07 Feb Give me Words

It is crazy that over a week has passed since Zeteo. I know I am still processing the work that God did in my own heart, and I know many of you are probably in a similar place. After working on this event and drama piece for a year, it is incredible to look back and see how faithful God has been and how he really does work everything together in a masterful, beautiful story.

Since we have come to the end of Zeteo 2017, I have often found myself going back to the beginning, when this idea was just a tiny dream set on my heart last February. I remember a night where I couldn’t stop thinking about The Storymaker and all of the ways he could move and work within someone’s story. I rediscovered a journal entry I wrote on that night…the day before I pitched Storymakers to the staff and asked Charlie to co-write with me. And even in this, I see the beginnings of God setting things into motion. He is bigger and grander and closer than we will ever be able to fully know… but I love that he gives us glimpses of his glory. He lets us peek at those moments when we didn’t know he was doing something yet…and reminds us so definitively that he was.  I hope this prayer reminds you of something the Lord began in you last weekend, and that you can keep inviting his work and his words into each page of your story.

February 9, 2016

Give me words. Give me one word that can change a moment. Type out a phrase that will move a mountain. Make a heart skip with some letters on a page and follow them to an adventure that runs off the edge. Scribble out a truth that will silence a crowd and quiet an anxious heart. Don’t stop writing until each line is aligned with the kind of things your kingdom requires. Write out one, two, three kinds of revolution with convictions leading the charge and humility at the core. Switch up the color of the pen so whatever you write stands out and I remember it. Draw love with your verbs, describe hope in your adjectives, use every noun to profoundly affect the world around us. Give me words–something that will melt a hard heart. Give me words that keep the pages turning. Give me words in my book that I can build on, that I can add to, that I can learn through. I want your words. Bind them on my heart and write them on my forehead so wherever you go your words are what direct every step and every path.

Cross out the sentences I jotted down without you. Fill the margins with your notes and mark up my faulty desires. Correct every spelling mistake and bathe it in your grace. Let your blood wash over the pages where I didn’t honor you and then make it something new. From cover to cover let your name resound between every line. Highlight my boldness, underline my pride, make sure you italicize the truth you’ve taught me so I don’t forget it the next time. Let me memorize the times you were faithful so when the words run out and the silence hurts I still know you are able to do immeasurably more than I can ask or imagine.

Ignite my imagination. Paint me landscapes of your dreams, unveil hidden glimpses of your kingdom at work under the surface.  You are the God that is behind and before and between all these things. So in my book, Lord, give me words–the words I need to tell your story through my binding. Use the torn pages to reveal your healing. Use the typeface to illustrate your creativity and every sentence to breathe something wonderful into a fractured circumstance. I want your fingerprints on every turning point, every plot twist, every storyline that winds through mountains of conflict and resolution.

There are beginnings and endings and middles and here you are in every single one. Take my looseleaf paper and fill it with you. Take my worn out shoes and let them walk in the dirt you walked through so I might cover others in the dust where you treaded. Bring the ordinary words into my ordinary day because nothing you do is actually ordinary.  I know one simple act from you can turn the whole story around…even if I don’t see it yet. Take my voice and let me speak even just one of your words.Use my life as a book for your words, Jesus…give me your words.