“However, as it is written: ‘No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him’—but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God.” (1 Corinthians 2:9-10).
Not long ago, I sat down to watch Elizabeth: The Golden Age. The story is well-known to many but fairly new to me. I’m not a history enthusiast, although I am drawn to its memoirs via the silver screen. There’s something majestic and grand about visiting another era. When crafted well, “period pieces” etch their eccentricity into my soul, leaving me breathless for more.
The intrigues of yesterday’s “long-ago and far-away” are a worthy pause. They reveal truth by framing the past within the present. They trace our ancestral beginnings to our now, weaving a path of incomprehensible moments that lead us to this one moment in time. A day called today, when every yesterday bears the worthy trust of a purpose and a plan.
We couldn’t see it then because we didn’t live it then. Our lives were meant for this generation, but we are the witnesses to what remains—those blossomed remnants from a long-ago seeding that have fed our imaginations and scripted their influence into our current. Whether it be 500 years ago or five days ago, the past hosts the stage for the right now … for the future.
In one particular moving scene from Elizabeth, the Queen is listening to the wild rantings of explorer extraordinaire, Sir Walter Raleigh. He is describing the depth of what it was like for him to discover the new world. The tempestuous seas. The brittle cold. The weary nights and days and days and nights of water upon water with no land in sight. His is a compelling story, crescendoing with every detail until he unveils the moment of his discovery—the virgin vision of land in sight.
It is an edenic moment, one that scripts with the lush and green and wild of a fresh unearthing.
Elizabeth is undone with the telling, imagining the far-away and what it must be like to live within the edges of such adventure. With tears brimming from emotion, she voices the penchant of her heart…
“Do we discover the new world, Mr. Raleigh, or does the new world discover us?”
And with that question, I am undone. It’s a worthy wondering, for before me … before each one of us … is a brave, new and unseen world offering up its invitation to come. To set our sails in a new direction that is fraught with the unknown and the unimaginable.
Who can really plan for a sea’s crossing in advance? Who can measure the depth of the dark and the waves and the ill-effects of climate shift prior to departure? Who can reason the sun’s heat and thirst of a long journey? Who can forecast the wide open skies of a sea’s starry night or the brushstrokes of a horizon’s morning? Who can fathom the ups and the downs and the side to sides of a watery perimeter? Who can fully comprehend the completed journey even before it begins? Who can see the new world prior to leaving the old?
Who indeed?
God can. He did, and he continues to do so. On our behalf and on behalf of those who’ve come before and those who are soon to follow. He sees it all, from beginning to end—the new world. It commenced on the shores of his sacred understanding; it will finish accordingly. But sandwiched in between those eternal bookends?
A sea’s crossing. A journey’s now. From coast to coast, where faith becomes the wind that sails us home into safe harbor.
Do we discover the new world, or does the new world discover us?
Yes and yes.
It’s not that it hasn’t been there all along. Its shores have always sung. Its land has always known the generous breathing of a big and mighty God. Its width and length and heighth and depth have been measured and established by the wisdom of its Creator and sustained accordingly. The inconceivable has been conceived by the only mind capable of holding such vision.
And if we, by the grace of God, have set our sights on Jesus, then with every passing day, in unsuspecting and unimaginable ways, we catch glimpses of the harbor that stands on the horizon. A reachable Eden that scripts with the lush and green and wild of a fresh unearthing.
The new world and us. An unlikely coupling. A joint discovery on both counts. Together, a profound weaving that breathes and brims with unending possibility and with the breathless yearning for more.
More adventure.
More edges.
More moments.
More risks.
More faith.
More discovery.
More nights of stars and days of horizons, piece by piece until we arrive on the shores of the new world, and we trade in our weary remnants for the full dressing of our forever.
Who can fathom the worth of such a journey? I am compelled to try, for long ago and far away, in another era it seems, God’s love called out his invitation for me to come. A “period piece” from my history that etched its eccentricity into my soul. I’ve been sailing its waters ever since. It’s been a worthy row, friends, and one that is drawing me ever closer to my discovery of the new world. I bet you could voice the same. May God keep us, everyone, to the journey until we land in the seen reality of our unseen and wild imaginings. It won’t be long, thus I pray…
Bring us home, Father God, into safe harbor with you. Keep our eyes fixed on the horizon instead of the sea that seeks to drown our faith in the process. Thank you for the process of discovery and for the vision that you’ve seeded in our hearts for the inconceivable realities that you conceived on our behalf long ago. Your grace is the unimaginable gift that allows us participation in the new world. It leaves me breathless and with a heart of thanksgiving for the life I’ve been allowed. Keep me grateful. Keep me mindful. Keep me moving forward, straight into your arms. Amen.
Copyright © November 2008 – Elaine Olsen. All rights reserved
Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours! I will be traveling this week and plan on stepping away from the computer for a few days. Enjoy some turkey and some fellowship with family and friends. I am thankful for you, my blogging companions, who have spent the better part of 9 months on the journey with me. What a joy to share this road with pilgrims like you! I mean that. Shalom.
Happy Thanksgiving to you as well, my friend. As we stop and give thanks this day you are one of those I am most thankful for. A true friend who is always there with an ear to listen and a voice with words to have me ponder and sometimes laugh. Bless you this week and each week to follow. God always knows who to put in our path along our journey. Blessings!
Ooooo, I like it! It is so where my heart & soul resides. Adventure, beauty, a compelling forward momentum – – all of it hook-latched to God's plans & purposes.
When I attempt, for even a short while, to fathom what God has in storm for us just around the bend, or just beyond the current, or just over the rise, my breath catches. Incredible!! – even though my puny vision is no match for the reality.
Be blessed, and a preciously wonderful Thanksgiving to you and yours.
Kathleen
I wanted to stop by and say Happy Thanksgiving and I count you as one of my blessings this year!
Blessed Thanksgiving to you and your family! May your travel be safe and your celebration full of blessings!
I am a history buff and I love period films.
As I journey the tumultuous seas, brittle cold and the weary days and nights… feeling as if there is no land in sight… may I cling to my God… knowing that the New World waits for me.
“Who can fathom the worth of such a journey? I am compelled to try, for long ago and far away, in another era it seems, God’s love called out his invitation for me to come. A “period piece” from my history that etched its eccentricity into my soul. I’ve been sailing its waters ever since.”
Me too. It’s what my heart aches and yearns for, and it always will.
Beautiful, anointed writing.
Have a wonderful Thanksgiving. I’m so grateful to God for you, my sister-in-Christ. Blessings to you and your family…
When I think of my blessings… I count you! Happy Thanksgiving, sister!
More adventure.
More edges.
More moments.
More risks.
More faith.
More discovery.
Indeed!
May our lives in Christ always be thus.
Happy Thanksgiving, Elaine.
Your beautiful written words have touched my heart today. There is a common friend we have that I hope stops by for this read.
I hope you have a Wonderful Thanksgiving…Safe travels!!
Beautifully expressed, Elaine, as always!
I pray that we all discover, as did Abraham, faith for our journey. (Reference Romans 4:1-3). How I long for the joy of the redeemed when “a highway will be there; it will be called the Way of Holiness. They unclean will not journey on it; it will be for those who walk in that Way …” (Isaiah 35:8).
As I read your post, I remembered one of the “blessed” Scriptures: “Blessed are those whose strength is in You, who have set their hearts on pilgrimage.” (Psalm 84:5)
What a true privilege it is to journey with you, my friend!
Melaniejoys “common friend” came by and she loved this post. 🙂
I often long for the land in waiting.
My heart yearns to walk its streets and hear the sounds in the air.
And Melanie I may never meet here on this soil…but we already have a plan to meet at the pearly gates…just to the right.
Praying for safe travels for you, my dear friend. I love that phrase from the movie – and how beautifully you expressed it for us. Beautiful!
God has been teaching me similar strains lately…keeping my focus on Him..not on the tumultous waters around…for He is the God of time, past, present , future…Isaiah 45:18-24-The Message says:
God, Creator of the heavens—
he is, remember, God.Maker of earth—
he put it on its foundations, built it from scratch.
He didn’t go to all that trouble to just leave it empty, nothing in it.
He made it to be lived in.
This God says:
“I am God, the one and only.
I don’t just talk to myself or mumble under my breath.
I never told Jacob, ‘Seek me in emptiness, in dark nothingness.’
I am God.
I work out in the open, saying what’s right, setting things right.
So gather around, come on in, all you refugees and castoffs.
They don’t seem to know much, do they—
those who carry around their no-god blocks of wood,
praying for help to a dead stick?
So tell me what you think.
Look at the evidence.
Put your heads together. Make your case.
Who told you, and a long time ago, what’s going on here?
Who made sense of things for you?
Wasn’t I the one? God?
It had to be me.
I’m the only God there is—
The only God who does things right and knows how to help.
So turn to me and be helped—saved!—
everyone, whoever and wherever you are.
I am God,
the only God there is, the one and only.
I promise in my own name:
Every word out of my mouth does what it says.
I never take back what I say.
Everyone is going to end up kneeling before me.
Everyone is going to end up saying of me,
‘Yes! Salvation and strength are in God!'”
Praise God it is Yes and Yes. And behind it all is Him, helping us discover and be discovered. Happy Thanksgiving, my friend.
It has been a pleasure to get to know you through blog land, too, Elaine. May you and your family be richly blessed this Thanksgiving!
This was breathtakingly beautiful!
I so long for that new world! May He come to take us all there soon!
Love your blog…
bless…shell
Happy Thanksgiving Elaine. I pray that you will enjoy your time with your family. Your site has become a morning ritual now for me! I can almost hear you, with your “Kentucky”accent, as I read your words. You have given me much food for thought over the last few weeks. Please continue!! I have shared your site with lots of my friends in hopes that they too will be inspired!
God Bless!
Thanks for sharing this. I hope your Thanksgiving was wonderful.
Beautiful, thank you.
It IS a worthy journey, isn’t it?
These are beautiful words that cause my heart to shout a resounding “yes” to His call and move forward in the adventure.
With expectation.
With thanks.
Thankful for YOU my friend,
Melinda
I needed to be reminded today that this journey be it one that feels very long…it’s in His perfect alloted time slot…be it one that feels too much…is just what I need…be it one that seems very unlikely somedays…is very likely! Thank you for reminded me today that He has purpose in the journey and each and every step is part of the journey.
Happy Thanksgiving my Friend!
Peace Elaine, YOu are counted among my blessings in this season of Thanks, dear friend. I pray traveling mercies for you and moments to treasure as you celebrate the gifts of the season! I love this post, Dear ONe. It truly spoke.
I promise to email soon, after all the hoopla!
You are beautiful and bless me tremendously!
Just stopping by to wish you and your family a Happy Thanksgiving too.
I’ve truly enjoyed getting to know you over these months Elaine!
Sending lots of love and many blessings your way.
Looking forward to all God has in store for you, I just know many good things are coming, watch and see!!
Susan
PS My email is [email protected]
You take me away with your postings…such a talent you have dear friend. Thank you!
hope your holiday was grand!
In his Graces~Pamela
True inspiration when I visit here.. Thanks for the good word..
Have a blessed week and a week filled with God……..
Awesome, as always! Thanks!!!