The Beginning. Day One

So in the beginning, the Earth was a soup of nothingness, a bottomless emptiness, an inky blackness. God's Spirit brooded like a bird above the watery abyss.  Genesis 1:2 The Message 

Before anything was set in order, God just was near to the soup of nothingness, brooding over what WAS, and also what was to be. And the first order of business?

Flip the lights on.

God spoke "Light!" And light appeared. God saw that light was good and separated light from dark. God named the light Day, he named the dark Night: It was evening, it was morning- Day One. Genesis 1:3-5 The Message

I am in awe that the way God chose to create His perfect world was to start with a bottomless emptiness, and then just turn on the lights

Let's just sit in that place a minute. Part of perfection, part of His design in creation was to allow things to not look as they were destined to be, but to not shy away from looking straight at the black, empty, nothing, achy bottomless pit of near hopelessness that was right in front of Him. This was HIS DOING. He worked WITH hopelessness from the BEGINNING. He didn't make due with it. He USED IT as part of His perfect creative process.
He so could have just ...POOF....and everything went from nothing to AMAZING all at once. This is not the way He did it. OR DOES IT.

I get so impatient with process sometimes. I mean, it's cute when a toddler is taking his or her first steps, or when he or she first says... daaa daaa... but I feel Him, in my place of beginning again, not impatient, one bit. Flipping the lights on and not screaming, but rather saying. "Baby girl, this is "Day One"... It's part of my perfect process."
I also love that He separated light from dark. He gave some 'lights out' time too each day. Sometimes we can look at it, and sometimes, we can just take a break. I am here and near, with or without the lights on. This is what Day One is all about.

This very part of God is healing my heart SO much. Somehow, I learned that God just wants to use people. He wants us to be perfect....be like Jesus. Be kind. Jesus, others, you. That's how you spell JOY. I have felt like I HAVE to choose God, I HAVE to walk perfectly, I HAVE to...even, be a Christian. And the answer is....no. No, I don't. For the first time, I feel His gentle with-ness. Here with me, just as I am.

Not doing much of anything for the kingdom.
Not helping others out a whole lot
Not writing in my journal
Not digging deep into the Word like I used to with my Strong's Concordance
Not doing any ministry.

I feel for the first time, in the uniqueness of a place like this, Him being right near me, LOVING ME, and not forcing me to do anything, include trust Him. He is not forcing me to have hope. He is not making me hang on to Him. He is just loving me. Over and over....

I'll give you one tiny example of MANY.   I have a plant in my window that I have had for not quite a year. It means a lot to me for many reasons. I have been afraid to plant it outside because I haven't wanted it to die. It has looked scraggly for quite some time now, and has a little more brown than green on it. Well, the other day, I moved the blinds on my window and there were 3 yellow flowers that had bloomed on the other side of the blind. I know it's 'just a plant'... but the fact that He let it bloom again, spoke a powerful message to my heart AND..it just made me smile because I LOVE this plant so much.  He does this kind of thing ALL THE TIME.

I have sweet cuddly pets, I have kids that say funny things, I see license plates that say "GOD SEES" and "JSUS4U". I see heart shaped mud puddles, He has given me a job I absolutely love, and co-workers who I have so much fun with.

LISTEN TO ME......................... I DON'T DESERVE HIS KINDNESS!!!!!!!!!!

I am not suffering from low self esteem here. In my self-construed God economy I have felt like, well, we follow God, we obey, we pray.... He answers, He steers us the way He wants us to go.
I AM NOT DOING THIS!!!!
I'm not saying I'm being super disobedient, but I am NOT doing ANYTHING that a Christian would think is setting me up for God to move in my life!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I am not super spiritual, I am not sharing this point of view from a doctorate in theology, or whatever would deem me to be an expert on the subject.
I am telling you, THIS IS REALITY!!!!!!!! This is ACTUALLY how God is working.
He just LOVES US!

This used to sound so cliché to me growing up. Jesus loves you. Honestly, it actually made me cringe to hear that because it didn't line up with anything I was actually experiencing to be love.
Love is being NEAR TO THE MESS. It's saying.. I'm HERE, and you can choose or deny me. I am not going to force you to do either.

Now, don't get me wrong. I KNOW there is a penalty for my sin condition. I KNOW that without a relationship with Jesus, without His blood to cover over me, I'm going to stay in the pit of inky nothingness for-Ever.

I...GET...IT.

But that's not the pathway to His heart. It's not hanging hell over peoples' heads.
HE LOVES ALL OF HIS CHILDREN.
No matter what each has done.
No matter where each is at in believing in Him.
This is HIS idea.

I don't love this way. I would not do "BEING GOD" that way.
I would not be that kind.
I would not be that patient, or giving, or resilient to rejection.
I would not be that hopeful... and...
I would NEVER give up my kids... ANY of them....to sacrifice their purity in my place.
I would NOT send them to a world marred by choice towards AWAY from Him, in order for them to feel like I UNDERSTAND what it is like to experience the fruit of making crappy choices and not choosing relationship with Him.
I would NOT choose to let my kid be born in a parking lot of a town that has every single Motel 6, Huggy Bear Motel, bed bug infested $45/night motel room taken with no other place to be born. And then in that parking lot, he gets to sleep in the backseat of an abandoned car that is filled with used McDonald cups and wrappers, and smelly diapers on the floor.

THIS IS WHAT OUR KING CHOSE!!!! HE CHOSE to KNOW poverty, to KNOW rejection and betrayal, to be able to understand what in the world would cause our hearts to stray from His perfect love. And He did all this without beating us down with a heavenly hammer and demanding our submission to His will.

He just LOVES us.

Then... we get to decide.

Will we let this kind of LOVE radically invade our lives.
Will I TRUST THIS GUY?
Will I let Him have the pieces of my life and heart, and willingly say... HAVE IT ALL LORD!!!

I am not giving my life to a power hungry, woman degrading, impatient, Holy User who just wants perfect followers. I am giving my heart to the KING of LOVE!

But this choice comes with the option to continue to trust Him and the way He does His Kingdom. He doesn't do things the way I do.... remember??? 
He doesn't make everything beautiful on Day One.

He....just....doesn't. 

Even when He created everything in the beginning... it wasn't all done in a day. And now, with His heavenly OK on us doing our lives the way we choose....
We're left with that mess.
We're left with the casualty of living this way.
We're left with broken lives, death, sickness...

He doesn't just come down here and fix it all.
Boy do we get mad at him for not fixing everything.
He doesn't HEAL EVERYONE. Come on. I know that By His stripes we are healed. BUT Let's Get REAL! It does NOT happen every time.

He HEARS these cries in our prayers for Him to PLEASE....for all that is good and right in the world... GOD WILL YOU PLEASE HEAL MY LOVED ONE??!!! Will you breathe life into this relationship? Will you provide for this deep need?

And we pray in faith,
We stand on His word
We do EVERYTHING RIGHT... on our end...

and
it...
just...
doesn't...
happen.

And we blame the devil, we blame ourselves... and we blame Him.

And do you know where He is... when we're left, holding "death" in our arms,
When we're left in the soup of nothingness??
...the bottomless emptiness of grief and hopelessness?

He is RIGHT there.

Father is right there, knowing EXACTLY what it is like to hold death in His arms. He did it with Jesus, but He has done it millions of times before that even... some recorded, and millions not recorded. Because THIS...IS...OUR...KING, our CREATOR. He just does His Kingdom that way.

We know that all things work together for good. Sometimes we can understand that good, and sometimes we're fighting, and screaming and clawing at Him with tears mingled in our agony. Sometimes we're quiet, and distant in our lack of understanding.
But however we choose to walk in His kingdom. He IS NEAR.
He is loving us every single way He can get through to us.

"You don't have to fix this. You don't have to understand. You can trust me or not. I am here."

And when we get to the place where we have let enough of His love into our hearts, this is where our kingdom eyes can start to see life springing up. But that's for another day.