Conversations with God

What is beauty? The more I see of God, the more unexpected places I find it. The mute's first halting word, the lame's first stumbling step. The broken's first real laugh. A small hand reaching up into mine as a child decides, against all past experience, to trust one more time. A smile on the face of a grandmother with the mind of a child as she experiences her Father's love. These have shattered my neat and tidy preconceptions of what is beautiful. Pure praise rising from the lips of one whose life is mired in destruction. Complete abandon to the One who holds the power of life and death, regardless of circumstances. The sight of powerful men and women willingly facedown in the presence of God. Ear-splitting shrieks as the bound are set free. Screams of faith and trust in the center of life's hurricanes. The raw and bleeding laying down at Jesus' feet, and rising with wounds half-healed to minister to others. Jesus came to give us beauty instead of o...

A little over a year ago, God spoke something to me that shook me deeply. He simply said this: “If you don’t let Me love you, you’re not going to make it.” It was warning and encouragement, even a challenge, wrapped into one simple sentence. I immediately went into crisis. See, I already loved God. I loved everything I knew about Him, and I wanted to do everything I could to please Him. I loved to worship, I loved to pray, I loved to watch Him working in the people around me. But that statement was a call to another level of relationship I wasn’t sure I was ready for. I remember crying out, “ I love You . Why can’t that be enough!?” I wept for days. Of course I knew “Jesus loves me.” But I also knew this was so much more than that. He was now looking for a 2-way connection. He wanted open access to the inside of me. I was not at all comfortable with that idea. The religion I grew up with gave me an image of God that was far away and not that involved in my day-to-day life. ...