The Gate

 The Gate is finished!!!!

I have had the picture of this gate in my head for…ev...er!!! Today I finally got to work on it. Must say, it was easier that I thought it would be! Just knocked off a few slats from an old pallet and sandwiched a piece of tin roof between. The little blue bird was on a bird feeder that my sister gave me years ago, and I like it here now. The gate swings on a couple of brand new hinges that I found at Habitat today for $2…for the pair!!! It swings shut nicely and doesn’t even have to be latched. The idea was to have a way to visually enclose the labyrinth without really walling things off too much. 

Mission accomplished!

Now that I think about it, that makes more sense than I thought! We’re supposed to be like that, too….set apart, separated with Christ, but still living and active in this world. We aren’t supposed to wallow in things that would not honor Christ, but we shouldn’t be so walled off we can’t see to go where He may want to send us to serve.

There are a lot of things that wall us off, too! I’ve just started a book study with a group of friends. The book is called The Good and Beautiful Life by James Bryan Smith. He opens this book talking about something that he calls our narratives. Those are what I call our filters, those things that we sift the rest of the world thru. He makes some wonderful points throughout the book about how to examine our narratives and make sure they are the narratives of Christ. We are human, after all, and it is soooo easy to erect walls and shut gates that were never meant to be there…and sadly, be perfectly ok with it.  

 “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?

Matthew 7:3

OK, so that verse has nothing to do with a gate, but it sure shows us how we can miss the gate altogether! We have all had it happen to us…so easy to see a problem, or habit, or something in a friend’s life, but totally miss the MAJOR obstacle in our own lives. It all goes back to perspective, tho’. That personal plank of ours juts out from us ~ Just picture it for a second…every time we make a move in life it is jutting out there ready to throttle the world. 

We can’t “notice” our own plank without help, without our allowance of another’s voice. So, today I’m asking my Carpenter to get the crow bar out and start pulling planks…

Swing wide the city gates—the righteous gates!
    I’ll walk right through and thank God!
This Temple Gate belongs to God,
    so the victors can enter and praise.

Thank you for responding to me;
    you’ve truly become my salvation!

Psalm 118:19-21 ~ The Message Version

Isaiah 55

 “Come…”

This morning God blessed my inbox with a special gift. A friend of mine shared her morning devotional time via an audio file. It wasn’t something pre-printed that she read, it was 22 minutes of absolute joy, listening as she shared her soul’s thoughts on lent. First, thank you Lord for putting such wonderful gifts of friendship in my life…my cup overflows!

One of the Scriptures that she read was Isaiah 55. I can’t really pinpoint the why or wherefore, but the book of Isaiah has always spoken to my soul in a very special way….that’s one for God to answer at another time. Oh, but today! One of the things you’re taught when learning to learn about Scripture is to meditate on a certain passage. My way of explaining that process is to just sit and soak. This isn’t about responding with a dissertation, it is about allowing His Word to flow past our responses and over our objections and thru our perceptions, in order to get all the way down to our soul’s ear. That place that we hear from when God whispers and we feel like a tornado just went by…that’s mediating.

So, today Isaiah 55: 1 starts…Come…and I couldn’t read further. It struck me, is there really anything more than that? You know, just Come. That’s all there is….He does the rest. He holds us, leads us, heals us, loves us! We just have to come. At times, that part may seem unreachable to us, but not really. Thinking on all this, a kind of picture came to mind. We only need to lift that one foot to take a step, we don’t even have to complete the stepping, HE spans the chasm we envision and lifts us to Himself. It is His reach that rescues us from the things of this world that seek after our soul…

He reached down from on high and took hold of me;
    he drew me out of deep waters.
He rescued me from my powerful enemy…

Psalm 18:16 & 17a

As for Isaiah 55? (when you do read on) I just love that it begins with an invitation…

“Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters;
and you who have no money, come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost.
Why spend money on what is not bread,
    and your labor on what does not satisfy?
Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good,
    and you will delight in the richest of fare.

Isaiah 55:1 &2

Before God does anything here, He invites us all to Himself. It doesn’t say to bring anything, or get something done first, or anything…just come, period. Verse two is an invitation to us also, don’t ya think? God invites us to peer into our own soul with Him, to look at our motivations, our life’s prompts and ask  “why”. It really is only by His revealing that we can see the truth about ourselves. It says so right there… Listen, listen to me…  Not me listen to me, but me listen to Him! It is in the listening that we receive the Grace that moves our steps. Discernment, vision, Truth ~ they are all gifts of our God when we just come.

Fork

It rained bamboo last night! OK, so maybe I am exaggerating, but it sure did seem like it to me. Several places along the path looked like this…

The rocks were covered and it looked like there was a fork in the road. So, I got a bag and did a little (lot) of leaf bagging. I had to laugh, because I really had not noticed all that on the way into the Center of the labyrinth, just on the way out. Funny how that happens, sometimes we can walk along just fine and not seem to need directions, and then...?

In life, you think ~ no, you know ~ you’ve had a word from God, you’re seeking His path and then it looks like you’re at a fork in the road. As I cleaned things us, I just looked at the “fork” a little differently today. God does allow the appearance of a fork, but is there really one? I mean, HE has a path for our lives…a perfect, glory-to-God-giving path…just because we don’t see it, doesn’t mean it isn’t there. That “fork” in our life may be a pause, a place God knows that we need to stop and brush a few things off in order to see His next steps for us. 

Perhaps a good first thing to do when we get to a “fork”, is to stop and thank God for it…after all, He put it there, so there must be something of His goodness we’re to stop and take in. AND THEN, allow Him to brush what needs to get brushed, so the path is made clear.

My Grandmother said that when you sat a table and there was a fork above your plate that was a really good thing. It meant there was dessert in your future, so save room!

 

“Don’t let this throw you. You trust God, don’t you? Trust Me. There is plenty of room for you in my Father’s home. If that weren’t so, would I have told you that I’m on my way to get a room ready for you? And if I’m on my way to get your room ready, I’ll come back and get you so you can live where I live. And you already know the road I’m taking.”

John 14:1-4 ~ The Message Version

 We all have personalized “forks” in our lives…ways that God is reminding us that Jesus has gone to prepare a place for us, a banquet for us all! 

Praying to learn to celebrate the forks! 

The UnPath

What a beautiful day!!! It has been cold and rainy for days, but today the sun is shining and it has warmed up. It was great to get outside and enjoy a quiet time in the labyrinth today. As I walked thru, things were a little soggy, but still very nice. The chachalacas flew in for a bit and seemed as happy as I was to have a little sun.

As I was walking, I saw that lots of the bamboo leaves had fallen and it looked like we had a very thick leaf carpet going on! In several places it was a little difficult to see the stones that mark the path. And the ginger must be happy with the rain because it is growing like crazy! Then I thought, oops! I know where the path goes, but from the way it looked today, it might be a little bit of a challenge…paths are like that sometimes. I mean, there doesn’t have to be a boulder in the way to get us to stop or turn around, right? And yes, all the while my brain is wandering with these thoughts, so for some help in the focus department, I took out my little book and read this Scripture….

I wait for the Lord
    more than watchmen wait for the morning,
    more than watchmen wait for the morning.

Israel, put your hope in the Lord,
    for with the Lord is unfailing love
    and with Him is full redemption.

Psalm 130:6-7

For a little change, no segue here, I’m just going to type what I wrote in my journal today…

It is the life that steps with God that walks in the un-path. In a world that is unholy, He is holy. It is in the steps of faith, when we see no path at all, that His unfailing Love makes a way. For whatever is obscuring our path is of no consequence ~ feather or boulder ~ God’s will is undeterred. He moves heaven and earth, unyielding to the evil one’s schemes.

Our Lord’s unfailing Love brings us to full redemption…not partial, not bearable, not stoic or lifeless…full redemption is unfettered of sin, untouched by defeat, unbound by Grace. The UnPath is unmatched and unbroken by the mercy of Christ’s unfailing sacrifice for each of us. His unfailing Love seeks us out and we have the beautiful opportunity, everyday, to let go of our ‘self’ and unreservedly step with Him into the Un of our path.

So, we don’t know what is on our paths ahead, but we do know that it is not unknown to our Father! 

But the eyes of the Lord are on those who fear him,
    on those whose hope is in his unfailing love…

Psalm 33:18