lawless, augustine & God's love
Friday, October 5, 2012 at 05:49PM The blurry lines began to take shape. Like when you smudge fog on a car window and the interior is revealed. I was taking it in, continually smudging a little more fog away as I slowly read each line of the excerpt from Augustine’s The Confessions. I knew there was more to be found — so I read it through again. The fourth or fifth time, it hit me.
The Lord is PASSIONATELY in love with us.
This isn't new. It's not a revelation. But it struck a new chord. A resounding one.
The depths of the ways the Lord calls us and loves us are immeasurable. Once we taste it, we hunger for it and search for the peace that only the Lord offers us.
How often have you searched for that peace?
Augustine wrote, “You called, shouted, broke through my deafness; you flared, blazed, banished my blindness; you lavished your fragrance, I gasped, and now I pant for you; I tasted you, and I hunger and thirst; you touched me, and I burned for your peace.”
Augustine burned for the peace of the Lord. Oh, how I have burned for that peace. How I have burned to even realize the ways God calls us.
And little I’ve understood just how powerful that call is.
Lawless was released in theatres a month ago. I’m not sure how to describe the genre — perhaps a combination of drama, action and blood. My friend and I gravely underestimated how much more action and blood there would be than drama in the movie when we entered the theatre.
Telling the story of three brothers who are in the “family business” of moonshining during prohibition, the brothers, believed to be invincible, live into their mythical immortality as they repeatedly escape death. The oldest, Forrest (Tom Hardy), examples this after his neck is sliced from ear to ear and is said to have walked to the doctor in town, saving himself.
Cut to scene (slight spoiler alert): Forrest sits calmly, but swiftly loading his gun, about to enter another blood bath. The girl he loves, Maggie (Jessica Chastain), is asking him not to go.
Eyes on fire and clearly distressed, she finally spills the truth like a waterfall that was holding back.
Breathlessly, stern, desperate and with earnest, Maggie asks, “Are you going to make me drag your body in a pool of your own blood to the doctor again?”
Forrest, a man of few words, replies, “I thought I walked.”
How many times has God breathlessly called our name? Looked at us with eyes on fire, asking or even commanding us in love? And how many times has God carried us to healing in a pool of our own blood?
And we thought we walked.
In his account, Augustine wrote, “You were with me, but I was not with you. They held me back far from you, those things which would have no being were they not in you.”
As our priorities cloud our mind, we lose sight. We lose our ability to hear. Perhaps even our ability to smell or taste or feel. But as Augustine writes, “Lo, you were within.”
God is within us. He is calling, shouting, blazing. And offering a peace for which we will hunger and thirst.
How is God calling you currently? Is he breaking through your deafness and blindness or does God seem silent? Is there a fog that needs to be smudged away?
And is there a possibility that he is carrying you to healing in your despair?
“You called, shouted, broke through my deafness; you flared, blazed, banished my blindness; you lavished your fragrance, I gasped, and now I pant for you; I tasted you, and I hunger and thirst; you touched me, and I burned for your peace.”
God is PASSIONATELY in love with us. Let this strike a new chord today.
*Photo taken in Gig Harbor, WA, Summer 2012
soul care, spiritual formation
Reader Comments (1)
Side note - I like how all your pictures are from your 3-week!