John 14-16 is presently one of my favorite passages in the Bible. Jesus’ words. He speaks a great deal about three of my favorite topics: Holy Spirit, hope, and love.

Actually, now that I think of it, the Holy Spirit and hope are THE two topics that I am actually highlighting in my current Bible. And love is something I have been seriously focusing on for the last 5 months. No wonder I love this passage so much!

Throughout His dialogue, Jesus elaborates several times on the immanent sending of the Holy Spirit and how this person of the Trinity would serve and help us. (Ah! God’s humility!) I love it when one person of the Trinity talks about another person of the Trinity. They actually do it quite a bit. It’s beautiful! If anyone knows about God and has something to say about God… it’s God.

The hope topic isn’t necessarily evident in a quick scan of the passage. This is primarily because he uses the language of peace, joy, and believing.

And then we have love. Jesus keeps coming back to this theme. And He especially focuses on defining love as obedience.

This post was originally going to be about obedience. I was having one of those really good conversations with the Holy Spirit that felt like it needed to overflow into verbal expression. But then, as I sat down to write… I realized that I wanted to talk about a lot of things from this passage. And that I was so enamored with the other two subjects that I could not leave them alone in order to maintain some level of focus for this post.

So we have, instead, an introduction. I have decided, in my failed attempt to stay on the one topic, to start a tiny series of posts on John 14-16.

I’m not looking at the passage right now. In fact, I haven’t for a few days. So right now I am simply talking from what has stuck with me in the last few months as I have been looking at it and talking to the Lord about it.

From those recollections of the things that have most struck me, I would say that these three topics are essentially the three main themes of this passage. If I sat down and looked at it more analytically, I might change my stance a bit. But, my study of the Bible happens in the context of relationship and primarily exists as dialogue with God about God. (Let us all remember, prayer and love are literally my primary occupation. Sigh… I love life as an intercessory missionary. Apart from being at the core of my job description, though, these are truly what we are called to as Christians.)

So, as I talk about this passage, I will be emphasizing the things that have been the highlights of these “conversations” with God. So, whether hope, Holy Spirit, and love=obedience are the three main themes of this passage or not… I can almost guarantee that they will be the three main themes of this little series.

I’m not going to make any promises about how quickly these posts will be written. I am simply going to state my intent to write them and follow through with that at whatever pace my schedule allows.

I also cannot make any guarantees concerning the length of the series. I anticipate that there will probably be three posts, one for each topic. But… then again… I anticipated, upon sitting down to blog, that I was writing one post about obedience. And now… here I am, introducing a series. So who knows what this will look like when all is said and done.

In any case, I am excited about it. This is the stuff that is moving my heart. I love to talk about the things that move my heart. (Now that I have a heart that moves and all. Thank You, God, for reviving the heart that I spent so many years trying to numb and deaden!)

Yay fun!

So, I’m really in love with the Holy Spirit right now.

Fellowshipping with the Holy Spirit is one of the wisest things Mike has ever told me to do (from the platform). Fellowshipping with the Holy Spirit is one of the wisest things I have listened to Mike about and done. The Holy Spirit is so easy to talk to.

Most of my childhood, I struggled with anxieties related to abandonment and neglect. (…Despite that fact that I was the only child of two fantastic, godly people. They weren’t PERFECT, and the accuser is all about working fear in our hearts.) The Holy Spirit never leaves. He is ALWAYS with us. He will be forever. His presence is inescapable.

It is by the power of the Holy Spirit that we abound in hope. As many of you have surely realized by now, hope has become one of my big things… the things that I think about and talk about and pray about all the time. The Holy Spirit is the one who gives me joy and peace. He is the one who teaches me and reminds me of the promises of God and causes my heart to come alive in waiting for those things.

John 14-17 is my current obsession in the Bible. Jesus talks about the Holy Spirit quite a bit in those little chapters. And it’s beautiful. I love it when one of the persons of the Trinity speaks about another person of the Trinity. Few things are as beautiful as one person’s description of another that they love and know perfectly.

The Holy Spirit serves me all the time. What humility! God lives in me. God serves me. (How much do we ask for the ministry of the Holy Spirit.)

The Holy Spirit is my Comforter. When you stop numbing pain and running from it, a Comforter is a pretty handy thing to have.

He is the Spirit of Truth. I am becoming a lover of truth. He is making me a lover of truth.

He is the Spirit of Life. He has awakened my dull, deadened heart and made me alive. He has made me love life. He is renewing me. He is renewing the earth. He is preparing a bride for the worthy Bridegroom.

He leads me into all truth. I want to pursue the knowledge of God and all that He would reveal to me with all that I am.

He gives me strength and grace to overcome. He empowers me to love.

He reveals Jesus. Jesus reveals the Father. I know God by talking to God. And He delights in giving revelation as I hunger and search.

He makes me love Jesus. He makes me love the Father.

He leads me perfectly.

I LOVE the Holy Spirit. He is my friend. He is  my companion. He is God… WITH me.

Holy Spirit = WOW. (Like, hours and hours and hours of WOW… in tears and joy and wonder and love and all of the richest of emotions.)

Bob Sorge spoke on Friday night. Incredible message. Wendy and I watched the archive of it on Saturday night (her sabbath; I love what that girl does with her free time).

I cried. A lot.

Bob talked about the letter to the church in Laodicea (Revelation 3). “As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten.” He also, as one might expect, talked a bit about Hebrews 12.

In short, I’m feeling loved. Very loved.

I really appreciate it when Bob speaks. It’s a rare event. Due to a vocal injury several (16-ish?) years ago, it is very painful for Bob to speak publicly. Very painful, and little more than the loudest whisper he can muster up. But I find that I am tremendously blessed by it every time he does speak.

It’s amazing what God will do with a heart that says yes to him in the midst of pain and hardship.

If you can, watch the archives of the message. I think we keep all the services archived for at least a week. If nothing else, check out one of Bob’s books. Good stuff. Really good stuff.

What I am about to write is actually what motivated me to finally sit down and write my last, introductory post.

As I have been setting myself to behold God’s love and pursue the way of love in my own life, I was recently carried further in the journey by unexpected means. I had a unique opportunity to witness someone else choosing love in a profound way. In fact, I’m not sure that I’ve ever witnessed that kind of love in this measure.

In seeing such incredible beauty, I naturally desire to declare the identity and the specific choices and actions of this one who so remarkably chose the most excellent way, that you might behold this beauty with me. But for more than one reason, I cannot do that.

Love does not parade itself… and I have not been given authority to expose it, either. There is also a facet of this love that finds beauty in it’s hiddenness and secrecy… the silent suffering and sacrifice that demands no acknowledgment or recognition.

Thus, I am going to be a little vague. (Nothing new to this blog.) And I am going to refer to this person using “he/him/his”, as I have done with past posts about anonymous individuals.

“He” might be a woman. And I’m really not worried about you guessing. The small handful of people who will know who I am talking about will find it blaringly obvious. I’m pretty sure the rest of you don’t even have a chance. If I were you, I wouldn’t waste my energy trying to guess who I am talking about and how I know about the choices they made.

And so it begins…Love is patient, long-suffering. And this one that I am describing truly suffered long. The pain was real and he did not waver. He stood, steady, in the midst of prolonged pain. Rather than numb his heart to the pain (choosing resignation and the kind of death that runs contrary to the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Life), he leaned into the Comforter. He kept his heart open and alive and let his pain be an escort into fellowship with God.

Obviously, I cannot see fully into this individual’s experience. I am not him, nor am I God. I do not know the full depth of the wound that was inflicted, and I do not know the full extent of the struggle that he faced. But I know that he suffered.

I also have not seen the full extent of the battle. I do not know how much he stumbled or how difficult it was to choose love at various points along the way. I know that it was not walked out perfectly. I know that it was not easy. I know that he surely failed along the way and had moments of weakness. But the Lord’s declaration over this individual is that he has loved well.

Loving when someone has wounded you is not easy. Loving when love is not reciprocated is painful. It wounds further. It hurts deeply. Loving when the one you are obediently choosing to love does not (and probably will not ever) recognize the pain you are feeling, the sacrifice you are making, and the death you are facing can be excruciating.

And he said yes to it. He endured the pain. He leaned into the Lord. And God matured love in him and gave him incredible strength that can be derived from no other source.

In the midst of injustice, rejection, wounding, and deep pain, he chose love. He showed kindness where he had not received kindness. He was extravagant in his kindness toward one who was completely undeserving.

This was a choice before the Lord that went mostly unseen. It was not publicly rewarded. It was not recognized. In part, it was not even received. Love was quiet… secret… a hidden choice that was not proud or boastful.

He did not push for his own rights or his own interest. He instead preferred this unworthy other where opportunity arose. He chose what would most help the unworthy one. Even when it was painful. Even when it was costly. He did not push for what was best for him. He did not dishonor, even when there was nothing deserving of honor.

Where there was occasion for envy, he chose instead to bless. He truly did not delight in evil but rejoiced with the truth. He chose wisdom and imitation of Christ. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. And he did. (Another translation says, “always protects”… also true.) He truly persevered!

I hardly know how to describe the impact that simply witnessing this love had upon me.

On one level, it was REALLY provoking and encouraging. He is just as weak as I am. He is just as human as I am. But he said yes to love and found the grace to persevere. God gave him all the strength he needed to love well.

But the impact went even beyond that. I was thinking about how undeserved it was. I was thinking about what a painful choice it was. I was thinking about how difficult it can be to love and how easily we can choose a lesser path. And I began to recognize it as one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen.

Beauty began to move me deeply. I was struck with revelation. This love is merely an imperfect picture. It falls so short of the love of God. It was just a small expression of what is perfect and pure in God’s love.

And suddenly my heart was getting turned completely inside-out. I was receiving God’s love in a way I never had before. It was impacting me profoundly, touching things in my heart that had never really been opened up to be touched before.

I was having a pretty bad week (have I mentioned lately that the Lord is really requiring love of me?), but I was carried to this place of receiving God’s strengthening, transforming love in a way that truly sustains and truly satisfies. (It didn’t stop my bad week, but it kept the pain from killing me.)

And all because a simple, weak man chose love. All because someone said yes to the invitation of the Lord and pursued the most excellent way. And God let me see it.

I have been spending A LOT of time in 1 Corinthians 13 and 14 lately. It’s kind of creating a new vision statement for my life. In fact, the intensity with which the Lord has been directing me in the ever-famous love passage is what led to my little description in the new box under my profile picture on facebook:

I am choosing the most excellent way. It’s going to kill me, but it has to. I will pursue perfection until faith, hope, and love are the truest things that can be said of me. I WILL love, at the end of the day. God lives in me. It’s not in vain.

Ultimately, it is a journey into discovering God’s heart in ways that far surpass anything I have ever seen or understood before. But this journey, setting myself to gaze on the beauty of His love, is also the means of my transformation. It’s a life-long pursuit, not just a fun new study focus when I open my Bible. And it is a daily discovering of my need for God, my need for the power of the Holy Spirit in my daily life. I really do want faith, hope, and love to be that which is truest of me, and I’m not going to get there without Him.

Recently, the Lord began asking me to choose love in a couple of situations where my original action-plan was… well, not love. It wasn’t the first time he gave me a special invitation to actually obey the command to love. So I knew how painful it was going to be. But there was such grace on it, so I said yes. (Not to mention, obedience and responding to God’s invitations are generally… wisdom.)

I began to spend long periods of time in 1 Corinthians 13, just crying and growing in wonder… and conviction. Honestly, I was getting more sting from 1 Corinthians 13 than mushy-gushy happy feelings. WAY more sting. But it was good. And I was beginning to make more and more of those little choices in the direction of love.

Honestly, most of my time in the Word, since moving to IHOP, has revolved around the revelation God gave of himself in Exodus 34:6 – the Lord God gracious, compassionate, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. (I just kind of smooshed together a few translations there… I’ve been singing it for enough years now that I figure I am allowed to just pseudo-quote.) God’s patience, compassion, steadfast love, and faithfulness are the constant testimony of the whole of Scripture. You cannot escape these themes. This is who God is and how He relates to us.

So… fixing my gaze on God’s love was nothing new. I am simply continuing in that same pursuit. We’ve just reached the point where it is starting to get REALLY personal and REALLY painful.

I’m not gonna lie… the process of my transformation sure doesn’t feel like it’s “from glory to glory” (2 Corinthians 3). I tend to associate really positive (and shiny) things with the word glory. Not death. Not failure. And not weakness. Oh how much I have to learn!

So, as I’m stumbling along in this wholesale attempt to follow the most excellent way, you are probably going to see a lot of love-talk on here. And you can probably expect that it is going to posses virtually nothing of a gooey nature. As Wendy keeps reminding me, love is death.

This was the title of Lou Engle’s message at our FCF services this Sunday.

This is probably the most offensive message I have ever heard Lou give. However, it also ranks above the others as the message he has given that I have most whole-heartedly agreed with.

I don’t even know how to describe the evening to you.

I talk to the Holy Spirit every day. In fact, it’s one of my favorite things to do, communing with God. I love my Comforter and Teacher. The Spirit of Life; the Spirit of Truth. The indwelling Spirit… the inescapable presence of God. The one who strengthens me with might in the inner man and causes me to abound in hope. The one who takes the things belonging to Jesus and gives them to me, instructing me in all wisdom and understanding. The more I become aware of this very real presence of God, the more I will walk in boldness and strength… the more I will be empowered to love as I want to love… the more I will walk in my true identity and respond to the heavenly calling… the more I will be able to lay down my life for the sake of love, even to the point of death.

As intimate as my relationship with the Holy Spirit is becoming (let’s be real though, I’m only touching the edges of what is available to me), I am sometimes shocked and surprised by the way that the Holy Spirit will manifest His presence.

I say all of that in order to explain this. Last night, I was feeling the Holy Spirit resting on me in a way that was so indescribably tangible and weighty. It was a notably intense manifestation of His presence that is relatively rare for me. One of those moments where your companion and friend becomes terrifyingly greater-than.

This started long before Lou got up to speak. I was so overwhelmed by the weight of His presence that I cried through our baby dedications… I cried through the prayer for our Samuel Company graduates (the kids)… and it just didn’t stop. By the time Lou got up to speak, my spirit was quite attentive and ready to receive.

I do not know how to describe the way that Lou’s words bore witness and resonated within me.

His message was necessarily controversial. It was honestly far from diplomatic. And it was the Word of the Lord for my life (and I believe the whole of the church) right now.

I don’t have time, at this moment, to write about the content of Lou’s message. But I will. I have to. This is just something of a heads-up about what is coming (on my blog) and the weightiness I am feeling.

Last night marked a changing of season in my life. The crossing of threshold that cannot be crossed back over. Though I’ve properly eaten and such, I’ve been shaking all day. My oh-so-practical roommate (we aptly call her Clarity) just told me, “Maybe it’s because your spirit is restless.” Restless and agitated in a good sense, that is. Well, sort of. I mean, it’s good that I am agitated, at least.

I look forward to sharing with you about the things the Lord is mandating in my life… my message and my passion. OK, so really… I’m terrified.

But it’s coming.

As I mentioned in my last post, I am meeting this Silent Siege with excitement AND a little trepidation. (And it’s funny how similar excitement and trepidation can be.)

On one hand, I am in the middle of reading this REALLY obnoxious book called “Invitation to Silence and Solitude”. The book is actually quite phenomenal, it just stings a lot. As I am reading the book and seeking to develop these disciplines, I take the corporate invitation to silence as a welcome gift.

On the other hand, I am presently wrestling through some very intense things. Being alone in the silence with nothing but God, the accusations that are arising against Him, my own tossed-about emotions, and the deep wells of pain that I am stumbling upon is actually quite terrifying.

Something in me longs for distraction, anything that I might hide behind. Idle chatter… anything. Yet I know that I need to just press into this and fight it out until I come out fully surrendered and leaning on God. God seems pretty determined to work these things out in me… and I’m feeling rather hedged in at the moment. This Silent Siege being a pretty significant part of that hedging.

On top of that… we have the season of heightened grieving that I have recently found myself in. And, as it so happens, my mom died during the 90 Days of Consecration that I mentioned in my last post. I actually missed the first days of the consecration because I was home visiting my family. It was the last time that I saw my mom.

So… here I am… in a room full of people… in silence… in solitude… alone in my grief. Unsure about the things that are of utmost importance, unsure about God. Encountering pain that I cannot put into words. Crying a lot… in the silence… by myself.

I can’t stop talking to the Holy Spirit. I am so desperate for His counsel… His comfort… His instruction… His tangible nearness. I need to know what He knows… I need the knowledge of God, the fear of the Lord. I need Him to teach me what only He can teach me… I need him to communicate the love of God to me in a way that I can believe it, despite all of my doubt and confusion right now… despite the accusation that the world heaps against God. I need to know that He loves me like a mother. I need to know that I am not forsaken. I need to know that He hates death and hates wickedness. I need to know that Jesus REALLY is coming back and He REALLY is going to bring justice on the earth. I need to know that it’s true.

I have all of the ideas in my head. My experience of God cannot disprove those facts. But the accusation still persists.

I’ve believed before. You might even say that I believe it right now. But I certainly didn’t believe it (not really) several hours ago.

On top of that… we received some really terrible news tonight. More death… more loss. And there the news follows us… into the silence. Here I am… speachless and silent on the outside… but full of tumult, a violently raging storm on the inside. As if I wasn’t already struggling to believe truth about God.

I didn’t sing much tonight. All of the words felt like a lie. So I really did sit there in silence. Save for the time I spent weeping.

All of the things I have been proclaiming and declaring as my hope for the last year… my testimony of the Lord, it’s like it has been turned into a weapon against me. Few phrases have moved my heart like “Your name is Faithful and True” in the last 18 months. But tonight, those words drove me from the room… angry and confused… and desperate to believe the truth. I reached the outside of the little Justice prayer room and immediately was overcome by my emotions. I sat alone, in the cold… gasping for air as I sobbed.

Most of my dialogue with the Lord in these last few days is too personal to take outside of that relationship. God has heard and I have heard. And the conversation isn’t leaving that place. At least right now, it isn’t. But His leadership is perfect and He is violently uprooting areas of offense in my heart. It feels like a contradiction to say that I trust Him as He does it. Since this whole question of trusting Him is really the issue right now anyway.

I know the truth. At least right now I do. But I know that I’m not done wrestling. I don’t fully believe it yet. There are still more questions that I need to keep asking. There is still more honesty to be reached in that place that is only shared by God and myself.

Silence is terrifying. There wait all of the lies. There wait all of my emotions. There wait my fears. There waits the truth. There waits God.

But I have nowhere else to be. So, for the next 2 months, here I go… into the silence.

Shortly after my mom died, I remember several people telling me (if I was even remotely OK at the time they saw me) that I was in shock and it was all going to hit me later.

In case there is any question in this matter, this certainly did nothing to encourage me. It did nothing to help me in the grieving process. It just made me really mad. …REALLY mad.

I was feeling A LOT of pain. I was encountering a deeper loss than I had ever known, and I was exercising that newly-learned skill of NOT shutting down emotionally. I was frustrated by the fact that me being able to rest in the Lord’s goodness and faithfulness (and stop crying for just a few minutes together) necessarily meant that I had a whole heap of deeper pain and sorrow lurking around the corner somewhere.

So, I was annoyed and did my best to ignore them, continuing to keep my heart open and meet the Lord in the midst of the most painful loss I had ever experienced.

And then the last week started up… and I realized that I was entering into another intense season of grieving my mother’s death.

It’s difficult to explain. In fact, I don’t even know how to begin to try. But I know that I am encountering deep wells of pain. I know that I am asking the hard questions (Why didn’t You heal my mom?) and crying a lot.

Right after my mom died, God’s goodness was so inescapable. He was good… He was faithful… I could trust Him. And I knew it beyond a shadow of doubt. I opened my heart up to feel and experienced some of the most horrifying, awful feelings I had ever encountered. But God was so close, so present through all of it.

What I knew about God at that time was certain. I could not question it… I KNEW it. Sometimes, the only thing I could pray (as it felt like everything around me was being completely shattered) was “I trust you.” I would just sit there, between floods of tears, and whisper, “I trust you. Help me.”

But I am presently encountering a doubt and uncertainty within my heart that I cannot ignore. The other night, I was pleading with God, “I need to know why I trusted You. I need to remember why I thought You were good. I need to remember why I thought you were faithful.” Because those realities felt so far from me.

I can’t imagine many things more frightening than realizing that I don’t trust God. I mean… really… if I don’t believe His promises and I don’t believe that He is on my side… that He is the Lord God gracious, compassionate, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness… then I am completely without hope. If those things are not true of Him, then surely he is going to play sick and torturous games with me, for some twisted sense of amusement, and then crush me like an insect. If I can’t trust God, then I have no hope. Then things will never be better than they are.

During our 2 AM set on Friday, I was experiencing a moment of profound honesty… in my own heart and before the Lord. The team was singing, “I trust You. I cast my cares on You. You have not withheld any good thing from me. Why should I be anxious for anything? I trust you.” But this was not the declaration of my own heart. I sat there, screaming internally, “I don’t trust You! You have withheld good things! Of course I’m anxious!”

Fortunately, God is confident enough in who He is that the acknowledgment of those realities couldn’t shake Him or drive Him away from me.

At church Sunday morning, I completely lost it. I was lightly crying or on the verge of tears through much of the service. But it was after the prayer at the end that the dam broke. “God… who loves you like a mother.” Ouch. I don’t really believe that right now, do I? (Oh… and our closing song was Joyful, Joyful. Certainly not the emotion of the moment, for me. But, more than that, there were all of these piercing lines in the song that were hitting on areas of accusation and unbelief within my heart.

I know His leadership is perfect. Ultimately, I think I still trust Him. I’ve had brief respites where I am declaring that trust with confidence before God, where I am singing with all of my heart that I trust Him, His leadership. But then the uncertainty and the questions arise.

I have a fair degree of confidence concerning how this whole thing is going to end. But I know that I am really wrestling with truth right now. I am really fighting to believe those things that are most central to my being. I am struggling for the faith that carries my hope. I am encountering the questions that arise out of situations like this. We are working this thing out… until the truth is residing deep within my soul… where I am living and breathing out of that place of trusting God and knowing who He is. When I rest again in Him.

Is this what they’re talking about when they call something a crisis of faith?

In the last 24 hours or so, I have been told by several people that I am glowing. I haven’t actually SEEN that many people, so the frequency of the remarks kind of got my attention.

I think that people are mostly assuming that this has something to do with the fact that I am in a relationship. And it’s true… this certainly is a factor.

Richard and I are dating. He is a good man and I am quite fond of him. Obviously, I’m happy. If OTHER people are as excited as they are (the reactions have been amazing), it is surely no wonder that I am also pretty excited. (It’s a good thing. And I am, after all, the one in the relationship.)

However, I feel that I should note that this is not the only reason that I might be “glowing”.

1. God is amazing.

Even the fact that Richard and I are dating again shows the goodness of the Lord to me. The last two years haven’t exactly been easy or a picture of relational wholeness and perfection. Not in the least. So… the fact that our friendship has seen considerable restoration and we have the courage to try, despite the fact that we are understandably scared, definitely speaks to the amazing power that God works in our lives.

Beyond that, though, I just spent a week inviting the Lord into some really deep, untouched places in my heart… letting Him meet me in my pain and letting Him love and heal, as He does so well. I had several days of the Holy Spirit (in partnership with some amazing men and women) ministering to me in profound ways. Freedom makes a person glow. Restoration makes a person glow.

The more I think upon the Lord, the more I see His goodness. There more I talk to the Lord, the more I fall in love with Him. The more I abide and rest in the Lord, the more my heart is won over by His incredible beauty. Basking in the light of His countenance… that will make a person glow.

2. I spent a lot of time in the sun this week.

Sunlight is really good for us. When you are on the night watch, you don’t get a lot of it. Let me just direct your eyes to the top of the screen… “Missing the Sun… extremely pale.” I am generally a profoundly pale person.

Well, this week, I also spent a considerable amount of time in the sun. After breakfast, I would sit outside in the morning sunlight. During every short break that I was given, I would sit out in the sun. In fact… people started calling it my wall, that little perch where I could so regularly be found.

So, I’m not as pasty white as I usually am. People often tend to think that I am glowing when I am not so deathly pale. It makes sense.

So… there you have it. Am I glowing? Perhaps. Are there good reasons for that? Definitely.

I don’t really have time to write much about Good Friday, but it seemed like I should at least get something in before Easter (although it is technically Sunday already).

The service on Friday was amazing.

I knew they would be wearing all black. I didn’t expect it to impact me at all. It’s just a different color. I was wrong.

They looked so plain and bare and mournful. Just like the stripped altar at the front of the room. Plain… bare… empty… lacking. I guess I never consciously thought about it, but they usually come out in white or beautiful, bright colors. I had never seen these people stand at the front of the room with no ornamentation… in simple, dull black. There was such an evident absence… such a clear lack.

I knew that they would prostrate themselves once they reached the front of the room. I honestly expected it to feel a little cheesy. I expected to be somewhat amused, whilst yelling at myself internally for being so irreverent. I was wrong.

The moment was so somber. There was no processional music, as in a normal service. They simply entered in silence as we knelt between the pews. When they fell on their faces at the front of the room, my heart turned over within me. As they lingered there in that posture, the sobriety deepened.

The whole service was amazing. Tears kept welling up in my eyes and escaping in little streams down my face. My heart was so violently active. It was so sensitive to the constant stimuli that would not leave it in peace. The songs that we sang. The passion reading. The scripture readings. (The book of Hebrews is always sure to do something to my heart.) The entrance of the cross into the room.

I had spent much of the previous night in Psalm 22. As the congregation read through the first half of Psalm 22, my heart could hardly be contained within my chest. The depth of the impact of these words was immeasurable.

Most of the rest of my time through the Maundy Thursday vigil the night before had been spent in Exodus. The Lord had moved my heart with His patience and compassion on the people of Israel. How faithful He was to them… how undeservedly kind He was to them. And then all of those things from Exodus came and struck a blow at me that I had never anticipated…

Oh my people, what have I done unto thee? Or wherein have I wearied thee? Testify against me.

Because I brought thee forth from the land of Egypt: Thou hast prepared a Cross for thy Savior. …

Because I led thee through the desert for forty years, and fed thee with manna, and brought thee into a land exceedingly good: Thou hast prepared a Cross for thy Savior. …

I indeed did plant thee, O my vineyard, with exceeding fair fruit: And thou art become very bitter unto me. …

I did scourge Egypt with her first born for thy sake: And thou hast scourged me and delivered me up. I led thee forth out of Egypt, drowning Pharaoh in the Red Sea: And thou hast delivered me up unto the chief priests. …

I did open the sea before thee: And thou has opened my side with a spear. I did go before thee in a pillar of cloud: And thou hast led me unto the judgment hall of Pilate. …

I did feed thee with manna in the desert: And thou hast stricken me with blows and scourges. I did give thee to drink the water of life from the rock: And thou hast given me to drink but gall and vinegar. …

I did give thee a royal scepter: And thou hast given unto my head a crown of thorns. I did raise thee on high with great power: And thou hast hanged me upon the gibbet of the Cross.

Oh my people, what have I done unto thee? Or wherein have I wearied thee? Testify against me.

(Snippets taken from the Good Friday Liturgy.)

And he chose it. He went willingly. The Son offered Himself up. The Father betrayed the Son unto death. For us and for our salvation. This exceedingly merciful, kind, patient, and compassionate God. This one who had shown nothing but goodness to us came and, willfully, was met with reproach. ABOUNDING IN STEADFAST LOVE!!! He was betrayed by us and suffered for us. He saw fit to come and have compassion on us. He saw fit to come and deliver us from bondage. He died, at our hands, that He might overcome death. For us and for our salvation.

What kind of God is this? What kind of King is this?

Even communion was altered according to the attitude of the evening. The cushions on which we usually knelt were gone. Just a cold, hard ledge and a wooden rail. It was as uncomfortable as the words we spoke and sang all evening.

We ended by reading a prayer aloud and then left in silence.

The silence created a space where this phrase from the prayer just hung in my mind: “And [give] to us sinners everlasting life and glory…”

What kind of God is this?

With all that is within me, I do love and adore Him.