You sweep us away like a dream.

The Refrain

Be still, then, and know that I am God.

I will be exalted among the nations.

I will be exalted in the earth.

For a thousand years in Your sight are like yesterday when it is past and like a watch in the night. Psalm 90:5

There is no need to set an alarm. I wake up in the stillness like clockwork. I have been doing this early morning gig ever since I starting trying to beat little three-year-old Anita to the punch. Finally I just started sending her off with Cindy to milk goats so I could have a few moments. To sort through which day it is and what the plans might be. And my list of beloved souls. One by one to lay each plan, each hope, each child of God before the feet of the LORD God Almighty.

And each day pounds itself out five minutes at a time. I can do anything for another five minutes, I whisper to myself. 

In the evening it is dried up and withered.

Be still, then, and know that I am God.

Actually Nicol’s first word was chivo as well. And I would send my not-quite-toddling child off with the neighborhood kids to play with the baby goats while Mencho and I did the neighborhood prayer walk from the stillness of our living room table.

And each day pounds itself out five minutes at a time. I can do anything for another five minutes, I whisper to myself. 

In the evening it is dried up and withered.

Be still, then, and know that I am God.

Little Andreita was glued to the loving hip of Hernando as he spread his kindness throughout the old ranch house. I still have all of those tattered prayer journals, somewhere.

Where oh where have the years gone? 

And each day pounds itself out five minutes at a time. I can do anything for another five minutes, I whisper to myself. 

In the evening it is dried up and withered.

Be still, then, and know that I am God.

Jenny found another amazing gift for me again at the downtown Artisans’ Street Fair.

In the lower right-hand corner kneels a woman in prayer, still and at peace.

And before her lies the seemingly arduous pilgrimage, up, up to high places. Lots of steep staircases. A few green pastures of gentle rest. But even more dark tunnels with no light at the end of them.

Yet at every bend an angel stands. Ministering Spirits. On watch. Alert. Strong and able to comfort and protect this little wandering sheep.

And this morning I knelt into today’s true perspective, and how indeed the days fade away into nothingness, the smashing crashing days whose ripples settle into a quiet blur, a dream that can’t quite be caught.

Be still, then, and know that I am God.

I will be exalted among the nations.

I will be exalted in the earth.

I bow my knee.

Not to us, O LORD, not to us, but to your Name give glory; because of Your love and because of Your faithfulness. Psalm 115:1

From this little room and this short hour I can lift up my mind beyond all time and space to Thee, the uncreated One, until the light of Thy countenance illumines all my life. –John Baillie

Perspective: the art of drawing solid objects on a two-dimensional surface so as to give the right impression of their height, width, depth, and position in relation to each other when viewed from a particular point.

His particular point.

And really, as the small group at the African Methodist Episcopalian discovered last night, gathered around the plastic table under the fluorescent lights in the back trailer reading Ephesians, it is a mystery. His manifold wisdom that remains hidden until He chooses to reveal it, His eternal purpose that He purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord.

In whom we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of Him.

So it is really not that I am going to understand the 400,000 deaths in Aleppo. What it is really about is a confidence in Him, He who sees and purposes in love and faithfulness. In whom I have boldness and access.

Which leads me to the Scripture that I have scotch-taped up in every classroom since that little back trailer at Grace Christian, my prayer for my kiddos: For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, That He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man; That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.

That they might know the love of Christ, Emmanuel, God with us.

For His glory.

Selah.

He did not come like a rushing mighty wind. But gradually the Person of the Holy Ghost filled all our thoughts, His Presence filled all the place, and His light seemed to penetrate all the hidden recesses of our hearts. -Rees Howells

Praise the LORD from the earth, you sea-monsters and all deeps; Fire and hail, snow and fog, tempestuous wind, doing his will; Mountains and all hills, fruit trees and all cedars; Wild beasts and all cattle, creeping things and winged birds; Kings of the earth and all peoples, princes and all rulers of the world; Young men and maidens, old and young together. Let them praise the Name of the LORD, for His Name only is exalted, His splendor is over earth and heaven. Psalm 148:6–13

Perspective.

These have been quiet days. The gunk which is sweeping Tucson laid me flat on my back for five days and counting. Lots and lots of quiet. Well, except for the hacking cough. And it has been one of those gripping headache sicknesses where I have felt too lousy to even read; just a page or two and then quiet. Quiet under the February blueness and surrounded by Alan’s peonies. And Pippen is always snuggled somewhere in the midst of the Hosterman knit blanket.

Praying through Rees Howell battling the Nazis long hour after long hour, front after front, faithful and unrelenting. The battle is not against flesh and blood but principalities and against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world. What does it mean to be an intercessor, one who stands in the gap.

Reading Passage to India that captures all peoples so clearly.

Perspective.

And it has been a Lenten time of repentance. Confessing ingratitude. Expectations. Resentment. Accusation. Tools of the Evil One straight from the first temptation in the Garden which smashed the joyous unity with Him.  Allowing His loving claws to rake down deeply through the dragon skin that surrounds my heart.

In the light of His purity, it was not so much sin we saw as self. We saw pride and self-motives underlying everything we had ever done. -Rees Howells, Intercessor

And now it has been eight days and counting. Gladden the soul of your servant, for to you, O LORD, I lift up my soul.

And this has been my prayer for myself on Saturday, every Saturday, for years upon years: LORD please make me ever aware of Your Spirit, moment-by-moment wisdom, quicken my spirit to immediate, full-of-faith obedience.  Cause me to be thankful…this obedience results in a joy that brings glory to you.  

And I slip up so often on this moment-by-moment wisdom.

Quicken my spirit to immediate, full-of-faith obedience.

And for me, wisdom usually equals silence.

And obedience usually means silence.

Usually. Intercessor. Allowing the Spirit to groan deeply within.

And to stand back. And let Him do His thing.

But He showed us, 'There is all the difference in the world between your surrendered life in my hands, and I living My life in your body.' We read the Acts afresh, and found we were reading, not the acts of the apostles, but the acts of the Holy Ghost. -Rees Howells, Intecessor

So I read Acts as well. Afresh.

And sometimes obedience is not silence, but a bold leap into words. Sometimes. Just this week, I felt the familiar tug: God longs to demonstrate His great love and power by removing that tumor… and the next day I received this email:

I just want to share this:

I went to get the magnetic resonance yesterday. The radiologist (if that is how you say it in English, haha) looked at the X-rays and the results from the other tests. He asked me a set of questions. Then, they put me in the capsule for about 40 minutes. They took me out and he said he was confused because he did not see anything, he even asked me about the X-rays, he asked me if those were recent, and I told him they were from this week. So, although he seemed to be confused, he told me he was going to run another resonance so they put my body half way into the capsule and ran another test for about 30 minutes. In the end, he told me he cannot explain himself because what is reflected in the X-rays did not show up in the images in the magnetic resonance. Inside my head, I kept thinking, he cannot explain it but I can, I know God has his ways. 

Praise the LORD from the earth, you sea-monsters and all deeps; Fire and hail, snow and fog, tempestuous wind, doing his will; Mountains and all hills, fruit trees and all cedars; Wild beasts and all cattle, creeping things and winged birds; Kings of the earth and all peoples, princes and all rulers of the world; Young men and maidens, old and young together. Let them praise the Name of the LORD, for His Name only is exalted, His splendor is over earth and heaven. 

And somehow all of this craziness and pain and beauty and delight and heartbreak and sea-monsters and fire and tempestuous wind is to His exaltation. King of the earth and all peoples. Praise the LORD.

And today’s Joy Dare was for the ugly-beautiful gifts, for example this ugly cough and the beautiful silence. His gift.

Silence.

Words.

And His wisdom to know the difference.