The way to deeper knowledge of God is through the lonely valleys of soul poverty and abnegation of all things...Give me grace to rise and follow Thee up from this misty lowland where I have wandered so long.

-A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God

I'm coming back to the heart of worship

-Matt Redman

When I wrote last, I was in a different place. Though I was living in Sitka, Alaska and today, Anchorage, I was in a different spiritual realm. I suppose I have lived there for years. It took a Sitka followed by quiet nothingness to evict me, not unlike the turbulence of Fall 2000 followed by the calm resolution thereafter.

In 2001, I recognized something new was coming, but did not know what it would be. I hedged my bets that it would be what the world honors. In the desert place after college graduation, my God brought me out of the darkness to discover and fall in love with Him. In the months that followed, I found what the world promised fell flat. No longer did I worship a god of white sepulchered Sundays, but one of a thriving, daily relationship, who poured joy and molded identity in my life.

The years went by.

Creeping things that didn't matter, mattered. To make room, I pushed further the only pursuit that gave me joy and identity. Further and further away, I slid it to the back. Disconnected, I looked in other avenues for my reason to be, approaches that the world esteems, while, at best, only giving casual lip service to the one who still deeply loved me from afar.

Who was I? I was everything and nothing. Everything I built up with my own hands washed back into the sea.

I am in the desert place. Fall 2000s have their waterfalls of 2001, crashing into the rejuvenating waters below. I am only on the cusp of it; God opened my eyes this weekend. He is moving and I see Him orchestrating my life, working all things together.