Thursday, August 26, 2010
let this be my heart, Lord.
I lay out the pieces of my life
on your altar
and watch for fire to descend."
Psalm 5:3
(The Message)
Thursday, August 19, 2010
For This Reason
"For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith - that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God," Ephesians 3:14-19.
Sometimes when I'm sitting in a service or gathering within the church body, I get frustrated. That may seem a bit vague, but it really is a pretty general statement. Every once in a while this urge flickers inside of me that wants to destroy everything - every tradition, every song, every building set up for a Sunday morning. Don't get freaked out, now...I only said once in a while :)
Most of this frustration comes from finding myself participating religiously in these "churchy" things, for the sake of being "churchy"...for lack of a better word. I want to function in the church body because I have a desire to have a real connection with the Holy Spirit, and for the passionate love of Jesus. I want to pray Paul's prayer to the Ephesians (and other churches, technically) for myself and for other Christians that sometimes get trapped in doing the right things, for the sake of doing the right things. When Paul writes "for this reason," he's referring back to what he talked about in chapter two, "But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ," (verse 13).
Lord forgive me if I have ever taken the blood of Christ with a light heart! How can that not affect me, deeply, so deeply that I work and struggle to drop everything hindering me from his sweet presence? Last night I was praying, asking God (for the umpteenth time) why I'm here. It would be so easy, so comfortable to be back in Washington. And then I started to read the beginning of chapter two, "And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience - among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of our body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ - by grace you have been saved - and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus."
.....He rescued me from death. And here I am, looking back at what my life once was. Longing for it. How can I, when I have laid out before me a hope and a future? How can I when Christ, being rich in mercy, called me out from a place of temptation into a place where I can trust in him fully, not knowing what tomorrow holds?
This kind of went in a separate direction than I had planned, just in trying to examine my own heart soberly (while half asleep). I pray for my church body, that they would seek Christ earnestly and wholeheartedly, that they would want to know him, but I still see so many dead branches in me that I need to let God prune and throw into the fire. I guess I'm human just like everyone else. I would have liked to think more highly of myself....but I guess not :)
"Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever, amen," (3:20-21).
Monday, August 16, 2010
God's Fields
A city, to be specific, located in California, USA, founded in 1872. As of 2010, the population was estimated 505,479, making it the fifth largest city in California, the largest inland city in California, and the 35th largest in the nation. It is smack dab in the middle of the San Joaquin Valley, which is in the central part of the state. This is where we retrieve our beloved nickname "The Central Valley."
There are many places to eat in this city. Any place you could think of, really. And (GET THIS) there are Starbucks stores everywhere - and that is saying a lot coming from someone who has grown up an hour away from Seattle, Washington.
One of the more important things to remember is that when the month of June rolls around....it gets hot. And boy do I mean hot. You know you are starting to get used to inhumane conditions when a forecast of 95 degrees brings a sigh of relief! Literally, this thought went through my head, "Oh good, it's going to be cooler today."
This is the place I am tentatively calling "home." Although that hardly seems to be the correct term for it. Nothing here is familiar, and I am getting accustomed to a never ending state of being out of my comfort zone. Imagine going to a Sunday morning service and only knowing 5% of the people who go there.
Do you have some sort of vision stuck in your head of what this might look like? Well, now I will give you a name for it. They call it "Fresno"....in Spanish, "Ash Tree."
Since coming here I have been discouraged. And before I write anything else, I will preface it by saying that this is all part of my adjusting. So please don't think I'm throwing a little pity party here. But needless to say this move has been surreal. Leaving Olympia was a long and arduous process, something I wouldn't want to relive. Maybe it would be comparable to having bamboo chutes shoved up your fingernails (I am currently debating on whether or not to redact that last statement....but no one is probably going to read this anyway....). Anyway, after three long months of having to say goodbye I wouldn't say that moving here brought any sort of reprieve from that pain. Not that I have been depressed or melancholy, but if any of you have left behind relationships that had been a part of your core for so long you might understand.
The discouragement came from wondering if anything I did while I was in Olympia made any difference, especially since I was leaving it all behind. There were a lot of relationships I invested so much of myself into - so what was supposed to happen now that I had no way of maintaining that? How do I start all over again in a community that has essentially grown up together? How do I perpetually meet people and expect to form those deep bonds I had in Washington?
Goodness, I feel like I'm just rambling now. It's been so long since I've written anything of value. After having multiple conversations on this subject, I began to realize how arrogant it has been of me to think that all of my efforts and my accomplishments would be going to waste - since it was God who had been calling me to do all of it in the first place! Does that make sense? All along it was only an effort in trying to be obedient to the Lord, not to earn some sort of high standing in the church. I will admit that at times I did certain things for self-glorifying reasons (which is a whole other blog in itself) but overall, I was just trying to love other people. If God had been the one calling me to pour into these relationships then why would me moving away affect God's call in any way? Why would he let any of that go to waste? Okay, okay. Still rambling. Here's a verse that I have been encouraged by, "I (Paul) planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. For we are God's fellow workers. You are God's field, God's building." 1 Corinthians 3:6-9.
So in my mind I had my own field. I worked hard, and I produced my own fruit. And in my mind, God was rewarding my fruit. It didn't matter how hard or little I worked, as long as the fruit was there. Needless to say, I was wrong. God calls us to work hard, to labor for his kingdom. To break our backs for the Gospel. He rewards us for that labor, because we are laboring in obedience. If God rewarded us based on how many people got saved through our ministry, think of how miserable Jeremiah's existence would have been! No one listened to him! He became a laughingstock from declaring words that the Lord had given him.
If there is one thing I've learned over the past year, it's that God is in control, and there's not much I can do about it. For so long I was formless clay telling my potter how to form and mold me. Ridiculous. Though sometimes I get discouraged here, I get lonely, ultimately I have joy in my precious Savior. He rescued me. And I know that by being here I am being obedient to him. I may have this lofty idea in my head of the Woman of God I aspire to be one day - but I can't just get there. Every single day I have to give control to God. Every single morning I have to wipe my eyes and say, "Your will be done." And it will be - and if I continue to let God have a hold on my life day to day, then everything else falls into place. I don't have to worry about tomorrow!
Ah....I think I wrote this more for myself than anything else. God has been good to me.
Saturday, January 16, 2010
endure
Romans 5 says that suffering produces endurance, endurance produces character, character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame. I see this as some sort of a timeline, as moments pass, we go from suffering to endurance to character to hope.
As I was talking to a friend the other day, attempting to explain this, I got this vision in my head of me standing in the midst of my kingdom.
There are stories and stories of brick buildings, maybe even castles. I've built them all myself and they loom over me and my satisfaction. I am very proud, because look. I've done this all by myself. My dreams are coming true, all my plans are in place, and I am set for life - there is nothing left to worry about.
All at once I feel the ground moaning underneath my feet in resistance, and in panic I see my castles begin to break apart. Pieces of brick and mortar begin to crumble down on me, leaving bruises and blood and wounds behind. And for a while all I can do is stay on my hands and knees in sorrow and despair as I am perpetually bombarded.
This is suffering.
But the next step is endurance. So I lift my head up. Then I lift the rest of myself up.
I start running.
Now, while I'm running, I feel this pain. And it stems from the fact that I have not escaped the falling debris. I'm still being chipped away. But it's different this time. Because even though my world has been turned upside down, I'm moving forward. I'm going.
And I can see it. Far off into the distance I can see the end of it. In Psalm 40:1 David writes "I waited patiently for the Lord; he inclined to me and heard my cry." I get the feeling that "I waited" did not mean staying in one spot feeling sorry for himself while he waited. I think that in his waiting he endured. This was not a passive patience.
I endure because it is demanded of me. Why? Because God is glorious. And He calls His children to glorify Him. In our celebration - yes. But especially in our suffering.
So how do I endure? How do I move forward? In other words, how is God glorified in my suffering?
I think I have found an answer in Isaiah 58:10-11, "If you pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then shall your light rise in the darkness and your gloom be as the noonday. And the Lord will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in scorched places and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail."
God is glorified when there is ultimately nothing inside of me but a desire for Him. And when I am poured out into others and my flesh has been cast away so that I can love abundantly, He will pour back into my soul, and use me. I have no right to my own life - when Jesus died He staked His claim on my soul. So it is with joy that I say, "Here am I! Send me!"
What else can I do?
I love verse 6 in 2 Corinthians, "If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer." Paul was the ultimate example of this - dedicating his life to the Gospel so that others would know Christ. Others.
So how can I be self absorbed? How can I be so concerned about how I feel and how I look and how others perceive me? When all of this clogs my joy - it reaps nothing but despair and insecurity. John Piper put it well, "Periodic self-examination is needed and wise and biblical. But for the most part, mental health is the use of the mind to focus on worthy reality outside ourselves." There is such a deep significance in this outward-oriented self-forgetfulness.
And so, we endure. Because by enduring we glorify God, and to glorify God means a healthy ignorance of "self". I will endure because my feelings don't matter. My opinion doesn't matter.
Others matter. What lies ahead matters. God's glory matters.
Friday, December 25, 2009
cupcakes
I scratch my head and look at the tiles along the bottoms of the shelves. My hand twitches and I scratch the surface with my torn fingernails. It's like the dried toothpaste that crawls around the rim of your sink. Shuddering as I recoil my fingers, I continue to spin, and finally stop at what I'm looking for.
Cupcakes. It's a Martha Stewart book – filled with cupcakes. I flip through pages of pumpkin ginger, fourth of July, Crème Brule, and my mouth is watering.
I want a cupcake right this second.
I try not to think too hard. Focusing on the cupcakes should be easy enough. Wrappers, frosting, cake, melt-in-your-mouth goodness. Should I buy it?
It would probably just end up sitting on a shelf somewhere, like my other cookbooks.
The ceiling fan is still burring. So I zip up my jacket and frantically continue to search.
Maybe I would finally put my pots and pans to use. Maybe I would stop being lazy and apathetic and just start baking already.
The science/fantasy fiction is over my shoulder, and my eye catches an older man with brown, rumpled curls and a gray blazer. His glasses are crooked. I wonder if his wife makes him cupcakes. Suddenly his glance shifts towards me and my reflexes sink back into the sweet pages of confection. I feel pathetic.
The shoes on my feet are old and comfortable. They rock back and forth from heel to toe as I am pensive.
Twenty-five dollars. Cupcakes. Shelves and crusted toothpaste. I have no kitchen of my own. The only ones who would eat them would be my little brothers.
Maybe it isn't worth it. Maybe none of it is.
My heel hits the carpet and I spin.
When I leave the cupcakes I feel sad, like they were all friends. And when I keep walking through aisles and aisles of pages I don't want to be found. I want to hide with my friends forever. We'd cook and laugh and bake cupcakes together. Sometimes we'd cry but in the end we would find peace because we would know each other.
For some odd reason leaving the book has made the night melancholy. But I ignore my insides and continue for the exit.
The sliding doors opened and the cold got worse. I would rather be home by the fire with my cupcakes.
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
rebirth
For a good nineteen years of my life I have perpetually heard the phrase, "God grabbed hold of my life"…in some form or another. I guess time and time again those words began to chip away at me, to a point where I would hear it and immediately brush it off. In all honestly I had no idea what it meant. I've grown up in the ministry and am very familiar with the things you say in order to make people believe you are super spiritual, and in turn became immune to those lines that were actually sincere, and meant something.
I had no idea what God grabbing hold of my life would look like. It was just a weird visual for me. I see everything in my mind and for God to be reaching down to me and taking my life and doing something with it on his OWN terms just did not calculate. I suppose I always figured that it was a wonderful thing. Something wonderful that seemed, to me, unattainable.
But I was wrong. I had no idea or could ever define what it's like. Not in exact terms, anyway.
See…God grabbing hold of my life had been pretty bloody. A messy, ugly thing. If you are a visual person, let me offer you this – My chest had been torn open, and everything has been exposed. This huge interrogation light is now shining into my core. And everyone can see why I suck at life….how sinful I am. Especially – especially
me! I have no place to hide.
Looking back (not very far back, but in retrospect nonetheless), I don't see how I thought I could get away with doing things my own way. However, this all stems from the fact that I never really got God "grabbing hold" of something – much less, me. I underestimated his ability to pull the carpet from underneath my feet. Once that happened, I began to grieve. I grieved for my life, for my desires, for all of the things I had wanted and planned for my life. But as days went by, I began to grieve in a different way. I grieved for time wasted, relationships withering away, for my purity.
Paul writes in Romans 7:13, "Did that which is good, then, become death to me? By no means! But in order that sin might be recognized as sin, it produced death in me through what was good, so that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful."
The good that I should have been doing isn't what hurts, it's sin exposed by the good…that's what kills me. As the Holy Spirit draws nearer, it reveals more and more how dirty I am.
I don't know what happens next. I don't know what God has for me. As of now my plans and ideas for my life are slowing being thrown into the fire, and it feels like the worst thing ever. I feel like I'm starting over. All the things I thought I knew, I'm learning how to do them again. But it's all part of this thing called God grabbing a hold on my life, I guess.
Monday, July 20, 2009
pocket dictionary
I need a dictionary,
One that's small.
It needs to fit in my purse, I mean.
So when I want to impress someone,
The wit is convenient.
He was tall and dark-haired
At the party
With his cocktail (I hate alcohol)
But his curls made me tipsy
And the word kitsch left me.
Usually I know my words.
You know, and how to use them.
I'm smart, I mean.
But I often see attractive people,
So I must take precautions.