My prayer this morning is that God would keep me still long enough to carve the Truth in

me so I operate from that place rather than my wound-sensitive-short-attention-span-

theater lifestyle that I have so firmly established and screwed up from time after time. I
so need to love and be loved and yet my ways of getting that need met are so very flawed
and broken. As a result, I hurt the very people I love most dearly.
In the midst of my own grief and longings, I am loving that our eautiful God is the most
trustworthy being ever and I !" want to be sewn to #im heart to heart so I don$t pull
away at the slightest butterfly or slug that grabs my attention. It is so my nature to do so.
They come as fleeting images, hopes and dreams that I chase after without watching for
the wall I am about to run into as well as the slow moving train wrecks that I can see a
mile away and yet I inevitably stand still and stare until it is completely upon me and I
am at a loss as to what to do to escape the creepiness of my own fears and selfishness. It
is the %Groundhog &ay% of my own design.
It$s ironic and really scary that I have been laboring with others to build a %worship'prayer
furnace% for years now yet I think yesterday was the first time that I ever, in complete
emotional despair, prayed directly %(esus, please . . . help me.% I suddenly knew that I
was speaking to a real person and that #e would, in fact help and all I had to do was lean
in to #im - but I needed to lean in so hard that I had to be attached heart to heart and not
let any space grow between. I had to stay attached without the help of stitches and trust
#im that #e would lead me well in the dance.
I knew that it was a longer lasting, deeper miracle #e was offering than perhaps I had the
patience or attention span for. I am very bad at staying still in the pain and trusting the
doctor as he looks at the wound and prescribes a resolution. I am always inclined toward
getting a temporary fi). I$ll go for the first couple of appointments and then as I feel
better, I forget about it or the pain until the ne)t in*ury comes along and I reali+e that I
never ultimately took good care of the first wound or the reason I fell in the first place so
here I am making the same mistakes, carving the same groove into my scar-faced
foundation and making it more dangerous for myself and others each time.
After months and months of prayers and intercession over the crimes of my heart and the
last ,- hours of overwhelming grief and despair #e came .uietly on the wings of %(esus,
please . . . help me.% and deposited difficult but life giving revelations about my
%butterfly% fantasies and my fat, selfish %slugness%% while setting my eyes upon a new
possibility - beginning anew by laying down a better and stronger foundation - the one
#e laid down at the beginning of the world. I have built my #ouse upon the proverbial
sand and not upon my identity in (esus - the "ne who was %slain at the foundation of the
world% and the /hief /ornerstone - the foundation that 0aul talked about as the only one
upon which anything lasting could be built. 12/or., and 3ph. 45
(esus said that when #e comes #e makes all things new and that we are a new creation
when #e is planted in our hearts - #e is the foundation we are to build upon. I have been
thinking for months now that ultimately all of the therapy in the world and all of the
inner-healing of my past wounds will ultimately only fi) the %old man%- the "ld
foundations and do I really want that nature to be repaired any way6
7en !weet wrote8 %9hen we attempt to lay a new template on top of an e)isting structure
that was built for something else . . . . we will eventually return to the %path of least
resistance,% the path that the underlying structure was designed to accomplish. . . . . A
change that can succeed is one that changes the path of least resistance, and this is made
possible only by true structural redesign.% #e is not speaking of starting from +ero but
from %one% . . . . of really returning to the original purpose or design and building upon
that. It is, in essence, repentance and a rebuilding based upon the original intended
purpose that does not start from scratch but redefines and emerges from the original. The
same way a seed is transformed through death and becomes a tree yielding life and fruit.
% A biblical aesthetic of beauty incorporates the ugly. The heart of reality is not a
sentimental romance, a garden party, an easy #ollywood beauty. The heart of reality is a
suffering romance, a bloody /alvary beauty. True beauty is parado)ical. . . . we come in
first by being last . . . we fill up with God by emptying ourselves . . . we wa) strong by
being weak.% - from %!o eautiful% p. ,:-;-
I know this much . . . that I have been terribly unsuccessful at fi)ing the old %me% and I
need to live from a new nature and a new name if I am to actually function in new ways.
%I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them< I will remove from
them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh.% 3+ekiel 2282: I need #is
original paradigms to be set in place and a foundation carved into my soul that carries #is
=ame and #eart in it$s structure so that when I naturally follow the path of least
resistance it will be the one shaped like #is cross and in the end it will produce real -
other centered love rather than my twisted I$ll love you so you$ll love me kind of love. I
so need to keep my heart pressed up against #is because mine is !" cold.
I always loved the prayer !t. >rancis supposedly carved out but never reali+ed how hard
it would be to live out.
7ord, make me an instrument of your peace<
where there is hatred, let me sow love<
where there is in*ury, pardon<
where there is doubt, faith<
where there is despair, hope<
where there is darkness, light<
and where there is sadness, *oy.
" &ivine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console<
to be understood, as to understand<
to be loved, as to love<
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to 3ternal 7ife.
Amen.
It is the prayer$s parado) that makes it beautiful. In its fullness it is beauty for ashes -
living from a new heart.
The ne)t time you think of me would you offer up a prayer that I would be given a new
heart that is carved from #is. That I would no longer chase after butterflies and slugs but
that I would have a heart firmly knitted to (esus and that I$d actually see loving #im and
others from #is true identity 1without the old self-centered, self-righteous foundations I
laid down5 as the (oy set before me. I am tired of the pain of this %Groundhog &ay% and
so want to lavish the people I love with a better love and a better gift than I have to date. I
want to start and end though in love with (esus.
%(esus please . . . help me. The name that (ohn saw written upon ?ou in a vision was
%>aithful and True% - "h... that I would believe that with all my heart and reflect the same
identity back to ?ou. "h that ?ou would be loved, that the =ations would flock to ?ou.
That ?our kingdom would come.%