What We Want to See

This week has been such a week for me with God, beginning on Sunday with the thought that many who love know Him that I would never have guessed, to His expansion of the through more description of His love that Thursday drew my thoughts toward community and found its caution last night as I encountered a thief masquerading as my Shepherd. I saw Scripture being used as Satan used it to tempt Jesus in the Wilderness and I stood in Him and found peace to say no, to say I knew His voice and His Words and His heart.


I love photography because when I take a picture, I have captured something. I have frozen time. I can bring others to this moment, or at the very least, I may own it for myself, to remember, to prove that the moment was there. What is captured in that photo is what was in that moment. Not the light of a different hour, not a different angle or a different perspective, but exactly what I see through my lens.

Writing does not offer the same freedom. L'Engle writes in A Circle of Quiet of "doing violence to language" to reopen it for communication. There is nothing new in language. Every phrase, every cliché, every descriptor, every word has been heard before. Connotations and associations and definitions undulate through sentences, changing meanings and points and comprehension.

Anyone may read my blog and see words that mean something to them without knowing my heart or the situations that drive my writing. For that matter, anyone may read Scripture and see words that mean something to them without knowing the God who inspired them. If we go looking for something in the writing of another, we will always find it, whether we look for safety or for something to criticize or for something to debate or for something with which we can identify. This is, I believe, why Peter appeals to us from his personal daily-walking-disciple-knowledge of Jesus:

"We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For he received honor and glory from God the Father when the voice came to him from the Majestic Glory, saying, "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.

We ourselves heard this voice that came from heaven when we were with him on the sacred mountain. And we have the word of the prophets made more certain, and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet's own interpretation. For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. (1 Peter 1:16-21)

Sometimes, we only see part of the story from where we are. We see what is familiar, what we want to see, what we know is there, without considering that the spirit behind the familiar words may not be His. If what we hear of God comes from a trusted source like a pastor or a church elder or our parents or our teachers or even the Bible, we often forget to weigh the words that are spoken as the Bereans weighed Paul's message. We don't often test the spirit behind what we read or hear to see if it acknowledges that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh. We forget that we do not battle flesh and blood but principalities and powers.

For a long time, speaking the name of Jesus has felt awkward to me but over the last few months on my blog, I have sensed God's Spirit leading me to use the name "Jesus" when I speak of Jesus Christ. Earlier this week, I found myself a little afraid to write here about my relationship with God. I didn't want to lose readers, and I didn't want to offend non-Christians who might visit my blog. But now, I find myself driven to Him, taking Truth that has seemed theory for so long and clinging to Him for all I am worth.

This is my testimony: Jesus Christ, the Son of God, my Savior, became flesh and lived and died as a sacrifice to God for my sin. My knowledge of and relationship with the Father comes only by the righteousness I receive by the blood of Christ through faith that is the gift of God.

If you are a believer and you read this post and know that His Spirit is in me, please pray that I will never forget this. That I will always remember that my only testimony is Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I am irretrievably human, and so imperfect without being completed and made holy in Jesus before God.

I'm going to be taking a blogging break for a bit, except for upkeep on my photo blog. Feel free to stop by and take a peek into my world, or drop me an email to say hey!