John 4:14 - The Word

...but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. 

Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.

John 4:14

I can't get over the Word 

in so many ways

God said Let there be light and there was.

With a word He created

And Jesus was the Word with Him in the beginning

And we read the Word to know him

I can't get over the Word

Water
In so many ways....

Heavenly Father, on this still Sunday morning, thank you for your Word - in so many ways...

Linking with:

Still Saturday

Sunday Stillness

Journey - Destination Unknown

I'm with my math class.  A word problem is on the board.  Some of my students are already circling and underlining words, writing down their thinking in the margins, rewording the problem.  But I already see a couple of hands up.  Insistent hands attached to bodies that barely stay in their seats.  Excited hands.  And I walk around to see the work - I want to see how my students are thinking - I want to see their math brains translated onto their papers.  But the hand-papers are blank.  Empty.  Nada.  Nothing.

And I turn away from them saying "I know some of you already know the answer.  Thank you for wanting to share.   Now I need you to show me how you got it."

"I just know it."  They sometimes tell me.

"It's too easy."  They sometimes say.

"I don't know how I got it, is it right?"  Trying to please, faces all screwed up with earnest need.  Need to be right, to check off the box, to go to the next problem, a trail of answers in their wake.  But not a real trail.  Like Hansel and Gretel, the breadcrumb answers disappear and the students become lost in the Forest of How, because the destination has become their goal, not the journey.


But the learning happens in the journey.



I went on a walk with my daughter last week.  Through a park with multiple trails in the woods.  Trails I didn't know.  With signposts along the way.  Destination unknown.  As we walked, I thought about this thing, this trail, this journey we call life.  I thought about how journeys differ, based on circumstances.  On beliefs.  On events.  I thought about justification and sanctification; I thought about how we are changed through Christ.

And the whole walk became a metaphor.

The journey begins with faith.
Faith:  the bridge between belief and hope.  Some will never cross the bridge.  Some will never experience the unknown, the un-imagined, the un-safe.  But neither will they experience the cool of the trees, or the diversity of the trail, because they will stay always in the sunlight, always on pavement - not taking chances.


Some will.  

Experience....

Reflections along the trail... 

Memories of other times, 

other journeys, 

other destinations.

Choices

and forgiveness, 

and grace.  

Humility for grace - 

a gift undeserved. 

 

Seek
Beauty in the small things -
the unnoticed along the side of the trail.

Surprising color,
delicate detail.

Things we miss
when our destination is the goal,
when speed is of the essence,
when we focus only on the finish line.

Find

Beauty in the light,

in the turning, 

in the imperfect, 

the unadorned, 

the simple.

Love
Beauty in the broken, 
the fallen,
the great become small,
the humble -

stripped down to final truth -
true wood -
heart.

Journey on the trail - 

through places of sunlight 

and places of shadow.  

Not always a wide road, 

but a narrow one 

made by the footprints 

of those who came before.

Expect changes.


A single breath of wind to throw seeds.
A single breath of God to throw seeds for new life.
For hope.
For love.

Beauty in change.

Abide 

through faith, 

through beauty, 

through change.  

Around the bend - 

not always visible, 

and there will be hills.

And there will be brokenness along the way,

heart-wrenching, 

soul-stretching brokenness 

in all the fibers - 

of our being. 

Brokenness reaching for grace.

Grace like light, 
breaks through the canopy,
illuminating the shadows,
the dark places,
like an artist
casting highlights on a canvas.

Like God,
opening and closing
doors and windows.

As we walked, my daughter and me, the trail whispered ...

Look,  
Listen,  
Learn...


This tree -
a metaphor of redemption.
White trunk,
stark and bare
in the midst of the healthy,
the upright...

Like a life laid bare, 

no covering, no protection, bark peeled

open, crying

Held in arms of grace.

He will not leave

He holds us.

He catches us

before we

fall.

We journeyed on, my daughter and me.  And the whispers didn't stop.




Come...

I will wrap you in my peace. 

In my love. 

My joy will twine through you. 

I will be in you as you are in me.

the path winds narrow,

light-dappled limbs overhead,

leaves lay like old sin.

God in heaven, Creator of all things, thank you for this place, this changing place that is not our destination, wherever it is.  Help us to see what you want us to see, to hear what you want us to hear, to know what you want us to know.  Thank you for joy in the journey.

You make known to me the path of life;

you will fill me with joy in your presence,

with eternal pleasures at your right hand.

Psalm 16:11








Linking With:
Michelle at Hear It On Sunday
Barbie at The Weekend Brew
Janis at Sunday Stillness

Sandals on Dirt Roads

John wore clothing made of camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey.  And this was his message: “After me comes the one more powerful than I, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie.  I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

Mark 1:6-8

What do we do with this man?  How do we place him in our lives of traffic lights and speed limits, yellow school buses and garbage trucks?  Where does he fit in our churches with steeples rising to the limits of technology and colored glass and upholstered pews.  Where in our nine-to-fives - our schedules of summer vacations and weekend plans?  How do we reconcile his story - his birth in a stable, his death on a cross - so long ago, so far away.  How do we relate to his life?  His teaching?  His stories?  His love?

Sandals on dirt roads, robes frayed with washing and use.  No laundromats.  No deodorant.  Nothing easy or readymade.  No grocery stores.  No cars.  A man and his followers walking in the dust.  In the heat.  Gleaning in the fields.  Fishing.  

Come, he said, and I will give you rest.

I am the Way, he said.

I am the truth, he said.

I am the life, he said.

Follow me, he said.

I drive through the city and see the frayed coats, worn and dirty, shuffling behind grocery carts piled high with street treasure - bundles of cast-off clothes and blankets.  A horn honks, traffic moves on.  The woman on the corner holds a sign, a cardboard sign.  She doesn't look up as I pass.  A sleeping figure wrapped in a blanket on a park bench.  A lump of humanity in the busy day - alone.  Wrapped.  Sleeping.  In the open, under the sky, beneath the stares of people passing by. 

Sandals on dirt roads.  No laundromats.  Would we have seen him?  That man?  Would we have been curious because of his words - What if he lived today - would he be a YouTube sensation - gone viral for the miracles he worked?  For the chaos he created in the temple?  For his different point of view?  Would he be the next big news item - another cult leader with a claim to divinity?  A homeless, scruffy old hippie touting a religion of free love and back-to-nature living.  Would he found a movement of  live-in-the-moment, one-day-at-a-time, don't-worry-be-happy?  A give-it-all-to-the-needy simple life?

He had to convince his followers.  Time after time, story after story.  Patiently explaining, patiently repeating - truly, I say to you - over and over - pleading for understanding, his message urgent and oh-so-difficult-to-believe.  A message of non-competition - the first shall be last.  A message of forgiveness and grace - undeserved and unearned reward given in the land of law and obedience.  How hard it must have been to be him.  How difficult to be his follower.  Nothing easy or readymade.  The Son of Man has no place to lay his head.  

I sit at my computer, in the early, early morning and think about my Savior, my God, my Hope, my Light.  And the details don't matter.  He lived.  God came to earth in the form of Jesus, two thousand years ago.  He lived.  He died and he rose from the dead.  He lived and now He lives.  There is nothing easy about Christ.  Everything is easy with Christ.  Sandals on dirt roads.  I understand that.  I can start with that.

Father, thank you for Jesus.  Truly.  Thank you for your Son.  Thank you for the Way, the Truth, and the Life.  Thank you for Jesus.