Journey of a Thousand Faces

How long has it been since I've let my hands rest upon the three dimensional cubes that are the electric signals to the motherboard...

Far too long.

I've been running away for six years now, and three of those years I knew I was. Before hand I was being molded and shaped by my loving Father. I was seeking, overcoming hurdles rising up in front of me. Smashing through massive brick walls barring my path, and all the while God knew I would run. He let me know back then, and I distinctly remember thinking, "God, I have no idea how this has anything to do with my life."

I wouldn't of back then. Back then I thought I knew what God wanted from me in my life, to some extent, but little did I know that he was at the potters wheel, hands against the newly softened clay, molding and refining a newly brought upon hobby of mine that I did as a release. As a form of recreation or outlet for my pent up thoughts. It was relaxing, enjoyable, not so much a task as an activity akin to painting a portrait. And so I was told back then, I was pretty decent at it. Those comments were from my friends though, and everyone knows a friend can be the most biased of critics when it comes to our endeavors. It wasn't until someone who was not fond of me, to be frank, he loathed me very much so, complimented me on this creative process that I felt perhaps God had blessed me in this area that I had never even realized I had before.

Now when someone has a negative perception of you, and yet they can compliment you on your work and say that you do a very good job of it, that can usually mean that you are good at what you're doing. I think because it's been so long since I've done this that the words feel clunky rolling off of these cubes. Sort of like pushing perfectly square boulders off an upward cliff. Pressing forward, I went seeking again seeing that the current path I was walking down was falling short. God unveiled what He had been creating at the potters helm, and presented me with my new path. His path for my life, not my own.

Imagine a cobble stone street, damp from a midnights fog, and a circle of oil lamps faintly glowing all around you. Suddenly the air starts to bend, the lamp posts almost seem to sway in an eerie rhythm, and you feel unreal like a pencil animation breathed upon by God's breath of life. Your path starts to open up, but it's dark and narrow, the oil lamps curving this way and that as the cobble stones crack and rise in odd patterns. You could trip, you could hit a wall, you could fall off the path into a jagged bed of rocks with a glimmer of water trailing through them.

God showed me my path, and at first I was excited. That's what any servant of Christ wants right? To be shown God's will for their life so that they may press forward and act upon it. I was shown, I got excited, I started coming up with ideas, little pieces there, little bits here, scratches and scrawls on napkins, spare papers, school notebooks, awkward sketchbooks, but nothing ever coherent. Slowly, over time, that all stopped. Once and a good while I would find that ink reservoir or that graphite quarry, but nothing substantial was produced. God never stopped though. Not bloody ONCE. His love is relentless, a furious love that never stops when He is attached to you. If you love Him he pursues you like a bloodhound on the scent of a fox. He gave me more ideas, he gave me dreams, friends with notions, inklings of things that could become more if I nurtured them from that garden of sprouting ideas. But I never did. I ran, not trusting Him, becoming afraid of failure, of myself. I started looking for other paths, other means to pursue God's glory, but when God shows you your path, that is what He wants for you. It's like a tsunami that has been frozen in time hovering over you waiting for the right moment to unfreeze and barrel you right into the heart of the mountainside.

This year I knew something was different. Last year the enormous wave was such a menacing figure above me. Always seeming to loom closer the more I searched for something else. But I knew this year would be different. God has shown me things that I need to do, and I went searching for those things. That's the first thing I've done right. Secondly, I need to stop turning my back to the wave. I need to spin on my heel and smile into the wall of water coming to drown me in something so torrential and full of love that I would not want to be anywhere else. I have my problems, my sin that latches onto me like a parasite unseen, so I need to dive into the embrace of my Father, His arms outstretched waiting for me, always. Through repetition, faith, trust, love, and an unending joy will I only overcome what has had me running for so long.

To back track a bit, I mentioned that God told me I would run even before I knew what I was running from. When I was going through a trial in my life, God gave a prophecy to one of his servants to tell me, that I would be like Jonah, running from Nineveh straight into the mouth of the whale. At the time it really had no meaning for what was going on in my life because I was running into the arms of my Lord everyday, for strength, for guidance, for the reassurance I needed to get me through day after day. It wasn't until I started running that the prophecy was brought into full effect, and God is never wrong in His words, ever. It is through these times that He refines us further, tempers our wills into a more longing trust, and gives us the courage to fulfill what He has planned for us.

I am Matthew
I am a servant of the living God
I am saved by the blood of His son Jesus who is the Christ, the son of man, God in the flesh
I am flawed
I am lonely
I am vulgar
I am gray
I am Jonah
I am a writer
I am a friend
I am listening now

"I will extol the Lord at all times; his praise will always be on my lips. My soul will boast in the Lord; let the afflicted hear and rejoice. Glorify the Lord with me; let us exalt his name together."

~Psalm 34:1-3~