Consecration is the narrow, lonely way to overflowing love. We are not called upon to live long on this planet, but we are called upon to be holy at any and every cost. If obedience costs you your life, then pay it.
~Oswald Chambers (1874-1917)
For thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: “I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite.
~ The One who is and Who was and Who is to come, through the prophet Isaiah in chapter 57
It is true beloved. We live in this ever-narrowing throat called time.
And it seems that the tendency of us humans is to narrow the throat ever further until our lives are constricted and choking.
We make choice after choice until we have painted ourselves into a corner.
We borrow until we are slaves to the lender.
We buy so much stuff that we have no more room to move in our homes.
We narrow our focus first onto our own lives. Then onto a movie screen. Then a TV. Then a computer screen… and now we look through the tiny orifices of our blackberries and smartphones.
And for those unwilling to be set free it will never get better… No, most surely it will become worse in the most ghastly way. Those who choose, will live within this ever-narrowing throat of time. For “hell is not just the absence of God, it is also being stuck in space and time.” (Hermann Weidemann)
But G_d!
For those who choose to be free in Him see through an entirely different lens. Eternity has burst upon the earth through the invisible Kingdom of the church in the hearts of true believers… the tearing of the veil at the crucifixion was more than symbolic. Just as the blood and body are more than symbolic – they are spiritual reality… Reality that is truly real and not just the analog of the 4 dimensional existence we stumble through now. Said more simply: The true Church and His Kingdom is a preview of true, eternal reality.
A great lie foisted on this writer (before He healed me) by the evil one, was that eternity was forever – in time and space. I would panic deeply over the aspect of an ever-narrowing throat of opportunity into some future …. and the lie was that eternity would run out of “things to do” and we would be stuck forever in some horrible, no-sleep environment.
However, i now understand heaven to be that one ever-expanding and clarifying Infinite moment with Him. An eternity of eternities flowing together, ever filling with worship and purpose and hope and peace and Him. Only Him would be astoundingly more than enough! And it is more. Surely it is like God to give us a hope that is beyond infinitely Good.
There is but one choice to make friend.
Believe Him, or not.
And no, it is not just to believe in Him, or believe about Him, or believe all the things of Him. We need to believe Him… Him alone. To absolutely surrender any right of our own to believe or live anything else and to cast ourselves on Him alone. Him. He is the Way. He is the Truth. He is the Life.
But when we do make this choice. Oh my. Suddenly the tube falls away, and the lens through which we look becomes one of simply infinite and eternal focus.
When once our heav’nly-guided soul shall climb,
Then all this earthly grossness quit,
Attir’d with stars, we shall forever sit,
Triumphing over death and chance and thee, O Time.
— John Milton (1608-1674)
He has shown it to some. Paul saw it clearly. This writer has had a glimpse. Some have been there…. really. They have been there with others, and looked back towards this life from a place very deep in eternity. Can they assure you of something? In that place is only the most astounding beauty, quiet, strength and peace and purpose and HIM. We looked back almost quizzically, wondering why we ever worried. How could we have? We always had Him.
Ocean, wide flowing ocean,
Thou of uncreated love
A sea which can contract itself
Within my narrow heart.
~Frederick William Faber (1814-1863)
