I am a singer, songwriter, wife, mother, Jesus follower. I send out a 2-minute read every Tuesday about Jesus and life in God.
Dreamer
|
Hi Friends, Last week we talked about my kids and their insatiable search for adventure. With childlike eyes, they found it everywhere. Time has a way of growing us up and growing us out of our eager expectation for adventure. Memories of childhood take on a magical aura as we step into the cold, hard reality of adulthood. I mean, filing your taxes will do that to you. But it’s more than just the process of growing up. We tend to begin believing wrong things about God, and in turn we believe wrong things about ourselves. We find ourselves like the one-talent servant from Matthew 25, burying our dreams, aspirations and gifts. Fear dictates that we take no risks, and we are deceived into thinking of God as a hard taskmaster. That sense of adventure? Gone. Better to play it safe. Take what He put in us and bury it until we can one day hand it back unscathed. But our God has a heart that is anything but hard and unfeeling. The Son who risked it all, heart wide open and on the line, is not leading us into a life self-preservation or feeling stuck. He is not looking for an army of dream-hiders who will dust off what He’s given and hand it back at His appearing. There are no automatons in His kingdom. No seat warmers. Our Shepherd is a dreamer. Yes, our God is a God of excesses. He filled the heavens and the earth with color and brilliancy where black and white would have sufficed. Sunsets and tides and forests expose His unnecessary extravagance. He created innumerable galaxies, the existence of which we’re only just becoming aware of. We’ll never see them all. He made them anyway. He’s certainly not a God who confines His creation within the bounds of utility or uniformity. There are no cogs in the wheels of His Kingdom. He’s far too adventurous for that. Perhaps it’s time to lift our eyes to the mountains and see Him, wild-eyed, joy unrestrained as He calls us to come. Come! Leap upon the mountains (SOS 2). Come alive! It’s unsettling at first. Do we follow? Dare we? Is it safe? We confront our discomfort even as we begin to dig, our fingers in the messy soil, unearthing what we’ve buried long ago. Sometimes the first step is just remembering what’s hidden there. Aspirations. A unique piece of ourselves. An idea. A hope for the future. We tuck that abandoned, dirt covered dream under our arm and head for the mountains. We follow His voice; we head to Him. Our Shepherd is a dreamer. –Anna |
Anna Blanc
I am a singer, songwriter, wife, mother, Jesus follower. I send out a 2-minute read every Tuesday about Jesus and life in God.
Dear Friends, You know that thing you carry in your heart, tucked just below the surface? Where you go about your normal day—making coffee, driving to work, cleaning up the messes of your kids—but you know if someone asks you just the right question at just the right time you might crack open and this thing would spill straight out? That thing. Maybe it’s a prayer for the healing of a family member, or for a strained relationship. Maybe it’s prayer for your marriage or a wayward child. I call...
Hi Friends, Here in the midwest we are experiencing a time of scorching heat. If ever there were a time to hunker down indoors, blasting the AC, it’s now. But even still, I can’t seem to stop myself each evening from sitting out on the deck and watching the sky. In bold below are some lyrics based on Psalm 19 I keep singing. Below that are a few thoughts. Heart withinTake it inSoak it up, you’re lovedHe fills all heaven and earth with beauty just because Think about it. The beauty of creation...
Hi Friends, The first two words of the Lord’s Prayer are meant to be the ones that make the space for all the others. In fact, every word we ever utter to God flow through the doorway of these first two words: Our Father… It’s the air we’re meant to breathe before our feet hit the floor in the morning. It’s the soil that holds the seeds of every desire, every need, every petition: He is our Father. We come as His children. When Jesus’ disciples come to Him in Matthew 18, independent and...