Pieces in the Throne room

I am here again. At Your feet, I have come with what is left. The blood-stained pieces of what used to be whole and healed. I have come again with the plague of my sickness. I know you will take it. You will restore. You will shroud in love and deliver me. I am not deserving but I am here anyway. I do not have anywhere else to go. I do not know anyone else with as much patience and mercy. Your compassions fail not. Your steadfast love never ceases. Your mercy is new in the morning. New every morning. 

I am back with a heavy heart and tired feet. My journey has been long and far. I have been travelling in the opposite direction and I am weary of spirit. I have wandered from You and I am lost. Lost in my thoughts, in my imaginings, lost in my prayers. I am lost and cut off from what gives peace and hope and life. I am not now, what I was meant to be. I even have fear.

But You have not favoured me with fear. Fear displaces faith. Love dispels fear. You have given me a spirit of power and of love and of a sound mind. The sound mind drove me here. To my knees, to worship, to praise... You inhabit the praises of your people. So You are welcome here. I have a need and Your grace is sufficient for it. I am in my dark hour and You will rescue me.

I have come and You were always here. I have come and You have kept me. You have preserved what is precious to You. I am here and I am broken. I am here and You are willing; I will be healed. You call me by name. You see Your Son, His scars, water and blood poured out. You remember Your promise made for generations and I find comfort.

I am here and You are God. Forever.

All fall down

And worship…

And crown Him Lord of all…

And declare He is God and forever reigns…

And cry Abba…

Naked

I am undone before you Lord, all my ways exposed in the brilliance of Your light. I am open before You, my life laid bare as You show me...

How imperfect I am against Your perfection,

how unworthy in the light of Your glory.

How lost I am against Your perfect will,

how clueless when I consider Your plan for my future.

I only have to look at the works of Your hands, to be surrounded by Your amazing creation and I am filled with awe.

I fall to my knees when I survey the wondrous cross.

Teach me Your way and lead me in Your paths of righteousness.  

Refine me in Your fire, burn away every impurity and test me as gold.

Weigh my heart and see if there is any wicked way in me.

Restore unto me, the joy of Your salvation.

Take me back, Lord. Take me whole.

Take me as I am.

I am undone before you.

Naked.

Quiet before thee

My heart is steadfast oh Lord, my heart is steadfast, I will sing and make music. My heart is not proud, LORD, my eyes are not haughty; I do not concern myself with great matters or things too wonderful for me. But I have calmed myself and quieted my ambitions. I am like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child I am content.

I will praise you, Lord, among the nations; I will sing of you among the peoples. For great is your love, reaching to the heavens; your faithfulness reaches to the skies. Be exalted, O God, above the heavens; let your glory be over all the earth.

Ps 57; 131

Two-faced

'A cake not turned is soon burnt on the side nearest the fire, and although no man can have too much religion, there are some who seem burnt black with bigoted zeal for that part of truth which they have received, or are charred to a cinder with a vainglorious Pharisaic ostentation of those religious performances which suit their humour. The assumed appearance of superior sanctity frequently accompanies a total absence of all vital godliness. The saint in public is a devil in private. He deals in flour by day and in soot by night. The cake which is burned on one side, is dough on the other.
'If it be so with me, O Lord, turn me! Turn my unsanctified nature to the fire of thy love and let it feel the sacred glow, and let my burnt side cool a little while I learn my own weakness and want of heat when I am removed from thy heavenly flame. Let me not be found a double-minded man, but one entirely under the powerful influence of reigning grace; for well I know if I am left like a cake unturned, and am not on both sides the subject of thy grace, I must be consumed forever amid everlasting burnings.' Charles Spurgeon

Thank you Lord for your admonition. For your word in season. Amen and Amen.

Seek me out

I know I can but I cannot find my way back to Him. I walked away from the heat to a place where it was warm instead and now it’s more tepid than remotely warm. I am not amazed that He merely looked on while I wandered far from Him. Maybe because He knows that His grasp matches His reach. My mind told me that I’d not be too far from where I’d left Him but my heart knew that only one step away is what it took. The rest followed like demon-possessed swine over the mountain.

I am here now. Not lost but close enough to the edge. Tears blind my eyes. Perhaps it’s the wind that harshly burns them as it blows in the places where I can no longer feel His heat, yet still surrounded by His undying love. Or it is the miserable anguish of my soul as I realise how far I have travelled when I intended only a short walk from where He still stands. And then I hear His voice.

It is not the one that called Adam from the secret of the garden at the moment that his eyes were open and he knew he was exposed. It was not the incessant call that woke Samuel from deep sleep, troubled and dishevelled, running to his master Eli’s room in despair. It was not the voice that broke heaven’s shield with its boom announcing Whom and Whose Jesus was in the wake of His baptism. It did not come in the fire, nor the wind, nor the earthquake but in the still small voice that He favours.

He says come. And in the darkness that envelopes me, I reach out and He is there, so close I believe He is holding me. And I belong.

3am Monday

God woke me up today to talk. I checked the time out of habit and it read 2.48. I had been sleeping for less than five hours. My late nights should stop, I reminded my brain. It replied with a scoff, since when have we started taking orders from you? Well, isn’t the mind just a master of its own inclinations. But back to the Lord. The early morning appointments are not unusual, I used to have 4 am rendezvous. I think it has something to do with the fact that my name means ‘one who listens’ derived from the masculine name given to the little Hebrew boy who was instructed to reply, ‘Speak Lord, your servant hears’.

So, I am up in my bed watching the darkness and trying to piece together the dream I was having. I checked the time again a little later and found 2.59. Eleven minutes of silence. ‘Sam’, I heard the tug in my heart. He always calls me by name. Sure I get the occasional, My child, but He uses my first name; the title of the vessel He fashioned. I perked the ears in my soul. His instruction was simple: Stay on your knees.