For the Recognition of the King

2012-01-13T15:02:00.003-06:00

One of my earliest memories is of looking out across our back yard. I would guess that it was between one and two acres but there was also a pasture behind it, so it seemed to go on much bigger. In the spring the whole yard, as well as the pasture, was covered in small white sweet smelling flowers.

I remember looking across the huge expanse (I couldn’t have been more than four, an acre alone was a huge expanse) and it taking my breath. It was like a sweet royal carpet of gently waving white. It was magical to me.

“Everyone on board was filled with joy and excitement, but not an excitement that made one talk. . .Whiteness, shot with faintest color of gold spread round them on every side. . .There seemed no end to the lilies. Day after day from all those miles and leagues of flowers there rose a smell which Lucy found it very hard to describe; sweet--yes, but not at all sleepy or overpowering, a fresh, wild, lonely smell that seemed to get into your brain and make you feel that you could go up mountains at a run or wrestle with an Elephant. She and Caspian said to one another, ‘I feel that I can’t stand much more of this, yet I don’t want it to stop.’” -C. S. Lewis The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

When dying of hypothermia, warm fuzzies are indispensable.

2011-12-21T16:09:00.000-06:00

These past months have been hard ones for me. I know it’s cliché but they have been some of the best and hardest of my life. Being married is great, more than I had hoped for from all the Christian nay-saying I grew up with. The hard part is the same thing that has always been hard for me; what’s going on inside of me.

With the opening of my heart to Jon, which has been miraculous, God has put his toe through the door to previously closed rooms in my heart. I had very little idea that these rooms existed, much less were closed. They were like secret passageways that I had put out of use and forgotten about. But God never forgets and apparently he wants to tour them, and then make himself at home in them.

This sounds fine on paper. There is nothing I’d like more. But in real life, it has been so much messier, and so out of my control, and so confusing, and so exhausting. I have felt as though I am being ripped open. I mean literally felt as though my chest is exploding. Jon has watched, helpless, as I have cried and even screamed uncontrollably from pain long locked away.

One of my worst fears has finally overtaken me, I have experienced emotional take-over, lost all ability to reason or even interact with anything outside of me. I have experienced loss of control, much worse loss of control than other emotional people I have scorned. I have experienced helplessness. I have been humbled.

I have felt the distance I created between God and I long ago and no longer have the power to revoke. I have experienced the terror of God that I have been denying was inside me for years. The confusion I have kept on the shelf keeps falling off on my head. I have admitted that I don’t feel loved by Him. I have faced the fact that mostly I feel pain. I have started to accept that all of this is true even if it’s illogical. I have admitted my need of God not just in my mind or my actions but in my emotions.

I have been asking to experience him. I have been asking to feel his love. I used to think that you shouldn’t need these to be a good Christian. That people only searched for these because they would rather have warm fuzzies than face reality. That people cared too much about how they felt about God and not enough about who God actually is. But in my humbling, my mind has been changed.

In none of my other relationships do I find that feeling love from someone is neither here nor there. In none of my other close relationships do I believe that it doesn’t matter that I’ve never felt loved by that person, or that if they told me they loved me then that should be enough. In none of my other relationships have I put the blame on myself when someone else has not acted out their love for me. In none of my other relationships do I make excuses for the fact that they once did something very loving but I haven’t really heard from them since.

If it’s relationship that God wants, then good emotions towards him are certainly not enough alone, but they are also certainly not dispensable. It is reasonable to want to feel love, to see love, to understand and experience love from someone who declares that they love you.

I wish that I could let you into the convoluted confusion of my mind and emotions as I have reached and wrestled with this conclusion. The many questions swirling, the uncertainty, the feelings of guilt and unworthiness and “What’s wrong with me?” and “Why am I so messed up?” and “Is it my fault?” and “I thought I dealt with this all before!” and “What if I never feel loved by God?” and “Am I refusing to accept the love of God?” and “Why hasn’t God shown up yet?”

On the one hand knowing so certainly that He does love me but also experiencing that my emotions are not in unity with this knowing. I am very ready for everything inside me to be on the same page.

I’ve been thinking about practicing the presence of God. I mostly haven’t gotten anywhere with the thought but it’s still been bothering my mind. Is there something I can do? I know my works are useless, but in my other relationships I know what to do to hang out with a person. With my Mom I might run errands or go out to eat. With Gracie I sit on the couch and drink coffee and talk about whatever pops into my head in no particular order. With Ellen, I follow her around the farm. With Jon, I work on a project with him. With Cassie and Connor I go on long walks up the road.

But what do I do to specially spend time with God? Being a good Christian for all my life now, I know lots of answers, but I couldn’t figure out the way God and I connect most easily. Then yesterday, I had an “Aha!” moment. I have always felt most connected to God outside, or in enjoying nature.

Today, I realized that at different times there have been different things that God and I did to connect. When I was rediscovering him while walking through darkness, the Psalms connected us. When the darkness was dissipating, reading the Psalms was no longer the same, but journaling about all my questions connected us. Then the journaling didn’t seem to work anymore. But always, always, marveling at his creations has been our favorite connection. I never realized it before because I didn't recognise it as spiritual enough.

Tonight, as I tried to go to sleep, I was thinking about this and my brain exploded. My earliest, clearest, happiest, most restful, most peaceful, most joyful, most simple, most happy, most awe-inspiring memories have always been of the outdoors. And in remembering, it hit me. There was God, loving me, enjoying me, spending time with me, investing in me, protecting me, healing me, comforting me, being with me, when I was outside. That’s why those memories are so important. I didn’t see it then, but I felt it; God was loving me in my language.

Memory after beautiful memory rushed through my mind. Memories untarnished by confusion and pain. Memories I’ve always enjoyed but never connected to each other. I felt as though I had suddenly received 23 years worth of juicy letters from someone I thought hadn’t been communicating with me.

All those years of confused memories, memories half happy half troubling, memories of tension I didn’t understand, and hurts I can no longer deny, and darkness I desperately tried to hide from. Memories of feeling that God was distant or maybe didn’t care, or was waiting on me to straighten up. Those are still there. Those memories were always connected in my mind. But now, with these bright memories connecting too, those other memories changed.

Most of those memories are of a darkness I couldn’t understand and couldn’t put my finger on and couldn’t get away from and couldn't seem to find God in. But they started changing as I got the idea that he was there, standing right in front of me, with his back towards me. But he hadn’t turned his back on me; he was busy fighting for me. I was safe, but the danger was real and really scary and I didn’t understand why he wasn’t holding me.

But then, when I’d go outside, the danger would be gone and the fear, and he would soothe me and comfort me and make me laugh. I can’t explain it to you. I wish I could. I have never felt so loved.

Worthy

2011-11-21T20:21:00.005-06:00

Only the buyer can give something worth. The seller can set a price that they believe it is worth, but when the buyer pays the amount then the item’s worth is proven.

Some things are worthless because no one will buy them, exchange them, or take them for any reason. In a country whose wars had lessened the worth of its currency a basket full of bills was left outside a store for a moment. When the owner of the basket returned, his bills were scattering in the wind and the basket was stolen. The money, although it had its supposed worth printed on it, was no longer worth anything because no one would accept it.

To a horse owner, horse dung is worthless. Unless someone comes by and wants to buy it for fertilizer. Then it is worth whatever the person is offering.

It is the same with us. When we were in sin, it seemed that we were worthless. We had such a huge debt, and had nothing to commend ourselves with. In our pride, we didn’t even believe that we needed help. If someone had offered to pay our debt, we would have laughed in their face.

God saw this, our need, our pride, our debt, and he saw worth. He and Jesus knew that to bring us out of this state and into the glory we were made for would take death. Then they agreed that we were worth the price. To all appearances we were worthless but then a Buyer came along, gave us his attention and decided we were worth his effort.

wor·thy Adjective: deserving effort, attention, or respect.

We certainly did nothing in ourselves to be worthy or have worth. God created us with worth. Then he redeemed us after we had separated ourselves from the Source of our worth. Through Jesus, he made us twice as worthy again.

My worth is phenomenal. My pricetag reads, "Priceless". I am worth Jesus. If you believe that this is going to give me a big head then you didn’t understand a thing I just said. I am worth Jesus because Jesus said so and for no other reason. If I turn from him to honor my own worth then I am denying the One who gave me worth. It would be madness.

On the other hand, if I look to myself and proclaim, “Without Jesus I am worthless.” This too is madness. I am not without Jesus. Why would I try to take Jesus out of the equation? He IS the equation.

No person is so far from Jesus as to be without worth. No person has ever been so far from Jesus as to be without worth. The unsaved deny the one who gives them worth and try to claim their worth apart from him. Regardless of what they deny, regardless of the worth they are constantly scrambling to prove, the truth remains. Jesus considered them worth dying for.

I would call that priceless.

Worship: Sharing the Thoughts of God

2011-04-09T11:33:00.002-05:00

I recently realized that I pray and worship nearly without stopping through my days. Of course I've always known the verse "Pray without ceasing," and, with most other Christians, just stared at it with an uncomprehending look on my face. So to realize that I was, in fact, more often than not fulfilling that verse was quite mind-blowing.

wor·ship: Adoring reverence or regard.

"Wait a second!" I thought, "I haven't been working on this! Shouldn't praying and worshiping be much more trouble than this? Surely I'm not . . ." But the truth is, I was. So I tried to figure out how this miracle had happened.

Whenever I say that I am trying to figure something out, that usually means that I am talking to God about it. I asked God if this could really be true about me and how in the world had it happened. He began to give me a short history of myself. In fact, though not in nearly so many words, I'm pretty sure He told me a story.

"Once, there was a girl named . . . well, okay, there IS a girl that is you. Anyways…You eventually began to get the idea that I loved you…That I liked you…That I liked hanging out with you, that I thought you were perfect and beautiful…That I liked you all the time, not just when you were on your best behavior.”

"When you FINALLY started to believe Me on these points... ('Cause, good grief child, you took a time being convinced.) …you started to forget about yourself and enjoy being with Me. You quit pretending that I was sometimes far away because you quit being ashamed for Me to be near. So we were always together.

"The more we hung out, the more you liked Me. The longer we were together the more you realized what it meant that I loved you perfectly. ('Cause if I do say so Myself, it's a pretty amazing love.) So you loved Me even more.

"We got comfortable around each other. It's not as though everything was always rosy. I'm pretty sure you could pick a fight with a fence post because you picked all sorts of fights with Me. They often ended with Me holding you while you cried. Sometimes they ended with you looking sheepish after finding My answers amazing and delightful. Don't worry though, you're learning to ask questions nicely before you pick a fight with the Lord of Angel Armies and your Loving Redeemer. Not that I mind. It just causes much less emotional trauma for you.

"In the mean time, we shared the way we see the world. I showed you millions of glimpses of what it was like before the curse came. I showed you what I saw when I called it all "good." I showed you that only eternity matters and that eternity is made of the moments called "now." I shared your pain, confusion, and darkness. In return you shared My dreams, my delight in people, my joy in my own creativity.

"Now we're up to the present. You declare beauty in the world around you because I declared beauty in You. You have love for me and those around you because you have accepted my love."

beau·ty: the quality present in a thing or person that gives intense pleasure or deep satisfaction

I don't go through my life spouting Christian songs (not that there's anything wrong with that but believe me, you should be grateful I don't). I don't go around quoting Psalms. I don't recite the Lord's Prayer non-stop. My thoughts act very much the same as they always have. They wander, they remember, they get distracted, they imagine, they process and they are impossible.

The difference is that I know that God is here. All my thoughts belong to Him, they are His concern to mold, to sort through, to keep, to discard, to mature. I do not say that I pray because I continually ask things of God. I say that I pray because I am in continuous communion with God.

I do not say that I worship because I continually sing. I say that I worship because I live in His thoughts. His thoughts are mine to treasure, to keep, to hold, to love, to wonder at. I am continually amazed by them and this adoring amazement is worship.

I find that worship itself is not hard work, prayer is not either. They both come very naturally. What is hard is believing God's thoughts towards me. Countless times I have tried to talk Him out of His love towards me. I have often doubted His delight in me. Many times I have refused to believe that He has redeemed me fully, perfectly. So many times I have struggled to believe that my actions cannot separate me from Him.

When I am hindered from believing God's thoughts, prayer ceases and worship withers into worry.

Worship springs from Love. Don't determine that you will pray more often, or for longer periods of time. It won't work. Determine that you will accept God's love whether it comes like a gentle spring rain or a tornado swirling and ripping through your life. Accept it whether it is as ridiculous as a green one-eyed alien knocking on your front door or as sensible as your mother fixing you supper.

[The post When God and I Do Lunch is a small example of when God shares how He sees something with me. I hope to write of many more moments like this one to make myself clearer. These times happen so quickly and are so simple it is hard to grab them and put them into words.]

When God and I Do Lunch

2011-03-14T14:19:00.002-05:00

Yesterday afternoon, I was fixing lunch for the family. No big deal, just four turkey sandwiches. I opened a new loaf of bread. A boring loaf, it looked just like a hundred others I could have picked off the grocery shelf. I don’t even really care for the taste of it. That’s why it was particularly surprising that as I took out the first two pieces I was suddenly struck by how beautiful bread is.

It was a peculiar moment. All these thoughts and half-thoughts, memories, stories, ideas, tastes, smells, and feelings welled up. Jesus breaking bread for His disciples. Hungry children begging for bread. Mothers teaching their daughters how to bake bread down the centuries and across many cultures. Robin Hood sitting on the side of the road eating bread and cheese before he continues to wherever he’s going. Wasn’t there something about yeast bread first being made in Egypt?

…Merry and Pippen eating way too much Lembas Bread. Samwise denying himself so that there will be enough bread to get Frodo back home. Farmers planning the whole year around their grain crop so they can feed their families bread. The French peasants of the revolution crying for bread before they cried for blood. David, on the run, eating the showbread from the temple with his men.

…Jesus eating bread with tax collectors and Pharisees. Jesus being the bread of life. My older sister’s many frustrating attempts at homemade corn bread. The wonderful smell of homemade bread while muddling my way through Algebra. Bread and butter at a friend’s house and being chided for not drinking all my milk. Naan, the middle-eastern bread my mother and I tried as we cried our way through a dish of spicy Indian food. My younger sister making biscuits for many grateful friends.

…Taking forever to bake a simple loaf of banana bread at the age of nine and eating large portions of the batter when it was only sugar, butter, and vanilla. Taking bread to neighbors at Christmas. The KFC honey biscuits in Hong Kong. (I dreamt of buying a bucket of them and eating them all.) My littlest brother carefully picking the bread items out of his meal to eat when he was barely old enough to get it to his mouth.

Hunger, satisfaction, frustration, adventure, pleasure, friendship, sacrifice, anticipation, laughter… these are the feelings that go with bread.

At the speed of light, I was back again; making a simple lunch for my family.

This frequently happens. A simple thing that I’ve happily taken for granted suddenly reminds me that it’s the simple things that matter. I feel as though I’ve suddenly seen God’s signature in two slices of bread and seen two slices of bread the way God intended them. They are full of wonder, full of life. In that moment I am truly grateful. Thankfulness wells up in me that God has always given me the privilege of taking bread for granted. I definitively decide that making turkey sandwiches is a Godly way to be spending my time. I finish lunch smiling over a new memory… the time God showed me bread.

2011-03-11T23:08:00.006-06:00

I have this picture on my desktop right now. I took it myself so I know the actual events surrounding it. I hadn't seen it for a few months though, and running across it the other day it wrote a new story in my mind. It reminds me at the same time of distant shores and of coming home. The water and the sky are grey and troubled. The rain may be coming or going. Somehow, it still speaks peace to me. It's beautiful and hope clearly shines on the horizon.

Grace, Love & Fireflies

2011-03-01T21:23:00.001-06:00

It was moving day. Actually, it was the last day of moving week, or moving month. At the age of six I wasn’t very good at knowing how long it had been, I was only old enough to know it had been long enough. Finally, we would be living at our new home.

As any moving day, it was busy and long. There were lots of family and friends helping. Lots of people asking, “Where does this go? Can you grab the other end of this? Be careful with that! Has anyone found the ___?”A six-year-old wasn’t much help, so I spent most of the day being kindly shuffled out of the way by one person or another. It was an eternally long day to me.

When things quieted down, the friends left, and all the boxes were stacked high at the new house, I became aware that my two older sisters got bay windows in their new rooms but I didn’t. I just hadn’t really thought about it until then, but those windows were beautiful and perfect for reading in. If I could have one I’d be just like a girl in a story with my own little cubby to sit in. But I didn’t have one.

My little sister and I had the big room up front, with two boring floor to ceiling windows that had window ledges too small to even fit a knick knack in. It was the last straw of a long, tiring day at the end of a long, tiring week and I burst into tears. My family was a bit flabbergasted. What were they to do? They were sorry, but they couldn’t just give me a bay window! They tried to explain to me how wonderful my own room was. It was much bigger, I got two windows instead of just one bay window, and it would have all my things in it. But I was inconsolable.

Then Mom talked to Dad and they came up with a plan. Dad took me for a walk, just him and me. I remember feeling a little sorry for my other sisters that they weren’t coming too, but still grateful it was just him and me. I was relieved to have Dad time after that embarrassing teary outburst, but I also wasn’t going to be talked out of the wonders of bay windows if that was his next plan.

Dad didn’t try to talk me out of bay windows. I don’t remember if we really talked at all. We walked a short way down our new street to the empty corner that was woods with a little foot path. It was dusk out and the day was cooling off; it was beautiful and calm. Just a little way into the woods, it happened. A flicker here, another a short way off. In moments we were surrounded by fireflies.

Fireflies are always beautiful. But that evening, with a long, disappointing day behind me, and my Dad’s hand holding mine, fireflies weren’t just beautiful. They were heart-healingly magical. We stood there and soaked it up together for a few moments.

“There’s one!”

“Did you see that one?”

“There’s two at once!”

Then Dad caught one to show me up close. It was so tiny in his hand, struggling to get away, but still lighting up. He carefully held it between his fingers so as not to hurt it and turned it upside down to show me. I was filled with wonder. It was just a bug! Yet, it was so much more than a bug; it was a beautiful mystery.

That night, I slept in my new room that didn’t have a bay window. I was still tired. It had still been a long and disappointing day. I never got a bay window, and I still want one. But somehow none of that mattered anymore. I had shared fireflies with Dad. A short half hour of shared love and beauty changed that whole long day into one of the most precious memories of my life.

To Those Who Know Me

2011-02-19T14:26:00.000-06:00

Friend ... that loaded word.

I love people. I adore them actually. When I people watch, I sometimes literally feel sorry for myself that I can’t get to know them. I know it’s terribly sappy and ridiculous, but I’m trying to be honest here.

The even weirder thing is that in spite of this wish to know every interesting person in the world. (Okay, there might be a few exceptions.) I am often afraid to get to know my own friends. There is always one question looming over me. “What if I fail them?” This comes in a few varieties, including but not limited to, “What if I end up being that one person that they learned to count on and then isn’t there at the critical moment? What if I don’t talk to them very often? What if I do something that makes them feel judged? What if I hurt them?”

With my weird and bad health thrown in, some of these questions felt even more pressing. What if this person knew that all I can think about when I talk to them is how tired I am? How would that person be able to trust me again if they ever found out that for a few moments I absolutely could not remember who they were? How could I ever explain that even my love can’t overcome my physical weakness?

I’ve even gone so far as to tell people, “I love you, but I can’t promise to be there for you. I’m simply not reliable.” I’ve explained to people, “You can call me, but don’t be surprised if I don’t return your calls. You can write me, but I’ll probably forget to write you back.”

I said these things because I thought they were true, I wanted to be honest, I didn’t want to disappoint. I said these things because I wanted to be perfect for you and I knew I would fail. I thought I was breaking it gently, but the truth is that I wasn’t trusting God.

I thought that you needed me to be there all the time, preferably in the same town, or even the same house with you. I thought you needed me to be able to have hours and hours of phone conversations and encouraging letters every month at least, and regular Friday night hangouts, too. I thought you needed me to never be awkward or just plain wrong. I thought you needed me to never disappoint you. Now I realize, I thought you needed me to be God.

The strange thing is that none of you ever asked this of me. I’m the only one who decided what kind of friend I should be. I’m the only one who let friendships die, not from lack of communication, because some of the people I communicate the least frequently with are some of my closest friends. Instead, I let fear starve my friendships. I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to be there all the time, so I eventually wasn’t there at all.

I’m writing this to tell you that I am so sorry.

I’m writing this to tell you that I’ve missed you. I’m sorry that I convinced you that I’d never return your phone calls. I still might be terrible at it, but I’m grateful for every chance you give me. I’m sorry my health sometimes makes me boring, forgetful, moody, and airheaded. But if you can put up with a friend that is all those things, I am so willing. I’m sorry that I’ve wasted so much time wishing I could be God to you, but if you want a friend who struggles with a God complex then I’m the person you’re looking for.

I’m sorry I don’t have all the time in the world but if you’re willing to work with whatever God gives us, then I am more than willing to treasure the moments He gives us to share. I’m sorry if I’ve ever communicated that we can’t be friends because we believe differently. Believing differently had nothing to do with it; we couldn’t be friends because I was too afraid.

I’m especially sorry for those of you in the past that I judged and condemned. I was playing God then too, and I’m terrible at the part.

If you are willing to remind me that you don’t need me to be perfect, then I want to be there for you during those times when you do need me. I don’t want fear to steal any more of the lovely relationships I could be sharing. Thanks for being patient with me and giving me more grace than I was even capable of accepting.

Lauren the Omniscient (and a bit about trust)

2011-02-18T17:54:00.001-06:00

Everyone prefers knowledge to stupidity. Almost everyone gets frustrated when they can’t understand. No one likes to be in a situation they feel unqualified for. Humans like to feel in control, and when you don’t know the ropes, you are most certainly not in control. Practically, you simply cannot make informed decisions if you cannot find or cannot trust the information.

Some of us are more aware of everything we don’t know than others of us are. Some of us make information and understanding our god. We simply will not make a decision without perfect understanding and, therefore, never make decisions. We are the people who will study and study and study a subject and feel our paper on the subject is dribble because it is not exhaustive. We are the ones who can’t form an opinion because it might be the wrong opinion.

How do I know that these silly people exist? Simply, I am one.

I would prefer that I know and have perfect comprehension of everything. This is nice in some ways. There is nothing I am not interested in learning. On the other hand, it’s hard for me to pick any one thing to learn because I cannot learn it perfectly, and I don’t know enough about it to know whether it’s what I want to learn most.

It also becomes quite a problem when I’m not talking about learning a subject, but rather a person. It gets downright horrible when it comes to knowing God.

I have recently felt that I had to keep my mind so open about God and people that my brains simply must be dribbling out. Don’t get me wrong. There are some things I am very closed minded about. It’s just that they are very few. I don’t want to ever believe something about God again that He did not personally verify to me.

Being open-minded is not all bad. It is reasonable to understand that I don’t know everything and that lots of things I do know, I don’t understand. It is also part of humility to know that I don’t know everything, that in fact, I don’t know much. Unfortunately, it is pride to refuse to make a decision because I can’t make The Perfect One with my limited comprehension

So, there I am stuck. It turns out that I have to trust God with my imperfect knowledge, whether it’s about where I live, buying something, or even knowing Him. Basically, I have to learn to live without being omniscient. You would think I’d be used to living limited to a human brain, but I tell you it comes as a blow to find God reserves the right to be the only Omniscient Being. I must trust even what I don’t see and will never know of God. I must trust that if I forget, misinterpret, never find or even misunderstand the information, I can still make a good decision.

I used to scorn people who ‘blindly trusted’. Now I suspect that trust at its core is blind. I trust a light switch to turn on the light without shocking me or burning the house down. I could say this is well-informed trust, because I have a history with that light switch and it has always behaved reliably in the past. Or I could realize that no matter how many times it has worked in the past, my trust of it has always been blind. I certainly have never followed the wires between the walls. I have never checked to see if any are melting, eroding, chewed on, or badly connected. I’m not even sure that those are the things that would need to be checked.

So I’m giving up my right to control, my right to understand, and even my dream of omniscience. I’m admitting I’m blind, and I’m choosing to trust.

What do you think? Can trust be trust without an element of blindness?

One Thing

2011-02-14T14:37:00.002-06:00

Only one thing will ever change the world for good. That one thing is grace as revealed daily to any person by Jesus. Nothing else will work. Everything else is a worthless illusion.

Grace here meaning totally loved, accepted, and delighted in, without any effort on our part.

If you want to give something to others, this is all there is that is worth giving and you will be incapable of giving until you have first received. Grace will not be manufactured. It can only be accepted.

It cannot be added to. This is God’s love I’m talking about! Is your mind already trying to add to it? “Just a little bit of trying harder, just a little bit of working to act better. I’ll accept God’s love but I need to stay busy, too.”

“We can’t let people think that sin is okay! Do you want me to just stop growing? How will I ever overcome my failures? I know God sees me as loved but surely that doesn’t mean He wants me to take advantage of Him! If I stop doing good deeds then no one else will ever hear of God! Aren’t we obligated to live differently now that He loves us?”

Please. Stop your silly panicking. Don’t you know anything of love? Love worries about all of that so that you can enjoy the Lover. You are wasting your days before the wedding with worries when you could be practicing kissing.

You do realize that you’re engaged, right? You can say you’ve been saved, reborn, whatever. Mostly, you’re engaged. The wedding to the God of your dreams is coming.

You’re worried about the Ten Commandments. You’re concerned you’re not following the teachings of Christ just right. But have you forgotten that time when He said, “Only one thing is necessary . . .”

Count how many things very slowly.

O . . . n . . . e

One

ONE

Just one.

Consider my life simplified. I’m hanging out with The Fiancé and then we're getting married.

Emotions & Reality part 2

2011-02-13T14:10:00.003-06:00

Once, when I was raving to God about how unfair and stupid it was that I had to deal with this ‘evil’ emotional part of myself, He kindly reminded me that He was the first one with emotions. After that, all sorts of my ideas about emotions had to change. First to go was the idea that emotions were stupid, embarrassing, or weak. They’re not. In fact, they are godly.

“Okay, okay,” I reasoned, “They aren’t all stupid, embarrassing or weak, just most of them.” God momentarily complied with me for the sake of argument, but then He brought up this question, “Who decides which ones are good and which ones are bad?” You may think it’s obvious, as I did. Joy, excitement, happiness . . . these are good. Anger, sadness, anxiety . . . these are bad.

The problem is that God and/or Jesus have been described as having all of those, the ones I called good and the ones I called bad. If you think Jesus never felt anxious, read about the night in Gethsemane. I think it’s safe to define “sweating drops of blood” as ‘anxious.’ God reserves the title as “Judge of Emotions” for Himself. Anytime I try it, I have to stop and choose to trust Him instead. I will not be fooled into letting another person judge my emotions, either.

I have also learned that no matter how silly I feel my emotions to be, they are all valid. (Do you ever notice that you feel all sorts of things about your feelings? So confusing.) This means I am not allowed to pretend that any of them don’t exist. The sooner I am honest with myself and God about what I’m feeling, the better. My emotions cannot and will never change the Truth. This is very relieving for me to realize. Just because I feel unlovable doesn’t mean that I am unlovable. Sometimes I must trust the Truth in spite of what I feel. However, even when I don’t trust the Truth, it still doesn’t change.

As I practice trusting God with my emotions instead of controlling them myself, He is actually convincing me that they are more useful than I ever believed possible. He uses them to show His own feelings to me. Have you ever had a certain feeling, perhaps joy or protection while watching a child, and heard God whisper to you, “That’s exactly how I feel about watching you.” Nothing compares to feeling the emotions of God.

Other times He has used them to delicately and gently bring up places in me that He wants to heal. Many times these were places that I was so used to being broken, I didn’t know they could or should be healed. Trusting Him always brings healing.

Sometimes my emotions are simply a sign pointing to a physical need. When I don’t get enough sleep I may feel like everyone around me is a selfish jerk. They probably feel the same thing about me. When I need to eat, I sometimes feel depressed and that life is just too much to handle. When I have a cold and I feel weak, I am much more likely to cry. These are the emotions that really annoy me. I don’t want my body to have that much control over my soul, but it’s better to grudgingly admit it than to ignore the truth. These too, I can trust God with. Also, because I’m able to be honest about it with my family, they don’t take my moods so personally, but can remind me that maybe I just need something to eat. I don’t know about you but it’s always a relief to me to remember that I’m not a jerk; I just have low blood sugar.

There are only a few emotions that God has tagged with “These are not from Me” signs for me. Also, these are three emotions that you will never catch God having. They are guilt, shame, and fear. Don’t get me wrong, there is a healthy fear. If a gun is pointed at you and you don’t feel the flight or fight fear response, something is probably very wrong. (Since Jesus had as human a body as I do, I’m assuming he felt the flight or fight sort of fear a few times.) However, most of the fear in my life is not this sort of fear. Most of the fear in my life is the kind that perfect Love wants to cast out. This kind of fear can be defined as “A lack of trust towards God.”

He wants me to understand that I am totally safe in my relationship with Him. He wants to smooth away all my fears because He is big enough and kind enough to handle whatever it is I’m afraid of. He loves my fear away. When fear of this sort comes up it is a chance for me to understand His love in a new way. It’s a chance to ask, “Who are You that I shouldn’t be afraid of this?” I promise His answers are worth it.

Guilt can also be a good thing, if I had never felt my guilt I might never have felt my need for God. But now that Jesus work is completed my guilt is eternally removed and to return to it is to disbelieve that Jesus work is final. Since I acknowledged my need for God, He has never used guilt again. This is not to say that I have never technically been guilty again. With Jesus’ completed work, guilt is no longer an issue because I am eternally forgiven. At this point the memory of my guilt only serves to make me think that I am somehow cut off from God which will never be true again.

I don’t remember any time that shame was from God. In my experience it has only had one terrible function, to keep me hiding from the One who could heal my guilt.

My emotions are still annoyingly messy. I still usually feel that I would be better off without them. I regularly tell God that if I’m not allowed to control them then I should at least be allowed to give Him pointers about how He should be controlling them. But I’ve been without emotion, and I don’t ever want to go back. The trust being built out the mess of my emotions is more than worth it.

Emotions & Reality part 1

2011-02-12T16:21:00.000-06:00

I believe that humans are made of three parts: spirit (the breath of God), soul (mind, will, emotions) and body. These three things are both united and separate much like the organs of a body are united and separate simultaneously. If you study human anatomy for any reason you will find that teachers and text books immediately start breaking it down into systems and organs and pieces that they will identify and separate and then separate what they separated. At the same time, people usually study human anatomy to learn how to keep it going, working, functioning, and surviving, as a human. They don’t study it to dissect it; they dissect it to understand the whole.

So I, too, am going to do a bit of dissecting, but only so I can understand the whole. These things can be mentally separated for ease of understanding, but they will never actually be separate in experience.

I’ll start with the most basic one, the body. I think you should know what this is, your physical existence, the one that gets colds, and headaches, and the thing everyone looks at in pictures and recognizes as you.

Then there’s your soul. Your soul is the part of you that comprises your likes and dislikes. This is the part of you that you get to share with other people as you choose to. This is the part of you that makes you really, really, uniquely only you and no one else. Your body and soul combine somewhere between your brain and your hormones. Your soul is the part of you that has thoughts, emotions, and makes choices. Your mind, will, and emotions comprise your soul.

Then spirit. This is the part of you that has life like God does. This is what separates you from the animals, what makes you particularly ‘in the image of God’. This is the life in you that doesn’t end when your body does. Your spirit makes your soul eternal.

I think the easiest and most honest way to explain better what I’m thinking will be to stick with what I’ve learned and know about myself.

I know that as far back as I can remember my spirit was broken. There was a time when as far down as I could look into myself there was only darkness. I don’t mean depression, I don’t mean evil, I mean emptiness. Like an empty room, but worse. More like when you see something dead and it makes you remember that there could be, and should be, life in that body, but there simply isn’t.

I believe that this emptiness is a human condition passed down all the way from Adam as a result of his and Eve’s choice that they, too, should have the right to judge what is good and evil. That’s when their spirits went empty, died. Because it is spirit, it doesn’t pass away like a body does; it continues sitting there, empty. It’s like a lung without air. I believe that every person is born with their spirit in this condition -- empty existence.

In me, this emptiness produced all sorts of conflict in my soul. I wanted to choose what was right, I wanted to be selfless, I wanted to give love, but my emptiness always dragged me down. I wanted to make other people’s needs more important than mine, but I simply couldn’t. I needed perfect love so bad that I would find myself trying to take it from others. I needed respect so bad that I would find myself demanding it of others. I needed to survive so bad that sooner or later I would take what I needed which caused me to hurt those around me who were also trying to survive. I hated myself for this.

My soul was full of confusion and conflict because my mind knew what was right. I knew I shouldn’t be selfish. My emotions would fluctuate wildly between guilt because I should be doing better, pride because I was doing better than others, depression because I’d never get better, and elation because I finally got something right. My will would sometimes follow my mind, and sometimes follow my emotions. I had nothing stable within myself.

My body was full of stress. I was regularly tired and after 11 years of living like this, I was chronically exhausted even though I was only 19 years old. Of course, body, soul, and spirit work in many directions, much like the old question, which came first the chicken or the egg? I believe that my body was unhealthy anyway, but the stress of my soul in turmoil certainly didn’t help. I believe that both were involved in the depression I’ve been through, and I can’t point to either as the cause or either as the relief. My body needed relief from my soul and my soul needed relief from my body. My empty spirit had no relief to offer to either.

This was all before I understood the completed work of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection. Jesus came to deal with broken humans from the inside out. He came to fill our empty spirits, which frees our conflicted souls, which gives our broken and dying bodies relief from the inside until He gives us new ones in the future.

In accepting Jesus’ completed work, my spirit for the first time was filled with life. I had a consistent and flowing source of life in my deepest place. I had an eternal source of love, acceptance, and respect. I no longer had to grab for these things or suck them out of other people. For the first time I was copiously full. I was satisfied. I also knew who I was. I was Loved.

My spirit was immediately and forever totally altered. My soul took much longer. My mind is still getting used to new thinking habits; my will is still learning to live out of my spirit’s fullness. My emotions . . . well, they are still emotional but they are learning not to despair.

The fact is that my emotions seem to be the most unstable part of my soul, and maddeningly, my mind and will follow my emotions more often than not. Thankfully, this is not a problem for God. My mind can be convinced with reason, my will can follow the reason my mind produces but the only control I have over my emotions is an on or off switch. When I have tried to protect myself from my negative emotions, I stop feeling any emotion.

What do I do with emotions then? If I deny them, I lose a part of myself. If I follow them, I will go everywhere and end up nowhere. Is there another option? Yes, there is another option; it is simple, but not easy. I can trust God with them. As I have done this, God has taught me a few things about my emotions and a few things about Himself.

Thoughts on Sin & Righteousness

2011-02-01T03:29:00.000-06:00

I believe that it wasn’t my acts of sin that I needed redemption from because they were only a symptom of a spiritual brokenness that was passed down all the way from Adam to me. I needed redemption from the inside out, from my spirit to my actions.

The law is good for two things, for making the symptom, sin, all the more evident and secondly for revealing the life we were meant to live before Adam’s rebellion. We were created for perfection but none of us since Adam have any idea of what that might look like. The law helps fill in this gap by showing us what perfection looks like (obviously Jesus revealed this even further in His person). The law was never given the power to free us from sin. It was only given the power to reveal sin to us.

So then, Christ arrives born of a virgin, the first man since Adam to have a spirit unmarred by the sin of his father, he meets all the temptations known to man and falls for none of them. (When I considered what this meant, 33 years of being constantly bombarded with temptations and never giving in, it gave me a whole new appreciation for the suffering of Christ.) I now have two options, to live in Adam or in Christ. In Adam I am aware that I was created for holiness but I can never attain it because I can never overcome the heritage of brokenness/law of sin that I was born into. (The fact that I was born into sin through Adam does not by any means lessen my own personal guilt.)

In Adam I was a proud, idol worshiping, blasphemous, covetous, lying, murderous, thief, whose heart was deceitful and wicked. Even if by the Law of Moses I missed becoming a few of these, Jesus says to break one part of the law is to break the whole law and thinking impurely is just as bad as the action. In short, I was doomed and I was gross in spite of the fact that the whole world would have said that I was an exceptionally good person.

However, in Christ I am a totally new creation. My former history literally is no longer attached to me because that person died and a totally new one without sin was born. It’s not just that I have a new identity for the future; I also have a new past. Eternity does not stretch only into the future it stretches to the past as well and I now have eternal life in Christ. In Christ, I am pure, holy, beloved, and righteous, my heart is pure, my spirit and the Holy Spirit are one, I have the mind of Christ, I have the wisdom of God, I lack nothing that Christ currently has sitting at the right hand of the Father.

I am no longer a slave to sin, I am a slave to righteousness. I know longer have the desire or the bent towards sin that I previously had. On the contrary I desire to act in accordance with my new holy nature. It is still possible for me to commit an act of sin but it is no longer probable or normal for me.

The confusion comes when my present life/actions don’t seem to add up to what God says that I have in Christ. It doesn’t feel like I’m any holier, and God knows it may or may not look like it at any given moment. This is where the process of becoming what I already am comes into play. My spirit is totally free, totally new, totally one with Christ as I already mentioned, but my body and my brain (this includes mind, will, and emotions) are used to my old habits. My spirit has been born new but I am stuck with the same brain I had before. It is a lot like being born into a new culture, the culture suits me, I was made for it, it is my culture, but I haven’t grown up in it, I don’t understand and haven’t even experienced those things that I like best. Thus, the renewal of my mind to think in accordance with my new nature takes time and will never be completed until my body dies and I get a new one.

This is how sanctification can be both completed and in process at the same time. I am very truly in a very concrete sense, totally perfect. But I will also be more perfect tomorrow. I like to think of the way a baby grows. Everyone loves to say that a new born baby is perfect, and so it is, but at the same time, if it stopped changing and growing, if the baby never became a child, and in turn an adult, something would be terribly wrong.

This also takes away all opportunity for either pride or shame because God is not judging my actions. He judges only the fact that I was born into the family of Christ and I can take no credit for that. This is what it means to be free. I am free to act sinfully or to act righteously but most of all I am free from the fear that any of my actions will either save me or ruin me.

So then my actions, whether sin or not are reduced to their true importance. What suits me? The law again comes into play here. Because I have the life of Christ, obeying the law suits me. Literally it is pleasurable for me to obey the law. The law is now written in my spirit and I rejoice to act in accordance with it. It is also profitable, for me and for those around me.

The only power Satan (or sin) still has over me are his words and they only have power if I believe them. If I sin with this new nature it is because my mind, will, or emotions (usually a combo of the three) still believes his lie that this sin will please me better than the law of God. God has freed me from a number of habitual sins simply by feeding them to me until I woke up one day and realized they weren't giving me pleasure.

I believe it is a common ploy of Satan to keep us trying to act better. If I focus on my actions I will never be freed of them. If you tell someone not to think of purple elephants you have just insured that they will be thinking of purple elephants and Satan loves using this trick on us. In fact it is often preached from pulpits. “Do not sin! You know what sin you fall for, plan carefully not to fall for it again!” Translated, focus on your sin, think about your sin, consume yourself with your sin but do not act out the very thing you have been meditating on. This method will insure the continuance of habitual sin.

The cure for sin is Jesus. First we need His life in us and second our minds must be trained to think on His righteousness. This is the only way the Church collectively or a person individually will ever be free from the actions of sin they are fighting and planning so hard to change.

Warriors and Lovers

2010-11-23T19:10:00.001-06:00

A warrior lives deeply. He knows that life is short, that nothing is worth fighting over but some things are worth fighting for. You could accurately interchange the names Warrior and Lover because it is impossible to be one without the other. You can be a fighter, a killer, or a soldier without love but it is impossible to be a Warrior without love.

It is also impossible to love without being a warrior. You can have sex, you can like people, you can enjoy all sorts of things, but you cannot Love without being a warrior.

If you love, you are willing to sacrifice yourself in whatever way necessary and only a warrior’s heart is strong enough to be able to sacrifice itself. But if you are a fighter without a love to fight for than you are an uncontrolled and aimless weapon.

A warrior lays down his life either living or dying for those weaker. This is a great mystery, why do the strong die for those who are too weak to keep themselves alive?

Warriors see the world as it really is and so have hearts full of deep pain, this is what makes their eyes sad and grim. Pain is everywhere. They have the choice to close their eyes to it, but they can’t stand to be willfully blind. They must see clearly. They believe the worst can and should always be faced because the worst is only the inverse of the best.

They would go crazy with despair if this were all they see, but it isn’t. Remember, warriors are lovers and lovers see beauty when no one else can. Warriors don’t fight so much against the pain but rather for the beauty. Warriors know that pain is a fungus, living off of the beauty; it has no life of its own. Where some see only despair, they see hope. If the pain is so great, the beauty it is living off of must be even greater. This is what gives their eyes a smile, in spite of the horrors within and without that they continually live through.

If you don’t understand warriors, or are not one yourself, then you will think that they have buried all emotion. In fact denying their emotions is a common fault among them. The truth is that they are more emotional than everyone else combined but their emotions run deep, fathomless as the ocean. This is their one fear, that their own feelings will sweep them away and toss them about uncontrollably.

The wise overcome this fear with humility. If God would sweep them away on their own emotions then so be it. They are not foolish and hate to be taken as such, but if God would make fools of them with their own emotions then they would gladly face that fate too. They find instead that God does not make fools of them but gives them the very keys to become the warriors and lovers they live to be.

Far from their emotions tossing them about, they find that they propel them very precisely, that they give them greater strength and greater insight. To be unafraid of weakness is to find fearless strength. Do not think that this means you will ever see the depth of their emotions. It is just as likely that you will see the bottom of the ocean. In fact, they will still seem to be particularly unemotional, because they despair of ever truly communicating their emotions at all. You must see them by faith or not at all.

They feel sorrow so deep that it seems they could weep without stopping forever. But they cannot weep forever and any fewer tears seem so inadequate that they may seem to never weep at all. They also feel joy. Joy so encompassing, so true, so fulfilling that heaven itself will spend eternity celebrating it. But here, they have not the time or the means to celebrate it appropriately so in fact, you may only see a content smile and a twinkle in their eye. Joy and sorrow are not mutually exclusive to each other; they are usually full of both.

They feel hope, but this is no light hearted hope, neither is it a hope that wanes or waxes. It is the hope of those who die without obtaining the promises but are assured of what they hope for. They feel the strength of their own hearts. A deadly strength that only gets stronger as time continually assaults it. A strength that is capable of laughing in the midst of despair because it has learned that despair is a grim illusion that will vanish in a moment. They feel desperate but far from panicking, they become even calmer to compensate and so even more deadly.

They are full of compassion and will care for the wounded with a touch more gentle and tender than a Mother’s. Their hearts do not break for themselves, but for you. They are fierce protectors, fiercer than wild animals. Nothing is more dangerous than a lover at war.

Sometimes, they forget that they are not made to love or fight alone. Sometimes they forget that they too have weaknesses that need protection. Sometimes, they are so used to comforting that they don’t realize that they need comforting too. Sometimes they protect so fiercely that they begin fighting the very one they are trying to protect. Sometimes they forget that it is good for those who have healed to become warriors in their own right, that they should not be protected from becoming great.

Every weakness that appears in themselves they throw back to God and between His strength and the protection of those warriors around them, they are an invincible force. The faster they are slain, the quicker they will rise again and claim that God is victorious.

Truly, the spirit of a warrior-lover can only be found in one place and that is God himself. But he has made his bride to be worthy of a warrior as noble as he and so has given her no other spirit than his own.

My friend, I perceive that you are a warrior.

Adventure: It's a dangerous business, trusting God.

2010-09-12T02:08:00.005-05:00

As I have grown, my desires have become more basic and my dreams more fantastic. All I’ve dreamt of is adventure and all I desire is Jesus. “I desire to know Jesus, the power of His resurrection, to share in the fellowship of His sufferings and to be like Him in His death . . .” (Philippians 3:10) That is all I want from either this life or the next.

But how can I know Him? Knowing is a slippery thing; hard to understand and hard to define. Even those we think we know regularly surprise us. Think about someone you know, when did the relationship change from knowing of them to just knowing them? How does an acquaintance become a friend? It is a mystery to me.

I think the verse itself gives some significant clues about knowing. First, that suffering together is one of the truest forms of fellowship. Second, you must share experiences, either by physically being there with the other person or through them by communication. Third, you become like those you know, in the oddest ways. It is impossible to know Jesus apart from the power that raised Him from the dead, or without sharing in His suffering, or without becoming like Him in His death. None of these things can be separated.

I want to live a life of Adventure and I am convinced that He is The Adventure. The dictionary defines it this way, “Adventure: a bold, usually risky undertaking; a hazardous action of uncertain outcome.” What I’ve dreamt of was a risk worth taking. What I’ve waken to is that Jesus is worth risking everything for.

I want to experience every moment of my life with Him. I want to see everything through His eyes. I want to see how He acts as He walks through my life. I want to rely on Him alone. When I suffer, I’ll do it with Him. I want to be the pitcher that His life giving power is poured from. I am convinced that He is already making me like Him in His death.

I’ve realized that my goal cannot be defeated by circumstances or time. Most circumstances are outside of my control and many are not what I would have chosen. Thankfully, all those things I cannot control Jesus is controlling.

This takes a lot of pressure off of what most people would call my ‘life choices’. Whether or not I have a job, a car, a lover, friends, health, or a college degree does not affect my goal. Whether or not I trust Jesus is all that will.

Sadly, I do still have to make basic choices for my life and I only wish that I could state that I don’t constantly agonize over them. If my only goal is to know Him then how do I choose what to do with today?

I will choose boldly, courageously, by faith, and by a different standard than the world uses. I will not choose practically, because God is rarely practical according to human judgment. Many things I thought were frivolous He has revealed to be necessary and many things I thought were practical, He has proven to be useless.

I am afraid when I think about the standard He is telling me to choose by. The Life inside me compels me to continue bravely. I will choose soberly, but I will not choose fearfully.

I will not be concerned by my inadequacy because I no longer live but Christ lives in me. I will not be alarmed by what is bigger than me because I want to experience that nothing is bigger than Him. I will not be anxious about the unknown because I want to experience the wonder and joy of trusting the Knower.

I will not dread physical limitations because I want to experience Jesus' healing. I will not fear pain because I want to suffer everything that He suffered and to know the Comforter. I will not be concerned by death because I want to see His face.

I will not be uncertain about my influence on those around me because I want to experience that His influence is greater. I will not be alarmed by the judgment of others because I want to experience that God’s good opinion is enough. I will not hesitate to love because I want to experience His love for me and through me.

I will not be uneasy about a lack of resources because I want to experience that Jesus owns everything and watch Him treat gold like concrete. I will not fret over mediocrity because I want to experience what Jesus experienced of the Father in the 30 nondescript years. I will not despise the mundane because I want to see Him turn it into a miracle.

I will not be alarmed by my weakness because I want to experience His power. I will not worry over my flaws because He tells me they're redeemed. I will not scorn failure because I want to experience that He never fails. I will not be startled by temptation because I want to experience His freedom.

I will hope because the Hero promised. I will search for beauty because I've seen the Beautiful One. I will give myself to those around me because I watched Him give everything, freely, for me. I will fight for goodness because I'm betrothed to a Warrior. I will cry when it hurts because I know the Man of Sorrows. I will boast of my trust, not because it is reliable but because the object of my trust is.

I cannot explain or justify my choices up to this date by any other standard than this. To my physical eye they appear haphazard, irresponsible, unreliable, moody, flighty, foolish, and a host of other negative and undesirable adjectives. If you judge them this way as well, I don’t blame you.

However, as far as God has revealed to me, I have followed Him obediently every unpredictable and ludicrous step of the way. My only hope is that the foolishness of God is wiser than men. If you disagree with the standard I make my choices by or don’t see my actions lining up with my words, I would appreciate your honesty on the subject. I would like the opportunity to change my mind according to new information or to agree to respectfully disagree.

If, on the other hand, what I have written here resounds with what God is growing in your mind, then be encouraged. You aren’t the only one.

Power Perfected

2010-08-16T14:12:00.002-05:00

“I need Your strength to feel this weak . . .”

Two things have always been strong and constant in me, weakness and pride. I’ve always been small but I’ve always believed that if my will power was strong enough I could do anything, ‘anything’ in this case only falling slightly short of flying by sheer will power.

My small size never was brought home to me by circumstances so I understood that I was ruling the world through awesomeness. I was fast, witty, I learned easily, I spoke easily, my health was good, I was really good at reading, people told me I was beautiful and I easily believed them, my family was happy (in my eyes) and well respected. My circumstances were perfect, I was perfect, and I gracefully accepted the accolade.

Only one thing crept in to rankle my pride. About the same time that I was responsible to get my own school completed for the day I realized that I was too lazy to keep myself on task. Far from making me humble, this realization was only a minor blot in my perfect record of self-willed accomplishments and I was sure I could conquer it.

I was really young, not much older than 10, and looking back two things astound me. First that such a young person could be so confident and second that I really thought that my own will shaped my life.

Between then and now, things have only gone downhill, honestly. It turns out that the laziness I noticed in myself was the first symptom of health problems that worsened for about 9 years before they were noticed. In the mean time I was consumed with guilt, while constantly promising myself and God that I would do better.

I didn’t do better. I was guilty through my school years, floundered through high school and still maintain that what I did do for high school was well below the minimum. Today, my family is broken and my health is bad. I can still learn easily but forget even more easily. To use the word ‘fast’ to describe anything about me will bring genuine laughter. I can seldom think quickly enough to be witty, and more often than not, I can’t remember the word I need just to finish the sentence I started. People still tell me I’m beautiful but they almost as often assume that I have an eating disorder. I can still read; I can’t tell you how grateful I am for that.

These are the things I placed my pride in. When those things that I was proud of failed me you would think humility might have had a better chance but pride will easily change from gloating to self pity before it will leave room for humility. Not to say that I haven’t learned humility, because I have, and I have loved to learn it.

Humility is not realizing that I am nothing, but rather that I have nothing, nothing besides Jesus that is. I have learned to accept whatever He is pleased to give me whether I would call it weakness or strength. He was satisfied with this lesson of acceptance until yesterday. Yesterday, He upped the ante.

He said, “You’ve been asking for My power all year. Do you even know what power is? Who taught you to distinguish between strength and weakness? My power and your weakness are inseparable. I’ve made you weak and you’ve accepted it but if I told you that your weakness is My power would you believe Me and thank me for it?”

Because I’m stuck being a human and a baby my first response is always, “Cruelty!” In fact, though I’m not calling Him cruel anymore I’m still considering . . . my option. This is too big for me to do. I must rely on His strength and power even in the simple choice to be thankful.

Which reminds me of something else He taught me this year. To admit weakness and ask for help is not a demand for attention but an action of humility. I don't understand this. But the truth persists being itself in spite of how I feel about it.

I feel like I'd like to lock myself in a room and cry for years instead of move forward in the face of these truths. I would in fact, except that Jesus carries me forward even when it feels more like He's dragging me on. You might think that I have a choice but I don't. The life inside me would be picking the lock from the inside even while I was trying to cry in the corner. The only thing more miserable and impossible than believing Him is trying not to.

Goodness: [That's what I asked for but not what I wanted.]

2010-06-19T19:04:00.013-05:00

I love God. No really, I do. I have all sorts of love for God. I love Him like a very little girl loves her father because not only does He love her but He also knows what's best for her even when she doesn't. Not to mention all the monsters in reality or her imagination flee when He's around.

I love God like a dog loves its master. I may or may not pay rapt attention to Him in the moment but I think He's the best thing since my squeaky toy and no matter how many trash bins, skunks or rabbit trails I simply must go check out we both know it's Him I'm coming back to.

I love God like I love my sisters and brothers, I would do anything for Him and really enjoy hanging out even if we've spent almost equal amounts of time fighting and playing.

I love God like I love my friends, He gives me thoughts besides my own to think and encourages me to be myself even when it isn't pretty.

I love God like I love my Mom, because I know that no matter what I ever do He's gonna be there for me just because that's who He is. Not to mention He's already seen me through every triumph, failure, embarrassment, low spot, silly spot, and emotional outburst already. He keeps giving Himself, and still hasn't given up on me. In fact, He's proud of me.

Not only that, but I trust God. I am so confident that He is the hero of the story He could seem to be the villain for an indefinite amount of time and I would still believe in His goodness. In spite of the fact that I know He is ultimately in control of everything and my life still sucks a good portion of the time. I know that He is good.

One time, I realized that His goodness didn't match up with my life story the way I thought it should. So I told Him He was a fraud, a liar, and a villain. I won't tell the whole story here but let's say that He treated me with such kindness that I am convinced for a lifetime of His goodness.

There's just one rub. In spite of the love I have for Him, in spite of the trust I place in Him, in spite of the goodness I have seen in Him, He is still scary. The truth is, He plain freaks me out. Makes me feel panicky. Makes me want to close my eyes and pretend He's not really that big, or . . . other-than-me.

Sometimes, instead of inviting me to His level, I wish He would just settle for mine. Mine is so much nicer than His. I wish that He would let "goodness" mean "mildly adventurous", "nicely unpredictable" and "reasonably comfortable".

I know that He knows best but isn't there another way to know Him besides the one that leads straight through hell? I wish He would have set life up with lower stakes. You know, made it a poker game, instead of a war.

Goodness is much more beautiful than I had imagined and much more severe than I had hoped for. Goodness hurts. Excruciatingly. Don't get me wrong, its a healing hurt, but the pain to bring healing is sometimes worse than the pain of the original wound.

In fact, excruciatingly is oddly appropriate because the ultimate picture of God's goodness was His plan to crucify Himself for our healing. God's goodness not only invites me to be healed and whole as He is, He invites me to be wounded willingly, as He was, for the healing of others.

I cringe and sometimes sob when I think of what His goodness might do next, what He might ask for. I fear the very goodness I love and trust Him for. But then I think of Jesus, not just vaguely fearing what God might ask, but knowing what He had already asked and begging in desperation for another way. His desperation and fear did not make Him any less. If He asks me to join Him in His suffering, then at least I know He empathizes in my trepidation.

I have known Him, I do know Him and I will know Him, all through the fellowship of His suffering.

Operation March: Completed

2010-04-02T19:25:00.004-05:00

Miraculously, I did finish my goal of reading through the entire Bible in the month of March. It was pretty close at the end, I ended up having to read almost the entire New Testament in two days. I cannot recommend this.

Then, when I got to the end and tallied up all the chapters I'd read, I came up 24 short. After a bit of searching my record I found 22 of them in Psalms; I had messed up my "read through Psalms in a month" plan. I still haven't found the other two missing chapters but I'm pretty sure that the mistake is in my tallying, not my reading. On the other hand, I may have read the Entire Bible Except Two Chapters in one month, but I can't convince myself that I should be concerned about it.

So, at the end of this silly idea, what did I come away with? That's what I'm asking myself.

For one thing, the Bible seems to have shrunk some. I have conquered my childhood feeling of it being an impossibly long book that I might hardly read through in a lifetime. I also have come away really liking The Message version but with the conviction that what version is read matters very little in the scheme of things. It's not about which version, it's about God's words, Jesus' story, and the Holy Spirit teaching us from the inside out.

At the same time that the length of the Bible shrunk the amount and depth of information, as well as the general delightfulness of the stories grew. I loved reading through Paul's writing in common American English. For once I could identify in many ways.

It was no longer some old frowning scholar from another world laboriously lecturing over the niceties of the Gospel. Instead it was just a man, like men I have met and heard, speaking boldly because God had told him to use the authority God gave him. He felt many of the things I felt as I taught what God had taught me: love, urgency, hopelessness, exhilaration, inadequacy, boldness, and above everything trust that God would complete what He started. I noticed and could understand how in almost every letter he mentions that he longs to be with them and that letter writing isn't sufficient.

With the New Testament in general I was reminded that Jesus is amazing, and of course loving, but definitely not nice. I was reminded that I live a mystery, a wonderful, scary, ludicrous mystery; Christ in me.

I noticed that in the Old Testament it seems as though God promised good things for whole-hearted obedience but in the New Testament Jesus teaches that trials will come just because you follow Him, promising only internal and eternal rewards. I didn't reach any sort of conclusion about this, just noticed it.

I realized that God is not only sarcastic to me personally but that He always has been. This delighted me and made me feel a bit smug. Not all sarcasm is bred from insecurity, sometimes it's just the best way to get the point across. (And coming from God, it is most definitely a Love language.)

Overall, I think that God has answered a few of my questions from this post about reading the Bible.

What am I to look for as I read it?
I don't need to look for anything as I read it. If I already have something on my mind then I'll know what to look for, if I don't, just enjoy the read.

What am I to do with all the questions that surface as I read?
Ask them of course! But don't get worried if they aren't all answered. It's not about understanding everything, it's about knowing God one day at a time.

Why is it so important to keep reading this book?
I really love the answer to this one. You've probably heard people say that the Bible is a letter from God to us, they usually go off about how awesome this is and how deplorable it is that we don't believe how precious it is.

I can tell you why I never could feel the preciousness of this idea. One really old, really long 'letter' from God and not even to me personally, was all I got till heaven? That is about as good a deal as getting to eat old bread crusts for the rest of your life without even getting any water.

The problem with a letter is that it usually means the person isn't there. It's just something to let you know they're still alive while they're off vacationing. The problem with that idea is that God isn't off vacationing, He's with you, in you, communicating and presently available for two-way conversation. So, why would I read a letter from Him if He's already here?

But, a book, a story written by a person I know and love, even a memoir, I would read that even as they were sitting in the room with me. I would eat it up and read it aloud to them and laugh at their jokes and ask them questions, and learn more than I might have ever known about them from a conversation.

Once, I saw a poem that Cassie, (my very dear friend who has been writing copiously ever since she could hold a pencil) wrote hanging on the bulletin board on her wall. I would guess that we were about 12 at the time and I had never really noticed any of her writing until I saw this poem. I don't remember what it was about or anything it said. What I remember is thinking, "She is thinking some of the exact same stuff I've been thinking about but we've never talked about it."

I mentioned something about it to her and told her I'd like to see more of her writing, to learn more about the Real Cassie. That year for my birthday she gave me a book of hand copied poems of hers with this inscription in the front:

To My Very Dear Friend
Lauren
{Who expressed the desire
to know the real 'me'}

You can bet that I treasure that book and that I did learn more about her from reading them. I learned that when you read a person's writing you get to see and know a part of them you might have totally missed otherwise. Is it just me or does it sound better to you to read a book because it's written by a dear friend of yours, then to read a letter by someone you will meet someday?

Another thing I've learned about reading the Bible is that if you go to it without an agenda, without the need to search for something in particular, without being driven to deduce or apply whatever principles might be lurking, it can be soothing. Not in a silly, vague, sense but very realistic comfort, like a mother soothing a scared child with a touch of her hand, or a wound being soothed with the right ointment, or being reminded, when it looks like all is lost, that Goodness does prevail. It restores hope and gives courage freely.

The Bible can be returned to again and again not because it's become comfortable or familiar but because it fits, it's right, it's real. In an upside-down world where most things are terribly wrong and even the right things aren't quite as they should be it reminds me that life is bigger than what I see in front of me and God is more active than my feelings tell me.

Day 12, Operation March

2010-03-12T22:30:00.002-06:00

Ezekiel 41-48
Daniel
Psalms for yesterday and today
Proverbs 11-12

Recently I've been thinking about, and by extension talking to God about what He really wants. Is it undying, unwavering, unquestioning trust and faith that will hold to the most extreme tests or is it a relationship? Not that these are mutually exclusive but right now in my life it seems like whenever I invite Him into my life all He says is, "Trust Me."

I do trust Him. In fact, I am willing at this point, to trust Him indefinitely with little or no validation from Him. I'm willing, but I'd really rather not. I believe that He is after an active, real, and present relationship with me, it just doesn't feel like it right now.

Right now it feels like His attitude is, "Our relationship isn't nearly as important as your devotion." Which, frankly, are the words of a jerk. Hence the talking with God about it.

He hasn't responded much to what I've said, and I'm trying not to be annoyed. Today, though, when I read Daniel I noticed that God told Daniel things that were superfluous to their relationship. He didn't stick to what Daniel needed to be obedient. He showed him things in the future, that Daniel couldn't possibly control, influence, or even be affected by.

I got the feeling that God told him just because God was thinking about it and wanted to share what He was seeing and feeling with someone. God's messenger even tells Daniel things like, "As soon as you asked for understanding, the answer was sent. You must really be loved!"

So, I'm thinking that I really shouldn't take my feelings too seriously. God is into relationship, just as I suspected.

Day 9, Operation March

2010-03-10T12:05:00.002-06:00

I spent most of the day traipsing over the farm and therefor only had time to read the daily allotment of Psalms and Proverbs. You would think that since I read only five chapters instead of 70+ I'd have a much better idea of the particulars of what I read. Fact is, I was about to fall asleep so all I remember is that I would love to throw a party like the one Wisdom throws at the beginning of Proverbs 9, and I really liked one of the Psalms and should go read it again. I'm not sure what I liked about it or which one it was.

Day 8, Operation March

2010-03-09T02:00:00.001-06:00

Jeremiah

Today was the first day that I thought I might never convince myself to make it through the book. I don't think this had anything to do with the book I read, I think it was because I went to bed way to late last night and so I was less likely to be excited about doing anything.

Reading The Message version of the Bible makes a big difference. Sometimes it bothers me that the wording and phrases that are so familiar to me aren't in it but for the most part I've really appreciated it. To me it brings the entire Bible back to real life, reminding me that the Israelites weren't some alien race from another moon but rather people exactly like the ones I know.

It also reminds me that God is not Victorian, does not speak in Old English, and does not shy from making your skin crawl when necessary. It's amazing the difference it makes when the Bible is talking about sex for that word to actually be used. (Shocking!) If it weren't the Bible, I don't think my parent's would have let me read such a book.

Speaking of which, the difference between the plight of Israel and America today seems to be only that Americans are too advanced to bow to or name their idols. This is not judgment, only a statement of fact. Some people seem to think that America has reached new heights of sin, as though we have become even worse than God has ever seen. I think not.

As I read the thought keeps reoccurring, how much of my belief in God is really honest belief and how much is due to being taught about Him from a very young age? At first this thought scares me, "Am I falling away from God!?" Then I decide not to be silly, if God is God (and no matter the reason, I am very bad at doubting this) then He cannot be threatened by my questions.

Irrational as it may be, I love it that no matter how many questions surface about what I really believe, I am always asking God for the answers and expecting them from Him. It's like expecting light from the sun. As much as I try to be objective about it, it never works.

Day 7, Operation March

2010-03-08T01:14:00.002-06:00

Today I finished off the minor prophets and Isaiah.

Isaiah
Micah
Nahum
Habakkuk
Zephaniah
Haggai
Zechariah
Malachi

Today as I read my mind seemed to wander even more than usual. I wish that my mind never wandered. I wish that it would at least limit it's wandering to those times when nothing in particular needs paying attention to. Unfortunately, I am only a mortal.

I have accepted the fact that my mind is not perfect and that it does not reflect my heart. Thankfully, the Bible was not written for the perfect, the genius, or even the scholar. It was written for me.

Reading the prophets makes me wonder, exactly how is God unchangeable? How can I rely on such a moody person? Can God be desperate? Does He work so differently with nations than with individuals?

I feel like a friend of mine has suddenly appeared in a vastly different shape and I am forced to ask, "Who are You?" I know that I am not the first to consider splitting God into some sort of cosmic personality disorder: the "God of the Old Testament" and "The God of the New Testament".

Every now and then, it seems like I catch for a second that God's judgment, mercy, love, and holiness do fit together as a seamless whole. Like seeing something out of the corner of my eye but finding it gone before I can turn to focus on it, it never becomes entirely clear.

I've heard all sorts of answers to these thoughts, I've discussed them, probably taught a few of them. In this moment, these questions or worries are not enough to shake the foundation that God has laid in me. He is in control; He is good; I am His. I am content to continue puzzling over the other questions.

I don't want to settle for any answer that doesn't satisfy. For now, I'll stick to "I don't know." If there was such a day when I would finally know everything I would be gravely disappointed. I believe that receiving answers, looking for and looking forward to answers are our divine rights as humans. I expect to enjoy exercising them for eternity.

Operation March: Introduction

2010-03-07T15:54:00.008-06:00

Edit: I wrote this in March after deciding I needed to blog about reading through the Bible in a month to keep me from going crazy along the way. I kept it up for a few days and then it somehow petered out. My apologies. I decided to go ahead and publish the few that I did write; I hope you enjoy them.

A friend of mine inspired me to try to read through the entire Bible in one month. This month. I was rather surprised that this would sound appealing to me but the more I thought about it the more it seemed to be the thing to do.

I have the time, I have been thinking about the Bible and it's role in life, Christianity, and my life in particular, and I believe I have finally matured enough to have a chance at accomplishing a deadline I set for myself.

This morning begins the seventh day and, as further proof that this is God inspired, I am still relatively excited about the idea. The few days before March started, when I was still deciding whether I wanted to go for this and risk making a fool of myself I was already thinking of strategies to help myself make it to the end.

I decided that I'd best get the boring and specially intimidating books out of the way as soon as possible, this mostly included the last three books of the Pentateuch. I would spread the Psalms and Proverbs out so that I'd be reading some of them each day. I'd try to read whole books at a time seeing as I am much more likely to keep reading if I have a book to finish.

I found out that there are 1189 chapters in the Bible and to finish reading all of them in 31 days means I'd have to average about 40 a day. I decided to use The Message as my version of choice because the more I hear of it the more respect I have for it. It was only a few days into it that I realized that it's also the only Bible I currently own that has words big enough to read for a month without going blind before the end.

Thus far I have read:

Genesis
Exodus
Leviticus
Deuteronomy
Joshua
Judges
Ezra
Nehemiah
Lamentations
Hosea
Joel
Amos
Obadiah
Jonah

Reading through them at such a rate is maddening, relieving, and surprisingly enjoyable. It gives me enough to think about that my brain is near exploding but it keeps my thoughts moving so fast that I can't get stuck on one idea. So far, the biggest thing I have come away with is God's shear size. He is delightfully terrifying and totally beyond me. I am humbled in a very non-humiliating way.

As I read certain parts and ideas from my life surface regularly, I often think of a quote I recently heard on TV " . . . in mythical religious books such as the Bible." I have no very strong opinion about this quote. When I consider the absurdity of God, both as recorded in the Bible and as experienced in my own small life, it is no surprise to me that He has been relegated to myth. If you want to look wise, beware of God.

I think of my current plan to apply to Oxford University before the year is out. I believe that I have a good chance of being accepted, or at least that hurdle does not concern me because there is another that seems much bigger. How could it be payed for? As I read, I think that God is big enough, but also that no one can predict Him. I have always wanted adventure but I don't think I bargained for one as big as God.

As I read, my past motives often haunt me. They are little more sinister then Nearly Headless Nick but still a bit annoying. A few years ago, (maybe even months, who knows?) if I had undertaken this plan then it would have been full of conflicted thoughts.

"I would be so proud to read the Bible through in just a month, everyone would be impressed! Is it okay to read the Bible so quickly? It's probably very disrespectful to read the Bible so fast. If I do start, I know I'll never finish, I never finish anything."

Variations of these swim through my head but I have made it my habit to ignore them as much as possible. They are neither here, nor there, nothing more than passing thoughts. It is not my business to deal with any of them.

With fresh revelation of God's sheer size also comes some awkwardness in our relationship. I cannot, yet, ponder for long His vast terribleness and still come quite as boldly to His presence. If our relationship rested on me, this would probably be the time when I repented from elevating myself to the status of His child, fellow heir with Christ. Oddly enough though, I didn't elevate myself to such a position, He did. I am not likely to argue this or any point very animatedly with a God as huge as I suspect He might be.

As I watch God grow in my mind, the questions grow as well. This scares me. Until I realize that He is inviting me to grow with Him.

The Front Lines

2010-01-27T15:08:00.005-06:00

I believe that there are two realms. One is spiritual; we do not often, if ever, see it. One is the physical, which we are all aware of constantly. Both are important and created by God, but only one will last.

As humans, we are the only beings who constantly inhabit both realms. We are spirit beings walking around in bodies. (If this concept is hard for you then you should watch more fantasy.) The physical world derives its importance solely from its connection to the spiritual, largely through us.

There is a war going on in the spiritual realm, fought by spiritual beings. Like most wars, it is fought on many levels, and Biblically, I could point to a few different reasons it is occurring. That's not my goal at the moment.

I am interested, for now, in the ground the war is being fought over, which in fact, is us. We are where the fighting occurs and the prize for the winner. Interestingly, we are also (arguably) the most dangerous force involved.

Biblically, we have been given more power than the angels as sons of God whose spirits are indwelt by His Spirit. Practically, most of us don't have a clue. Those of us who are catching on still have much to learn. We get the idea that our duty in this war is to fear God and obey Him by generally doing good in this world and telling others about Him. These are worthy goals and things that I personally practice, more or less.

Ever since I was little my life goal was to live right in the middle of the most confused and hurting people I could find, build my house at the gates of hell as one poem talks about, and do good and tell people about Jesus. I have always been frustrated that I was stuck in wealthy America, in a house where everyone knew Christ, and only moved in circles where people had heard the truth. If I was willing to be sent to the front lines, why was I being kept on leave?

As I got older, both physically and spiritually, I was allowed to actually have a hand in the fighting here and there. I still dreamt of really being moved to the front lines when orders came to move to my sister's farm, which is, in my estimation, nowhere near the fighting. One day, I watched Hotel Rwanda. Now there was a picture of the front lines, terrifying, heartbreaking, desperate.

I knew that as I sat on my comfy couch entertaining myself with a movie, similar things continue to happen all over the world. My frustrations rose to God with these words, "Why can't I be there for them?"

"You are here for them." His response took me by surprise. Then He explained by putting pieces of the spiritual puzzle together in my mind in a way that I had never seen before. He reminded me that this is a spiritual war and as such is fought with spiritual weapons.

The weapon or power that trumps all others is to know God Himself. This is not just a requirement for fighting, it is the fighting. Doing every day with God is not only a blessed right as a child of His but is also a thing so powerful that it extends through the cosmos. In the spiritual realm, which is more real than the physical, my everyday choice to walk with God affects every person on the planet. The fact that it doesn't look or feel like it to me or them, doesn't change what is.

I'll admit it's not as glamorous as I had hoped for. It requires that I trust my Commander maybe more than I wanted to. It's totally counter intuitive.

On the other hand, who would complain about such power? How can I be upset that while I chafed at losing time to normality, I was actually already wielding the greatest weapon? How can I be disappointed that instead of traveling over the world, my actions have already reverberated to the farthest reaches of the spiritual realm?

I know that I am not the only Christian who has had this same frustration. I hope that this is encouraging. Tell me, does it ring true in your spirit?

Finding a Gift for the One Who Really Has Everything

2010-01-19T13:44:00.003-06:00

This Christmas I had a few "Blinding Flash of the Obvious" moments about Christmas itself. First, it hit me as slightly odd for the first time that no matter how many Christmases go past we are always celebrating baby Jesus. I don't know what your family traditions are, but on my birthdays I have never had someone tell my birth story to everyone present, or even pulled out the photo albums of when I was a baby.

Not that this is good or bad, it just struck me as slightly odd. For me, this yearly celebration of a baby had helped me forget that I was in fact celebrating a person that I know. So, this year, I asked Him what He wanted for Christmas.

I know, He kinda owns the universe and all, but He also lets us give Him stuff periodically. Kind of like when Mom used to give us kids money (that Dad earned) so we could buy something for Dad. I kept my eyes open to hearing the answer as Christmas came and went. (Yes, I can hear with my eyes.)

A few days after Christmas, I was telling Cassie about how I was suddenly going to the Passion conference. A few months ago, I wasn't even interested but now I was very excited about an opportunity that God had practically forced on me. Cassie made a comment about how God was probably looking forward to that time of me worshiping Him too and I smiled about how refreshing her perspective is.

Later, God reminded me of what Cassie said. "Remember what you asked Me about Christmas? This is it."
"What is 'it' God?"
"You at the conference, that's what I want for Christmas."
"But that's cheating! You can't give me a gift for Christmas and then say that I gave it to You!"
I have never seen God's face but I know, somehow, when He talks to me what expression He is making. At this point He shrugged His shoulders and grinned and said, "You asked what I wanted for Christmas and that's what I wanted so I got it."

In spite of the complexities of giving gifts to God, it was special to be a part of His Christmas.

Why Read the Bible?

2010-01-14T13:12:00.002-06:00

You may have noticed my status update asking about Bible reading, or you may be one of those unfortunate souls who I have already asked you way too many questions about it in person or spent forever giving you background information. None the less, if you are a part of the body of Christ, and have some honest thoughts on the subject, I am dying to hear them. Here's the deal:

I spent a large portion of my growing up years trying to make a habit of reading the Bible and mostly failing miserably. I never thought too much about why I should read it, but looking back my motives ranged from ridiculous pride to defeating guilt.

I read the Bible because I didn't think God would really be inclined to hang out with me the rest of the day if I didn't read the Bible first. I read the Bible because I thought it was my only chance to maybe actually hear from and communicate with God. I read the Bible because I really wanted to remember all the things that I was supposed to be doing to keep God from being disappointed in me.

If you use your imagination, you can probably figure out that when I did get around to reading the Bible even the kindest loving verses were guilt inducers for me (God loves me that much and I can't even save15 minutes of my day just for Him?) and the rest terrified and confused me.

I came away with interpretations like this:
"I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me." Philippians 4:13
There is no excuse for my failure. It's my fault that I'm not trusting Christ enough. God expects me to be capable.
or
"If you love me, you will keep my commandments." John 14:15
How can I say that I love God when I fail again and again? I want to love God. If only I could figure out how to love Him enough to keep His commandments.

If you are depressed by this method of interpreting the Bible, you should be. You don't know the half of it unless you've used this method yourself for over 10 years. If you're thinking I should probably get psychiatric help you're probably right. But that was then, what about now?

Now, God has re-written me from the inside out and re-started our relationship from square one. Now, I know that above all, God is good, He is in control and that He pours out grace upon grace. That He actually enjoys me, and that He is kind towards me.

BUT (and it's a big but)
I still don't know how to read the Bible through this new understanding of God.

For a long time, over a year, I left off trying to read the Bible on some sort of regular schedule. In fact, God told me to. This did not mean that I swore off having anything to do with the Bible ever again. Around the time that God told me to quit worrying about reading it every day, I had to teach a short devotional every day and therefore spent more time in the Bible then ever before.

He has already taken many verses, often one at a time, and re-programmed them in my mind. For instance the two I've already mentioned.
Philippians 4:13 no longer condemns me. Instead it brings me joy to realize that without Christ I am perfectly incapable, unless He does it, it will not be done. It leads me to a joyful complete trust instead of a cringing and hopeless repentance. God knows that I am incapable and He is not concerned by it, Christ is capable in me.

John 14:15 is in fact a promise. God has placed the heart of Jesus in me, which absolutely adores the Father and desires above all else to obey His commandments. I am no longer constantly fighting an uphill battle to do the opposite of what feels good to me (sin). My way is smooth and the road is straight, obedience is my only desire.

So, the other day, it was suddenly time to pick up my Bible again, but as I picked it up God brought all these questions to my mind.

Why did God write and preserve this book for so many centuries?
Why is it in my hands?
What am I to look for as I read it?
What am I to do with all the questions that surface as I read?
Why is it so important to keep reading this book?

I'm not asking these questions as a challenge, or in defiance. As I said before, I believe that God brought them up because He wants me to wrestle with them. There is nothing I love more than asking questions of God because I know a really good answer is coming. Maybe He's already given you the answers. Maybe He wants you to give them to me. Maybe He's inviting you to wrestle with the same questions.

Divine Coach

2009-12-12T19:25:00.003-06:00

I've never considered my self a sports person, so I was surprised when I realized that what I really want right now is a coach. Someone to coach me through the maze of my health. Who knows what is going on, can point me in the direction I need to go and is capable of planning to get me steadily from point A to point B. Someone who recognizes my limits but knows when to push me harder.

And why stop with health? Why not keep wishing? Why not wish for a life coach? Someone who knows where I want to go (the stars) believes I can get there (even when I don't) and knows what steps to take. Someone who can instill my every action with purpose because it's all part of the plan to reach the goal. Someone who can inspire me when I'm down and can set the bar just a little higher when I'm feeling confident. Someone who can praise me when I do well and correct me when I'm wrong. Someone who sees me more clearly than I can see myself and will do anything to help me succeed from the inside out.

(If you are interested in this job offer, call me. You also need to live in my area and be willing to work for no pay.)

As I began to put words to this desire a growing conviction started rising within me. "God is all I get. Some stranger is not going to knock on my door tomorrow offering to babysit me through life, I'll have to make do with God." I was actually disappointed. Don't laugh too hard, I know you've done the same thing. I didn't really want God, I wanted a coach. I didn't really want God as a coach either, I wanted a human that currently walks the earth.

I knew it was silly, but I also knew it was honest. So I told God that I didn't want Him, got over it, and started planning with my new Coach. I started thinking about what it would look like for God to be Coach. I figured out pretty quickly that He probably wouldn't let me dictate my life goals to Him so I asked Him what our goal would be.

Goal: To know and experience that I (God) can be whomever and whatever I want to be in you.

Close on the heels of the goal came this statement,
Fact: Your flaws are not big enough to stop Me.

This may sound nice and spiritual to you, but I get very nervous when God starts using all inclusive wording such as "whomever" and "whatever". I know that He has carefully considered the boundlessness of this wording and means it in its entirety. I get the feeling of falling into deep space when I try to imagine what these words might or could include.

I want God to only be in me things that look and feel nice. Things that large portions of the world, both secular and Christian can respect. More importantly, I want God to be in me someone who makes me feel reasonably proud of myself. Normal is not good enough. I want Him to be astounding in me. Less than normal, by my measurement is not okay for God to choose.

Oh, well. I did know better than to argue with the goal. At the same time that it scared me, it also sounded pretty good. To know God better, to trust Him even more, to let go of fear, it does sound like a challenging adventure.

For God to be my Coach He had to have a plan and I had to follow it, but I knew that He wasn't going to give me a detailed daily schedule. So we agreed that I will head for the goals I already have, including health, schooling, and work, while keeping in mind the real goal. God, as Coach, will guide me in the way that He always has, I trust Him and step with confidence. He doesn't write up a plan with steps to follow, He lays the next step in front of my feet.

So, the actions of my days have not changed much, if at all. But fear that I might be heading in the wrong direction has left. The feeling of being alone among decisions that were too big for me, has left. The feeling that I am wasting my time one precious moment after another, is gone. I am no longer traversing crazy, random, daily days hoping that I make the right decision for my time. Every decision I make is His responsibility. He is a good Coach and He will do anything to see me reach the goal.

Faithy Waithy Stuff

2009-10-14T14:34:00.004-05:00

I don't actually want to tell you what's going on with me because it doesn't travel in a straight line. It's kind of like what Doctor Who says about time, "People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but, actually, from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint - it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly... time-y wimey... stuff."

Except just put 'faith' in where 'time' is now. Like this, "People assume that faith is a strict progression of cause to effect, but, actually, from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint - it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly... faith-y waithy... stuff." And it gets kind of embarrassing when you go trying to explain it.

For instance, I'm taking the ACT this December, hoping to get a 32 or better. So far, so good. But to explain why . . . it's because I want to go to Oxford and study Chinese in their Oriental Studies program. I chose Oxford because it sounded cool to me, and even crazier, I think God meant it to sound cool to me. Yep, that is my faith reason. It sounds cool.

All I know about Oxford is that they require an ACT grade of over 32 plus 3 SAT II tests just to be considered, that the school is in England, it's very pricey, and it's very rigorous. When I tried to reason with myself that this was a very big decision to make on a whim, I'm pretty sure that I heard God say, "Nah, not really. You should go for it." God often gets in the way of me making mature decisions.

I wonder if those heroes of the faith we hear from in the Bible didn't actually hear God speak in straight forward and impressive King James English. I wonder if David didn't go to kill Goliath because he thought it might be cool, and when his lack of good sense flag went up, God put it down with a, "Well, I think you should go for it." Not a command, just a friendly suggestion you know, from . . . God.

The thing about hearing God speak is that you can only count on the words you actually hear. You cannot imply anything into the actual words He spoke. I'm not saying lightning will strike if you do, I'm just saying not to jump to conclusions. So, I'm aiming for Oxford on a word from God which I quote as, "You should go for it." Notice this leaves out anything about making it, or any promise of the future at all. All it really gives me is something to do today.

Why does Faithy Waithy Stuff always come back to waiting and trusting and just living through today? I've very nearly decided that waiting is so hard because it involves time, and humans weren't made for time, they were made for eternity. Even a patient person, I think, has just learned to swallow their impatience down again and again, they never really get rid of it. I won't argue this idea, it just makes me feel a hair better about being impatient.

Faithy Waithy Stuff does not ever make the doer look impressive unless you are reading the entire story, with footnotes from God, in the Bible, with rose colored "these words are straight from God" glasses on. In other words, you and I don't have a chance of looking impressive. If it left off at 'not looking impressive' I might be okay with it. But it doesn't, it passes that and goes right into 'looks like a crazy daft idiot'. Often feels like one too for good measure.

Oxford isn't even the first half of what is actually going on in my life, that's just the most easily explainable. Every day I get up at a ridiculously and embarrassingly late hour, as in from 11 to 1, with half of my day already gone. I'm starving, but I hate to eat because eating after I wake up makes me feel bad. After that, there is no guarantee to how my day will go. I might go out and help Ellen, more often lately I stay inside, I might watch movies on Netflix, knit, read, wander around facebook, study Algebra, make a meal, make my bed. I might feel okay, I might feel terrible, I might not know if I'm feeling fine and being lazy, I might not notice that the real problem is I can't think clearly enough to make basic decisions.

That's actually a life changing revelation that recently occurred to me, I don't think clearly enough to make basic decisions. Which in some strange way, has helped me think more clearly. It's like I'm out of touch with reality unless I'm writing or talking to a person. My thoughts wander incredibly, and seldom come to a conclusion. Yeah, I might be going crazy, or I might be coming out of it.

The point is that I am not in control of my life, and I can't explain it to anyone, even myself. What is strange is that I am one of the most content people I know. I know that I'm supposed to be at Sloans Creek Farm, I know that not being in control of my life is okay, I know that not understanding is okay. More than any of that I know that this strange, apparently haphazard, life of mine is literally overflowing with meaning and purpose.

It reminds me of the items that Michael Jennings sends himself in the movie Paycheck. They appear worthless, but when the time comes, they are just what he needs. Why is it that we love to see the ignored or underestimated triumph, whether a paper clip or a human? That's how God works I think, apparently worthless days linked together, circumstances and happenings that we don't understand, don't like or don't even notice, all turn out to be exactly what we needed.

For some reason, this makes me smile, not a nice sweet smile but an "I can't wait to watch this explode" smile and enjoy the boring dailiness of life as the biggest and most complex disguise ever created. The Faithy Waithy Stuff is pretty neat, even if I do sometimes crave a boring straight line.

Birthday Well Wishers Get Their Wish

2009-09-13T22:37:00.004-05:00

So many people wished me a happy birthday that I thought I might share with my well wishers exactly what kind of a happy day I had.

My birthday really started one day early with a box in the mail from a dear friend. This box contained nice roving and one handmade, particularly pretty, green scarf. Well, I was off to a good start.

The next morning I woke with plans to finish painting my room. It just so happened that my birthday this year was on a Friday, which also happens to be one of the busiest and most stressful days on the farm. We spend Friday making sure that everything is ready for farmers market on Saturday. After I had an amazing country breakfast, that Nathan made, Ellen asked me if I would help her move some cows before I started painting. No problem.

We then spent the morning traipsing over various pastures, rearranging various herds. There was a sick calf that was lost in prairie grass as tall as we were so we spent a while half-heartedly searching for it. When we finally gave up and decided to get back to the house, we found it in the wrong pasture. As soon as it saw us moving towards it, it went even farther in the wrong direction all the time hacking and coughing but moving pretty quickly none the less. So, after about a half hour of careful maneuvering we finally got the calf up to the house to be treated. So ended my eventful morning.

After lunch and a quick nap I finally got to paint while listening to an audio version of Prince Caspian. My painting was interrupted by a birthday call from my oldest sister which was interrupted by the advent of a familiar but unexpected green car. After becoming rather confused and hurriedly being let off the phone by my oldest sister (poor dear) I ran out the door to find that Gracie and Cassie had both surprised me with a visit. I was ceremoniously sprayed with my own silly string while babbling incoherently about only God knows what.

Apparently, Ellen was in on the whole thing and she invited us to come with her and Nathan on an errand to Dallas with supper as part of the deal. She also mildly berated me for having my birthday on a Friday because she felt that she was too busy to do it justice. She was much more concerned with the well being of my birthday than I was. As Gracie noted, "Somebody's got to be concerned with it."

Supper was Italian and the Tirimisu was great. It was suggested numerous times that I should use my new liberty to buy and drink alcohol legally but we never got around to it. I was personally thinking about a few months ago when it would have been nice to be old enough for rental car agencies to recognize me as an adult.

I received three good books from Cassie and Gracie. I hadn't gotten books for my birthday for a few years and look forward to enjoying these.

I had requested pumpkin pie (from the home grown, all organic pumpkin that Ellen and Nathan were very proud of) but there wasn't time in the busy day. Which meant that my birthday got stretched to Saturday as well. God gave me the birthday gift of a rainy Saturday, which meant no farmers market and no getting up early.

We enjoyed a very nutritious breakfast of pumpkin pie and whipped cream. Unfortunately, we put the candles in a little too soon and they melted so fast from the wrong end that we barely had time to light them and blow them out before they were nothing but soggy wicks. Then, we had to figure out how to remove the unusually large amounts of still hot wax from the pie. It ended up being a holey pie.

I am blessed. As I consider how grateful I am, I can't help but add that the only thing that could have made my birthday better was to see you all. People that, as a general rule treasure me, but as a definite rule people whom I treasure. I know it sounds cliche. My only defense is, cliches become cliches only because so many people identify with them.

Joy Revisited

2009-09-06T21:51:00.007-05:00

For some months now, I have felt rather odd when I have had the chance to interact with people who are hurting because of life. I usually welcome these interactions because I understand and I have hope from my own experience to offer. Lately, I have felt as though I had lost my right to say that I understand.

Life is still . . . unpredictable. There are still painful situations that I wake up to every day, all is definitely not right in the world. Yet, it all seems inexplicably okay and suffering seems to be unrealistically absent in my life right now. Not just a dull detached 'okay,' but a rich often delightful 'okay.'

I was trying to explain this, and my confusion because of it, to a friend who was being crushed by the weight of her own life problems. She surprised me by saying that I should encourage others with this. How could it be encouraging to a suffering person to tell them that my life is very enjoyable right now? I was still trying to excuse it as some kind of weird and embarrassing anomaly. Then I remembered my post from December of last year.

I wrote about joy. I had found that it was not a luxury but a necessity and I accepted if from God by faith, in the face of contrary feelings. Could it be that this strange 'okayness' in my life was a direct result of that acceptance of joy?

I am still not entirely convinced. I still feel a strong urge to apologize to the world for not currently being in pain of some sort. But it does cause me to wonder, why don't we think of joy as a practical gift of God? Why do we never hear sermons on the necessity of it? Why do we still believe that joy can only exist when our circumstances line up favorably?

Nehemiah 8:10 says, " . . . the joy of the Lord is your strength." Being sick and experiencing physical weakness has made me realize that strength is not a vain desire but a necessity for life. My mind kept wanting to tie this in with the armor of God in Ephesians. I think I finally found a viable connection.

Armor is useless on a person without strength, not only useless but incapacitating. Joy is necessary. If you are living without it you are only barely surviving. I don't know what joy is exactly, I suspect that it is an unexplainable mystery.

I am particularly interested in your thoughts about joy. Have you thought much about it? Have you heard much about it? Have you experienced it? Do you consider it fleeting or lasting? What is your general understanding of it? Has God brought it to your attention? If so, what came of it? How do you think it is related to emotions, circumstances, and faith?

Thank God, I don't have to understand His gifts to accept them, experience them and live in them.

To Be a Friend

2009-05-05T19:06:00.002-05:00

Why can I not always be there for my friends? Am I doomed to fail as a friend? What is a good friend? Am I afraid to trust people? What is God doing? Is He using me in my friend’s lives to prove that you cannot rely on people? Why do my actions not follow my intentions? I need to try harder. I cannot try harder, I have tried that before. What is holding me back? My immaturity? God? Or just human limitations?

I know that God is in control. I know that I am letting my friends down, people that I love. I know that God is using me, but He uses Satan too. Yep, that is exactly how I feel: Used. Am I supposed to be grateful for being used to disillusion people that try to trust me?

All these thoughts have been churning in my mind the past three months. I talked to God about it. I knew He was up to something. He did not give any definite answers. Every now and then, I thought He might have but the more I grasped at it the less stable it became. Waiting again . . . I was frustrated. Some people have said that I am a patient person but I have noticed it is only the ones who have not spent much time around me. God just kept churning, until the real question solidified and came to the top like fresh butter still floating in cream.

The real question was this, “Can I trust God?” I really thought that this question was all settled. My goodness! It has been asked and answered often enough. Thank God that He really is patient; He never gets tired of answering this question. I begin to think that He brings it up and presses it out of me because He actually enjoys answering it. In fact, I know that the question originates in Him, “Lauren, did you know that you can trust Me in this situation?”

When He pressed me to admit that I felt used, as in “used and abused”, He immediately responded, “I no longer call you servants but friends, for a servant knows not what his master is doing.” In case you were wondering, I was not comforted by this at all. I replied to this divine revelation with the all encompassing, “Whatever.”

So God kept churning. I wonder what the rest of that verse says. Does that imply that I know what He is doing? Yeah, I know what He is doing; He is using me to make my family and friend’s lives miserable. “I no longer call you servants . . .” I wonder what the rest of that verse says . . . what is the context . . . has God really told me what He is doing?

John 15:15 “No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.” This is when Jesus is pouring His heart out to His disciples, He talks about abiding “I in you, you in Me, I in the Father . . .” He talks about loving each other, He talks about the Holy Spirit. So what are You doing? “I am making them one with me. I am making you one with me. I am glorifying the Father, you are glorifying the Father. I do all things well.” Hmm. So, You are using me to . . . “I didn’t say how I was using you, I said that I told you what I am doing.” Oh! I am not to focus on how You are using me, whether it is good or bad, or even whether You are using me. I am to focus on what I know You to be doing in my life and in other’s lives. You do all things well.

Just for the record, where does that leave me as a friend? I cannot be the friend I thought that I could be. What do You say a good friend is?

“A good friend knows Me.”

Joy Accepted

2008-12-11T09:47:00.004-06:00

Last Thursday night I did not sleep well. I went to bed around 1:00 a.m. and did not go to sleep till closer to 2:00 and then woke up at 7:30 and could not go back to sleep. This is a bigger deal than it might at first seem. I usually need 10 hrs of sleep and if I don't get them, then I have no energy for the next day.

I was hoping that I could survive the morning and be tired enough to take a nap, but no such luck. The entire day I had about as much energy as when you are trying to get over a cold. It was a hard day.

If it was just a cold then I probably wouldn't be writing about it, but try to imagine what it would be like, not to have a cold for an entire year, but to have a new cold every three days for a year. You're just pulling out of the old one, you're thinking about everything you want to get done now that you're getting better and WHAM! . . . you feel bad again.

After a while you buy into a couple of new fears, ones you thought you would never experience. Fears like, "If I go there I might catch a cold again; I think I'll stay home." "I would plan on that but I just don't know if I'll be feeling well enough to do it." "What if I think that I'm better and I go do too much and have to go through this all again?"

I know it sounds pitiful but this is a good sampling of what I've struggled with. Not often given in to, thank God, but definitely struggled with.

So, on Friday, I was feeling very down both physically and emotionally. I actually recovered from the loss of sleep pretty quickly; By Saturday, I was doing well again. My emotions did not bounce back as quickly. In fact they went from feeling down to feeling depressed.

I hate to use the word depressed, it sounds way too serious, but that is what I was. I was not feeling sorry for myself, I didn't have a bad attitude, my heart just seemed so heavy that there was a literal tightening in my chest.

I wondered if I should set aside time to talk to God about it, but I couldn't think of anything to talk about. I wasn't focused on something besides God. So, I waited it out. I was open to what God might be doing, but also trying not to take myself too seriously.

Sunday morning I wrote 'Peace Found', but Sunday evening I finally admitted to myself that I was depressed. Then I began to wonder, "Was I fooling myself about finding peace? Was I just trying to be spiritual to impress others?" The answers were a resounding "NO." I did have peace; I found peace and I still had peace.

I started trying to explain what was going on in my heart to a friend. As I explained it to her, it began to make more sense to me. The best way I could describe it was stored mourning. It seemed like everything emotional that had gone on in my life and in my heart the past few months had just built up. Now it was demanding attention when all the reasons to mourn appeared to be old.

I told her I wished I could just cry but I couldn't. Then, God gave me my wish. I started to laugh at something and my deep emotions caught a ride on the tail of my surface emotion. I cried, and cried, and cried.

Of course I was analyzing myself the whole time I was bawling my heart out. "Why am I crying? There is nothing to cry about. Get a grip on yourself. You're just having a pity party." But none of it was true.

The truth was there was a lot to cry about. I cried for the pain in my family. I cried for my own pain of being sick. I cried for the Christians who are getting slaughtered in India. I cried for a girl I know who is determined to try everything but God to soothe the ache in her heart. I cried because the pain of these things is real.

When I was done crying the quietness came that usually follows tears. Then I went to God, "Lord, I have peace, but I have pain, too. I have peace but I don't have joy." The thought came that I just wanted joy because it feels good. Then I thought of Nehemiah 8:10 " . . . the joy of the Lord is your strength." and Galatians 5:22 "The fruit of the Spirit is . . . joy." God said that I needed joy.

"Lord, how do I get joy?"
"How did you get any of the other gifts I gave you?"
"By faith; I accepted them. Lord, I accept joy."

I didn't feel any more joyful, but I've learned not to be worried when my feelings don't line up with God's word. These past days joy has been poured upon me.

I worried momentarily that I only had joy because my circumstances were more enjoyable, but if I had faith to accept joy when I didn't feel it, why should I not have faith that I received the true gift when I do feel it? Feelings come and feelings go, but I have accepted joy.

Peace Found

2008-12-07T15:48:00.003-06:00

God spoke to me today. I didn't really like what He had to say but I always love the sound of His voice.

Someone was teaching about responding to God's call. How do we respond? Do we try to shirk it? Do we grudgingly accept it? Do we thank Him for it? Do we run from it?
So I started talking to God.

"Well, let's see. You called me to be a missionary and I thanked you for it. Man, I can't wait. You told me to buy a spinning wheel, I was a little less sure and enthusiastic but I did it and now I'm enjoying it. Can't wait to see what that's all about either."

"What about being sick?"

"Yeah, what about it?"

"How are you going to respond to that calling?"

"You called me to be sick? To be lonely? To feel worthless? To not be able to serve you? To barely escape 24/7 crankiness? To be a burden on my family?"

No answer. Just that feeling that He was looking at me and we both knew an answer wasn't needed.

"You did, didn't you? Okay, I accept Your calling on my life."

It wasn't grudgingly, I didn't thank Him for it. I just accepted it. I'll probably have to accept it again tomorrow. It reminded me of the last line in this poem by Amy Carmichael.

In Acceptance Lieth Peace
He said, "I will forget the dying faces;
The empty places,
They shall be filled again.
O voices moaning deep within me, cease.
"But vain the word; vain, vain:
Not in forgetting lieth peace.

He said, "I will crowd action upon action
The strife of faction
Shall stir me and sustain;
O tears that drown the fire of Manhood cease.
"But vain the word; vain, vain:
Not in endeavor lieth peace.

He said, "I will withdraw me and be quiet,
Why meddle in life's riot?
Shut be my door to pain.
Desire, thou dost befool me, thou shalt cease.
"But vain the word; vain, vain:
Not in aloofness lieth peace.

He said, "I will submit;I am defeated.
God hath depleted
My life of its rich gain.
O futile murmuring, why will ye not cease?
"But vain the word; vain, vain:
Not in submission lieth peace.

He said, "I will accept the breaking sorrow
Which God to-morrow
Will to His son explain.
"Then did the turmoil deep within him cease.
Not vain the word, not vain.
For in Acceptance lieth peace."
~Amy Carmichael

The Beginning of Wisdom

2008-11-03T23:44:00.003-06:00

Proverbs 1:7 says, "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom . . ."

I have been unintentionally pondering this verse for a while now. It just seems to come up repeatedly. I don't know if my few faithful readers have caught on yet, but I have met with the grace of God in a life transforming way. I had always heard of the grace of God but I somehow only experienced or understood His judgment.

If you don't know me very well, and you listen to some of the things I say, you might get the idea that I believe that we should sin that grace may abound. I don't. If I remember rightly that verse concludes with, "God forbid!"

It is true that I no longer focus on sin or perhaps put much stock in it at all. What I mean is that my sin, as well as any thing I might be proud of, dims to very nearly nothing when I am focused on God.

Was the thief on the cross not being repentant enough because he had the boldness to ask Jesus to remember him? No, he wasn't focused on his sin at all. He was well aware of it, I think to be hanging on a cross you would have to be well aware of what got you there, but he was even more aware of who Jesus was.

But now I'm starting to get into deep water. Which brings me back to the verse I started with.

"The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom . . ."

I think that sometimes we Christians interpret this verse to say, "The fear of the Lord is wisdom." It isn't. If we are always stuck fearing God then the gospel wouldn't be as good a message as it is. But, if we do not have this foundation to wisdom we have nothing to build on.

Why was a revelation of God's grace so life changing for me? Because I was well schooled in the beginning of wisdom.

To many are afraid of the message of God's grace, afraid that we will forget that He is holy, righteous, and cannot tolerate sin. That we will no longer desire to be holy ourselves. That we will abuse freedom.

The truth is that grace is only grace if we first understand the law. Freedom is only understood when we have felt the bondage of sin. The love of God is even more precious and revered when we understand His anger against sin. These things go together. The fear of God should not be taught without grace to quickly follow it up. But grace isn't grace unless we recognize our peril.

If the fear of God is the foundation for our relationship with Him then He will build to staggering heights. If we insist that He continue to build with fear, then we will be stuck with a very sturdy concrete slab.

Skipping Tracks

2008-11-02T13:15:00.006-06:00

I sat down to post a profound article. The only problem is that my brain is skipping tracks like an old CD player right now.

Track 1 Captives
I see people's pain. Like a person who is good in any field of work or interest recognizes another person who understands the same thing, I recognize people in pain. People who's hearts are broken, bitter, lost, confused. Funny thing is, the people who are in pain don't admit that there is anything else. They are captives who have never heard of freedom.

Track 2 Captivity
Just because someone is capable of giving freedom doesn't ensure the captives get set free. The captives first have to realize that they are captive, that there is something more. Second they have to be willing to walk out of the cage. I don't think there is anything more frustrating and heartbreaking than a captive who is afraid of freedom.

Track 3 A Glimpse of Freedom
God is a person who wants a relationship with us. We've all heard that before, but what does it mean? Think of the good relationships that you have. (Hopefully you have a few, they seem to be rare.) How did they happen? What are they comprised of? Relationship can only happen if two people are willing for the other to know them. The only way to know anyone is to be with them, experience life with them and speak/communicate with them. If you don't believe that God wants to communicate with you on a relationship level it's going to be real hard to get to know Him.

Which more or less brings me back to Track 1

I'm not sure why I'm posting the skipping tracks of my brain, but there they are for the rest of you who need some new tracks to skip on.

My Comforter

2008-10-03T21:29:00.007-05:00

I just read a friend's post about God's severe mercy. I think we can all identify with 'severe mercy'. Why doesn't God ever work in a way that we expect, in a way that we understand? It all sounded too familiar and what I've been learning started to come together in an almost cohesive form. I'll start with a few excerpts from my journal.

September 21st, 2008
. . . I feel like life is to much to handle. I heard someone teaching that the idea that You never give us more than we can handle is a lie. I'm inclined to believe him. You're goal isn't for me to handle it, but to surrender, give it up, quit. Ah! How I hate to be a quitter! It isn't being a quitter to leave off a bad habit. I guess handling life is a bad habit.

I don't feel as though I've been trying to handle it. Have I? Have I been trying to deny the pain again? I suppose so. It is so 'normal' to be in pain. I can't be crying every day. . .

September 29th, 2008
. . . My heart is so dull. I try to think of something that would ease the pain but there isn't anything. Mom just suggested that I ask for a word from You, but I know better. You give words when You want to and just because I'm in pain doesn't mean that You will. So, I don't ask, because a denial would be worse than not asking. I can't take any more hope deferred.

That sounds so wrong. Am I bitter at You? I know that You are my comforter. Why am I not comforted? Or, do I take Your comfort for granted because it never goes away? What am I to do with my pain? I wish I could take it off like a heavy coat in fine weather.

Now I must qualify these excerpts. They are small blurbs that I chose to make my point. I don't live in the depths of despair, though I do usually journal somewhere near there. The pain that I mention in these is not physical. If you are living right now, I think you'll be able to identify in some measure. Life hurts.

In the excerpt where I wrote about being comforted and a word from God I felt as though even God couldn't say anything that I didn't already know. I didn't believe that He would or could give me comfort in that moment.

After these depressing outpourings I went and read some Psalms. (When I was little, I couldn't stand the Psalms. David is always in the depths of despair or in the heights of joy, often both in the same Psalm. I just wrote them off as dramatic and sappy. Be careful what you judge.) I was comforted. I can't tell you how. I can't say that I got a word from God. No particular verse seemed to apply, nothing even noteworthy.

When the day first got quiet enough for the pain to come to the foreground I had many options. I could have watched a movie, read a book, got on a computer, talked to a someone. These are all things that I have done in the past. The former few make me forget the pain for a little longer; God has used people to comfort me in the past. This time though, He called me to Himself.

First I was honest; I used to call it whining but God told me it was honesty. As I did, He started to speak to me. The phrase, "quitting a bad habit isn't being a quitter" the place where I say, "That sounds wrong" those weren't my ideas. Then, I didn't have anything else to say and He didn't seem to be saying anything either, so I went to the Bible.

As I read He kept using little phrases or words to make me think of things, that reminded me of things, that reminded me of Him. He redirected my focus when I couldn't see anything but pain.

Because of this, I go to God quicker and my expectations are healed. I no longer fear more crushed hope from the only one who can revive my hope. My heart now believes, as my head has for a long time, that when I come to God my needs will be filled. So what if I can't explain how? I no longer fear that He might not speak to me. I'm okay if He doesn't. He is satisfying. I will have to return again, but who ever complained that an enjoyable experience had to be repeated?

I hope this gives you as much hope as it does me.

In Me

2008-09-14T21:57:00.002-05:00

"All believers say in a general way 'God is Almighty', 'God can do this or that'. Only one in a thousand says, 'God is almighty in me' and 'God will do so and so through me'. Here lay the essence of Moses' controversy with God at the burning bush. God was saying, 'Come now, I will send thee, and thou wilt deliver My people'. Moses was replying, 'I believe You can and will do it, but not through me'. God's almightiness was not the point in question. It was Moses' appropriation and obedience of faith that hung in the balance. Thus when Moses did set forth to carry out the commission, the Holy Spirit rightly says it was done 'by faith'. The same difference in the quality of believing makes the dividing line between Elijah and the other 7,000 true believers who had not bowed the knee to Baal, and yet who had so little influence on the lives of their generation that Elijah did not know of their existence."

-Norman Grubb
Touching the Invisible

Being

2008-08-12T17:39:00.006-05:00

I have been thinking a lot lately (surprising isn't it) about being. It seems like God's answer to all my questions lately are about being. What is it about us Human Beings that being is so foreign to us?

I saw a piece of flair that had a picture of a salt shaker and a light bulb with the statement, "Be these." It got me to thinking that I have always been puzzled as to what to do so that I am the salt of the earth and the light in the darkness. But, of course, it doesn't say do these, it says be these. I think this is just one instance of many that Christians in general don't understand. Here is the actual verse:

"You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men." Matthew 5:13

"You are the salt of the earth . . ." Not, "You are becoming . . ." or "Strive to act more like . . ." you either are salt or you're tasteless.

"You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden; nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. "Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven. " Matthew 5:14-16

Again, you are. You are the light of the world, you are a city set on a hill, don't think that you can hide. He has lit His light in us and set us on a lampstand, we do give light to the whole house. So, let your light shine.

You may be thinking, "Yes, I've always known that, so what is your point?" But this is very important to me because I have not always known it. Of course I've always read that verse, probably heard it preached on, but I was always wondering how to become light, or how to become salt. In short, I wondered what God expected of me and why He wouldn't come out and say it.

If I sound like I'm repeating the same old thinking in every post it's because I am. I keep posting about the different areas that a totally new way of thinking have changed for me, on the faith that there is nothing new under the sun and I'm not the only person who has ever thought this way.

I now realize that these verses are not commands, they are blessings. Jesus is not telling me something to do, He is telling me who I am. I am not the dirt of the earth, I am the flavorful and (at that time) expensive salt of the earth.

Of course, being does culminate in acting. But, please get the being first.

Measuring Suffering

2008-06-05T13:49:00.013-05:00

Today I was talking to God about a situation I don't like. Here are the facts:
1) I have very low energy 99% of the time.
2) I can't do much
3) I can't plan much because I probably won't be able to do it when it comes time to follow through on my plans.

If you have any imagination you can understand how frustrating this is, not just for me but for my family and anyone else who might be counting on me. Today I had to turn down another opportunity that I really wanted to accept, and it broke my heart. That may sound dramatic, but it was really the straw that broke the camel's back. I didn't fall into a puddle of tears, but I did go tell God what I thought about it.

I told Him that I wanted to be where He wanted me to be even if it meant in weakness and uncertainty. I told Him that I didn't like it, I really don't like it, but I want what He wants. Then He started talking to me about comparing suffering.

This is not the first situation that I have been in that I didn't like. But, not liking something sounds so petty, even selfish. I kept telling myself that it's really not that bad, that I should be grateful, that I should quit feeling sorry for myself. All of this is true, but it's only half of the story. The other half of the story is that my not liking it isn't sin, in fact what I'm going through is suffering.

"Suffering is having something you don't want,

or wanting something you don't have."

~Elizabeth Elliot

Can this be true? Suffering must be more complex. Surely, true suffering is more noble.

We are only human. When we stub our toe we call it pain. When a body is racked with cancer we call it pain. Greater pain and lesser pain we all agree, but pain none the less.

Another interesting fact about pain and suffering: they can only be measured by yourself in yourself. Only you can say that one pain is greater than another for you. No one else has felt what you feel. No one else can know like you do.

We always act as though it can be measured and compared. We measure our pain and suffering by one another. "My not having energy is not as great a suffering as your losing someone you love." True, no doubt. But I was going the next step. "My not having energy is not suffering because your suffering is worse."

Even as I write this it seems to make sense, but I know it is not true. We would not use this logic in any other area. It becomes preposterous.

"My feet aren't even really feet because yours are bigger." or, "Your black paper isn't really black because I have a black wall."
My black paper isn't as big as your black wall, but big or small, black remains black.

Strange as it may seem, when God gave me freedom to call my little problems suffering, my self-pity pretty much left. I am suffering. It is uncomfortable. I don't like it. I know it is for a purpose. I know it brings me closer to God. I know that God is in it. I do have joy.

"But when they measure themselves by one another
and compare themselves with one another,
they are without understanding."

~ II Corinthians 10:12 ESV

Life Preparation 101

2008-04-28T16:45:00.004-05:00

I like to be prepared. I fluctuate between being a person who is over prepared or a person who did not prepare at all. But at my core, I like to be prepared. I also don't like to fail. I dread being put in a situation that I don't feel prepared for because I might fail.

Having been home schooled, I always wonder if I am as prepared as they are. I fluctuate between feeling silly pride that I am better schooled or prepared than the average joe, and abject terror that I am not at all schooled or prepared.

I have been graduated from high school for two years. Still the question looms. Am I prepared? What is being prepared? What am I preparing for? Am I too focused on the future to realize that my life is happening today? I am not in college, I don't know of anything that I want from college. Two years ago, I was terrified of college but I can honestly say that fear is not what kept me from going. I didn't, and don't believe that college is the way God would have me prepare.

In the past two years, I have alternately taken and lead a discipleship course. I have been at home on and off as well. I found out that my being able to sleep twelve to fourteen hours a day is not normal and was on bed rest for a month. My relationship with God has been rebuilt almost from square one. I had a part time job at a horse barn. I found out that I want to own sheep.

So, if college is not the way God lead me to prepare does that mean that the way He has lead me is preparation? I can tell you very specifically what I want to do with my life. Simply put, I want to be a mother to troubled children, but there are many more details that God has given me. He has given me a dream. In America, when you have a dream you make a to-do list of how you are going to accomplish your dream.

My dream is different. My dream is a gift from God, and as a gift He has told me that He will accomplish it. It is a lot like giving someone the picture of the gift you had in mind for them because it is still in the mail. You don't give someone a picture of the 'gift' and then tell them to buy it themselves with their own money.

As I was pondering this I found that it is a very biblical concept, this giving a dream as promise of a future gift. Joseph was told that he would rule over his family and he became a slave and was sent to jail. Moses was groomed to be an Egyptian prince and became a convict and a sheep herder before he became the leader of his nation. David was anointed as king and went right back to doing odd jobs at home.

I don't see anything in these stories that would be recognized as life preparation except by the eyes of faith. I happen to have a pair of Eyes of Faith and they tell me a surprising story. God uses day to day life as preparation. I've had a lot of daily days, and to believe by faith that I am prepared for tomorrow is relieving.

"If God is for us, who [and what] can be against us?" Romans 8:31

The Enemy . . . God's Errand Boy?

2008-04-15T00:26:00.004-05:00

It is common among Christians or those familiar with Christianity to ask the question, "If God has won the battle forever, why is the fighting still going on?" I have spent more than my share of time pondering this question myself. I never came up with a satisfactory answer, I just believed both statements without being able to reconcile them. Lately, I have heard more than one person explain it rather well. So, I'm going to try, using my own words but their concepts.

First, God and Satan are not equal powers duking it out in the sky. God created Satan and keeps him in existence. If at any time God willed that he no longer be in existence *poof* that would be the end of him, no fighting or battle necessary at all.

So why does God allow him to keep hanging around!!!

Because God is the ultimate teacher and He knows humanity. He really knows humanity, with a kind of knowing that we only dream about.

If you think about how children learn perhaps you will catch on to why Satan is necessary. Children learn opposites. If you teach a child the color pink, without teaching it any other color then it will awake to the realization that everything is pink and be quite pleased with its knowledge.

None of our words would mean anything unless they had an opposite. Think about anything, color, temperature, emotions, taste, noises. Try to describe any of it without using the opposite or difference of another thing and you have nothing left. That, in itself, puts Satan and evil in a new perspective.

I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things. (Isaiah 45:7)

As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring about this present result, to preserve many people alive. (Genesis 50:20)

Is it possible that just as Joseph's brothers plotted evil against him while God plotted the same thing for good, that Satan plots evil against us while God plots good? Is it possible that Satan is an unsuspecting tool that God uses to bring us to Himself?

"It doesn't matter, really, how great the pressure is; it only matters where the pressure lies. See that it never comes between you and the Lord--then the greater the pressure, the more it presses you to His breast." -Hudson Taylor

One last thought: The evil, or suffering that God divinely planned for our lives does not press only ourselves closer to God. I believe that as Joseph tells his brothers ". . .to preserve many people alive." So the suffering in our lives serves a dual purpose, to preserve many alive. As is prophecied in Revelations, "They overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb, and because of the word of their testimony. And they did not love their soul until death." (Revelation 12:11)

Just for Fun

2008-04-14T18:10:00.004-05:00

You're the perfect blend of caffeinated coffee and decaf. You're the happy medium between high-intensity focus and spaced-out daydreaming. Maybe you think you're indecisive, because you tend to choose the safe, middle ground in any debate, but other people appreciate your non-confrontational ways. You're easygoing and willing to compromise, so your friendships and relationships probably last a long time.

Always Copied, Never Duplicated

2008-03-26T11:03:00.004-05:00

I saw this phrase on an advertisement a few months ago and it really struck me how this applies to Jesus' life. As Christians, we know that we are called to be like Jesus, but how? It is much more simple in word than in action.

When I first heard that I was supposed to be like Jesus and that He was going to help me, I was quite excited. I reasoned that, in a few years, when I finally became like Jesus then I would be happy. If you have ever tried to be like Jesus for yourself then you are probably laughing at my childishness. We find rather quickly that copying Jesus, although it is a good first step, is not enough. We can never duplicate Him and that is what we are called to do.

I have been reading C. S. Lewis's Mere Christianity and he explains this mystery better than I could. He says, "In one sense, the road back to God is a road of moral effort, of trying harder and harder. But in another sense it is not trying that is ever going to bring us home. All this trying leads up to the vital moment at which you turn to God and say, 'You must do this. I can't.' "

That is the point when we realize that all our copying has not produced duplication. When we do despair of duplicating Christ's life then what recourse is left to us? We must recognize that He is His own Life that is in us. "God willed to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery . . . which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. (Colossians 1:27 NASB)

I turn to C. S. Lewis again: "Handing everything over to Christ does not, of course, mean that you stop trying to do all that He says. . . If you have really handed yourself over to Him, it must follow that you are trying to obey Him. But trying in a new way, a less worried way. Not doing these things in order to be saved, but because He has begun to save you already. Not hoping to get to Heaven as a reward for your actions but inevitably wanting to act in a certain way because a first faint gleam of Heaven is already inside you."

Truly it is an amazing mystery which only God can reveal to us. We can only copy; yet Christ duplicates Himself in us. If you find that what I write seems to be very important but you are not sure that you understand a word of it ask God for understanding. He will explain far more perfectly than I or even C. S. Lewis could. Much of what I read and hear I know that I need to understand but I don't. Most of my writing is not even so much to convince anyone but to think it out myself.

One more quote from Mere Christianity, "The Bible really seems to clinch the matter when it puts the two things together into one amazing sentence. The first half is, 'Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling'--which looks as if everything depended on us and our good actions: but the second half goes on, 'For it is God who worketh in you'--which looks as if God did everything and we nothing. . . I am puzzled but not surprised."

I do encourage you, if you have Mere Christianity in the house to read the second of the chapters entitled Faith. (Yes, two chapters have the same name.) If you do, tell me what you think.

Choices

2008-03-21T17:14:00.005-05:00

I have always been told that I have a choice. Sometimes I didn't like either choice, sometimes the choice was obvious, sometimes I couldn't decide between the two choices, but there was always a choice.

My mother was the first person to make me aware of these choices. She would encourage me with statements like, "I can't make you choose to obey, but I can sure make you want to choose to obey." or "You have two choices: a) Clean your room with a good attitude or b) Get a spanking and then clean your room with a good attitude."

Good or bad, I knew that the choice was up to me. When I got older I was a lot better than some people at making good choices, because of the help my mother gave me in my very early years. Unfortunately, 'a lot better than some people' was not the standard that I was taught to live up to, I knew that only God is the standard.

Choices were getting bigger, more important, and harder. Encouragement was no longer enough. Sometimes I chose to do what was right, sometimes I chose to do what was wrong. When I chose right I was full of pride, when I chose wrong I was full of guilt.

I used to believe that the most important choice was between doing right or wrong. Now, instead of many choices between right and wrong actions, I believe only one choice is necessary. I must choose between believing God or believing a lie. Whom will I believe? Will I believe what I see and experience as reality or what God says is reality?

" But God . . . raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. . ." (Ephesians 2:4-6)
For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. (Colossians 3:3)
For he who has died is freed from sin. (Romans 6:7)
"I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. . ." (Galatians 2:20)
Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. (Galatians 5:24)

If I choose to believe whatever the Truth says, regardless of what I feel or see, will not right and wrong fall into place? Why is wrong attractive? Because we believe the lie that it will satisfy us or make us happy. Choosing to believe God will never lead me to sin but it will bring me back to God quicker if I do sin.

It is much more freeing to say, "I believe you." then it is to say, "I obey you." Used to, I obeyed God because I feared Him, and I said I believed Him because I had to obey Him. Now, I believe God because I trust Him, I obey Him because I believe Him.

The Works of God

2008-03-19T22:17:00.005-05:00

Therefore they said to Him, "What shall we do, so that we may work the works of God?"(John 6:28)

When I understood and believed that Jesus, being the Son of God, died for my sins so that I might have life in heaven I asked this question too. I was eager to please and was quickly given an answer: read your Bible, pray, tell others this good news about Jesus, be nice to everyone, go to church every Sunday, find a ministry in the church. Just to name a few.

I tried that for about eleven years. At the end of ten years I was not as sure that Jesus was good news and at the end of the eleventh year I KNEW He was not good news. He had promised me joy and left me with guilt, promised acceptance and provided condemnation, promised peace and left me with torment that I could never do everything that He asked. I was angry, betrayed, and told God that He was a liar and a fraud.

I told Him I was not going to try any more. I could not sleep that night (yes, I could only stay that angry for most of one night.) I was between a rock and hard place. I could not go on as I had been, but I could not get rid of God either. In my very deepest being, in spite of the evidence, I knew that He was my only answer. That is when I realized that "I will never leave you nor forsake you." wasn't just a gushy, feel-good promise but somewhat of a threat.

There was a purpose for all my striving and trying to work the works of God. It was to come to the absolute certainty that only God can work the works of God. After I had initially believed Jesus, that He was the Son of God as He said He was, I accepted what other people told me that Jesus wanted of me. When I was fully burnt out, I was ready to be refocused on Jesus Himself and what He said He required of me, and not what others told me about Him.

Jesus answered and said to them, "This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent." (John 6:29) Now here is the "light burden and easy yoke" that I was promised. At first sight He says that our work is to believe Him. But, when you look closer He calls even that the work of God.

Is this too simplistic? Is this passivity? I really would like to know what you think. I think that it would be ridiculous for God to require something of us that we cannot do. Jesus plainly stated, "I can do nothing on My own. . ."(John 5:30) If He could do nothing on His own what do you think that we can do? My conclusion is that God both wills and works His good pleasure in an unexplainable mystery.

What to Do?

2008-03-17T23:59:00.003-05:00

So often we ask God, "What do You want me to do with my life?" Then we expect the answer in a five to ten year detailed map of a very straight road that leads to God's goal for our life without any interruptions or changes of direction and all the loose ends tied up. Hmm.

Now the LORD said to Abram, "Go . . ." (Genesis 12:1) Just "Go?"

For a while, God and I had an ongoing conversation like this:
me: "What do You want me to do? A or B?"
God: "Go."

me: "Great! Do You want me to go A or B?"
God: "Go."
me: "Why won't You answer me?"

C. S. Lewis said, "There are only two times that God is concerned with, this moment and eternity. God did explain His answer to me. He asked me, "Do you know what I want you to do today?"
"Yes."
"Then I have told you everything you need."

Now the LORD said to Abram, "Go . . . to the land which I will show you . . ."(Genesis 12:1) I don't want to go to the land that God will show me, I want to go to the land that He has shown me. But, it is usually in the going that God reveals to us the land.

There is such pressure for us to have 'A Plan' for our lives. If someone asked Abraham, "What are you going to do with your life?" What would his response have been? "Well, I feel that God has called me to wander around the known world." Personally, I would much rather tell people that I'm going to be a marine biologist and save the whales.

God has revealed to me exactly what He wants me to do with my life, but it is hard to explain to those who ask. He has not given me a year plan, or even a month plan. I have a rough draft of the week's plan with the caution, "Subject to sudden and drastic change" as its headline. He has told me to go.

Today, I know that I should clean up the residue of our family vacation. Tomorrow, I will take the next step in starting my own sheep business. I'm not sure how a sheep business will further God's plan for my life, but it is something He has given me an interest in. I take the next step by faith, trusting that He is leading me where He wants to as I keep taking one step at a time.

Home Life

2008-03-17T22:59:00.006-05:00

My AE girls went home from Dallas March 1st and I took Paige and Grace to my sister's farm in the booming town of Dodd City. I came home in time to vote on Tuesday and Grace and Paige then visited me Thursday and Friday. When they left on Friday afternoon my family and I left on a spring break trip. We got home yesterday around midnight.

Now that you are bored and updated with my schedule I'll talk about real Life. Life is much more real than schedules or even the situations that seem paramount to us.

Being home is very different than being in 'ministry'. People always seem to respect those who are not at home, whether it's for a career, college, or what is labeled ministry. "At least they are doing something" is the apparent feeling. I agree that it is good to do something, and all those things are good things to do. But isn't there more to the story?

An Update From Dallas

2008-02-07T17:57:00.001-06:00

I decided you all really deserve an update. I can not say that I haven't updated because I am madly busy. God has been teaching me that my worth does not lie in busyness, so I haven't had as much to do as I would like. At the same time, He is teaching Paige (Director of AE) to accept her limitations and let Grace and I do our job of supporting her, so I have more to do recently. He puts people together in the most amazing ways.

All three of us are totally new to these positions, Paige's training was minimum, mine was none, and I think Grace's was somewhere in between. None of us really knew what to expect work wise. We knew how it was supposed to look from a student's view but we weren't sure what our jobs would be to make it look like that. It has been an adventure.

I could fill you in on our schedule but frankly it's rather boring and mostly routine. I'd much rather fill you in on the hearts of the girls but I'm afraid I'm not really qualified to say what is in their hearts. Therefor, all that I'm left with is God and me.I'm not sure how qualified I am to put that into words either.

As I was planning on helping with AE I was not sure how wise it was to come because I was so tired at home that I was almost on complete bed rest. I came anyway because I felt like God wanted me to in spite of the 'logic' of the decision. When I got here I found that Paige was in the same situation. Between the three of us (when Paige delegates) there is just enough work to keep us busy and give Paige and I more time to rest than most people need. God is teaching both of us that our sleeping is for Him as much as our working is for Him. My heart is doing very well because God created it, He bought it, He wooed it, He loves it, and He keeps it.

It seems that God's theme for all of us this AE is that He is the Pursuer. So often we get into the mindset that God is, at worst, actively hiding from us or, at best, passively sitting on His throne waiting for us to stumble upon His exact location. I do not advise running from God just to see how long and hard He will pursue you. However, I do advise letting your pursuit of God be full of joy in the knowledge that every time you seek Him, He is there. He is not hiding from us, He is chasing us.

Everything here is going according to schedule; not always according to our schedule, but always according to His.

Leaving Again

2008-01-18T09:06:00.001-06:00

In about an hour, I am going to Dallas again. This time I am serving as one of two assistant directors for the Advanced Excel program. There are eight girls in the class and three of us leaders.

Please pray for me and the other two leaders, Paige Advanced Excel director and Grace assistant director, as this is our first time to be in this role and we are still learning the ropes. Paige and Grace have been in Dallas the past week getting things in motion.

Pray for the girls who are coming to be discipled and will be going home to disciple. Pray that the subjects they will be learning will not be a distraction from God but a new place to meet God.

We will be keeping up a blog from Dallas if any of your are interested you can find it here.

I love you guys.

Another Chance to Trust

2008-01-07T16:55:00.000-06:00

Lately I've been thinking a lot about church, not in the theological sense of the word but the church as America knows it. Particularly, I've been thinking about my church. I have gone to it for about eleven years now, and like the people you live with, its consistent failings were beginning to rankle however minor they might be.

A bad attitude, liberally sprinkled with pride, was right beneath my smiling exterior. I knew that my emotions were wrong. I knew that any other church, being full of people like myself, would have failings too. I knew that this was the place I had grown up in and loved. I didn't know how to accept its failings without either growing bitter about them or pretending they didn't exist.

After telling God how I felt and what I thought a couple of times, talking to my Mom repeatedly, and eventually talking to some well trusted friends, I still didn't have a fully satisfying answer. The question itself was less than half understood in my mind. I didn't know exactly what I was struggling with. I think that I trusted God to explain it to me; I know I was worried about how long He was going to take.

Yesterday, in adding up the ideas He had put in my mind through my talks with Him and the people I trust, He put the cherry on top and everything fell into place.

There are always going to be events and people that I disagree with or think are downright wrong. Many of them will affect me, all of them will affect someone, and most of them will be out of my control. There is only one right way for me to react to any of them: leave them to God and be alert to see His presence however it may arrive.

The faults of my church are not that bad, honestly. The lesson I learned because of them will hold me in good stead in situations that are much worse. If I can trust that any choice that any person makes is the will of God for me then I have nothing to be bitter or worry about. God only gives good gifts.

Listening to God - My experience

2007-12-14T15:00:00.000-06:00

Thank you all for your answers and input. I agree with all of them. Unfortunately, being in perfect agreement does not lead to a very lively discussion, but it does edify and lift up. =) Here are my thoughts. Sorry to be so late in publishing them.

Recently, because of having to make some decisions, my belief about most of these questions has been reshaped. I find that God continually puts me in the position to re-think what I believe about Him. Is it not laughable how quickly we decide who God is and how He acts? No matter how often I remind myself that He is infinite, I always put Him into finite limitations. He seems determined to strip away any theological formula that I have built and rested upon as solid ground. Apparently, He will not share His glory with theological formulas.

In the decision I had to make, I knew that all three choices were good. I just needed to know which one He wanted me to take. I asked my parents and they thought any of the choices would be fine. He didn't use a verse to guide me. There was no guidance that I could see.

So, I asked people I trusted about how God generally leads or speaks to them. Through different people, by the agreement of the Bible and my spirit with little things they would say, God did speak to me. Not about where to go or what to do, but about how to trust Him.

I was, unknowingly, afraid God would punish me for making the wrong decision. Maybe I should choose something that would deny my flesh? Okay; but in this situation every decision was going to be a place of self-sacrifice and ministry to others.

This is what God did say to me when He wouldn't say what to choose:

Lauren, is your flesh crucified with me or isn't it?
Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. (Galatians 5:24)

Am I your life or not?
I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me. (Galatians 2:20)

Have I given you a new heart or not?
A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them. (Ezekiel 36:26-27)

These took away my fear. Could it be true that, "There is no fear in love . . ."? I decided based on what I wanted. Could it be true that He gave me the desires of my heart because I delighted in Him and His will?

If God does not write your future for you on the wall, if He opens the doors to more than one good and God pleasing option; please do not fear but step ahead in faith. Faith in His goodness.

Listening to God - Your opinion

2007-12-01T20:58:00.000-06:00

I have decided I'm tired of posting as though I am the greatest of the wise guys. In other words: It's your turn! Let's get some good web conversation going.

If you have an opinion (don't fool yourself, you know you have one!) then answer one or more of these questions:

Does God still speak?
Has He ever spoken to you?
Is there only one godly choice for every decision?
What happens if you miss God's best?
How long do you wait for an answer from God?
How can you be sure it is God speaking?

Of course I have an opinion too. I promise I'll share it in a day or two.

I'M HOME!!!!

2007-11-14T11:13:00.001-06:00

I was just re-reading my last post and all of your sweet comments. I promised to return with testimonies of God's goodness and He has not disappointed. It amazes me that those three names I asked you all to pray for were, just a few short weeks ago, nothing but names to me. Now they are full of meaning. People that I love, know, and miss being around.

I was constantly amazed that I even cared, much less had a passion to share about who God was to me. A year ago I could have taught the Bible just as any Pharisee could have taught the law: boldly perhaps, but without joy or lasting change in myself or anyone else. Now, ~~what~~ Who I believe makes a difference in my life and I no longer doubt that it He can make a difference in other's lives. I have Someone worth sharing and He is so much more than a law, a religion, or a book. (Yes, even the inspired book.)

My "wisdom searches" or "God searches," as I preferred to call them, were a continual act of faith. Just because I was passionate about what I shared did not guarantee that it made any sense to others as I jabbered about it. But, God did good things in spite of my jabbering and even, sometime, through and in my jabbering! As I was saying, God is good.

Many girls went home knowing God in a more personal way than when they arrived. Excel is a place for girls to admit that they have questions, doubts and fears about God; a place to admit that they have believed and acted on lies. It is also a place for them to bring all of these to God in honesty and find that He is not offended or surprised. In fact, they find that the more honest they are with themselves and Him the closer they are to Him.

As God taught me what I was teaching others, that without Him I can do nothing, and with Him I can do all things, He began applying it to prayer. He taught me to trust Him to pray through me according to His will and leave all the questions up to Him. This is a miracle to me.

Although many or most of you have heard me pray, just believe me that I am a good actor. When I would decide to pray, in a group or by myself in the woods, I would literally almost choke on the words. I may be dramatic, but I'm not that dramatic; besides, I really wanted to pray.

Sometimes I just felt silly, sometimes I felt that I was trying to shout to someone on pluto, sometimes my mind just wandered, sometimes I knew my heart was so hard that I needed God and that God was the only person I couldn't connect with because I had a hard heart. Consequently, my "prayer life" was limited to 15 minutes of trying about twice a month. What God taught me about prayer during Excel was only a small step towards becoming a prayer warrior, and a giant leap towards trusting God.

This is a small random snippet of what I want to tell you all. I trust God that He put something worthwhile here.

Goodbye notes

2007-09-11T22:52:00.001-05:00

Dear all,
this Thursday I am leaving my sweet little home for the dark ages. In short, this blog will not be updated till some time after November 11th.

I leave on Thursday to become a team leader in the infamous girls discipleship program EXCEL.
For those who have asked I have compiled a short prayer request list.
please pray for:

1. The hearts of the girls who are coming.
They may be anywhere in their spiritual walk from not believing in God to having believed since they were three. Some don't want to be at Excel. Excel 29 is currently the smallest ever with only about 24 students. An average class is usually around 60. The noted difference in size makes me wonder what God is up to. Are these girls going to be the type that we are really grateful they are only three to a team instead of nine or more? Or does God just want us to take our eyes off of numbers to give us a glimpse of what He sees? There are three girls on my team their names are Celeste, Kelsey, and Carri.

2. The team leaders
There are seven of us, we will be going through our own behind-the-scenes discipleship class as we help make these girls successful in this one. We are only barely a step ahead of these girls, in that we have been through Excel and already 'know the ropes', yet we will be the ones they look up to.

3. For me, that I would learn to pray.
As God continues to build me from the 'great spiritual crash' in the summer of '06, I believe that trusting Him to teach me how to pray is next on His agenda. It is a slow process however, and I feel like I've been put in the real sword fight before I have been taught. On the advice of a friend, who didn't even know that I had been thinking about the topic of prayer, I have been reading Andrew Murray's The Ministry of Intercession. I'm about half way through. It is an excellent book, I highly recommend it.

4. For 'Wisdom Searches' every morning.
These are bible studies that I will be leading for my team. God has really put some stuff on my heart to present to them, but these are things that only His Spirit can really reveal. Pray that they will have eyes to see and ears to hear and that nothing thwarts His plan.

While I'm there I will only be able to communicate through snail mail. I think you should all have my address, but if you don't you can get it from Gracie.

Thanks so much my friends. I'll see you in nine weeks with testimonies of God's goodness.

there is an I AM and i'm not Him

2007-09-01T12:13:00.001-05:00

God has been teaching me again. Actually I believe that He teaches me all the time. Maybe the difference is that I've been learning again.

I quit Christianity. No, I've not converted to Buddhism, Hinduism, Atheism, or Islam. I've just realized that I'm a nothing. I quit, not because I don't believe it anymore, but because I realized that I already wasn't.

Have you ever noticed that if it were possible to be the kind of Christian that we keep trying to become, then we wouldn't have any need of Jesus? Go, read Matthew 5, 6 and 7. This is what a Christian should look like. You who call yourself a Christian, is that what you look like?

If it isn't then what are you going to do? Has God set us up to fail? No. Jesus did come. Matthew 5, 6 and 7 is definitely not a picture of me; but it is a picture of Jesus.

Are we still trying to annul our need of Him, by becoming perfect 'for Him' or 'with His help'? I don't deny that God helps us. But in any other context we think of help as something we only need when we get in really tight spots, every now and then, and often as our last resort. I personally need a lot more than just help.

God has taught me a game. I'll call it the "I'm not I AM" game. I think of something that I'm not and He replies with what He is. Like this:

Me: I'm not loving, I really don't love my family.

God: I AM Love. I AM the only one who can love your family.

Me: I'm not a good friend either. I keep letting people down.

God: I AM the perfect friend. I'll never let you or them down.

Me: God, what am I supposed to do, don't You expect anything of me?

God: I expect only what you are capable of. What can you do?

Me: I can't do anything.

God: Good, then I'll do everything.

Am I crazy? Probably. This is one of the most exciting things that has ever happened to me. I love this game. It may sound silly, but I promise if you try it you will find it very practical. Sometimes I play it with Him just for the sheer joy of hearing Who He is and everything I'm not. But other times I play it as a weapon.

Mom calls me to do something when I finally thought I was done.

Me (through gritted teeth): I'm not respectful, and I don't even want to be obedient.

God (chuckles): I AM, and I AM. I'll do it.

It is amazing, suddenly the fight is over and everything is off me.

I'm not, and I don't ever want to be again.

The Truth Who Set Me Free

2007-08-02T21:28:00.001-05:00

I have previously been taught that the struggle against our flesh was something like having a white dog (God's spirit) and a black dog (our flesh) both living in the same kennel (ourselves). They are mortal enemies and are fighting all the time, but only the one that you feed will win. So, although you have these two fighting, it is your decision who wins. At first this sounds very reasonable, but as I tried to just feed the white dog by doing what was right, my black dog overpowered the white dog and effectively stole its food.

In more spiritual terms: no matter how hard I tried to do what was right according to the new spirit God had given me, my flesh still won at least ninety percent of the time. Even a non-Christian can do what is right ten percent of the time. How then, was my belief in Jesus helping me or making me any different than the rest of the world? The only difference that I could see was that I knew what was right so I had more guilt when I failed. I had no peace and no joy, and when I was really honest with myself, I wasn't sure if I loved God like I professed.

I obviously had some skewed ideas of God. First, I used to believe that God loved me unconditionally but He also wanted me to know that I was just a worm in the dirt and I had better be grateful that He took notice of me. I now believe that this mindset was a tactic of Satan's, ninety percent of the truth and ten percent deadly lie. Have I done anything to deserve God's love? No. But neither has a new born baby done anything to deserve its parent's love. God really does love me unconditionally as parents love their children. There is nothing that I can do that will change His abundant love for me in any way.

Second, I thought that God expected me to live up to the law. I understood that I was not under all the rituals and sacrifices of the Mosaic law. But there is a law in the New Testament. Jesus says things like, "You have heard . . . 'You shall not commit murder.' . . . "But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty . . . whoever says, 'You fool,' shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell. (Matthew 5:21-22) and other verses such as "But as He which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy . . . " (1 Peter 1:15)

Needless to say I failed again and again. Satan used John 14:15 "If you love Me, you will keep My commandments." to accuse me that I did not love God because I failed. He also used a skewed version of Philippians 4:13, something like, "I can do all things." to remind me that God said I could do it, but that I just wasn't trying hard enough. I always felt guilty, and yet I came to a place where I knew I could try no harder. I was defeated.

I now believe that although God wants His law obeyed, He is well aware that I am incapable. In fact, that is why He created the law, to drive me to total dependence on Him. I now read Philippians 4:13 something like this, "Without Christ I can do nothing, not even tie my own shoes, but if I trust that Christ is living in me then my body is consequently capable of doing everything that Christ is capable of doing." It is no longer a matter of obedience for me, Christ in me is the one who will handle the obedience, for me it is a matter of belief. It is not just a belief in God, which is something demons have as well, "You believe that God is one. You do well; the demons also believe, and shudder." (James 2:19) I believe God. I believe everything that He tells me. Demons do not share this belief, they believe God is a liar.

"What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase? May it never be!" (Romans 6:1-2) Let's imagine for a minute that your dad is perfect, he has always loved you perfectly and you have never had even the slightest reason to distrust him. You have such a good relationship with him that even when he tells you things that you don't understand you believe him explicitly. You are young enough that you do not understand fire but you have figured out how to strike a match. So you strike a match and are fascinatedly watching it burn towards your fingers. You are inexperienced and have not figured out that it is heading towards you fingers, nor are you aware that it will hurt when it gets there. It is just a pretty, harmless toy to you, no different in your mind than many others that your father has given you.

Your father walks into the room, quickly takes in the situation and your inexperience, and tells you to drop the match. First, you are so excited that he is in the room that the match is no longer interesting. Second, you love to have an opportunity to obey him. Now, are you going to fight with him about why you should drop the match? Is it going to be a big internal struggle for you to obey? I don't think so. Does he mean for you to do exactly what he said? Of course. Are you still perfectly free to disobey him? Yes.

Jesus living in me and acting through me has not abolished temptation in my life. Neither has He made it impossible for me to sin, nor made me into a person with no weakness. But, as I learn to trust Him, and relax in the knowledge of His goodness, sin has lost its desirability to me. Guilt, when I fail in the moment to act according to what He tells me, is no longer an issue either. I believe that His blood has covered all my sin, past present and future. He does not sanction or gloss over any of my sin, but it does not come between us. He has already forgiven and atoned for all of it.

When He reveals sin, that I had not recognized before, I confess it, agreeing with Him that this action was indeed sin against Him. Then I drop it, and tell Him, reminding myself at the same time, that my fighting cannot conquer this sin, and I will be a slave to it unless He keeps me.

This does not nullify Romans 8:13. "For if you are living according to the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live." (Romans 8:13) We must have total reliance on God in us. The Spirit does not help us to put off the deeds of the body, that implies that it is a team effort - that the Spirit, as part of the team, needs our help, as the other part of the team. The Spirit does it for us, because we are totally helpless.

Galatians 5:16, is not nullified either. "This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh." It does not say fight against the lust of the flesh, or fight to walk in the Spirit, nor is there any mention of prolonged struggle. It says, walk in the Spirit. If Jesus abides in you, then I'm not sure how you could walk in anything but the Spirit.

This is an imperfect description of something I imperfectly understand. But, mine and Gracie's point is that our struggling to Do Hard Things, our struggling against our flesh, will never accomplish the righteousness of God. If it could, then there was no need for Jesus to die.

I am going to include some of the people that Gracie and I have heard this teaching from. These people have been studying and living what they teach a lot longer than I have, however, I do not necessarily agree with everything they might say.

Paul Anderson-Walsh at http://www.thegraceproject.com/grace_audio_messages.html I particularly recommend The Pathway-an introduction into Freedom in Christ series.

Bill Gillham, particularly his book: Lifetime Guarantee

Longings

2007-07-28T12:08:00.001-05:00

I decided I should share a journal entry from a few days ago. This is not like me. I don't share my journal entries. Not because they are too private by any stretch, but because they are too boring. :) I'm not sure why this one is any different, but here goes!

July 27, 2007

I have been discontent. There is always a little bit of discontentedness in the back of my mind but some days it is much stronger. Today it was stronger. Discontentedness is generally a bad thing, but I'm not sure that this is. I'm trying to put my finger on what exactly I am discontent with.

I long for something bigger, something that will require my all. A greater every day purpose perhaps? But that is not quite it.

Sometimes it comes to my mind as the lover I hope to have someday, sometimes as children, sometimes as other countries, sometimes as a danger worth facing, sometimes as anything outside of this house and family, sometimes for peace within this house and family, sometimes I think it might be music that I seem to remember having felt, but can't remember actually having heard.

But any one of these things is not quite it, either. In my most honest moments I think my longing is too great even to be satisfied by the culmination of all these things. Am I just hard to please? Am I going to be a hopelessly discontent person for the rest of my life?

I know that all of these things at once can only happen in One Place and with One Person. So, although I hope that You will be granting some of these longings, or rather some of my longing, I realize that my real desire is for You, and the eternal perfection of a life with You.

This knowledge does not help me become content as I mostly feel heaven is a long time off. But I don't know that, do I? I can live as though heaven happens tomorrow. I only need enough contentment for today.

The oddest thing about the discontentedness that I mention in this journal entry is not that I am discontent, (which as I said has been going on more or less since I was born,) but rather that I am quite content at the same time. I used to be discontent in a very different sort of way.

In times past my discontentedness would fester for about a month or two and then I would come to Mom to spill it all out in anger and tears. At that time I was very sure what I was discontent with: myself, my Christianity, and God. I knew that He was my only answer . . . but He didn't seem to be answering anything.

Over the past months, maybe eighteen now, He has been expanding my little mind. He has been telling me that I wasn't content with my Christianity because I had created my own god.

The god I created was not a blood sucking idol. He was a very decent, encouraging, wise sort of chap who chanted "keep it up, try harder, you're almost there!" and

"You really should have read your Bible today. It is going to be awful since you didn't. But don't worry, I know you'll do better tomorrow. Tomorrow you will try harder." and

"Of course I accept you just as you are. I'm just asking you to be a little kinder to your family; that is not too much is it?" and

"I love you unconditionally. Why else would I come and die an agonizing death for an insignificant person like you?" and

"Dear, dear, IF you love me you will keep my commandments. You keep saying you love me, but look at all those commandments you keep breaking. This is all you can give me? Of course not, you just don't love me enough."

Did I say decent, encouraging? No, my god was demanding and manipulative, always keeping me on the downhill slope. Telling me to try harder, telling me I wasn't good enough, telling me he deserved more.

I did try. I tried to love him. I tried to obey him. I tried to be good enough. I tried to believe hard enough. I tried to be more humble. I tried to confess my sins. I tried fasting. I tried praying.

The outbursts came every now and then when I was honest with myself that it wasn't working. But I knew it should work because God is not a liar, so I tried harder. The last outburst I was more honest than ever before. My 'god' WAS lying to me. He knew that I didn't have any more to give, he promised peace and joy. I didn't have either.

After that, things gradually changed. Very slowly, very gently, one step at a time, I began to take God at His actual word and stopped trying to figure everything out and make sense of Him. I told Him I wasn't trying any more, I didn't understand anymore. I told Jesus that I would believe, in spite of my experience, that He was indeed good. But to believe anything else . . . I just didn't know. If He wanted me to have any greater understanding of Himself then He would have to build it Himself.

So He built. He continues to build (or is it heal?) me. For the first time in my life the 'good news' is actually good enough to try to explain even when there is so much that I don't understand yet and so much that sounds foolish.

All those things that I think might be the answer to my longing? they are just ways that I haven't had the opportunity to experience God yet. So am I content or not? Well . . . I am deeply happy (my circumstances are not always happy, but I am.) And yet, I want more.

My aim is to know Jesus,
to experience the power of His resurrection,
to share in His sufferings,
and to be like Him in His death . . .
(Philippians 3:10)

Shield Maiden

2007-06-12T22:07:00.001-05:00

A shield maiden is essentially a woman who fights, but what does this mean to me?

I originally heard the title in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of The Rings Trilogy. His female character Éowyn is called a shield maiden. When you first meet Éowyn she is a grown woman who was brought up among and by male relatives. She is the niece of the king, but she is capable of fighting and wants to go to war. When her uncle and brother ride to war she is commanded to stay and rule the people in the event that neither of them return. However, she disguises herself as a man and fights in the army, leaving her country without a leader. During the course of the story she fights a monster, defeating him, but receiving a mortal wound. She is then brought back from the brink of death and has a long stay in the ‘house of healing’ where she meets and begins to love her future husband, a gentle man who is both braver and more dutiful than she.

During her story Éowyn learns that a brave heart is not any less brave because it has no opportunity for glorious deeds. She also learns that a noble heart must learn quietness and humility, understanding that it might never be recognized for what it is or ever get the chance to be proved, to itself or to others.

Perhaps I am the only one that interprets her story in this way. These are things that I have had to learn and now rejoice in.

When I was little, and everyone still thought that I was quiet, I would dream of fighting in wars or meeting impossible circumstances with bold fearlessness and quick thinking. My imaginations usually had to do with war and smooth talking; I also generally thought of myself as a man. I would imagine that I was so confident in myself and my abilities that I did not care what other people thought. If they thought little of me now, I would amaze them twice as much later. I gloried in the 'other people' underestimating me. I didn't have to prove myself to anyone. But I did provide a point in the story where the natural course of events proved my superiority.

As I got older I was drawn to missions; not for the noble reason of saving lost souls from hell, but because missionaries were put in impossible situations. I was drawn to 'adventure.' By their faith in God they triumphed, sometimes through amazing miracles. They were generally unrecognized for how amazing they were, and worked behind the scenes.

I am trying to describe to you some of the very innermost workings of my mind and heart. Most of this is what I thought when I was younger, but these deep desires greatly carry over to who I am today. Today, I hope that my desires are more mature, but the basic things that thrilled me then continue to thrill me now.

As I grow, God is showing me how the real story differs from the one I had made for myself. In the real story of my life I am not allowed to insert that moment when I am recognized as the hero. In the real story when people think I am incapable, they are usually right. In the real story I am more often the prideful braggart than the humble hero.

How can I still call myself a shield maiden? Because as God has been crushing my pride and fantasy, He has also been building me a new, perfect, satisfing story.

In His story for me He is the hero. As I totally embrace this truth He begins to let me in on my role in the story, my role as a shield maiden. I am first one who is filled with the entirety of God. This is where my role derives its worth, and this is as close as I get to being the hero.

The real Hero lives in me and everything I do is an extension of Him living in me. I am called by Him as one who has this great gift of Himself bestowed upon me, to do great things. I assure you, my Hero does not live life without purpose. However He does live it in seemingly mundane ways.

He has not called me to subdue countries, or amaze people, or feed my pride in any way. It does not seem that He calls me to be anything other than normal. I’m just a sister, just a daughter. I have no degree, no great schooling, no unusual talent. I have nothing to show myself or the world that can be recognized as the smallest bit of greatness. I have no hope for future greatness by these standards either; my hope is to love my husband, be a mother, and have a home for unwanted children. None of these set me apart or label me as ‘great.’

Underneath these surface images I am called to something great, something noble, and something that no one can prove or approve but God himself. I am called to be a warrior.

My mission is to know my Captain and love Him. If I fail in this, everything else is futile and others who depend on me will very likely be lost. The extension of my mission is to guide those who are around me to the One I am learning to love.

No one will recognize my actions as unusual. All that will be seen is me living 'normal' life: playing a game with my brothers, spending time talking to a friend, and eventually raising and loving my own children.
Nothing extraordinary.

I am learning not to live by these surface images, which tell me my life is boring and useless, but to live trusting what God tells me. He says all sorts of unusual things about me and the world.

I wanted to be on active duty in a noble war: He says I am always living in the war zone of the only war that will matter for eternity.
I wanted to go incognito as a top-secret spy: He says that I am an alien in this land.
I wanted to be so secure in myself that I did not have anything to prove: He says that I am so secure in Him that only He can prove anything anyway.
I wanted to be invincible: He says that when I died with Him and He rose again, I became invincible.
I wanted to be a threat to the enemy: He warns me daily that the enemy recognizes the threat that He is in me.

He rejoices with me that the harder the enemy hits the more joy I have, because there is less of me and more of my God.

To me a shield maiden is a feminine, very dangerous, and usually incognito warrior of Christ.

I believe what He says; I am a shield maiden.

Man of God

2007-05-10T15:13:00.000-05:00

No reserves.
No retreats.
No regrets.

. . . William Borden

A great story: http://thetask.org/thETASK/Heroes/Aug03/default.asp

A Love Story by Laurie Hills

2007-04-25T13:39:00.000-05:00

I met a man who looked at me. No, he looked into me. He knew, and I knew that I had looked all my life for my real self, for fulfillment, and I was lost because I was out of looking places. His eyes were full of the kind of thing that melted my long since frozen soul. I even tentatively ventured to believe that this was actually the kind of thing people looked for when they said they were looking for love. When he finally spoke, I was eager for his words. He said, ‘I know who you were meant to be. Only give your permission and I will make it so.’ His eyes continued to hold mine like a vice. He had such drawing power and his proposal such promise, that every part of me wanted to shout, ‘Yes!’ Every part, that is, except the part of me that said, ‘Don’t kid yourself. It might work for someone else, this magic trick he has up his sleeve. But you know you well enough to know that you’re a jinx!

What was he doing to me with his eyes? He must know my thoughts, for as his gaze penetrated ever deeper into my relaxing soul; I felt the self-hatred trickling away. And I knew he didn’t consider me a jinx. I said with a freedom surprising to me, ‘Yes, yes, as soon as possible, but how can we manage this and how long will it take?’ Nagged by memories of old and not-so-old failures, I was totally unprepared for his answer. ‘It is done. The moment your heart assented, before you spoke a word, it was done. The emptiness of self has been replaced by my Life. I am the Source of Life. This is what you were always meant to be, a container for my Life.’

I was, of course, glad to know this, but I had expected a feeling of elation, or strength, or fulfillment. That’s what I had expected – a feeling of fulfillment. Oh, there would be no escaping this Life, for he was reading my thoughts again. ‘You are disappointed? You want a feeling as a sign that I’m here? My love, believe what I tell you. I have died and carried your empty self with me to that death so I could live my Life in you.’ I believed and thought about what my Beloved had said was truth. When I found that I couldn’t believe, I cried, ‘I do believe, but help thou mine unbelief!’ and that loved Life within gave peace.

Then one day the words He had told me to believe exploded into meaning. Things often happen that way these days, unplanned things. And I shouted, ‘He did save me from myself and He did put his own Life in its place.’ And I felt all the good emotions that I ever dreamed of feeling, and they were so strong that they demanded to be shared with friends who had tried to help me find who I was.

As the intimacy of this Good that had come began to grasp my consciousness, I said to my Beloved, ‘I must try to make myself look and act better because you are living in me. I will try to find ways.’ He was silent, and I was busy striving to improve the image I projected; for, after all, I was a Life carrier. My bearing must demonstrate my importance. I looked, I inquired, I tried, and I tired. I experimented and I failed and wondered why he was so silent. He should be helping me. After all, this was to show him how much I appreciated what He had done for me.

I remember those as joyless days. I was so busy outside trying to create ways to make him proud that He had chosen to live in me and let others see my high estate that I had had no time for enjoying him, as I had in the beginning. Life was becoming almost as it was before. One day I came rushing home with great and high expectations. I went flying to him, waving a paper with ten rules beautifully lettered. These, I had been told by a religious-looking man, if kept, would please any good man. He saw them and said quietly, ‘Will you keep them?’ ‘Yes! Said I, exhilarated at the thought of a good solid task to tackle. I memorized the rules first. They were simple. All that striving and here was the answer. Why hadn’t I run into that man before, and what did my Beloved mean, ‘Would I keep them?’ – just ten simple rules!! I had to skip the first one since it wasn’t as solid as I had thought. I simply didn’t know whether I had any other gods before him. Sometimes I couldn’t be sure I wasn’t my own god. I had similar problems with the others. Why was life becoming so complicated and unfulfilled again?

I went to him. ‘I’m a failure. I promised I’d keep those ten rules; I can’t keep one.’

His answer, ‘No one ever has, except me. My Life being lived in you fulfills them all.’

Hurt and pouting, I said, ‘Is there nothing I can do to please you?

‘Are you through trying, beloved? He asked.

I sank down before him with a weary nod of assent. ‘Then I’m pleased,’ he said. As if he had kept me off balance long enough, he hastened to answer my quizzical look with, ‘When my love for you prompted me to die for you, I took everything of you with me into death. When we resumed life again, the burden was gone. I have made you pleasing to me. You had to do nothing but want me – for me to live in you. Now I have waited for you to want me to live though you. Do you want me to?’

A trapped feeling began to grip me – almost a fear. Fear! Fear! In the face of such great love? What could I fear? Losing control? Maybe. Violation of my personhood? That’s a laugh. I was no person before he came, and I knew He was no violator. Was my fear that this couldn’t be for real? I blurted out, ‘You mean to tell me there is no price-tag attached to anything you do for me? Life’s not like that!!’

‘Death,’ came his cryptic answer.

My reeling thoughts scurried after the meaning. There it was! His was a life I couldn’t understand, because the life I had thought was life, was death. Staggering!! Out of this world!! Could I stand it, this Life? No more striving to be something, because another was already everything in me, through me? My competitive soul already suffered at this prospect.

I thought he must soon become impatient. He had asked that question so long ago and I had not answered. I looked and he seemed to have eternity to wait. But I didn’t ‘One more question. If I choose, could I now or ever escape your fearful love?’

‘You are sealed,’ he said with finality.

‘But if I can’t do anything!’

‘Ah, my love, you are my Life in the world. You may come begging for less action; and do? Have you forgotten the time you first knew I loved you? I did tell you one thing, but you found you needed me even to do that.’

Ruefully I thought, ‘How could I forget that struggle? It was a hard thing to believe when you wanted a feeling.’ Believe – yeah! It figures! A love that has done everything for me so he can be everything through me leaves nothing but to believe this preposterous presumptuous truth.

And then as if to mockingly tease a little, he said, ‘and the most presumptuous thing of all you may not believe for a little while. I’m preparing you to rule the universe with me through all eternity. Are you ready? Can you take the preparation?’ And then I remembered the night I asked Him to finish the sentence; but He had finished the sentence, hadn’t He?!! He is the only Person there is!

‘Ready? Oh, my God, you have made me ready. Take the preparation? You will take it in me. Who or what is there beside Thee?

(I first read this in a little free pamphlet. Since it was not copyrighted, I decided to share it here. I also found it on the web at http://www.christasus.com/Letters/LaurieHills/LHALoveStory.htm. I hope God uses it to speak to you like He did to me.)

Humility, Hard Work, and Hanging On

2007-04-17T12:39:00.001-05:00

Humility . . .
I thought that God led me to Advanced Excel to learn speaking, writing, and discipleship. In the five weeks that I was in Dallas, Texas, I found that humility was what God really had planned for me. But, of course, I learned humility in Dallas, so when I got home I could actually learn writing and discipleship. The truth is, I learned something about humility in Dallas, but God brought me home to turn up the heat.

In the Gospel of John, Jesus says, "I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing." (John 15:5) YE CAN DO NOTHING.

"Nothing?" I think to myself, "I don't believe it. I do all sorts of things without Him. I will only ask for His help when I really need it; I do okay by myself most of the time."

Why do I think this way? Pride - "An unreasonable conceit of one's own superiority . . . which manifests itself in lofty airs, distance, reserve, and often in contempt of others." (Webster's 1828 Dictionary) Did Mr. Webster know me? When I look at this definition, I originally think that it does not apply to me. I do not put on lofty airs in my relationships with people, distance or reserve myself from them, or stand stand in contempt of them . . . not often anyway.

Then I look at my relationship with God. Every day, possibly every hour, I commit these sins against God. I put on lofty airs toward Him, using Him as a neat little tool to get fulfillment. I distance and reserve myself from Him, sometimes He is most important, sometimes He is not. Does not my neglect of Him show my contempt for Him?

He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to . . . walk humbly with thy God?" (Micah 6:8) Humility is: "Having a low opinion of one's self . . . before God." (Webster's 1828 Dictionary) Humility is not thinking that you are worth nothing; God says you were worth the death of His son. Humility is not low self-esteem, as the world sees it. A humble person does not feel sorry for himself. True humility is recognizing that apart from God I can do NOTHING, while I can do all things through Christ.

I always remember the part of the verse that says, "I can do all things" forgetting the qualifier, "through Christ." (Pilippians 4:13) I recently heard someone say, "God does not help those who help themselves; God helps those who humble themselves."

Hard Work . . .
I like to think of myself as an above average teenager, and an as-close-as-you-can-get-to-perfect Christian. (I am being really honest here.) I look around at other people, not usually specific people, just . . . you know . . . them. I come to the conclusion that I am a pretty mature person, and (I wish I were blushing) I cannot remember any real faults that I have.

I obey my parents. I do not put myself into compromising situations. I have pretty good relationships with my siblings. I reach out to other people. I plan on becoming a missionary . . . . I'll stop there before you grab your trash can and empty your upset stomach. I do know my major faults. I just hadn't had to deal with them lately. I wasn't in a situation that brought them to the light.

I procrastinate, and I am lazy. I can force myself to face anything that I fear, but I do not force myself to meet a deadline, or (the originality of the thought) get my work done ahead of time. These habits worked out okay for my first two AE assignments, but on the third, well, it didn't work out so well.

God brought it to a stop about as fast as my little brother stopped in front of me on his bike, right before I crashed into him. We will just say that only half my assignment was ready to be turned in on time, and half of that was only half way done. So much for my "very mature person" image.

Hanging On . . .
So what now? What have I learned? I'm afraid to tell you, lest you start looking for the fruit of it in my life. I am still in the very slow process of learning: that I cannot do anything, Any Thing, ANYTHING, without Jesus. He does not mind me asking for His help, but He really wants me to live in His help.

Jesus deserves everything I have got. I think of the movie Facing the Giants, when the coach tells the team, "At the end of this game, I want you to know that you left everything on the field." I want to come to the end of every day knowing that I left everything I had to give in that day. I want to be satisfied at the end of every hour that I had nothing left. I want to save no reserves for myself, but to spend it all on Jesus. I don't want to pace myself, I want to burn out for Him.

Learning From Jesus

2007-04-06T21:40:00.000-05:00

Of the thirty-three years that Jesus lived on earth, He spent only three in public ministry. In those three years He placed His priority on twelve people, talking, teaching, explaining, and living love in front of them. Through these relationships the world has been changed. In the Great Commission Jesus commands us, “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations . . .” How then do we obey this command? He made Himself the example of how to make disciples, we must know Him to rightly obey His command.

All these principles flow from the first one; one must abide in God himself before he can disciple anyone else. Jesus’ priority was first, to abide in God. He spent time alone in prayer and fasting, focusing on His relationship with God. The Bible says, “In the early morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house, and went away to a secluded place, and was praying there.” (Mark 1:35) He said of Himself that He depended wholly on God, stating, “I do nothing of myself; but as my Father hath taught me . . .” (John 8:28) If Jesus, the perfect one of God, did nothing of Himself, how much more important for us to do nothing of ourselves?

Although Jesus had many more than twelve disciples, the twelve were set apart, not by anything they did, but because Jesus chose them. The gospel of Mark says, “And when they were alone, he expounded all things to his disciples.” (Mark 4:34) Even though Jesus was God, and He often ministered to the masses, there were only twelve that He was intimate with. He calls us to minister to everyone we come in contact with, but invest in the few that are near us.

Jesus invested Himself by spending time that others would have considered a waste. He spent time with publicans and sinners, eating meals with them. (Mark 2:16-17) As a ruler’s child lay dying, He stopped on His way to heal her, to identify and speak to a woman who was healed by touching His clothing. When others told Bartimaeus to leave Jesus alone, Jesus took time to speak to him and heal him. Mothers brought their children to Him and the disciples rebuked them, but Jesus took time to love them, “And He took them up in His arms, put His hands upon them, and blessed them.” (Mar 10:16) He spent his time on people. Can we spend our time in a better way?

Jesus loved each person individually. Not the gushy feel-good emotion of love, but real, practical, deny-yourself-for-others love. He loved the disciples by choosing them, a bunch of nobodies. When the rich young ruler asked Him how to receive eternal life, Mark says, “Then Jesus beholding him loved him . . .” (Mark 10:21). Then Jesus spoke to his need.

Jesus always spoke the truth. Although many rejected it, He offered freedom by it. He spoke the truth to the Pharisees by telling them what hindered them from God, revealing their hypocrisy. He spoke the truth to His disciples, not suggesting He was offering the easy way, He plainly told them, “Whosoever will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.” (Mark 8:34) When we do less than speak the truth we hold back freedom from those who might accept it.

Jesus patiently interacted with all kinds of people. He was patient with the father doubting His ability to heal his son. In Mark 8:17-21 Jesus reminds His disciples of the feeding of the five thousand and the feeding of the four thousand and asks them if they do not understand. The truth is, they did not understand, but He did not give up on them. He kept patiently explaining. If Jesus was patient with people, how do we think in our pride, that we will be excused of our impatience? Is not Jesus patient with us?

Jesus taught creatively, drawing deep lessons out of life to explain to His disciples. He used word pictures, stories, and parables. If they did not understand, all they had to do was ask, and He would carefully explain the meaning. He used repetition too. Even when they could not understand in the moment, He assured that when the time came, they would remember what He taught them and they would understand.

Jesus also used discernment about what and how much to teach. He knew so much to give and explain, but they could understand little of what He taught them. He taught with patience and wisdom, just as God gently teaches us, not putting too much on us at once.

Jesus carefully showed us the way, but only those who look for it will find it. He does not command anything of us that He does not give the grace, and the direction to do it. We must first abide in God, just as He did, because He continues to disciple us as we obey and disciple others.

Pondering God's glory

2007-03-22T02:26:00.001-05:00

'For the recognition of the King'

It is a phrase that God is bringing me around to understanding. As far as I know, I am the person who came up with it, but God is the one who is bringing me back again and again to what it means as well as all the areas it touches.

As I begin to write this, I am overwhelmed and begin to despair. How can I possibly explain in writing everything God is impressing on my heart? Where do I start? Creation? my birth? the past year? the last month? or yesterday when I came up with the phrase? Thank God, His word is complete, and I don't have to worry about adding to the Bible. But, I hope He can be recognized in me, even in my writing.

It all started with the idea that everything is for the glory of God. But, to me, glory has always been a somewhat hazy word. Just what is the glory of God? I have heard that it is similar to honor. I could understand that a little better, but I still couldn't grasp it for sure.

During the last supper, in the Gospel of John 13:31-32, Jesus says, "Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in Him; if God is glorified in Him, God will also glorify Him in Himself, and will glorify Him immediately." In my mind this was all rather confusing, until I heard that the word 'glorify' could be interpreted as 'recognized'. Everything started to fall into place for me. So, Jesus will be recognized for who He is, God will be recognized in Jesus, and Jesus will be recognized in God. His human "disguise" was finally going to be taken off and He would be recognized as God in the flesh.

I desire to glorify God. Today, He chooses that He will reside in and work through imperfect people. People like me. I desire for people to recognize God for who He is. He is in disguise again. A much harder disguise than last time. If a perfect Man claiming to be God threw them off, how much more this?

Is He recognizable in me? I imagine that being God made Jesus act pretty different than other people. Can people see that I act differently because God lives in me? Can people see anything in my life or in my person that is different or desirable to them?

Do I recognize Jesus as my King? He will not force my allegiance. While claiming to others that He has supreme right over me and my life, do I disobey and disregard His commands?

The lesson God has been teaching me through this is humility. I come out of this test as a die-hard religious hypocrite. Jesus sticks with me anyway. He wants me to keep His name, even though I have brought shame to it and no doubt will again.
If any good, noble, worthy, or desirable thing is in me, recognize that as my King. Perhaps others can have good things in themselves without having Jesus' Lordship in their lives, but in my life it is not so. I know when critical choices between right and wrong arise, only Jesus' love has constrained me to choose as I have.

Lord, be recognized for who You are.