So. I can't sleep. Actually, I already have slept a bit, but too early, so now I'm back up. I've spent the past hour just thinking. Trying to get back to sleep (I'm playing catch-up, normally I have ridiculous hours), but being unable too. I get the value of a good sleep, but I also get the value of restlessness. Many a time, I've been woken up to do something specific. I've also been kept awake to see truth. Mostly, I deal with words. I have to line them up before I can rest.
Tonight, I've been thinking of the phrase 'back to the basics' - that's probably quite obvious for the post title, but I'm sleepy and trying to be clear. Having taken way too many English courses, I can say with certainty that the definition of basic is skewed. It's one of the reasons I came to dislike so much of what I was taught. Basic means base. I like that. I don't like that, to some, 'base' (I'll be say it as 'base' when it's bad) means low and crude, though. It's used to represent of filth of worldliness. I had to read into so many 'base' stories and writers and characters. What a horrible way to view the world. It's why I couldn't finish my English major, I went with a minor instead. Yuck.
The phrase 'back to the basics' is a good one. It's meaning to me has always meant simplify and condense. It's funny how a phrase can step so far from what we think the words mean on their own. It's complex and delightful. It's why I love words. Anyways, it's always been an encouraging phrase to me. It's just meant to be. Basic has a good meaning in it. Basic isn't a horrible word. It isn't a horrible state to be in. Basic is about natural - this is where the grain changes - our natural isn't worldliness. It isn't about 'base' natures - it's about having a base in God. Man was formed from dust. Woman was formed from a rib. I was knit together, woven in my mother's womb (Psalm 139:13). God was there. Always.
Jeremiah 1:5
"Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I have appointed you a prophet to the nations."
--> He's our base. Yes, we screwed things up, in that history and in our own, but we gave ourselves back to God. We're His. That's a base to build a foundation on.
I've been stepping away from that base. I know what I'm supposed to do. I've not done it. Everyone sees the world in different ways. It's how we knit together as believers. I'm supposed to see the world in fractals. To see what leads into Him. I'm supposed to have my tunnel vision in the main part of my mind. It's not a side story or a non-concern, it's how I'm supposed to live and breathe God. I'm a details person. I trust Him with my life, with my own details, but I see the details of Him everywhere. I see Him that way; I see His plans. Not that much, I couldn't, but enough to recognize His pattern and His voice. I need to be able to see the value in that. To line those views up for God. To see and understand and accept what He gives to us.
Amos 7:7-8
"Thus He showed me, the Lord was standing by a vertical wall with a plumb line in His hand. The Lord said to me, 'What do you see, Amos?' And I said. 'A plumb line.' Then the Lord said, 'Behold I am about to put a plumb line in the midst of My people Israel. I will spare them no longer.'"
God has a standard of truth. Real truth is His, everything else is just distortions. We will be measured by His alone. I don't want to be measured in only the last days. I want to align myself with Him now. Being sifted is painful, but those pains are growth in God pains. I know the value in those; My life is an example of the value found in those. All of ours are. I know where I'd be without Him; I'd be where I never want to be. I'd be like the hermit from 'Yogi Bears First Christmas'. I would. I'd be alone and full of pain. I'd be the living dead. Now, I'm alive in Him. There are no shades in that truth. I struggle, but there are no shades. I was dead and now I'm alive. Lost, but now I'm found. I love the verses behind these words. I love the song 'Amazing Grace'. His not ours. My Grandma Lil had this cloth on her door with it stitched onto it. It's my first memory of reading. I remember learning my name and could definitely read before I saw it, but it put words into perspective for me. It's gone now, but it was one of my favourite things. I'll always remember it and that song will always be a part of me.
1 John 3:1
"See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God; and such we are. For this reason the world does not know us, because it did not know Him."
--> We've stepped out of the world. We've stepped from 'base' to a base in God. We're in a season of foundation building. We will be measured by the plumb line of God. We will be sifted as wheat like Simon, and tested like Job. This will happen because of the greatest truth there is. It will happen because of His love. We just need to live it out. It won't be easy, but it will be fruitful.
Off I go back to sleep. The words lined up. Night!
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