Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Fear this

Time for true confessions. There is a reason you haven't heard from me in a bit; I am afraid.

I am afraid while at the same time blissfully at peace.

Is that possible?

Here's the fear:

What if being happy robs me of the ability to ponder and write about the wonder of Him?

My level of comfort and joy are high and my creative juices correspondingly low.

It could be troubling, if it weren't for His assurance. He keeps telling me that this is a season of experiencing rather than thinking. Of incarnate revelation rather than word.

He told me that the winds of change were blowing, and with typical hubris, I thought that meant something else entirely.

The winds continue to blow and I to be pushed along by them, trying to simply enjoy the ride and be faithful in response. I pray for you, beloved reader, that His spirit is gently carrying you as well.

Merry Christmas...

5 comments:

Ike said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Ike said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Diane Marie Hall said...

may you be so filled with joy ...that your pen dances across the page.Share your joy my friend.

Suzanne Marie DeWitt said...

Ike,

I was so sorry to see your comments removed this morning... they were wonderful. Let me know if I could repost them?

Ike said...

Isaiah 43:10-13

"You are my witnesses," says the Lord, "and my servant whom I have chosen, that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he. Before me no god was formed, nor shall there be any after me. I, I am the Lord, and beside me there is no savior. I declared and saved and proclaimed, when there was no strange god among you; and you are my witnesses," says the Lord. "I am God, and also henceforth I am he; there is none who can deliver from my hand; I work and who can hinder it?"
The book of Isaiah is the most sustained self-exaltation of God in all the Bible. Chapters 43 and 44 are breathtaking in their boast of the absoluteness of God. I, I am he, and there is no other god, no other savior, no other rock! I, I am the Lord the Holy One of Israel! The book rings again and again with God's boast in his own greatness.

What can we say to this but that God is utterly thrilled to be God. There is a kind of volcanic exuberance in God over the fact that he is God. He virtually erupts with the exaltation of his own glory. God is thrilled to be God. Isaiah is ravished by the truth that God is God. And the question is.....are we? Is there any eruption of wonder and awe and amazement in "us" that God simply IS? That he is God?


But now we must ask, does God nurture this wonder in us as a merely private experience? Have we reached the apex of our joy and the climax of our divine call where we have an overwhelming, private experience of God's glory and power? NO! It is neither the apex of our joy nor the climax of our call because God ignites the fire of our worship to make us shine in the world. God means to make a witness out of our wonder. He nurtures our wonder by showing us that he is a sovereign God; and he makes our wonder into a witness for all the world.

I think our prayer should be....

O God, grant us to know you in such a way that the fire of our wonder becomes an unquenchable flame of witness to the world.

Then we will say with powerful conviction....

Turn to me and be saved all the ends of the earth! For I am God, and there is no other. By myself I have sworn. From my mouth has gone forth in righteousness a word that shall not return: To me every knee shall bow, and every tongue shall swear.