A new type of rationality, current age: 26

"He asked me, 'Son of man, can these dry bones live?'
I said, 'Sovereign Lord, you alone know.'" - Ezekiel 37: 3

What a bloody honest answer. Because if Ezekiel had said anything else, he would have been such a tool.

How interesting that God asks him. Isn't it supposed to be the other way around? Aren't we supposed to be asking God, can these dry bones live? Can you heal my dad? Can you give me that job? Can you Can you Can you

CAN YOU???

But maybe it's about faith. Obviously, God knows these dry bones can live. Not only did he know they could live, he knew they could be a freakin' army. He took worthless, lifeless, dry, dusty bones and turned them to a throng of flesh with purpose.

And He could have done it alone. I mean He's God. He could have just said: "Ok Ezekiel, you see all these worthless bones. Watch me work kid. I'm going to create a huge something out of an even greater nothing."

Why did Ezekiel have to be in the equation if God already knew the answer?

So maybe it's about faith. About God equipping Ezekiel to have faith in things not seen. A kind of faith that can literally move mountains. A kind of faith that declares: I know my God!

Maybe God was training him to see in the dark. Training him to hope not in the circumstances, but in the immense power of a God who resurrects from the dead. Who can cause water to flow from a rock. A seed to turn into a kingdom. A woman to bear a child at age 100 or by the Holy Spirit. A bush to re-ignite faith.

Because I'm sure after that Ezekiel had swag. He had a pep in his step because he knew not in his head, but in his soul, in his bones, in his chromosomes, that NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE WITH GOD.

He probably became a beast, a monster, the most humble man alive, so in awe of how small we are and how big God is. How powerful, how unpredictable, how reliable.

Faith.

It's not just about believing in things not seen. It's having the courage to bring life to those things not only invisible, but DEAD, because God is real, because God's will trumps logic.

It would have been irrational for Ezekiel to not have faith in things not seen after that.

I want to be that irrational.

There is only One thing I know:

"I made You promises a thousand times
I tried to hear from Heaven
But I talked the whole time
I think I made You too small
I never feared You at all No
If You touched my face would I know You?
Looked into my eyes could I behold You?

What do I know of You
Who spoke me into motion?
Where have I even stood
But the shore along Your ocean?
Are You fire? Are You fury?
Are You sacred? Are You beautiful?
What do I know? What do I know of Holy?

I guess I thought that I had figured You out
I knew all the stories and I learned to talk about
How You were mighty to save
Those were only empty words on a page
Then I caught a glimpse of who You might be
The slightest hint of You brought me down to my knees

What do I know of Holy?
What do I know of wounds that will heal my shame?
And a God who gave life "its" name?
What do I know of Holy?
Of the One who the angels praise?
All creation knows Your name
On earth and heaven above
What do I know of this love?"

You are good. That is the only thing I know.

And it's enough.

Desiderio Domini

Sometimes You feel so far from me I can barely breathe.

Most times You are closer than my skin.

I feel Your presence like warm water across my back.

Like an arm wrapping me up.

Because I only actually have One desire:

To be with You.

I long for it every hour of every day.

And sometimes I block it out with other things. Mediocrity.

I block it out because sometimes that yearning is too hard to bear.

So I say I long for a husband or a clinic or a friend.

But no.

All of that is so secondary. So secondary.

All I really want is You.

To see Your face.

To no longer need faith.

I love You in a way that ends all logic, all rationale.

I love You in a way that I am not capable.

Because we love only because You loved us first.

I can't wait to see Your beautiful face.

To gaze upon Your countenance.

To hold Your hand and dance with You.

My Father, my Maker, my one true Inheritance.

Heal me Lord so I can only have this focus all the days of my life.

So I can be wholly loyal to You.

So I can walk in fidelity with You.

So my one aim alone is intimacy with You.

The Valley of Baca (Psalm 84:6)

I have decided I have resolved
To wait upon you Lord
My rock and redeemer shield and reward
I'll wait upon you Lord

As surely as the sun will rise
You'll come to us
As certain as the dawn appears

You'll come let your glory fall
As you respond to us
Spirit reign flood into our thirsty hearts again
You'll come

We are not shaken we are not moved
We wait upon you Lord
Our Mighty deliverer my triumph and truth
We wait upon you Lord

Chains be broken
Lives be healed
Eyes be opened
Christ is revealed

Heart Call

To this day I can't fight it.

How many years it's been since i started or let's say stopped my ministry, my visits to the slums.

To this day, I see pictures and I cry. I cry in a way that longs for release. Release back there.

It's not noble. It's not social. It's not the activist inside me.

All of that has been burned away, washed up by time. Cleared out by a Greater cause. Faded with Time.

But this has remained. It really has.

It's been 3 years since Kibera. 5 since the Philippines. 23 since I left my mother land.

My heart aches in a way I can't explain. It runs in my blood. Etched in my bones.

I smell it when I close my eyes.

They are my people. I'm supposed to be with them. Not sure when, not sure how.

But this I know:

I will go back.

A call is heard. And I heard it perhaps when I was 5 or 20. It doesn't matter.

"The place where God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet." - F. B.

My deepest joy is in being with them, them that know more about joy and suffering than I'll never know. Them who know what it is to go without food and give freely. Them who are poor, but don't rejoice in poverty.

I don't put them on a pedestal. I just love them. I don't applaud their suffering, I long to bear it with them.

I don't want to call them, "them." I want to know their names, their stories, their hopes, their dreams, their relationships with God.

I want to tell them of a God that loves them.

Although I have a feeling,

they know Him better than I do.

I am gripped. In Love.

All I need is the green light and I will be unstoppable.

Faith

I was desperate today for some sort of answer, something to tell me that I'm not crazy. So I played that flippy game where you flip randomly through a book and hope you land on the page "you are supposed to read."

Yeah, I was that desperate.

The book I happened to flip through is called "How to be a Proverbs 31 woman"

And the chapter I flipped to was: "A Woman of Faith."

God likes to really be clear that this is currently the season I am in. Even in trivial flipping of pages, He will bring it back to His purposes.

Here's an excerpt, mainly because I ran out of pages in my journal so I have to document it somewhere:

"The spiritual woman sees herself as a stranger and a wanderer on the earth. She is looking for a better country, a heavenly one. She doesn't build a house, but lives in a tent, waiting for a home with a better foundation.

She may be mocked by words like: 'You're living in a a dream world.' (This could be from others or from her own mind!) That is why faith is having hope in things not seen. Without such faith, it is impossible to please God."

We have faith not in the assurance of circumstances or our expectations, but in God alone.

To aid us, God gives us His enduring word knowing that the word that goes out of His mouth will not return void, but will accomplish the purpose for which it was sent. (Isaiah 55)

Have you ever felt like you are outside yourself watching yourself?

Every day that is how I feel. Nothing is actually real to me any more. I literally only have God's word and what He's said.

Seriously be careful what you pray for because God will answer it in a way that ends all other assurances leaving you with one thing:

That the One who called you is faithful and He will do it. (1 Thessalonians 5: 24)

Let's please pray prayers worthy of a God

He had a gleam in his eye when I came home today. Like the time you find money in your pocket you never knew existed or how or when it got there.

He had a pep in his step. Mischievous. Beautiful.

Out of his torn pajama pocket, he pulled out a slip from a fortune cookie. He had a low blood sugar attack and had sought refuge in the Asian treat.

"When you awaken tomorrow morning, the solutions will be clear."

See because that's the way our God works. Bushes, donkeys, ethnic snack foods, everything around us sings the song of a Maker so utterly committed to His creation.

And that's all he needed. Beasthood.

Against all odds, he made phone calls. Against all the no's, he searched for that Greater Yes. Because one time God said, "Before you even acknowledge me, I strengthen you."

And he found victory. A way to stay afloat in the midst of this sad economy. Because again, God doesn't work on stats, but on faith.

He said, "God always gives me something to hold on to."

Tears flooded my eyes. This coming from a man that used to say, "God is not for me."

But this was the clincher:

She sat.

Quiet. Eerily relaxed.

"You were right, she said,

He really has changed."

And 34 years of no's broke. 34 years of unanswered prayers seemed like an instant.

Prayers I prayed since I was 8, but God only saw this moment.

I never thought it possible to hear those words from her mouth. A mouth so laden with fear and bitterness, always ready for disappointment, so expectant of disaster.

I thought to myself, "So have you."

A new heavens and a new earth.

"In the days to come, Jacob will take root, Israel will bud and blossom

AND FILL ALL THE WORLD WITH FRUIT." - Isaiah 27:6

Keep praying prayers only a God can answer.

He deserves nothing less.