“Aha” moments, when they come, can be like the slow dawning of morning. First you see a lightening of the dark, a gradual movement so incremental we are scarcely aware of when the dark changes to light. Then comes the fullness of sun, shining down this way and that, moving its angles so that most places receive light during the day. There are, however, some places that remain shadowed.

There are other forms of these epiphanies, but no matter how it comes, one thing is true: Something becomes clear to you that wasn’t clear before.

This has been true for me, as I’m sure for you, many times in my life. Lately, I’ve been thinking about what God wants for me, and this little collection of words brought a realization to me: That I am made for more. That I want more. That the journey to more often scares me. But I want it anyway.

I wonder what these words might stir in you?

Unknown Landscape

What small, contained lives we lead in an effort to program growth. The very thing I hate in trembling—the onset of that which undermines my containment, or rips away the familiar, or shakes things loose so they cannot go back to their usual spot—these are the gateways to a larger salvation than I can imagine. Hunger and thirst are required to come against a body hunkered down and to weather the storm. Something powerful must be at work in the heart to follow hunger through the gate into a different, unknown landscape. A landscape/terrain that does not eliminate fierce struggles (that require vital losses in order to win), nor does it satiate the hunger. But it does uncover an awareness that I was made for this wilder terrain. That stumbling forward, beautifully uncomfortable, is the way I was made to walk. I was not meant to stay safe and contained in a right-angled world. I am meant and equipped to head out from safety.

If I were co-equal with God sitting side by side, Him able to look into my arena, and I into His, mine would look artificially lit, prettily put together with a token mess or two. His would look like a stormy sea where someone walks on water before they start to drown… “and immediately Jesus put out His hand.” It’s all very messy and chaotic and dangerous…and arousing.

I would want to live in His world.