Hungry Life

Tonight I was talking with a friend of mine, and we were talking about whether or not it is important to have a sense of urgency in life. I immediately responded that we must, and without much thought I said, "because life is short, and we don't know how long we have, and we should have an impact with the life we get." Of course I was immediately somewhat wishing I hadn't said that because it caused me to once again turn the magnifying glass on my own life and examine whether or not I live with impact and a sense of urgency, and it was hard for me to say yes...

Of course hours after that conversation I'm still thinking about it. I think about it a lot actually, about what's going on with this life of mine. I think that everyone goes through phases in their lives when their "life metabolism" picks up. Suddenly you have this craving for more- more what? You're not sure, but you know that "this" isn't satisfying and you want something. We rack our brains trying to figure out what will satisfy us, and for some of us, we chase after the things we think will satsify us. For some of us it's a career. For some, it's prestige, for some it is family, or popularity, or beauty...we try and we try to satisfy that craving...but just like an apple won't do when all you're craving is chocolate cake, we find that all these things we are chasing just won't suffice.

The problem is that I know, and I think most people know, that in the end, we are craving God. We are craving spiritual experience. We are craving true and unconditional love. But we don't really quite know how to get from A to B.

I don't really quite know how to get from A to B. My friend who was talking to me tonight is an intensely practical person. He recognizes the need to live our physical lives and reminds me of it often, that at the end of the day- well, there's an end to the day, and a start of the next one, and it takes food and water and shelter to get us through it. We are physical beings with mundane responsibilities. I'm trying to figure out how to live out this thirst for God, and this thirst for spiritual experience, in a very physical world.

I'm trying to figure out the difference between selfish ambition and godly ambition. The difference between enjoying my job and working hard at it, and letting my job become my end all, my identity. I'm trying to figure out how my job fits into my ultimate purpose of loving God and building His kingdom. I'm trying to figure out how to be spiritual, emotional, practical, physical, rational, and faithful all at the same time.

Sometimes I am afraid that I am going to live my whole life and never figure it out. Or that I'll finally figure it out after years and years of living the "wrong way." I'm afraid that I'll get caught up in living for myself, in loving myself, and in allowing myself to float through life or to pursue things that just don't matter.

These past couple of weeks I've been reading through a book my sister lent me, "Christ the Lord, Out of Egypt" by Anne Rice. The story is about Jesus' childhood years, from about age 8-11. Of course it is all speculation, but it was really interesting to read and to think through what He was like then! It was good to be reminded that my Savior spent 30 years on this earth living a very human, very ordinary life. (ok, minus the angels and magi and stuff at his birth...)He had parents and family and school and traditions and holidays and such...

In the book Jesus is trying to figure out exactly who He is and what His purpose is on the earth. I know this passage is taken out of context so I hope that it doesn't lose its punch, but at one point in the book He says,

"I wasn't sent here to find angels! I wasn't sent here to dream of them. I wasn't sent here to hear them sing! I was sent here to be alive. To breathe and sweat and thirst and sometimes cry.
And everything that happened to me, everything both great and small, was something I had to learn! There was room for it in the infinite mind of the Lord and I had to seek the lesson in it, no matter how hard it was to find.
I almost laughed.
It was so simple, so beautiful. If only I could keep it in my mind, this understanding, this moment...Oh yes, I would grow up, and there would come a time when I would leave Nazareth, surely. I would go out into the world and do what I was meant to do. Yes. but for now? All was clear...
It seemed the whole world was holding me. Why had I ever thought I was alone? I was in the embrace of the earth, of those who loved me no matter what they thought or understood, of the very stars.
'Father,' I said, 'I am your child.'"

This passage from the book was beautiful to me because I saw how Jesus was content to know that He was God's. He was content to live His daily life, soaking up the lessons His Father had for Him, and moving each day toward whatever purpose the Father was planning for Him. I felt relieved to think that there are things in my life that won't go as I would have necessarily wanted, but that there are lessons there to learn, and that Jesus himself 'grew in wisdom' (Luke 2:52) and Jesus was "perfected through suffering" (Hebrews 2:10)...The experiences I live through, are shaping me for the purposes God has for me.

There are days when I love being a coach. There are days when I just wish that I was married and staying at home (no, I'm not necessarily saying staying at home with kids, just staying at home. Sleeping. Eating. Letting some sugar daddy pay the bills.) There are days I want to conquer the world's problems. There are days I just want the Lord to come back and sweep me away to heaven. Regardless, each day the Father has a purpose for me to be here. The point is that I live here. The point is that I am His child. The point is that I impact others to live here as His children also. He will lead me in how to do this. Right now, I can keep leading these girls on the basketball team, by example, by loving them. I can keep loving my roommate and encouraging her to love Christ. I can love the people in my church and find out how to help them embrace their Father as well.

I pray, overall, that I will be satisfied in Christ. That just as He was satisfied, knowing He was His Father's that I will be satisfied knowing I get to share in that relationship as well.

Beloved

Colossians 3 talks a lot about how I am to identify myself. I am not known by God as a white girl or a Caucasian or an American or a basketball coach, though I am all of those. Col 3:12 says,"So, as those how have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion..."He knows me as one who He has raised with Christ. He knows me as one of His Chosen ones. He knows me as one of His Holy ones- meaning, He set me apart to be like Him. And, ultimately, He knows me as His beloved.

I think that this last one, for some reason, is one that I just have such a hard time grasping. I am not entirely sure why, but there is some disconnect in me that says God just doesn’t really like me that much. This verse tells me otherwise. I looked up that word in the original Greek, beloved, and here’s what it said:

1) of persons
a) to welcome, to entertain, to be fond of, to love dearly

God has welcomed me, He’s brought me in to entertain (as in the sense of entertaining someone in your home?), He is fond of me, He loves me dearly…The Greek dictionary further said that this word may come from the word phileo which means:
1) to love
a) to approve of
b) to like
c) sanction
d) to treat affectionately or kindly, to welcome, befriend
2) to show signs of love
a) to kiss
3) to be fond of doing
a) be wont, use to do

I’ll be honest, reading those definitions stopped me in my tracks. My eyes are welling up and I feel a quickness in my breathing. God approves of me? He likes me? He treats me affectionately? Loves me dearly? God befriends me? God even kisses me? God is fond of saving me?

Aren’t these the longings in me? To be loved like that? To be fulfilled by such a love? God is not stiff-arming me, waiting for me to make myself holier, to prove myself worthy of something from Him…I don’t know what it is in me, but with both my earthly father and heavenly father I’m always living wanting to please them so they’ll be pleased with me. Neither of them have done anything to me to cause me to think this way, but there it is inside my heart- this thirst for approval, this idea that I’m earning something from them, not even just proving myself worthy of admiration, but working to gain it…Really I treat all people like that, but those are the two big ones…It is a sick love that cares more about how people view me than how I view people. It is wanting their approval more than their good…but that is for another time…
The crazy part is that not only does my earthly father love me unconditionally, so does my heavenly father. I think the latter is so much harder for me to understand because of His complete knowledge of me.
My dad knows me as well as anyone on this earth, but God is the one who knows what I’m really like. God is the one who hears all the thoughts that I am so glad other people can’t hear. God is the one who has seen the deeds done that I’m so glad other people haven’t seen. He knows all about me, the things that really motivate me, bother me, that make me who I am…and He is fond of me.
I think we live in a culture so built on work and rewards that it has seeped into every fiber of my thinking. For goodness sake, even in Awana the system is- learn a verse here‘s a badge for your chest! And to an extent, God works like that too- He says we are laying up treasures in heaven, but we are never ever ever working for His approval or His pleasure over us. That is as free as the air that we breathe. Just as I can take pleasure in God simply for who He is (though I don’t often do that), God has taken pleasure in me simply for who I am- His daughter, the work of His hands.

And you know what’s crazy? When God introduced Jesus to the world as His Son- what did He say? “This is my beloved Son”…same root word…God isn’t kidding that He loves us the same way He loves Jesus…
So often I have read that verse “So, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience…” and I have skipped right over those amazing words of who I am in God’s eyes. I’ve read it and gone straight to the checklist- what is God expecting of me today? Compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, got it. Then I go and try to bang these into my head so that I will be able to perform them. As if I am some Marine who by sheer force of will and training can produce all the results demanded of him by his officer.
God is not some removed military official, and I most certainly am not even capable of taking His traits and forcing them into my being. As I realize who I am to God, holy and beloved, putting on compassion starts seeming doable because I am so full of the love God has for me. I am so in awe that God likes me and that He has affection for me and that it’s just because.

That is my new identification. I am God’s beloved. What then do I have to prove to Him or anyone else? Nothing. "My Beloved is mine and I am His."

Heavy Heart

Life is so hard. People are in pain all around me and my heart hurts thinking about it. I have experienced so little personal pain but I have been exposed to real raw grief in those around me time and again. It leaves me crying, literally, out to God, asking Him to do something, asking Him to make Himself known, asking Him to reach into these circumstances, to relieve the pain. It is easy to get lost in the pain, in the darkness that seems unyielding, heavy, and consuming. Satan would love for all of us to walk down that dark tunnel of despair never to return. He would love for us to make up our beds in his caverns of sorrow and pity.

I have to remind myself in these times, that this is why God’s wrath makes sense- this is why God hates sin so much, it’s why He put Jesus on the cross- because He absolutely hates how we have destroyed ourselves. He hates the diseases, the disasters, the disappointments, the power plays, the pride, the selfishness, the ugly destructing and grotesque sin that has disfigured our lives so badly. Do I think that these tragedies point to an absent God? That He has somehow lost control of things? Or do I believe, as He told us, that in this world we will have trouble but He overcame the world in crucifying His Son and raising Him to life, so that someday, all this will end and we will at last have rest?

My friend is suffering today. Her grandmother is dying… My childhood friend just lost her husband and is now a single mother… Another friend just lost an uncle and a few days later lost a family friend who committed suicide…How are we to take all this in? I think it is easy to question whether or not our faith will hold us in those times. And I think therein lays so much of our problem- no, faith will not hold us. God will hold us. Will we recognize that? That is the question.

It makes me think of the examples we’ve been given. When Daniel experienced the near annihilation of his people, and was taken captive to Babylon, what could he have possibly felt? What horror and grief and sorrow? His entire life was completely ripped apart. His identity was stripped away from him. He was given a new name, a new residence, a new employment in the house of his enemy. But Daniel was held by God and he knew it. I wish we had more details of Daniel’s life. I wish I could have heard some of his prayers in those early days when his new reality was sinking in. I want to know how a man like him- who we have heralded as righteous and courageous- grieved. I want to hear his requests or his praises or laments…Even more, I wish I could hear God’s voice in response. What was God saying in heaven?

I wish I knew and I wish my friends could hear. The only thing that comes to mind is Jesus in Revelations, urging the churches to just hold on a little longer. He promises that He is coming soon and tells them to hold fast…He encourages them to keep enduring patiently…Come quickly dear Jesus. What else can I pray? None of us want easy answers, we want something to stand on. Christ be our rock. Teach us what it means to put our feet on You, to give you our burdens, because words mean so little and it is the living that is so difficult. Teach us how to get out of bed in the morning and think about you and to trust you right through breakfast time and into the day. Teach us how to draw on your strength and to drink of your peace as we enter into our responsibilities. Help us to take our thoughts captive and to speak words of truth and to think on things that are excellent. Help us to follow Your lead as we make decisions and to choose to entrust ourselves to you as frustrations, doubt, fear, and failure threaten us. Help us to be courageous when we are thrown to the lions and to know that You are always always always with us, in control, and drawing us to Yourself. Help us to remember as the day comes to an end and we fear waking up tomorrow to start again, that your mercies are new every morning and that one day we will wake up in a new heaven and we will live on a new earth and we will be with You at last, face to face, hearts at rest forever.

What's the Point?

The last couple days this question has been popping into my head. What is the point?

It pops into my head at different times. Like, when I'm getting ready to go and I'm curling my hair and putting on make up and I'm thinking, "what is the point of being pretty?" Why am I trying to be pretty, what's the point? What does it get me? What does it get someone else?


Last night at the mall I was looking at the beautiful displays of clothes in Gap's front windows. And I wondered, "what's the point"? What is the point of dressing well and of having trendy outfits? Again I wonder, what will wearing that stuff do for me? I was in Buckle, trying to find a pair of jeans that are actually long enough for me, and the sales girl brought me a pair of pants that cost $110. They fit great. She asked me how I liked them and I told her that I did, but I said, "honestly, I just don't want to pay that much money." She proceeded to tell me how some people just love a good pair of jeans and the money is worth it to them because they love jeans that much. I am not slamming people that spend that kind of money on jeans, but it just made me think, do I want jeans to mean that much to me? What's the point?


The other day I was hanging out with a friend and we were being so goofy. I laughed and laughed and laughed. I even cried a little from laughing so hard. But I left, and I felt a little empty. And I wondered, what's the point?

Now I definitely don't think that I need to be a plain/ugly, poorly dressed, always serious drag of a person, but I do want to think about what I'm doing. I want to know what the point is.

Tonight while I was driving home from church the thought came into my head- "you are trying to make your heaven down here." It clicked. Now that I think about it, maybe that was the Holy Spirit talking to me? I don't know. Regardless, it's true and it is so easy to fall into. I start trying to make this life my heaven. I want it to be comfy, cozy, careless, safe, fun, etc etc etc. I want my heaven here and now. That is not what God put me for. He has told me repeatedly that heaven is coming. And that I must put treasure in that heaven, investing for a later day, and I must live for that day here. I must give up myself while I'm here and I must live to serve.

I want to keep thinking through this and to figure out how to live this out. How to be joyful but not full of empty mirth. How to spend money. How to spend time. How to thirst after God and heaven and not try to make a heaven right here out of the earth. Jesus said that in this world I'd have suffering but I am working so hard to avoid the smallest discomforts...

Will I be bold enough to stop building?

I HEART NYC!

(Ok, disclaimer, I wrote this a while ago,in June, it's taken me this long to put it up...)
This past week something unexpected and incredible happened to me (which I guess unexpected is probably one of the prerequisites for something being incredible). But anyway, so something wonderful happened to me – I fell in love…with New York City.

I’ve heard a variety of things about NYC. I’ve heard about its hustle and bustle, and its excitement and the seemingly endless venues for art and culture. I’ve heard about how the city is dirty and overcrowded and unsafe to be alone in at night. In the excitement of preparing for my trip there I had that little voice of reason in the back of my head that was fretting over whether or not my excitement would be fulfilled or if my anticipation would be slightly disappointed.

Well it turns out my anticipation was more than fulfilled. I loved every part of my trip. I loved the clash of cultures that you find in the Big Apple. To sit in the park and hear one accent after another as people chat, laugh, yell, and peddle, seemed to be the perfect living description of what America is all about. Lady Liberty stands to welcome anyone to come into her harbor to make a new life and here they are, in central park, in the subway station on their way to work, in the deli, living, loving, struggling, to forge a life in the land of freedom.

I loved walking down one street to see Chinese markets and grab a dinner of real Chinese food, though I passed up the ducks hanging in the front window, and then moving on a couple of blocks to get some Canoli in Little Italy. I loved to see the little Chinese women carrying their babies on their backs, and then having Italian men, calling out to passersby to entice them into their cafes for a meal from the Old Country.

I walk a few blocks more and I am surrounded by trendy shops, artful buildings sprinkled with an old church here and there. The wonderful mix of old brick and new metal and glass buildings delight my architectural eye. In those worlds of concrete and structure there is frequently an interruption of green and trees and flowers where children can play and adults sit reading on benches. No one is hiding behind backyard walls, everyone is out together, interacting in this great scene of New York Life.


The Street vendors are frequent with their foods with their delicious scents- hot dogs, roasted nuts, kababs; no street is without a salesman. Each salesman seems bored until you start making a purchase and it seems his countenance gets brighter with each step of transaction. They wish you well as you walk away delighted with your purchase.

I loved seeing parts of my nation’s history- part of my history. It was like I was discovering part of what allows me to be who I am. The great statue stands to tell the world that we are free and open and full of opportunity. Ellis Island was full of stories of the hardships people endured to make a new way for themselves and their families- of sacrifices, dreams, disappointments, and legacies.

I saw the gaping hole of 9/11. I recalled the image seared into my mind of that morning, watching on my television with disbelief and horror what others were simultaneously experiencing when the towers collapsed. Now I saw how the city was moving on, how the land would be healed, the people are healing, and how God has restored so many. I felt anger towards those who would make war against our people- those people I saw in the parks and cafes and on the streets, who believe in freedom and hard work and independence. I felt sorrow for those who’d lost so much when the buildings fell, and I felt pride for those who’d sacrificed so much to help their fellow Americans- to clean up, to rebuild, to replant, to move on and yet to remember.


I experienced the doleful attitudes of those confined to work in booths of all sorts, and the eager helpfulness of strangers on the subways and on the streets. I met people proud of their city and eager to help others experience all it has to offer.

I experienced the vibrant worship of the Brooklyn Tabernacle. The choir rejoiced and the people along with it. The pastor challenged us to give our whole selves to God, not withholding anything, even our most prized possessions or ideas.

New York City is a beautiful place.I hope I will one day return to that great city and continue to explore. But with all it has to offer it is not void of problems- one only has to watch the news or read the paper to learn that. It has its warts and stains and troubles like any other place. Yet at the same time it is like nothing else I've experienced, a great mosaic of color and sound and motion. It is a melding of history with modernity. It is filled with the people of the world that God loves. I pray that New Yorkers would see past their giant city and its charms, surely it has many, and see that there is another city, whose foundations are not man-made; whose splendors will never need refurbishing, whose delights will never disappoint, and more than satisfy for life. I pray that they would know that their laughing, crying, living, and dying takes place under the watch of a Great God who loves them.

I'm Back, but Just as Confused as Ever

It’s been a long time since I’ve written anything. Anything on paper that is. I must’ve written about a hundred blogs in my head. Days go by where much of my thinking is spent on various topics, with an author’s tone taking over as if I’m addressing a group and not merely thinking to myself. There’ve been many nights where as badly as I want to be sleeping I cannot slow down the train of thoughts that whiz through the space between my ears. And just as a train passing by at its highest speeds becomes not a train at all but an image of colors and light and sound rushing through the air, so my thoughts may fly by me quickly, without a certain shape and form. Unlike a train my thoughts are not held down to go in one direction, at any moment they seem to change and evolve, at times like a tornado to pick up and hop over a topic and set back down someplace else entirely. All the while however, those thoughts are whirling, and spinning , and creating a maddening energy that I simply want to dissipate so that once again I sense the calm that was before the storm began.

I think on the one hand it is silly that I don’t write more. There is so much that I could say, so much that I probably need to get onto paper because things kept in my head never get sorted out. My thoughts need time to stretch their legs, to roam free and to find a destination. Locked inside my head they get jumbled and confused, much like the necklaces I keep squishing into a small jewelry bag. Though I put them in separately, whenever I go back and open the bag again they are inevitably a mass of tangles. So my thoughts so often seem to be.

On the other hand, I go through phases with my thoughts. Sometimes I think I’ve wrestled them down. I think, most curious of all, that I know what I think, and that I’m ready to commit to cementing them with ink. But just when it seems that I’ve got it all straight, a cog falls off and the wheels start running away in different directions and the whole machine has run down again.
Today I realized something that may be good, but perhaps is troublesome for me. I don’t think it’s any surprise to say that I’m an analytical person, or that I am introspective. However, at the same time, I am completely emotional. I want feelings and tears and laughter and joy. I want meaning and purpose and depth.

The two will not always appease each other. My mind is hungry for reason and logic. I have cried oftentimes at my inability to understand the things that I believe will bring me the highest passion and in my mind, the highest purpose.

I don’t want to be like either camp that seems to be found in the world around me- the camp of science which says there is nothing real that I can’t touch or measure, or the camp that says knowledge matters for nothing, only what I feel is important…
Both are wrong; both are death. What good is a body of only bones? What good is a heart without a skeleton? Most of all, what good is a man without a soul? Before God breathed in Adam he was but dust. And so, without the soul, dust is all we would be. Without heart and muscle we are good for nothing but burial. Without bone and soul we are nothing more than meat.

I don’t want to be like those whose reality lays only in experience yet I feel I go crazy for lack of spiritual experience. What is it that others speak of when they say they delight in God’s presence? When they are calmed by His still voice? When they are sure of His guidance?
I pray. I pause, I wait for something. A thought? A feeling? A nudge? A whisper? A sign? I know not what. I have this knowledge that says I ought to be satisfied. I have been given a relationship with the All-satisfying One. I hear others speak of their satisfaction, of their peace, of their wholeness…What have I done wrong or not done right? Where did I miss a turn? Did I sleep in too many mornings? Have I not wanted it enough? How do I get myself to want it more?

I try to conjure the feelings. I try to create a response within myself. I hope for an experience that breaks the ice above my head and leaves me at last, drinking in the air and freedom of the open above me. Inhaling that delicious satisfaction that heals and takes me past a point that I will never go back to.

But right now I seem to be on the Ferris Wheel again. Each time I think I’ve come over the top, for that moment when everything around me is clear and I can see for miles, and I believe I’ve seen my last day at the bottom, then somehow my sun once more turns to twilight and I find myself dropping down, down, down, and I can’t get off the ride. The bottom comes once more and I tell myself I need only wait, stay focused, and I will be lifted again to the heights…

The trouble is, I know that it’s in me that this problem lays, it must right? I am not forced onto the ride, but have created it in my own mind. My experience tells me that I am rising and falling, but so does that of a man with vertigo though he has never gotten off the couch...

Oh to see clearly the road I am walking on, to understand the shallows of my own heart, and even more the depths of its creator. To end the ups and the downs and to be one of those called “faithful” or “constant”, one of those who believes without seeing…

Last night I went to a friend's baptism...as I sat in the service my thoughts took flight as usual...this time to:

Father I don’t understand…”My grace is sufficient for you.”
Father I don’t want you enough or love You enough….”My grace is sufficient for you.”
I can’t DO this. I don’t know how to and I don’t have the power anyway…I am weak…”My grace is sufficient for you.”
What will become of me? How will I get up again? “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is perfected in weakness”
Most gladly therefore I boast in my weaknesses because when I am weak Christ is strong. I will wait once more for the fog to lift and hope once again that it will never return...

Chance Meeting

Tonight I saw someone I used to be close to. Those are always weird moments when someone from your past suddenly shows up in your present and you have that awkward catch up conversation that is a joke because it's ridiculous how much of your life you are summing up in 60 seconds...And it's always that weird feeling of "I used to know you"...This situation was even more awkard because of the background of our friendship...It hasn't been all sunshine and flowers...

I think that my mind immediately becomes a battleground in these kinds of situations. Satan would love for me to assume all sorts of things and focus on a lot of things that aren't true. I have to fight each thought and remember what God wants me to do- love. And in loving, assume the best.

In these times when my thoughts start raging against each other and I'm fighting for a momen'ts peace in my mind I like to just give up the fight all together. I want to just pre-occupy myself with something different entirely. But I know that those thoughts are only going to lay dormant and then resurface again later if I don't deal with them.

The truth is, me and this person, well we both hurt each other. And the truth is that is hard. For lack of a better word, it sucks. The absence of love, in any degree, is ugly and foul...Our humanity, in those times, becomes glaringly apparent...I have to remind myself of the truth and think on the things that are excellent and praiseworthy... The truth is, both of us love the Lord. The truth is both of us are trying to love people too. And the truth is, both of us have not always loved each other the way that Jesus would have us love each other. I'm probably the bigger culprit on that one too...Thankfully it's not a situation where we are bitter toward one another or anything like that, we have just been put down different paths...The glorious part is thinking how beautiful Christ's ideal is. To think if we loved like Jesus did then our relationship would have no bumps or dark rotten spots on it. Jesus' love is free of bruises.

The other part that I think is pretty fantastic is knowing that Jesus knows my failure to love like He does, and He wants to help me with that. He listens to me tell Him about my struggles and He forgives me when I ask Him...I'm so thankful for that.

Tonight when I got home I went in my room and sang a simple song-
Father of Lights, You delight in Your children.
Father of Lights, You never change, You have no turning.
Every good and perfect gift comes from You!

I'm so thankful that His love, unlike mine, never changes. He never changes. He will never know me less or more, He knows me fully and He loves me as I am and is changing me to be like Him.
That thought lifts my mood and makes me grateful that I didn't escape my thoughts but instead went for the truth. It makes me grateful that I can walk away from an encounter like that and praise the Lord.