Awake, O My Soul

How narrow the pathways of the human mind. How much can we actually understand? How much can we really grasp? There are times in my feeble mind I feel like I am standing on the edge of something so profound and want to understand it with such a deep desire, and it's like for the first time I sense that I am starting to grasp something, instead of letting the grains of sand fall between my fingers. Truly I have my hands around something more than dust.

With the idea of there being a God, can I ask that we really think through that idea. Really, stop. Think. Does not the idea that there is a creator, a maker, a being so huge that with a breath he forms oceans, stop us so quickly in our tracks? Even if you don't believe in this, just contemplate the idea. That the very earth you walk on could be created and wasn't an accident. That a Being so immense exists in every corner of the earth and was the prime mover of every single little thing. And within it exists this unexplainable love.

I want this all to be my existence. To fill every cavern of my soul.

Then I am turned toward history. I can only read about it. See it in a movie maybe, get an idea of what happened. I can put myself in the eyes of history, but it doesn't do it justice. And it's not just about this event, because so many people experienced the same exact thing years later. It's about this man who shook every part of existence 2000 years ago. His message: Love. His death: Sacrifice. He said, you won't be known by any other aspect of your life except if you have loved, just as he had. My friend mentioned to me yesterday that one of the shortest verses is that "Jesus wept." He wept. Why is this profound? Because he was so intent on loving those who didn't love him. So ready to sacrifice for those who wouldn't understand what his sacrifice meant. He wept. "I love them." Can we even understand that deep of a love? Can we grasp an inkling of this sacrifice? He Wept. "I will die for them." To his Father, this creator we have learned about, he wept. To the very Being we have come to doubt and push away from because we cannot understand.

There are so many horrible things in this world, and I understand the bitter disappointment in seeing all of these things. But how do you think the Creator, of all that is good, that all he intended for good, thinks or even feels about what He sees? Is it the bad that pushes us away? Is it the evil that presses us down? Of course! It's completely natural. But how was this reaction instilled in us? How did we know how to feel about those things? Created after Him. My fingers begin to grip.


How badly have you wanted someone to get something that you thought you would break down? How deeply have you wanted to reach out to someone and just say, "can't you see it?" This dwells in me. Jesus felt the frustration, the weakness, and the surrender of human nature, and that is EXACTLY why he was put in this form, because we need to feel understood, and he understands. It's we who don't seem to understand this intensity. He wept. "They won't understand and they don't understand, yet I love them."How beautiful. How desperately he wanted to us to see him and what he wanted to do for us: love us, die for us. Crying out: "Can't you see?" Because he LOVES us. And that creator? He Started that Love. I grip tighter.

So I'll stand, with arms high and heart abandoned.
Awake, O My Soul. For this moment, for this hour, awakening.
Don't let go of me.