Wednesday, December 21, 2016

On Personal Revelations

          As humans we tend to have a hard time truly seeing ourselves for who we are in our deepest heart of hearts.  Too often we are busy looking at ourselves through the rose colored glasses of our best intentions or through the obscure lenses of guilt and fear.  We miss so often the opportunity to clearly see ourselves without the tint of vanity and pride sneaking in there.  But sometimes....every once in a great while if we concentrate hard enough and ask in humility, the one who sees us in all of our beauty and flaws steps in and shines the light of His point of view on our minds eye.  And all at once we are revealed to ourselves in every bit of our gory gloriousness.  It is terrifying and marvelous and indescribable, to truly see the desire of your heart stripped bare.  I hope and pray you get to experience it, even just for a moment.

          I hesitated telling people I was traveling to Israel this fall.  Mostly because there is this strange reaction that I dread dealing with, the response of "Oh you're going to Israel?! Are you walking in the steps of Jesus! You have to tell me exactly what it felt like and what you experienced there!".  I was not going to walk in the steps of Jesus, that is not a trip that I desire to take.  I was going to experience a really cool part of the history of modern Israel and my best friend's family legacy.  This was not a 'religious experience' pilgrimage and I had no intention of making it one.  Don't get me wrong, I have no problem with someone feeling a great desire to walk the steps that Jesus walked.  If that is a big deal for them, then that is wonderful.  But that is not how my spiritual life operates, it is not a need I feel and there was no way my trip would be what they were hoping for me.  Would it be cool to sit on the Sea of Galilee contemplating the sermon preached there so long ago? Heck yes.  But it's not something I personally need to experience and it's not why I would travel to Israel.

          What is so amazing to me is that I serve an Omnipotent God who does not expect me to need the same experiences as others need.  He knows me to my very core and prepares for me exactly what I am needing without my input at all.  I serve a God who prepared for me a trip that would change my life in ways I could never begin to imagine in off the beaten path ways that were His and mine alone.

I will relate to you only one of those moments.

          One place that both Jess and I really wanted to see was the Western Wall in Old Jerusalem.  On our first evening in the city we wove our way through the crowded stonework maze of the old city and finally found ourselves facing this historic and spiritually significant stonework wall.  This place is still highly sacred for the Jewish religion and many worshipers find there way to the wall to pray at all hours of the day and night.  Jess and I washed our hands, covered our heads and made our way into the crowd.  We found a fairly open space about 35feet back from the actual wall and stood in silence looking up at it for a moment.  As I slowly scanned the crowd I saw several women with uncovered heads, taking tourist photos in front of the wall and waving their ipads around for a better shot (even though signs clearly asked visitors to cover their heads and not take photos inside of the area separated for worship.).  I began to grow frustrated by the obvious lack of respect for this holy site.  Just because it was not sacred to them didn't mean they had no responsibility to show respect to those who were worshiping.  I found myself wanting a moment to speak to God and unable to do so because my mind was filling with frustration.  I realized if I wanted to truly speak to The Lord I would have to close my eyes and ignore the mass of people surrounding me.

          The moment I closed my eyes the sounds of the passing mass of humanity became distant like the buzzing of so many bees flying overhead.  I slowly began to focus and converse with God.  I ruminated on the cultural and historical significance of this wall before me.  Considered the spiritual significance it held for the Jews and also for me.  I asked God to please look into my heart and show me my greatest desire and the work that He would put before me. 

          I considered Hezekiah returning from captivity to a burned and destroyed city.  Jerusalem, the city who's very name means the city of the King of Peace.  What must that have been like?  What amount of humility and effort it must have taken?  To be the voice standing and calling others to help in building up the walls of the city of the King of Peace.  How did he even know where to begin to repair the damage?  To repair the breaches in the walls of this great city...  A phrase floated through my mind, 'to be a repairer of the breach'. Yes!  That is what Hezekiah was! He moved forward in humility and with great courage to repair the breaches of the walls of the city of the King of Peace.  What a huge responsibility.

          What would that work look like today?  The thought caught me off guard.  My mind paused and spun like a free wheel for a moment.  Where is the city of the King of Peace now?  Is it a physical thing?  Are their physical walls in disarray that need repairing?  No.  So does the city no longer exist?  Well, certainly it does!  So...where does it exist today?  What does that city look like and are it's walls in need of repair?  My brain continued spinning.  I had no answer for this flood of questions.  My simple mind could not take it all in at once.  I only had one answer.  "God, if I can be that...if I can somehow be a repairer of the breach, that is what I want above anything else in this life.  I want to be able in some way to build back up the walls of your kingdom.  I don't know what that looks like, but that is what I want to do."

          I opened my eyes, the mass of people still buzzed around us.  I wondered if Jess felt ready to go..if she had been given her own moment of personal revelation.  I thanked God for the moment and we made our way back to our hotel.  It was several weeks later that I came across the following scripture during church:

'Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily: and thy righteousness shall go before thee; the glory of the LORD shall be thy rearward.
Then shalt thou call, and the LORD shall answer; thou shalt cry, and he shall say, Here I am. If thou take away from the midst of thee the yoke, the putting forth of the finger, and speaking vanity;
And if thou draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul; then shall thy light rise in obscurity, and thy darkness be as the noonday:
And the LORD shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones: and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not.
And they that shall be of thee shall build the old waste places: thou shalt raise up the foundations of many generations; and thou shalt be called, The repairer of the breach, The restorer of paths to dwell in.'  -Isaiah 58:8-12

          I have a work to do, I have been given direction in how to do it.  To remove the yoke of bondage from my life, to remove my own pride, to draw out my soul to the hungry and afflicted...this is how that breach is repaired, this is how the dwelling place of the great King of Peace is built up.  With every word, every action and every thought of my heart I am choosing to be a repairer or a destroyer of the breach.  I am choosing to heal and bring peace or to break down the walls of the King of Peace.  On many lips there is a great battle cry going throughout the world today.  A cry for war to prove this or fight that.  The only battle I am interested in fighting is the battle inside of my own heart, the battle of my own pride and selfishness, because those are my true enemies and when they are conquered I shall be made a vessel worthy of true service.  Amen.