Not sure how this will work its way out from my brain to fingertips... This blog post, I mean.

It's one of those instances when most things I hold with confidence in lucid moments become murky--not depressingly so, but just in a jumbled, silly way. It likely has something to do with the fact that I'm tired. And it's late. Yes. But I still want to write. Darned foggy emotions and all. This could perhaps be a less than stellar choice: tomorrow morning might bite me fiercely for the decision to linger over this drivel at midnight. But who gives a rat's patootie? I want to write. So I will write. And I will make whatever inane, awkward, and/or nonsensical observations I please. Oy. Such is the nature of creative inspiration with the written word. One can't pick and choose when one receives the inspiration to write. It simply comes.

The presence of that inspiration, however, means nothing in the way of quality. So I may be inspired, but said inspiration might still be paired with extraordinarly scattered and pointless writing. In fact, I think that may be the case currently ;)

One brief note: I've spent the past two hours reading a specific author. And I am darn-straight copying said writer's style right now... Can you tell who? If you know me, you'll know who. Then again, why am I asking this? As if someone is reading this post, and possesses the requisite interest necessary to respond with an answer to such a banal question.

What if I ended this post here and now?

Swell idea.

Nighty.

Consider this:

"Hope is hearing the music of the future. Faith is having the courage to dance to it."

Some might find this quote slightly saccharin. But not me. Not freaking me.

I adore its poetic encapsulation of living life passionately, purposefully, and with joy-infused abandon. That is the stuff right there. The goods. My soul burns to live like that. Intensely.

Honestly, though, I'm exhausted. Sleep-deprived? Yes. But primarily exhausted with myself -- my hyper-analytical, slow-to-believe, skeptical, pessimistic, self-condemning, sluggish-on-the-uptake-of-truth, perpetually comparing self. Why do I sit in this slum running my hands through mud? I long to permanently dump this 'me' that lives like I hate to live and does what I loathe to do and is what I no longer can stand to be. I'm painfully serious. The 'me' that I just described is doing a masterful job of siphoning the life out of me.

I feel like a muddled mess. What can I say to this? I am weary of my personal, persistent failures; frustrated at my lack of passionate, love-saturated living; agitated at my scattered attempts to collect myself... What can I say?

Not a word. I've attempted to cage this problem of my self-condemning yet pride-stained thoughts and lingering struggles from every conceivable angle. I've talked, shared, strategized, planned, scheduled, over-thought, fumed, and wept.

I haven't the words to say. I haven't a solitary remaining plan. Zilch. Nada.

And it's in this wordless, speechless weariness that He has once again captured my attention with His embrace. I could burst with raw desire for Jesus in this moment -- a moment in which I'm also wrenchingly aware of my flaws and weaknesses.

I'm speechless. So His words must do the speaking... "What then shall we say? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things? Who will bring a charge against God's elect? God is the one who justifies; who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us. Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril , or sword?" ... or my own pride/insecurity/self-loathing, et cetera?

No.

Nothing.

My tomorrow is in Jesus' eyes. The music of that tomorrow is sated with peace and freedom and explosive power and redemptive work and satisfying joy. That is truth. My mind may attempt to analyze that away... to doubt it... to fear it's derailment... to name myself as an exception to the promise. But it will stand, nonetheless, as the truth for my future. That's the music I hear today.

Jesus sings the song. He sings it over me. And I hear it.

And I will dance to it.