My flesh, loud against the gentleness of the Father, is not the final word.
Wouldn’t you know it, the very thing set to derail me, is His opportunity to shine … in me. My weakness is His perfection. And a taste of Him, like this, in me makes me want to throw off the old and jump, bold, into His new.
And this perspective is what sparks my adoration.
If you haven’t yet, read my precursor to this Monday’s adoration**. This sweet God is using life’s most unlikely circumstances to scoot my chair right up next to His and give me a taste of His nearness.
While he was still speaking, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them; and suddenly a voice came out of the cloud, saying, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. Hear Him!” And when the disciples heard it, they fell on their faces and were greatly afraid. But Jesus came and touched them and said, “Arise, and do not be afraid.” When they had lifted up their eyes, they saw no one but Jesus only. Matthew 17:5-7**
“But Jesus.”
The simple phrase You inspired which explains an eternal rescue. Your Words bring me healing.
They were afraid and You translated, through Your Son. I stumble to find You and You are still, now, translating … through Your Son. Life in word, life on page, is welling up life within me.
You are Trinity, all of You one, yet for one sliver of time, You appeared separately (without compromising Your oneness) so that I might have an invitation into this union. You sent Him, so that I might understand You. You made provision for me, before my conception, in Your Son’s birth. The night He broke from Your triangle of holiness through earth onto the straw floor of a stable was the night Your Word throughout history touched the skin of another.
What she first felt was what a world would have chance to receive — God’s living touch.
Father, powerful and overshadowing, and Jesus, the One who translates. His calloused hands reached out to fearful skin.
You reached down, You lived in skin.
And Your Son, who wore You, carried peace in His fingers. All in one, yet separate for these moments, so that their hearts might know the healing touch of ages. That fingerprint on flesh, then, impresses itself on me, now.
I love you, God who made Yourself real to them and to me.
Jesus, You stood between the Father’s expression of glory and man’s great inability to comprehend. You bore witness. You lived witness. By Your witness, their eyes saw.
I praise You that by Your witness, my heart has room. The brush against flesh they felt lives within me. I adore You, oh God who is still witnessing through Your Son. I can touch You — inside of me — like He touched them, all because You shared Your Son.
Your life was a bridge. All of Him, enfolded into You, so that I might see God.
What tenderness, this great gesture that I have been invited to inherit.
Holy translation.
Love became a Man, without comprising its nature. Glorious mystery.
And to this You say, seek, and I will unfold for You. You made it known, to them, with a Man who shared their steps and ate meals with them and slept under their roofs and You are making it known to me, inside of me. He wore You so that I might wear You.
I adore You for Your committed brush with humanity. And I see You, anew, through the Son who wore You for me.
**For a context to this little space on my blog, read: Why I Adore. For a more detailed description of how to start adoring Him in your day-to-day, read: Showing Up. 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).
First photo compliments of Mandie Joy. Second and third photos compliments of Cherish Andrea Photography.
