Gone Bananas

This post is not to curry favor with you, Dear Reader. It actually could make you want to cut and run from Voicing Light. But I have to get to the bottom of it--this thing that I rankle over when it comes to cliches. Why do I always feel that I have a bone to pick with them? When I started this exploration I felt fit as a fiddle, and now all I want is to have the last laugh on these semantic marauders.

For what it's worth, I think that they rarely hit pay dirt with their meaning. They are at their very worst in performance when used to put a band aid on sorrow. They have so tritely insinuated themselves into our speech that they are the proverbial snake in the grass to original thought. Also, I find it a really hit or miss thing to even get them right. So often I have tried to express how I bought a pig in a poke, only to end up with the pig poking me. It can be a sloppy mess.

Am I muddying the water? I want to be neat as a pin in saying that I slept like a log last night (Timber!), and awoke certain that I had to stand pat on this, or I might go mad as a hatter. No news is good news if all that can be said is a cliche.

Please, let's have no ill will, if this has only been idle chit chat I won't shed any crocodile tears, but will only ask that you allow me to pull myself up by my bootstraps and say what I mean:

"Pleasant words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones." Proverbs 16:24

Right on! I shall now cut my banana onto my cereal having made this short story long.

The Joy on the Road

I watched him head out to ride upon the waters, but I didn't expect the frisky, colt-like leap that my lens was able to catch. It was delightful and it also set my heart to pondering about the road involved in any worthy journey.

A good stretching and a feel for the body and the soul's readiness is necessary before any challenge. His unexpected flight showed me that it could be more thrilling if the leap was part of the joy of making it to the top of a wave. He made me think about how we are not just built for those sweet moments of reaching the challenge of cresting the heights, but about how glorious the path to the elevated places can also be. Far from an interruption to the goal, the surprising vault was a spirited dance even at flat sea-level.

Then I remembered the beginning of the verse that is on the screen-lock on my phone~~1 Thessalonians 5:16: "Rejoice always..." Were they just words to skim over? Was the surfer illustrating for me what I thought was already on my heart? I was sure of it. If he had to turn around just after the great jump, remembering some task, I knew that his day of going into the Pacific was already one that wouldn't be hindered. He knew how to come and how to go, because like Jesus when He walked abroad here, nothing was really an interruption. Every thing that He encountered was an intense moment of having arrived at the place to leap for joy in showering heaven's love upon the one before Him.

Rejoice always!.... And I learned a new balletic move from a surfer who catapulted my heart to the dancing Jesus--on the road.

A Red Letter Welcome

The words-in-red are how we refer to Jesus’ own words in the Gospels. I think of them as residing in my Bible, but also as written on my heart by the Holy Spirit, and as love notes posted all around—illuminated even in the treetops.

If I can’t find a specific note, this is always far greater than imaginable for any moment: “ The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God,” (Romans 8:16). I can take this to my heart as an intimate message to me at any time. A child of God is cherished, encouraged, and defended in all conditions. He has written in the scarlet-thread of the blood of Jesus these very exhortations uniquely to each of His own children. They are not generic, but singular to your precious heart! And the opening always addresses you lovingly by name and the closing always reads: Your Loving Father—in the most gorgeous script pouring from an open heaven.

The image of a red-letter mailbox, with messages ready to be dropped-in is how my neighborhood looks as I walk afield. The smile of a neighbor who warmly likes the regularity of my route, the Creator’s design in His tree-bouquets, the rhythm of His heart as I hear the pounding Pacific blocks away, the creatures who seem to praise Him so naturally, and the reliable Truth that no one else fully refreshes my condition like a walk with the Savior. These are notes deposited in that red box, addressed just to me, and sealed with the red wax of the Holy Dove’s image.

I run to open the latch and a heavenly fragrance wafts from the mailbox. Is it the scent of the bouquets overhead?  Surely, they are a great accompaniment, but it is really the “oil of gladness” that exudes from the holy place. Getting a hand-written letter is such a delight. When the Heart of Grace writes it a new understanding—of never being alone, of never being rejected, of always having His limitless resources, abounds over a soul at peril to the world’s attempt at breaking a heart.

This letter is the kind that people call a keeper, but it really comes with the purpose of keeping us—of preserving us to an overflow of love that gives Him the glory as we minister His love in places of deep harshness.

Will you walk to pick-up the mail with me today?