something beautiful is happening...

Yesterday, I left work early due to sickness. My body was shutting down, cold chills, churning stomach, rank taste in the mouth, pounding headache. I crawled into bed and laid there for 4 hours shivering under a stack of covers that was so heavy it was making my ankles hurt. They were serving to pitch the tent of blankets when I would lay on my back. Though sickness was seizing my body, I was queerly drawn to read the Word. Since my dream about Holiness, my appetite for Scripture has not abated. I was laying there tucked under the covers reading in First Corinthians. My friend, Marcus, and I are trying to consume passages seeking to retain the content and context of what we're reading for easy access and retrieval in a discussion or conversation. I would read for a little while until it felt like I was going to puke and then I would close my eyes and try to still by body until I could take up the Word and consume some more. It's been far too long since I was ravished by this longing.

The last few days, God has been pressing in with his presence. I can sense him awakening dormant desires, fanning old disciplines back into flame and calling me to lead others toward the life of a "Zealot". Ones who desire to go into strict training (I Cor 9) and beat their bodies to make them their slaves. For too long I've been riding on the wave of convenience-based discipleship.

But Discipleship and Discipline are one in the same. I have tried to forge a new path of discipleship using techniques of relevence and modern conveniece. But my relevence turns into ambivalence and I'm left following my own vain imaginations. I'm tired of clever little counterfeits. I'm sick of weaving another spell of creative ministry. The Word must be the bedrock of my belief. It must rank atop the list of priorities without a close second. I must stand on my desk and say, "Oh, Captain, my Captain." It alone is my portion.

This morning, I again am drawn to the water's edge. I find my heart being distracted by God. In the midst of my tasks, he is tugging me away. His Word is tucked in my back pocket even now as I sit and stroke these keys. It's been two years since I've carried the Word with me in my back pocket like a wallet. I like the feel of sitting on my Bible. It isn't comfortable, but it is comforting. It makes my back hurt tilting me ever so slighty in my seat. Yet I am strangely healed by its precious presence. It's words are like honey on my lips these last couple days...It's been too long since I have been able to say that.

Something beautiful is happening inside me...I feel like the good 'ole days when I would stay up with my buddies at college and pray through the watches of the night. I feel like the early days in youth ministry when I was tasting first blood drawn from the viens of Jesus. I feel like the rabid zealot that used to exercise inconvenient spiritual disciplines to enter into the seventh heaven of God's presence. I remember tasting tears over sin...and yesterday, I tasted those salty tears once again. I remember being kept up at night by God over something noble and virtuous, I experienced that two nights in a row over the last four days. I even watched 24 last night and found myself drawn to shut it off and God upstairs to read. (if you haven't watched 24, that illustration means nothing to you...but if you have, you understand how miraculous this occurance really is) As my eyes dart back and forth scanning the words of God, I feel like it's reading me and I'm reading it. I'm taken with God's thoughts and desires and commands.

Something truly beautiful is happening...