"... they had no depth of soil."
Our depth of soil is important. God wants to take the power of His word, the power of His presence to depth in us. He wants His life in us to go deeper than the vaneers we might know Him in and keep Him in. He is not satisfied with small depth. He wants more relationship than that. He wants more closeness. He wants more connection. He wants nothing in the way. He wants everything. He wants full disclosure, full unveiling. He wants nothing short than complete oneness. He wants union realized, not just union positionally given. He wants to go to deep places in us.
"... Deep calls out to deep to the sound of your waterfalls..."
The deep places in God are calling out to the deep places in us. We are both the ones hearing the "calling out", and we are the ones "calling out." That "calling out" in the heart of God is to be heard in our hearts as they open to God and to others. God is speaking heart to heart... with us.
If you listen with the ears of your heart, you will hear a sound that's reaching to the deep places in you. When Jesus spoke there was a sound heard in the heavens speaking to the deep places in the hearts of men. And for those who had ears to hear, it was heard in their hearts as well. You could say what Jesus spoke was more beautiful than anything else that had ever been spoken. His voice released a sound to the listening ear. It was a sound that would set mens hearts free. At the entrance of His words there was light, and that light was the light of men. The movement of His heart under the anointing as He disclosed Himself to men, as He spoke to His beloved people, from prositutes to lawyers, from drunkards to business men, to tax collectors, was the most beautiful of songs that had ever been sung. It was pure music. And those who heard it fell to their knees and worshiped. It was the greatest of poetry that had ever been spoken. His life was poetry. It was the song of all songs in living color, in human flesh as He dwelt among us. He still dwells among us today and His heart is open to us as it was then.
What was on John the Baptist was great. His calling out was great. But what's in us is even greater than he. And our calling out is just as important or greater. That's what Jesus said. God is connecting us to the eternal sound of His words. He wants us to hear it.. for when we do, that hearing produces faith.
Jesus is still speaking today. With the same romance that was in his heart when He walked the earth is still in Him today as He walks the earth of mens hearts. There is a sound for this moment, for now. He is pulling from the eternal song a melody for us to sing today. That's what has been happening with Jen and I. Father is tuning us into what He's singing right now. We are hearing a sound in our hearts that is calling out to us. We can hear it... it's like the sound of water. It's beautiful. It says that His voice is like the sound of many waters. If you have ever sat next to a brook, and stopped to listen you know the sound.
There was a special place that I used to love to go to and listen to the sound of "many waters". In that place my eyes would close and listen. I would listen with the deepest parts of me. I wanted the sound to fill me. That place was my familys cabin.
When I was only a boy my Father bought a piece of property on the Trinity River. I remember the first day I saw it with my mother... it was a dream. All she could do when she saw it was cry. There was no place like it on this earth, at least to some of us. It was a place of utter beauty and wonder. I spent many, many days there exploring God, myself and the creation He had made. All of it came together where two streams met. My heart and God's heart were forever tied together in that place as my life flowed into His and His into mine. I would get lost there in all the colors, sounds, textures, smells, and thoughts that would collide with my heart. I was the floating leaf. I was the beetle rounding the stone. I was the hawk circling over head. I was the grey squirrel leaping to another tree. I was the only deer in the meadow. Everything was too wonderful to be true. And to each wonderful discovery there was the sound of water escorting my heart to understand the essence of things. It was a special place and is a special place to me still. I will never forget my life along the banks of the trinity.
I spent thirty years there, a good portion of my life, enjoying a most precious gift from God to our family. The property was situated among streams. There was the mighty crown jewel called the Trinity, and then there was the Hawkins Creek rolling down past the cabin by the deck into the river. There was a location on the deck between the creek and the river that afforded the attentive listener a multiplicity of water sounds. All you had to do was quiet yourself and listen. You would then hear a most beautiful sound. You would hear the trickling of the creek to your left, and it's soft pounding of waterfalls as it flowed to the base of the creek where it spilled into the river. There the river would sing as it received the offering the creek was giving. The river hummed quietly to you and strong. It was not prideful in its passing, but confindent in it's course. You could feel it's power in the main channel, though its shoulders were gentle along the banks. It moved swiftly and gracefully whispering to you escorting you down river to where you would hear the roar of its powerful set of rapids. It's authority was ever true and unyielding.
You could isolate each sound if you wanted to. Or you could stand perfectly still and let all the sounds come together as they flowed in from near and far. I always would think of Jesus there and consider that this sound was like His voice. When the psalmist would try to express the beauty of His voice, all he could say was that it was like the sound of many waters. Or they would say it's like thunder. But on those days sitting on the deck with the warmth of the sun, I was being romanced by the eternal song of God as He called out to me, from deep unto deep at the sound of His waterfalls, as all his waves and breakers washed over me. It was a chorus of sounds lifting me into something more. There wasn't just rocks and trees there. There wasn't just birds and animals. There was a voice speaking. I heard a sound there that I'm hearing today. It's the same sound that brought me home. I felt at home in that place like no other place on earth. Jesus gave that to me there. He's giving it to Jen and I here now. This sound is the stuff of faith. We are learning to hear it and let it fill us. The eternal song of the eternal lover. He is love. Our lives are about love. That's why we are smiling. That's why we can laugh. We are hearing the song that God is singing over us. We are learning to live under waterfalls.
Faith to me is not like a cold stone or a hard rough object. It's not like cement or poured concrete. It's not hard really at all. But then faith can be hard and cold it seems... I don't know maybe we make it that way more than it's supposed to be. But one things for sure, I want to find the faith that is like a flowing stream, or a bubbling brook, that isn't made of cement. Can faith be gentle, full of hope, full of grace, full of love and full of delight, even full of laughter? I'm hoping so. We are venturing to believe so.
And those sounds we are wanting to hear for our lives are not just far off. They are close by too, just off the deck of our lives. They are in us even, coming forth from our own hearts. Our hearts are to be filled with music, with love, with the sounds of heaven. Our hearts are to overflow with this music, with worship. We are to release this sound to others. We do that by opening our hearts.
An open hearted person comes to depth and comes to healing. As a heart opens to people again, it opens to the Presence in a special way. Through God's people there is a voice crying out, like one crying out in the wilderness. It is crying out to the wilderness of soul so many people are living in. That cry in the heart of God to the cry of the broken hearted, to ones who have not been comforted by the words of Jesus, by the love of Father, is to be heard through us. You can say we become the sound of Heaven's Cry in the earth. We release the sound by our hearts opening to care for them. We allow the depth of us that's been touched by the sound of heaven to be opened to them. Our hearts open with the words of God to love as we ourselves have been loved. That's why it is so important to be loved and to be healed. Our hearts become beacons of a homecoming. Healing is a sound. It is a word. It's like a waterfall. Jesus said of Himself:
"I have come to bring good news to the afflicted;
I have come to bind up the borkenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives..." (among many things)
Jesus spoke this... He was calling out. Deep unto deep at the sound of His waterfalls. What does the waterfall from heaven sound like? Read the verse again and you will hear it. The brokenhearted healed. That's what's in the waterfall. That's what the rocks under the water are revealing. They would cry out if we don't. They know, creation knows, that there is healing for itself in us. Creation groans for the sons of God to be revealed. Creation as well as the peoples of the earth are waiting to hear from us. We will sing, we will rejoice and worship when we ourselves learn to hear the sound and the words Jesus is singing. We simply need to return to the decks of hearts where two streams meet. We need to return to the healing sound, to the poetry in the heart of God as He sings over us His song of love. Let us hear again Him "calling out". Let us return to all that's pure and good. We will once again be like children at play in His fields. We will be the beetle finding it's way. We will be the deer filling up on blackberrys. We will be tree planted by the living water. We will be the trout meadering in the shade of the deep pool. We will come home. We will be living in "our cabins", in our dreams forever.
This is what we learning to do with Sarah in our lives. We are learning to be in our dreams. She is apart of that. She is our little dream in a bundle under a veil of flesh. Without hearing the sound of heaven, without understanding the melody and the words to the song, we would not be in a dream. We would be in a tradegy. Thank you God that we don't live where streams don't flow. We live in a place where rivers flow. Jen and I are staying in the song Jesus is singing over Sarah. It's a word. It's a sound. And everyday we are moving ourselves under the waterfall, moving to a place of faith, to hear God speak to us.. deep unto deep.
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