The goodness of God will overflow it
We wait so long in anticipation.
We drag our souls through the truth, knowing what our hope is and whom it comes from. We clasp our hands as we fumble, mumble, stumble our way through our best defense. We pray for the trials to end. We pray for perseverance. Either would be appreciated, neither would be scorned; just anything better than this.
And right as it feels that no more weight can be added or the lungs might just give out, something happens. Something always happens. More weight? Often. And then we fumble, mumble, stumble …
But on some days
we know not when, or why those particular days;
but on some days,
the expanse of God fills our souls.
And I can no longer keep it all in. I must go screaming, singing, hollering through the streets, my heart pressing out against my chest, threatening to escape if I don’t give it some relief from the glow that is filling it. And so other people hear of the glow, so that I can get some of it out, and it can stop from blowing me to pieces. For the greatness of God is not containable in any human soul; we have but the smallest glimpse. I cannot explain why he chooses the times and places he chooses; perhaps it is for maximum drama. But whatever it is, his schedule is not ours.
And I treasure every moment that my heart threatens to explode. I cultivate the glee, for I know that it will most likely need to sustain me through bitter valleys ahead. And so I remember hard what it is to feel the explosive wonder of living; to feel the joy of everything rise up as the veil over my heart is torn away. I see everything in a firm sense of reality. Everything matters. The details arise. The dimly-lit corners of the room seem more majestic than forlorn. The world is transformed, if only in the way I’m seeing it. And then as the expanse recedes from my soul, the veil slips over it again, leaving a bit of complacency and a bit of gloom.
The short, passionate bursts of life as I wish it would always be are like candy. For the hard, unchanging truth of the Gospel is the food; no matter what comes, Jesus Christ died and was risen for sins. On my worst days and on my best, God is still God. But on my best days, I feel like is God is filling me, the joy of him rising in me until I must speak, must run, must be out of where I am for it is just
so
good
that I can’t sit still and take it in. It is not a tame feeling, to be measured and brought into the fold. It is wild. It is a passion. And it is unfortunately rare.
So I seek God, in the good and the bad. But I long for those days of fire, when it feels like I am expanding and my heart will beat out of its chest because of the goodness of God will overflow it.
