The Views Beyond

My best days seem to be when a memory dislodges and ascends to the forefront of my mind, where it then fills and nourishes the present with all the joy and fulfillment of the past. I tarry in memory as a vagrant takes on towns.

It seems the present never supplies time enough for reflection, and while we're seeking to savour and enjoy it, we are hardly ever able. I think this is okay, for I love little more than this type of retreat. It seems that the glance within acts as autumn sun, which takes the verdant shoots of summer, and infuses them with a gilding that adorns the more permanent landscape of winter. Memory allows us to bedeck our lives with the presence and acknowledgement of God in them, which takes simple circumstance, weaves sovereignty and truth within them, and casts the temporal into the eternal. Our hearts yearn for this, and we were Created with this in mind.

An ache is present which I cannot identify, and while my pen has been absent from the page I've been trying to sort this all out. A few weeks back I was walking the trails, and the scent of pine was so very strong, that it knocked me clear out of my senses. I imagined unrolling the mantle of earth and crawling under that great blanket of sod -- just to be nearer. I wanted to scale mountains and sleep on top of them -- just to feel. I needed more closeness, more intimacy, and His Creation beckons with a most powerful magnetism that draws me closer still, and yet never close enough. He satisfies, always give more, and yet it's never enough. I want -- I need so much more of Him.

I read this morning in Romans 8. I was struck deeply that the Creation is groaning and longing to released to the glory of the Sons of God, and while my flowers smile and arch with joy toward their Maker, they too long to be released. With the continual dawning of more "natural disasters" and catastrophic events, I question little that Creation indeed is churning and moaning to be set free.

Further down in Romans 8 we read, "In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words." I say thank you, Lord, for I know not even what presses me down, and know that only You will raise me up.

My dad wrote an email yesterday on the day of his 32nd wedding anniversary. He spoke of those years ago, and how he could have never imagined what would have come out of their union. He spoke of time's fleeting, and how he could see that he'd aged, but he couldn't really recall when it'd happened, or even what he used to look like. It was so very beautiful to me, and taking it all to heart, I ask my heavenly Father what it is He'd have me to do while sojourning briefly on this earth. This theme leads me to Moses...

I visit psalm 90 often, and it's lessons always reach me in my throat. I am likened to the withering grass, a three hour watch in the night, and all my finished years are exhaled in a sigh... My life passes as dandelion seeds in the breeze, and if fortunate, some love may linger as perfume on one's sleeve. I am a vapor and I live as if an eternity. It is toilsome to consider, and yet the answer is simple: "Let Your work appear to Your servants and Your majesty to their children. Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us; and confirm for us the work of our hands; Yes confirm the work of our hands." (vs. 16, 17).

Very little matters but a clearer picture of this. The present, with all its claims and boastings, too will pass away -- and so very quickly! In every sphere we seem to live out of what we do, and accomplish, instead of who we are. We've abandoned the unseen, and set up camp by sight. I spend more time pining over what I don't know, instead of doing what I do. I forget that when I don't know the big picture, I am to simply do the next thing. Spring has never not followed winter, and as surely as unseen life pushes through frozen ground, so too will my life continue to sprout and grow in the care of a benevolent and loving Creator. So, like Moses, I ask the Lord to "teach us to number our days, that we may present to You a heart of wisdom." (Vs. 12).