Faith.

“If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.”

Where can I go, where you cannot find me?

If you are my Author and my life is a living epistle, then there is no part of my story that is hidden from you. Before the formations of the earth, the very dust in which you pulled Adam - you knew me. To know that before the creation of me, there was the knowledge of me. I already existed in the mind of Christ. The Holy Spirit measured out breath for me, before I was.

And after these revelations, how could I rob you of my faith now? Will I withhold my faith from you, simply because I cannot see you? When you knew me before you saw my unformed body…

To be the earth beneath your feet, to feel every step you take on your Holy ground - and yet still I know that to be the dust beneath your sandal is too lofty for me. Dust I came into this world and given back to the dust when I leave it.

My Lord, how do I have faith here? What am I meant to hope for in this existence? What is the story you are penning with this flesh?

If I could only see you pass by from the cleft of a rock, then I could know. I could know you are here. If only I could see the train of your robe, I would never fear. Will your glory fill the temple once more, so I may bathe in your fragrance? If I could only smell my Beloved, I would never forget His scent.

Tell me, how do I have faith in the One I have not seen?

Cleanse me that I might ascend the Holy Hill of the Lord and learn the crevices of your face. That I might commit to memory the color of your eyes and collect but a drop of the oil that flows from your beard. Jesus, let me see you as you have seen me.

My faith is on its last breath. Where are you? How long must a bride wait for her priest to come and claim her?

If faith is the cost to please you, then wrap me in it like choice linen. Never let me change into another robe. Let me only wear what the King desires. Increase my faith, that I might dine in the heavens. That I might marvel at your beauty. Let my faith magnetize me to the sound of countless golden crowns crashing at your feet. The most glorious worship procession ever heard as the crowns fall and the elders bow.

Father, I want so much to believe. To have faith, not in Holy sites carved by men, ancient relics, or an outcome of my choosing - but in you alone. In your Name, in your breath, in your face, in your heart, in your Cross, in your sovereignty alone. A reign forged in the furnace of perfect love; your realms marked by fire and oil.

Teach me of this faith, Beloved. Test my heart and capture every anxious thought. Let me collapse into your chest, synchronize my pulse to the cadence of your heart. I want to be the one who believes, who knows. Am I not a seed of Abraham? Oh, that I might inherit his faith before I claim right to his lands.

Maybe today I don’t have this faith. But I pray the fact that I want it, that I cry out for it, pleases you.

And while l wait patiently to lay hold of it, at your feet I will remain; washing you in my tears. The tears of a child who so desperately wants to see your face in theirs. And here I am, whispering through my mortality, “I believe.”

With the enthroned Christ at my front and the prostrate elders at my back, if there is a more beautiful place to learn about faith…then I don’t know it.