New Furniture

Many years ago when my now 7 year old son was a baby a lady came to the church we were attending at that time and spoke to us what I can only describe as a type of prophesy or words from the Lord.  I am not exactly sure what you would call it.  I was slightly nervous going up and hearing what would be said to me.  What she told me is that God would move all the old furniture out and fill me with His new furniture. 

My how I am in need of that "new furniture".  I am shoved full with old things, things that are ratty and torn, dirty from use.  I am ready to be re-furnished, re-modeled, and re-vamped.  All I have been doing is re-arranging all the old things, trying to fix myself up, change who I am, and my how it isn't working.  It is time to find all the old things and give them up, take them to the dump, let God replace them with new things.

Running With Eyes Wide Shut

And I ran, I ran with my eyes wide shut.  Shutting out the truth, opening wide for the wanted.  And I ran hard and fast.  Looking for something that wasn't there.  Hoping to find what I thought I needed.  My eyes wide shut.  I stood up and I ran down the path of the prodigal.  Running fast, not looking back.  Not wanting to hear the calls of the One who loves. 

I am angry and so I run.  I am angry with who I am, who I have become, who I have been made to be, how I was used, how it was allowed, how I hurt.  I am angry with God, life, myself, the world, the pain, the numbness and so I run.  Feet pounding, heart racing, feeling alive and wanting to die all mixed up with the sweat of my brow. 

I run so fast, so far, pounding the ground with my feet, leaving footprints where I trod.  "Who am I?" I cry with eyes wide shut.  I run looking for answers, looking for freedom, looking for something to make me stop.  To make everything stop.  I run until I am lost.  Lost deep in the nothingness of what is and what was.  It is all nothing and for nothing, and I have become nothing.

Caught in the thorns

I have traveled far, so far, down a lonely road.  Brambles line the sides.  They grab at my arms as I walk.  Snagging my clothes, pulling me towards them.  At first I fight them, but then I smell the sweet aroma of the berries they produce.  I quit fighting and I step deeper into them, unaware of the sharp thorns tearing into my skin.  I am focussed solely on the fruit of these bushes.  The berries are plump and juicy.  I can't resist the allure of them.  Their taste is tangy and sweet at the same time.  Their juice stains my lips and fingers.  I gorge myself until I can eat of them no more.  Their fragrance soon becomes sickening to my senses.  I can finally feel the rips that the thorns have put into my skin.  I try and turn, make my way back to the road, but I am tangled deep.  The thorns that were easily walked into are not so easily left.

I look at my blood stained skin, the thorns dipped in red.  Suddenly they are not just my thorns, they are Christ's.  I have crowned Him in these thorns that I willingly walked into.  He suffered, bled His own blood, skin peirced by the thorns that weren't His own.  His glory forsaken, to be crowned in my sin.  His eyes, tear stained, know my pain.  I can see Him on the road.  Just waiting for me to ask, to ask to be untangled from the vines that grab. 

I can see Him, yet I stand mute in my thorns.  Why do I stand, just stand?  Stained and bleeding, torn to shreds and yet I choose to stand.