“It is to your advantage that I go away.” John 16:7**
I’ve read it before. Highlighted it in my Bible and underlined — I’ve been here at least twice, but today it’s new. Isn’t that just like You? Always new, always making the old new? Fresh.
Jesus, my heart turns green at the thought of men who brushed elbows with You for years and found comfort in long walks with You along dusty roads — yet the promise You gave those last hours, so long ago, foreshadows my access. I have, young, what they had to find after death’s dark three days. They stood witness to horrific loss, their flesh turning them incapable of perceiving it to be beauty’s true onslaught — but I have Your spirit within me which teaches my heart to know.
I worship You, oh God who took the very best that any human can conceive — skin’s literal contact with the God-Man — and said there is even more still. I love You, God who gave me that access.
You were breath beside them, but you breathe now, inside of me.
Inconceivable, but for the very Spirit of You who has embodied my insides.
Oh God, I cry as I type. Is this really possible? You came so near to them, but You found true home in me. The incarnation, what I so often speak of as history’s great mystery, precedes a truth which makes it all so personal: Jesus lives inside of me.
The communion I so long for is hindered only by my lack of understanding. You are there, here, waiting to make my tainted flesh one with all that is You.
I count You far off, yet You whisper from within.
The saints of old prayed for You to be near, they cried out for Your right hand in theirs, and today Your nearness moves beyond hands clasped and into life entwined.
Oh, God, You live inside of me! The glory of the Father, veiled for generations with power to kill and to heal, has found a tabernacle now inside my frame. I need not look out — but in — to find You. It is to my advantage that You died. Your death moved You from visitor to inhabitant. And I, in all of my sin, have not been disqualified as Your dwelling place.
Father who dwells within flesh, this mystery invites me. You are holy yet have found a home in Your created. You are so other, yet live in my familiar. I love You, God who gives me access. And that access is readily-available, traveling alongside my every heart-move. I praise You, oh God indiscriminate. My yesterday’s foibles and today’s fears have not kept me from communion. You live in me. You validate, by Your very presence.
I inhale and You expand. Pure air, pure You, residing within me. Beauty from the inside out.
How can I not be changed?
**So what do I do with these posts, you ask, other than just read them? First, if you haven’t yet, read: Why I Adore to give you a context for this little space on my blog. (This post also gives context.)
If you are compelled, I invite you to participate. Set up a space and time in your own life to begin adoring. Over laundry or dinner dishes, on your commute to work, or in the wee morning hours — five or ten minutes is a great start. You can use the verse I list here every day or two as a launch pad for your own adoration.
Then practice praise.
Add to my adoration here, by posting a comment with your own words back to God about God …or hide it in your heart. Or wait until a Monday and link up to my adoration posts with your own adoration.
I promise your weary soul won’t regret it.
***You can easily subscribe to these devotional meditations as they are delivered, by using this feed: http://www.EveryBitterThingisSweet.com/posts/chai/feed or by entering your email address in the second box on the right-hand side… (scroll up a bit)
Additionally, all of the Morning Chai Posts can be seen, in the order of posting, by clicking here or adding this address to your reader: http://EveryBitterThingisSweet.com/posts/chai
