cause someone to say, "What is that?"

Father, teach me to love by making loving my newly reset default response. For every stimulus, the response is love. Automatic and not needing contemplation. To love where love is needed. To love the fatherless. Hold me. I need you so I can bring you the glory.

Delight yourself also in the LORD: and he shall give you the desires of your heart.

Delight yourself also in the LORD: and he shall give you the desires of your heart.

For a long time I have thought about the two ways of reading that last clause. In the Word of Faith church, where I heard it first, it was about getting stuff. At least to a certain extent. Depended on who you were listening to. Made sense in that context, too. God loves me and gives me the things that I desire.

The other thought has been that, while I am in the process of delighting myself in the Lord, He will be in the process of giving me desires.

So lately, as the essential core of this walk in the Holy Wild, leaning on Christ, delighting myself with being with Him, practicing faith by clinging to my King, goes on, He has been teaching me to desire new things.

I know that I am a social guy, but for several months, Father has been showing me that He wants me to sit in public and drink coffee. There is no reason to expect that it is not about prayer, that I am not there to pray. I also suspect that it affords the opportunity, as well, to relate and to pour out Gods Love.

Did it today. There was a brand new kind of YES as a consequence, a fresh vision, like I got new eyes, and maybe new ears. Very Good.

Father, thank You for being available to delight myself in. Thank You for the rent curtain.

Faith in Christ

Clinging to nothing else is not enough. That just means adrift.

Clinging, leaning all on Christ is enough and all. The Word, the message of good news is that there is a place to lean, it is a place worthy of your trust, and it is the only place to lean on that matters. So that whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life.

What is the purpose of having eternal life? For the healing of the nations. For the manifestation of the Kingdom of God.

Bring the Kingdom of God into your places, and see life, love, flow into Kingdomless corners and hearts. Having eternal life, bear eternal life into the waste places. Only Kingdom people can bring the Kingdom. Only vessels of perfect love can make it available for the removal of fear.

Plenty of nice religions out there for those who need one. Only one place to trust, rest, heal, hope. And then walk out, carrying water to the thirsty.

Daddy, thank you for Your Word of Truth.

Bushed

That's what my Dad called it. Tuckered. Tarred is what they say here, to mean tired.

So much grace today. Not the favor I could probably ask for every day, but so much grace. Just marveling and marveling at the ease of functioning here.

The holes in my soul still take the energy out of me. Work circumstances were hard today in a way that involves my soul, particularly my emotions, more than it involves my mind working. When I was done, I was really ready to leave. I was not sleepy tired, but I wanted comfort food and "easy." Now that I am home with a full tummy, I want to sleep. It is probably reasonable, but it is clear that there are big booboos that need to be left under the balm. I miss the mark so much, yet each day is clearly closer to being on track and on target.

Really nothing to do but trust and lean and cling and rest. and listen and talk. This life is working like no other ever has. Glory to God. Glory to God. Glory to God.

Father, help the prayer wall people to know the truth of your love, the steadfastness of your love, the trustworthiness of your love, to be rooted and grounded in who You are, according to your word. Forgive my pride, some more.

There Are No Secrets in The Secret Place

When I got to this town six years ago I met a man who loves Jesus and lives to sing praises to God. He found me a copy of an out of print CD recorded by Clint Brown. I think the title is, "Alone." It has the theme that The Lord desires and rewards the attention of one of His children. Though He appreciates that they gather for Him, He appreciates no less the individual attention of a child crawling into His lap.

I have not listened to Pastor Clint's recording for several years, and forgot what I had been missing. That was changed this morning.

My message of the moment is that the music agrees with what I have been writing over the last month or so. Maybe if what I have been writing is not working for you, you might find a more effective connection with the message by listening to this music. When he wrote the music, Pastor Clint was living out here in the Holy Wild.

There is Love longing to embrace the love need that you have. If you think you do not need Love, he will wait anyway, and will hug you and hold you when you do, and you turn to Him.

Thank you, Father for giving me love and teaching me to give it away. Say hello to Jack for me, please.

So close

This wilderness path requires clinging to Jesus. Today I found out that trail runs right on the edge of my old rut. At least it does right now. I had a foot slip off the edge today, and I was almost all of the way back in that old grave, walking by habit rather than by faith.

I have gotten accustomed to clinging to Christ, and that makes all the difference. Thank you, Father. Help me to become entirely dependent on You.

Nothing like a great worship song.

Give me love
Give me love
Give me peace on earth
Give me light
Give me life
Keep me free from birth
Give me hope
Help me cope, with this heavy load
Trying to, touch and reach you with,
heart and soul

OM M M M M M M M M M M M M M
M M M My Lord . . .

PLEASE take hold of my hand, that
I might understand you

Won't you please
Oh won't you

Give me love
Give me love
Give me peace on earth
Give me light
Give me life
Keep me free from birth
Give me hope
Help me cope, with this heavy load
Trying to, touch and reach you with,
heart and soul

OM M M M M M M M M M M M M M
M M M My Lord . . .

Won't you please
Oh won't you

Give me love
Give me love
Give me peace on earth
Give me light
Give me life
Keep me free from birth
Give me hope
Help me cope, with this heavy load
Trying to, touch and reach you with,
heart and soul
Give me love
Give me love
Give me peace on earth
Give me light
Give me life
Keep me, Keep me free from birth
Give me hope
Help me cope, with this heavy load
Trying to, touch and reach you with,
heart and soul

OM M M M M M M M M M M M M M
M M M My Lord . . .

George Harrison

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How? Why? When?

I do not know how I got here. I do know there was corner to turn, that I was anticipating the corner, that I could not see it until I got there, and that I made the turn when I got to it.

Yup. It was in the pain. In the ache. In the trial. I made the turn because I needed to be moving in a new direction, on a new path, with a new destination somewhere ahead. And I was not alone. The Church was with me. Thank you, Father, for your Church.

I do not wish that pain for anyone. But I do pray that the signs for the exit ramps and entrance ramps will be properly illuminated at just the right times, and that we will all have the humility to give ourselves over to the service of a navigator.

For me the process of getting here took a stripping down to essentials. When everything is heavy, it gets easier to identify things that need to be discarded and abandoned. I do not believe it makes it any easier to release them. That they are no longer worth carrying just becomes clear. Clear as crystal.

So I wake up one day clinging to my King. My hands feel like they have the habit in muscle memory. So I have been clinging long enough to develop the hands for it. Might be like developing hinds feet for high places.

If my hands have developed into hands made by practice to cling to God, it also means that He is faithful to be there to be clung to. He has been within reach every time. He has persisted in being there for the duration of each encounter.

Every other handhold tried has proven to be unavailable and/or made temporary by my depending on it. I have awakened, having forsaken false hopes. Unreliable reeds.

I see new places that promise safety and rest without holiness. But, somehow, my hands are in the habit of clinging where they have never been betrayed.

And it smells so good here, Daddy.

Poetry

I am not a poet, but my Father is. I am not a song writer or a painter or a play-write. But my Father is. Last night I was surprised by poetry that came from my fingers, so surprised that I posted the line on facebook. It resonated with some friends and they said so.

There is so much in the depths of exploration, in insisting on clinging to the bosom of the King. I don't expect that my Father is making me a poet, but I am sure that His poetry is saturating me as I dream upon His breast. I hope for the day when it is the perfume of His Presence coming from me that brings someone home. And that day I will have been so near to the aroma for so very long that I will not smell it on me, and I will wonder what has drawn them.

One thing have I desired. One thing have I been granted. One thing have I rejoiced in and given thanks for.

Resources

What a stunning thing. There are parts of me that are done for the day. And maybe rightly so after a couple of hours of exposition. But at the same time I feel so much like a king's kid. The surface gets worn away and the core is revealed. I am so strong in Christ. The foundation is unshakeable and not subject to storms. I may forget to stay on it, but it is not going anywhere.

When you go walking in the Wild, look for parts of me dropped along the path. In fascination and adoration of the Great King, I do not miss them. They are parts of me that are not needed for clinging, leaning, trusting and following,

Father, thank you for believing in me.