Deconstructing

What gift are you giving that he did not first give?  What truth are you teaching that he didn't first teach?  You love.  But who loved you first?  You serve.  But who served the most?  What are you doing for God that he could not do alone?

How kind of him to use us.  How wise of us to remember.

- Outlive Your Life...Max Lucado

It is easy to get lost in the doing, when what you are doing is good.  It is a lesson that I am learning as I seek to serve others in the name of Christ. 

Each mission trip taxes the heart, the mind, the body and the soul.  It is a process of pouring out of all that was poured in.  God does not fill us to become bloated and stagnate.  Rather, fresh water - living water - is a continual cleansing flow. 

So, it is imperative that I learn to not to impede the flow by stacking tasks and goals like a dam.  Planning is good but seeking His timing is better.  Setting an objective is important but allowing His intention to change the goal is crucial.  When I get lost in the doing and begin to build the dam, I need time to deconstruct.  To remove the impediments and revive my heart, my mind, my body and my soul.  To restore the flow.

Seeking to "remember" it is Him.  It always was.  It will always be.

© A Sacred Longing 2009-2011

Learning to gaze in the right direction...

No more shuffling along.

No more eyes to the ground only focused on what is immediately before me.

No more

Because there is so much more

To see

To touch

To taste

To love

To know

And to be thankful for.

Big picture living is what I want.

God eyes - Christ perspective - Spirit whisper.

I've missed too much.

Of life

Of hope

Of forgiveness

Of beauty

In the missing, I have sidestepped life. I have avoided love. I have blundered forgiveness. I have overlooked grace. I have fallen short of thanksgiving.

I have ached for more but failed to look up.

My heart is yearning to see from His perspective.

It is a sacred longing.

  © A Sacred Longing 2009-2011

Through the tears...

Joy is the echo of God's life within us!

-anonymous

I was asked this weekend if the tears ever stop falling.  I couldn’t tell her yes because honestly, I pray they never do. 

When I went on my first mission trip, I was overwhelmed by the stark contrast of what I knew and what they had.  It was a black and white snapshot etched into my soul.  In the days that followed I would gaze upon the memory, with eyes welled up in wonder.  Time passed and the snapshot faded but the wonder never left me.

Since that time, I have had the privilege of traveling outside of my time and comfort zones and into the world and lives of others - Nicaragua, Ecuador, and Haiti.  Each trip has been a stepping stone on a pilgrimage of heart and soul. 

Each step has allowed me see beyond the obvious and the ordinary.  My eyes no longer focus on the harshness of contrasts – no longer black and white etchings engraved into eternity.  Rather each consecutive trip has become a Technicolor unfolding of a world I have only begged to know.

The tears still fall, my dear friend.  Yet, now they are a prism to the beauty and grace of a world created.  Rays of light separated into a rainbow of colors. 

Red and yellow, black and white we are precious in His sight…

Don’t hold back the tears my friend, look through them and be amazed.

© A Sacred Longing 2009-2011

Thanks to Shannon for this beautiful picture!