Be Brave

It's been almost one year exactly since my last post.  And a lot has happened since then.  When I first set out here, I imagined I'd be reflecting on my life in public service and the inevitable conflicts and tensions my faith creates.  I thought I'd be talking about what's going on in the world and the 'right response' to the trials and tribulations of a world going wrong.  The Writings of a King's Attendant.  I was going to pen grand thoughts and dreams about K(k)ing and K(k)ingdom from the desk of one of H(h)is servants.  What it became was far different...and most certainly truer and infinitely more important.  It became the writings of the King about one of His attendants.  A chapter or two of God's story about me.

This of course makes great sense to me now.  I've always written in order to work out the thread of an idea, something that I was conflicted with, something I didn't quite understand, something I needed to know the answer to.  Through the course of writing, I was able to organize my thoughts, advance that idea and make some sort of conclusion...not always completely, but further and deeper than I would have made it otherwise.  What I discovered almost from the beginning was that I was the problem I was struggling with.  And through this all, God was revealing things to me about myself.  Truths I hadn't or couldn't accept.  Lies I'd been believing.  Hurts I'd been holding onto.  Fears I hadn't faced.  Regrets and guilt I was clinging to...all very tenuous lifelines in a storm.  And I found this out very painfully through the past year.

When I was a kid growing up in Napanee Ontario, my fondest memory is going to Dupont Beach with my grandparents.  The best days were when a storm was rolling in and the waves would whitecap and crash against the beach and rockfaces.  As a kid, you have little fear of such things.  These waves would come in at twice your size.  They'd batter you, they'd push you back and pull you under.  But with the glee of a child, you'd beg for the next.  It was a different type of fear.  A fear that made you bigger than you were, stronger than you were, a conquering hero.  It made you feel alive, it gave you hope.  It made you think you could bear and best anything.

As adults, we recoil from such risk and danger.  We cling to false lifelines or worse yet we stand frozen on the beach too afraid to enter the water.  Too afraid to brave the wave and run to Hope.  And yet that is exactly what He is calling us to do.  To run fearfully into the water, to brave the storm with glee, to best the wave and brave the next, to hope for Hope despite the fear.  He asks us to be brave, so be brave with the courage (and fear) of a child.
  

    

The Art of Making a Souffle

"As soon as he had finished speaking to Saul, the soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul." (1 Samuel 18:1)

For over a year now, I've had a second career as a 'chef', having started a Bed and Breakfast with my wife. She is the host, I'm the cook. And I found that I'm pretty darn good at it.

What I love about cooking is the challenge of taking the uniqueness of each ingredient and 'fusing' the best of it with the best of another...and leaving something better (stronger, bolder and more wonderful) in its place. Fusion cooking is a style of cuisine that combines ingredients and techniques from different traditions, cultures and regions. While a culinary style now, I would say even that cuisine is naturally moving to a sort of 'oneness' as the world opens up over time and as chefs and home cooks break down tradition, culture and regional differences. But 'cooking' taken to its most simplest state is 'fusion', taking different individual ingredients and 'fusing' them together to create flavours stronger, bolder, more wonderful than each on its own.

'The soul of Jonathan was knit to the soul of David..."

Knitting or weaving is the interlacing of threads to form fabric. Okay so I don't knit, it's a bit of a lost art replaced by today's machinery. But I draw two important points from this part of the passage. One, like cooking, knitting/weaving takes individual threads (ingredients) and interlaces them to create something new and more wonderful. An individual thread on its own is not very impressive, but threads (ingredients) in the hands of a weaver (chef) can be transformed into something amazing, a beautiful work of art. An amazing coat of many colours...or a soufflé.

"The soufflé isn't the soufflé, the soufflé is the recipe." (Clara Oswald, Doctor Who)

Making a soufflé is an art (or so I've been told as I haven't yet mustered the courage to try to make one). While the ingredients themselves are pretty simple/basic including egg yolks and egg whites, the recipe...which ingredients and how/when they're mixed...is the thing. After that, its a matter of faith. Pop it in the oven and hope it doesn't fall. The souffle isn't the souffle, the souffle is the recipe. Likewise, the knitting of souls between Jonathan and David. If we focus on the relationship only, we miss the knitting recipe or more-so the 'knitter' in the act of artful 'knitting'. Neither Jonathan nor David did the knitting, the Master Weaver did. It's His work of art, designed for His purpose, but ultimately for our good.

Second, the act of interlacing the threads creates something stronger.  The Hebrew word used here for 'knit' is qashar meaning a binding, a joining together. Threads interlaced together can bear more than a single thread. In cooking we call it 'depth of flavour'...ingredients carefully put together create deeper tones and greater depth of flavour. Here Jonathan's soul is knit to David's creating a special and stronger bond than they ever could have forged on their own.

A soufflé ultimately falls whether its in the oven or left to sit for a time. The pinnacle of success is to have your souffle puffed up for 10 minutes or so. What we create can be beautiful in its time, but temporary. Souffles fall, fabrics disintegrate. Even the deep friendship between Jonathan and David was temporary as the each met his grave. But the recipe in the hands of the chef is the thing. The Master Weaver that knit the souls of these two men continues to knit souls together and unto Himself everlasting ("the church").

But knit together how? In Love. In Colossians 2:2 Paul talks about the church is given oneness in the Spirit saying "...Having been knit together IN LOVE...".  Our hearts are knit together in love and its then expressed through love. "Jonathan loved him [David] as his own soul." The souffle is the recipe. Love gives Love out of Love. And Love brings unity, oneness. God's act of knitting souls together continues as the hearts of believers are interlaced together as part of His redemption plan. Patches today. An infinite tapestry and everlasting soufflé tomorrow. The soufflé is the recipe.

If I Should Fall Behind

We said we'd walk together 
Baby come what may
That come the twilight should we lose our way
If as we're walkin' a hand should slip free
I'll wait for you
And should I fall behind
Wait for me

We swore we'd travel darlin' side by side
We'd help each other stay in stride
But each lover's steps fall so differently
But I'll wait for you
And if I should fall behind
Wait for me

Now everyone dreams of a love lasting and true
But you and I know what this world can do
So lets make our steps clear that the other may see
And I'll wait for you
If I should fall behind
Wait for me

Now there's a beautiful river in the valley ahead
There neath the oaks bough soon we will be wed
Should we lose each other in the shadow of the evening trees
I'll wait for you
And should I fall behind
Wait for me
Darlin I'll wait for you
Should I fall behind
Wait for me

- Bruce Springsteen -

I was riding into Toronto on my regular morning commute when out of the corner of my eye I noticed two birds flying together in the sky.  Two birds flying just inches apart.  The distance between the two never wavered as they soared ahead seemingly immune to gusts of wind or even the slightest muscle twitch.  Equally remarkable was that they flapped their wings in perfect unison never the least bit out of alignment.  And remarkable it was.  Neither looked back or lost their cadence or rhythm for the other.  It seemed effortless and completely natural as if they were both unaware of each other's presence.  Yet that kind of unity could not be by coincidence or blind luck.  They were tuned to each other and it was natural for them to make small unnoticeable adjustments in the air to stay in unison.  And it occurred to me, isn't that love?

True love I mean.  Beyond the passion and the fire and flame, 'love is patient' right?  Love is not two people going full bore to the end hoping both make it.  It's not pulling or pushing the other along.  It's certainly not leaving the other behind 'cos the other can't keep up nor abandoning the other for another.  Love is moving forward together 'side by side' and 'in stride' 'baby come what may'.  Love is a faithful waiting on the other so that both move forward together.  

'Each lover's steps fall so differently'.  Of course Love knows that we'll fall out of step along the way.  We may even 'lose' each other in the shadows.  Perfection may be the picture of those two birds, but most often we fall well short of that.  But Love asks us to wait for the other.  And Love trusts that the other will.  It says "I will wait for you"!  And with that confidence, we can continue to move forward knowing that the other will be there around the next bend.  

'Let's make our steps clear so that the other may see'.  As we get better at it, the trips and falls aren't as noticeable.  At least that's my hope.  As we increasingly 'know' each other, we get better at adjusting on the fly.  She will know my steps more, I will know hers.  So Love is a constant dance of finding each other, feeling Love's movements and aligning my steps with hers.  And its perfection is found in losing track of who is leading.  It ceases to matter as we will find that we are leading and being led at the same time.    

For myself, I most often find my out of alignment and constantly tripping.  I try to lead, but most often feel completely useless at making the necessary in-air adjustments that Love calls for.   And I don't do well with that feeling of distance and misalignment with her.  It's a lonely and desolate place.  It steals Love's hope.  But trust in Love.  I find this so hard, but I need to find that place where I trust that she will wait for me as I stumble along trying to find the rhythm and cadence.  And I have recently discovered that my true failure is trying to control Love's rhythm. If either bird tried to control that, the perfect unison would inevitably fail.  Seems obvious, but unity requires at least two.   I need to hand over control of Love's rhythm.  It's only in the handing over control of Love's rhythm where perfect unity is possible.  The two become one.  Two separate rhythms become one.  That's how to fly.

Press Your Luck

The futures market, the savings account.  Laying up or going for the green in two on a par 5,  the prevent defence, the kitchen sink blitz, the sacrifice fly or stealing home. All in on the river with a gut-shot straight draw or folding the hand on the top pair showing.  Going into a burning building. Crab fishing on the Bering Sea. Bob, I bet one dollar. Monte, let's make a deal. Press your luck, no whammies.  

High risk, high reward. When it works, great, we're heroes. But odds are we will lose more than we win and we may be left with nothing.  Risk little, little return. We may come out a little ahead, but we never win big. And for all our efforts to avoid risk, nothing is certain. C.S. Lewis once wrote "There is no safe investment".  There is always some element of risk.  And much of life is minimizing our exposure. RRSPs, pensions, insurance...'stable jobs' we like (or don't), maybe loathe, but we do to pay the bills. Think of the opportunities missed in stability's name when what was the real risk anyway?

C.S. Lewis also wrote "Only a real risk tests the reality of a belief". So much of what guides us through life are not the 'real risks' that Lewis is referring to. We may perceive them as real, but are they really?  We catastrophize out of a peverse and misguided fear. Catastrophizing is to hyper-imagine negative outcomes that have no real basis in reality. Not to say, you shouldn't invest in RRSPs or insurance...themselves nothing wrong. We should work. And yes, I have a job, pension and insurance. I'm not talking about being flaky or irresponsible. God does want us to be good stewards and work hard. But if fear of the thing is driving a stake into the heart of what we do (or don't do), that's not healthy. If fear is keeping us from who we are (our true identity) or what we should be doing (our sacred calling), that's not good either. It's not what God wants. God revering yes. But fearful, no.  

What then do the risks I take (or avoid) say about what I believe? Well, if I'm only seeking to minimize exposure and avoid the catastrophic, I have to question the reality of my belief and in whose hands I'm placing my trust. Behaviours should align with beliefs. I could be a little more courageous for my convictions, but I also understand that it will come with sacrifice. Sacrifice is hard because we are hard-wired to fight against it. It doesn't always feel safe or comfortable or secure.  I'm a little selfish. I don't want to give of myself, at least not all or too often. And yet, that is exactly what I'm called to do. I know in my heart that it will indeed be far safer and more secure than it ever was because of whose Hands I'm putting it into. Seems there is in fact one safe investment.

But it takes faith. Hebrews 11 talks about faith as "the substance of things hoped for, and the evidence of things not seen." Faith demands risk because its of things hoped for and not seen. Our culture generally sees that as worse odds than winning the lottery. It's not always accepted, it's often dismissed, it's sometimes resented. But faith is by definition the 'substance' and the 'evidence'. Though many may perceive the nature of our belief as uncertain because its not easily 'seen', faith is the very proof, the very certainty, we always sought. So maybe it's the world that's catastrophizing, hyper-imagining outcomes that have no basis in reality...just sayin'.

"If we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desire not too strong, but too weak." Lewis reminds us to remember the rewards. Not dismiss the risk or costs, but weigh them against the reward or return. Which is really just a good investment decision. Investors, here's the Kingdom Return-on-Investment (K-ROI).  High risk, high reward with no risk at all. We have everything to lose, even more to gain. Infinite dividends. The investment is everything we have, but insignificant against the 'staggering nature of the 'promised' rewards. That's real risk worth making. I'm gonna press my luck!

Daddy Made Me a TARDIS

Ecclesiastes 3:11 "He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end." 

"He has made everything beautiful in its time."  Everything is beautiful.  That means us too.  But if everything (and everyone) is beautiful, why do so many feel anything but.  I suspect in some way, each of us feels ugly, incomplete, abandoned, rejected or damaged somehow or in some way.  I'm not talking about the tragedy of things done to us by others.  That's someone violently ripping away the heart of beauty.  I know that Jesus is somewhere at work in all that, but I would not want to anyway marginalize the hurt or seriousness of it.  Nor can I claim to know how that feels.  I've been fortunate to escape that kind of tragedy.  But I am talking about that ever present, below-grade feeling of insecurity, incompleteness and inadequacy that eats at everyone one of us...well me anyway.  We feel small, sometimes.  Sometimes I feel really small.

Ecclesiastes 3:11 says "He has made everything beautiful..." but beautiful "in it's time".  God has bound us to time.  We feel it passing.  We are the living picture of its passage.  Our skin whithers and wrinkles.  Our sight and hearing deteriorates.  Our bones and joints ache and slow.  You can see time played out on my face over the years.  And through that, maybe, we discover the point of time.  Maybe time exists so that we can 'feel' it passing away.  If there wasn't a shot-clock, the passing of days wouldn't matter.  

Yet they do matter because God "also set eternity in the human heart".   To us, eternity means forever; time never-ending.   But to the Ancient Hebrew, words used to describe time, were also used to describe distance and direction.  The meaning of 'eternity' here is far in the distance, beyond the horizon.  Because its beyond the horizon, we cannot fathom the fullness of eternity; what God has done/is doing from beginning to end.  But God has implanted direction, a divine purpose, on our hearts.  And it gets played out over time.

And though we have this divinely planted sense of purpose, we know from Ecclesiastes that nothing on this earth can ever satisfy.  I wonder then if that's where some of that 'smallness' comes from.  We're hard-wired with an 'eternal' purpose; a reason to be, a place to go.  Yet we exist in a world that can't get us there.  We ourselves are totally incapable of fulfilling that purpose.  And time and time again, we are left deflated and defeated 'chasing after the wind'.  We're left small feeling the tragedy of a purpose stalled or stilted. 

In Tolkein's 'Lord of the Rings', Gandalf says to Frodo "All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us."  Time's passing matters because we have a distance to be covered, a direction to be fixed on, and a time for it all.  Yes, God has bound us to time, BUT He has given us the capacity to live above it.  He has made us 'bigger on the inside'.  We're anything but small!  Beauty is constantly on work in us and the fullness of it gets realized over time, in His time.  Fantastic!  What then should we do with the time that is given to us?  Well, shouldn't the answer to that be to fulfill the divine purpose that has been implanted on our hearts by our creator, by our Father?  The horizon may be well beyond this sun, but Daddy made me a TARDIS and I have a new world to see.  Allons-y!

A Fighting Man

Well, you took me in, you stole my heart,
I cannot roam no more.
Because love, it stays within you,
It does not wash up on a shore.
But a fighting man forgets each cut
Each knock, each bruise, each fall,
But a fighting man cannot forget
Why his love don't roam no more.

(Love Don't Roam, Murray Gold)


My wife stole my heart the moment I met her.  We met in an elevator (I'm serious).  We were going to the same floor, the same place actually.  She struck up a conversation and then I just followed her around for the day.  We had coffee, she played me a song she wrote on her guitar.  I was hooked from there and just kept following her around. 

We've been married for almost twelve years now.  We live in a very nice house in a great community with three truly awesome children. From there to here, we've spent a lot of time together.  But along the way, we've experienced many of the ups and downs that good couples do.  We've learned a lot, we've grown up a little (I hope), we've lifted each other up, we've let each other down, we've fought and we've made-up.  We try.  We're together.  Because at the heart of it, we very much love each other and both feel quite fortunate to have found one another. We're better together.  I'm better because of her.

As it should be I suppose...the grand design of marriage for two to become a better, more complete, one.  Yet I've been surprised over the years by how truly difficult marriage is.  Two people aren't just added together.  Marriage is not a sandwich or a cake mix.  Two become one flesh.  That changes your DNA.  And so maybe it shouldn't come as such a surprise that it can be hard and painful at times.  You remember the man you used to be...sometimes you may even long to be that person..and yet you're no longer that person.  Two people are being spiritually fused and recreated into a new thing.  And you find that Love has changed you and its constantly recreating you into a better man.  

You forget the cost if you remember what you have gained.  It's not that it doesn't hurt.  We know it does.  But if I focus on the prize itself, Love, any hurt along the way doesn't seem that bad.  Remembering Love has a way of rounding out the edges.  I suspect (though obviously could never really know) that childbirth is much that way.  If my wife had truly remembered the pain of our first, we might never have had our second or third.  Because truly wonderful things are worth the cost.  She looks at the magic of her children and each knock and bruise (contraction) slips away.  The pain was worth the price.  So too Love.  

And yet I do forget.  I love my wife.  But too often I forget (or at least its not front-of-mind).  I spend too much time fighting with her when I should be fighting for her. And maybe fighting for Love is just that simple.  It's a constant, active and unrelenting remembering of the wonder of her.     

Love doesn't roam.  We do.  At the very least, we forget its there and alive and wonderful.   We stray from it, sometimes running in its opposite direction, instead of being in its Presence.  But it's the process of remembering it that brings us back to it.  And when we're in that place, we're compelled to act for Love out of Love.  A fighting man digs and claws and spits blood for Love in times of war AND peace.  Being in the moment, every moment, battling for Love.  Ever-present with Love.  That's the place I most want to be and stay.  So this man is going to pick some more 'fights'.  


 

#WOWGOD - Starry, Starry Night

What do you think about when you look up at the stars?

Maybe you’re a stargazer, an astronomer or a scientist, counting, cataloguing, tracking and arranging the stars? Stars are a scientific definition, a mathematical equation, an intellectual problem begging to be solved. How many stars are there in the universe? How old are they? What are they made of? How far are they away? You find your wonder in the answers to these questions.

Or perhaps you’re an adventurer, an explorer, a traveler. The stars then are signposts for your own adventures here. In the darkness they light your way and signal the right direction to follow. But even more, they’re a mysterious undiscovered country, something to ‘be’ explored, a new territory to claim and tame. But the only way you can fully understand them is to experience them. As you look up at the stars, you desire to hang in the sky with them.

Or perhaps you’re an artist, a poet, a singer, or a writer. Starry, starry night. A Don McLean or a Vincent VanGogh that found their muse in the clear night sky. Stars are a pretty picture, a love song’s chorus, the perfect backdrop for the story’s climatic first kiss. Stars don’t need to be understood, just appreciated for their mystery and beauty. Or maybe, maybe you’re still just a child at heart, a dreamer. Stars are small lights in the big dark. A larger than life LiteBright set. Twinkling, blinking and shooting. Something to wish on, hoping against hope that one day your wish comes true.

On any given night when you look up at the sky, out of the glare of streetlights and the polluting haze of the city, you will see a few thousand individual stars with your naked eye. Enough that you or I couldn’t count them all. Our astronomers, with their telescopes, see millions more. Our scientists build mathematical models to prove the existence of billions upon billions more still. NASA builds shuttles, and satellites and probes just to get a closer look. And despite all that we can see, even all we can perceive of, there are infinitely more we do not. And it’s easy to feel small and insignificant in something so big and wonderful. A seemingly infinite number of stars in the seemingly infinite vastness of space.

Maybe that’s their true design. Designed by the Creator, to awe us, to inspire us, to humble us. But not only through their beauty (though they are beautiful)…Not even by their sheer number (surely they cannot be counted)…No, not by only what we ‘can’ see, but also by that which we ‘do not’ see and cannot perceive.

Consider Genesis 15. This is God speaking to Abram (not yet Abraham) in a vision.

5 He took him outside and said, "Look up at the heavens and count the stars - if indeed you can count them." Then he said to him, "So shall your offspring be."

This is of course not the first time God has come to Abram, first calling him in Genesis 12 to receive his commission to leave his homeland and strike out into that future that God would reveal to him. It’s here that God lays out His promises to Abram:

"I will make you into a great nation
and I will bless you;
I will make your name great,
and you will be a blessing.
I will bless those who bless you,
and whoever curses you I will curse;
and all peoples on earth
will be blessed through you."

Each promise almost begs the question “How?” How will you make me into a great nation? How will you bless me? How will you make my name great? How will I be a blessing?  And how on earth, will I bless all peoples on earth? How, How, How, How, How, How??? But he went anyway, leaving his country, his people, and his father’s household, willing to risk it all on God’s wonderful, yet almost unbelievable, promises. So he went. But the inherent problem Abram had throughout the next few decades was this: “How was he to live in the real here and now world, in light of such seemingly open-ended and future-forward promises?”

No different for us right. I’ve been following Jesus for over a decade now, but I still can remember what it was like to first ‘go’ and enter the promise.  At the time, I had no idea what it all meant. I couldn’t communicate it, much less align my life to it. I just went. Clarity seems to happen gradually as we mature into our faith. We grow farther up and further in as God reveals Himself to us in increasingly specific ways.  And it's a lifelong process.

And similarly, here in Genesis, God continues to reveal in increasingly specific ways those promises made to Abram. In Chapter 15 we catch up with an impatient and frustrated Abram. God first said to him back in Genesis 12 that He would make him into a great nation. Yet here he is, pushing the century mark, no child, no natural heir, and a barren wife. The great nation has not started off well. Abram not so subtly points this out to God of course:

"O Sovereign LORD, what can you give me since I remain childless and the one who will inherit my estate is Eliezer of Damascus? "You have given me no children; so a servant in my household will be my heir."

What’s at play here is that if God didn’t provide a natural heir for Abram, his only heir would be through legal custom; through a servant of Abram’s household. Not ideal in his mind. Abram had in mind a son of his own. God knew that, reassures him, and says "This man will not be your heir, but a son coming from your own body will be your heir." And maybe sensing that this may not be enough for Abram, the Creator allows creation to speak to creation. The Lord then leads him outside, I don’t know maybe they kicked off their sandals, threw a blanket down, laid their heads on a couple of smooth rocks, and just looked up at the stars. And the Lord said this: "Look up at the heavens and count the stars - if indeed you can count them." "So shall your offspring be."  Abram's #WOWGOD, that moment that he would keep going back to time and time again when he needed encouragement or explanation or direction or inspiration or hope to press through.

And as Abram looked at those thousand points of light, I wonder if he put name to star. Oh, that one is going to be my great grandson Benjamin, oh that one for sure is my great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandson’s mother Ruth. Oh…that big and bright one, to the North, yeah that one, well that one is going to be my first-born son. Yeah that’s my son alright… And at that point the magnitude of the promise probably hit him hard. I can just see it too. Half weeping, half giggling like a child, he says to himself “More stars than I can even count.  Just one would do.” I’m a wrinkly, tired old man, my wife is old, still sexy as hell, but come on… “More stars than I can even count!” Thank you Lord.

And the thing is, as Abram stared up at those stars he had no idea. Not really. He only saw the thousands of stars in the sky. He was most interested in that one star; his first-born. What he didn’t know about was the millions of billions of stars beyond them. Abram didn’t have the complete revelation of the Bible to get a fuller appreciation of the new promise made through Jesus. He was grounded in his world, the “real here and now world.”; the old covenant. He looked up at the sky and saw his heirs, he saw his future family; a full sky full of them. He saw blessings, he saw land, he saw a great nation. He saw them, he just didn’t receive them. Hebrews 11 says that Abraham died not receiving the things promised. That he only saw them and welcomed them from a distance. He saw the beginnings of God’s salvation plan for his people through his heir Isaac. But, as with much of the Kingdom, the promise was much bigger than what he could possibly see or could even perceive. That, my friends, is the new promise, the new covenant, that has been given to you through Jesus. And unlike Abram, you will not welcome it from a distance, you will receive the promise in all its fulness.

What of today then in this woundup and winding down world? The same problem that Abram was faced with is the same one that continues to burden us now. Even more so perhaps. “How are we to live in the ‘real here and now world’, in light of seemingly open-ended and future-forward promises?"  By faith.  But what does that mean? Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see and then aligning our present thoughts and actions based on that belief. That’s what Abram and then Abraham did. Hebrews 11:17 says that “By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had received the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, even though God had said to him, "It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned."

Gutted. Just when Abraham began to see the Lord’s promise being fulfilled, he’s asked to give it all back. In Genesis 22, God said to Abraham "Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about." Isaac, his natural heir, his first-born son, the promised one that he had been waiting decades for. And the Lord asks an almost impossible task of a father. Now Abraham is getting it. Things are a little clearer. He sees it for more than what it is, more than the taking of his son’s life, more than the end of his family’s line. He doesn’t completely understand, he doesn’t agree, but he trusts that God is faithful and that He is faithful to His promise.  Maybe drawing from his stargazing moment with God, Abram grew the courage to be faithful.

See that’s the kind of man I want to be. That’s the kind of family I want to raise. That’s the kind of church community I want to be in relationship with. Being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. And that taking irrevocable action based on that surety.  One that is prepared to lay all we have today on the altar, “Your Kingdom come Lord. Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven”, because we ‘believe’ in the promise. Not because of the wonderful beauty of the night sky, but because its a reminder of God's promise fulfilled and being fulfilled.  I remember that they same sky that Abram sat under first counting his descendents...my star was there.  Yours too.  It was then, it is now.  Crazy!  #WOWGOD.

But as beautiful as the night sky can be, the true wonder of it for me is that when I look up I see the cracks and bullet holes in a beat-up and defeated darkness. It's a powerful reminder that darkness doesn’t even own the night. Light is breaking through and it’s always been that way. Just as He promised.  And just beyond the stars, I think I can just make out a cloud rolling in. And I wait for the sound of trumpets. And I wait. And as I look up at the stars, I’m reminded that dawn is just a night away. Every night, just a night away.