Show me.

There is this temptation to be so overwhelmingly busy with good things (and not so good things) that we never slow down long enough to contemplate, to wonder, to muse.  So many days my head hits the pillow in a heap of wondering what the past 16 hours have all been about all to start it all over again as soon as the sun comes up.  I’ve heard all the lines, I’ve spit them right back.  All the chit-chat about seasons and such, chock full of cliches and a scripture thrown in here and there.  Yet I find myself longing for more.

The other night my husband was gone and I lay still and quiet.  I reached for the ancient words so much more than cliches and pat answers.  I read them out into the air above me.  Hoping they would make their way into my heart.

“Spirit in you.”

“Flesh vs Spirit.”

“In you.”

“The Spirit who dwells in you.”

What?

            Really?

                        How?

                                 Show me.

Where are these children of light?  Moved by Spirit, not by culture, empty words, or ways of life modeled from good-intentioned (and not so good-intentioned) leaders.  Where is the wind of God blowing and setting captives free?  

Is life more than full calendars, constant activity, incessant chatter and a greedy gathering of possessions?  

Show me.

I am struck by a conversation had at our kitchen table not long ago.

“I just haven’t seen the more of the Christian life lived out.  I don’t see what I want.”

I sat quiet.  My mind spinning.  How do I encourage this young girl when I feel the same way, yet maturity and time whisper “oh come on Maggie, every one is doing the best they can.”

Really?

This young woman is in Zimbabwe right now.  She spent her Christmas feeding orphans.  Her New Years on her face in prayer.  She’s seen miracles.  Her hands are dirty and so are her feet.

Yet I live like a King.

I have a list of people, who live like Kings as well, to whom I could go, to be comforted that my way of life is okay.

I could cry out that something is wrong!  And a committee of people would quickly quiet me and tell me no, no, it’s okay.  You’re okay.  We’re all okay.

And then I’ll just get busy.  Carting my kids from one activity to the next.  Planning “fun” events and distractions and working hard to avoid suffering or pain.  When crisis falls, no time for that!  Get back in the saddle…go, go, go.

All the while the self I was made to be, grows frail and thin, like muscles not exercised in many years.  The flame dies down to embers longing for a wind of change.  The flesh’s voice sounds more like a friend than an enemy, beckoning me to opt for comfort at all costs.  The sense of Spirit seems strange and scary and totally a figment of my imagination.

Unless, 

Unless, I calm down.

Get quiet.

Engage my mind and connect it to my heart.

The breeze blows.

“It’s true,” it whispers.

“It’s true, and hard, and you have to fight. Everything is NOT okay.  You’re right.  There are no rose colored glasses to put on.  But there is hope and there is still time.  Time to get your hands and feet down in the mess.  Time to live.  Here and now. One day at a time.  Call the flesh, the natural instincts, what they are. Take the risk of the narrow road,  the way of the Spirit.”

Be what you wish to see…