Natasha and I, being weary of the lightheartedness that often surrounds this weighty commemoration of Jesus' life, death, and resurrection, embarked at the first light of dawn for the Wichita Mountains National Wildlife Refuge in Oklahoma to be alone together in the wild. We had no agenda except basking in the beauty of creation, thinking and feeling deeply, and having deep conversations about life and where our hearts are. We found the perfect expression of our journey in Debussy's Claire de Lune. The beauty and wonder was breathtaking and stirred our hearts to worship. A mist hung over the rocks and mountain the entire time we were there, but instead of dimming our view, it seemed to me the perfect visualization of the wonder and mystery my soul was feeling. So, braving the damp and cold (and buffalo) we walked slowly through tall red-gold grass, over lichen covered boulders, around grey-green lakes, under the shadow of the enshrouded hills, trying to capture with our lenses the beauty that we saw with our souls. As we were leaving, the mist started to lift as if the mountains were luring us back with promises of better views and warmer weather. We resisted, but left determined to return.

   The hope that the resurrection offers is worthy of so much more than cute family get togethers and easter egg hunts. Not that there is anything wrong with family; family is profoundly important. C. S. Lewis once said something like this: We must play and laugh and enjoy life, but with hearts that have first taken life and each other very seriously. It seems to me that most of the time we pretend. We seem to enjoy life on the surface but underneath there is pain, confusion, unrest, turmoil in our hearts. There is a great contradiction. The resurrection shows us that we can enjoy life with a deep hope and confidence in our great God and his unfolding plan. It is not that we deny pain, grief, sin, and evil, but the resurrection is the guarantee that God has defeated and will finally destroy all evil, though for a time we must continue to war against it. This gives us the unique quality of being in a kind of tension between grief and joy, the ability to take life seriously and not ignore the pain, but rejoice in the confidence that all things will be made right. Not only that, but that they are being made right, and we have the opportunity to live this out and proclaim it. Because Jesus' resurrection shows us that we can have new life; that we can in fact, be resurrected and that even our bodies will be resurrected when God makes all things new.
I've been reflecting on these truths:

"For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience."
Romans 8:18-25

"In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory."
Ephesians 1:11-14

I love these lyrics by David Crowder:
"At the start
He was there
He was there
In the end
He’ll be there
He’ll be there
And after all
Our hands have wrought
He forgives

Oh, the glory of it all
Is He came here
For the rescue of us all
That we may live
For the glory of it all
Oh, the glory of it all

All is lost
Find Him there
Find Him there
After night
Dawn is there
Dawn is there
And after all
Falls apart
He repairs
He repairs

Oh, He is here
With redemption from the fall
That we may live
For the glory of it all
Oh, the glory of it all

After night
Comes a light
Dawn is here
Dawn is here
It’s a new day, a new day
Oh, everything will change
Things will never be the same
We will never be the same
Oh, everything will change
Things will never be the same
We will never be the same"

Living in the Hope of the Resurrection,
Micah

One year of college finished. Crazy thought. Just a few months gone by and yet I feel that I have grown up so much. Quite obviously God has been moving. School alone could never have changed me this much or taught me this much. Oh yes, there has been so much more at work. There have been friends, so many great friends, some it seems that I was only meant to know for that short time. There were the Gospel For Asia people... ahh, what can I say: amazing. There were the churches (yes, there was more than one). There was of course, Criswell College. I loved it. It has done so much to change the way I look at the world, at the church, at the Scriptures. Not "it" actually, but "they"; not an institution, but people. My incredible, brilliant, and big-hearted professors as well as my beautiful fellow students, my brothers and sisters who I've learned with and from. And there was God. Always beneath and behind it all. Moving.

He's calling us out, you know. I'm beginning to see people all around me stirring. Feeling God move. Jumping into his Life and being caught up in the current. I know how it feels. Kind of like body surfing the rapids on the Guadalupe River. It seems like things are out of control at first, and they are really. They are out of my control. But they are and always have been in God's control. As much as I wish sometimes that I could pull people in with me, I can't. Only He can do it. But He is. He is.

It's funny. I thought I would have a lot more to say. But that's pretty much it right now. Hopefully I've satisfied some of you crazy xanga post police people, at least for a while. If you read this, please say something. Maybe something thought provoking. Or something about you or about God. Something that maybe you could pretend that only I was reading. If you have my email, you could actually send something that only I would be reading. I promise I'll reply... eventually. :) I'm going to try and catch up with what ya'll have been writing about lately and put in my two cents worth, too.

Before I started writing this, I went back and reread my first post from Dallas. The one where I was sad and lonesome and lost. And then I read your comments and I thought: Wow, what beautiful friends I have. How blessed I am. How undeserving I am of all of you. I wondered if I had thanked everybody for their encouragement. If I didn't, I am now. Thanks. I love you all so much.

Read your Bibles. Talk to our Father. Listen to Him, too.

the mercy of drought

"And He gave them their request, but sent leanness into their soul." Ps. 106:15

    The man walked with boldness at first.  There was a quick confidence in his stride and a deep fire in his eye.  Occasionally he would look far into the distance where stood the great mountains that he longed to climb and live among.  In them there was a throne and a tree and a kingdom.  And he was told that in this kingdom there would be an end to evil and grief.  He walked also with the knowledge that he did not walk alone.  For always beside him was his faithful friend.  What joy there was in his heart as he walked at this time!
            Then, one day, he noticed, in passing, a tree that stood a little to the side of the path.  He paused for a moment to look upon it.  It looked wonderful.  He wanted to taste of its fruit.  He knew, however that he had been warned to stay near the path, that only danger and harm and death awaited him should he wander far from it.  But this tree wasn’t far.  Those warnings were then; the tree was now.  He began to see the instructions no longer as loving and wise, but instead as strict and confining; and he longed to shake loose the chains that bound him to life and love.  So he stepped from the path.
            The fruit was delicious.  He feasted.  He began also to notice other trees with even more appealing fruit.  And so he would go from one to another to another; further and further from the path.  He became quickly intoxicated by the fruit and forgot all warnings as he stumbled deeper into the wilderness.  His friend walked behind, silently weeping, gently pleading.  But the man was deaf and blind to him by this time.  He ate until he could eat no more and fell to the ground, drunk, drifting into a deep sleep.
            When he awoke, he opened his eyes to darkness.  He blinked and rubbed his eyes, but soon realized in terror that he was blind.  He rose to his feet and stumbled toward the fruit tree that he knew he had eaten from last.  He screamed in pain as he drove his hands, not into ripened fruit, but into sharp thorns that pierced him deeply.  Bewildered, he cried out for help.  He heard in response nothing but the howling of the wind, a dry wind that blew across this desert, parching his throat and burning his eyes.  He wandered for what seemed like an eternity in this barren place, stumbling over treacherous terrain.  The insects stung, the snakes coiled and struck out viciously.  There was no joy.  He searched for the path, remembering now with pain, the joy he had left behind.  But he found no trace of it.  He became increasingly desperate and angry.  Why could he not find the path?!
            Then, somewhere in the midst of the despair, when all hope and desire seemed to have vanished from his heart, something happened. Was it a thought, or more like a memory?  It was something more than himself, something beyond his own pain and discomfort.  It was like a single star in the vastness of a dark sky.  The light struck quickly and unexpectedly.  It’s origin at first was unknown, but its effect was profound.  He felt himself begin to tremble in grief.  A deep and bitter anguish gripped his soul.  And then the weeping came. Not simply tears, but deep sobs and faltering cries came forth from the depths of his soul as he shook violently and fell to his knees and then onto his face.
            As he lay there, gasping for breath between the sobs, a transformation began to take place.  It was as if the weeping that came from the core of his being was shaking loose the dry, encrusted layers of filth from his heart.  Like Namaan, who went into the river and out seven times to be cleansed of his disease, so he felt a cleansing deep within.  Like an earthquake was taking place in his soul and the reverberations were spreading outward through his entire body.
            He soon realized what had triggered the reaction.  He had remembered his friend.  In a moment it all came back to him in shocking clarity: the cross, the ransom, the payment for him, the plan, the Love.  He remembered how he had been reconciled to his great King and even adopted as His own son.  And he wept.  For he had left his friend, betrayed his love, and followed the Enemy of all Good in his lust for pleasure.  Words broke forth from his lips, like water gushing from cracks in a dam; held back for so long, but now the wall was beginning to crumble. “My God!  My Jesus!  I’m sorry…”  “My friend!  My Father! I’m so sorry…”
    As he lay there, he felt a gentle breeze begin to blow.  It grew in strength until it blew with such force that he began to be moved by it.  The movement was almost imperceptible at first, but it soon became obvious that it was carrying him along.  He rested as he rode this wind in silent amazement until it set him down on the banks of a river.  He plunged his head into the cool water and drank deeply.  When he lifted his eyes he found that his sight had returned and he saw the lush forest surrounding the river and shading it beneath its branches.  The best fruit of course, grew along the banks of the stream.  And there, at his feet, was the path.  It wound along beside the river, as it always had.  He wondered how he could have forgotten this.
            His friend stood there, just ahead, smiling at him.  Through the blur of his tears, the man saw his friend reach out his hand to him.  As he laid his own in His, he felt his bleeding palms begin to heal.
            And, in joy, they walked on.

When we tire of the temporal and deceptive things we pursue, we may long to return to the joy we had known.  But not until we experience the barrenness of our souls that comes from being far from God, do we long to return to the Giver of that joy.  And only through the deep grief of true repentance can we wholly return to Him and be wholly restored.

 Come ye sinners, poor and needy
Weak and wounded, sick and sore
Jesus ready stands to save you
Full of pity, love and power

Come ye thirsty, come and welcome
God’s free bounty glorify
True belief and true repentance
Every grace that brings you nigh

Come ye weary, heavy laden
Lost and ruined by the fall
If you tarry till you’re better
You will never come at all

I will arise and go to Jesus
He will embrace me in His arms
In the arms of my dear Savior
O, there are ten thousand charms

I Will Arise and Go To Jesus, Joseph Hart