unveiling

"Unveil why we're made. Come set our hearts ablaze with hope, like wildfire in our very souls. Holy Spirit come invade us now." Rend Collective sings these words.

It's a stepping-into of sorts. Maybe for you it's more like a leap or a jump or a crawl or a baby step - it's a move. The courage to say, "Yes!" or maybe just, "Okay." is all you're able to muster right now.

It's a surrendering of our minds and hearts to dismiss the lies, formally dismiss them. Tell them goodbye. Then put ourselves in a posture to allow those spaces left behind to fill up with what is already in us - those truths that when someone speaks them into us, our breath catches and our hearts swell a bit, "I'm seen. Someone knows me." tears.

So, Jesus is walking with Philip (because that's how you become like Someone - you walk with Him). Philip is introducing Jesus to Nathanael when Jesus in essence says, "Hi. - you're a man of integrity, without deceit." Um.

Bigger picture. Nathanael had just asked Philip if anything good could come out of Nazareth, referring to Jesus. So then Jesus says hello to Nathanael and shares what He sees...

What?! Didn't you just hear me speak poorly of your hometown, and by extension, slam your own potential? What came out of his mouth was, "How do you know me?"

"I saw you."

This seeing seems to be less like out of the corner of my eye and more like from the core of my heart, "I saw you."

And Nathanael could have done what we all have found ourselves doing, trying to make sense of what we'd like to be true but can't fathom someone actually seeing in us - "Me? Well, then apparently you don't know me very well. Stick around. I'll likely screw up here in bit." Why? And why do we do this?! Why is it so hard to believe that who we are is worth seeing?

Last night a life-speaking husband/wife team said to me, after I asked them how much I owed them for listening to me talk on and on, "What if you actually mattered?" i.e. "We love you. You matter. Can you, will you believe that?"

Father, lift this veil behind which I feel a false sense of security that somehow if I'm not seen, I'm safer. See me. I invite You to come near, to lift the veil.

Jesus comes near and says, "Hi." Pause. He wants to tell you what He sees right now.

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Will you believe that?

Father, increase my capacity to hear, to receive, to know the truth about who I am. Speak to my heart. I'm listening. Set my heart ablaze with the hope in the truth of who You are, of who I am. I want to say, "yes." to everything You have to say about me. Lies be untwisted, and bow to the Creator of Truth.