Changes | The Frontier "Out There" and the Frontier Within

June 1: I’m putting my thoughts down from seat 19E on a flight home from a spectacular (and quite surreal) gathering near Lake Michigan with my “cord of four” (mighty-warrior-sister-friends). The 4-day weekend that’s now behind me came complete with ultra-safe space, morning table-church (the kind that melts stone and causes it to pour out in tears), free-flowing laughter, several delectable meals, and a gorgeous sunset rendezvous with YHWH-God on the beaches of the Indiana dunes.

As if that weren’t enough, I’m now flying over sun-kissed marshmallow clouds, listening to a song that’s been looping on my phone (and in my mind) for more than a week, since the morning before getting on the plane to come. When the melody first surfaced, it was just one barely-familiar line that tickled my memory over the sunlit kitchen sink, causing me to go get my phone and hunt it down.

As it turned out, it was a promise in lyrics, of God’s timing having come for something long prayed for. The song’s stunningly accurate description of some very personal details, long locked away in an old, dusty “lock-box” inside me, removed any doubt as to Who was speaking to me.

The song accompanied me from the kitchen to the airport, to the gathering, through the entire weekend and beyond, leading the way through its own fulfillment. While there, the proverbial lock was broken off my inner box of lost things, buckets of tears and long-denied emotions poured out, and a brand-new season declared, in which the remaining contents of my “lock-box” will be taken out one-by-one, sorted, reclaimed, or discarded.

Now headed back home, my mind feels like an ant hill that’s been suddenly disturbed, wildly working to take stock of the changes and restore order. Of course, my writer’s mind is preoccupied with which parts are meant to be put down here, and what is to remain sacred...

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June 20: It’s many days later, and the distance has brought more clarity. I know that what is meant for these pages is this: Something has shifted in the “most holy place” in my heart. My life will never be the same as it was just a few weeks ago, and the changes are going to impact the writings of the One-Legged Sojourner.

Not for the first time in my life, an indelible line has been drawn between what’s behind and what lies ahead. (I suspect I’m in good company as we all wrestle with the pivotal moment that’s come upon the world.) Though there are several significant moments like this in my past, this one has to do with “frontiers.”

The word frontier, I hope, is a familiar term for most seasoned Christians. It describes the nations and people-groups of the world who have not yet “heard,” or had the opportunity to respond to, the good news of the kingdom of God (God’s Son, Jesus, having come to earth to penetrate of kingdom of darkness with his sinless life, death, and resurrection, numbering the days of the great dragon and the powers of evil, and breaking open the way for all who choose to repent of their sin, follow and obey Jesus, and receive sonship and citizenship in his coming kingdom).[1]

The above description is what I call the “frontier out there”—the world into which we’re called to go, live, and walk, bearing witness to Jesus’ work on the cross as we, the Bride of Christ, are being prepared through suffering to meet and marry our Bridegroom-King. I can’t help but wonder if we will one day stand before the Father in the Center of Nations (Jerusalem), in the Most Holy Place, for the wedding...

The Point I'm getting to is this: There’s another frontier that occupies God’s heart and mind. It’s the frontier within each one of us. Let me paint you a picture.

There is a "rings-in-a-pond" aspect to the story of the Israelites' deliverance and wilderness journey to the Promised Land (and the taming of it thereafter). The story is, at base level, the time-bound story of God's deliverance of the ancient Israelites--God’s children making their way from the furthest reaches of banishment from the Garden (from stewardship to slavery), through a hard, desert wilderness time, toward the land, home, peace, freedom, and blessing that God has promised to them.

But inherent in that story are reflections of timeless spiritual realities that matter deeply in the story of redemption itself. They reverberate out from the minute to the immense, speaking as powerfully to the atom-sized life-journey of a single child of God as to the astronomical meta-story of God's unfolding, Israel-centric, Jerusalem-based kingdom plan for the blessing of the nations and renewal of creation itself.

As God battles and defeats his enemy, delivers his chosen people slavery, and leads them on their journey home, providing, protecting, instructing, and disciplining them, so he does with the Body of Christ and the individuals of whom she is comprised.

On the way home, God meets with the Israelites (speaking through Moses) in the tabernacle (a divinely-designed tent-temple that could be moved with them as they traveled). At the heart of the tabernacle is the veiled Most Holy Place, where no one may enter except God Himself and the appointed high priest (and he only once yearly). The ark of the covenant and its contents (the ten commandments, the budding staff, and the manna) are kept in the Most Holy Place, with the mercy seat atop the ark for God’s Presence to fill.

(A more permanent temple would be built in Jerusalem by King Solomon in the future, and a second one after the destruction of the first—all of them after the pattern of things in heaven, where God sits on His throne, and his court and all creation revolves around him.[2] When Jesus returns to establish his kingdom on earth, there will be a new temple and, “...the whole territory on the top of the mountain all around shall be most holy.”[3] And, after Jesus’ thousand-year reign (Revelation 21:22) “the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb” will be the temple.)

As with the ancient Israelites, God "tabernacles" with us on the journey forward, leading, providing, protecting, instructing, correcting, and speaking to us from the Most Holy Place—by his Spirit within our hearts in union with his Word, through God-appointed leaders in the Church, and from heaven where he sits on his throne with Jesus at his right hand.

Home is ahead, where all God's people will exchange our temporary "tabernacles" (bodies) for eternal ones, Jesus will rule the nations, and the triune God will dwell among his people forever.

I testify to this, that when I surrendered my life to Jesus, God’s Spirit entered in and took his place on the mercy seat in my heart-of-hearts, my most holy place. He sits enthroned over the covenant-promises that were ratified in Jesus and imprinted on my heart.[4] This is true of all who have accepted the terms of the God’s covenant plan, and opened their hearts to him.[5]

When the Holy Spirit came in, he immediately took away a layer of brokenness and sinful behaviors, as a testimony of his Presence. All of my sin was forgiven, all of my debt wiped clean. But my sin-nature and the depth of sin and brokenness that still remained was an untamed wilderness within me, in need of subduing and sanctification in God’s timing and way. This is the frontier within.

The journey has been long, the sacrifices of obedience difficult. Much of my inner frontier has been cleared, planted, and is bearing fruit. But there is much more to be done and the work will not be finished until Jesus returns to replace this temporal body with an eternal one. But my body is a temple. As the Spirit puts one outer courtyard in order and makes it beautiful, another one comes into view—deeper and deeper, ever closer to my Most Holy Place. And when our Bridegroom-King comes, there will be no more courtyards, no more walls, and no more veils between me and my Bridegroom King. Nor yours, I pray.

So, what lies behind and what lies ahead...

Immediately behind me is a 5-year journey of biblical study and Holy Spirit leading (to which you, the reader, have been privy), correcting and expanding my understanding of what is ahead and how to press forward in unprecedented times at the end of the age. I arrive here today with greater clarity on:

1) what following in Jesus’ footsteps at the end of the age will involve (obedient, but joy-filled, suffering as a faithful witness, toward bride-readiness),

2) who is still, and eternally, God’s first family-nation, chosen to carry and receive the covenant-promises for the blessing of the nations (Israel and the Jews, into which we are grafted),

3) where it is all, ultimately, headed (to the center of nations, to Jerusalem, in the Day of the Lord, when Jesus will judge the world, live and rule among his chosen people, and make all things new, and

4) how we will endure to the end—by confident obedience to Jesus’ words,[6] which comes through sober submission to the Spirit, through fire and flood, tears and blood, until he returns.

What lies ahead for me? Well, it’s all still in the hands of my Bridegroom-King. But the lock was broken off of a Most Holy box at a table near Lake Michigan, and what comes out next will surely be reflected in the writing to come. I can say with confidence that it will be a long conversation about inner frontiers being subdued and beautified as we move ever closer to the final Most Holy Place and home.

For now, I’m off for a time of refreshment with treasured friends in the Balkans...

Maranatha.

[1] Romans 10:13-15

[2] Hebrews 8:5

[3] Ezekiel 43:12b

[4] Hebrews 10:15-18

[5] Hebrews 10:5-10

[6] Matthew 7:24-27; referring to Matthew 5-7