Dead Man Walking

I worked in a paper mill for a summer after my first year of college. It was some of the most grueling and demanding work that I have ever done and I was one of the only females employed. I worked on a giant machine bigger than my house, and being the lowest (wo)man on the totem pole, I did all the grunt work. A normal day usually involved the sheet of paper breaking and me having to climb into the scorching hot machine to weave the paper back through and into the winder where the paper rolls on to large cores. One hot night in August, as I was working the graveyard shift, I turned the corner to walk by the machine next to mine. As I did, I saw the 5th Hand (the guy that had the same job as me, just on a difference machine) had been pulled into the winder. His entire arm was wedged between thousands of pounds of paper and steel and he was losing consciousness. I began to panic; the only thing I could think to do was scream, but the sound of the howling machines easily drowned out my frightened yell. I watched lifelessness elegantly waltz its way through the length of his body, as the chaos of people around him accompanied effortlessly.

Death is indefinitely on the guest list. It is the guest that never RSVP's but you know at any moment could show up. When it took away the brother of Mary and Martha, it left them devastated. And worse yet, Jesus hadn't shown up in time to stop it from making its brutal appearance. As I was reading this story in John 11 this past week, I couldn't help but go back to the question, "why did Jesus weep?"

It seemed to me odd that he would be so deeply moved to tears simply because he loved Lazarus. Don't get me wrong, death is something that does cause people to weep and mourn, but the fact that Jesus tells the disciples of Lazarus' death and resurrection before they had even gotten word that it had happened brought me back to the same question. What did Jesus weep when he, 1. already knew that Lazarus was dead, and 2. knew that he was going to bring him back to life?

The image in my mind of this moment is so vivid. I see Mary falling at Jesus feet in dispair, I hear the wails of other Jewish women thickening the air. Jesus, in all his humaness, bearing the heartache with his beloved friends.

However, maybe the loss and love of Lazarus wasn't only what moved Jesus to weep.

Maybe Jesus was moved to tears because of the reality of how affected his sheep are by death. Maybe the power and authority of death was so tangible in the lives of Mary and Martha that Jesus wept for the hopelessness in their hearts. Up until now, no man had been able to conquer and control death. Jesus looked into the heart of the woman crying at his feet and was troubled in all his humaness by the dispair that this death had brought. It was an enemy that had ruled for too long.

Jesus calls Lazarus to "come forth" in a beautiful display of the power of our Almighty God. This was only a foreshadowing of the ultimate display that was to come through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Hebrews 2:14-15 says, "¹⁴ Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil— ¹⁵ and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death." 


I love the lyrics by John Mark McMillan that say, "The Man Jesus Christ laid death in his grave." I sit here simply amazed at the authority and power of the one we serve. I think back to the night in the paper mill where the fear of death became a reality to me. Jesus came to conquer death and give us hope in a eternal life with him. The word eternal implies the complete and utter absence of death. This concept is one of the most life-changing things that my mind can begin to comprehend; that the Man Jesus Christ laid death in his grave.

And where death dies, all things live.

You Never Fail...

Life is fluid. One minute the world seems filled with the most beautiful rolling hills, colors and old buildings, and the next minute you see only flat lands of grey and the buildings have been demolished. My life seems to be that way lately. This is a good thing, don't get me wrong. Through this, the Lord is ebbing away this sedentary control and fear that has sat along the beaches of my life for far too long.

I was listening to a CD in my car last week, and the simple idea that kept catching my attention was this: "You are the Rock that never fails, You never fail....You will remain, after the day is done and things of earth have passed, Everlasting God." Try and apply this to anything else in life and you will, no doubt, be disappointed. To remain the same simply because you have no necessities and are completely self-sufficient, is to be God. He is completely and wholly everything that it means to be Everlasting. 

We are all looking for stability. We crave it. We would explore uncharted waters to obtain it. We would climb Mt. Everest barefoot to search for it. Yet,  somehow,  an attribute that I could have told you about God when I was 5 years old still ends up on the back burner in my heart? 

He is the Everlasting God. He will remain. 

"The mind looks backward in time till the dim past vanishes, then turns and looks into the future till thought and imagination collapse from exhaustion; and God is at both points, unaffected by either."- A. W. Tozer.  Our lives long for permanence yet everything around us involves change and death.  This scares us and fuels our need for stability seeking. Yet knowing that when everything in this life has failed me (hope in a relationship, trust in a person, finances, parents, cars) my Savior still remains unchanged and full of affection towards me, gives me hope to cling to. 

And clinging is what I have been doing lately. When life is not stable and uncertainty gnashes its ugly teeth at you, threatening to take over, hold fast! Cling to the Rock. With instability and uncertainty waiting at my front door to eat me, I have been in need of surrendering my everything to the One who was and is and will be forever more. Why not trust the One who left eternity and entered time in order to  join God's eternity and man's mortality in an eternal life granting intervention? (That was a mouthful, I know). Simply,  I am tired of being ruled by the fear of instability and lack of control when my life feels like a raging ocean. I am tired of seeking the short-lived situational stability when I serve a God who is the essence of stability. "You never change, You're still the same, You are the Everlasting God. You will remain, after the day is gone and the things of earth have passed; Everlasting God."

Everlasting Father, when things of this earth fail me, when I have placed my hope in something other than solid rock, when all I begin to see is grey and flat land, You are the Rock that I cling to. Let me not forget the desire for eternity and stability that I crave was created by you and for you and will only be totally fulfilled and satisfied in you. I pray that I would wake up each morning in total surrender; taking up my cross in a whole-hearted, lifelong act of devotion to You and You alone. Increase my love. Increase my holy passions. Less of me Lord, and more of unchanging You. Amen.

The Veil

The other night I became upset with God. Not just a little perturbed, I was utterly annoyed and mad! I cannot even explain it; it was the weirdest thing. I know you are probably thinking I am the worst kind of person right now, but bare with me. See I was angry because I realized that I am desperate and unsatisfied. I came to a point where I recognized that there has to be more; I basically said to God "If this is all there is then I don't want it. If there is more than reveal it to me!" This was not just a request, this was me insisting the God do something. I was filled with a burning fire inside that something must be done.

I spent the next morning I spent three hours with the Lord. During this time, my anger morphed into a sort of mourning by the sweet gentleness of the Spirit. I mourned the fact that my spiritual life was lacking the intimacy and Presence of God that my heart longed for. It went deeper still: I knew that God's love for me was deeper than my mind can grasp, but I didn't truly believe it. I begged God in that moment to hit me with the realization of His love to my heart in a physical way that was more than my brain knowing it. I think in this whole process the Lord was looking down and chuckling with a huge smile, thrilled that I was so desperate. Might I tell you, I was really dramatic during these three hours because I wanted God to know that I meant serious business. That I was done settling with just the lifestyle and obedience of my faith. I took some charcoal and started drawing as I was praying and writing out my thoughts to God. In the process, I looked down and my hands, seeing them covered in deep black I wiped them all over my face just as the people in biblical days did while they were in mourning. Oh was I a sight to see! =)

I sought God that day in a real way, with real passion. This fueled the next few days to do that same. A few days later I was reading my Bible in James. I knew that between my friend Kaylin and I, one of us had a commentary on James, so I began searching in our rooms. While I was looking through her books I came across A. W. Tozers book "The Pursuit of God." Something compelled me to pick it up and look through it. I flipped open to a chapter called "Removing the Veil" and began reading, not knowing what the chapter was about. On the first page I read the sentence "I speak to thirsty hearts whose longings have been wakened by the touch of God within them..."

The Mighty One was stirring and wakening something inside of me, something that was calling me to more. I have come to realize that God is giving me a challenge and a promise. But before I am able to fully meet that challenge or believe that promise, the Lord has showed me that I need to believe He is who He says He is. If I don't believe that He is everything revealed in His Word, than what is the point? My faith is empty religious duty. Lord, I believe You are who You say You are!!

The challenge: Push past the self sin that has become the opaque veil keeping you from experiencing the Shekinah glory; the real live, active flame that resides in the Holy of Holies. Jesus' death tore the veil with the purpose of us stepping into that place of utter holiness, therefor we should not be satisfied with living in the outer courts or even the Holy place.

The Promise: We, as redeemed through the blood of Jesus Christ, and children of the Most High God, have the liberty and power to step through that veil and reside with the Presence of God for the rest of our lives.

Of course, fear amongst many other things keep us from these at times, but the reality is that the Lord wills His Presence to reside in you and me. Why do you think the Word of God uses the illustration of our bodies as temples for the Lord to dwell?

His tender voice nudge my soul to realize that there is more. I am not embarking on a journey that will involved me suffering as the Lord Jesus suffered. I need to bring my opaque veil to the cross for judgement. The cross is deadly, and will involve pain, but I know that I will not hang there forever. "There comes a moment when its work is finished and the suffering victim dies. After that is resurrection glory and power, and the pain is forgotten for joy that the veil is taken away and we have entered in the actual spiritual experience the presence of the living God." -Tozer

Lord Jesus, Shekinah Glory, I insist that you would reveal the fabric of the veil that is keeping me from experiencing your Holy Presence in a real and fresh way. I declare that I believe who You say You are and that Your promises stand true. You know that it is my hearts desire to enter into the Holy of Holies and that I am not satisfied with living in just the Holy place. Take me deeper. Empower me to tear my veil from top to bottom just as you did in the temple the day Your Son died. Rid me of the things that so easily entangle my heart. You have set my heart ablaze and I praise You for giving me passion to seek You more than I ever have before in my life. Your will be done in me. For I am declaring to my flesh "It is Finished"." Amen and Amen!