The greatest darkness is not disappointment. The greatest challenge is not adversity. The greatest test in life is living itself for in each breath we take, life asks of us the honest question, "Can you live in this breath you have been given?" Life is demanding. Life demands living yet so many never do truly live. They patter around on the edges of life yet never find its center. It has been said that “the unexamined life is not worth living.” True but equally true is that such a life is a shallow and miserable existence.
Living in the honest, "What am I?"
Living begins in the opening of the eyes. To look deep into the inky blackness of ones heart, or to stand before your biology, the oddly/uniquely(choose your perspective)shapen aspects of the clay and say “I AM what I AM” by the grace of the one true, "I AM" who is my thou to my I. All talents are seen as gifts all limps are "birth"-day gifting too, our shape is for our training, for this present purpose, in a plan for another glory than my own. All to real are the realities we live before God. This is a painful honesty that cuts us free from self-deception. Crippling is its burden, crushing is its judgments, freeing is hearing the voice of one lisping in soft tones, “But, I AM that I AM” This is authentic humanity leaning into the wind, the honesty of man at its painful best. To face a heart leathered by time and regret, and say”Yes” to life in spite of life is the beginning of an eternal kind of living. It is the accepting that one is accepted, and the loving that one is loved! It is Grace! The Courage to be as you are, in the grace of who you are in him. The path to faith begins at the gate marked thankful and inscribed on it are these words. "by the grace of God I am what I am!" This is the way walk in it.
Living by courage
Living continues in the courage to face life head on. To face all fears that chain us down, all shattered dreams that cut at our hope, to face all moments when promises wear the cloaks of paupers and say, “He is still Good!” is a courage few enter into. It is a courage that rises from without and not contoured from within. It is the courage to live in our dying days, to believe even in unbelief. Life demands courage, honesty, and hope, and great is the weak that find we haven’t the tools to produce them. Greater still are the weak that find all we need to do is inhale grace and we breathe out of abundance. Even when life pins us breathless we can know our tears testify that there is one “breathing” for us. Even in our unbelief he is still breathing, sustaining, keeping our faith for us. Such knowledge is a deep solace for all that believe in the darkness. On the calm waters of reflection we can hear the faint prayers of such hearts saying, “Father, into your hands I commit my Spirit.” “Jesus, I believe, help my unbelief!” “Spirit, I believe not, believe in me!”
I often hear them on lazy Sunday afternoons. In the movements when I meet myself in passing and the stillness of heaven touching earth surrounds me. I hear the mown of hearts in process, the prayers of broken men and women. To me, it is the sound of courage. A cry stating, he is even in the darkness. A lover’s mown so honest and authentic it signals to all that truly He blesses those that seek him. A mown so real it touches the cusp of reality itself, energizing all things in a deep mystery, infusing all that is with the honest pleasure of His Presence. It is the sound of nails digging into the cross. It is the sound of hearts trusting in His goodness. It is the grown of rest in a God bigger than our unbelief. It is the sound of worship.
It is the song of the redeemed.
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