Covina.

Last night around 10 pm I rolled in to Covina. After a drive full of emotions, I carefully picked out what song I wanted to be listening to as I pulled up. When my car finally came to a very nicely parallel parked stop, the words blasting through my car speakers were,

Awake, my soul!
For you were made to meet your maker.

On the drive between Pismo Beach and Covina, I learned what it felt like to call on the name of the Lord because I literally shook with tears and screamed out “JESUS!!!!!!” and another time “GOD!!!!!!!!” and yet another, “ABBA!! FATHER!!!!!!” and was certain that my worries for the future would never come to fruition because I would end up running off the road and dying before I even made it anywhere. I arrived safely, finally rested.

There is no other name to call out. I am telling you this, from a place of complete and total surrender. I’m absolutely terrified, confused, a little bit hesitant… and yet all I can do is call out the name of my Creator. There is NO OTHER NAME that even does anything for me. After a solid 35 minutes of driving, weeping, holding my hand over my heart, and crying out His name.. I landed on “Awake My Soul” and listened to it the rest of the time.

This is what faith is about.

I was writing a letter to someone recently and kept falling back on this quote (no idea who said it) – “A faith that can’t be tested can’t be trusted.”

I am learning what “faith without deeds is useless” (James 2:20) means. Despite how easy it is to think it means that our faith is shown by our actions towards others (this I believe to be true) I believe that moreso, it is about our living out our faith. I started thinking about Peter in the boat, looking over the edge and seeing the storm, and I relate. Completely. There’s this thing we do when we’re in a boat being called into a storm. We say “Jesus, I trust that you have the power to walk on water and can enable me to follow you out there.” and then he stands there, his arm stretched out and we say “Jesus, I completely trust you.” and I get this image of a kind of crazy Jesus, standing on the water in a storm, hand (right hand, to clarify) stretched towards a boat, his (brown) hair all in his (white) face and screaming at the top of his lungs (it is a storm, remember?), “THEN GET. OUT. OF. THE. BOAT!!!”

and THAT.

THAT is the moment that our faith can be deemed useless. Were Peter to have screamed back “BUT LORD, I TRUST YOU! WHY SHOULD I GET OUT OF THE BOAT?” his faith would have died a little tiny bit. What is the point of believing in the promises of God if you are not going to (fearfully) climb over the edge and walk towards Christ?

Oh man. Just thinking about it makes my heart leap. That is where Christ has led me. I am getting used to the water under my feet, the waves swirling around me. But my focus, my hope, my only chance at deliverance and survival and really anything, is in reaching Christ’s outstretched hand.

That’s where I’m at. Spiritually and figuratively.

Literally I’m in our apartment, dying of heat, waiting for Bradley to come visit, listening to Aleen & Stephen put together a dresser, sitting in a chair I have sat in so many times, and really wanting to eat an apple and drink some coffee.

and it’s all happening in Covina, California. Where I live.

Now the real question. Does this count as “Travels?”