Arms Flung

It’s like a force field I am forcibly resisting. Though its power is greater than mine, I am strangely able to resist. Its as if it is calling me to open wide my hands, my arms outstretched and walk in…chest first.

The closer I get the more difficult it is to resist; yet resist I do. Usually we dive into things head first, right? But the sense I have is that I must go chest first. Maybe because it is there, within my chest, my heart resides.

Entering unabashed the force field of celebration feels edgy. I think I am engaging this moment to the extent I am able…but the call to enter joy with less hesitation remains. My power to resist comes from my head (maybe that, too, is why I cannot dive in…head first). There is a raw-ness to this force field of celebration. A letting go. An encounter this deep with joy feels so…intimate.  God, close. Does not all joy which exists come from Him? From where else could joy originate? God is love, and can not the fullest of love produce joy? What would love be without joy? They cannot be separated.

So I use my head to fuel my chest. Rather than use my mind to resist movement, I engage it even more powerfully…I renew my mind with Truth and empower a movement better than intellect…yet fueled by it. My intellect will serve me, I will not serve it. The lies that joy is too childish, too dangerous, too out of touch….I wish to say "Silence!" But with the state this world is in, how dare I live in deep joy? Will I not be thought a fool? 

My mind continues to hold me back from the force field…it believes it protects me. 

Then I read this: 

“Why would the world need more anger? How does it save the world to reject unabashed joy when it is joy that saves us? Rejecting joy to stand in solidarity with the suffering doesn’t rescue the suffering. The converse does. The brave who focus on all things good and all things beautiful and all things true, even in the small, who give thanks for it and discover joy even in the here and now, they are the change agents who bring the fullest Light to all the world.”  -Ann Voskamp

My head begins to believe and set free my chest to draw close. My arms flung open so my heart enters first (can it be any other way?).  I entered pain with all my self, grieving clean I found a mending of soul. Why does joy seems scarier, more vulnerable? How do I enter without the suspicious mind…when will it end? When will the shoe drop? It always does. I lack abandon to God and to trust in His presence.

Then I remember King David, king of Israel, who, when the Ark of the Lord was finally brought back to Israel he “danced before the Lord with all his might” (2Sam.6:14). People were around, he had few garments on, if any, and danced with unashamed delight. So much so that his wife was thoroughly embarrassed! (apparently joy has been seen as childish & over the top for millennia). But David’s resists her shaming words to him and lets her know “I will become even more undignified than this!”

David entered the force field of celebration even when those closest to him remained outside. Arms flung open, joy embraced. Because isn’t this all about God anyways? Joy doesn’t call to us because it is good to have “positive thinking” (though it may be at times) or because it is good for our health (though it is). Joy calls because it asks us to forget ourselves and be enthralled with God who holds all reasons for joy and celebration. He knows us. He loves us. He, alone, can save us. He will never forsake us. He is the beginning and the end. These things remain true. And after all, His joy is our strength (Nehemiah 8:10). With these things my mind is renewing, and rather than it holding me back it is fueling my chest forward...

…and I am getting close…

Are you?