Finishing

I FedEx'd the manuscript for "Uprooted: Growing a Parablelife From The Inside Out" to FaithWalk last Friday. After that last final push to pull it all together, I was so excited to put the 50,000 words in the little box and hand it off to the guy behind the Kinko's counter. Today I feel a little hung-over. It is the same feeling you might have the day after the play closed in which you starred. The production is over, and real life calls you back.

I'm learning to enjoy these hang-overs. They used to really freak me out, but I have discovered that Jesus is there in them. A couple of months ago, I had the amazing privilege of speaking in the chapel at Trinity International University. My text was Mark 9:2-9, the Transfiguration. The words the Lord gave to me that day apply here, on hang-over day, as I come down to earth from the mountaintop where I tried to camp out as I wrote my book.

I am here today to tell you that the transfiguration isn’t an academic exercise, an experience best reserved for those given to mysticism, or a jolt of mountaintop high.

The transfiguration belongs to you if you are a Christ-follower. The kingdom is here. Heaven has invaded earth. Here and now! Yes, on the mountaintop, but also at Dunkin Donuts, and sitting parked in traffic on the tollway, and at the library. Standing at the foot of the cross…and looking into an empty tomb. Jesus knew that the transfiguration, the mountaintop experience, could only make sense to His friends because of the resurrection.

The kingdom is here. The resurrection is the power to have the transfiguration “STICK”. What happens on the mountaintop can not stay on the mountaintop. It must invade the library and your dorm rooms and the cafeteria.

And today, His transformation power must invade this writing hang-over of mine. Maranatha!