(Reprise) Dead Man: Imperfect Love

"Forgive me, Lord!" I pleaded, barely able to speak. So many of my failings, weaknesses, and sins boiled over into my awareness in His loving Presence that I felt scalded by my own stubborn and banal iniquity.

It is amazing how filthy something looks when held up close to something, or in this case, Someone, so pure. The contrast between His sublime and beautiful righteousness and my feeble and self-justifying sinfulness was almost unbearable to me.

But He looked upon me with unreserved acceptance and unconditional love.

He was not condemning me; that was clear. Nor did I feel the compulsion to dwell morbidly on my colossal and voluminous failures. Yet at the same time, it was impossible, in the holy radiance of His glory, to deny the simple fact of my sins, and I could not help but mourn over how they obscured His image in me.

It grieved me deeply to know how far short of His glory I fell; to be so undeserving of His perfect love.

But none of that was why, at that moment, I wanted His forgiveness.

No, it was my fearfulness.

Not of Him, of course, but of life and loss on the planet below. Because I knew beyond any shadow of doubt that my fear was due to my imperfect love of Him. If I loved Him as He had proven He loved me, I would have no fear.

I felt the truth of that statement down to the very core of my being.

"Yes, My son!" He pronounced emphatically with a smile. "I have. And I do. And I will."

"I do not want to be afraid, my King, but I am... always. There seem to be so many threats and dangers below. So much potential for grief and pain that… I live my life in fear."

I bowed my head in shame at my admission. I had never felt less worthy or of so little value.

Amazingly, I felt His hand on my shoulder as He came alongside me, bearing me up, giving me strength.

Then suddenly, I was reliving another vision back on the world. I was in a large bookstore with my second daughter, born to my wife and I as Christians, another gift beyond price. We were together, my little one and I, in this crowded venue, and then, in the next moment, she was no longer in view.

Gone. Out of sight.

The wash of abject terror that swept over me made my knees weak. I was barely able to stand. The blood was pounding through my arteries. Adrenalin coursed through my system as if I were about to be hit by an oncoming train.

I began to run through the aisles, retracing our steps at breakneck speed - God help any poor soul who did not leap out of my way. Countless, unbearable images flooded my brain.

My little one! How could I be so irresponsible! How much more could I fail her as father, provider and protector. I was desperately, quietly frantic. Hours seemed to pass in slow motion. In reality, it was mere seconds.

I called her name in a loud voice. It must have been very loud because people turned my way. I did not care. They were not her. They were obstacles, obscuring my sight, increasing my desperation.

In my mind I cried out to my Lord Jesus not to allow me to lose her. To save her from this horrid and miserable world that could shred a child's heart and body and mind and soul in an instant.

Then I saw her! Crouched down on her knees in a characteristically impossible pose, calmly perusing one of the many books just within reach, blissfully unaware of her father's faithless panic, and of the people around her.

I almost sobbed openly in relief. I wanted to scoop her off the floor and hold her fiercely in my arms forever, never letting her go, or risking her loss again.

I stifled the involuntary cry that threatened to escape my pitiful soul and embarrass my daughter and bring more unwanted attention to myself.

As calmly as I could, I knelt down beside her through tear-filled eyes.

She was safe. For now. This time.

She looked up at me and smiled like the loving child she was. Then her expression changed as she sensed the upheaval in my heart.

"Are you OK, Daddy?" she asked, so sweetly, so innocently, so trustingly.

"Of course," I said with false bravado, hugging her to me tightly.

"I just couldn't find you for a second," I said, "and I got a little worried."

It was the understatement of the century. I was still shaking inside.

"Daddy," she said, "I saw you the whole time. I couldn't figure out why you were running like that. I'm sorry I scared you."

"It was my fault, sweetheart. Not yours."

"I wasn't lost. I knew I was safe. I knew you wouldn't leave me alone for more than a second. It's OK. You didn't lose me. I wasn't worried a bit. Well, except for the people you almost knocked down. I was a little worried for them," she said with that smile of hers; that smile that could melt a glacier.

I just continued to wordlessly hug her to me in the middle of the aisle, grateful to My God for being merciful to such a one as me.

"It was my delight!" He said from right next to me now. "I was with you. I was with your beloved daughter. And I rejoiced at your thankfulness."

"And yes, My son. I forgive you all of it. Always."

© Bill Lilley 2011, 2013

(Reprise) Dead Man: The Infinite Heartbreak

"Lord? May I ask you something?"

"Because," He said, before I spoke further, "some will not be saved."

That was, of course, my question, after reliving the moments of my life that had led me to Him. I was still amazed that He condescended to speak with me, but not surprised at all that He knew my thoughts.

"My son, I love everyone I have created; all whom I have knit together in their mother's wombs, but unless their love in return is voluntary it is meaningless. You know that."

"But how can they not love You once You reveal Yourself to them? How can they resist Your kindness and goodness. I do not understand."

"How many years did you resist, Dead Man? How many kindnesses were you shown before you came to recognize Me and to know that I love you?"

Then like a high-speed three-dimensional HD video, all my life before salvation unwound before my eyes, but this time from the immense perspective of Heaven itself.

I was instantly overwhelmed with the seemingly infinite details involved in each redemptively significant incident; the intricate, complex interwoven threads of literally thousands of lives and billions of moments orchestrated by the hand of God Himself in order to bring about a particular outcome.

No happenstance wasted or purposeless. Nothing unforeseen or unexpected from the Master Conductor's perspective, but each complex moment managed with perfect adeptness and impact, moving one of the most intractable, and stubbornly powerful forces in the Universe, the human heart, one step closer to restoration and renewal.

It bespoke phenomenal, extravagant and persistent effort on the part of my Savior.

He was lovingly unrelenting in His pursuit of me, yet never for even a blink of an eye did He violate one iota of the free will He had gifted me with as His creation. I understood then too, just a glimpse, of what it meant to know the end from the beginning, while at the same time having the freedom and divine power to bring that foreseen ending about, yet simultaneously, and miraculously, preserving that aspect of His creatures most akin to His image: the ability to choose.

Of all the acts of Deity, that seemed to me to be the most unimaginable.

Then, as quickly as it had begun, it stopped and left my poor finite mind spinning in a whirl of intricate possibilities played out over a divine cosmic symphony larger than existence.

And that was only the minute orchestral movement concerned with my own particular life, without regard to the numberless other lives under His omniscient care.

He was Intelligence and Power and Grace and Mercy and Love beyond all comprehension standing before me as a Man, being with me as if I were the only creature in all of time and space.

I had done nothing to deserve such attention. I was nothing in comparison to Him, and yet here He was with me; Savior, Lord, Brother, Friend, Creator, Redeemer, Author of Life Itself!

I was not sufficient for these things. I never would be. No finite being could be.

"Some will not see. Some will not believe," He said sadly, but without any diminution of the boundless joy that radiated from Him; the joy that I knew, that I was certain, came simply because He was with me!

I did not understand. I did not need to understand. All I needed was to remain in His Presence forever. All I wanted was for Him to never leave me nor forsake me. This fellowship, this intimacy, this was why I existed. This was why everything was created.

And I was just on the Balcony of real existence, a mere visitor, receiving as a gift beyond price this taste of eternity with My Lord.

What other purpose could have any meaning?

What other reason for anything would there be?

I wanted to scream this to the world from the Balcony of Heaven with all my heart.

O Earth Earth Earth, hear the word of the Lord!

But I knew with a measureless grief, that most would not listen, most would not hear, and I think perhaps for yet another of the briefest instants possible, I felt the infinite heartbreak of my God.

It was unbearable.

© Bill Lilley 2011, 2013

(Reprise) Dead Man: Gifts from the King

"What is it you would like from Me?" He asked.

"You have already given and done all," I answered through my tears.

He smiled at that in what seemed like genuine approval, but how does a mere creature accurately read the face of his transcendent Creator?

"You know," He said, "I became a Man, not just to die for you, but so that you could also know Me, and by knowing Me, know My Father."

"But there is nothing left for You to give," I said, overwhelmed that He was speaking to me!

"I delight to give My children the desires of their heart," He said simply. "Do not think that there is an end to My grace. I made you for Me. I know you and have gone to great lengths to enable you to believe that I love you."

Then suddenly I was back in the birthing room with my wife just before our eldest daughter was born all those years ago. She was our first, and I did not know Him at that time, or believe that He existed or cared for me.

Incredibly, I had not really wanted this beautiful and precious child in our lives, so blatant was my selfishness. And I considered my wife to be in great debt to me by my agreeing to allow this to occur.

Knowing He was with Me now in reliving this experience filled me with unfathomable shame.

How could He have been so kind, even then, to such a one as me?

Then I saw this child emerge into the world from her mother's womb and all cynical speech and thought fled from me and I stared in awe at this miracle of new human life. I did not know it, but tears were flowing down my face, perhaps for the first time in my adult life, while sober, and I literally could not speak.

Everything I thought I knew and believed became as nothing, and I have since come to know that the overflowing and surprising love that I felt for my infant daughter at the very moment of her birth was His gift to me, as much as she herself was.

It was Him all along, and I did not know it.

That same evening, right there in that same room, this new gift of life stopped breathing for the briefest of instants, and when that occurred my whole existence dropped out from under me like a bottomless pit had opened up in the earth below me, to swallow me forever.

This too was His gift.

Within seconds, frenzied but purposeful action by the attending midwife brought my baby back to life without any permanent harm, but the lesson of unbearable loss was seared into my heart and mind. From that moment onward, my self-confidence and my ability to cope with the vulnerabilities of this life began to crumble.

Days, weeks and months passed in my memory once more, but this time I knew He was with Me, right next to Me, as, of course, He had always been. I saw my younger self wallow increasingly in self-pity, striving diligently to deny that anything had changed, when everything had, in fact, changed irrevocably. I was rapidly deteriorating from the inside out. Soon there would be no facade, and the roiling chaos of fear and panic would be laid bare for all to see.

Together, the King and I saw me turn in desperation and utter selfishness back to the depths of the well of alcohol, in rigid and brittle moderation at first, but with the sure and certain secret knowledge that it was a path that this time would inevitably lead me to final destruction; and to the loss of the very things I could not even admit were important to me. I would lose everything. I would lose her.

He stood with me, as my delusion of competence and my ability to cope with life collapsed like the fragile and ephemeral hallucination it was, and I became the epitome of quiet desperation, casting frantically about for some life preserver, becoming harder on the outside, as the man I was inside dissolved in the fierce acid of overwhelming fear.

Yet another of His gifts.

Stubbornly, inexcusably, I resisted the growing conviction that I could not continue in this way for long without having all semblance of the ability to live ripped away in an avalanche of self-pity and defeat.

Then He showed me my wife, grieved beyond words that this child she loved so much would have to be given into the hands of others to be cared for during the day so that she could return to work, as I so intractably insisted she do as soon as possible. And by His grace, she sought comfort and strength from the only place where they could be found, His love letter to His Creation - His marvelous Word.

He comforted her and brought her to Him, so gently, so effectively, so extravagantly lovingly, that she changed fundamentally right before my eyes, and through Him, loved me more despite my utter self-centeredness and self-absorption.

His gifts kept coming inexorably, like wave after wave upon the shore, unstoppable, undeniable, completely undeserved.

Until, at the appointed time, He bestowed His greatest gift: He brought me to the end of myself, and into His all-encompassing arms.

© Bill Lilley 2011, 2013

(Reprise) Dead Man: Dead Man With the King

Since becoming a child of the King years ago on-planet, I always thought that when I got to Heaven, I would have a million questions. I was wrong.

Looking at Him now, being with Him now, I knew the answer to all my questions, save one.

Except for that one exception, the answer to everything else was Him.

It's not that I felt my curiosity suppressed in the slightest. That was not it at all. It was that my curiosity was instantly satisfied. In His presence, all the why's and how's and what-if's were either embodied in His purposes and immediately revealed, or rendered irrelevant.

I can't explain how I obtained that depth of information exactly, but I suspect it had something to do with that first look into His eyes – eyes that held the depth of all wisdom. It seemed I almost saw from their vantage point, and while most of what I glimpsed at the time was beyond magnificent, there were some things that, upon just a moment's reflection, were unspeakably hideous.

For one thing, I saw myself before He remade me in His image. I was like a disgusting, parasitic worm, slavishly, compulsively, seeking my own poisoned satisfaction, unable and unwilling to look beyond my own doomed and death-filled priorities. Whatever else I was, my essential nature was that of a rebel bloated with self at the expense of everything and everyone else.

That is who He went to the Cross to save, and that knowledge was like being skinned alive, and beyond my endurance for more than a mere moment without collapsing in utter shame and measureless gratitude. No, I could not contemplate that answer for long at all.

But there was much more. I understood now in wordless comprehension the depth and loving brilliance of the whole history of Redemption, from before the foundation of the world, stretching endlessly into eternity.

I saw with near perfect clarity God's mercy in sending His Son to take away the sin of the world, a planet full of creatures just like me, parasitic, blind, ruthless, self-absorbed sinners in rebellion against all that is good and godly.

I saw the heartache and death-agonies of the Son as, out of infinite love and filial obedience, He willingly fulfilled the majestic and holy purposes of the godhead in being that once-for-all propitiation for the Father's righteous wrath against our willful ignorance and incurable evil.

I felt the overwhelming grace in His withholding final judgment until all who would be saved came to the place of brokenness and repentance in order to gain the right to be citizens of His glorious and everlasting Kingdom.

He gave me all the understanding that my puny, finite mind could contain about His long-suffering heartbreak over the pain, sorrow and death of life apart from Him, tolerated until the appointed time only because His ultimate purposes for each one of His children were worth all of existence to achieve.

But the one question remained. It was this: How long O Lord until the consummation of all these things? How many more evil days must pass until the vile hatred, deceit, and perfidy of Fallen Life came to its well-deserved and long-forestalled end?

It was not a question tinged at all with accusation, or tainted by the unspoken thought that His timing and judgment were anything less than divine and perfect.

No, it was the plaintive whine of a trusting child weary of a long and arduous journey that seemed to be taking so unbearably long. It was the tired complaint of a little one who just wanted, with all his heart, mind and soul, to be Home.

"We are almost there," He responded, knowing my question. "For just a little while more, until the time is fulfilled, and I will come to bring you to Me, so that where I am, you will be also. Forevermore."

That gentle answer to the cry of my heart, spoken by that Voice that brought all Existence into being, and yet so intimately knowing of me, brought an endless flow of tears of love and gratitude to my eyes.

Of course! my very soul cried out wordlessly. He is the Answer to all questions. He is the Purpose behind all things. He is Wisdom and Strength and Power and Glory and Blessing and Honor forever and ever! He does all things well!

And He knows me by name.

And He has called me to Him and made me know His Voice.

Not because of anything about me, but because of who He is.

© Bill Lilley 2011, 2013