Amazed + Confused   by maTT vZ

On any given day, my head is like a lost & found bin in the middle of Times Square after New Years. On any other given day, sometimes, so is yours. It’s not really working for me.

While trying to order my horribly, virulently mad thoughts and write this thingy, I’ve been looking through my ‘random’ folder in my ‘pictures’ directory on the laptop, trying to slow my head down.

Wafting cheerily across my screen therein were: a Fight Club soap bar, donkeys in the wind, midnight lightning in a hayfield, a massive Darth Vader hot-air balloon, blue-halo’d subway angels and aliens in acrylic, 70’s signage, 40-foot turquoise breakers and 30’s Chicago, an apocalyptic city, a sunset-silhouetted ocean cliff rock climber, Major Kusinagi and a creepy human-toothed manically smiling cat.

I named the folder well.

It’s where I keep all the trinkets and curios from my exotic Internet wanderings. Souvenirs, if you will. But perusing through it, I found it banged happily on the windows of my train of thought, demanding to come in and join the chaotic subject that was on my mind, that being in fact, my mind itself. Confused? Excellent, then we’re on the same page… whichever page… that may… be.

*cough*

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Sorry, got up there for a minute. Wandered around aimlessly a bit. Been very distracted lately. There’s so much I wanna do, wanna be, but I just can’t seem to get around to it, and when I do… dammit I just can’t keep focused. My head flits around like one of those fat lazy flies, annoying me with its fart-like buzz yet never keeping still enough for me to cover-drive it into the window. All I really, REALLY want is – although I am forgiven and accepted and will live eternally in the utter awesomeness of God’s presence – to live NOW in the fullness of His will and truth, but I simply don’t seem to be getting anywhere.

How many of you have this kind of problem? That you just can’t seem to just sit yer butt down and just… get on with it?

I’m hoping a whole pile of you, ‘cos then I won’t feel so bad. And I do feel baaaad. It seems to have invaded almost every aspect of my life, from fun stuff to work stuff to love stuff… pretty much all stuff, with the exception of stuffing my face. That I do just fine.

And it has gotten chronic. I mean take this very paragraph, for example. I’m writing about… a month after the previous one. A month. For four lines.

So for you it might be something else, but whatever it is, I bet it leaves this… churning feeling in your gut, like you’re letting life disappear down a daily-wasted-day plughole that makes a particularly yousuck-ing noise on the way down. You get to a point where you don’t even know if you’re doing the right thing, or thinking the right way, or losing the plot completely. You just don’t know if you are ever gonna change, gonna kick that thing that you wish you had victory over, especially when you are always hearing that you have the victory, that all things are possible. Haha… man sometimes it makes you feel worse.

And where does that leave me, and perhaps you? Well there’s lots that can be said, and that has been said. By family, friends, loves and leaders. Some helps, some hurts. Maybe some keep encouraging, or some withdraw, or some get impatient, or variations and combinations of all the above. Even I perform several of these, sometimes all at once. And that’s ok. People are people. That’s why God loves ‘em.

It gets to a stage where you just end up broken, perhaps all snotty with tears, mayhap throwing a tantrum or two… or three (guilty) or simply… numb.

So. At this point you’re thinking: ‘gee, this is cheery stuff.’

And in a way, it is.

Earlier I mentioned how I can never keep focused. I was wrong. I was EXTREMELY focused. On every failure, hurt, disappointment, rejection, ignorance and dismissal – from within myself and from others, of myself and of others. To the point where it was ALL I saw. Doesn’t mean that these things weren’t happening or there, but it did mean I, in wanting so desperately to have these things resolved, saw ONLY them, and nothing else. None of the beauty, wonder, simple utter joys, hope and staggering love that God has gifted us – from natural jaw-droppers like the gajillion-starred splendor-fest of the skies and those tiny veins in your fingertips and the millions of little hemoglobin happily carting oxygen under your skin, to the supernatural power of Jesus’ blood and the sheer mind-popper of the Holy Spirit – the most powerful anything anywhere ever – being within you. YOU.

We often do this, because we want things to be all wonderful and lovely. We want all the problems to go away, to be solved. It’s natural, right? Right. Absolutely. It’s natural. But we are not. Not anymore. Through Jesus, through His incredible blood, we are supernatural – if we choose to be. If we can keep pushing in, keep control of our hearts and minds through the Holy Spirit in us, seek God with all of ourselves, everything will be wonderful and lovely, even when naturally it seems a mess, a disaster or failure. Freaky, huh?

Take Paul, when he writes Philippians. This is probably one of the most joyous books in the Word. And he writes it while sitting at the bottom of a pit in Rome as a prisoner, waiting for Nero to fit him into his busy schedule. In chapter 4 sits some serious fizzbombs.

Phil 4: 5 – 7

‘Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say, rejoice!

Let your gentleness be known to all men. The Lord is at hand.

Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.’

Now remember this guy is in a pit with pretty much nothing but a hole in the ceiling that is the only entry. And this is his advice. We think it’s hard in our sitchiation, which it is, within context of our experience. This stuff is hard. So how did Paul do it?

Phil 4: 8

‘Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy–meditate on these things.’

Well, makes sense, doesn’t it? In a way it’s kinda frustrating, cos most of what we hear from the Word makes sense. But somehow it takes a while or a couple tries before we start really, really understanding, living what we hear. If it helps, Paul distills it down to these pure, simple instructions in Thessalonians.

1 Thes 5: 16 – 19

‘Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

Do not quench the Spirit.’

Do not quench the Spirit. It’s almost a plea, a cry for us to do everything we possibly can to allow God’s Spirit to keep flowing within and through us. THAT is our source. THAT is how we can do this: by His Holy Spirit. I know it’s simple, but that doesn’t make it easy. Trust me, I know. But I’m finding if I really stick to these words – not just in routine, but in heart – it gets easier, even when the situation doesn’t. Let God help you. Let Him guide you. Let Him LOVE you. And you’ll find you can do and be and show all that He desires in your life, trust in His Word that you can!

I have been blessed with something that I want to share with you. Something that flared my confusion away with amazement. So see this in that big beautiful imagination He gave you, feel it, remember it when everything starts to feel… cold.

K, you can’t really close your eyes ‘cos that will be, well… dof. But here goes.

There is a roar. A roar of heat and speed. All you can see is the rush of a superheated Blazing. It has an odd colour; not red, not pink, nor orange, but somewhere in-between all of them. It fills your vision. If you had eyes behind you it would see the same as before you, as far as the eye can see. You realize it fills a space beyond what you can comprehend. It has a thickness to it, so you can feel the weight of it as an ocean of speed and heat, and although you know this Blazing is furiously hot and fast, it somehow feels warm, and gentle in pace.

Suddenly you are pulled deeper, deeper, deeper into this Blazing, to the centre of it, like the gravity of forever is hauling you in. It seems as if you move at crazy speed for an eternity. The Blazing around you is endless and constant. Finally, after an eon, you notice a speck in front of you, far, far off. It takes a while before this speck appears to get infinitesimally bigger. Gradually, it gets closer, gets larger. Eventually, when it fills about half your vision you have a brief moment to observe that it is a deep space so blue it makes black look white, filled with endless coloured points of light. You realize with a shock at what an enormous speed you have been traveling at as, before you can blink, the space swallows you completely. This space itself is so huge you feel giddy. You can still hear the Blazing roar of heat and speed, and when you close your eyes (the you in this description, not the you reading this now, silly) you can still see it. More so, you can feel it, warming your bones like a swiftly drunk cup of hot chocolate, in this cold, beautiful place.

Two things are now confirmed to you.

This tiny, tiny speck within the endless, hot, fast Blazing… is the entire universe.

And that gloriously warm and powerful Blazing, within which this universe is an unseen speck… is God’s love.

You try and scale all this to size – while sitting staring at tiny galaxies scattered like glitter and endless, endless black space.

Everything shifts! You hover between two galaxies that are swirling into each other – the crash of their stars thunder through the emptiness, but still sounds muted by the Blazing in your ears.

Everything shifts! A star explodes light-years away and its nova engulfs you with glorious shockwaves of colour and energy, but still it feels cold compared to the Blazing within you bones.

Everything shifts! You are you, right where you are, right now. Whatever is going on with you right now, whatever you’re feeling, whatever you’re thinking, whatever is going on inside your heart and head, I want you to close your eyes after the last line.

I want you to see the Blazing of God’s love burning fiercer and thicker and faster than ever. It’s so bright and hot you imagine you are at the centre of a star. And you are at the centre. Of all of it. From the very outside, through the tiny speck of the universe, it’s galaxy clusters and star hordes all the way in, in, IN… to the centre of His love. All the flows of this Blazing are pouring directly into you. Now open your arms wide, be lifted in this Blaze of love. Feel the warmth and the sting as these roaring flows fill you as heat does when you slide into a steaming hot bath. Feel all the hard bits in your head and heart slowly ablate and burn and be carried away in the Blazing as burning dust. Feel the worries and the works and the angers and the hurts sear clean and the wounds filled with molten beauty. Feel it wrap you in a new skin like a hot towel, feel it pour down the inside of your spine into your heart and soul and mind like heated honey. You are completely filled and covered, saturated. And with no space between you and the Blazing, you feel it. You hear it, rushing in from a great distance, and it is upon you. A single, all-encompassing BEAT. The Blazing flares within you. Another BEAT. So much heat and speed and weight leaves you weak. And another BEAT.

This is His heart beating for you. This is what you mean to Him. This is where you are in His heart.

This is God’s love for YOU. Just imagine when you meet Him, face to face.