Today has been by far the hardest.
The unfinishedness of my redeemed heart is staring me in the face like a cracked and flaking urn some ancient potter meant to serve as a gold plated home for spring flowers.
Six days in the Jordanian wilderness stand between me and a return trip to the place I’ve called home for the first 29 years of my life. I’m the same person who boarded a frosty December plane a few months back…only, my eyelids have been stretched wider. I’ve seen places I’ve never dreamed I would behold. I’ve seen facets of my heart that are still crying out for a savior and lie within prisons of self-imposed fear. I am broken in, like my high school baseball glove.
Can I muster a final statement, a barrel-chested proclamation of what I’ve learned in Israel? No doubt people will ask me upon my return, “So, how was it?” I’ll smile back and probably say something smug like, “How ’bout you take me out to coffee and I’ll tell you all about it!” or, “You should read my blog.” But I think it’s important to offer a sort of summation to those who simply don’t have the time sift through my stories or can’t afford coffee (though I promise I’ll only order drip coffee). Honestly, I’m ok with that.
Within the confines of a day where I feel like I’ve been sucker-punched and left staggering; unable to pray, read Scripture, or even journal, all I can offer is agonized assertion that Christ still wants everything.
Let me explain…
The university I attend literally sits atop Mount Zion, a place that functioned as a sort of second name for the Jewish place of worship Bible. Worship: the act of pouring out our hearts before our Creator.
Amid heartache, hopelessness, wonderment and gratitude; wherever the waves of our fickle hearts toss us, God’s love cuts our seas like the frayed edge of a garment, pulling us from the tumult and gazing deep into our eyes.
Save me, O God! For the waters have come up to my neck. I sink in deep mire, where there is no foothold; I have come into deep waters, and the flood sweeps over me. I am weary with my crying out; my throat is parched. My eyes grow dim with waiting for my God (Psalm 69:1-3).
Whatever condition our hearts are in, however mangled they’ve become before we sigh and send them to the foot of the cross…God isn’t surprised. God wants all of us, every square inch of the flesh he first breathed into and brought to life.
Traveling back and forth across the Holy Land has unveiled the legacy of God’s bride in all her nuanced imperfection: pain, sin, aching, astonishment, awe…God has taken everything, the entire tapestry of human history and carefully woven it into something beautiful: billions of lives connected by the careful hands of Love’s embodiment.
So often when we approach God (or his people) we hold back and grow silent, believing the condition of our hearts to be too grave for grace. God isn’t intimidated. He made us.
Breathe. Trust. Smile under the weight of His love. He wants everything.
Bryan, I await your return with much eagerness. Your writing here is simply stunning. I can feel the angst of another transition and I’m prying like a mad man about that. As God gripped you in the weeks before your trip to the Land you call ‘Holy,’ God is gripping you in the days before you return to the land you call ‘home.’ Thank you is not nearly enough letters to string together to express gratitude for the writing you’ve been doing; but it’s all I’ve got. The Dunn Brothers in Golden Valley is not nearly enough of a venue to unpack all of this; but’s all we can do. One cup at a time. I’m buying. Peace. Shalom. pg
Amen Bryan!
How amazing is our God? How awesome is he, that even in our angst, ignorance, immaturity, repetitive compulsions, weakness and imperfection, God still gives us everything, and the very breath of life! He doesn’t need us, he wants us, and he wants us SO very much to, as you put it, just be… to breathe, to trust him with everything by inclining our ear, eye, heart, soul, and everything to him continually.
My bible says, “6Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by PRAYER and PETITION, with THANKSGIVING, present your requests to God. 7And the PEACE of God, which transcends ALL understanding, will GUARD your HEARS and your MINDS in Christ Jesus.”
It in is Christ Jesus that our hope, peace, love and thanksgiving is found–and in Christ alone!
Only then, when we learn to continually turn to God, will we have a true understanding of peace, and one that only makes sense in an ever increasing dark, evil, and hopeless world… a Peace that transcends ALL understanding…
By submitting to his authority, rule and reign in our lives… continuously, His Holy Spirit will rest on us, and reside in us, which grants us peace, and a better hope than the law of the world can ever offer us (Heb 7:18)
God made us this way, to be in an intimate relationship with him. To know and to be known, to love and to be loved… to draw near and to be drawn near by Him. Once we enter into an covenant relationship with God, his love and faithfulness never fail, and we can finally rest, be, and live under the wings and weight of His love.
24″The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. 25And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. 26From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. 27God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. 28′For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’
29″Therefore since we are God’s offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone—an image made by man’s design and skill. 30In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. 31For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead.” -Acts 17:24-31
We are God’s offspring, and are promised not only salvation, but redemption when trials come, rescuing by the very hand of our God! The God of our forefathers, the God of Abraham, Jacob, Sampson, Isaiah, Moses, David, Joshua…Yahweh!
“God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.” -1 Cor 9:8
“The widow who is really in need and left all alone puts her hope in God and continues night and day to pray and to ask God for help.” -1 Tim 5:5
You already know, but in hard times, for me, the first thing I forget is the first thing I ought to always remember…Christ’s sacrifice:
“1The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming—not the realities themselves. For this reason it can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship. 2If it could, would they not have stopped being offered? For the worshipers would have been cleansed once for all, and would no longer have felt guilty for their sins. 3But those sacrifices are an annual reminder of sins, 4because it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.
5Therefore, when Christ came into the world, he said:
“Sacrifice and offering you did not desire,
but a body you prepared for me;
6with burnt offerings and sin offerings
you were not pleased.
7Then I said, ‘Here I am—it is written about me in the scroll—
I have come to do your will, O God.’ “[a] 8First he said, “Sacrifices and offerings, burnt offerings and sin offerings you did not desire, nor were you pleased with them” (although the law required them to be made). 9Then he said, “Here I am, I have come to do your will.” He sets aside the first to establish the second. 10And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
11Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. 12But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God. 13Since that time he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool, 14because by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.
15The Holy Spirit also testifies to us about this. First he says:
16″This is the covenant I will make with them
after that time, says the Lord.
I will put my laws in their hearts,
and I will write them on their minds.”[b] 17Then he adds:
“Their sins and lawless acts
I will remember no more.”[c] 18And where these have been forgiven, there is no longer any sacrifice for sin. 19Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, 20by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, 21and since we have a great priest over the house of God, 22let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. 23Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. 24And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. 25Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.” -Hebrews 10:1-24
Bryan, I believe you have such an anointing of God on your life for transformation of hearts, minds, and spirits that through these times of trial, refining, and testing, as you seek first God and his righteousness, God, as he already has done so much, will continue to open your eyes to the people, the things, the secrets of His Kingdom… which only the blessed, and righteous may see..
“3″Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
4Blessed are those who mourn,
for they will be comforted.
5Blessed are the meek,
for they will inherit the earth.
6Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they will be filled.
7Blessed are the merciful,
for they will be shown mercy.
8Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they will see God.
9Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called sons of God.
10Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Matt 5:3-10
The time has come
(this video was made by a teenage girl obviously… but I couldn’t find a better quality version of the song.. 
so just watch it and praise God!) 
Bryan, I pray that “the anointing you received from him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about all things and as that anointing is real, not counterfeit—just as it has taught you, remain in him.” -1 John 2:27
Can’t wait to see you for a little while, as I begin for my journey away this summer.
If we really look all around us, God is reigning everywhere!
Praying for your strength, endurance, and protection as you continue to put the Law of the Spirit into practice with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.
I hope this was so encouraging!
Sincerely,