Trudging through mystery

I've given myself to the place of prayer.

I've haven't just promised myself that I'd pray more. It's not a resolution that I made to live more piously. I feel like it's where the rubber has met the road. Me being a Christian means that I believe that Jesus is who He says He is. Jesus made very clear that He was not just a prophet, or a teacher, or even a nice fella' who healed people. Jesus being the very nature of G-d, second person of the Trinity, 100% G-d/100% man, is a huge fact and claim. If you agree with that it opens up a huge dimension of reality that wasn't there before. If He truely is G-d then the things that we call life in a humanistic society are actually props in a little tip-toe through a theatrical production where the actors are not conscious of the director, the script-writer, the stage or even the audience. (I say that not for it to be a metaphorical reflection of existence, but rather a dim trope of our depravity) When I was younger I thought Christianity was a nice little bow wrapped message of: say a prayer and go to Heaven. But as I've grown I seen it to be a fierce tide.

A few years ago I spent a month on the Oahu island in Hawaii helping a church with worship and developing a beginning guitar course for worship leaders. One day my host family took me to the North Shore. It was winter and the tide at the North Shore was breath taking. The waves were crashing at 60-90 feet high. The life guards were telling people to not even go close to the shore because the strength of the bone crushing tide could easily pull you in. Well, I've found that this Christianity thing is like that tide. G-d, existent from eternity past, created the universe, the world, everything, the breath we breathe and even our very make up. That's huge. What's more huge is that He created us to have a relationship with Him. This relationship with twists and turns of original sin, depravity, joy, repentance, is a thirst both quenched and made undying all at once. Because He made us for relationship, you get to know Him more the more you hang out with Him. That's what brings me to my current state. I've found that He's not interested in my sin, or what I can "do" for Him. He just wants my heart, much like I want my wife's heart. And the way my wife wants my heart is the way I want Jesus (Yeshua). As I toss and turn in the current of Yeshua's love, I come to find that I am filthy. The more time I spend in His presence, the more I realize how Holy He is and how dirty I am. Caked with mud, the more I spend intimate time with Him the more I feel Him scoop the mud of a consumeristic, humanistic, post-christian, post-modern, godless, relativistic society off of me. I've devoted myself to the 24-7 prayer movement. I spend 45+ hours a week in a prayer room where the staff cry out for justice and for G-d to move in our country, generation and world. I've done this for a year and a half now, and you'd think that it'd get easier to sit still and talk to G-d. But G-d is always tearing back layers of filth; revealing places in my heart that are layered with soil of greed, selfishness, and bitterness. And the more I cry out for Him to make me pure the more He draws me into the mystery of who He is. As the current pushes me deeper and deeper I've come to realize that it is better to be totally taken over by Him than for me to merely dangle my foot out of the boat.

What's the deal with the perpetual cleaning?

Yeshua is coming back. He's coming back for a pure Bride. Who is His bride? All those people who have gotten lost in the current. All those pushed to the depth of the mysterious ocean of Him. So until then I'll keep crying out. I'll keep doing violence to my will. I'll lay myself on the operating table to have His surgeon's blade do its perfect operating.

If you want the ride of your life...jump in to this tide. Lose yourself in Him.