Compelled by Love

It's late here and it's quiet and for the first time in a while I have a cup of hot tea in my hand, a candle lit, some soft praise and worship music playing and God and I are alone in the stillness and that feels good. I've decided tonight to be still. Truth is, that I've allowed myself to get buried again. Goodness it makes me so mad at me when that happens, but I find myself here far more often than I'd like to admit. Buried and at total unrest. Perhaps you're familiar with that place that feels like the world is swirling and you cannot stop your head for long enough to just be still and even when your body is your mind isn't.

I got an email from one of my "adopted by heart" brothers today with some of the kindest encouragment I've received in a while. Didn't have much to do with me, and everything to do with seeking the kingdom and I needed reminded that was my job on this earth. He passed along this quote to me in reference to some of the "fighst" I'm feeling in regards to some things my heart is witnessing right now and it spoke. It just perhaps is it's own post tonight without any explanation needed from me.

It was written by a Danish pastor, Taj Munk, who at the end of WWII found himself one of the only outwardly vocal opponents of the Nazi regime. He saw what they were doing and all the horrors they perpetrated and got angry. This is what he wrote...

"What is, therefore, our task today? Faith, hope, and love? That sounds beautiful. But I would say, courage. No, even that isn't challenging enough to be the whole truth. Our task today is recklessness. For what we Christians lack is not psychology or literature - we lack a holy rage - the recklessness which comes from the knowledge of God and humanity. The ability to rage when justice lies prostrate on the streets, and when the lie rages across the face of the earth...a holy anger about the things that are wrong in the world. To rage against the ravaging of God's earth, and the destruction of God's world. To rage when little children must die of hunger when the tables of the rich are sagging with food. To rage against the senseless killing of so many, and against the madness of militaries. To rage at the lie that calls the threat of death and the strategy of destruction "peace". To rage against complacency. To restlessly seek that recklessness that will challenge and seek to change human history until it conforms to the norms of the Kingdom of God. And remember the signs of the Christian church have been the Lion, the Lamb, the Dove, and the Fish...but never the chameleon."

Make us reckless Lord, in all the right ways, please call us out of our complacency and excessive abundance and please Lord help us live for more than ourselves. Please start here...right here in this heart, and then use this heart to speak and live with boldness and courage to affect change for those whose voice may never get heard but whose cry pierces your ears tonight and breaks your heart. For the times we've ignored their cry and sat in our selfishness forgive us. Help us God never to want to blend in but to stand up and live called out. Create within us a holy anger that compels us to a reckless life sold out to your kingdom. Please start here and please start now. Amen.