Restrospect: n., a survey of past events

It's been a long one. Trying, stretching, difficult, painful (oh, so very painful!) - and good. The best, in many ways. Impossible to sum up, but worth looking back upon to see how far God has brought me, all he has doen in the riches of His grace and mercy.

The year breaks down into three sections, all of which themselves further break down. Spring semester, summer, and fall semester. The first semester was probably the most trying time of my life, and the culmination of some incredibly intense times in the year preceding. The summer, spent at Focus on the Family Institute, was one of the most refreshing and encouraging times of my life. The fall was a plateau, challenging and far different from anything I expected.

This spring was a time of God casting a vision for my life like I had not known before, and of conviction at a level I had not known before, and of healing like I had not known before. It was, without a doubt, the hardest few months of my life spiritually that I can recall. Simultaneously, God worked in my heart things I could never have imagined without the pain I experienced.

He began by opening my eyes last year to the penetrating need for the gospel - and for its incredible and overwhelming truth, one which we too often miss in the business of our lives and the manner in which we so readily take His work for granted. That Christ would come and live among us, sharing in our afflictions, modeling for us a better way, teaching us all that we need to enter the kingdom of heaven is beyond our comprehension. That he would then choose to suffer and die in our place is further amazing. His resurrection is then the capstone to the incredible become credible, the faithful God rescuing His faithless children: the incomparable deed for which all our praise is a mere fraction of all He deserves, utterly incommensurate with the price He paid for us.

The late months of winter were a flowering in my mind of this slow-building notion: that if we truly knew and understood the gospel, we would live lives radically transformed - indeed, we would live lives that were actually Christlike, that dared to see worked out the Sermon on the Mount and His constant call to a life of service. If even the Son of man did not come to be served but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many (Mark 10:45), then how much more ought we who are but His servants (incredibly invited to be the children of God, coheirs of the kingdom with Christ) be dedicated to service!

As this season progressed, I continually asked God to break my heart, show me the depths of my own depravity so that I could know Him more. And He answered. After months of my attempting to respond to His conviction (brought through faithful friends for who I am incredibly grateful and through parents for whom I am even more grateful), He pressed in hard and, as I said to my family earlier, "beat the tar out of me." He refused to let me stay in my sin - my pride, my egoism, my selfishness, my need to be right and to win, my folly. Thanks be to Him who rescues us from ourselves! And how incomparable a God we serve who does not leave us in our sin, but calls us forth - indeed, steps in to save us from our desperate state.

The time was not that long that He dealt with me in the severity of His grace. (That is in and of itself a concept worth wrestling with: the severity of God's grace. Because it often is severe.) It was perhaps two months. All the time since then has simply been the slow but steady working out of all that He poured into my heart, and the adjustment to all that He removed (and that I sometimes, to my great dismay, still occasionally find cropping up in my heart). Those were, however, two of the most significant months I can remember in my life in terms of spiritual growth and maturing - not least in seeing just how terribly far I have to go.

Working through the end of spring semester, the vision God had given for the advancement of the gospel mingled with the conviction He had worked in me to found in me a passion for holiness: for our own mirroring of His righteousness, and for the delight we ought to have in that mirroring. It is from our love for Christ and by His redemptive power in our lives that we are transformed, sanctified, remade in His image - that is, in the image we were first meant to have, that we have distorted in sin. And with our growing holiness, we will share the gospel.

This passion carried over and continued to grow as I moved into the second season of the year: summer. The almost eight weeks I spent at Focus on the Family Institute were incredible. They were refreshing, awakening, sharpening, and delightful. The friends I made have been among the best in the world. (Which is a reminder: I must needs call several of them, and soon!) The community we shared was incredible, beyond description - and a clarion call to me of what we ought to seek always. Though there were elements of the "mountain top" experience in our time there, it was more the sense that "this is how things ought to be - always."

The most important things I learned at FFI were not from our course material - they were from friends, and from my own personal study of Scripture. From friends, I learned immensely about so many things in this life, not least about myself. From Scripture, I began to catch glimpses of this God we serve from a new angle: seeing Him as the God of glory, and beginning to recognize the glory of God. I have not words for all He has revealed to me of Himself in that slow search and growth. It is beyond description, and my heart years to return to that word study, though I am temporarily working on other things in Scripture.

That time of refreshment, like all such times, gave way to a time of diligence and practice and application. The fall semester was a challenging one, and in new ways. I began work as a Resident Adviser in the dorms, a job filled with delights and frustrations all its own. I was in a new ministry team, again with excitement and challenges all its own. I was in a setting absent most of my closest friends and relationships from previous years, for a number of varied reasons.

God taught me a great deal about His faithfulness and about simply trusting Him - and about diligence when in the midst of trudgery (if you will - a word my father coined a week or so ago when we were talking about this very subject): times of trudging on through things which are not necessarily drudgery but are not emotionally exciting either. He demonstrated His goodness even through the end of the semester, when I wanted nothing more than to be done and to see my family again, granting me better grades than I had expected (or indeed even dared to hope for in one case). In all of this, He simply drew me close to Him. There were no earth-shattering revelations; nor were there any "aha!" moments. Rather, it was a time of slow but steady working out of all that He had revealed in the first eight months of the year - a process that continues even now, and likely will for some time.

Other things of significance happened this fall which shaped me and surprised me and - in one case - delighted me and apparently made me happier than my friends at OU have ever seen. But those bear commenting on in other circumstances and at other times.

For now, I will simply leave you with this thought: that above all else we can rest secure in the incomparable faithfulness of the Father's love, the Son's intercession, and the Spirit's conviction and encouragement in our life. This year is a picture painted of His goodness, my life for a canvas and my actions for a masterful symphony: working even my discordant entries into something grander than I could have imagined.

I cannot wait to see all that God has in store for the year ahead.

May God bless you and keep you, and make His face shine upon you. May you delight in His word and rest in His loving arms.

In Him,
Chris

True Fellowship

I was struck by a thought while working through some passages in Scripture this evening. I'm still struggling with the right way to word it. As best as I can manage, the thought runs thusly:

We desperately need to be in communities of active sharing and encouragement regarding the spiritual parts of our lives.

When we are in close Christian community, growth is natural. We naturally pour out to the people around us the things the Holy Spirit has been working in our hearts, and in so doing we continually stir one another up to love and good works. The things God is teaching me will likely differ from those He is teaching you, but the two will always be complementary, for there is no division in God.

Most of the time, however, this is something we must work for, strive to attain. Rare is the community that is so close, so active, and so overflowing with the work of the Spirit that growth naturally comes out of it. I have experienced it, but not frequently. I experienced it this summer. We were all united in common vision, in pursuit of a common goal, and all of us were people dedicated to the study of the word and to drawing ever closer to our God and King. Conversation focusing on what God was teaching us was the norm, and it required no special or particular effort to be challenged by the ways God was moving among us: for it was openly on the table, all the time.

I have wondered why I have struggled in the months since then to keep passionately engaged with some of the ideas that so fired my soul over the summer. I realized that there are two components: first, the fickleness of my own heart, and second, the absence of that sort of community. In the gap left by our leaving, I know many of us did not find ourselves so engaged again. We have not necessarily been out of fellowship - but we have not had the sort of fellowship we experienced there and that God calls us to have everywhere. But in that absence, we can easily let slip our vision, our hold on our passions growing more tenuous as we are not heard by people passionately interested in the things God has been teaching.

The question, of course, is how we can attain that sort of fellowship. Most Christian interactions seem to be divided into two categories: that of the intensely spiritually focused (e.g., church services, discipleship, bible studies, etc.) and what we frequently call "fellowship" but can really range from not even slightly spiritual in focus to as deep and meaningful and spiritual as those intentional activities. I realized that my times of fellowship this last semester have simply been shallower than I would have liked: they have focused more on events and people than on the person of God.

It is not that people or events are bad; they are necessary and indeed good! However, our understanding of events must always be informed by their relation to the person of God and His work in our life. Moreover, this is to be at a level deeper than simply saying, "Here are these events in my life; I know God is working in me through them and drawing me to Him." Rather, we should be continually seeking to integrate the experiences of our life with the picture we gain from Scripture of the character, nature, and personhood of God - the Father, the Son, and the Spirit.

This summer, I was passionately devoted to the notion of the God of glory - this God who defies comprehension, yet invites us to know Him deeply and intimately. Since then, I have struggled to maintain that fire. Today it became clear that part of the struggle, in addition to the normal travails of maintaining any vision, has been lacking people who were as excited by the notion as I am around me. Times and places that could have been opportunities to share that truth were missed, and most of the spiritually focused conversations I had in time of fellowship were about our cirucmstances, not about the character of God.

I do not begrudge those times, but I am committing to change that pattern in the months ahead. I believe we need times, dedicated times, where we simply come together as a group and turn our hearts toward God - fellowshipping not only with one another but also with Him: times of worshipful reflection together. Not forced or artificial, but born out of our deep love for Christ and for each other. Not an "accountability group," because the focus ought to be less on our failings and sins and more on the greatness and glory of Christ.

We are social creatures: we mourn together, rejoice together, live together. We must grow together, and we must join one another in excitement - as we each pursuit Christ passionately. When we try to walk alone, our excitement fades. When we walk together, we stir it up in one another, encourage each other, impassion those around us.

I'm going to be looking for opportunity to do this, and regularly, with close friends, both guys and girls - because we need it. (Ultimately, I'd love to be doing it with people of all ages, too... but we'll get there when we can.)

Grace and peace with you all.

- Chris

Part 3: Broken and Spilled

I stand, trembling. He is here. Now. Why could he have not chosen another Sunday? My grip is weak, my knees trembling. I have heard of men so afraid their knees clattered together - and thought the notion silly. Weak men, I thought.

I am weak, I suppose. In more ways than I thought. My mind, which I once dreamed would catapult me to wealth and success and fame, I now find both incapable of defending me from outside attack, and traitorous itself: neither denying external torture nor itself bringing aught but fear and shame. No matter how severe my discipline, my mind fails me.

The screaming has never stopped, and it comes again, louder, now - at the worst of all possible times. It always comes at the worst times. There is no escape. No reprieve from the accusations and the torment and the guilt. No path out from under the weight of condemnation. And as loud as the voices scream, the quiet knowledge of my ultimate culpability is worse - unshakable and undeniable: true.

I try. I strive. Over and over again, I beat my head against the walls of this, my prison of shame. Sometimes I beat my head against the walls of this, my physical home, trying to clear my mind. Sometimes I wish the pain I have inflicted on my body might bring some relaxation of the burden on my soul.

And what good is this cup that I hold? This chalice of wine we pretend is blood? And the bread we call flesh? If they cannot release us from guilt, what can?

My hands tremble more, now. Because mingled with my fear and guilt is anger. This is not what I was promised. There was supposed to be freedom from all these things. A light yoke and an easy burden. Where is that in this world? Nowhere! My jaw clenches. And he had to come today of all days. The first time. And he had to come to voice his disapproval.

They're staring at me, now, wondering why this is taking so long. I'm trying to say the words, but my hands will not stop shaking. The pent-up emotions have chosen this moment to express themselves, and have chosen for their vehicle my limbs.

The cup falls. My face falls faster. My heart races them both toward the pit of hell. I reach for it. Miss - of course. I would. Of their own accord my eyes fall shut, my jaw clenches, my hands form into fists, and my shoulders drop. A flicker of a glance at my father as my eyes reopen, embarrassment spreading red across my face. Laughter in the crowd - and disappointment mingling with fury, writ large on my father's brow.

I turn, fleeing from the room, from this horror that is my current existence.

I am failure. I cannot even perform this simple duty.

How could the Eucharist avail me, who cannot even perform it properly?

When I find my father outside, he will barely speak to me. I feel it in his gaze; I can hear it in his tone; I can see it in the way his shoulders are set and his hands clutch tightly at his cloak: he has not, and probably never will, forgive me. He set me on a path that I could have followed. Maybe I should have. The hell I was bound for then is the same hell I am bound for now. One mortal sin, and all this is for naught. The blood, the sacrifice - meaningless. He turns and rides away, out of my life - again. Forever?

I don't know. I don't know anything anymore. I don't know why I'm here. I don't know what anything means, least of all my life and my existence. I gave up a career in law - and for what? Nothing.

I walk back to my cell. Alone.

---

Note: this is part of an ongoing work of historical fiction.

Perennial meanderings of the mind

I'm in the office, and it's quiet, and I'm pondering. I'm on rounds for the last time this semester - on the second to last night anyone's in the dorms.

I have normally tried to take time to reflect here on the passing of a semester, a year. I don't know that I can do that yet; I don't know that I fully understand this semester - or indeed, understand it at all. It has surprised me; it has been nothing like I expected. I am used to being surprised, but this has been different in ways that I could not have foreseen. Nothing new, there, but it will be interesting to see how this particular chunk of time fits into the path of my existence.

My sense of time has been odd this week - dilating and contracting at odd and unpredictable intervals. Normally at this time of the year, the weeks as a whole seem to pass quickly while individual events can drag on interminably. Not so this time: the week has a whole has been incredibly long, but no single part of it (save certain individual hours of studying) have dragged on; to the contrary, most individual parts have flown quickly by. It is a strange feeling.

I am ready to be home, to see my family again. I am coming to a point where I miss being there for all that is happening. I was thinking about various possibilities for Christmas presents for my youngest sister, and I realized - in a moment that defined for me the status of our relationship in some ways - that I have no idea what sort of music she is listening to at the moment. A tiny detail, inconsequential in most ways. But it highlighted for me how little I know of her beyond whatever the newest major ups and downs. I don't want to miss out on these parts of her life. That makes me sad. I need to find ways to plug in better - but things like that are inevitably going to be missed unless we're talking far more than either of us has time to. My parents are slowly moving along in their own courses; my middle sister is working her way through college. And here in Oklahoma, I miss seeing them, talking to them, just being physically with them. Thus, I am anxiously awaiting the 23rd of September.

At the same time, I know that I will greatly miss being in Oklahoma the two weeks I am gone, and even the two weeks I am here but school is out will be very odd. I will miss people a lot, though I will also be very busy.

My friend Devon will be in town a little, and that makes me nearly giddy; she's been a good friend to me for a long time, and has been out of country this semester... seeing her will, I know, brighten the time immensely.

I've been reading Isaiah recently. It's interesting. There's a Christological picture painted that is very captivating. Isaiah paints a portrait of a God who is righteous, fierce, judging, holy, and angry - and also gentle, merciful, loving, compassionate, and tender. There is a tension here we can easily miss: a tension between the Holy One who condemns those who sin and thus distort His creation and the representation of His character, and the Redeemer who makes atonement for these sins and forgives His people - for His name's sake, not because they deserve it. Not because we deserve it - because we don't. Yet His glory is revealed as He strives, over the ages, to make Himself known to those who have chosen to forget Him, to draw as many to Himself as is possible.

I'm excited about the potential time I have over break: I plan to read through the rest of Isaiah, and couple that with reading through all the gospels and Hebrews. Coupling the clearest picture in the Old Testament of God's historic work and the person of Christ with the accounts of His life, death, and resurrection, and the primary Jewish theological exposition of Christology in the New Testament promises great reward in knowing God.

My mind seems to be wandering a lot of late in my blog posts, unless I am intentionally focusing in on a particular topic. I don't know whether that's a new phenomena or whether I'm simply more aware of it lately. I also don't know whether it's good, bad, or simply neutral. For now, it simply is.

I pray all is well with all of you. Merry Christmas!

- Chris

Thoughts drift, like snow; v.2

Thoughts drifting, like snow.

A single flake suspended in the air, an updraft
momentarily halting its
spiraling
downward
float.
Sparkles. Tumbles. Falls,
swaying to and fro as it
falls - no longer caught in the gust,
drawn inexorably
to the clutches of
gravity.

Infinitely spread about me.
They drift. They fall. They rise
in moments of whirling splendor as,
like the exhalation of some ancient dryad
the wind sweeps them
from the earth
into the sky
from which they came.

Tart, sharp, biting, piercing, icy, a blend of smell
all but impossible to describe: this is the
world in which I walk – winter.
Incomparably pale blue
skies tangled with skeins of cotton-white cloud,
then a sweeping
storm of equally pale gray from which
the wonder sweeps down, and
like a child
I am caught in amazement,
my eyes riveted on the heavens
and the mystery drifting toward me.
Each one unique, crafted
in a perfect crystalline design, mingling
together as the wind blows harder,
coalescing into an mass
through which
no light
can
penetrate, darkening the world.

The sun is falling: less seen than felt
as the darkness deepens, trees creaking
under the weight of heavy burdens of perfect white diamonds
of water. Their ever green needles and brown wood
stand in stark opposition to the dusk and
the beauty falling from it. My steps crunch
on old snow turned to ice
over a layer of long-shed bark and needles and winter-dead grass and
brambles torn by the family of deer that passed this way
sometime earlier in the day.

I am alone.
There is mystery,
here.
I am not
lonely.
There is peace.
A kind of silence – silence
that is quieting and not
disquieting.
It is right.
This is solitude, but not
loneliness...
Like the muffling
of every sound
through the gently
falling snow,
my thoughts are
gentled
and stilled.

This is no daring etude: rather,
a tender nocturne, though it is not yet dark.
Viola set against the dark texture of a low piano –
but no chords: single notes
struck against the background of silence,
calling out some melody
unheard before in all man's long history,
the imagination of the divine painted on a canvas
grander than any made by hands of man.
Fluting wind against softly groaning earth, the trees
a tapestry and painting finished all in one.

A stream in the forest, quietly murmuring
as it rushes under what will be
a starless sky of perfect dark
in an hour. Cold and clear, it slides
effortlessly
across pale tan rocks worn
smooth by the steady passing
of the years.
Little crystals born of heaven fleet across it,
just above its surface, caught in the eddies of
air born off the water. They touch its surface and
vanish, subsumed into its flow. Or they dance again
into the heavens to tangle with their brothers, vanishing once more
into the fairy waltz.

The night
begins to deepen.
The forest has become
solemn, still, awaiting the
long cold night ahead with a sort of
delight,
a wondrous anticipation that
flurries
about me
with every step.
No fear, nor restless excitement:
but a still and contemplative
anticipation of the beauty
to come. A foot of
white perfection
will coat the ground,
piled
on every
branch and stem,
come dawn's first pale golden gleam.

And my thoughts drift, like snow, in the night.

Peace.

Thoughts drifting, like snow

Thoughts drifting, like snow.

A single flake suspended in the air, an updraft momentarily halting its spiraling downward float. Sparkles. Tumbles. Falls, swaying to and fro as it falls - no longer caught in the gust, drawn inexorably to the clutches of gravity.

Infinitely spread about me. They drift. They fall. They rise in moments of whirling splendor as, like the exhalation of some ancient dryad the wind sweeps them from the earth into the sky from which they came.

Tart, sharp, biting, piercing, icy, a blend of smell all but impossible to describe: this is the world in which I walk winter. Incomparably pale blue skies tangled with skeins of cotton-white cloud, then a sweeping storm of equally pale gray from which the wonder sweeps down, and like a child I am caught in amazement, my eyes riveted on the heavens and the mystery drifting toward me. Each one unique, crafted in a perfect crystalline design, mingling together as the wind blows harder, coalescing into an mass through which no light can penetrate, darkening the world.

The sun is falling: less seen than felt as the darkness deepens, trees creaking under the weight of heavy burdens of perfect white diamonds of water. Their ever green needles and brown wood stand in stark opposition to the dusk and the beauty falling from it. My steps crunch on old snow turned to ice over a layer of long-shed bark and needles and winter-dead grass and brambles torn by the family of deer that passed this way sometime earlier in the day.

I am alone. There is mystery, here. I am not lonely. There is peace. A kind of silence - silence that is quieting and not disquieting. It is right. This is solitude, but not loneliness... Like the muffling of every sound through the gently falling snow, my thoughts are gentled and stilled.

This is no daring etude: rather, a tender nocturne, though it is not yet dark. Viola set against the dark texture of a low piano - but no chords: single notes struck against the background of silence, calling out some melody unheard before in all man's long history, the imagination of the divine painted on a canvas grander than any made by hands of man. Fluting wind against softly groaning earth, the trees a tapestry and painting finished all in one.

A stream in the forest, quietly murmuring as it rushes under what will be a starless sky of perfect dark in an hour. Cold and clear, it slides effortlessly across pale tan rocks worn smooth by the steady passing of the years. Little crystals born of heaven fleet across it, just above its surface, caught in the eddies of air born off the water. They touch its surface and vanish, subsumed into its flow. Or they dance again into the heavens to tangle with their brothers, vanishing once more into the fairy waltz.

The night begins to deepen. The forest has become solemn, still, awaiting the long cold night ahead with a sort of delight, a wondrous anticipation that flurries about me with every step. No fear, nor restless excitement: but a still and contemplative anticipation of the beauty to come. A foot of white perfection will coat the ground, piled on every branch and stem, come dawn's first pale golden gleam.

And my thoughts drift, like snow, in the night.

Peace.

At the close of the semester

I'm done with finals. I either did spectacularly well or merely all right on the one I took this morning. Here's hoping for the former.

I'm wrestling with sin, seeking its destruction. God give me strength and grace.

I am somewhat frustrated. Having 24-quiet hours during finals is an understandable policy - but, in my opinion, extending it to all first-floor social lounges is not. People need to be able to relax and wind down between (and after) finals; taking that away from them hinders, rather than helping.

I miss having a piano in my room. Someday, when I have my own house, I will have a piano to go with it, and that will be a joyous day indeed.

I'm tired of screens. I want nothing to do with them at the moment. Ironic, then, that I find myself here, writing - in front of a screen. I need to escape my room. Not sure where to go. I'm going to try the practice rooms, but I'm not sure I still have access; there seems to be some confusion on the computer as to my status as a music person these days. Understandable: I'm no longer taking the classes in sequence to get a degree. I miss them, though.

Composition is going well. I'm nearly done with all my work for Jamin and Danielle's wedding - which is good, seeing as it's two weeks from tomorrow. The odd part? It doesn't really strike me as odd that my four of my good friends - three of them my age - are going to be married in less than three weeks. I will be at 3 weddings between now and December 27th, and I'll be the best man in one of them. I feel as though that ought to be a strange feeling - but the only thing strange here is that I have no such odd feeling.

I'm not feeling terribly profound in my writing today. That's alright. Sometimes we of necessity must simply expurgate the overflow of our minds with the banal. Sometimes we simply need to take a break, rest, understand that the trivial and mundane are good things. It would be nice if we could always delight in the exceptional. Someday, we will. Until then, we continue in this existence - not drearily, but not so beautifully as we will eventually walk.

Weather has been odd here. Trees were cracking on Monday from the weight of the ice. There are entire sections of the city still without power. All because of water and cold temperatures. Funny how we can be so powerful and yet so helpless before the elements of nature. They sky proclaims end to end all that God has done, and it is worth remembering that, like the wind, we do not know from whence he comes or to whither He goes.

My heart breaks over the shootings in Colorado on Sunday. I pray that God be with those people affected (and they are many). The prevalence and destructiveness of sin in the world grieves me immensely. I long to see the people around me freed of all that binds them - indeed, though rejoicing in the grace shown me, I long to delight in it all the more, being truly freed of all the sin that used to so easily entangle me.

I am tired. It has been a long semester, and I am ready for a break. My eyelids have drooped a good deal these last days.

That is all - for now. Perhaps tomorrow I shall post more of the fiction I've been working on. For now, I go to (hopefully) practice piano for a time.

Grace and peace of our Father and Maker be with you.
- Chris

Stir gently... explosions else

I very much need a break. One is in sight... but not here yet.

I'm at a loss on something. Could be just emotions, could be real. I am not well able to judge at the moment.

I do not want to spend 8 hours at work tomorrow. I don't feel well, and I'm not sure how well I'm going to feel in the morning, but I don't know that I can manage that and then still have enough energy for our Ministry Team Christmas party.

Life is a lot of work right now. It is hard, and in many ways not rewarding.

Faith ofttimes entails - indeed, at some level is - a pressing on despite a lack of visible accomplishment for one's efforts. True faith is pressing on in the works that God has set before us though we see no hint of fruit. I have a long distance to go before I attain that kind of faith.

I love my job as an RA. Sometimes, however, I wish I could simply take it off - because anytime I am on campus (and sometimes when I am not), it is there: an invisible but ever-present weight settled inconspicuously about my shoulders. Not heavy enough to cause me to fall: but heavy enough to wear down my reserves of strength and endurance.

I am tired. I am weary. I rejoice in this: that Christ is my shtrength, my song, the joy of my salvation. I am contented in knowing that His grace is sufficient for me, because His power is perfected in weakness. It is in these times when I have the least to give that He shines brightest.

Oh for the courage to let myself be ever this weak, and indeed weaker: to be able to fall completely into His strength and trust Him to the uttermost!

Grace and peace be with you....
- Chris

Without nostalgia

We were younger, then. More innocent, some would say - but that is nonsense, of course: we were more depraved, less regenerate and sanctified. Less knowledgeable, perhaps, less understanding of the depravity of the world. But not less innocent. I am not sure there is such a thing as innocence as we define it. Innocence of knowledge, but not innocence of character of heart.

I've been reminiscing, today, for reasons I can't identify. Remembering things past, friendships gone by, moments that defined me. I have been thinking on all that has changed in the last two years. Two years ago I was nearing the end of my freshman year of college. I hardly recognize myself. I was barely forming some of the friendships that have since been most meaningful to me; I could not see the painful year that lay ahead, nor the depression that would take me for a time, nor the purging of my soul that God would bring, nor the agony of friendships lost. I was, in many ways, still a boy, though so sure of my own maturity.

I've matured enough since then to see how much maturing remains ahead of me, how far I have to go in a quest to become an authentic representation of God's design for manhood.

I've lost friendships I held very dear. I've gained some of them back. Others remain gone, and probably will stay thus for a considerable time. New friendships have been made. Others have deepened. Others have simply faded with the slow steady passage of time, like the washing of the cliffs by a salty sea.

As I have waxed meditative and contemplative on my past today, I have noted with interest that I have in no way simultaneously waxed nostalgic. Looking back, there is little or nothing of that time that would draw me back to it. Though I wish some of the friendships I had then remained as strong today as they then were, I do not and would not wish away the experiences that have led us where we are. God's sovereign hand has been at work in our lives, and He does know best. That I can not see the ultimate fruit of His design in no way diminishes its excellence and grand supremacy. (Perhaps, to the contrary. But that is another post entirely.)

I was on my old floor tonight. It was a strange experience, not in being on my side of it, but in being on the side so many of the young women I've been friends with lived on - opened up after renovations again. It was almost eerie, walking again down the halls we had spent so much time together in, but with none of them there; every face a different one. And it was a trifle sad, for most of us have drifted apart, gone our separate ways, shall I borrow another tired metaphor to describe the changes wrought in friendship by the passing of time?

Yet, as I noted, I have no sense of nostalgia. I do not like the boy I was, and I do not envy those times, "simpler" though they seem in some ways. Even those things which in some ways seem "better" I know are truly not. Easier, yes; more straightforward, yes; more glorifying to God - no! I do not wish to go back. I look behind only to see how far Christ has brought me, how great His redeeming work in my life, how marvelous all He has accomplished is. This day is the day that the Lord has made; I will rejoice and be glad in it.

Look back. Dare to see how far the Holy Spirit's work has penetrated your life. Be encouraged by all He has done, convicted by all that you have allowed to creep back into your life by laziness and negligence. But do not dwell in the past. Allow it to inform you, and above all to point you back to the supremacy of Christ who is our King, and to demonstrate the His all-sufficiency. But dwell today, where He has put you, with hope in all He will do in the day ahead of you. Let your mind think on Him and His attributes - whatsoever things are true, honorable, just, pure, commendable, lovely, excellent, worthy of praise - not on a rose-tinted picture of the past. Do not dare to trade, even mentally, the place that He has brought you to for one that He ahs rescued you from.

That you might know Him and the excellencies of His glory more,
- Chris

Whispers

I have, of late, pondered much and written little. There has not been time: or, more properly, there has not been time made. It is late, as I write - pleasantly so. Sometimes thoughts that have idly wandered in the mind crystallize in the night, in the darkness and the silence and the solitude. Sometimes prayer is most fruitful in the still watches of the passing seconds between the twilights. So also it is with meditation on the very Word of God: and on the Word revealed in flesh, communicated therein.

Silence is a discipline we perhaps do not practice enough. The same is, sadly, true of solitude. We have forgotten how to be alone, to be still, to rest in the quiet and to simply draw near to God. The West knows not how to be still and know that He is God. And lancing at the context of that verse, I am struck by this thought: perhaps it is because we do not see the power of His arm, or comprehend the reach of His grasp. If we truly understood, we would be still, for we would then know that we are secure in Him: that all the affairs that so trouble our hearts, that drive us not to be still, not to be comfortable alone with Him are all His, are all in His hands, are all already known by Him - are all being divinely crafted for His glory and our good.

And perhaps some of it is from fear. If we are quiet and still in the silence far from the noise of our lives: that static, that crashing white blur that we ignore yet never escape... if we dare to be alone, absent our technological regalia and incessant chattering of acquaintances (and yes, even friends)... Then we might find ourselves confronted by the Incomparable One, find ourselves face to face with His reality, His immensity, His holiness... His glory: the very fullness of His being.

And what then? For if we find ourselves confronted by that, we will no longer be able to function as we have in the world around us! We will no longer be able to live as unchanged men and women, comfortable in this existence. How could we be comfortable in that which is broken, unhinged in every sense, a pale reflection of what ought to be, what was, what will be? No, our hearts would yearn, truly and deeply for a city that has foundations: and even more, for the One who designed and built that city. We could not rest in a land where we are but sojourners, foreigners present for a time but certainly not staying: for our greater country awaits us, and our King there reigning supreme.

And if that is what awaits us in the solitude and the silence, it is easy to see why it terrifies us: that will shake us to our core, alter everything of how we live, leave us with a missional outlook and a life that must be surrendered, not held tightly in the grip of absolute autonomy. These are indeed frightening prospects for a human soul still wrapped in the grip of sin.

We forget, sometimes, in the pursuit of holiness, that it is indeed a pursuit: not a moment of achieving, not a single instant in which we have overcome and arrived, but a lifetime, a journey, a great traverse across the wilderness. But it is the wilderness which hones us, which sharpens us, which makes us as we ought to be... transparent, a perfect reflection, yet unique and distinct in the manner of that reflection.

So we should delight in the journey, and recognize that though we shall one day be perfected, we are not yet arrived at that moment. There is, as has been sung, a joy in the journey, a light we can love on the way. Yet sometimes, I think, we struggle, wrestling with our purpose, our plans, our future: seeking to understand, as another man asked in song, what precisely is our place in this world?

And the answer is so simple to say, so difficult to understand, so impossible of ourselves to accomplish. We live to glorify God: to make Him known to all the nations, to share His love and His delight with all - with people of every tribe, tongue, and nation - and to delight in Him above all else: by delighting in Him in whatever we do.

So I sit awake at 2:34 am. I think. I pray. I meditate. And sometimes I write, pouring out my heart and my thoughts. And I meditate on His word, on the sufficiency of His sacrifice and His perfect priesthood. I look at His nature, His glory, His character, His perfect intercession... and I am still. If I speak, it is in a whisper, awed and reverent: for who am I that I may enter His throne: and with confidence? And yet I know the answer: I am His child by right, righteous by the blood shed for me.

And I encourage you as well, to sit awake in the dark watches of the night, to keep tryst with God Almighty, the Holy One: a perfect Father, the first among many Brothers, a perfect Comforter. Rest in silence, be at peace, let your heart go still, and come to know the One who is.

- Chris