The Wildness of Your Presence

Written from a hidden ranch deep in the Kenyan mountains as my husband and I sat in Jesus’ presence for examen among the wild creatures.

 

The Wildness of Your Presence

 

Sometimes Your presence is a wild place.

Air thrumming with life

Wildness

As if I emerged into a sacred wilderness

Where You and Your wild things

Commune.

 

I am the tame one here,

The one who thinks

Instead of abiding,

Who sits

Instead of flying.

 

The common Kenyan pigeon

Perches nearby

Curiously appraising my composure,

Inviting me to decompose.

 

Goats meander through

A dry river bed,

Their bells tinkling

As they forage along the ravine.

Your food is there waiting for them.

 

Monkeys chatter,

Clamber along the acacia,

Stopping to stare

And scratch their behinds.

Decorum is an outside word.

 

Birds great and small

Whose names I do not know

Fly confident

With songs of joy

Because You know each one by name.

And that is enough.

 

Rugged Maasai shepherds

Trudge behind their cattle,

Spears casually slung

Across their shoulders,

Ready for the lion.

 

The wind sings

In fits and starts

As water trickles

From some hidden spring.

 

Your presence is wild

In this savage place,

Where untamed creatures

Exist as You made them.

 

I find no striving here,

No careful self-control.

The birds are not

Comparing themselves to one another.

 

There is a sense of anything

Everything

Unexpected things

Here in this wilderness.

 

You stand among the wilds

Like a chief among His subjects

Reveling in their tribal tribute

To the Lord of the wilderness.

 

by Audrey Frank

 

Lord, in this place I feel anything is possible. Open my heart to exceedingly abundantly more than I could ask or imagine. Amen.

In the presence of the Lord, anything is possible. He is the God of exceedingly abundantly more than we could ask or imagine. #faith Click To Tweet

@audreycfrank

Photo by Amar Yashlaha on Unsplash