Mark of Rest || 2009.11.11

How easy it seems to traverse both ways
the mark between "good" and "best"
To be in a place of work
instead of the place of rest
Doing the things essential
Building down matters of need
But straying in focus
and lifting the heart away from His feet

Draw me Lord
unto your feet
Even when the motion of service
moves me about
Hold my eyes to you
like the living creatures' gaze
as they move around
Always upon You to gaze
In the midst of fire
in the middle of lightning
When the wind of the wings
roars up like waters
Fasten my gaze upon You

~JLB

Holy Love || 2009.11.07

Love is meant to be holy

My gaze upon my lover
is meant to be without distraction
My longing to my lover
is meant to be unquenchable
Each moment with my lover
to never want an end
Every touch of my beloved
to stir me up within

How many have forgotten
the thought-consuming state
that sets a mind apart
and every thought becomes
the face of that one, the hand
their sound, their smell?

This love is that which sets apart
and fixes life upon another
consumes every moment and motivation

and after too long we ask -
How do I look to God?
How can I learn
to see this way?
and really -
Who can teach me to love?

When you find the perfect lover
you can start understanding love
In ourselves, we have only the beginnings
until by relationship we learn
from demonstration
God is the perfect lover
and I cannot tell you how to love
for I am still learning
I can tell you what I know
but really truly you must know Him
Relationship is how you love
How you learn
The key to relationship is time and choice
Choose to spend time with God's things
choose to find the good in the things that are hard
and bear the promises close to your heart
and the truth that you are witness to
as their support and strength
And when you dwell in the things of God
you will find at one moment
you are gazing at His face
The things begin to pale
for the Presence of God is real
Then you will find His love and truth
cannot be severed from you
and each moment will be consumed by Him
each thought will possess
His haunting in your mind
You will have begun to love
You will have begun to live

~JLB

Stir up Your Spirit || 2009.11.05

Stir up Your Spirit Lord
as You walk among us
Flood out Your compassion
and let it move through us
a raging torrent
Pour out like light
from the sun after dawn
that sharpens the earth
and stirs it awake
And shines bright
in every dewdrop
every crystal of ice
And stirs the living to life

Stir up Your Spirit Lord
as You rise up among us
Reveal Your majesty
and the salvation by Your hands
Open the floodgates of Eternity
Where this moment melts away
And draw in those
whose friendship You hunger for
Return Your song to the silent
Your face before those
who have turned themselves away

Stir up Your Spirit Lord
Your Glory rise among us
that all would know Your hope
And not escape the Voice of Your Calling
The destiny that stands eternal
Even Seraph in their burning cannot fathom
the depth of desire
the drawing of God and each heart
fashioned to beat together
chosen to dwell with one another
that eternity would glow with fire
and fully erupt in light of glory

~JLB

Chains Drop Away || 2009.11.05

When the chains drop away and the rain from the sky is your own tears of happiness, it is then that we can choose to love our savior as our savior loves us. It is the ordered service of a soldier who died on the battlefield, but was resurrected by my king who did the same. It is now I choose to follow, to accompany His heart and His love though it may take me into the valley of death's shadow, and never back out. I choose to stand confident in His whisper whether in a calm meadow or on a burnt plain of battle with the fires of hell drawing their darts full at me. I choose to love, for in my God's face and in His heart I see nothing else. And nothing else matters. For in gazing on Him I take up His form, and His glory, and carry it to the valleys, to the meadows, and to the hearts of men.

~JLB

Hallow || 2009.10.31

The choice of the organized church to preserve Halloween as a memorial is the primary reason it exists today. Its purpose seems to be to remind us of those who have gone: martyrs of the faith, & honored loved ones. At derision, commemoration ceased but observation remained - we abandoned heritage and were left with death.

Who now will save us from this death: this bondage of decay we are left to embrace? It is too long to wait for the sky to open, the God-King to return in Glory! His Glory is poured out openly, from the barring of the Garden, to the law that He gave, to the subjugation of the nations one upon another until finally in flesh God Himself was slain - to rise again!

Before the earth was created God chose to delight to save, and these hardships, this death imposed upon us was that the Delight of His Will might be fulfilled: that He might _save_. This is our heritage. This is the story we should tell our children at hallow's eve: That God Himself is who we Hallow, that no demon exists nor hell can stand before our King's glory. It is He who saved us, not we ourselves, and to Him our lives must honour, and every morning to Him our hearts should bow.

~JLB