Strange Thorns of Madness
Morning walk NOV 27, 2017
Walking around the loop in the park across the street of my house, I find the most strange, interesting or beautiful moments in nature or experience.
They are moments of the quiet and the whisper where I find myself hearing more than I ever could in front of my screen typing away key words on google in my insufficient quest for information. I can google away where knowledge abounds…but it is here among nature and His still small voice that I truly find understanding.
That understanding has been the gold, the precious value of what I have heard the times I paused before the day began and walk with Him. The morning Selah. Knowledge is important don’t get me wrong, but it is understanding that is the conduit to wisdom.
It's one thing to know something…another to understand it…and even more to apply it.
God says that all knowledge, understanding and wisdom begins and ends with him. Fear of him.
Proverbs 1:7
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge,
but fools[c] despise wisdom and instruction.
So lets gather some knowledge and ask for understanding of what God means when He tells us to fear him.
Proverbs 1:7 - fear - hebrew word yarit, root word yare.
http://biblehub.com/nasec/hebrew/3372.htm
Original root meaning of the word:
to shoot, pour
Interesting.
Archers shot, shooting, watered
It sounds like a term for hunting, growing, war, provision, life...
So I decided to write the verse again in my own words.
The arrow, the water, the shot, the blast of the LORD. The beginning of knowledge wisdom and instruction. What is sent from him whether blessing or pain, injury or provision. This is the choicest first fruits of concern, knowing, planning, skill, truth, wisdom and wits, discipline, chastening, correction, warning, reproof. What comes from him is the start of all things of wisdom. But fools despise, scorn, shake their fists at it.
My friend recently shared a conversation she had with Jesus about her life. In the midst of transitioning into the unfolding of dreams and hoping again, she laughed as she told me, what He ask her, “Are you sure you want me in it?”
“Yes Lord, yes!” she replied.
“Okay, but I’m just letting you know you aren’t going to like the way I do it," He said.
——
Thorns.
“For I decided that while I was with you I would forget everything except Jesus Christ, the one who was crucified.”
———
I saw this tree on my journey. Stripped bare by the ending of fall and coming of winter. Exposing the thorns coming from every knoll.
Sacrifice. Blood. Communion.
I keep hearing those words lately.
“What greater love is this, then one who would lay down His life for His brother.”
“What love is this?”
“Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die.”
That’s stranger than fiction.
So strange, you can’t make it up.
Strange Thorns.
——
Conversing with my roommate in the kitchen last night, she asked, what is your top love languages. After mulling over discussing etc. I decided on a few that seemed to impact my heart the most and what I have found enjoying the most that impacts others hearts. Through a refection of thanksgiving over the past year or so, I realized that what impacts my heart the most is acts of service.
What I realized this morning. Is that it was even greater. That it was the laying down of one’s life. And that can come forth in many different languages. But, this physical life acting-out, of love. The unspoken poetry. The “living poetry” as my friend Carrie, shared with me. Is the speaking of your life.
I asked the Lord, what do you want to show me with these thorns?
As I asked, and as I walked this song came to me.
“Your thoughts are higher, your ways are wilder…love came like madness…poured out in blood washed romance…”
Here Now: Hillsong United. The other name for the song: “Madness”
Madness. Strange arrow thorns. Poured out blood. Watered my soul.
“It makes no sense, but I know this is grace.” - Hillsong.
My heart is pierced.
With love.
With fear of the Lord.
Who is like our God, mighty to save?
“He shot an arrow through my heart and I don’t mind it at all.” - Audrey Assad, LEVV in Arrow.