A early morning prayer:

Early in the morning will I seek you.  Penned a long ago in another time, another space.  And yet, here today I stop to look out at the stillness of this morning and echo his thoughts.  Early in the morning I will seek you.  You are Lord and there is no other.  How we in the U.S. have lost all meaning of title and respect.  In the days of lords and ladies, kings and queens there was an understanding.  So much has been lost.  Really annihilated in this country trying to escape King George's tyranny and now have exchanged it for another.  When we say you, Jesus, are Lord I wonder, do we fathom at all what the depth of that is?  I think not.  It takes illumination by Your Spirit.  That alone will lighten our darkened minds with understanding only You can give regarding cognizant recognition, the inward submission of Your authority, Your absolute kingship submitting to the finality that You alone are supreme ruler of all.  Your words are final authority.  Lord, make them real to me today.  Sometimes I'm so dull of mind.   I muddle through with what spiritual superiority I can muster and really it's all huff and puff ending in the realization of my frail mortality leaving yet another dusty trail into the sunset.  Your words are powerful.  Masterful.  Sans debate.  We mortals either get pugnacious or exude gooey responses, maybe even stoic ones to that phrase "Jesus is Lord."  When uttered with a heart responsive to a whispered embrace, though, its impact is profound. 

You are Lord.  You are majesty.  You are the rightful ruler, my special secret keeper.  The one that will never betray me.  Ever.  How precious is that!  Twitter sentences, Facebook blogs, news feedback, political pundits can evoke armchair slingshot judgments but really it all comes down to this.  One day everything will stop dead cold.


Every knee will buckle at Your Name.   All arguing, bickering, strong-armed convictions or lack thereof will know that You are Lord irrevocably and forever.  Your glory has been unfurled like a patriotic banner to express the kingdom of love in its fullness.  We celebrate it at Christmas.  Well, some do; some think it's all about themselves and the presents but me personally -- Lord, I happen to think it's all about You, Your love on display off the shelf and in living technicolor. 

It's sad, Lord.  Some walk away intentionally from that love that pursues them every day choosing others to be their lord.  Thing is, their lord cannot be compared to you.  Dead lords can't love, nor can their memory being passed off as religion be a dead ringer for truth.  In short, it's an evil sham. 

But your love.  Ah, now that is crystal.  It's classic.  In its purest form without flaw.  One can walk away, but never forget this one indisputable fact:  that You so loved the world that You gave.  And boy, did You give.  Gave everything You had.  Like Your one and only Son.  The one Son that could do everything for mankind.  We are pretty dim-witted down here and don't get it half the time.  I know you're patient and understanding and for that I personally am thankful.  (That's something I need every day and today again, I thank you for it.)  All love emanates from the one source:  You.  Your merciful arms are open wide to all of us who in a momentous epiphany finally pivot around to look right into eyes of Your son, Jesus, the Lord of all.  In the midst of a crisis or impending death no one ever cries out for Buddha or some other long-gone spiritual figure.  They call out to You.  And you always, always hear and answer.  You are the one who makes each one of us a thing of beauty.  You have made the "inside of the cup" where all the fabric of personality unique in form and substance can be poured out on others to be exactly what you designed it to be:  a blessing to others in the earth.  Love at its source poured through us in crystal streams to others.  Wow, Lord.  I crave to be that conduit today.

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Encouragement:  Refresh yourself in the meaning of authoritative and commanding love in Heaven's Love 101.  "For God so loved" -- you!  And when that seeps into your spirit and by His grace you begin to see just how vast and expansive that love really is, there is no other way to express it but simply "Jesus IS Lord!"  Read it in the book of John for yourself.  You will be amazed.