Have you ever noticed that it doesn’t really matter until it happens to you? It’s a strange thing to wake up one day to the fact that you have been drifting along and amongst a whole host of people who daily walk through some of the most difficult things and you’ve missed it. When did we get so good at removing ourselves from it all? When did we learn to walk among it without seeing it? That’s what happens when you close your eyes and hide pieces of yourself away from the world, you become blind to the pain you don’t want to see. What if all the barriers and the things between us are erected by the unmet needs and unhealed places that are still there right inside our hearts? What if all the “us vs. them” and all the “otherness” we feel is just pain unspoken and desperate to be seen? What if God is calling us into some deeply desolate places, wilderness spaces hidden deep within us? What if those places, those most uncomfortable places, is where He wants to do a miracle unmatched by anything we’ve ever known? It’s in those places it is hardest to say, “yes.” It takes a leap of faith and a measure of trust that will require something of us. The journey with Jesus is not a smooth road. He walks us down hallways of doors we’ve closed long ago and asks for the keys. How long have we been in the hallway? How long have we kept our hearts from truly engaging in the grittiness of life? How long have we lived a hands-off life?

Are you ready to fling wide the doors? Are you ready to love again? Are you ready to let your heart get entangled with the things of Christ? Are we done trying to protect ourselves yet? Has it really worked anyway or has it just dampened the glory and luster of life?

Christ is a barrier breaker! That is who He is! Ephesians 2:14 For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility. Today I encountered barrier breakers, those people who walk in and see the pain and they don’t numb themselves to it. They enter in. They listen to the pain and gave it space to be expressed. They remind me of the story of the friends who let down the paralytic through the roof (Mark 2:3-5) They made room for him. They ripped off the roof for their friend so that he might be made whole again. That’s Christlike. It’s messy work to tear up the house to make room. It’s exactly in that mess where I meet Christ. There in the middle of four walls holding space for a heart renovation. I don’t know how long it’s been that I have had this deep unspoken thought that I don’t really need anyone. My reaction to this hidden away script has been to just let people go and not to get attached to them too deeply. Somewhere in there is a little girl that a long time ago decided that people don’t really seem to need me, so I just won’t acknowledge the need at all.

I hope you have been paying attention in this season. The Lord is up to something good. No child of His is out of His sight. He is hanging out in garden hearts, and sent in those He has anointed, who can tend the ground. He’s given them the ability to dig up rotten roots, fix the fences, replant trees, and till the ground. God is ready to grow seeds that have long been planted and need good soil to grow them. I beg you, don’t run! Please, don’t hide. Lean in and let Him tend you. Come home and let Him have you, all of you again. We, like the prodigal, are the beloved of the Father. The Father doesn’t mark us “squanderer” or “ruined” and Jesus doesn’t treat us like the older brother who was angry that his younger brother was back, refusing to be re-joyed that his brother was home. Rather our Father and Brother Christ, rejoice over us with glad singing when we come home. Have we been away so long somewhere in the spaces and places of our hearts? Have we missed His abundance in our wandering? Look…. He is watching, watching, watching, for us to come home.