Ponderings: Essentials and Eternity

    As I sit here in the woods on a sunny day in winter, I am caressing the moment of stopping life just to BE... To breathe in the moment... To dwell in the moment of unknown except the existence of NOW. It's an empowering moment of weakness and vulnerability. I am strong to admit I am weak, and I am weak to say I'm strong. In this moment, I know a fact I choose to ignore often: I have to toss off weight, all the unnecessary bondage that keeps me from being free... What would life look like for me if I stopped trying so hard? What would happen if I stopped thinking about all but the necessary? I have potential to ruin myself by trying to be so wise that I go above and beyond Being and pondering the essential. In my wisdom, I can become foolish. By becoming foolish, I can become wise... The concept sounds like an unfairly bizarre riddle but the Wisest One first said it by Paul's writing.
    In the moment I'm in, I can feel the ache in creation... The birds are singing and a distant train blows it's horn---all signs of life and normalcy, but somehow I can sense brokenness. Just to get to this special place tucked off in the brush on top a rock on the cliff in the park, I watched my back and my surroundings just to make sure there was no threatening character lurking around. It seems poetically backwards to have to trek through potential danger to get to a place to pray and think in peace. I am reminded that the world as we know it is dangerous and violent, and will continue to be so before our King returns to make all right. In the dead shadows, I feel like creation knows this... It's a haunting yet beautiful thing, like nature knows something better than do our human minds. We are easily distracted from essentials.
    The essentials are that Truth is coming again to bring us Home into Eternity, and whatever time here in this dangerous and broken world is important. We have purpose but we waste it on the things that will not be eternal. This time and world is now and temporarily ours to borrow. What are we doing with our borrowed time? Wasting it on the things that will not matter in the immortal life coming? When we are before the Creator of Time and His life and breath is everything, how will we feel about what we did in the previous age? Soon I will make the hike back down to my car to my city, where I will see the groan and the hope of my society. I pray I can keep my mind on the essentials. What am I doing? Will I practice what I preach? Will I strip myself of extra weight and keep my eyes on the horizon ahead? It's a race...
    Earthly things---this will pass away. Our King is coming to bring death to evil and awaken all things good. Push for that. The Wise One is coming to teach us Who He really is, and the ones that know Him will be amazed. We underestimate Him because our understanding is too wise by this world's standards. (For now we see in a mirror dimly, but soon we shall see face to face. -1 Corinthians 13:12) God is beyond logic since He is Himself is a miracle. We must have child-like hearts to understand just a part of Him, and even then we still don't understand. (Matthew 18:1-4) He is beyond spells, magic, and powers of man. He is the Master of Miracles and King of Power. He is the reason we are here... The Mysterious One full of love will soon be understood... Our minds will be made new to be wise by His standards. By this wisdom, we know that the wisest in this world are foolish. (For it is written, "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the cleverness of the clever I will set aside. Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?" -1 Corinthians 1:19-20)
    Compared to a Lord like this God, who are we to say that we have things figured out? We may be wise in this age and world---even wiser than ever before now that science is increasingly getting more elaborate---but we still have only brushed the surface of His wisdom. Who am I to be so arrogant at times to be comfortable in my own logic and wisdom? Before the Lord who created me, I am a mere speck, and yet I carry unnecessary weight in my own arrogance... However, I find this a comfort that I know little compared to Him: even the wisdom of now feels empty, because I know there is more. I will see the Wise One in a day coming, when He makes all things right. 
     I leave this quiet place now to return to my fast-paced world... knowing all is temporary and better things and new life is coming.

Hungry

It's a funny thing when we just can't get enough of what we want. For example, I've eaten my share today and now look at me, sitting here at my computer fighting the urge to go rip open some pure dark chocolate amazingness that's sitting in the next room... Under usual circumstances I'd go ahead and go for it, except I've already had too much chocolate today. Epic misery.

Moving on... The thing that gets really interesting is when the soul can't get enough to eat. That deep soul hunger, searching for more. More. More. Is it ever fully satisfied? As much as we search and take in, does that "I'm-still-not-full" feeling ever end? It won't, at least not in life as we know it here below.

I am so hungry for more of the essence of the Bread of Life and wisdom. I long to find those magical glasses to place over my eyes to see things more in the way He does. How much more colorful would life look then? How much more simple and complex? I long to see the pages of wisdom and understanding fully revealed. While I'm here, it's a process of growing and searching that leads to more... Which is frustrating at times when I know I can only see part of the galaxy when He holds the full macrocosm in His hands. When I think I'm getting closer to knowing more, I open my eyes and see how little I really know. Sometimes I am struck at how small I am, and it hits me on the head. Humility hits, then wonder. Awe.

I love the journey of searching and becoming. In the search to know more, there is peace that while I see in the mirror dimly, one day soon I shall see face to face. Now... I'm thinking I'm going to give in to that chocolate calling my name in the next room. Later.