Sunsets & Purity

12 . 18 . 11

I found myself this evening on the beach, the crisp air that arrives just after the sun has set growing dense as I strolled the shore. It was just after sunset, and I was a bit disappointed I’d arrived tardy to what I was sure had been a warm departing of the sun, dripping with the colors of the spirit. I found consolation in knowing the sun was setting for someone else, as well as rising, bringing light to other beautiful places in the world...

My mind wandered to the idea of purity, and my impressions of how it is begot. Purity, healing, growth, strength in overcoming, etc really...

The classic image I get is the one of being purified through fire, like gold... remember the song ‘refiner’s fire’? maybe the verse in Malachi..“he will sit as a refiner [of gold] and purifier of silver...”

Purified, refined in the fire...

This is good, this is true, the purification of the spirit comes upon inviting it within to do it’s work. I just can’t help but think of the other ways in which things on earth are purified... first one that comes to mind is water.

Countries have used bio-san filtration as a form of bio-mimicry for centuries, imitating the layers of our earth with different layers and types of soil, sending the unclean water through a series of filters, eventually making it pure. The first layers extract any particulates in the water, moving down through the different stages of soil getting filtered to the point of eventually dripping out safe.

This is how our Maker has chosen to purify water...

... and sometimes it feels like this is how he has chosen to purify me...

The bio san we’ve created can filter water in a matter of hours... water filtered by the earth, making it’s way through the changing layers eventually dripping pristine into underground water storage, this can take years... lots of them.

Moving through life, certain things seem to just stick around, right? Am I alone in this? I wouldn’t jump to call these things sin, but maybe just things that inhibit, bind, drag down... things maybe that bring about emotions of fear, loneliness, anxiety.. so many things. But things none-the-less which no matter how many times it may seem we ask to be ‘freed’ of their burden, they remain...

This is where I like imagining my life's journey through the varying stages of God’s plan, each new layer stripping me from remaining contaminants, each new layer being deeper and denser than the last, each with the ability to strip that which was maybe able to slip through the last...

Time. This process requires it.

The willingness to dive deeper. Also required.

With little introspection, and at an age where reflection has become more significant as the timeline has stretched, I can see areas of my life where journeying deeper has with time brought purification...

This is a struggle for me... this is why this was on my heart, because there are things in my life which I am realizing maybe aren’t to be purified as the song describes... but filtered with time, experience, and a deepening understanding of what it is that requires ‘filtering’, and then being filtered...

Worries. Filtered with time.

Hopes. Filtered with time.

Loves. Filtered with time.

At each new layer, a new environment, maybe a new culture, a new appreciation and a new joy... a new thanksgiving, a new hope, a new love.. freedom.

~ with time ~

I’m reminded by what I wrote about at the beginning, that while we can’t always be experiencing the beauty of the sun’s rising or setting, we have hope in it’s faithful existence and joy in imagining where in this world the glory of that display is being shown... knowing full well it will be here to greet us again soon. It’s moments like this where in my spirit I feel the beauty of a new truth, a new understanding of what grows this heart of mine. And while in the morning it may seem less inspired, it remains and will be faithful in returning...