FLAGS FOR THE EYES

Intentional pennants flying from the lips, waved by eloquent and touching words that blow them sensuously and emphatically at another’s eyes. It make look impressive if you have a colorful enough flag in terms of sincerity, but it doesn’t mean the emblem of motives on the side will always represent your true desires.

Flags we create by life’s experience can fill our mind’s most private chambers. Then we raise them when the right wind of circumstance stirs and we think it will symbolize some element of our being for all to see.

Sometimes the flag is dark and has a emblem upon it that is combative or defensive. Others it is bright and full of symbols of hope or love.

And they all come from the eye’s flagpole. Which sometimes we think we have cleverly disguised.

We may even have someone comment on the motion of that pennant or its emblem in terms of agreeing with it or thinking it inspiring. But this is often purely an instinctive fabric waving defensively.

God has his own flags to put in our hearts. It will wave with the spirit’s breath stirring its motion. And on the side it will have the image of our Lord and Savior.

But the think is the Lord has many different flags. They will always end up having part of our essence in them. Which will make them unique and more genuine.

The difficulty is being willing to let God raise that banner in our lives instead of it being our own sense of self-righteousness. That is the sad essence of trying to witness by our own strength. What becomes seen is not Jesus, but us. It is motivated by OUR labor and it is US who people end up seeing while doing their best to forget the spiritual rhetoric we are trying to peddle.

Honesty is the fiber, which only God can actually sew into any flag that is raised to his glory. We become lost in its shadow. Indefinable in presence as Jesus emblem ends up burning in the minds of those who see the Lord’s pennant instead of the one we would want to show off.

It is never easy to lose oneself in the service to one’s lord where we are willing to hold his banner and not have anyone thank us for the effort. God does reward, but eternity is where all the flags of the eyes will ultimately wave. Some will be consumed by judgment, others will be ignited with the Lord’s righteousness.

We have to be willing to hold them in obedience until that time. Hopefully it will be a task that we embrace with joy when others end up more impressed with God’s banner than the one doing the holding. Peace comes when we accept that burden and it turns out not to be as heavy as we feared.