Matt Candler

I Love Fall Pt. 1

Add comment October 2nd, 2008

High Altitude Sugar High

So, what does a ’sugar high’ look like at high altitude?

August 18th, 2008

Coffee at 9600ft

It shall come to pass…that the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established on the top of the mountains…”  Is. 2:2

It is Sunday August 17th, 7am Mountain Time. It is 34 degrees, cloudy, and rainy outside. I am sitting in a Starbucks at 9600ft looking outside a window at recently snow-capped mountains (yes in August) ascending into a mixture of thick and wispy-like clouds as rain descends wondering if it should become snow. I am grateful that I get to have a foretaste of fall and winter before venturing back down the mountain to the wet and sticky 90-degree Kansas City flatlands. As our family drove from KC to CO a week or so ago, when we could barely see the Rockies in the distant horizon, I leaned over to Dana and said, “we’re a little closer.“ Not just closer to our first destination of CO Springs to be with family, or the Rockies, or the brisk mountain air. We were just a little closer “to the throne” I added with a marveled grin forming on my face. Not only were we closing the distance between two geographic locations across the nation but we were also ascending 2 miles upward from Kansas City’s 740 ft elevation to where I now sit writing this at 9600 feet.

We were made for majesty. We were made to be filled with wondrous terrifying excitement where our smallness meets and interacts with Reality far greater than ourselves. I love the majesty of the mountains, the awe that strikes deep at the heart at their teeming grandeur that brings the mightiest of men to their  knees in respect. I feel this every time I come to the mountains, and yes, I like the mountains far better than the ocean. I agree with the wisdom of God that there should be no more sea on the New Earth.  Sunburn, sand, and salt and the evil combination of the three is enough to relegate the ocean to the old earth if you ask me. Though, I am more than anticipating the vast crystal sea of glass that surrounds Jesus’ throne where all the saints sing among companies of angels innumerable (which just so happens to be the pinnacle of the ‘mountain’ city of the Lord). I will not greatly miss the sea as we know it, nor the sharks or jelly fish. I think Jesus had it right that the ocean’s (or sea of glass) ‘best fit’ was on top of the mountains. I mean, can you imagine it, an ocean on top of a mountain range? And not a mountain range at a merely 10,000, 14,000, or even 25,000 ft., but a mountain of a city that towers 7.3 million ft. high (or 1,380 miles…note to reader, the highest mountain on earth is 5 miles high)!

So, though I am only about 9,000 feet ‘closer’ to the glorious heights of His throne that are above the heavens, I am nevertheless ‘closer‘. By faith let us look to a day yet future, and join the kings of the earth as they come to marvel at the glorious splendor of both the King of the earth and His holy habitation. For this is the city of the great King, the New Jerusalem which will descend to the earth, the mountain of the Lord that will be exalted above every other mountain (Ps. 48:2-6, 12-13, Is. 2, 11, Rev. 4, 15).

3 comments August 17th, 2008

No Rest Until He Rests Pt. 1

There is a restlessness that ‘rests’ within each of us. It is the restlessness of the  eternal and the infinite that has been penned by the finger of God upon our hearts (Ecc. 3:11). This infinite eternality in all humanity highlights the core reality that we will all live forever, spiritually & bodily,  and the corresponding restless questions that we long to penetrate: where will I live forever (location, qualitative nature, etc.), who will I be with (with or without God and others), what will I be doing, and why will I be doing what I am doing. The fact that we are eternal in our being and infinite in our natures is found simply in that we have been created in the likeness of our Infinitely Eternal Jesus. He designed and created a suitable partner in His very likeness. As Thomas Dubay has so poignantly stated, all humanity is an ‘incarnate thirst’ before Jesus, the Living Water.

This innate restlessness resides and grows in both believers and unbelievers. It is not a static reality but constantly grows in either separting or uniting us to Jesus. The restlessness that separates us from Jesus is a resistive restlessness in which we attempt to dull or ‘resist’ answering the previous questions. But these questions will never dull or be resisted successfully, but are meant to be a lighthouse for our wandering souls and darknened minds. They are to lead us to where our lives are hidden in the person of Christ (Col. 3:3) and transform us into a His redemptive restlessness. It is this redemptive restlessness, the restlessness that consumes the person of Jesus, that our lives are ultimately about, and in a small way this blog.

Add comment August 10th, 2008