Who Are You? A Mercy Channel (Tim Knipp)

Lying ideas circulate
and breed
more lies.
Couched in psycho-jargon
and hissed
in hungry ears
ideas shape us
and
misshape us.

Self-serving
inflates egos
and distorts reality.

God's mercy overflows,
transforming our
crooked souls.
 He blesses us with gifts -
not to adorn our mantels
with shining trophies -
but to equip us
for service.

Lay down your rights.
Surrender
to Him who lavished
mercy on you.

Become a channel
through which mercy flows,
your specialness
a conduit.
So open up.
Open up.
Let it go.

Feel His pleasure as you
give it up.
Give it up.

Rom. 12:1-8

Crafted & Cherished - Who Are You series (Tim Knipp)

 
Measured by mirrors,
media and
multiple fears,
my value is
pin-prick small.
Sized up to
the immensity of
spinning galaxies,
I am a grain
of sand.
My spot in time
is a mere
millisecond,
faster than a blink.

Yet You crafted me carefully
and endowed
me with eternal 
significance.

You take my breath away,
Majestic God!
How can I wrap
my limited mind
around this paradox?

Made in Your image
to reflect Your loveliness
to all,
to see Your loveliness
in every one.

Seen as accidental products
of evolution,
no lives truly matter.
Survival of the fittest
reduces every interaction
to a power struggle;
the hero is the last one
standing
though the streets
run with blood.

Left without a maker,
I will make myself
and inherit arrogance.
When plans shatter,
I inherit self-loathing.
Both twist my soul
and pervert
my reflection.

I am more than my successes
or failures.
God, give me Your glasses
through which to see
this truth.
Help me shed the lies
and shiver,
speechless 
in a shower of
Your unconditional love
daily.

(Ps. 8 and Isa. 14)

Sunday December 27, 2015

What Drives You - Tim Knipp

God uses our very weakness to forward His plan as He changes our identity.

Tim Knipp, 1/26/14 Based on Emotionally Healthy Spirituality by Peter Scazzero Ch. 4

Who are you?

Tim Knipp, 1/26/14 Based on Emotionally Healthy Spirituality by Peter Scazzero Ch. 4

"Grant Lord, that I may know myself in order that I may know thee." Augustine

Purpose:
     what is the shape
of the empty space
I am 
    made
         to fill?

Socrates decreed: "Know thyself"
and 
         Shakespeare's Polonious
(flawed as he is)
     admonishes his son:
"to thine own self be true..."

Turn the spotlight inward.

(Genesis 3:7 - turn left)

Eyes opened, 
Adam and Eve's 
first response
was
     shame and fear.
Fig leaves sprouted
       to shadow themselves
from
    themselves.
Eyes averted, 
         they chose to hide
from their Creator.
 And I am
 their descendant.

God seeks.
We hide.
A never-ending
         children's game
with eternal
consequences.

Gen. 27
Deception twines itself
    around the truth
in Jacob's life.
The forced blessing -
"what is your name?"
Truth wrestled from the dawn
begins
   a new story.
      A new identity.

Roles
    are by nature
artificial.
Actors slide into another skin
that rubs against 
     their own with each line
and gesture.
         Masters of duality
but
it is a fiction.

(Right turn to John 6:14)

Miracles
seem proof
      of earthly kingship -
the pressure cooker builds
but Jesus sidesteps
       man's agendas,
knowing who He is
and
   why He came.

Love first.
The motivation matters -
eccentricity
is not the goal.
"Be angry and sin not."
Serve love,
not self -
           a balancing act
that takes practice

and risk.