.desire.

Internal debate often pulls me from reality. Lost in thoughts who rarely can come into harmony. Reconsidering the blindly accepted philosophies and wisdom regulates the dominant measure of my activity. Peer-pressuring questions long enough, inevitably they will confess their answer.

Unclipping the seatbelt and turning off my car as I parked in the usual corner of the middle of Sunnyside Dr., I walked through the gate into the backyard. The paradox of desire and its evasiveness flooded my mind as if waiting behind the gate for me to arrive. The rest of the night was spent thinking, digging, peeling back the intricacies of why desire for Him burns in select and parades as an old friend, seen only on holidays and special occasions in others.

Loving with distance, loving when it’s safe, loving when it’s controlled; this is love with fear, truly fear without love. One can pour out their lives for another, spend years wasting themselves on someone else; why then is this love, this passion, this service so difficult to translate into loving on the One who loved them first. Henry Nouwen wrote to me this week saying “It is easier to be God than to love God, easier to control than to love, easier to own life than to love life”. Is it an argument for influence and power? I love solely where I can manipulate the outcome and response of another by my expression.

Nevertheless, the need for power and control is based in fear. An insecurity in who I am subjects me to subconscious concern for rejection. Where I cannot position a safety net, a contingency plan, I refuse to become vulnerable past the point I feel others have tread, where I do not feel I am loved to the same extent I am loving. I become ignorant to the fact that He loved me first and continues to do so to an unconscious degree. My ignorance unlocks the door to complacency.

In a moment, often many over a lifetime, a realization occurs and an ultimate confidence is possessed in who He is, His goodness, and the complete satisfaction He offers. When then does pursuit die after the fervor of the moment is lost? Where does desire hide when reality is found? The more I realize the gravity at which I am loved and pursued, the more I covet those moments as existence. I do not love, I do not desire, I do not pursue, I do not…because I am afraid of where I cannot control rejection, believing the lie that denial is a rightful option between Him and me.

If I could grasp even a small portion of the enormity of His love for me, the world, blindness to anything else would come over me. If I could understand how much he loves me, who I am right now, despite my flaws, despite my insecurities, despite the lies I have been convinced of, despite my accomplishments, despite my accolades, I would love Him as I dream to. The only interest I would have would be to get to the lap of my Father and listen to the whispers. Thoughts of finding and remaining in His presence would overcome me, grabbing my focus and not letting go, they are there when I go to sleep and are inescapable when I wake up. If I knew…

I do not love because I have not yet been convinced how I am loved.

And fear wins…

But it won’t…

enemies

It is often found behind the steering wheel of my words; it creeps within my internal, unexpressed emotions; it is the trigger of reactions when disrespected; it creates its own imprisoning walls to protect the unhealthy effect it has on service and humility; it grows, becoming more and more self-enthroned to its own knowledge; hates the weak, ignores needs, and is fed through the realization of its displacement among the ignorant.

What if I forgot you? To live my life not based on you and what you mean, to live without a concern or thought to the damage digging low would bring to you. This picture I am bringing walks carelessly to the mark of what you are, unconcerned for who you are. Humor or anger or kindness or passion is often what you are masked with; knowing humility is your only identity that possesses any true value, where I become unaware to your existence. This picture I am living.

You live as only to what is yours, creations in artificial obligations, fantasies of deserving. You lash out when they fail, you are the cause of significant disappointment, you cripple my boldness. You feed me lies and deafen me to the whispers.

Can I live without you? Living in moments of surrender while you lie lifeless, offering more satisfaction than you could ever extend. A divorce has begun and your unrelenting presence is being replaced with what you are supposed to be without revelation of your reality. I will live without you. I will live in eternal moments, I will see what is forever real, I will display Him.

you are my enemy
you are my reputation

Grind

It has been a month since I found and walked under the red exit letters. Leaving a place of shaping, molding, and becoming and returning to a place determined to be the shaper, be the molder, to know who made me, and be everything I dream to become.

These determinations are often easier said than lived. Embarrassment, fear, rejection; these things are my battleground. How can I change a culture, large or small, if I am afraid to release hope. I'm determined to be a lazy evangelist; I want the presence to follow me, to go ahead of me, to stand beside me. All who stand, walk, or speak to me will experience the presence I live with. Nevertheless, these things cripple my focus, they deafen my ears, and divert my sight away from Him. When will we, when will I, dispose of being afraid to be awkward? When will I be so confident in who I am that when I show someone that, they know one response, to fall at His feet? When?

I want to live a life that causes people to choose. I want to live a life that offers life.

I want Him to be my everything.

Everything