Staying Hydrated

As a Christian, and as a person for that matter, there are days when I handle life better than others. Sometimes the everyday annoyances and injustices can’t reach me and I continue marching on like the good little soldier I have been called to be. Other days, most other days, that is not the case. I wake up and step on a plastic block or train track, and I just know how the day is going to be. I forget something I meant to buy at the store, and you would think the house was on fire. I’m frequently guilty of letting stuff ruin my day. You probably are to, if not as often as I.

Recently, after one such day, I found myself desperately praying listing off all of the terrible grievances on my mind and detailing exactly how I would pretty please like God to fix them all. As I often do in prayer, I then allowed some time for God to respond in word or image or something. The crankier I am, the less time I’m quiet. This particular day, God’s response was instantaneous, which was good because he probably wouldn’t have had long before I returned to slogging through my day.

With images of sticky children laden with goldfish cracker crumbs, a song from long ago played across my mind.

“As the deer panteth for the water so my soul longeth after thee. You alone are my heart’s desire and I long to worship thee. You alone are my strength my shield. To you alone may my spirit yield. You alone are my heart’s desire and I long to worship thee.”

That actually stopped me, and it lead me to truly reflect upon the day I had had. I don’t remember the details, but I can easily tell you it was probably full of a dozen or two frustrating circumstances that had all lead up to me wanting the world to come to screeching halt so I could catch up.

I looked up psalm 42, that verse the song comes from, and as I read, I felt myself slowly satisfied, calmed, and at peace.

“Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God.”

My soul was thirsty and tired. I had been running to or from so many things for too long and I was out of breath. I was out of peace, and I was needing God. My soul was longing for him. My heart was desiring him. I needed strength and I needed shelter.

My soul is always longing for him. Longing to touch him and to feel him near me, to remember the truth of what I know in the midst of however I may feel.  My heart always desires him. I always need strength for something, and I always need shelter from something. The same way I wouldn’t go for a run without drinking water, I can’t go through a day thirsty and panting for the Spirit.

Like most people, I get cranky when I’m thirsty. I stop functioning well. My hands get shaky and my head starts pounding. I can’t sleep. My body is telling me it needs water. When my soul is thirsty, I get cranky. I can’t function. The task set before me goes from a steady walk to a sharp incline to scaling a cliff face. My spirit is telling me I need God.  

Another interesting fact about water is that the further into the desert you go, the more water you need to drink.

Spiritually, I’ve been in a desert for a while. It’s dry here and it’s hot. I’m tired and I’m weak. Sure there is beauty, but that won’t sustain me. It may keep my eyes off the ground for a moment, but it won’t save my life.

I often think I don’t have time to read my Bible, or maybe I’ll just skim a chapter real quick and that counts, right? Or I don’t have time to hear from God unless he’s really quick about it. The baby needs changing. The laundry needs folding. Emails need sending and errands need running. But I’m thirsty! So, so thirsty. Sure, I can slog my way through another day without spending time in the word or in prayer, I’ve done that many times. But it’s miserable. It’s painful. It’s not worth it when I come to the end of the day feeling like nothing went well and all my efforts were wasted and I can’t find any joy or peace under the hot dry desert sun.

I can tell I’m not the only one. People are frantic and stressed out and grumpy and are finding something wrong in everything every day. We’re all thirsty. Sadly most of us are dieing of thirst not even noticing the river beside us. But I know it’s there, so I have no excuse to live joylessly or void of peace no matter how far into the dessert I am lead.

When I’m quick to get angry, when I can’t find the good in someone, or some situation, when I’m anxious or fearful of things I have no control over, when the past keeps creeping up on me and I can’t look towards what’s ahead, when the path God has set me on feels impossible to walk, I know it’s because my soul is panting for God. I’m thirsty, and I just need a rest and a drink to remember who God is.  To remember what he is doing and why I trust him with all the little things that seem to be going wrong and all the big things that loom like volcanoes erupting.

When I finally see and touch God and feel him pouring life back into me, suddenly my desert has a little oasis in which I can find rest, gain strength, and prepare for more slogging tomorrow. Then it’s a much more joyful slogging. Then I slog with purpose and determination and peace.  Sometimes in life we must slog. And I would prefer to slog well hydrated. 

The Wisdom of Hobbits

A special dedication tonight

To Brian, my best friend and faithful companion there and back again.

And to everyone in the middle of their story.

Tonight I’m thinking about a different book. I may be going a little bit nutty, but it does seem like God has been answering my prayers tonight with LOTR movie quotes and it feels, quite eerily, like I’m having a conversation with a little hobbit whose spirits are hard to dampen.  

I, like Frodo before me, am having a good wrestle with some truth, even though, deep down, I know the fight is useless and truth will win every time, I doesn’t feel that way right now. So I’m sitting here feeling rather sorry for myself in my current predicament. I’m wishing very much that my abnormal life could at least appear normal so I could pretend it was normal. The weight of circumstances, like that of an evil ring that doesn’t want to be thrown into a volcano, is growing with each passing day.  I’ve reached what seems like the breaking point. I don’t want to keep going. I’m scared and miserable, despite what I know to be true, despite what I know needs to be done. And I guess I’m, in a way, getting a pep-talk from a fictional Hobbit. This particular pep-talk comes from the end of the Two Towers (I honestly don’t remember if it’s in the book, so I’m quoting the movie. If you think that makes me a Tolkienian poser, please also consider that while I have read the trilogy three times, I have seen the movies three or four dozen times. Also, please don’t calculate how much time that means I have roughly spent watching those films. I did, and it was rather depressing, but I digress).

For the purpose of illustration, and for fun, I have decided to dictate how that conversation is going, and it goes something like this…

 “I can’t do this, Sam,” I groan and curl up into a tighter little ball, resisting the urge to cry but not the one to pout.

“I know,” he says, empathetically. “By rights, we shouldn’t even be here, but we are.”

“I’ve been carrying this around for too long. Something has got to give. I have done my best, done what I was told to do.  Why can’t it just get easier instead of harder?!”

He considers this a moment, and then perks up like he has a bit of wisdom to share. “It’s like the old stories, the ones that really mattered.”

I immediately picture Joseph at the bottom of a pit, listening to his brothers negotiating his price, a throng of a hundred thousand people coming the Red Sea, knowing they need to cross and they don’t know how that could possibly happen. I see Sarah placing her hand on her belly watching all the young women play with their children and wondering if God’s promise would actually come true.

“Full of darkness and danger, they were,” He continues. “And sometimes you didn't want to know the end. Because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened?”

“It can’t!” I interrupt, frustrated. “It can’t go back to the way it was because even if it was as fine and dandy as it used to be, I can’t ignore the things that I now know were wrong and that I need to change.”

Sam nods, understanding, and puts his hand on my shoulder. “But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow.”

I want to protest, but I know it’s true. I know that even if circumstances don’t change, there is a better life to come. I don’t want to say it, because hope seems like too dangerous a word tonight. But I listen because it’s what I need to hear.

“Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer.”

This sounds a little too bright and perky for this hour, but I can’t argue with it.

“Those were the stories that stayed with you. That meant something, even if you were too small to understand why.”

I know what I need to do. Even if my tale of faith won’t make it into canonized scripture to be read by billions throughout the generations, I know it still means something, and it still matters, and I’m still relying on the same God who came through for all the others time and time again.

“Folk in those stories,” Sam says, as if he’s talking about me now, “had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn't. They kept going. Because they were holding on to something.”

I think about what I’m holding onto. It’s more than "there is good in this world it's worth fighting for". It’s that God exists outside of the norm, outside of our human experience, outside of what is commonplace and expected. He’s called me out of those things and into the world of faith, and even if it’s messy and painful and exhausting, it’s where I am. It’s where I should be, and somehow, it’s better than anywhere else I could be.

This is going to pass. Somehow. The story will mean something. Eventually. It’s not going to change tonight. It may take years like it did for Sarah to have the child God promised her and like it did as Joseph went from slave to prisoner to second in command of all Egypt. It may take a form I would never have thought possible, like it did for those people who watched the water split apart and walked on the bottom of the sea. If this is where God has me, then I need to stop trying to fit into normal. I need to stop longing for my cozy little Hobbit hole and tea cake. I can’t be ashamed anymore of what faith looks like to everyone else. If there is going to be a story here, it needs to be told because it means something, even if I’m still entirely "too small to understand why". 

The Dismembered Bride

The church is often called the bride and Christ the bridegroom. The role of the bride is to make herself ready for him (Revelation 19). She spends the day preparing, making herself beautiful, waiting in excitement and anticipation of the one who will come for her.

Forgive me if I over-extend the metaphor here, but I have a point. This is what I have seen recently from a great many people in the church. The bride wants to be pure and perfect, but then, this hair is out of place so she pulls it out. This fingernail is crooked so she trims it. One thing doesn’t seem quite right or doesn’t go with another part, and she cuts it off, bit by bit, until the bridegroom shows up and his beautiful bride has been pulled apart and limb from limb. In an attempt to perfect herself she has divided herself, leaving her groom with all of the pieces he loved, but none of them together.

I understand perfectly the desire for the truth and perfection of faith. My desire is to not be deceived and to understand as much as I can as clearly as I can, but I do not understand the relentless unsolvable debates and death matches Christians engage in among themselves. It’s not that I don’t think these topics have value in discussion, it’s how they are discussed that causes dismemberment.

In college, one of my favorite things about the first day of the semester was to observe the personalities I would be in class with. You see, even the most learned of professors, I had the honor to be taught by, would approach these difficult topics (such as predestination, works and faith or faith alone, denominational differences, women's roles in the church, old-earth new-earth, post-trib pre-trib, cessationism continualist) with an understanding that they couldn't say definitively that they were right, but would explain their own opinions. And even if I didn't agree entirely, I respected their humility and felt they were worth listening to. Then they would open it up to the class for discussion, and as soon as the freshman Biblical Studies majors would start having at it, I would tune out and start doodling. They were always absolutely convinced they got it right, and if they could shout loudly enough, they could win.

I know it doesn’t stop at the classroom. I know there are debates and arguments among large groups of believers that carry so much “zeal” that anyone from the outside would only see it as animosity.

I could stay out of the conversation in the classroom, but sometimes it hits when I’m not expecting it, from people I’m not expecting it from. And maybe this makes me a coward, but I duck out as soon as I can when I realize it’s no longer a discussion, but more like being yelled by a brick wall.

You see, I know what the Bible says. I know who said what in what context and who said whatever seemingly conflicts with the first guy. I see things that confuse me. I wrestle with them in coversations with people and on my own with God. I see a need to strive to understand. But I also see a need to let things lie when there isn’t a way to go.

My approach is to look at what God says like a geometry text book being presented to a first grader. Everything written is true. Some things are easy to understand, like circles, triangles and numbers, but the rest is too big and the details get kind of lost. The more we talk to the author, the more we understand, but we're still little and we can't fully get it. What we may see as discrepancies are just truths we can’t grasp yet, and maybe were never meant to.

Bottom line, I chalk it up to a really big God trying to explain the workings of his mind and the universe with itty-bitty people. We should never stop searching, but we need to stop fighting each other. We need to listen and we need to share the wisdom we have, but we can do that without lopping off body parts. 

I’m writing this while watching the Hunger Games and I am reminded of a line from Catching Fire. “Remember who the real enemy is.” If we don’t stop tearing our-self apart, we can’t be effective in the real war.

Jesus would often speak in parables and would say “Whoever has ears to hear, let them hear,” (Mark 4:9). Sometimes the Bible works like that too. It's not always clear at first glance, but that means we have to seek God and wait to understand in our time. That often entails hearing another opinion, sharing our own, and, if your mind isn’t changed and you haven’t changed theirs, then letting it go for a while.

I think that, as a bride waiting for out groom, we have to start accepting that.

We have to remember we are all on the same team. Our goal is to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ. While we also need to keep each other accountable to the truth, we are called to do so in humility and love. If there is an impasse, we need to leave it up to God to defend his own truth, and walk away from the battle.

We don’t know the time when the Bridegroom will return, but we know he doesn’t want to return to a bloody mess in place of his beautiful bride. 

Words from the Belly of the Whale

I almost didn’t write tonight, just like I haven’t written for the past few weeks. I could spin a lot of excuses about how I was busy or didn’t have anything to say, but the truth is, I was just scared.

Vulnerability makes everyone feel icky. I am no exception. The ickiness was so intense these last couple weeks that I have neglected to write for fear of it further intensifying. But God called me to start a blog and share the stuff that he and I talk about and I let my fear get in the way of what he called me to do, so like Jonah running from Nineveh, I ran from you people. Now I’m in a bit of a whale sized capsule of ickiness. And so I say I'm sorry to my handful of faithful readers and anyone else who may have perhaps needed the words I was too scared to write.

So to make up for lost time, I guess this post in kind of two in one. First is about vulnerability and how fear affects the bodyof Christ. And second it’s about knowing what God thinks of you and living by that before anyone else’s opinion, even your own. I don’t know exactly how personal all of this will get, but if I’m battling the fear of ickiness, may as well face it head on.

To put my thoughts and personal revelations about God on the internet brings both moments of excitement and ones of terror. I admit to being sheepish even in the way I phrase certain truths. In some cases, that kind of tip-towing is good and useful because there are some delicate and easily misunderstood topics that require care. Other times, it just makes me appear less sure than I am about the incredible invincibility of God’s word, and that sucks.

Writing these posts puts my personal walk with God on a page accessible for anyone. Accessible for anyone to misinterpret, for anyone to speak badly about, to question my faith and my character and sanity and use of the English language. And for about three weeks, I didn’t want to give you all that chance.

Now I'm having to repent and say sorry and it's making me all the more vulnerable and all the more icky, but I also know I'll feel better for it later.

Well, I'm pretty darn pissed off at ickiness. The fear of discomfort that stops people from doing what they need to do, the sneaky little lies and justifications Satan deposits in our minds have the function of chaining us back, sewing our mouths closed, and restraining the true Gospel. And I am guilty of thinking my comfort was more important than what God may want to do through me.

There are an awful lot of lies floating around and what I really need is to just lay down some truth. The truth is that when we humbly seek God and to understand him and to share his truth, he has us covered. He won’t let us fall without also granting redemption. And it is sometimes worse to miss an opportunity than it is to make a mistake by taking action.

If you are seeking god humbly and prayerfully, especially around others who do the same, there is no shame in vulnerability. If you later find out you were wrong, you repent and move forward. If someone says you were wrong and you weren't, you're covered by God. He will defend his truth, it s not your burden to defend him or yourself. If you have a struggle that you're afraid of sharing because you either don't know someone well enough or you know them too well, but God urges you on to seek help among the body, nothing they can do in judgment will negate God's intentions for you and the rewards you will receive by obeying him.

Being vulnerable and still having peace is dependent on knowing that what God says about you is true and what anybody else thinks is irrelevant. If you're afraid of speaking because you may be wrong, if you're afraid of going because you might come back in shame, if you're afraid of trying because you may fail, listen for the truth and declare it, from the rooftops, to the masses, or online.

Which leads me to part two, there are a lot of lies Satan would love to have us believe about ourselves that make it all the harder to do what God tells us to do. Satan wanted Moses to believe that he couldn’t speak well enough to be effective. The truth was that God’s power was not dependent on Moses’ ability. The only way to combat those lies is to declare the truth so, (gulp) here goes…

I am really really bad at thinking good things about myself. I either assume other people don’t see them or will think of me as conceited if I do. I struggle with believing I have anything to offer. I feel like a nuisance people want eradicated. I feel like my struggles and pain are too much hassle to bother anyone else with, and I am even afraid that someone is going to misread this as a call for attention or compliments. I struggle in believing that I can only do more harm than good, and that avoiding ickiness and pain was made possible only by giving into fear. I hide a lot and strive to keep out of the way. I feel almost dirty trying to force myself to feel differently, because doing so would just prove that I really am conceited or selfish or annoying.

I feel called to declare something that makes me feel more uncomfortable than anything else I have ever written. I can imagine all of the ways someone can twist what I know to be true, and how I may regret this tomorrow. But I know it is the truth, even if it's hard to believe sometimes, and even if there is another force trying to make me forget it.

(Deep breath because I'm really uncomfortable actually writing this) God has revealed things to me. He has given me wisdom and I have things to offer other people. My words have value. I am a blessing, not because of anything I have accomplished, but because of how God has chosen to use me.

God says to me "I have given you your worth." "I have called you to speak, write, and lead with what I show you." "I have redeemed your mistakes and will always do so." "You are a treasure, not an issue." “I have chosen where you are, who you are around, who comes into your path. Don’t hide anymore!” “I give you words and you can trust what you say when you follow me.” “Only what I say about you matters.”

So here is a lesson in knowing what God says about you and ignoring what you say about yourself. My prayer for anyone reading this is that you find the courage to declare the truth and fight the lies so as to never be afraid to act according to your calling.

Stop and Count to Three

If your trying to live by The Book, you will eventually find yourself (as I have) looking at a lot of commandments. For a while you can say, “Alright, I can do that one, and that one, and that one…” But eventually, you’ll reach a point when it seems impossible to do any of it. Then you find the part where Jesus says, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48), and you smack your head on your Bible in frustration.

Jesus knows we can’t be that, but I believe he said it so we can strive towards perfect, and we should. A lot of Christians tend to look at that attempt legalistically or “religiously”, but I don’t think that was the intention. I believe that reaching perfection has less to do with attending church, what your money is spent on, and what party you are registered as, and more to do with how well you love people and how well you fulfill your call to share the Gospel in your daily life. That is possible, it just takes some work.

I no longer see the Holy Spirit as a task-master standing beside us with a whip to snap us into shape, but rather, as that one best friend that some of us have and some of us have always wanted. The one who knows us better than anyone else, encourages us in all things, and isn’t afraid to tell us when we have it wrong.

The discipline I have struggled with, and have recently put more effort into, is remembering that that particular best friend is ALWAYS around. Not in a menacing ominous sort of way, but in a, “I’m so glad you’re hear, I can’t possibly handle this alone!” sort of way. I have to remember that he’s here to say, “I know this is tough, but you can handle tough and you can get through this”. Sometimes, “If you keep responding that way, you’re just going to cause more trouble. Drop the argument, apologize, and walk away.” Sometimes, “It’s not fair for you to get mad right now, ask if they meant what you thought they did before you get so offended.” Sometimes, “Don’t miss this opportunity to show what you have to offer.” And always, “Don’t be afraid, you’re not alone.”

My mother used to tell me when I was a kid not to get mad, but to stop and count to three. It never really worked, mostly because I used that time counting to also focus all the rage in my tiny being onto whomever or whatever was bothering me. But, at least now I understand the concept. First reactions are typically where we mess up the most. Human beings are naturally emotional, proud, and defensive creatures. I personally am horribly impulsive and have a hard time letting go of an argument. Our Best Friend is not these things. If during the time it takes to count to three, we look to him and ask to get his feedback, we have a chance at containing a fire instead of feeding it.

For anyone who feels they don’t know what God would say, or worse, is sure they do, The Bible is, once again, the most amazing resource, as it contains thousands of examples of God’s character and opinions and it shows how eager he is to be with his people helping them learn, grow, and do better.

It’s not possible for us to be perfect, but we have someone with us always who can help us do the best we can. Without him, we really have no chance at all.  

One of my favorite books, and one that is very short, in the public domain, and completely free so you have no excuse not to at least take a look at it, is The Practice of the Presence of God, by Brother Lawrence. It describes how knowing God is with us and our love for him leads us to live a different kind of life. One with more patients, more joy, self control, and more contentment than we are capable of reaching otherwise.

Jesus said “be perfect” not to discourage us with an impossible goal or because he truly expects that of us. It was to show us that we can’t possibly hope to function without him. He is the only hope we have in this life to live as well as we can. He’s also the supplier of the hope that one day, things will be perfect, regardless of anything we can or can’t be. 

Under Construction

I believe that there is a difference between the moment I was saved and the moment I became a Christian. Salvation was the moment when I first received that the debt for my sins was paid for by the blood of Christ and I was adopted into the Kingdom of Heaven. Becoming a Christian was when I decided to surrender my life to him and follow his desires and not my own. Since the second transformation, which I believe is just as important as the first, I have been consistently under construction, complete with demolitions and renovations. It’s easy for me to dwell on what still needs to be knocked down and rebuilt, but sometimes, God shows me how far he’s brought me since he started his work.

Paul said that anyone who was in Christ is a new creation, the old has gone, the new has come (2 Corinthians 5:17). Salvation makes us new spiritually and instantly. Surrender makes us new in our lives and over the course of a long process.

The reward for choosing God’s plan over ours can sometimes not appear to be a good thing. We had blueprints of our own when we started out, after all, and those are hard to abandon. God will call us to be who he intended us to be, and that’s not always what we intended or what our family had in mind for us. Sometimes he pries the desires out of our hands before he changes our minds. Even if we know what he’s doing is better, we still mourn for what we know we won’t get. There are things we have always wanted that we have to accept we may never have.

What God has been teaching me recently is that what I imagined, though perfect in my mind, would always have flaws. I could never design something perfect completely and so there were gaps needing to be filled. Some things I was just plain wrong about, and now that I can see them, I’m glad they didn’t last. He has shown me that, though different from what I imagined, his creation is good.

Clinging to what I had wanted, despite it’s uncertainty, and focusing on what still needs work, only blinds me from seeing the good in God’s new creation. I have recently been called to embrace what God has given me. Specifically embrace, nit merely accept, to find the blessings in it, and take captive the thoughts that slide toward what I wanted and didn’t get.

This week particularly, I am reminded of many things that I had wanted that would have gone terribly wrong, some things that I never imagined could change for the better but have, and also that the things that seem like losses now, won’t in time.

Paul said that those who are in Christ are new. Christ said we can abide in him and he will abide in us. The change won’t come apart from him. Like branches cut from the vine, we will wither and die without him (John 15:5).

God didn’t say being in him will change our circumstances, but it will change us. It will bring joy where we couldn’t find it, bring love where we held bitterness, set us free from the things we made our masters, and give strength when we thought we had none.

To know what he is doing, understand his purposes, and hear the promises for our future, to be changed at heart, we have to abide in him. Study his word. Talk to him. Listen to him. Never stop searching and never stop being open to change. God isn't going to abandon us, sometimes that's comforting, other times just annoying, but it's always better. I'm thankful for how I have been transformed and I'm glad for the times I went voluntarily. I don't know what else God plans to do with me, but I will try to embrace whatever it is. 

Confronting Tragedy

Tragedy is a hard subject for the Christian to tackle. The “problem of evil” is a real problem and one we would all rather ignore, until we can’t anymore. Whether it happens to you, a friend, someone famous you only hear about, or a stranger calls you out on it because you have a fish on your car, someday you will have to wonder what God is doing and why. Typical Christianese won’t settle this one. I don’t claim to be able to settle this one, but what I am looking for is a universal applicable hope that can maybe change something.

What you won't hear in most church services, is that Paul himself said that he wanted to die so he could be with Christ rather than wait it out here. He stayed for the sake of those he knew he was meant to lead (Philippians 1: 22-24). I don't know for sure if it was the trials of Paul's ministry and relentless persecution, shipwrecks, and floggings that made him desire escape, or if it was a love for God and understanding of what was waiting for him that made him impatient to get there. Either way, I know even Paul looked at his life at some point and thought, “This sucks and I’d rather not do it any more,” (or something like that). Tragedy is an all-inclusive fact of life. Some Christians would prefer to sweep it under the rug and ignore it entirely because there is no “good” answer for it. I want to understand how God works and why tragedy exists, but the truth is, I’m too small for that, like I’m too small for a lot of things.

I don't want to get into a predestination debate about how God can let any tragedy happen if that tragedy is not his plan, but I can try to explain why bad stuff happens the way I understand it best. It's no surprise that God allows tragedy. Some people say he causes it. I see it the way a professor of mine once explained it, saying we are in such a fallen world filled with disease and depravity and pain, God doesn't cause things to go wrong, he sometimes lifts his hand of restraint that would have otherwise made things go right. Left on our own, we can only suffer by our actions, the actions of others, or by our imperfect universe. Sometimes God stops it, sometimes he doesn’t. The choice is up to him and somehow it all works for the better. I can’t explain that last part well. I can’t tell the grieving mom why her baby died. I can’t tell Paul why he was shipwrecked and flogged. I sometimes get tired of just telling myself to “trust God”, but that’s the only answer, even if it’s not a “good” one. Even if it’s made some people hate God because they don’t think he’s worthy of trust. Somehow, he is. Somehow, this will all work out. Somehow, even the largest quantity of pain will be erased. Nobody wants to hear that we were not designed to understand but to trust, but that’s the truth.

Learning of Robin Williams’ suicide, made me remember a day not five years ago when I laid in bed counting the methods and trying to choose the right one. I just wanted it to be easy and simple. I closed my eyes and imagined my breath going out and not coming back in. I imagined a sweet oblivion coming over me and the torrents in my mind slowing down to smooth seas. Even though God was a distant and disappointing former friend at the time, I think part of me could still hear his gentle voice telling me that I wasn't done, to wait for change. Because every time I wanted it to be over, something was urging me to just wait a little longer. Change is the only certainty and, though some find that disheartening, I find it is the greatest source of hope, that change comes, and every broken sick and vile situation can be redeemed. Change came for me in forms I didn’t think were possible five years ago, so I’m glad I’m around to see them. I’m sad that Robin Williams felt he couldn’t wait for change. I’m sad that so many people now have to contend with the tragedy of his death and maybe they think they can’t wait either. Even death, though it is something that won’t change for a while, it still will change, and that’s what we need to cling to.

So if it all can be redeemed? Why is it so often seemingly not? Why doesn't God fix things before they get completely screwed up? Why does death exist at all? Why didn’t he stop the fall or undo it or start over? I can only say what I have said before, I don’t know, but I trust him and he's bigger than I am and I can't see the whole picture. I don't know why he lifted his restraint when a beloved actor father and husband decided to take his life this week. I don't know why your tragedy happened to you, or what made his still small voice whisper to some part of me that day to wait. I don’t know what made me listen. I do not try to dismiss or belittle pain by saying, “It will be gone eventually, don’t worry about it”. I have had a taste of the torment possible on this earth and I know how crippling just a taste can be.

However, I still trust that all pain, no matter how terrible, will be insignificant and unimportant when we reach eternity. I believe that, by and by, we will meet on a beautiful shore. Sometimes that’s all we have to cling to. EVENTUALLY, this will be over. That should NOT be a reason we end life to get there. It is a promise we can carry with us to help us tackle the otherwise impossible. The promise of eternal peace is what should encourage the Christian who suffers to go on suffering knowing it will all disappear in time, and that it isn’t for nothing.

One of my favorite movies as a kid, and one that happens to star Robin Williams is Jumanji. So, you’ve started the game, and now you have to finish it, not matter what comes out. But, there is a promise. If you finish the game, it will all go away. And even if you didn’t know it going in, things will turn out better than they would have been before. Maybe it’s a cheesy metaphor, but a fitting one, I think. There were a lot of things in that movie that needed to happen in order for Allan to get the girl, Judy and Peter to not lose their parents in Canada, for Mr. Perish to stop being a jerk, and for that one guy to not lose his job at the shoe factory, but none of that would have gone right if they had given up playing or never started to begin with.

I know that the waiting is hard. and again, I don’t mean to belittle that with cheesy movie metaphor. But I also know every broken depraved and sick part of our lives can be turned around if we let God be the one we trudge hobble and crawl behind until we can walk again.

Hope is a very fragile yet very precious and necessary resource. Once lost, it is not easily regained. It needs to be fought for, even if it can only be as small as choosing to trust that all tragedy serves some purpose in overall eventual redemption, and that also eventually, it will be over. Even if we're too in-the-middle to see how. 

Let It Go

This week, I have been listening to a song called "Let It Go". Not THAT "Let It Go", but the one by Tenth Avenue North. I keep listening to this song and some others like it because I’m hoping to get some kind of consistency in my response to them. Sometimes I get excited at the prospect of surrender, but then the song is over and then I go back to normal. Other times I say, “Yes, I will do that, just as soon as you tell me when I’m gonna get it all back”. Other times I just get sad and start feeling sorry for myself. But all of this has really gotten me thinking about just how much of my life and my happiness have been poisoned by expectations that are now in conflict with reality.

I know I’m not the only one. I know that most people have a formula for how things are supposed to work out There are presupposed blue-prints starting from very early on depicting how our lives will go and what we will want. From what I remember of being a little girl, they start thinking very early about the man they might one day marry, what he will look like and how he will act, the house they will live in, the job they will have. They practice with little baby dolls that are even designed to cry and poop (inaccurately, I find). I don’t know anyone who grew up thinking “I hope I get thrown a curve ball. I hope something unexpected comes along to challenge what I always thought I would do and what I would have. I want all the things I want to get taken away or never show up. I want to do something weird and risky that will make people think I’m nuts”, Okay, I know some people who wanted that last one. But the point is, we all want things, conventional or not. We all have expectations and desires. Sometimes those desires are for things that are not good for us. We all imagine things going a certain way or one of many ways. Still, we don’t have every possibility considered. However, God does, and at any time, he could call us out of our plan and into his, and it’s scary when he does that.

For the people who have nothing to hold onto, nothing that they cherish or would leave behind, it’s great. But I don’t know anyone like that. Plans, whether they have come into being or not, are comforting. We make them because we like the way they look. We buy things because we want them. We hang out with people because we like them. We chase our dreams because making our dreams come true is what every little kid is instructed to do at some point by someone. Then God says “Leave your home and go to the land that I have shown to you”. Then he says, “Sell all of your possessions and give them to the poor”. He comes to you on the Damaskas Road. He takes you out of your very well stable job collecting taxes to follow him around the county. He tells you to climb out of the boat and try walking on water. These are the moments we don’t plan for, but God does.

Sometimes we work for years to buy a house and then it burns down. Sometimes we try all our lives to find someone to love, and then loose them. Sometimes we train to get that job and never get it. Sometimes we put on a front because the truth is too scary to face. Sometimes we look back on where we thought we would be and our hearts break because we so wanted things to be different. Why didn’t I get what I want? Why didn’t the plan work for me when it worked for them? What did I do wrong? And God says “Let It Go”.

Trust Me.

Don’t Be Afraid.

Lose your life and you will find it.

All of this just asks the question, what are we holding onto? What isn’t negotiable? What could we not let go of? At what point do we draw the line and say, “No, I need this.”?

My problem tends to be that even if I know that what I’m really saying is, “No, I need this more than you,” and I know that it’s the wrong answer. Still, it sometimes doesn’t matter. I have blatantly told God, “No, you can’t have that.” It usually has ended up with me later having to give it up anyway and wishing I had done it sooner. Still, he asks me for things and I’m reluctant. It’s still not easy to just obey when God says

Let go of your pride.

Let go of your fear.

Let go of what you want and what you hoped for.

Let go of this person.

Let go of your “security”.

Let go of how you feel about that.

It’s hard to believe that the things we hold on to hold onto us. It’s hard to see that the things we have or want aren’t the best we can do if God is telling us to abandon them for something else. He offers us LIFE in exchange for our “life”. He offers us freedom and joy in exchange for our boundaries for happiness.

The new rope probably isn’t as pretty. Maybe we have to take a fall and get hurt. Maybe we’ll have to go back to where we started. But God says we’ll find our life if we lose it. We lose the counterfeit that we can never and were never meant to have and get something real.

Let go of bitterness, start healing. Let go of expectations, see the blessings. Let go of the plan, wait for what’s supposed to happen instead. Let go of what you want it to look like, see the beauty in what it is.

God hasn’t promised me that things will be as pretty as I pictured, but he has said that I will find my life if I lose it. If I lose what I’m holding, I will have something that he says is better. That still doesn’t make it easy. Maybe nothing will make it easy because I’m still a person and I still want what I want when I want. But I don’t need easy, I just need enough and I think I have that. 

Pride and Prejudice and Backfire

My son has accomplished much in his almost-seven months of life and I keep catching myself telling him that I’m “proud of him”. This has led me to dissect the term perhaps more than is necessary. Is it simply a common term used to express one’s pleasure at seeing another succeed? I see that the word “proud” is almost always used negatively in every other scenario, and this got me thinking about the root of the term. When we tell someone we are proud of them or say we are proud of or take pride in something we have done, we are saying the thing pleases us, that we claim it as our own, we stand by it. Upon some consideration, I find that these descriptions also apply to the bad kind of pride. When we are “proud” it means we say the things we are/do/say/think/, are the right things. We claim those things as good. We stand by them.

There are times when this confidence in our doings can be a good thing, because we know we are correct and we will not break from the truth. The problem presents because people are not perfect. We can, do, and WILL make mistakes. Even the most intimidatingly competent among us fail every day at something. Most of the time, others can see it before we notice they can see it. Or, we’re terrified that they will find out somehow. So we hide, and pretend, and stiffen our resolve to prove that we are not wrong or could not be wrong, even if we might be, and even if we are.

Probably the worst thing I have ever done in my relationship with my husband was recognize during an argument that I was wrong, and still not give up. Even if I had to bring up something that he did wrong, I was not going to end the conversation there. Then I realized that relationships with people like that don’t last very long and that it was a really terrible way to treat someone whom I said I loved. But it was still so freaking hard, and still is sometimes, to say, “okay, fair enough, you’re right”.

The Bible talks a lot about pride. Proverbs especially has some good things to say about it. A particularly interesting one is Proverbs 29:23 which reads, “One's pride will bring him low, but he who is lowly in spirit will obtain honor.” I find this interesting when I look at the primary motivation for the bad kind of pride. It’s usually some kind of fear of disrespect or dishonor.

A parent may resist telling their child that they made a mistake because it may lead their child to think less of them as an authority figure. A boss at a company may stick by a decision they have made because it may look weak to the employees if he admits he was wrong. A politician would rather spin a web of lies to avoid coming out with to the public about his affair and appear dishonorable. Neither party of the arguing couple wants to say “okay, I’m wrong” even if the probably both are because it will make them less credible in future arguments. People are terrified of looking bad.

However, the kid will eventually learn that the parent isn’t infallible and think of them as arrogant for not recognizing it. The employees are probably talking about the boss behind his back for being so blind to his mistake. The politician is doomed to become another viral meme on Facebook. And the couple will continue fighting the same fight for hours, possibly years, and be supremely miserable, forgetting what good they ever once saw in the other.

Yet, as a culture, it is the norm to never say “I’m wrong and I’m sorry” unless you want to look weak. It is a much harder thing for most people to say those words than it is to face sometimes literal ruin because they just don’t want to. One of the greatest lies that Satan can tell us, and he’s good at it, is that admitting defeat will somehow make things worse. It won’t. If you made a mistake, things are already bad. End it there. Don’t keep digging because you will not find anything good.

There a lot of great things that the Bible has to say about pride (google it if you’d like) but I like Proverbs 29:23 because it promises honor with humility. Specifically, with being “lowly in spirit”. Lowly is such a scary word to people, and probably was when Proverbs was written. It speaks of fragility and vulnerability, of being low compared to something high. But honor, the result, is strong, esteemed, looked up to.

Imagine the kid who can say that they learned from their parents how to admit, without fear, that they messed up. Imagine the governor who comes out and says “I’m sorry” before the truth has a chance to bleed its way to the public via tabloids and twitter. We may fear dishonor, but that is all pride creates for us, and we’re wrong if we think we’re that good at hiding stuff.  

In a Christian community, there is no room for pride in anything but Christ because he is the only thing infallible. If we screw up or learn we’re wrong but don’t do anything to admit it or change, we’re an example, which is why we get laughed at in the media and on TV. I think even the Westborow Baptist people would be met with some form of mercy if they just stand up and say “Wow, we have it wrong. Sorry, folks”. But that’s just the other side of it too; we also have to be willing to give mercy. If our pride in wanting to be superior leads us to grind someone’s mistake in their face, be it confessed or not, we’re not imitators of God anymore than they are. Jesus said that the merciful will be shown mercy and the meek will inherit the earth. I like that outcome a lot better than the alternative, no matter how much it may hurt to pry the words “I’m sorry” out of my mouth.

The things I want to stand by are the Bible, God’s promises, my son’s awesomeness, and the fact that I could be wrong about pretty much anything else. 

Learning to Crawl

Raising a six month old has taught me more about God than did 9 years in Christian schools and a minor in Biblical Studies. Things like unconditional love and grace, once hard to fully grasp, make a lot more sense to me now. God is often referred to as “Father” but I am beginning to see that the way most people understand that title is not how he sees it. We naturally associate the attributes we know our own fathers or most fathers to have to God, but we forget how different he is from human beings. A human father may be loving and want the best for his children, but, at least by the time they are old enough to make the comparison, he is also very much like them. I have come to believe that the difference between God and us is more similar to the difference between an adult and an infant. I am so much bigger than my son, I see the world so much more fully and I understand what he is doing and going through far more completely than he does.

My first realization of this came when he was about a month old and, as infants tend to do, was screaming uncontrollably and without cause. Surely there was something that he saw as being wrong with his universe, but I knew there was no problem at all. He was fed, clean, warm and loved. He was part of a family who would protect and cherish him for all of his life. But he wouldn’t listen to me when I tried to tell him this, instead he screamed while I held him and waited for him to notice that he was alright.  I could very clearly feel God laughing a little and saying “You see how frustrating that can be?”.  From our perspective, we often see things as being wrong or worrisome when God knows that there is nothing for us to be concerned about. He holds us as safe as in a mother’s arms. We don’t always listen or don’t believe him when he says he is with us and everything is okay. Still he waits for us to figure it out and welcomes us back when we do.

Then there are the times when I have to do something truly terrible to my baby such as changing his diaper in the middle of the night or putting pants on him before we go out. These things are the greatest injustices he believes I can put him through. Even getting his polio shot does not cause as much distress to him as a pair of pants can. Now, I know full well that the process of putting on pants for him is a temporary and harmless situation. I know that when the pants are on or the diaper is changed that all will be well. He may even think later in his baby brain that he is pleased to have pants on and to be warm. At the very least, I know the discomfort of having a diaper changed when one is tired is far preferable to diaper rash. I know that the things he has to go through that are traumatic and horrible for him are the best thing I can do for him. I don’t think it’s necessary for me to explain the parallel here.

Most recently, my son has been attempting various forms of mobility, which is not easy for him. He’s not yet good at getting where he wants to go. This frustrates him deeply and often. He can get his little legs under him and then straighten out his arms, but he can’t quite figure out how to move forward. It’s not that he is not equipped to crawl, it’s that he is in a process of learning which takes diligence and perseverance and a lot of failure to accomplish. This is the situation which has taught me the most about God’s grace. Surely I would not scold or attack my child for failing to crawl. I kneel before him calling him to me letting him know I know he will get there sometime and that I am proud of his attempts. I keep my hands around him so that when he falls he won’t get hurt and I prepare for the day when he reaches the goal we both have for him. Now, if he were to stop trying, to stop participating in tummy-time or to be content with just sitting when he was meant to crawl, walk, and run, I would be unhappy. I would not accept his failure to try to do what I know he can do and was meant to do. This is why I know I can never be content in my walk with God. It will never be good enough to stop moving or trying to become what I was meant to be. I can rest. I can take a break and let God hold me where I am for a while, but the only way to really fail in God’s eyes is to be too afraid of failing or too content with mediocrity to keep going.

I so often want to know what is coming up, what the fruit will be from the efforts I have sewn. I beg God to tell me what is going to happen when this or that trial is finished and I have reached the next milestone. What my son has taught me is that I am probably too small to understand them anyway. My baby may know he wants to get to his toy across the room, but he doesn’t realize the true effects learning to crawl and walk and run will have on his life. I doubt he will even look back on that accomplishment with any kind of appreciation because the things he will be able to do in his life will overshadow the things he is learning now. But these things are the seeds, and from them, so much will grow. That is the comfort I get from God during this season of my life. Maybe in fifty years I won’t even remember this time because it will seem so small in light of all the beauty God has prepared for my future.

God knows we can’t be perfect and he doesn’t expect that of us. He knows we will fall and he still loves us when we do. He knows what will come from our failures and our successes. He knows the bigger picture of why things happen to us. Sometimes he will lift us up enough for us to catch a glimpse, but we can’t ever really understand all that he does. For that reason, I’d like to stick around God, because if I try to do these things by myself, I will be as lost as a baby without his mama.

Faith, or, I’d Rather Stay in the Boat Tonight, Thanks.

I mentioned once before that my husband and I have been lead to a situation that is not comfortable, not conventional, and not logical. In short, God has called us to appear very very silly.

For the most part, I love where we are. I can see how God is working, and even if things don’t turn out the way we plan or hope for, this waiting period has benefits of its own. Even if our plans are just a way for us to maintain our sanity while we wait, that’s okay too. I know why I believe we are here by God’s call and why we are obediently rather than foolishly waiting on him.

The problem is that some people don’t get it. Even our closest friends can say and do things that make us question if we are where we should be. To an extent, this is most welcome. Accountability of this kind is important because, if we were just being idiots and were not being responsible, we may need someone to tell us that.

But we’re not just being idiots. Even if we are wrong about the future, where we are is good and needs to happen. And I don’t think we are wrong about the future. I am being an obedient wife to an obedient husband. And sometimes that is just hard.

Don’t get me wrong, we have some wonderful and supportive people in our lives, and even those who may not trust us still want what is best for us. However, I find myself stumbling. I haven’t stopped striving to do what God has called me to do, but my desire to be obedient is wavering. I’m tired and a little ashamed. I feel judged and I feel the weight of that judgment pressing down on me and making me question what is really happening.

What if we are wrong? What if it is all in our imagination? What if we have put ourselves, our son, and a lot more people we love in a big hole that won’t be easy to climb out of. I wrote last week about hearing God’s voice. How silly will I feel if it turns out that I haven’t really been able to do so? How will that be redeemed, and how long will that take?

Daily, we pray for confirmation of God’s plan, for guidance and correction if needed. I don’t have any GOOD reason to turn back, to ask my husband to look for another path, but I want to tonight. A new prayer has been added recently that I may be speaking more often and more desperately than the others and that is that even if we are wrong, God will honor our desire to serve him and our genuine attempt to know what he wants and the consequences for our lack of understanding will be small. Faith right now takes the form of action rather than feeling.

I was reminded today of a quote from C.S. Lewis’ Screwtape Letters where one demon says to another “Our cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our Enemy's will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys."

Not all trace of God has vanished, but he is questioned. Maybe when this season is over we will see how being faithful worked out for the best or maybe we will be forced to see what mistakes we made and the signs we missed before. But I pray that whatever we go through has purpose for our family and maybe even for others.

I will remain obedient to what I think I am being told to do, knowing that God is merciful and patient with his imperfect and foolish little children. I will try to be bold and unashamed of where I am. I know, at the very least, this isn’t the scariest thing God will ever ask of us, and that I will be just as bombarded with doubts when that scenario does come up. Faith was never intended to be easy. There are too many Screwtapes for that. But it’s worth it, and that’s what I needed to remind myself of tonight. 

Speaking His Language

I have been thinking a lot this week about how to hear from God. I was asked last night how I know that my thoughts come from him. This has prompted me to lay it out as plainly as I can, mostly to better understand for myself why I believe what I do. Since I don’t have anything else I’m dying to share tonight, I’ll let write about how I started to hear God’s voice.

As a teenager, I had a lot of free time. Home-schooled, after it was decided that I didn’t play very nice with others, I spent my days primarily reading and writing. I noticed an interesting phenomenon taking place when I would put down a book and pick up a pen. My writing began to reflect my reading. I would start writing what my character would say, and it would come out as a product of someone else’s imagination. Frustrated, I worked to rid myself of the habit, but found after reading eight or nine hundred pages of the same series in a week, it was very hard to break from the style in which I had immersed myself.

When I became a Christian in my mid-teens, I struggled, as I think most beginners do, with communicating with God. I prayed, but didn’t hear. I thought that was the norm, until I decided it was important to start reading my Bible. I disciplined myself to read one chapter every day and write about it. Soon enough, I noticed a very similar phenomenon to my reading/writing synchronization with fiction. After a short time being immersed in the Word, when praying, I could make a connection from what God had said to others to what he was saying to me. Based on what I was learning about God and what I knew of his character, I was able to gather fairly accurate estimations of how God would respond to me and, through this, I began to guess my way through conversations with God

The more time I spent reading the Bible, the more I knew God’s character. After I knew his character, I began to hear his voice. Not audibly, but I could gradually tell the difference between my own thoughts and those lead by God. Beyond just being in God’s style, they were somehow outside of me in a way that is very hard to describe, maybe similar to when someone offers an idea you never would have though of. It was around that time that I was a sophomore in college and I noticed something else happening when I was praying. I would often lack words, but instead, I would have images in my head that I would present to God trusting he knew what they represented. After another couple months, I began receiving images from him and would understand them, sometimes instantly, and sometimes they would take time to decipher. With great effort, I was able to put them into words.

I grew up exposed constantly to typical conservative Christianity and never took it seriously. The Holy Spirit meant nothing to me for a long time. I didn’t think it was possible to have a relationship with God, only to follow his rules. I certainly didn’t think he who created the universe had any time or desire to converse with me. Sadly, I think this is how a lot of Christians go about their lives. Salvation card in hand, they live as if nobody is watching, seeking, or talking to them. Even when I know that God does those things, I still fall constantly into the routine of doing my own thing, getting through one day at a time, and forgetting to check in and chat for a while with God.

Some people I know heard God’s voice instantly and never stopped hearing it. Some hear him even when they aren’t trying. That isn’t me. I became a Christian thinking there was something wrong with me because I couldn’t hear God or constantly doubted if it was me or him. Before that time, Satan’s voice was much more natural for me to hear and I liked what he had to say. The thing with Satan is that you don’t have to listen to hear him, you only have to not listen to God. The lies were many and they were loud and, unfortunately, they had time to spread roots. Truth is something I need to work at, to practice, and it takes discipline that I don’t always have.

This is all particularly hard to do when God doesn’t work within the realm of human logic. He often asked people to do things that didn’t make sense and seemed insane to those around them. I don’t like doing things that make me look crazy. I don’t like being asked to do things that don’t make sense to me, but that doesn’t rule out the possibility that God will say something that is true and also extraordinary. There is no perfect formula to hearing from God because I am not a perfect listener. There are times, maybe more often than not, when I don’t have the clear answer I am seeking or I’m just not brave enough to be sure that it’s not just me talking to myself. Those are the times when I have to remember that the foundation of my relationship with God is that I trust him. I trust that he is always with me, that he speaks to me, that he makes himself available to me, and that if I’m wrong, he will let me know. If I act out of arrogance or twist what he’s told me or mistake my own voice for his, he won’t abandon me in my failure, but teach me how to get it right. He rewards effort when it is pure. 

My attitude towards questionable messages are to weigh them against God’s character and commands, follow if I find no fault with them, seek confirmation in one way or another, and trust that God will knock me back on course if I have drifted. I would rather make a mistake out of misplaced faith than have no faith at all and never move in any direction.

I can’t leave out though the times when there is no doubt or question in my mind. When the truth God speaks to me is clear and pure as light itself. There is nothing that can compare to that feeling. It is my firm belief that God communicates with all of us in some way that we can all experience as truly, and it is my hope that everyone who seeks him finds it. 

Hands, Feet, and Appendices

When I was nineteen, I went on a two-week mission trip to Haiti. At the time, I felt I had reached the pinnacle of my Christian experience, finally fulfilling the Great Commission and taking up a functioning role in the Body of Christ. There were many fears to be conquered, freedoms to be seized, tragedies to face, and experiences beyond what I could have imagined before. I knew God would need to give me supernatural help to overcome some of the hurdles so I could do what he clearly was calling me to. I learned two of the most important lessons of my life from that trip. The first is that God can and will equip me for his purposes no matter what obstacle I may encounter that I can’t beat alone. The second, is that my calling is not for the mission field.

I’m not saying that I was not called to that trip, as I clearly was. And I’m not saying that the life of a missionary is out of the question for me sometime in the future. But that trip helped me see where in the body I really fit in and what my role actually is. There was a difference in the people in our team for whom the trip was there calling and those of us who were called for a time.

For the majority of my time in the Body, I would say I was quite happily an appendix, pleased to let the other members run things while I floated contentedly by and watched. I think this is how a lot of Christians start out. There is something to be said for the place where one can observe and grow before taking on a functioning role. Though, this becomes a problem when the appendix decides it is content where it is and has no aspirations to find another, more active, task. Or, if they decide they want to be a body-part that is not what they were created to be. I apologize if I am over-extending a metaphor, but it is the best method I have of explaining my point. Many people stay appendices  because they aspire to be something they don’t believe they can accomplish or they won’t give up that dream of being a hand, when they were meant to be an ear. However, the ear can not be a hand, and if it tries on its own, it will fail miserably.

Paul talked about the Body in 1 Corinthians 12 saying that we all have a place in it, and though some of those roles are more obvious or seem to get more credit, the parts that are hidden are equally, if not more, important. We work according to what we are equipped with to do God’s will. We work together, encourage one another, and suffer and rejoice as one.

God equipped me for missions work for a time, but I know things would not have gone over well had I continued to pursue that field without another call to it. I know a lot of people who push themselves into situations where their intentions are to spread God’s word and his name, but they keep falling short. My belief is that this happens because they are either not asking for God’s help in doing their work, or they are not doing what he truly wants for them to do. Mistakes like that can be anything from mildly ineffective to badly misrepresentative of God himself. We have a responsibility to spread the gospel and make disciples, but we also have the responsibility to do it in the way God is leading and not on our own path. But what happens when an appendix doesn’t have another role and a moment comes when a mouth is needed or what happens when an arm knows it’s an arm but comes across a brief opportunity to be a foot? In the situations when I don’t know what God is telling me to do, but there is a chance for me to act, I take a step in one direction and pray that he will shield me from catastrophe.

For some, their role is the full-time mission field, pastoring a church or evangelizing in the street. For some it is more subtle, working behind the scenes in the church, raising and supporting a family of growing warriors for Christ, or simply living every day as an example of Christ’s love and showing him to a broken world. My calling is still a little fuzzy, but I know it includes being dedicated to knowing God to the fullest of my comprehension, and helping believers to be disciples. Sometimes there is a struggle with wanting to be something else or something “more” than what I am, but during the moments when I am sure I am serving God exactly how he created me to serve him, I feel a greater sense of peace and joy than I have found anywhere else. We as Christians have the amazing privilege of knowing we were created for a purpose, and we have opportunity to participate in the work of God Almighty. No matter what your role in the Body is, you have to admit, it’s pretty incredible to be part of it. 

All the Songs are Stuck in My Head

Due to a lot going on this weekend, I was not able to produce a typical post, but I thought I would share something I wrote a couple of years ago when I saw the 2012 Les Miserables musical in the theater. I watched the movie again last night for the first time so it seemed fitting enough. I'll try to be more consistent next week, but for tonight, I hope you enjoy this little break from tradition. 

                                                                          .   .   .

Since the title translates to “The Miserable Ones”, it is not a surprise that misery is present throughout the story. This particular film adaptation did, in my mind, a better job of displaying the ugly truth than other attempts I have seen. You start to feel compassion as a man laments that he was arrested for taking bread to feed a starving child.  You seethe at the injustice as a woman is turned out onto the streets because she left one man’s lust unsatisfied. I was disturbed and horrified at that particular scene when Fantine gives in and sells herself for the first time. The same feelings hit me when I saw the abuse suffered by an innocent child. And the feeling only continued throughout the film with the sights of poor people reaching for relief and getting none, a man’s foot stepping into a river of blood in the street, and a young boy lying in a row of corpses. It is almost impossible to look at these horrors and not wonder where God was.  That is really what I want to write about. If Hugo was a Christian trying to tell a tale with a present God, where is God in it?

A lot of “Christian” tales use Christianity or conversion as the final solution to fix whatever problems the characters have been having. In Les Mis, while Christianity is present from the beginning and offers some relief, it doesn’t solve the main problems. The mercy and kindness of the bishop inspire Valjean to change his life, but don’t erase the crimes he committed or the consequences for breaking parole. Likewise, Valjean shows mercy to Fantine which gives genuine hope and at least gets her out of prostitution, but too late to save her life, and too late to allow her to be with her child. Mercy is even shown to Javert, but he is too engrossed in justice to be able to accept it.

           

Another popular theme in Christian fiction is that the Christians are the ones who have the answers and can lead to solutions, but in reality, Christians fail just as often as non-believers and sometimes make things worse. In Le Mis, imperfection in Christians is not ignored and blatant hypocrisy is evident. Valjean is not fully redeemed even after committing his life to God and changing his whole identity to fit. Valjean’s fear shows that his Christianity does not perfect him, he still felt he had to hide and lie and run all his life. The more obvious example of imperfect Christianity is in Javert who truly believes he is following God, but has become so lost in the law, he can not acknowledge grace. Then there are the Thenardiers who, at one point, claim they took Cosette in because it was “no more than we Christians must do” which is so obviously ridiculous it requires no more comment.

                       

I have heard protests against the story from Christians as they claim it is too sad and want to look at happier things.  This is when I need to slow down because my instant reaction is to shout profanities of a frustrated nature at them. Focusing on joy is important, but so is recognizing and not being ignorant to the miserable things God allows. It is plaint that the film is not happy and it truly doesn’t have a “happy end”, in the traditional sense. The revolution has failed, Javert was so unfamiliar to mercy that he chose to kill himself rather than try to accept it for himself. Valjean is dead after running and being afraid his whole life. There are still dozens of innocent dead, and dozens more suffering oppression. I see why this doesn’t seem very uplifting and could turn off certain audience members. My argument though, is that the film does not contain a traditional happy ending, but it delivers THE happy ending.

Mercy from men was not the answer. Rising against oppression certainly didn’t solve things. Even the Christians were not perfect. Redemption, peace, and Joy were reached in the ultimate happy ending of being delivered from misery on earth and being untied with Christ in Heaven. When Valjean sings about “this wedding night” during his final scene, I believe that he is not just taking about the marriage of Cosette and Marius, but of himself as a bride of Christ’s church going to meet the bridegroom. Christian kindness can lesson pain, choosing to follow God results in better circumstances, but it can not perfect a person or their circumstances. God’s mercy redeems the soul and uniting with Him ends the misery for eternity.

It may seem jaded or cynical, but suffering no longer surprises me, in fact, I am sometimes catching myself wondering why there is not more of it, knowing the condition of the hearts of man. This doesn’t bother me though as much as you may think it should. I just know that suffering is not the end and I try to set my focus on the much larger portion of existence rather than this tiny one. Jesus said that there will be trouble. Some trouble is worse than other, some lasts longer, but it all seems the same when I consider what comes after this. The end of a war, justice, grace, healing, peace, and the end of all types of misery is the true “happy ending” of the story of all of the miserable ones.

A Daughter's Love

I’ve been taking my son on walks every morning this week and, while doing so, have been listening for God. I don’t have a particular topic for tonight, but I want to share what I’ve been primarily hearing on these walks. Last week, I talked about God’s love. Today, after much processing of what God has been showing me, I want to talk more about the nature of God’s love and where I need to apply it for myself and in my relationships. Our love is often attached to conditions, in order to love well, we need to stop loving like people and start loving like God. For me, that began with understanding the way God loves me.

My whole life, the enemy has always managed to get me in one area, and sometimes even managed to convince me that it would be a sin not to believe him. He told me that I’m not good enough, and, in a way, he’s right, which is why that particular lie was so hard to fight. I didn’t have an arsenal of defense because, really, I could never do anything to be good enough for anything or anyone. The part that he left out though, was a very vital game changer.

I’m nothing on my own. With God, I’m everything.

I wrote last week that God’s love is separate from our spiritual GPA, and that’s what I’m putting into practice. It’s important to remember that even before I became a Christian, I was loved by God, created by him for his purpose and for his delight. By being who I am I bring joy to God. I don’t need to be different from what I am and I don’t need to be perfect. I just need to be me and God delights in his creation. That’s what he’s been telling me this week and it’s what I’ve needed to learn how to believe my whole life. Me choosing God and choosing the way I live my life, brings me joy, makes my life better, but it doesn’t change how God feels about me. I have been told that I am a lot of terrible things and Satan used those to make me believe that the things I did or the way people perceived me removed my worth. When I’m worried about what anyone else says or the enemy is telling me what I should think, I need to have the strength to ask God his opinion. I will weigh myself by his standards which will always result in me being loved, and if I happen to be doing something wrong, he will tell me and I will correct it, but I never have to wonder what my worth is or if someone else’s opinion may be more correct than God’s.

Seeing myself through God’s eyes has been life-changing, Likewise, I have thinking about seeing other people through God’s eyes. They are always loved no matter what they are doing. They may need truth and they may need correction, but always with gentleness which will facilitate their humility and repentance. I am not more loved by God because of the choices I have made. I need to love just as I am loved, according to his standard. There are still people I need to forgive and relationships to mend, but it’s a process I have at least begun. It’s not easy to love perfectly, but we can do our best and we have a good teacher.

This unconditional love thing is also the model that God gives to us for marriage, parenting, friendship, and really every other possible relationship. He sets the standard for how we love others, we don't. We love our kids no matter what they do and we should always find a way to show that love even when we are frustrated or disappointed or are having to discipline. The way we treat our kids, our spouse, and everyone else should always convey love no matter what else is there as well. The difference when someone is close to us is that we have the ability to know how they would recognize that love best, even in the midst of negative emotions, and that ability becomes a responsibility to show love the best way possible.

The most complete way I have experience having to put my ability to love into practice is in my marriage. When I met my husband I was 16 and never had a real boyfriend before. I had some “relationships” in middle school, I had been on a couple of dates in the year prior, but the majority of my expectations came from TV and movies. Needless to say, my expectations were unreasonable. And worse, I didn’t know how to articulate what I wanted. I just wanted things to be what I wanted and I didn’t want to have to ask for them. So most of the time, they didn't happen, and it took a very long road before I learned how to talk about it. By that time (after over two years), I was ashamed that it had taken me so long. I felt silly and I also was convinced that my desires were petty or pointless. Granted, some of them were, but when he and I learned how to articulate our desires and expectations and learned how to speak each others’ languages, everything changed. But, my expectations never wavered. I still found myself wanting to feel a way I didn’t or be treated a way that simply wasn’t his way of showing love, while his methods of showing love the best he could never seemed good enough.

It wasn’t until I was married that I learned a new development was necessary. I wanted love that looked a certain way. I wasn’t focused on loving. Could I love my husband because of who he was and who God made him to be, or did I only love the times he made me feel how I wanted to feel? I was ashamed again to find my answer was leaning more towards the latter. God’s love has always been selfless. Marriage is meant to be an example of how God loves us. I was failing. We can do nothing for God and so our worth to him is inherent. His love is truly without condition. Mine wasn’t. Because I’m a human, it may never be, but I can look at my husband differently now than I did a couple of years ago.I had to learn to love him, not what he was interested in, not what I thought he would become, not what he did, but just him as the person God created and delights in. I can be happy or unhappy with him based on what he does, but my love for him needs to be unwavering, as God is, and not dependent on how I feel or even how well he loves me. 

Finally, and most importantly, God’s standards for love apply for our love for him. This is sometimes the easiest and sometimes the hardest for me to do. It’s probably pretty easy to guess when it changes. God is easy to love unconditionally when he gives us only good things and conveys love for us. It’s more of a challenge when we are seemingly given a snake when we asked for a fish. The ultimate question is, do I love God for what he does for me, or because of who he is? That's a hard one, and not yet one I can put a formula to. I guess it comes down to knowing God well, to listening for his voice, reading his word, knowing him for who he is. It's then plain that he is good and that makes him easy to trust and so easy to love. 

A Father's Love

Last week, I shared my antidote to fear which was “resting in the love of God”. I realized, soon after I posted, that God’s love is a complicated topic that is worth some exploration. I didn’t see how badly I needed to explore said topic until I realized I had some truly misguided thoughts on it. 

Like everyone who has gone through adolescence, I have struggled to stay consistent with my opinion of authority figures. College was certainly a crucial formation process as it was there that I learned how much structure meant to me. I could decide what I wanted to learn and how well I wanted to learn it. I could get a score and change my behavior to get a better one. Somehow in those formative years of my faith, I began to see God the same way. God makes the rules. You follow the rules, things go well. You can measure your progress by the fruit in your life, much like you can a GPA. The problem here is that, though the formula may work, it leaves out the personality of God who is more than just a professor with a pass/fail margin. I now have the problem of tending to measure my worth based on my spiritual GPA rather than on the blood of Christ. Coming from a world where love is dictated by performance, I sometimes forget that God’s love is constant, consistent, and unchanging, no matter what lessons or trials are happening at the moment. I had to dig deeper into the truths that I know about God’s love and see where I was not applying them to my relationship with him.

The thing is, God’s lessons come from love. But his love does not come from anything. His love simply is, just like God is. There is nothing, no GPA or spiritual discipline or evangelism track record that could make God love any person any more or any less. He simply loves and he loves fully, unconditionally, and personally.

I often remind myself that God cares more about my faith than my happiness. If he puts a bump in my road, I know it is to benefit me and that I will come out stronger in the end. I forget however, that God does still care about my happiness. If the storms come, and sometimes they come once after another without ever clearing up in between, he isn’t just sitting up somewhere far away waiting on my response, he is standing beside me, facing them with me, and wanting me to see that.

Jesus allowed Lazarus to die. He didn’t heal him while he was sick, he specifically waited until he was dead because there was a lesson in faith to be learned through that. He could have showed up, said “suck it up” to his weeping sisters and asked them why their faith was so small before bringing their brother out of his tomb. But instead, he took the time to weep WITH them. He wasn’t mourning for the guy he resurrected a little later, he was coming alongside the sisters who were hurting.

 I can tell myself a hundred times that God only allows pain because there is good to come of it, but he starts to seem so cold and distant when I forget that he cares what I’m going through. He wants me to share my burdens. He will even weep with me. He is patient with us while we learn.

It’s easy to see God as all wrath and authority, and I’ll admit, that comes easier to me and is honestly a more familiar kind of persona for me to believe in, but that is only part of what he does. God knows that because we are human and we do stupid things and we hurt ourselves and each other and there is a very powerful force telling us to do the wrong thing, we need a rulebook. He loved us enough to give us one rather than letting us fall on our faces alone, and he loves us enough to show us what happens when we mess up so we can do it right the next time. Just following the rules isn’t good enough if we fail to see the reason behind the rules and consequence. God wants us to see the Father kneeling down beside us, weeping with us, and wanting a real blunt and honest conversation, not just obedience and stoic resolve.

Like I said, those storms come and sometimes stay a very long time. They can be hard to see past, particularly because Satan would like us to always see the sky as a little cloudy rather than enjoying the bright sunlight, and he’s good at that. But God also prepares joy for us. He wants us to enjoy even the little bit of sunshine and see that it’s from him. If things really are so gray that even that isn’t visible, he’s sitting in the dark with us, waiting it out with us, and holding us when we cry.

I can’t say I always understand God, but I trust him. People ask far too often why a good god allows bad things. We ask “why me?” or “why this”. But the only answer is “why not?” I am not above correction. I am not big enough to see what God has in store. Job didn’t know during his suffering that God would restore him ten fold. Lazarus’ sisters didn’t know as they wept that, not only would their brother live, but they would have the honor of seeing first-hand Christ’s amazing power. Not to mention, it gave the rest of us reason to know Jesus is willing to stop and weep with us even when he’s teaching us. If I could see the whole world at once, I would probably understand better how all of the large-scale suffering in this broken little world could come together and make sense in the end. But I’m not that big. And how arrogant would it be for me to tell God, who is, that he’s doing it wrong or isn’t showing love the way he said he would. So, I stand by my statement that we can rest in the love of God. And I hope to be better at doing so with time.

I know Father's day is hard for some people. I hope anyone reading this who may be dreading tomorrow can look forward to a day spent in quality communion with the only perfect Dad. 

Bigger than the Boogie Man

I spent the vast majority of my childhood with crippling insomnia. My parents tried to send me to bed early, denying me naps during the day, playing whale sounds in my room, but nothing helped. I would lie awake at night and my mind would bounce from one topic to the next, turning in circles. I still have a hard time getting my mind to quiet down at night (particularly if I’m hungry) but when I was a kid, the problem was more than just turning my brain off, it was the thoughts that would come in the dark. It would only take a few minutes of restless wandering for my mind to conjure up some terrible image, scenario, or just a feeling, and I would be paralyzed with fear. I would stay under a thick layer of blankets even though I was sweating and felt like I was suffocating. My head would pound with blood in my ears and my eyes would dart around the room looking for whatever impending force would work its way in at any moment. I would try to distract myself, but eventually, my thoughts would circle back and I would be ensnared in terror once again. It wasn’t until I was nineteen and mostly over my issues with the dark when I recognized what I had experienced for so many years when I was little. I had a spiritual attack, and I was old enough and knew enough to recognize it for what it was. I hadn’t just been another kid afraid of monsters under the bed. I didn’t just have a “vivid imagination”. When I was told there was nothing to be afraid of, that wasn’t true. There was SOMETHING. I just didn’t HAVE to be afraid of it.

The last post was about Satan and the lies he tells us that he hopes will lead us to sin. Maybe it’s just me, but I’m pretty sure the most common lies Satan tells us begins with “you should be afraid that…” Satan wants us to live in fear because it keeps us frozen. If he can’t have our souls because those have already been claimed, he can go after our lives, because the only way we can lessen his kingdom is with what we do on earth. Fear is what kept Jonah from going to Nineveh. It’s what made Peter deny Christ on the eve of his death. It’s what keeps Christians from proclaiming their faith openly. And it’s what keeps us from fully living the life God intends for us to have. I fully believe that when we struggle with sin it is because of a lie that we believe. At least for me, most of those lies start with a reason for fear. And I think it’s true for everyone that fear is what stops repentance and keeps us bound to our sin, no matter what lie it’s attached to. You may be afraid of how your Christian friends will respond. You’re afraid of failure. You’re afraid of the pain that comes with giving something up, even if that thing is hurting you.

The problem is that fear seems to make a lot of sense. In a world mostly influenced by an atheistic point of view, fear is logical, while faith is idiotic. We worry and get stressed out about everything. Some parents think that the more they worry about their kids, the more they are just expressing love. After I had learned enough about angels and demons to no longer be cripplingly terrified at night, I realized I had a terrible struggle with anxiety. But then, instead of trying to assure myself that there was nothing there to be afraid of, I began to try to justify by saying that what I feared was reasonable. The truth is though, no anxiety is reasonable. Fear is a natural, biological, God-designed response to things. But that’s all it is, a response. A momentary alert system to lead us to decide to fight or flee. It was never meant to last, never meant to control our actions, and never meant to become a glorified fixture of daily living.

Jesus did a lot of taking about fear. Specifically, not to. The first thing angels tend to say when they meet a human is to inform them not to be afraid. What I don’t think most Christians realize is that God COMMANDS us not to be afraid, the same way he commands us not to murder and to love one another. God’s commands are in place for our good, his good, or the good of other people. Therefore, fear is somehow damaging and needs to be exterminated, the same way we would exterminate termites that could slowly and silently devour and destroy. The biggest turning point for me in my fear was asking myself, “Would I rather follow the command of God almighty than face the consequences of ignoring him?”

The second biggest turning point was when I realized how to obtain the antidote to fear. Peace was a distant and longed-for dream, until I heard or read at some point the words “Peace is resting in the love of God”. I don’t remember where that sentence came from, but I find myself repeating it in my head every day. I know that nothing can separate us from God’s love. No matter what happens in our lives, we trust that God loves us, that nothing he allows for us is unknown or wrong. There is much we must struggle with, much that seems difficult or unfair, but nothing we have to fear if we know God, our loving and all-knowing father holds us and the universe we are in. God wants us to reach above our circumstances and find him. The command not to worry was never given a condition. And probably the hardest truth of all is that we don’t have to be doing well to see that God is good. We can trust him. We can rest knowing that even if our biggest fear happens to us, he will have a plan for it, and in time, all suffering will be obliterated. 

I tell myself these things when money seems to be a distant memory, when I look at my son sleeping in his crib and start to imagine a billion things that could happen to him. I say them when I’m in a car with my dad behind the wheel. Mostly, I say them when Satan is trying to tell me that whatever God wants for my life is too scary to pursue. I’m a long way away from being fear-free. But I also know what it is like to have peace, and that alone is still a miraculous gift. There are a lot of mistakes Christians tend to make because of fear. But there are also countless blessings that come when they choose to have faith instead.