Wohoo!

I've been published!  Sorta. Check it out  http://anglicanyouthministry.com/weekly-meetings/2012/discipleship-and-the-yoke-of-christ/

Because

One night after closing the shop, I took the invitation of the band and an acquaintance to join them for drinks at CFB. The acquaintance had that aura of friendship about her; I've heard of similar folks being called 'persons of peace', and I hoped for a conversation about God.  I grabbed a beer and tipped the server. My house had raised money for a non-profit the acquaintance favored, and after talk of the halloween party and her travels she asked if everyone in the house was 'very religious'. I grinned internally, and tried to reframe the conversation. “I wouldn't say religious,” I said, “but maybe spiritual*.”

      “But, you're all about one spirituality right? Like, 'everything is spiritual' spiritual, or specific, one-way kind of spiritual?”

      “Well, I believe everything is spiritual. Everyone tunes in to it, takes part in spirituality. But, I'm a Christian. I believe it's true.”

      She interrupted me. “But, why are you a Christian?”

Boom.

First thought to run through my mind: 'Oh man. Best question ever.'

Second thought to run through my mind: 'And...I have no clue how to answer that.' Immediately followed, of course, by the memory of Peter writing, 'Always be prepared to answer for the hope that you have.' And here we go.

I tried to build a theological proof. “See, we all know there is something greater than ourselves, and joy points to it, but we also know that we can never possibly attain to it. We know that we are never as good as we should be. We know we are trapped in selfishness and pride and ignorance. And yet we know that we should be more. We have a moral conscience, and fail before it. But in Christianity we draw near to that beauty and glory that is greater than ourselves by reason of something totally external- we are brought into glory by grace, and by love. And that rings true.”

She was not phased. She nodded it off. Maybe she'd heard it before, or maybe it just didn't stick.

And honestly, I wasn't convincing myself. I believed all that, sure, and even felt most of it deeply. But... that wasn't why I followed Jesus. That wasn't why I believed. I was not convinced by a theologically sound argument for the existence of a tripartite God and a salvation by grace. I used to think I had believed by reason, by some secret understanding. But, that was never convincing to my friends, and eventually it lost it's appeal to me as well. Foolishness to the Jews and folly to the Gentiles- my heart and my mind are very much like theirs.

I sighed, and God spoke. I said, “Well, really, I believe because God has spoken to me.”

She focused. “Like, culturally, or you read the Bible or what?”

“Well, yes,” I said, excitement growing. I could see where we were heading. “But more than that. Like experiences.”

“Like what?” And now she was truly curious.

“Well...”

And I told her about healings, and prophecies, and about people getting words for eachother, ridiculous words for complete strangers, about treasure hunting and scripture bringing me to tears and prayers being answered and love and doubt and fear and how all was consumed in the love of God.  And she listened, as did her friends.

Thinking about that conversation, I realized the amazing irony that the thing which I most doubt and analyze, the voice of God, is the very thing which has drawn me to Him. By means of the Holy Spirit, by way of Jesus's substitutionary atonement. It was the presence of God, intervening in my day-to-day, that has made me a Christian. And from Adam to Moses to the disciples, the voice of God, in their native tongue, is the only thing that has ever drawn God's people to Himself.

In fact, His voice began it all. Creation by speaking. And then His Logos Word redeemed that which we lost. And as I think about God, speaking outside of time into it, I think that somehow His words must be ringing out still, resonating and echoing through the cosmos. String theory, in light of a speaking God, is ever more elegant.

We talked for a long time afterwards, until the band left and we were the only ones still at the table. She said she wanted to believe, wanted hope, but didn't know if she still could. She said that it was good to find someone who believed in something. It gave her hope. I walked her to her car, and told her, if she ever needed anything, to let me or my roommates know. She hasn't yet, but no matter. God does not need me or my friends for His kingdom to grow. Somehow, though, He still finds ways to use us. Like late at night, after work, over craft beer.

At Christmas, sometimes, I'm so overwhelmed by the improbability of it all that I almost want to walk away. I simply cannot wrap my imagination, much less my reason, around an omnipotent infinite Lord in a manger. Neither could the masses, then, nor now. It's a great story and all, with hope and joy. But really?  I cannot grasp it.

Yet, I look back, at the many times the improbable has occurred, the times the voice of God has gone out over chaos and brought order to my affections and fears, the times when His presence has changed me and my friends, physically, spiritually, emotionally- and I believe. Not because it makes sense, necessarily. Because it doesn't align with my reason, or my opinions. And yet. And yet He has spoken. And that's all there is to it.

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*an attempt at linguistic relevance

Frustration, Silence, and the Coming

I've never had someone reject words from the Lord before. Now, I've had folks explain them away, ignore them, challenge them, and hate them. But I've never had someone stop me, mid-sentence, to say, 'Frankly, I don't care. God is either real and will talk to me about it, or He's not and He won't.'

He walked out of the room to brush his teeth, and I was left startled, and my heart recoiled. It hurt deeply to have my thoughts rejected, since my intent was to encourage and love a friend. I set up several scenarios, running through how he would respond to different movements on my part. I could attack the theological inaccuracies of his frustrated monologue, of which there were many. I could slam his looming arrogance, for in conversation it had stepped way out into the open. I could cut down much of his personality, blasting his flaws in rapid succession. Perhaps all three.

I wanted him to collapse in repentance. He would be found sorry, and weep, and return humbly to the Lord. And, if I got a little retributive jab in there, no real foul. It was well earned.

But nothing seemed right to say. I knew I wanted to lash back, even as in his frustration he had wanted someone to feel the pain he did. But, bearing my pride rarely softens another's. And in my reaction my pride surged as well. And, something hurt me more than his rejection. It was the deep, deep reminder that I carry the same fears. I am scared of working food and bev all my life. I'm scared of not moving forward. I'm scared of relationships failing. I'm scared of God not coming through on my hopes and dreams and visions. I wrestle with anxiety daily. By grace alone I cling to grace, and wait. As does my friend. And when we get tired, we'll over-react, and we'll yell at God. And He'll welcome us back, theological inaccuracies and little faith and all. Because, it's the only way we ever come.

So I laid on his bed, in silence, until he kicked me out. He apologized, in the end, but he didn't seem particularly sorry. Just angry. That's ok. He was out on a narrow branch, and the wind seemed a far greater constant than the trunk.

But, still he remained, and so I waited with him. In truth, if God does not 'come through' (meaning, do what we think He should), on any or all of the many things we are frustrated with/desparing in, still God would be God, and God would be good. My friend and I have both experienced too much to turn from that. We, like Peter, ask, 'Where else can we go?' Because we've looked, and there is no other explanation so beautiful, so good, so elegantly complete. And yet there is nothing so mysterious, confusing, and wondrous. God is, as He has named Himself.

Further, God owes us nothing. No matter how hard we try we have earned no piece of our reward. All has come from the reconciliation of Christ and the indwelling of the Spirit, and thus, should all be taken away and all fall to dust, still His love would be true and still His presence would remain. Our circumstances clearly are not evidence of the love and presence of God. Read Job. Read of the sufferings of the early church. Read of the sufferings of Jesus. Was he outside of the love of God when everything was stripped from Him, as He was beaten and tortured and killed? Nope. Only once was He separated from the love and presence of God, only as He took our sins upon himself, in a final breath, and died prematurely of the bitter separation from His father. He became sin, separation and death, that we might become righteousness. In the greatest evil and brokenness and circumstantial despair in history, our position was made secure. How much more secure it remains, even if all around us collapses?

God's purposes are greater than our reaching the middle class. Frankly, I think we've taken Jeremiah frightfully out of context. Plans to prosper you and not harm you? Tell that to the 10 martyred apostles. Yell that over Steven as the stones are thrown. Whisper it to Jesus as he carries His cross through suburbia to the hill of the skull.

Some in the kingdom will make gobs of money. Some will never have more than is necessary. But manna comes, day by day, in many, many ways, until He takes us to be with Him, the true bread of life. We cannot judge His nature by our happiness, for they are spuriously correlated at best. We judge Him by His own decrees, His own actions, and submit to Him as we seek to respond, in whatever ways we can, to His continued revelation to us.

I may speak grace to my friend, at some point, but for now, silence seems the better comforter (Job again). He's wise enough to know his inconsistencies, as I know my own. He's experienced enough to know that it will work out, one way or another. He has heard enough of God to believe, even when it falls apart. But he is really tired, and really angry, and doesn't want to hear it, as so often I have been. So I'll wait with him a while. Because sometimes faith is best realized in waiting. Not meaning that when He comes it will be as we expect (think 'God as a baby', and let your mind explode). But He will come, and there we hope. Here's to advent.

So you, by the help of your God, return,

hold fast to love and justice,

and wait continually for your God.

Hosea 12:6

An Early Prayer

 A prayer from a few weeks ago.
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Lord God of heaven,
make earth heaven now.
Bring your Spirit with conviction
and renewed vision of redemption,
that we would repent and rejoice together.

Lord, I cannot heal the wounds of my house.  I cannot lead myself to you, much less my friends.  We are convinced of our righteousness, and conversely of our unrighteousness.  We are ignorant, and so we have sinned.

Open our eyes to see You and Your holiness more clearly.
Make us yearn for true righteousness, and make us restless and dissatisfied in our wanderings
even when we don't realize we're wandering.
Turn us home as the cattle are pulled by bit and bridle
if nothing else will do.

Return me, O Lord, to confidence in You,
to change my friends
to grow your church
to lead me well.

I have so little trust, but I stand on it, on You,
the foundation deeply laid before the foundations of the earth-
I wait for you.  Give ear to my struggles, so insignificant in the world and yet so pressing to me, give ear.
Let me share You with those who need You more,
let me speak Your love to those who know it and those who don't,
that we all may be made new and whole again.

I remember what you have done.  I recall your calling.  I wait for you to bring me in to the land flowing with milk and honey.  Even if it's not with who I thought it'd be with.  Even if it's not where I thought it'd be.

And even if I'm to die in the wilderness, Lord, let me as Moses see, and rejoice
in the fulfillment of Your promises.


I give you my roommates and their problems.  I can't carry them alone.

I give you my community and it's problems.  I can't heal them, or lead it alone.

I give you my future, and my job.  I can't determine it, and I can't rejoice in it alone.

I bless you for who you are and what you've done.  Meet with me in comfort, and wisdom, and discernment.  Give me words to speak when I need to.  Bring people to you!  Especially my customers.  And the staff.  Bring repentance swiftly.

Hearing Ears

I have mentioned tension before, I think.  It's where I live, the truest experience of faith that I know.  Tension, being pressed or pulled between two seemingly opposed forces, and finding identity in the mystery of remaining in between.  Tension.

One of the primary tensions of my walk with God is that of obedience and trust.  I've written of this before, in different terms, and will undoubtedly write of it again, simply because I walk to its cadence most of the time.

I'm reading through Deuteronomy.  The twenties are miserable reading for me, because they outline some of the harshest portions of God's law (which I struggle to swallow), followed by repeated curses that are to follow if the law is not followed perfectly.  Miserable, and if it not for chapter 30 I might just skip the book and try something more palatable.

After reminding Israel of what the Lord did in rescuing them from Egypt, in Deuteronomy 29:4-6 Moses says this bit:

But to this day the Lord has not given you a heart to understand or eyes to see or ears to hear.  I have led you forty years in the wilderness.  Your clothes have not worn out on you, and your sandals have not worn off your feet.  You have not eaten bread, and you have not drunk wine or strong drink, that you may know that I am the Lord your God.

So often I find solace in the truth that God's people can be His even without the fulfillment of their hearts, eyes, ears.  I am so often blind, so often discouraged by my lack of affections for my God, despairing for my regular inability to hear His voice.  I live there, so often.

But Moses continues, and reminds God's hardened people of what the Lord has done.  His word has protected you.  He has fed you with food, physical and spiritual.  After the cross, we would add that He has dwelt among us, died for us, risen in hope and life and victory.  And that will carry me through.

I wrote a song once that had the stanza, "My boots still squeak like the day they came/In the mail with a guarantee/That they'd carry me where I've been/And they'd take me where I need to be."  That's so often my understanding of faith.  I have received it, but not arrived.  I have been carried by grace before I knew I had it, and must trust that it will continue to carry me even after I've grown concerned about my squeaking step.

My prayer is often this:

Lord, give me eyes to see and ears to hear
and a heart to know You, to really know You.  More and more.

But, I don't stay there.   I mean, I don't meditate on my lackings.  Because, if I believe I can pray that prayer, I must trust that He has already brought me into relationship with Him.  Which He has.  I could tell you stories on stories of His involvement in my life.  And so to those stories of His faithfulness I cling, as the Israelites clung to their stories of redemption and freedom.  I tell them to myself.  I write them down.  I talk about them.  I read over my flashcards, as I did this week.  Because, even when I feel far, and blind, and deaf, I have known intimacy, seen the hand of God, heard His voice, sweeter than music.  And that helps me trust that He remains, that His love abides, in the wilderness.  Thus my identity is formed on Him, and my dependence maintained.

Prayer from a Hard Evening

Lord,

Sovereign is what I call You when I'm scared,
and when I see Your hand at work.
Loving is what I call You when I am lonely,
and when I feel the warmth of Your presence.
Savior, I call you, when I feel lost,
and when I feel free.
Emmanuel, God with us, when I hear nothing, see nothing, feel nothing,
and when Your intimate whisperings brings me to laughter at my own foolishness.

Your names, God, You have given Yourself.  You have revealed them to us.
You named us, and then named Yourself in our Tongue.  Yeshua.  Jesus.

A name not to be thrown around.  A name not to be shortened and abbreviated.

You named Yourself.  You defined Yourself.  You placed Yourself within limits.
Such is incarnation.  Such is condescension.  Such is the love of my God.

You gave me something to which I may cling, when no such thing was warranted.
You gave me a name, Yours, that I might sing it when I have no other choruses,
pray it when I have no other prayers,
speak it when I have no other words,
write it when I have no other thoughts to write.

In You I hope.  In You I trust.  Where else can I go?
I wait for the fullness of Your kingdom.  Come and make me new.  Comfort me by Your Spirit.
Draw me close, and whisper again.
For it will take but a breath to wake me,
but a name to quicken my coagulated affections.

Speak Your name, Jesus, as I do, that I might be returned to You again, my first love,
and the only love that can truly satisfy.

Jesus.

Rhythm and Spontaneity

This is one of several attempts at describing discipleship for a friend of mine.  The challenge- to stay around three hundred words.  Epic fail.  I probably wrote 15 pages, writing and rewriting to say what I mean.  This was one of the lost attempts, but still good.  Takes a slightly more pragmatic approach, which I hope to dig into later.
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Hebrew discipleship prescribed learning through imitation. While actions were instructed and theology taught, the intended transference was something much less tangible: relationship, which the instruction of words and the modification of behavior could never truly achieve. Thus, Jesus's discipleship of the twelve did not focus on orthodoxy, nor orthopraxy, but on a learning of discipline and attentiveness, of the rhythm and spontaneity of loving God and loving man, which produced right belief and behavior as its wake.

It was not behavior nor belief which brought us into the kingdom, but His initiation. It is in and by the presence of God that we are still changed into the image of Christ. This is why the relationship into which Jesus enters, that which He commissions to establish and expand the church, is discipleship. It is a yoking, a learning to walk together that teaches us to abide in love.

In reading Numbers recently, the contrast between the first eight chapters and the ninth surprised me. The first section delineates feasts and protocol. The relationship of the Israelite to the Lord is defined exclusively by disciplines, rhythms. Yet in nine the Lord instructs them to camp and move whenever the cloud moves. Suddenly their previously ordered lives hinge upon the unpredictable movement of God. They are forced into attentiveness, spontaneity.

Every relationship exists between these poles. Our friends are those with whom we have regular rhythms of interaction, yet without attentive spontaneity any relationship falls stagnant, becoming duty instead of love.

It is helpful, for me, in discipleship, to think less about what the student needs to believe or do, and more about how I engage in relationship with the Lord, and to invite them there. In this way I begin to lead them, not in correcting thoughts and behaviors (that will happen along the way), but instead in submitting to and listening for the Lord, as He calls me in rhythm and spontaneity.

What are the rhythms and spontaneities in which you follow the Lord?  How can you share them with others?  This is the beginning of discipleship.

Jesus the Diagram

The western church holds the teacher above most spiritual callings.  While we may not verbalize it, our services and programs say it loud and clear.  Most Christians expect the greatest growth and change to happen during the sermon.  It's the most critiqued part of any church.  He didn't use enough scripture.   It was too self-help-y.  It was too long/short.  I didn't really get anything from it today.

Who is the highest paid pastor?  Almost always the teacher.  If a church can only hire one pastor, what do they look for?  A teacher.  What takes up the most time in a general Sunday service?  The teaching.

But it goes deeper.  How do we structure our ministries to the body?  Around teaching.  What happens in our community groups/life groups/cell groups?  Typically, the sermon is discussed, or a new teaching is presented.

Is the teacher important?  Yes.  Crucial.  Jesus teaches again and again, with the few and the many.  In Hosea says that Israel is in sin because it has abandoned the knowledge of God.  What are the epistles if not long teachings?

But still, there is a danger here.  The western mind values knowledge, understanding, information, above almost every other faculty of knowing, largely, I'd assume, due to the Renaissance and the Enlightenment.  Reason, with the scientific method, rules.  What does it mean to be a Christian in the West?  It means to believe, to know the right things.  A Christian has made an intellectual assent to truth.  He knows, and therefore he is.

But Jesus did not take the same approach.  Jesus taught His disciples, sure, but they seemed to have no idea what He was talking about most of the time.  Peter moves swiftly from an affirmation of Jesus as the Son of God to challenging His submission to the cross.  On the road to Emmaus, after His resurrection, He must again explain Himself to His disciples.  Immediately before He rises to heaven in Acts, the disciples ask if they would soon liberate Jerusalem from the Romans.  They still have no idea what He has intended in the proclamation of His kingdom.  Jesus takes it in stride, and seemingly ignores the question. They'll find out soon enough, when he disappears into the clouds.

In fact, the disciples seem unsure and confused until the visible arrival of the Holy Spirit.  Illumination, perhaps, as one of the Spirit's roles, finally opened their eyes to the gospel.  Seemingly so, for after Pentecost there was no stopping them.

All that to say, Jesus's highest priority was not understanding.  It was discipleship, in which the life of one is taken onto the other.  Yoking.  Jesus called the disciples not to a new bible study where the ultimate teacher would clear things up.  He called them to follow Him as He lived.  Teaching formed only a part of their spiritual formation.  An important part, but still, just a part.  Much more occurred in walking, watching, doing ministry themselves.  They were healing and casting out demons long before they had any idea what the gospel truly meant.  They just had an idea that this Guy was something else, and that He loved like no one else, had authority like no one else, and on top of that, He brought a new teaching.  He was a teacher, but so much more, and so in discipleship they came to know Jesus the person, instead of Jesus the diagram.

Is this not the good news?  That, as Hosea prophecies, God would be called Husband and not Master?  What beautiful news that is to hardened ears.

This has massive ramifications.  Firstly, those we pour into- do we lead and mentor and disciple as Jesus did, with more than information alone, but with life and ministry and walking and praying and healing?  Do we introduce concepts, or Persons?  Do we instruct them in worship, or show them the Lamb, before whom all knees bow?

And think alos of how this changes the way we read scripture.  Instead of mining for truths, arguments, theologies- we meditate on it.  We listen to God in it.  We open ourselves to more than the surface-level statement, and begin to see in every page the pursuit of a loving God, the wrath of a holy God, the joy of a chosen people.  With instruction-  we cannot deny the beauty of truth, of theology, of good sermons and little scriptural nugs.  God uses them.  But He uses so much more as well.  How can we open ourselves to knowing God in a well-rounded, discipleship-driven way, instead of through the west's favorite lens of pure, rational information?  That is a good question.

Darkness, Mystery, and Worship

With a name like that, I feel this post has much to live up to.  And honestly, it repeats much of an earlier post.  Yet, it has so much to do with today's sermon, I felt it was a good time to post it anyway.

Who among you fears the Lord
and obeys the voice of His servant?
Let him who walks in darkness and has no light
trust in the name of the Lord
and rely on his God.
Behold, all you who kindle a fire,
who equip yourselves with burning torches!
walk by the light of your fire
and by the torches that you have kindled!
This you have from my hand,
you shall lie down in torment!
Isaiah 50.10-11

Survival tip: You cannot fight quicksand.  Struggling and swimming only loosens the soup around you, drawing you deeper.  Instead, you must stop, rest.  You must order your body to remain motionless even as every instinct screams panic and every limb is shaking with the desire to flail around for whatever hope might be grasped.

Isaiah speaks of our response to utter darkness.  Darkness creates discomfort and tension, because it naturally limits our control, and so, as often as we can, we quickly build our own fires, light our own torches, to mitigate the tensions of unknowing and to limit the danger of mystery.

The problem is that our faith is naturally one immersed in mystery.  Ours is a God of paradoxical statements, a God of proportions greater than our minds can comprehend.  To reject mystery is to reject relationship with Him.  When I reject tension, I reject life as He created it.

But this means that we will find ourselves in struggle, in tension, in uncertainty and doubt and anxiety and unknowing.  How are we to respond?

Isaiah calls us to trust in the name of the Lord and rely on our God.  Our tension, if offered to Him, can become worship; and mysteries, as Spurgeon wrote, become fuel for our devotion.  But only if we allow Him to be their resolution instead of seeking to make things resolve on our own.

And how do we do this?  How do we trust in the name of the Lord and rely upon our God?  We remember what He has done, and what He has spoken.  To allow mystery is not to remove truth, or even truth seeking, but to base our truth upon the Word of God, the one Truth incarnate and established.  We lean upon what we do know know, namely, our relationship with Him insofar as He has reached out to us (in moments of our lives and in scriptural promises, ultimately manifest in Jesus Christ) to find security in what He has not yet revealed.  When faced with immeasurable brokenness, we can worship, because we know He remains the same, even though we don't understand.  When faced with doubts, we can worship, because we know that His love and His spirit remain, even though we don't understand.  And it is in this darkness, if we leave our meager candles cold, that His light can become most defined, His heart most revealed, and His nature, which is so far greater than our own, most known: within mystery itself.  For there we find a love and a wrath carried for us, an unearnable grace offered to us, and God breaking in our place.  This, greatest of mysteries, is the moment of greatest revelation of our God-  why then would we try to mitigate mystery today?

Response to Truth

A friend wrote me back with some excellent challenges and revision.  After having asked permission, here is what they had to say:

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 I think certainly you are right, sometimes sharing the truth might not be a good thing, but I think you can err on the other side as well- in not being willing to speak truth in relationships enough.  Both can lead to the demise of a friendship and I think it has to do with balance. 

If you are never willing to speak about and address issues then you will just be sweeping things under the rug.  Sure, you can bring them to God and surrender, but that doesn't change the fact that there are continued unaddressed issues in a relationship and eventually, I think that relationship is going to crumble if things go unresolved.

On the other hand, sharing too much can also destroy a relationship. 

Personally, I think this is why balance is so important.  You have to be honest in friendships, and you have to be able to address hurt.  My friend has to be able to deal with the fact that sometimes she hurts my feelings and vice versa.  We have to learn how to face that in a mature way and treat each other with grace.  I think it is ok to share and address things, and a lot of times I think it is necessary.  Otherwise resentment is too easily bred.  That being said, I think it is important to learn how to recognize my motives and heart- why was I hurt by a certain situation, are my feelings warranted/equal to the action committed to hurt me?  Or am I perhaps reacting from an old hurt or a place of pride or fear?  Why do I want to address this hurt or issue?  If my desire comes from a place of wanting the person to understand how terribly they have hurt me, than that's not a good place to come from.  Whenever I want someone to "understand" I am seeking vindication of some sort, and that's not my place- I need to forgive.  I pray and seek the Lord, then if I come to a place where I feel that my desire to be "honest" comes from a wanting to address the issue and move on, then it might be ok.  In communicating about the issue I don't need to drill in how much I am bothered by the situation- if I say something it needs to be simple, acknowledging the issue and my sin as well.  In bringing something up, I also need to be prepared and ready for whatever reaction I might receive.  I may be received with grace, I may be rejected, or my hurt may be ignored.  After bringing up the issue I may still be left feeling unsatisfied and unresolved.  If that's the case, which is very possible, then it is time for me to take it to the Lord, as well as surrendering that friendship to the Lord. Sometimes I do think issues need to be addressed, bringing things from darkness to light, while also acknowledging my own sin and pride.  Not addressing things can be just as destructive as addressing things.  A lot rides on that other person too- how do I receive those that I hurt?  Do I have grace with them and myself?  Am I willing to admit my fault?

Relationships are sticky and messy sometimes because we are sticky and messy- in all of it, I think humility is key.

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Great thoughts.  Thanks for the wisdom!

The Submission of Truth

Truth exists, and that's a fact.   I do believe in perfect truth, and I believe we can learn more and more about the world around us, learning more about truth.

And I do think that Jesus is called Truth, is the greatest Truth, and is the fulfillment of all other truth.

However, I do believe that creation is true and separate from God (while still being upheld by Him).  That is to say, I do not believe creation is part of God, an extension of Him, but is something wholly other, while still created by and subject to His will.

Now, all that is preliminary to a discussion of our grasp and wielding of truth.

I sipped coffee with a new friend today.  He is not a Christian, nor an atheist.  He simply doesn't think about it much.  We had a great conversation; I think enough for the two of us.

He spoke about a relationship in which he participates, into which he has brought great suffering recently.  He spoke his true feelings to a friend, honestly and with integrity, and they brought no love or peace or change, but pain and hurt and fear.  He wrestled with his integrity.  Was it better to lie, to ignore what he felt, or to speak in integrity that which could never be said well.

Here I think we stumble across a major failure of man, propagated widely since the 'Enlightenment'.  Man has held the existence of truth as the ultimate arbiter of action and deed- all is permissible, if done in truth.

We quickly apply this law to our emotions.  When our feelings are 'true', we then claim this truth as a reason to act.  Thus when my new friend felt negatively about his friend, integrity to truth bid him speak.  [Or, perhaps his integrity excused his selfishness, and lack of self-control, as the case may be.] His voice tore the fabric of their relationship deeply.  Words are powerful, and can do great damage.  Further, words with truth behind them are nearly unstoppable.

He faces a dilemna intrinsic to the human condition.  Truth cuts as a knife, and truth of disagreement or disappointment between two people must bring division, always.  He spoke, division ensued, and now he must face the consequence of his action.

Yet could he live with integrity and not speak?

We see the same process at work in the placards that resign all sinners to hell, wielded by truth-believing people.  They may wield truth, that all must meet with God, yet their method of expression falls far from submission to the love of God.  They condemn rather than convict, ostracize instead of welcome.  Even if they are right- all sinners deserve hell, including me and them.

The church has often taught that our feelings should be in alignment with the will of God.  So they should, but rarely do they so align themselves.  And in the tension we feel that we are forced to either deny the truth and lie or speak it and kill.

However, there remains a third option.  It is the most difficult, and the most taxing, but the most life-giving and loving, I think, of the three.  That is, to fully acknowledge the truth within us, the feelings that are present, and yet to submit them to a greater truth, to allow them to be vetted and pruned by that truth which abides over us, and not in us.

This means a death of sorts, for our truest desires are made subject- yet it does not mean a lie, nor does it produce division.  It absorbs the pain of disagreement and disappointment and yet recognizes the pain as such.

Truth, part of the created order, stands alone.  Yet it remains subject to the greater Truth that begot it.  It remains subject to love, and compassion, and faith.   Not that these change or alter truth, for truth is created, exists, is.  But its use, the way we think and express it, must be submitted to God.


I've struggled to explain this, and will try again in the future.  Let me know how I did.

Holy Tension

I used to believe only youth were anxious for change.  But after seeing my father talk about the Spirit, pastors crying over their ministries, listening to questions from leaders all over the state, I am forced to change my thoughts there.  Adults are merely more patient, as I hope to learn to be.

It seems that all who journey with the Lord do so by the pressure of two contradictory forces, as the ship is propelled by wind and sea.  Without both present, at one time or another, one's relationship with the Lord, or at least it's health, is suspect to me.  This state of pressure, of counteracting forces, is what I call tension, and drives much, if not all, of what I write and pray.

The first and primary force: the love of God.  A knowledge of the grace and calling of our Lord.  An awareness of the present kingdom, in force and motion, changing our hearts, and the world at large.  The nearness of the presence of the Spirit.

But second: the brokenness of the world.  The gap between what is healed and what is not.  The darkness of those outside of the church.  The greater darkness we see within our very flesh.  The distance between reality and perfection.  The presence, tangible, of evil.

If either of these forces are missing, I strongly challenge your participation in the kingdom, and for this reason- Jesus ministered exclusively within their conflict.  Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how I've longed to gather you as a hen gathers her chicks, but you would have none of it.  He weeps over stubborness.  He is moved to heal, as reality is found to be less than the very compassion of God.

In Christ, the love of God meets the pride of man, man who now claims the authority to judge between right and wrong.  The end result is a tearing, of relationship within the trinity and the veil within the temple, and the veil within our hearts.

Remarkably, the veil that was torn for us was placed between God and Himself, between Father and Son, in the moment of the crucifixion.  Though we do not understand, we do believe that He became sin, actively became separation from God, that we might know intimacy as in the garden, in the cool of the day.

And this mystery, the greatest of all mysteries, covers over all other wrestlings, all other frustration.  While we must remain in some tension, I believe, as Christ followers, it is a tension overshadowed by the peace of a loving Father, a mysterious salvation, a present Spirit and a returning King.  Without this assurance, mystery becomes quagmire, and blindness becomes fear.  With it, mystery becomes worship, and blindness only fuels the prayer of faith.

Thus we must be frustrated and satisfied, angsty and worshipful.  We must write, and pray, and work, and rest.  For here we are made like our Lord, and here we meet with His Spirit.  As we walk in tension unresolved, we proclaim His kingdom, and extend His love.

After Beholding God

Sorry about the silence.  My computer finally kicked the bucket.  Two weeks and a new computer later, we're ready to go.

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Based primarily in Exodus 24:9-11

God has brought his people out of Egypt and lead them through the wilderness to His holy mountain, where he promises to give them his law, to set them apart and to guide their steps, like an old rutted driveway guides a driver in the dark.

YHWH calls Moses, with the priests and elders of Israel, up onto the mountain to meet with Him.  And there, in cloud and fire and darkness, they see God.  He stands on a floor of translucent sapphire, as the sky.  Scripture comments on the importance that God does not touch them.  They should be dead already, by simple exposure to His glory- any further contact would be disastrous.

This is the pinnacle of Israel as a nation.  Really, its birth, or its moment of adoption.  Father reveals Himself to His children, standing on beauty, in power and mystery, and all His people respond.

How?

They eat and drink.

I've been marveling at this passage for days now, and have marveled at it before in years past (judging by the dark underlining and marginal stars).  It's always sat as a beautiful thing to me, charming in an I-don't-get-it-but-I-like-it kind of way.  Last night, wrapped in a blanket in my great-grandmother's rocking chair in my attic, I realized what was so good, deeply good, about this passage.

So often I require my spirituality to be lived out in an extreme way.  I do not go half-way once my mind is set, and therefore, as a Christian with authority, I wrestle with the times I DON'T pray for healing, the times I DON'T engage with the schitzophrenic, ready to pray into whatever God brings, the times I DON'T share the gospel explicitly, in power and meekness.

Yet often this leaves me more frustrated than joyful.  I fail to live up to my own expectations in deed, and even when I act I don't always produce the fruit I desire.  I seldom do, really.

And I do not mean that the Christian should not pursue the miraculous-  the Bible is full of commands towards just that:  we are called to anoint and pray for the sick, to act boldly because the days are evil, to seek times of refreshing in the Spirit, pursue our giftings, and above all to love and seek first the kingdom.  These are fighting words, charging words.  They don't speak of resignation but of pushing the limits, something we all must do, and something from which the church so often retreats.

Yet here, in the greatest moment (thus far) of God's revelation to His collective people, Israel does nothing amazing.  They do not collapse in tears (at least, not for long), and there is no recorded resolutions or strivings to live into their new-found relationship with the God of the universe.  They behold YHWH in glory, and then they eat and drink.

A similar meal occurs in much of the old sacrificial system, beginning even with Passover-  families brought animals and grains and fruit to be sacrificed, and then feast upon their gifts (sharing with the priests).  The eating completed, consummated the sacrifice, celebrating the reception of that which saves us.  From thence comes the Last Supper, and then Communion, the eucharistic meal.  Eating/drinking, then, can hold immense spiritual significance.

But on the mountain with the leaders of Israel, God had yet to create the sacrificial system.  Passover had happened once, but had been linked to no greater celebration, little longitudinal ingraining.  I don't think the elders had anything in mind, except perhaps some combination of worship and hunger.

Interestingly, Israel met with God on the mountain while wandering in the desert- thus, the only food they ate was manna and quail, as given by God every morning.  Their eating and drinking only emphasized their insignificance, and yet their unexplainable importance before God.  Because while they were small, and should already be dead, they had been invited up into His presence, and given food.

The take away.  First, we underestimate the gift we have been given.  The presence of God, since the fall, has been fatal to man except when He makes a way.  So-and-so died trying to catch the ark, for goodness' sakes.  Yet we have been given access to the mountain.  When we rightly view the blessing we hold, the magnitude of this grace before us, we can offer no response of appropriate magnitude.  I think of honor-giving, like when Jeremiah Johnson gives horses to the chief who must then give something greater or else be shamed (Jeremiah ends up with a wife, and discovers love in the end).  When pride meets with a gift, it must earn, match, make itself worthy.  Israel, before the shining floors of God, cannot even try.

Instead, they enjoy that which God has given them.  They live, as they were created to live, before God, as they were meant to live.  Eating and drinking was not below the presence of God (though our pride would call it such, and strive to do something greater).  Indeed, the incarnation made our secular-spiritual division moot (did not Jesus eat fish before and after his resurrection?).

Instead, Israel acted 'human'ly (not fleshly, but 'human'ly), in the way God had created them, and by the means that He had provided.  They gathered, they saw Him, and they ate.  We might strive less, and worship more, if we followed their lead.

May we do the same, over pork tonight, donated to the cause.

Distinction

No nobility
of bone nor of word,
nor language, nor heart
nor simple accord.
No thing sets apart
that we might afford.
But once heard His voice,
we now love the Lord.

No righteousness from
our tallying board,
no pilgrimate cross
of emotion's ford;
No reason's restraint
nor sin grown abhorred.
We've but heard His voice
and we love the Lord.

No justified rage
nor 'injustice' roar'd,
no repentant change
nor fruiting reward-
What distinction can
the Christian record?
Only that His voice
birth'd love for our Lord.

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And a prayer from last year, that I stumbled across in my writings as I cleared off my desktop:

I beg that this be your hand-

removing all my peace, that you might be found the only maker thereof

removing all my joy, that you might be found it’s creator

removing all my faith, that you might be it’s author.

removing all my confidence, that you might be found my source and strength, amidst my weakness.

This heart is yours, o my Father.  I beg thee to love it well.  Where else can I go?

To Pierce My Ear

If God moved in Charleston,

if there was a revival- would I be pleased

even if I had nothing to do with it?

Would I be satisfied to see churches grow

worship nights expand, spread, deepen,

even If I did not lead them on?

If I was not chosen to lead the charge

would I run behind the horses

and fight for the order, the cosmos in chaos?

Will I celebrate the kingdom

if I am not the king?

I am a leader, and have been blessed to lead.

The times I have walked closest with You,

the times I have seen fruit most clearly,

are those when I listen and speak, when I am charged to lead,

when my friends look to me for help,

when I with tasseled mantle beckon, and grin, and pray.

And I enjoy it.  And I am affirmed in it.

Yet, where I am, I stand as a mute prophet among the peoples,

and a heart in the wilderness.

Or, perhaps I desire to be a voice,

and yet only see wilderness.

Let me cry out, then.

Let me worship, then,

lead the angels, if they would follow.

Let me write for the readers I will never know;

let me write to You, my Master, whom I will.

I will pierce my ear myself, as You were pierced.

I will no longer claim Your inheritance.

I would not kill Your Son again, or beat His body here.

I will offer You my harvest freely, in Your time;

In the season of fruit that You have ordained,

I will return Your investments.

I will give all that You allow me to gain,

the firstfruits,

And I will let You keep the rest

because it was never mine to let.

And I will enjoy the wine that You offer,

the bread of Your table,

for truly it is more filling

and more sating

than the vinegar of power,

and the crusts of position.

And because You are the Celebrant of the feast,

the High Host, in robes of white,

and I would that my robes be of Your linens,

a fairer cloth than that which I weave

with needles, meant only to be flagposts

on which to hoist Your glory.

-

To be frank, this morning I realized that I am jealous of others' advancement, particularly in a season in which I desire to do more and yet am aware of little progress.  The parable of the tenants who kill the heir for his inheritance has been heavy on me the last few days, and this became the lens through which I viewed my jealousy.  The scripture from Matthew, in which the wedding feast is offered to the outcasts, one of whom is cast out because of his improper attire, forms another dimension of prayer and analysis here.  Lastly, the way in which a slave's ear is pierced, in Exodus, when he loves his master enough to stay past the maximum six years of service.  And, yes, I am considering it (the earring); though if I ever will do it, I'm not sure.  I'm up for suggestions.

How's the new format?  Felt easier to read, for me.

Anger and Response

Looking primarily at Exodus five and six.

God has sent Moses to His ‘firstborn son’ Israel, to demand its release by Pharaoh.  Pharaoh increases their workload to impossible proportions.  Everyone is confused and hurt.  The people grow angry with God.

There is a movement in the church that claims anger towards God should be non-existent in the life of a Christian.  I agree completely.  They claim that if anger persists there is some false view of God, some mistaken understanding of His character and actions.  I agree.  Sometimes this is used to condemn those that feel angry.  There, I stand completely opposed.

I have been angry at God.  It has been almost entirely rooted in sin and pride, and in failure to trust.  Anger at God is never right.  Yet it will continue to occur in our hearts and within the church simply because we are not yet right ourselves.  We are not yet made to feel rightly.  As Beautiful Eulogy puts it, He still has not wiped away all our tears.  Is it right to be angry at God?  No.  It means that we are broken.  Does anger towards God therefore mean we are not His children?  No.  Never.  Simply that His children still have room to grow.

This understanding of brokenness allows us to express anger rightly.  Anger itself is not appropriate, but it is more inappropriate still to bury it under a cheap legalism that says ‘I should not feel this way’.  No, I should not feel this way- yet still I do.  The proper way, then, to respond to broken emotion is an honest expression of feeling to God, like Moses and so many other leaders of God’s people.

Moses approaches God and asks (with us), ‘Why?  How could You let this happen?  I was obedient, and now what?  Penalties and beatings and harsher workloads- how can this be Your will?’  He expresses his anger to God to Him.  Not, it appears, to the rest of Israel.

 

This is crucial.  Psalm 73:15 says "If I had said, “I will speak thus,”
I would have betrayed the generation of your children."  In consideration of the prosperity of the wicked, the psalmist is despairing in frustration with God.  Yet he does not proclaim his feelings to the crowd, lest the generation be betrayed.  Crucial, crucial wisdom here.  Wrong emotions are a product of a broken spirit, a slowly healing spirit, in relationship with God but not yet made whole.  Expressing these emotions, offering them to the Lord is necessary- but the means by which we do so can be either healthy or damaging.  We must act with wisdom and discernment in how we share our failures and brokenness.

In my season of despair during my senior year at Furman, I shared my experience with many, many friends.  Often their words inspired hope in me, even if only the meager hope that this too would pass, eventually.  I expressed my feelings in confidence and in despair, in unsurety but in humility, hoping for hope, begging for peace- offering, for wisdom and critique, all I felt and experienced so deeply in that season.  My hands were open, begging for bread, begging for water.

And I wrote many, many blogs, or half blogs, in despair.  It helped me process my feelings; express them, know what I felt and (in my better moments) offer them to the Lord.  I never published these, and I probably never will.  I have a document on my computer full of blogs from those ‘dark nights of the soul’.  But to share them would not inspire faith in the Lord, mine nor yours, and would do no good.  It may feel theraputic, some vomit of emotions, some ‘harmless’ venting, but in truth it offers only the false relief of accusing God, standing boldly as the arbiter of truth and justice.  Their tone is accusatory, like Job, and angry.  They held no form of humility, no assumption of brokenness, no assumption of the goodness of God.  They stood as a middle finger in the curled fist of my emotion, railing at the one I sometimes felt had cheated me, ignored me, forgotten me.  They would betray the generation, cast away the ones who looked up to me.  To publish my feelings and doubts would not heal them, but give them finality, continuing my claim to authority.  To publish my doubt was to continue in doubt, because they offered no waiting, no trust, upon a Lord who may yet save.  Who did.

The root of these emotions was the same, in both situations.  In both I came before God.  He can handle me coming in humility or in pride.  He knows me, regardless.  He knows my heart, regardless.  At least in offering my rage to Him I allowed Him to whisper healing into it, softening me.  And when I come in humility He could comfort, often in silence, reminding me of His forespoken love, pre-demonstrated beauty.

Yet in one form I shared my brokenness with friends, and in one I did not.  Even in the middle of my anger, I somehow knew to honor God with my lips*.  Nearly everyone knew I was in pain, I was broken, I was hurting.  I shared in individually and corporately, over the microphone and the telephone and in person.  I was not hiding my brokenness: the tension of a faith that is not yet fulfilled, of a kingdom here and coming.  Yet I guarded my words, so as not to speak faith, to walk in the Spirit, even as I felt only doubt and faith.  Call it hypocrisy, and you may be almost accurate.  But more than that, it was choosing to limit my doubt to my emotions, trusting Him with my conversation.

And so as Moses brings his case before the Lord, God speaks.  He reminds Moses of His nature, and offers him a promise: He says, “I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God, and you shall know that I am the Lord your God, who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians.”

He promises that they will know, because He recognizes that, while they may have trusted Him just days before, their faith now shakes with the pressure of their subjective experience.  Still, He promises that they will know.  His people will have certainty.

Immediately afterwards, Moses shares what he has heard with the people.  Scripture says that they did not listen to him, ‘because of their broken spirit and their harsh slavery.’  Does this nullify God’s word?  No.  Did it put into danger their position as His firstborn?  No.  Was it right for them to feel this way?  Certainly not.  Yet God was not daunted by their doubt, nor by their outright rejection of His plan.  He knew.  He foreknew.  And yet He called, and promised that one day they too would know.  Know Him, and His heart towards them.  His plan for them, so good and soothing and sating.

In summary, God calls us, often into things we don’t understand.  At times, we may experience anger.  It is evidence of brokenness within us, yet ought not to lead us into condemnation but instead into His very presence as we offer our feelings to Him.  While to share our brokenness (in honest humility, with choice friends) is good, even necessary, we are to be careful how we express it, and in what ways and before whom, lest we increase our sin in our anger by speaking wrongly.  A good test is to watch the posture of our hearts.  Had my heart hands, would they be open, begging, or curled into fists?  In both cases, we are to bring our hearts before the Lord for healing, and to be transformed more into trust and faith and hope by His ever present, promised love, but usually it is only in the former, in the posture of humility, that it becomes appropriate to share our hearts with those to whom we desire to minister, and from whom we hope to glean encouragement.

*credit to scripture and the conviction of the Spirit on that one.

A Day in the Life

While not the most creative of posts, this may be the most informative yet, to those interested in my doings.

Times are estimates, and my work schedule changes regularly.  This is, generally, what happens on a Tuesday/Thursday.

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8-9.  Wake up.  Sit on my bed and try to wake up/pray/figure out if there are any 'ox in the ditch' scenarios this morning.  Confirm, no, not unless I make something into one.

9-9:45, sometimes til 10:30, depending.  Read the Bible.  2-3 chapters of the old testament, 1-2 of the new.  Underline things that jump out.  Star things that really jump out.  If I have time, I might read back over the passages that seem to drift a bit longer before they settle in the past tense of my morning.  If I really have time, I might get out a calligraphy pen and write a section out.  Then, like this morning, if I want to meditate on it further, I'll sing the verse over some basic chords.  Today was Matthew 11:27-30.  All things are handed over to me.  No one know us, unless I let them.  Take my yoke.

Somewhere in the middle of that I probably wander downstairs to eat something for breakfast.  Today, breakfast casserole donated to the cause by my parents.  Delicious.

10:30 or so-11:30.  If I'm just making it down to breakfast now, I'll piddle around with some house maintenance stuff.  Take hooks off of an old board to be used to build a bike basket.  Strip an old pallet to use later for a compost bin.  Pull nails out of the wall.  Hang a picture.  Do laundry/empty the dishwasher.  Glue the legs back on a chair.  If I'm lucky another roommate will be eating breakfast, and we chat about job hunting or dating or the balance of work and rest.  Sometimes, like yesterday, I have to seek out someone from the night before to whom I need to apologize.  Those kinds of things weigh heavy on me.

If breakfast came earlier in the routine, I may have wandered back upstairs and found myself playing guitar, or checking my email, Facebook, blog.  One of my brilliant friends may have posted something great*, which often engages me for up to an hour.  Seldom would I spend that long on email or Facebook.  I get anxious.  Too much to keep up with.

11:30-12.  Snack, maybe piece of fruit or cupcake donated to the cause.  Check my work schedule.

12:15-2 or so.  Read a book**.  Or, like today, take a walk.  Watch for people who might be encouraged by prayer, or who look like they need help.  If I'm lucky, maybe find one.  A guy shielding his eyes, just out of MUSC, needs to borrow a cell phone.  Give him my sunglasses because he needs them, offer to pray, he accepts, and then he tells me to save his number in my phone and give him mine.  He an 'upcoming rap artist' in town, and his list of hit singles sound awful.  I say, great, yeah man.  Give me a call if you want.

On a good day, walk turns to worship, sit on a bench at colonial lake and pray, writing it out to help me stay focused.  Drink some water.  If I'm feeling good, maybe stop in at Black Tap and get some iced coffee and cucumber water.  It's delicious, and free.  For the cause, you might say.

Short walk today, because I have work at three.  Get back, slice up a tomato and a bell pepper, carrot, celery.  Toss them in a tupperware, re-purposed from a ham package.  The veggies are to go on top of the mixed greens (organic) and ham (thin sliced, honey baked) that I have waiting at work, in the kegerator, on top of the Green Flash IPA.

Grab a headlamp, tail light, helmet.  Dodge conversation, because I'm a little behind.  I bike to work, down Spring, across President, up Canon, down St. Phillips, left on Vanderhorst.  Pull in. Take off my, helmet, ruffle my hair.  Take off my Chacos, put on my closed-toe shoes (NB101, worn into the ground).  Say hello to the regulars.  Ask the professor what she's working on today.  Check on so-and-so's back.  Tom.  Fancy seeing you here.  How's the second office?

Chuch bell rings, three strokes.  The time clock is a little behind, but I'll start anyway.  Keep the bosses happy, or just serve them well, or better, bless them.  The motivation depends on the day.

3-6. Make a TON of lattes.  Pour some beers (lots of Allagash, currently, but soon to be dominated by Westbrook and Bells.  That brewer's night is going to be fantastic).

6-6:15.  Sit down to eat a little dinner.  Salad with ham and chopped vegetables from earlier.

6:15-10.  Run register, wash dishes, make more lattes.  A little anger surfaces towards Starbucks for blended drinks.  Snag some chocolate chunks that fell out of the pastries.  If I'm really hungry, split a cookie, or put my salad on a croissant and panini press that sucker.  Delicious.

10-11,11:30.  Close. Turn music volume way down.  Play something more relaxed, like Balmorhea or 'The Melody of Rhythm' with Bela Fleck.  Clean.  Wipe down tables, flip chairs, sweep, mop.  Restock.  Count the register.  Fill out paperwork.   Lock up.  Turn off the fountain. Turn on lights. Bike Home.

11:45-12,12:30.  Chat with roomates, snack, brush my teeth.  Put in bite guard, so I don't grind my teeth.

12-12:30.  Bed.  Read if I'm not that tired.  Check my alarm to make sure it's set if I have to work early tomorrow.  Drift to sleep.  Roll over to recheck my alarm.  Sleep.

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*The link near breakfast is to a friend's photo blog who documented a day in my life for a school project, the inspiration for this post.  She also caught an afternoon sailing, which makes me seem much cooler than I usually am.  Check it out.

**Books currently reading/recently read: 'The Two Towers', Tolkien.  'A Long Obedience in the Same Direction', Peterson. 'Red Moon Rising', Grieg and Roberts.

What are You Doing Here?

Elijah has just demonstrated the sovereign authority of Jehovah when the apostate queen Jezebel orders his execution.  His performance (or rather that of the Lord God) has called her spiritual claims to authority into question, and thus Elijah has been condemned.  And that paragraph sounds like a textbook.

He flees to the wilderness, leaving even his servant behind (lack of trust, perhaps?  desire for a martyr's end?), and asks the Lord to take his life.  The greatest of triumphs has lead to his apparent conclusion.  For what should he live?

The Lord feeds him, and then Elijah fasts and makes a pilgrimage to the mountain called Horeb, where the Lord met Moses so many years ago.  The Lord speaks to him in a cave there, and asks "What are you doing here, Elijah?" Elijah explains what has happened.  Then the Lord promises to pass by the cave, and tells Elijah to come before Him.

Many of us begin to recognize the story here.  First, there is a wind that breaks apart the stones.  Then an earthquake, then a fire.  But the Lord remains distant.  Then, in the silence that follows, Elijah, sensing the imminence of the Lord, covers his face [to preserve his life] and steps to the entrance of the cave.  I imagine an anticipation so great as would replace the rhythm of his heartbeat with that of a hummingbird, the silence before a terrifying scene in a thriller, or the moment between the celebrant's question and the bride's 'I do', if she can stand to wait even a moment.  This silence is thin, one translation says, like the Celtic descriptions of holy places.  A thin place, a liminal place.  A threshold.

And there, the Lord breaks His silence.  He speaks, and asks his servant, "What are you doing here, Elijah?"



I feel so often that the Lord has placed a desire on my heart, has called me out into something, but as I have walked and waited on his further guidance I hear the question echoing through me, "What are you doing here, Drew?"

It's not a critical question, if I let it sit long enough.  At first if feels harsh, challenging, confrontational.  But it isn't, not really.  It's a question primarily born of relationship, and of waiting, and of a desire for me to be trued as a wheel.

At first glance, though, it can be frustrating, even disconcerting.  You called me here, didn't you Lord?  You put these desires in me, these longings, yearnings.  Or, so I thought.  What am I doing here?

But the question echoes still.  What are you doing here, Drew?  As this scripture simmered over the past few days, I have sensed a chuckle behind it, good-natured and inviting.  His question lends itself to the molding of my humility, to the purification of my desires, to the increase of my persistence or long-suffering.  It's a walking question, a relationship question, a question, again, that produces a holy tension not meant to be quickly resolved.

This question has moved me from frustration to worship, as I have realized that it does not negate my desires.  As he asked Elijah the second time, the Lord did not mean him to second-guess himself.  The Lord had told him to come, after all.  Instead the question encourages my faithful listening, the pruning and purifying of my desires.  The tension, there produced, is a crucible, burning away the fearful longings added by the flesh and the needy discolorations of the world.  When my desires finally settle on Him, rooted in love and joy, I see the question's tension as it was purposed: to be beautiful, directive, purifying.  Rare are these moments, in which I find my desires properly aligned, but so beautiful are they that they are cause for meditation and wonder.  They seem to come either in the presence of sheer beauty, or in the weightiness of deeply rooted tension. Or, more often, in amalgamations of the two.  Like when, on a beautiful Charleston night, a friend calls to share hard news.  Or as found this morning, sitting by Colonial Lake and praying though my jumbled yearnings.

What are you doing here, Drew?

Often in the Tanak (old testament), as the Spirit reveals dreams and visions to the prophets, an angel (or the Lord) will ask, 'What do you see?'  The prophet can only respond, 'Lord, you know.'  Perhaps these questions are intentionally rhetorical and repetitious.  Perhaps they seek less a resolution than a reliance, less an answer than awe.  These questions force us back to the Lord, to wait on Him, and worship.

My experience in these thin places is limited, but I sense that it is from these crucibles of desire and restraint, of tension, that the Lord speaks, and matures us.  As we find ourselves here, turning from frustration to prayer, waiting and worship, we are prepared for growth.  Perhaps, as we find ourselves here, in the liminal silence of pilgrimage and waiting, we are truly closer to God than when we think we have reached a resolution.  What are you doing here?  Lord, you know.

And off to work I go.

When to Stop Waiting

A friend asked a great question of me this weekend.  She asked, how do we know when to stop waiting.  When should we stop being alone, by ourselves?  At what point do we say, well, this isn't working, and try something else?

Great question, and one I've wrestled with.  A dangerous one.

A year or two ago, I was so frustrated with trying to walk with God, in every way I could think to walk, that I was tempted to simply walk away.  The season lasted for nine months or so-  what kept drawing me back was the beauty of creation, namely fireflies and Paris Mountain.  I couldn't walk away from the goodness, the beauty, that God put in front of me.

But a question like this may have lead me there.  I have spent most of my life approaching God for something.  Usually, it wasn't for anything more than assurance, or direction.  I wanted to hear His voice, feel His presence.  I spent much time trying to experience the Spirit, in whatever way I thought I could at the moment.  Which is fair, and a good pursuit.   Often, scripture discusses the experience of God.  The book of Acts mentions 'times of refreshing' that will come 'from the presence of the Lord', in line with the 'blotting out of sins' and the return of Jesus as the threefold result of repentance and faith.  David wants to be a bird in the sanctuary, to build a nest and stay there.  Countlesss theologians, mystics, and everyday Christians have experienced the presence of God, some once or twice and others regularly.  'Pursuing the presence of God' is attested to, then, by scripture and the 'cloud of witnesses' flitting about.  And by my experience as well.  I have felt moments of overflowing joy, of deep deep love, some out of nowhere and some with cause.  I have felt a gnawing excitement, as though something desired to be expressed but could be contained with no words.  I've been shocked and moved and challenged and drawn by experience, and that is a good thing.

The danger comes when we seek the experience of God over God Himself.  Imagine a date, meticulously crafted, five course meal and candles and flowers and all the trappings.  And then imagine your date focusing exclusively on making sure the date runs smoothly.  Continually asking you how everything tastes, checking the oven, taking the temperature of the chicken, lighting more candles, moving the candles around, asking how you like the candles, taking pictures, taking notes on how to do it better next time-  obnoxious, right?  Because the date happens whether everything goes perfectly or not, regardless of the 'experience'.  And really, the point is not the feeling of romance, but the presence of love towards the other person, sometimes manifest simply by sitting together.  Perhaps even in silence.  How many of us have said, at one time or another, how much we diesire someone just to sit with, to read a book next too.  There is intimacy in that, in waiting with eachother, that does not rely on any 'accomplishment'.  Because it's not about achieving, but about being.  Or, more accurately, about being with.

So it is, I think, with God.  Are big production dates bad- no, of course not.  Are feelings wrong, or inferior, or of no importance- of course not.  But they are not the point.  The point in intentional time together is the being together, whether that looks like speaking, listening, mutual enjoyment of something else, or simply being silent.  God is good, and beautiful, desirable and experientially present.  But we do not need a 'new' experience of that to prove it to us again and again.  At some point, we must worship, be in relationship, in faith, in trust, in remembrance of who He is and (you guessed it) what He has done.  Waiting may be best termed a call to remembrance, or to meditation, to slow savoring of the beauty that we know.  Because we do know it. And an opening to whatever else the Lord may have.  Because sometimes He does have something new.

God did not reveal himself to me emotionally for the better part of a year (with little exceptions here and there) to teach me to pursue Him, not the experience.  I tried everything I could think of to kindle a flame, but each seemed to fail to achieve what I sought.  Now, when I wait on the Lord, I try to sit not in expectation of some new experience, but in faith of a present God, Emmanuel, waiting with me.  Expectation not of something new, or surprising, but of something that has always been there.  The loving presence of God.  Is that easy for me, no, not a chance.  But it's good for me. I still yearn for a new experience, as I think I always will.  And, with an infinite God, there will always be new.  But the old is no less valuable, no less beautiful, no less real, if the new is not present as I'd like it to be.  The truth of God remains, His spoken word continues to reverberate in His creation, and His beauty is not in jeopardy.  We seek, knowing we have already found Him, and so in peace.  We listen, knowing He has already spoken, and so in satisfaction.  We love, and we wait, and we sit with Him.  And that is enough.

That's not very practical, but opens up some conversations, I think.  I want push back and challenge on this one, dear reader.

On Waiting

In seeking to follow the Lord, a friend* told me to stop stepping back to analyze the signs and instead to step in, deeper, and listen to what the Lord was saying, now.  Another** asked how to know when to stop waiting.  This is a prayer that merges the two thoughts, written on a walk today.  Bit of a ramble, but so was the walk, though neither as much as you'd think.
---

Lord,

I am moved.  I'm not sure why. I feel attentive.  I feel more aware, awake, more curious.
I desire certainty, of course, and of course there is none.  And I worship you.

I wait for you.  But for how long?
Do I wait for something?  Do I simply wait
upon you, breathe in you, listening for your all-speaking silence?

Oh Love that will not let me go,
I cling to your fingers.
Point, but only if it will not loosen Your grasp on me.
Speak to me, Lover of my soul.
Father of my desires,
make them burn as the pyre of all fleshly thoughts.
Do I yearn rightly?
Let me burn brightly,
My yearning true and hot,
that I would know myself better,
that I may better give myself to thee.

The glimpses of beautiful things
lead me to the bend
and to an intersection, a division, a fork,
leave me breathless, hopeful, and wonderfully unanswered, un-assured and secure.
I breathe deeply, for any smell, and trace, any taste;
I look deeply.
A decision to be savored.
A question worth waiting upon, instead of an answer worth waiting for.
Breathing in, listening as its crevasses respond to my searching, listening ears.

How wide, deep and long; the space to be
filled, the room to be furnished
slowly, in pieces, as each is found abandoned and broken,
salvaged and repaired,
pieces of one into the other
to make one whole and strong,
scarred, sacred, weathered and resigned to beauty;
a beauty that worships Creator and Redeemer and Sustainer,
A guaranteed beauty, of hands and care and love,
of a never resigning Carpenter, a never sleeping Caretaker-
One who walks in the garden.

I am moved by you, Lord of heaven
and earth.
I am moved by your voice, by your presence, your creations.
I worship You.

The Healer unifies, the Healer repairs;
Was not My Spirit in this all?
I wait on you, I wait on You.
We wait, give weight, lean and dance.
You wait on me, and take my weight, all weight,
all wait, since in the beginning of time You knew,
and waiting, breath baited, to draw me in
and dance.  To wait, to breathe, to rest and look, to run.
Glorious indecision: the tension that pulls
into bend and swing, sling, slung into motion.
Lord, you lead, and I wait, and pull back,
and lean,
to be brought forward into greater things.

And I will be moved,
And I do not know;
Yet I am acquainted with your ways,
and am in relationship with the tension,
and I worship You.

Decision sprouts, and clarity grows
from nothing, to nearly nothing, to slightly less than something,
sharp moments of distinction-
death to life,
leaf or blade,
climb or crawl, or reach, stretch,
amidst waitings and hopings and unsureties.
I pray, Lord, I wait, as watchmen for the morning.

What life do you bring me,
as light from the dawn reaches through tree and through window
to wake me?
I am awake, aware, attentive.  I am waiting.
I am moved, moving, resting and walking to the Battery.
Order my steps.
Lead me in the way everlasting,
the wait everlasting;
the worshipful tension
of waiting upon you
forever.

-----

*Ben Thompson
**Lizzy Willingham

Frustration and Laughter

And I am frustrated once again.  I can feel my pride prickling, annoyed with little things.

But the biggest things, the things which frustrate me most, revolve around my Father.  The Big One.  Because I want my life to mean more than this!  I want to DO more than this.  I want to see hearts change and I want to see the kingdom come and I want to see His face.   And I want to want to see hearts change for the right reasons, and I want to want to see the kingdom come out of love and not for proof, and because I want to want to see His face, for love and not for a confidence booster. But instead I see beautiful girls and long to be accepted, to be satisfied.  Instead I see my capacity for sin, and the strength temptations possess.  I compare myself and find myself lacking, in skills, in joy, in position.  I see myself in a job that might just be a dead end.

And when I think about the things I want to do, the 'good' things, the things I 'should' do- even there I am weighing the scales, trying to prove to myself and to the world that I have been changed, that God changes us, that there is hope and a greater calling.  And I do so by working hard, by check-lists and self-denial.  Love is the purest fountain of worship- and yet I have so little, for man and for God.

I am frustrated because I must continually turn my eyes towards Jesus.  I am frustrated that they don't rest there naturally.

I am frustrated because my theology is not as simple as it once was, because I have been challenged well.  I am frustrated because I don't understand everything that seems important these days.

I am frustrated because some people think I am wasting my life, and because sometimes I feel like I am too.  Maybe I am overspiritualizing the decision to do whatever I do next.  But I'm also frustrated because I don't even know what I want to do next.

I'm frustrated by the loads of sin and hypocrisy around me in the church.  I can see so many failures, so much sin and pride and failure- but to call it out as harshly as I see it seems arrogant, and proud, and unhelpful.  Learning NOT to call out sin when I see it is hard, and I still don't trust my discernment there.  And then, of course, I see my own sin too.

I am frustrated because I have found I can't convince people of the Lord, not with wisdom or effort or service.

I am frustrated because, all that I am and all that I will be rests on the presence and prevenient grace of a suffering Lord.  I am frustrated because all that I desire to do and see, be and know, depends solely on the action of the Father.  And I am just not recognizing His hand as fast as I'd like.  I don't know what to do half the time, and there is so much to be done.  I am frustrated because everything I want to do and know and secure can only be done and known and secured by the work of a carpenter God in me, and for some reason it seems his favorite chisel is time.

And so I woke up this morning and prayed and read Zechariah.  And I read where it says, not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord.  And I wrote it on my forearm in red, because I could not find the black permanent marker that I usually keep on my desk.  Seemed like a good thing to think some more about, and nothing else particularly jumped out at me.  And it was short enough to fit without being overly attention-grabbing.

So I wrote it on my arm, and thought of it once or twice while I made lattes and toasted bagels, and thought about the potential good in dating.  I was cut early from work, came home and sat on the sofa to read.  I picked up a book I've been working on for a few weeks, and I turned the page, and God spoke.

The author, the leader (sort of) of a global prayer movement, has a wife, and she has a tumor in her head.  It had been affecting her for years, but was undiagnosed until she began having seizures several years ago.  She still fights with it.  I had already read about that yesterday.

Aside from the comfort of a spiritual leader who suffers like the rest of us, my heart was met with something else.  The author said that the sufferring of his wife and his family caused him to step back from his ministry, and thrust upon him the realization that he was not to save the world.  And in fact he was honored by just the smallest of roles in the kingdom.  Indeed, he wrote, the army was rising, but not by might.  Nor by power.  But, by his Spirit.

And I laughed.  Out loud, by myself, I laughed.  Because the Lord had just answered my frustration, and offerred me joy, in such a way as I could not ignore.  All my striving, all my might, would lead no where, and I could force nothing.  Yet, the army comes- by the Spirit.  All things come by the Spirit.  And so I can rest, and wait, and trust.  And I can pursue all kinds of little things.  But the weight stands not on my power, but on the Lord.  And He can take it.  He can take it all, and turn it to good again.  All my frustration, He can turn to laughter.
--------

Things helpful in my walk with the Lord-
-Reading plan for scripture.  Gold.  The YearTeam year-long one is great.
-Books by Christians.  Currently, "Red Moon Rising,"  by Pete Greig and Dave Roberts.
-Permanent markers.  Black or red, no matter.  Green looks funny on your arm, and after a run, red looks like you're bleeding profusely.  Black is the safest bet there.

Reflections on Nicaragua, Round Two

I have returned, and I've had a few chances to talk it through with my friends here.  I've discovered that, in sharing, I process a lot of what I see and feel.  INFJ and all.

A brief schedule:

Sunday-Thursday we worked with El Shaddai, a church network in Chinandega.  Sunday we spoke at two different churches and went to the beach, and the rest of the time went like this-
Mornings: early wake-up, worship, two people share testimonies on the radio, then everyone help run feeding centers in poor neighborhoods (barios) [including dressing as clowns and throwing candy].
Afternoons: construction/labor, to demonstrate the incarnational love of Jesus, showers.
Nights: 'evangelistic campaigns'- revival service with worship and prayer, testimonies and teaching, skits and dancing.

Friday we worked with Casa de Esperanza (in Managua), a rehabilitation center for women and children moving out of prostitution (some rescued, others by choice).  Including games and prayer ministry, trying to instill a sense of personal worth and beauty.

Saturday we traveled to Masaya, home of our translator (baller, by the way) to run a feeding center there (including teaching and skits).  That night we spoke to a youth gathering at his church (much more like you would expect an modern American church to look like.

Sunday we explored a bit (monkey island, volcano, steak house, the usual).

As my second visit, I expected most of what I saw.  Again, the Lord moved powerfully, and we saw a lot of folks come forward to meet with the Lord.  Many folks met Him in what seemed to be powerful ways,  many for the first time*.  It was exciting.  We didn't see all the healings we hoped or prayed for.  But we saw a few: twisted ankles, headaches**, body pain.  And we did have some really cool 'words of knowledge'***.  There was some really encouraging times of worship (which I got to lead- so healthy for me), and some really powerful times praying with the group and the pastor in Chinandega.  All of that I have come to expect, when I am with a group of people set on seeking the Lord and His kingdom with boldness.

I was also positively challenged by much of what I saw.  The boldness of others, the relentless willingness to pray for the impossible.  The ease with which some slip into worship.  The ever-present hospitality of our family there.  These challenge me.

I was also negatively challenged by some of the methods used in the different churches with which we worked. Some seemed to have very legalistic perspectives on alcohol.  Others seemed to use fear as a motivation to come to the Lord, a method I hope to wrestle with in an upcoming post.  Some seemed to be so 'organic' as to be extremely impractical.  Others so practiced that it did not seem as fluid and Spirit-led.

I am a critical soul, that much I know, and so while these differences remain, I am seeking humility and listening.  And I have chosen to not go into detail here, particularly without digging through them with the leadership on the other side of the gulf.  (Re)Learning Spanish will begin to bridge the distance- something I'd like to work towards.  In the meantime, I hope the Lord will continue to teach me how to understand working under someone's authority, particularly when I disagree with part of what's going on (though often a small, small part indeed).

I will try to posts pictures soon.  I haven't brought all my equipment into the new house yet, but hope to have that all rolling here shortly.

Two prayer requests:
Be praying for Hannah (one of my lovely sisters)- her back began hurting on the trip, and still is giving her trouble.  Her back pain actually meant she and I missed the day at Casa de Esperanza (a huge reason why we both came to Nica in the first place), and was one of the most frightening experiences I have ever lived through.  Never have I prayed so hard for so long, for anyone or anything, and I haven't cried like that in over a year.  She's much better today that she was when it began last Friday, but we still don't really know what's going on there.

Also, please pray for the house I'm living in.  Eight dudes, one dog, in one house.  Big house.  Big potential.  Big danger.  We're trusting and praying that the Lord would do something big here.



Thanks again for reading folks.  It means a ton to me, and writing this blog provides me with a huge means of growth.  Thanks for taking part, and for encouraging me along the way.


 (footnotes, with stories)
------------------------

*While we were building one afternoon, we had some kids pull up chairs (literally) to watch.  We were smearing concrete onto a wall with very little success.  It didn't stick- even our local leader there couldn't make it work.  The children were laughing and making fun, which we took in stride, chasing them with muddy hands or jokingly trying to convince them to help.  The ringleader was particularly dismissive, and somewhat rude.  But we kept working.  They could have done it better, easily, but the goal was never to do work for them, but to demonstrate a love and an equality with them, to demonstrate the familial oneness that the Spirit provides and the humility of a God who would join us in all our brokenness and poverty in our very likeness.  This goal lets us rejoice in hardship.  We are becoming like our Lord.

Turns out, so was the boy.  He came to the worship/revival that night, and came forward to receive Christ, as did a family whose house we waterproofed.  What an encouragement, and a blessing.

**God seems let me pray for headaches a lot, and usually heals people when I do.  I remember a time with one of my sisters, a time with a friend in Greenville, and some others, that all have cool stories of headaches leaving when we prayed.  This trip, I really wanted to pray with a guy at the youth gathering in Masaya, but didn't know how to go about it.  I prayed that the Lord would let me pray for someone, and the guy next to me, a student there, turned to me and said, My head hurts.  I grinned and asked if I could pray for it, and it went away.

***Churchy lingo for when God leads you to pray for something before the person tells you to, only to learn that it's incredibly applicable.  For instance, one member of our team was praying for a little girls.  She couldn't speak Spanish, but she felt like she should pray for pain to be healed.  She didn't know what to pray for specifically, much less how to pray it in Spanish, so she prayed in English, Lord, take away her pain.  Later in the day, a translator showed up and was talking to the girl.  The team member asked if she had felt pain that day, and the girl said, yes, all over.  The translator asked her to point to it, and the girl said, no it's all gone now.

In another story, me and a fried were praying for a woman in Masaya, and I had the word "boca" come to mind [Spanish for mouth].  So, i asked the translator to see if there was anything she wanted prayer for regarding her mouth.  My friend said, I was about to ask the same thing!  The Lord had given her the word "mouthpiece".  Turns out, the woman we were praying for used to pray to speak the words of God, but had given up and forgotten the prayer, so we got to pray for her for that.  She cried hard.

****Check out the sermon "The Expulsive Power of a New Affection" by Chalmers.  I have it on PDF if you want it.