I Heard a Voice

The altar is open.

It bounces around inside my head, resonating, roaring, like the many waters Jesus’ voice truly is.

Lay it at His feet.

I can feel whatever it is today, shrinking back into the darkest part of my heart that it can find. But my heart, oh my heart, it is yearning for the courts of the Lord, and despite my shame over it–this dark thing–my heart, my dim heart, is drawn toward the Light, the shining of His feet like radiant, burnished bronze.

The altar is open. The Lord is here.

Oh, you don’t have to tell me. I can feel those burning, holy eyes on me, a consuming fire that I cannot conjure or resist. This is real. This must be something like what they call Shekinah. This is turning to the Lord, being unveiled. This is liberty, the presence of His own Holy Spirit. This glory is forever increasing, forever transforming our dim, longing hearts.

The altar is open.

I don’t really get tired of hearing it. That this holy, holy, holy God would  honor the bit of faith required to walk a few steps to the tired, old front of a much-used room in before the Assembly, that He reaches down when we bow down, that He calls for us long before we find the words to call Him, and that this is open to me for as long as I live–these truths, this splendid faithfulness, it is the joy of my life.

A voice like a trumpet is saying, “Come up here. Come up. Come up.”

It’s that joy that brings me to tears whenever I respond to what they call the the open altar.

A Thought

I am learning to stop reaching for what is out of my hands.

By speculations, fantasies, and worries, we attempt to rob God of what is His and His only to hold–our future. It’s a sin that happens deep in the soul, where perhaps no one else will even ever see it. It’s your daydreams and your wishes, it’s the journeys you go on in your mind that exalt either the pattern of this world or the holy God who makes all things new.

You’ve asked Him into your heart. But would you let Him into your mind?

Would you make Him at home in your planning and your remembering? Your entertainment? Your dreams, affections?

I am learning to keep a tighter rein on what flies about in my own little head.