Wide Open Space

Wide Open Space

For you feel the great loss.

For all you see is the absence.

Yet what does the wide open space look like?

Is it not the place of absence.

Is it not the place you go looking for something only to find nothing?

How do you define that which is missing?

Is it defined by what remains, or what was lost?

Is not the clearing defined first by the clearing out?

For I know what is to come.

For I know what is coming.

When you look at the warehouse all you see is emptiness.

Yet what I see in the place of the coming fullness.

I’m sweeping out the old, in full knowledge of the fullness that is to come.

All you feel is the departure.

All you sense is the loss.

All you feel is the tearing away of all that you held on to.

All you feel is the not having, and the not holding.

For you know longer have and no longer hold.

For I have taken him away.

Now is the time to be taken away.

Now is the time of the take away.

What will you take away?

What would you subtract?

What remains after you take everything away?

A great space, a wide open space, a place full of great potential.

Yes that is it.

What do you notice so much about the available options?

Narrow, confined, ill fitting, measured, full of the need to measure.

What do notice about the wide open space?

At first the great absence, that absence of presence, the emptiness. Then a sense of great potential.

Why hold on to that which remains?

In the absence of it all, am I not present?

This one thing remains.

Is not the vastness of the wide open space, a place to explore, a place to traverse, a place of many paths, a place of great adventure.

For the bigger the place, the faster you want to go, the more you want to explore.

Yet there is a moment between emptiness and fullness.

It is the desolate place, the place of nothingness, the place where you have nothing left.

Yet is the place of the presence.

For what do you see now?

A vast huge valley, filled with the mist, the mist hovering over the emptiness, filling that which was empty.

For I will bring fullness to that which is empty.

What is it you see now?

The clearing of the ground, the removal of the weeds, leaving only the dirt. Then in an instant a full box of fruit placed on the ground that was ready for the seed.

For there shall be a great acceleration like never before.

In one moment here, in the next moment there.

You are expecting many steps in between and this is reasonable.

Yet I am without reason, I do not consult with that which is reasonable, I’m not interested in the incremental.

You think, clearing, sowing, watering, waiting, sprouting, growing, then harvesting, then distribution, then eating.

I think clearing and then eating.

For I shall make room for you.

This is the work of my hands.

From one thing to another.

Unexpected movement.

From the slippery place to the steady place to the established going.

What is it you see now?

Wave upon wave falling, wave upon wave splashing, wave upon wave crashing. Yet though my eyes fail me, as I am fully immersed, your strong hand has a firm grip upon me. Like the most solid thing in the place that is most fluid.

Be lifted up.

Is it not my hand that holds you?

Romans 5:1-5 By entering through faith into what God has always wanted to do for us—set us right with him, make us fit for him—we have it all together with God because of our Master Jesus. And that’s not all: We throw open our doors to God and discover at the same moment that he has already thrown open his door to us. We find ourselves standing where we always hoped we might stand—out in the wide open spaces of God’s grace and glory, standing tall and shouting our praise. There’s more to come: We continue to shout our praise even when we’re hemmed in with troubles, because we know how troubles can develop passionate patience in us, and how that patience in turn forges the tempered steel of virtue, keeping us alert for whatever God will do next. In alert expectancy such as this, we’re never left feeling shortchanged. Quite the contrary—we can’t round up enough containers to hold everything God generously pours into our lives through the Holy Spirit!