Awaken Love

Song of Solomon 2:7 Oh, let me warn you, sisters in Jerusalem, by the gazelles, yes, by all the wild deer: Don't excite love, don't stir it up, until the time is ripe - and you're ready.

I've heard my good evangelical friends use this verse and others to support a chaste life before marriage. It's a really sweet translation, but the Song of Solomon is anything but chaste. Maybe one could make a good argument for the Shulamite's chastity, but what about Solomon? That dude was anything but. This book is a reference for the passion and love that God intended between a man and a woman, but as with most things in the Bible, is also intended as a picture of something else. If you can't read it and be able to look through sex and passion in order to see the bigger picture, maybe you need to reevaluate the gift of sex. Sex is absolutely pure in God's design, and shouldn't be a hindrance to hearing what the Spirit is saying to the Church.

I didn't want to talk about sex. I want to talk about awakening. I do want to protect my daughters until they are of age from giving their heart or their body away. Waiting until they are fully ready is absolutely important. When it comes to the Church, no time is too early. 

It's time to wake up. Time to rouse ourselves. Stop sleeping. Wake up, wake up, wake up!!! Awaken love! Awaken your passion for Jesus! Do whatever it takes!! Spend two minutes at His feet and the time will grow. Looking and behaving like a good little Christian is absolutely useless to yourself, others and Jesus. Everything should hinge on love for Him. Stop trying to be obedient to the rules. Be obedient to pursuit. 

The time is ripe. We are ready.

Lasso the Wind

'Time is tickin' away'. A phrase out of the song "Time Is" by DCTalk, straight out of my teen years. My youth group even created a skit around it. I just listened to it again after seventeen years...I don't remember it sounding so much like Fresh Prince back then. Ha.

Our culture is obsessed with time and schedule. Most success is absolutely dependent on strict adherence to doing things in a timely manner, having a plan, not procrastinating. Each thing in our lives have time limits, from eating to sleeping to going to the bathroom. Limits surround us. Even Believers try to fit time with Jesus into a preordained 'time'.

Because time is precious. It is present every second, minute and hour. Day by day, time ticks on and reminds us that our choices have consequences. I see the consequence of not finishing the laundry the next morning. Or of not doing a final pickup before bedtime. We know that with every click of the second hand, something might be lost to us.

Busyness is really the poverty of first world countries. Our lives are so filled, we either have to fight for what is important or we drown entirely. Most of us can't even see what is important, seeing the forest for the trees isn't a concept that breaks through our miasma of the moment by moment speedway.

After attending a worship event at my church, the last of seven events designed to bring the Church together in Connecticut, I feel the push of two hundred years worth of prayer at my back. The prayer/worship service was especially powerful, and a blessing after six weeks of grieving Sandy Hook.

I feel that time is of unusual importance right now. It feels like the Church in Connecticut is gearing up for God to move...like a soldier shrugging his pack on his back and zeroing in on the mission. I wonder if we are ready. Are we ready to stop. Are we ready to cancel plans. Are we ready to adopt an entirely different way of behaving?

A wonderful friend of mine asked me offhand after the worship service, when we are going to stop worrying about the fact that people have stuff to do the next day. I wonder too. If Jesus walked (in the flesh, since His presence is all around us) into the room, would we stop? Would we stay late at a worship service because the Spirit still has stuff He wants to do? Would we get to work late because God told us to pray for someone?

Would we put our 'life' on hold? Maybe this is just the way I think, and I know it's not normal, but I really feel that what He and I have together is the best 'life' there is. It is worth being number one. It is worth putting the laundry on the couch and just talking to Him. It is worth redesigning our goals as a family, a church, a community, a city, a state, a nation...a world. Because when Jesus looked at Martha and said that Mary had chosen the better thing, He really really meant it.

Roses and Chives

I'm looking forward to spring already. Late to prepare my beds for winter, I got an early itch to sink my hands into the soil. I pulled out leaves, weeds and lots of self propagating chives. Determined little buggers...I  don't want chives amongst my roses. :P

A few years ago I planted some ground cover underneath my roses and it is finally started to work. Gradually creeping into all the available spacing and robbing it from the chives.

I need to learn how to use that tactic when it comes to my own character. It's so easy to get locked into a weed killer mindset, chasing down the flesh and killing each little bit. Like my chives however, its death is short lived. As long as something is fed, it will continue to live.

One of my favorite Graham Cooke quotes hints at an interesting solution;  "What if all that is dark in the world is because of an absence of Goodness?" You can't chase the dark out. The dark flees when light is introduced.

My periwinkle ground cover works a lot like the Holy Spirit. If I give Him space, He moves in. Softly. I don't even notice things are changing until the ache from growth begins. My roots are have been liberated and strengthened, and below ground growth necessitates above ground growth.

I don't have to run around wildly, extinguishing all that is flawed about myself. I just give Him permission. Living and breathing and having His being.

Dancing Horses

Last night I dreamed about Lipizzaner horses. Yes, weird. I know a lot about horses...they were my favorite thing when I was a kid. So even though I knew all about Lipizzaners, I looked them up anyway. And watched a youtube video. History says that the high dressage techniques called Airs above the Ground were designed for war...in order to scare the enemy. A more practical account suggest that the moves were designed to be special training for both mount and rider in preparation for war. Either way, watching these incredible horses dance and leap in exceptional trained maneuvers made me realize that even though a horses' natural self is made for eating grass, lying about and running intermittently, somehow mankind succeeded in pulling out improbable and unbelievable talents.


Know thyself. One of the most difficult, trying, joyous, confusing dictates on the earth. It's even harder when you grow up thinking of yourself as one thing and finding out thirty years later that you're something entirely different, and that all the struggle was due to putting a square peg in a round hole. Darnation!!

My biggest struggle in the past few years is learning how to manage my home, my time, my family, my energy and my heart. I am in a constant state of failure; always running from the avalanche. Having been told growing up that I was driven, I couldn't understand my lack of drive or motivation. A very dear friend told me that her tool was discovering ferocity. I thought, that's it! I need to be fierce! I WILL have victory! But that wasn't it. At least, not my 'it'.

So I discovered yesterday that I'm not driven. Adam had been hinting at it for a while. I thought he couldn't be right; when I was single I was very driven...I worked hard hours while going to school. But I forgot that I totally broke myself physically.

This morning I woke up quoting, "You have searched me, and you know me." He knows my personality because He made it. I am a relational thinker. Doing is not me. Doing is exhausting. "So how in the world am I supposed to do this?" I silently scream at Him. "I have big dreams! I still need to learn how to manage my home, my time, my skills!"

My sister told me that my ferocity should be focused on my relationship with Jesus. He knows my desires, and He can help me train myself and my family all while feeding and sustaining me. Flylady talks about cleaning house for 45 minutes and then resting 15. I think I need more than one quiet time with the Spirit per day. Maybe 15 minute fill up sessions per hour will do it. ;)

It is a relief to know that I don't have the natural ability to do. That means I'm starting from scratch, and there are no expectations; just learning what He thinks of me. It's a lot like teaching a horse to dance. ;)