Consume me Lord, else I die.

I called myself a runner. I admire the fluidity of the human structure when it functions well, with a toe, heel, breath. Sweat to cool and blood to warm. Muscles taut then lax, and tomorrow's strength worth the pain. I used to be a runner.

My spiritual life was inseparable from my running life. If I ran well, I prayed well. If I was angry, I ran...so that later, I could pray. In running, I had definite limits--so I would work until I saw those limits, until I would nearly pass out, was injured, or plain had nothing left. Reaching my limits did not humble me. It did not destroy me. Seeing my finite nature and weakness made me push harder, run farther, prove that I was not the weakness I saw. If I conquered myself, showed that my effort was nearly killing me, I could present myself to God. (See, God? I am desperate for you. Use me. I am useful.)

I was desperate to be used by God, to be sure. The sincerity was present. But, as most of my peers knew at the time, I struggled with rest. Resting in God, being still and knowing who He is.

I used to be a fighter, too. My opinions were known throughout school. I approved of the person whose words are so crafted that passion was evident. Comebacks and sarcasm were my tools. Who knows how many people I made bleed.

There came a time when tendonitis in my hip flexor became severe enough that I could barely walk. When I began running again, the panic attacks began. I had to learn to pray without running.
As I learned pain from the divorces, deaths, suicides and burdens in this world, I had to learn to speak without adding to the pain. It was not the running that made me desperate for God, it was the resting. In my search for skilled words, it was not wisdom I ultimately sought but compassion. However, a joining in the experiences and pain of another really takes pain to know. It was not the fighting that kept me whole, it was the breaking.

Recently, I told a friend that I was afraid. I have not been accustomed to much fear, and seeing my will and decisions shaped by an emotion that cripples is shaming. She asked me to name the source of my fear, and I blurted out, after having spent over two weeks trying to name it, "I think I am afraid to disappear in Christ."

Wow.

I am afraid of becoming nothing. Hence the running and the fighting.

Quickly and soon, I was set right through words of my pastor, who said that having Christ as our treasure means love for Him drives us, is our motivating force, is what consumes our choices, our lives. My thought, which can only be from our God, was "Consume me Lord, else I die."

Christ, if I do not die in you, I die outside of you. With the first, there is resurrection, with the second, eternal loss.

Consume me, Lord, else I die.

"Only God with His shovel could dig us out"

I have not written in a long time. And when I refer to writing, I mean the kind that comes like breathing—at times, labored, but mostly as a blessing. I imagine this is the manner in which the artist paints and the runner runs. I imagine this is how we live—at times, with pain, but mostly in blessing.

Between the dreaming and the coming true (Bebo Norman), I think we forget what we signed up for. This forgetfulness can emerge in schooling, a workout program, a friendship, a marriage, or a life. One always begins with an image of the future, a goal, however nebulous, and determination enough to put cheerleaders out of business. From the beginning of these endeavors until their conclusion is a gap we can call life, the valley of the shadow, or even sanctification. The larger and longer the gap, the more we forget. I propose, however, that we do not forget our goals while in this valley of the shadow of sanctification, but rather, we forget the process. We forget what we signed up for—which was, yes, the end, the goal, the objective, but also the painful process of getting to the goal. No wonder we are a confused and at times, joyless, people. We mourn that we do not see God as we used to, but forget that we saw from a mountaintop our destination…and are now in the valley striving toward that end. We grieve to see our sin, and rightly so, but it depresses our souls because at that moment, we have forgotten the grace that brought us thus far. As of late, I have been hearing the moans from this valley, of myself and of others. Just the other day I heard from a mentor:

“Our society is in such a deep mess that only God with His shovel could dig us out.”

Aye, we are in a deep mess. What else does one call a place that roils in anger against a God declared nonexistent each time an earthquake hits? A place whose people are terrified to die, and do not know how to live? What is a mess if not the church who turns away from this dying world and acts as if she, too, denies God? Hm. This world is in quite a “mess,” but you know? In the valley, in the living, in the opacity of existence, I think we often forget that (forgive the seeming irreverence of this statement) God has a shovel, and has dug us out. When, in this mess, we declared God’s Son the chief threat to our existence and sacrificed Him to our desires…we were pulled out from where we had lain, self-buried, dead. Only God and His shovel could dig us out, indeed. Between the dreaming and the coming true lies hope for the future.

I will wrestle for the blessing though you render me this wound, still I won't let go of You... John Mark McMillan

Yep. It's true. There are two strange collisions my mind and heart create. One is what some term a 'car crash.' These are unexplainable collisions of four or five different thoughts and ideas in my mind; they converge and leave me with only a feeling and little logic. The other, well, I have come to understand the other convergence of thoughts and ideas as 'wrestling.' For I wrestle either with the flesh or with my understanding of God.

sweetly broken and united

Psalm 86:11 

Teach me your way, O Lord, that I may walk in your truth; unite my heart to fear your name.

No, we cannot serve both God and Mammon. 

But even choosing God, oh how divided, distracted we are, swayed by temptation, shaken by sin. 

"At the cross You beckon me

You draw me gently to my knees, and I am

Lost for words, so lost in love,

I'm sweetly broken, wholly surrendered."

-"Sweetly Broken"