There's Something Yearning to Be Said
some thoughts on anticipating the unknown
Up and up the trail leads, but the trees are keeping me from seeing what could be seen, the glory just beyond view. Suddenly a steep incline, a leveling out, and a break in the trees! Sore legs give way to wonder and awe as I witness what has always been but has yet to be seen.
I feel this now.
We have this lovely dance, you and I. I pour my heart out into my writings, videos, podcasts. You actually read or watch or listen.
We’re climbing, you and I. Up and up the trail leads…
And now here we are.
The steep hill ahead of us, the trees surrounding us, the view just beyond sight.
What will we see? What will we experience? What is there to be known? What truths or Truth are or is waiting to be revealed?
In my own life I feel as if I’m reaching a critical point somewhere just beyond reach.
I feel as if my work, my study, my ups, my downs, all of it is leading to this.
There is something yearning to be said.
I see it there, through the fog and haze of the morning. I sense its presence just beyond the trees. The words haven’t come to me yet. The beginning of the thought is just beginning to form, and maybe that is saying too much.
And yet, there it is.
Whatever it is feels monumental, and I believe I’m ready to embrace it.
Is it tragedy? Is it a goal or a dream fulfilled? Is it another week of writing, preaching, and teaching but with new meaning or significance?
I don’t know.
But I do know that I am glad that you are here with me on this journey as you read my sermons and essays, as you listen to my interviews, as you put up with my many shortcomings…promised articles forgotten, series unfinished, videos unrecorded…
Maybe those unfinished projects were in danger of getting me there too soon…
There’s something yearning to be said, and I want to say it.
And if there is something yearning to be said, there must be something yearning to be heard.
Heard by who?
I can’t help but think that whatever is yearning to be said is also yearning to be heard by the one who will do the saying?
There’s something yearning to be heard, and I want to hear it.
It must be a message to be preached but first lived by the preacher because that’s the only message worth hearing anyway, right? One that can be lived? One that can be embodied? One that has been embodied by the person doing the saying?
There's something yearning to be be said, to be heard, to be embodied, to be lived, to be…
Perhaps it’s me. Perhaps I’m the one yearning to be, and it is time to get out of my own way.
Perhaps you are too.
Hold my hand, and let’s take this hill together, you and me.
This really resonates with me. A few years back, as I went deeper along the contemplative path, I realized I felt this kind of tender pull toward something I couldn't name. I thought I would get "somewhere" and figure out what it was. But I've never arrived anywhere. Now I think I will just live with an endless, unsatisfied hunger. But there's something so sweet about it. And I do think I know now what that hunger is: a desire for God, ever more God.
Thank you for your honesty.
I too am going through a time of anticipation, I feel so many opportunities knocking and so many uncertainties. And yet it is in some ways a distraction from my own knocking at the door.
And I also am filled with a great yearning to be whatever God calls me to be, and to be that same person at home, in my family, and at church. AND out loud in the world, but I think it's okay to write in the present in full honesty and of the future you are hoping for, and adjust as you go along with total honesty as well.
We are never going to be able to entirely live what we preach, not any of us who are called to be "a royal priesthood". We can't lead anyone to Christ, yet we are called to be the "salt of the earth." I once had a preacher tell me, " You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink." So true.
But then he added, "But you can salt the oats 💁"
So I always try to think of that, that I just need to make people thirst, not do it perfectly. And it doesn't always have to be a very direct bible teaching, it's okay to simply create seekers. We should have the confidence to simply get people to ask good questions, and not worry so much about whether it leads them to be baptized--that is a plant that is a result of planting a small seed, and maybe someone else to do a little watering later, and someone further down the line to do a little pruning. We should have the total confidence that when they knock on the door we know who's on the other side.