Wednesday, May 9, 2012

We've Moved!

Hi friends. Due to the fact that my name is no longer Wesley Hughes, I thought now would be a time to move on over to a new website. You can now find my ramblings at www.thewayhomeblog.wordpress.com . I hope to move my archives to the new website eventually, but for now, when you'd like to reminisce about old times with my previous blog posts, you'll have to come back here. See you on the other side.

If you'd like to keep following me via email, there's an easy way to do that on my new site!

love,

me

Thursday, April 12, 2012

The Empty Tomb

Never has so much life come forth
from something so bare, so lifeless.
I enter in, and what I expect I do not see.
The air is fresh, fresher than I had expected.
But where is my Lord.
He is not here, they say, He is gone.
Gone? That cannot be.
Just the other day I saw him laid here.
I saw his body, broken and torn.
I saw the stone rolled over the entrance.
Darkness.
But now that stone is gone. 
And where He was laid to rest,
Now only linens and rags.
And angels.
Angels reminding me
of what my master told me.
That He would rise. 
And here I stand, in the empty tomb.
A house of death
Now bursting forth with life.
My teacher lives.
My savior lives.
He is risen.
I must go tell the others.

Sunday, April 8, 2012

The Still Small Voice Of God

I'd like to dedicate this post (and this picture) to my dear friend and fellow blogger Laura Lea, who encouraged me to keep posting! 

"Be still, and know that I am God." - Psalm 46:10

I don't know about you, but this is not my spiritual strong suit. I'm more of a fidgeting doubter than a still truster. But as much as I fight it, I love the freedom in this verse. It's amazing the duties we put on ourselves as Christians, all of the tasks we think we need to accomplish and the parts of our lives we need to change, when really what He wants from us is our trust in Him. "Calm down," He says, "you're not in charge of your life. You don't have to complete the puzzle, I've got you. Don't forget who created the world and holds every atom in its place. It certainly isn't you." I tend to think that it is me. It's not until I put down my to-do list and stop, sit down and force every anxiety out of my mind, and rest in God's presence, that I truly remember who guides my life. I think what God is saying in this verse is that oftentimes that's all we need to do, just stop and realize that God is God. The gospel isn't a to-do list, it's the good news of God's grace and mercy on our lives, and the liberating revelation that we don't have to do anything but love God and let Him do His job. How much more peaceful would my life be if I could only remember this? I think as a culture we are losing our ability to be still. It's a plague of our times; it's nearly impossible to find quiet. But just as Elijah found God in the "still small voice" following the earthquake and the fire, so in those fleeting silences will we find our God, who patiently waits for us to finish our to-do's and just be still. 


Happy Easter, He is risen.

Saturday, February 4, 2012

A New Shade Of Red

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to see the world for the first time? Or here's one I think about a lot: maybe I'm weird and maybe it's just me, but how cool would it be to hear the English language and not be able to understand it? I've often wondered what it would sound like, to be able to hear the sounds, the intonations, the rhythm of the language free of all intelligible meaning. I listen to other languages and try to imagine what English must sound like to the non-English speaker. Or imagine what it would be like to see the color red for the very first time, or touch a flower petal for the first time. I have experienced each of these things in my lifetime, but unfortunately I was a baby and have no recollection of these firsts. I kind of wonder if that's what Heaven will be like. This world is broken, it is fallen, it is but a dull reflection of what it was meant to be. And amazing as this world presently is, apparently in the end it is going to get a whole lot better. If you've ever been anywhere tropical, you'll know that colors there are not the same as they are in America. It's as if the equator has magnetized the pigmentation of plants to concentrate in the tropics. They just have better reds than we do. But in Heaven, I hope, I bet, when I see red for the first time, it will be as if I've never seen it before in my life. When I touch the ground for the first time, it will be a sensation the likes of which I have never experienced. And when I see God's face for the first first time, I will know that I never really knew Him in this life. I sought Him, I communed with Him, I worshipped Him, I served Him, but this God--the true God--when I see Him face to face, it will really be the first time.

And then I probably won't care about that English stuff anymore.