Exposure

I have been dwelling on the idea of exposure for quite some time. I am not talking about popularity or getting noticed I am talking about a different kind of exposure. Before kids, Doug & I used to do a lot of rock climbing ( now we take the kids but that is very different). In the climbing world the term "exposure" is something very different , it means being way up high on the very edge of a cliff or up on a sheer rockface. Whenever we were looking for a new climb the thing I loved the most was a climb with exposure...I say that I loved it the most but if I am honest, it was also the thing that I was most scared of. I loved the feeling of being up high, seeing things that almost no one in the world saw but....I also usually wanted to pee my pants and at least once had to be talked down by Doug while I screamed (a bit dramatically) "I don't want to die!!!"... but I always came down feeling more alive and wanting to do it again. Some of my most vivid memories are still from those times of "exposure".

For awhile now, I have felt the Lord bringing up the idea of exposure. I feel like there is always this tension in my life. So much of me aches to surround myself with comfort, familiarity and everything that is safe...to not stress or encounter discomfort. But this journey to Georgia has challenged that desire because honestly, in the times in my life where I have most achieved this "comfort" is when I least saw God....for me the nagging companions of comfort were doubt and feeling like God was a million miles away....and now, back to tonight where it feels like the winds of the unknown are whipping all around me, where I literally do not know what tomorrow brings and a big part of me wants to scream dramatically "just make it stop!" ... you know what? I feel close enough to God that I could almost reach out and touch His face. I FEEL His presence and know that He is carrying me and I know that there is no other place that I want to be.

A longtime mentor of mine once said that where she wanted to be in life was on her knees before Christ and that in order to do that she needed to be doing something bigger than she was. I wonder how many times I have missed those opportunities because I caved in to the beckoning comfort?


I just rediscovered this Scripture:

Ephesians 3:14-21 (The Message)

"My response is to get down on my knees before the Father, this magnificent Father who parcels out all Heaven and earth. I ask Him to strengthen you by His Spirit - not a brute strength but a glorious inner strength - that Christ will live in you as you open the door and invite Him in. And I ask Him that with both feet planted firmly on love, you'll be able to take in with all the followers of Jesus the extravagant dimensions of Chrit's love. Reach out and experience the breadth! Test its lengths! Plumb the depths! Rise to the heights! Live full lives, full in the fullness of God.

God can do anything you know - far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us"