man on wire
i'm tired of telling you that you have mewhen i know you really don't
i'm tired of telling you i'll follow
when i know i really won't
'cause i'd rather stand here speechless
with no great words to say
when my silence is more truthful
and my ears can hear how to walk in your way
in the silence, you are speaking
in the quiet, i can feel the fire
and it's burning, burning deeply
burning all that it is that you desire
to be silent in me
"in the silence" by jason upton
what is faith? if i could hold it in my hands, i would grasp it tightly, run it through my fingertips and memorize its shape. i would smell it and maybe when no one was looking, i would taste it - touch it to my tongue just to see whether it was sweet or sour or bitter. you would have to wrestle me in order to get it out of my hands, because once i got hold of it, i would not want to let it go lest i forget what it looks like to have faith.
unfortunately, faith is not a tangible thing that i can see or feel. to some, it seems so elementary or juvenile or plain foolish to have faith in the existence of God and Jesus Christ, let alone His master plan for the world and the people living in it. years have gone by since i first decided to purposely write my story as one of faith in the Creator of the universe and His design for my life. so much has taken place in between the beginning and now that i have lately felt as if my faith is not really faith at all, but a mere set of past experiences and stories. i tell these stories quite well, and have used them to stir the faith of others. this is something i am happy to do, and i know that this is gives pleasure to Jesus. but at the same time, i am coming back to the sense where i have run just short of allowing the fire of faith in my heart and my life to fizzle into a heap of smoke. i can talk the talk, walk the walk, pray the prayers and sing the worship songs. but there is still something more that is missing.
it has been such a long time to live my story intermingled with God's story - the details have twisted and turned through the stories of many others, all playing significant roles in how i've come to the place i am in now. still it is not the same. there was a time when i had faith and trust so foolish and child-like that i might as well have been physically clenching it with both hands. but lately the best i can do is remind myself of how God has come through in the past - in provision and safety, in guiding my path for the future, in building my faith and growing my knowledge of Him. the remembrance of these things is good, but to me, it is not enough. i know that He is who He says He is, i know that He is God. but i want this knowledge to come alive again, to become revelation and revival of my spirit.
i spent the evening with my friend, sue. we had a very nice fish and chip dinner, each of us slugged down a lager (her much more smooth than mine, unfortunately). and after dinner, we went to see this incredible documentary telling the story of philippe petit, "man on wire". most of the world is probably not familiar with this name, this man did not invent a cure for some horrific disease, he did not mediate any conflict between warring countries. what this man did probably seems insignificant to most people. but on august 7, 1974, after months and months of planning and conspiring, philippe petit (with the help of some faithful colleagues) strung a high wire 200 feet between the north and south towers of the world trade center. philippe described the moments before stepping out on the wire as feeling near death, and yet the wire was also something that he could not resist.
after reaching a certain point going across the wire for the first time, he said something so real and familiar took over. this friend and co-conspirator, jean-louis, said that when this point was reached, philippe's entire countenance and body language changed. it was as if he went from being so uncertain and frightful to stepping into the realm that embodied who he was meant to be. and the rest is history. petit spent 45 minutes out there (a quarter of a mile above manhattan streets), crossing the wire a total of eight times.
i have yet to perform some historical act for all the world to see and stand amazed, that day may never even come. but whether anyone else observes my life and thinks it to be significant means nothing to me (or at least i would like to think that they mean nothing). i may simply be a girl with some wire and an insatiable urge to walk among the clouds, and possibly look foolish to anyone else around. but if it means walking in the fullness of who i am meant to be, then so be it. the only problem is that i am still so uncertain where to begin, or rather where to go from here. in my mind, i have this picturesque idea of how i want to live - this life of faith and abandonment to no one else but Jesus Christ. but then i still get stuck in the waiting process, sometimes getting impatient and trying to fix things with my own hands and my own plans.
wish i had a solution to write, a conclusion to the questions i have been asking myself. all i have is this prayer - that Holy Spirit would come and collide with my sense again, to awake my soul again and stir up the faith in my heart so that His power and authority would flow through my life.
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