Sozo

Salvation: Being made whole, restored, safe and sound.
Sometimes, not every time, but in every moment that matters, being made whole looks a lot like being completely undone. Like every moment I start to look like Him, I start looking foreign to those who knew an old me. And sanctification takes everything I thought I knew and turns it on its head, until I'm only grounded in Him. My whole life call is "Go." ... For He will make the nations my inheritance, and the ends of the earth my possession. I'll go, running after Him, tired but alive; and to those who wonder why I'm out of my depths, don't you know how much I've always loved to swim?

And to those who think I'm crazy, they'll never get a chance to taste the extraordinary- Because they aren't married to the one who whispered and shouted tales of a kingdom and holy dominion.

So I'll go, leaping into the unknown because I know His voice and His voice beckons on the precipice of everlasting life, and so where He goes I'll follow until daily He turns my sorrow into dancing; you'll find me recanting the theology of just a better tomorrow, choosing today, today not to harden my heart to His words because my answer now decides my tomorrow, whether to be alive or hollow; decides if I'll choose to Know Him or Disown Him.

Here's what I know. I am a sojourner, destined for a restless heart in this groaning Earth. In that unsettled spirit I am drawn in two directions. The first beckons me to run from Him and become a shell, to be okay rather than well, and to integrate into the norm rather than emulate the Living Storm that means to undo everything we expected to know. Another Direction calls out in the most unanticipated ways, gnawing at the eternal longing that spurns me to another day. A direction that, should I choose the road, will bode suffering, persecution, exhaustion and pain; a road so hard it can't help but be more beautiful and more worthwhile than words could describe.

One road is forgettable, like a side street you only drive down once. Nothing memorable, straight and flat, no challenge offered. The other speaks of legacy, growth, and a Story worth telling.

The story starts with Death. Dying, every day, again and again until my soul is trained to be empty every new morning, that as the light shines through my window, His life infects my soul, piercing into every hollow so that he captivates every aspect of my reality and I wake with life as I die once more.

I run towards life, forgetting what lies behind and straining to enter the Rest that can only come from Him, leaving behind the dead to bury their own because I've got too much legacy left to create.

I have too many nations waiting to become my inheritance, and I must go, to meet my king. I must spend my days gazing on His glory.

And finally, when I have grown weary from the journey and my pilgrim days are done, I'll find myself in the doorway of a Home, my Home; then, I must rest. Until such a time, I press on with a restless heart, chasing sunrises and leaving stories.

Salvation: To be restored, daily, healed, made new. And to be completely undone that He might make a beautiful offering out of what little we have to give.

That's the Gospel, and that's the road I'll forever follow, beginning with Today.