Americana

The portrait of Americana. That was me today--if you didn't really know me. Driving down Table Rock Road, presumably oblivious to my surroundings (except for whatever consciousness it must have taken to keep me out of the ditch) I had for a moment the privilege of an outsider's view of myself. Sunglasses, Dutch Brothers, an Infinity QX-4 and large wedding ring bulging from my ring finger composed the picture I saw of myself. Surrounded by tinted windows and air conditioning I felt unruffled, sufficient, even self-satisfied. From the roadside I must have appeared almost regal, like the wives I always see hustling their adorable children into sparkling Lincoln Navigators. Only difference is, I think their diamonds are real and they probably usually drink Starbucks. But then who knows? I don't know them. Maybe they buy Dutch Bros and pour it into Starbucks cups in order to look expensive. Is that really all that matters to us anymore--looking expensive, that is. Who am I trying to be? Who am I judging? I started it.

I'm not completely sure why I do the things I do, or buy the things I do and etc. Maybe I should look into those reasons more directly. While in the virtual "lap of luxury" I sit, someone in Haiti is lying on a cot (if lucky) with nothing material left to their name and no family members accounted for. (And I am not saying this to go the "bleeding hearts/we should feel guilty" direction; I'm just gathering some perspective). Bearing this in mind, it wouldn't take much for me (in a loss situation) to wish I could close my eyes and fall endlessly asleep. At what moment that would be I can't say. Would it be having my SUV repoed? My cell phone dropped in the toilet and ruined? Perhaps that moment for me would be learning that the FDA had come to the conclusion coffee adversely affects too many people and must be banned. Which withdrawal will be the moment of my reckoning? Freak out for me would most likely come at a more monetary point than I would be ready to acknowledge, but I want to be selfless. I want to be content.

My America struggled for independence, for self-sufficiency, for unity and civility. All men do struggle for these things; perhaps we just did it more adeptly. Somehow the majority of us managed to base the part of our motivation--that shows--on democracy. We seem in this to have some sort of invincible favor. Did we try to become the Nation the whole world ogles, or did we wake up one morning and find ourselves here? Now we don't want the responsibility.

Good thing I am not only writing of my beloved Nation but of my own heart. My physical roots are American. God knows why I am here and not in the shanties of South Africa. How does a person get chosen to live in riches and plump security and another in the worst kind of poverty and disarray? One of my questions for God. One thing I think: there has to be someone who can give to someone else. Right now, if no one had enough to share, a lot more people would be going without chances and options . I am thankful I am one of the one's with enough to share. May we through our poverty (and come on, all of us are pretty much the same when it comes down to it--stinking needy) share what we have. Those who have nothing material share with us their profound faith in the middle of incomparable loss. Those of us who have literally everything we physically need ought to share looking at Creator and desperately, gratefully thanking Him there's enough to go around! The manna only landed in our neck of the woods so we could distribute it all wisely! God I pray we do.

For my Dear Country my heart breaks beyond words, for we have a disaster upon us every bit as serious as those laboring across the world. And patiently He allows us to lull in it, hoping and praying that we will wake up. This sleep is deep like Rip Van Winkle's, but if we ask to be woken up, it's not too late. I have been given this house to glorify God in. I have been given this SUV to glorify God with. I have been given these feet still attached to my legs to carry the Good News! I have been given friends, family and neighbors that I might spread unabated love! I have been given knowledge of the Nations that I might ask for them as my inheritance; I HAVE BEEN GIVEN.

Why Light Matters

I love that encouraging each other is as simple as sharing what we read today, or recounting what God has said to us that gave us the answer and the strength to keep going. Nothing about our hanging out or community has to be complicated. We could be having a picnic when suddenly God shows up and "adds to our numbers".

I am supposed to be doing a lot of stuff right now, stuff I'll eventually get to. What I love more than anything is conversing about the sweetness of God and His love for us. I think even talking about Him is reverence that brings Him to us.

Today I read from Oswald Chambers, My Utmost For His Highest. I love to be challenged in my faith in such a limitless, hardcore and truthful way. True to today's date I read June 30th. (Wow, can anyone believe it's June 30th? I can't. Probably because it rained half the month :-) I will quote from His entry titled, "Agree With Your Adversary Quickly": "Have you suddenly reached a certain place in your relationship with someone, only to find that you have anger in your heart? Confess it quickly--make it right before God. Be reconciled to that person--do it now!"

The foundation verses Chambers shares are Matthew 5:25 and John 3:19-21. I went deep into John 3:20-21 in the Amplified Bible which I love because it brings in the meaning and heart of the words used in the Scriptures. "For every wrongdoer hates (loathes, detests) the Light, and will not come out into the Light but shrinks from it, lest His works (his deeds, his activities, his conduct) be exposed and reproved. But he who practices truth (who does what is right) comes out into the Light; so that His works may be plainly shown to be what they are--wrought with God [divinely prompted, done with God's help, in dependence on Him.]

I started thinking about what I read. I think perhaps the reason why it is so hard for us to come into the Light (Jesus) is that we are so afraid He will be like every other authority figure who has ever stepped on us, devastated us, cheated us or "lorded it over us". To be able to forgive those human authority figures and invite Jesus to show us the truth about His way of loving us is a challenge indeed. We are so afraid there will be some sort of horrible "exposure and reproof" that we forget Jesus was completely and totally exposed and reproved for us. There will never be any condemnation coming out of Him towards us when we make a true-hearted confession. Actually, there will never be any condemnation coming out of Him--period. He just isn't like that! Even a half-hearted confession from someone who wants Him is something He can work with! As a good friend of mine once said, let's "get down to the nitty gritty".

I am telling myself today, when I say I want intimate relationships with all you wonderful friends and my family, I am committing myself to confess and come into the Light and make right absolutely anything that I have done that has wronged any of you! That means I would tell you straight out my most shameful sin when such is needed to heal us. (And heal us confession would!) By the same token, I am also promising to tell you when you offend me! I am refusing to play games with you and I am honoring you as someone who can handle working stuff out! If for some reason You just can't work things out quite yet, then I've still done my level best and when I keep my heart soft towards you continually I am in the Light. I am refusing to keep unforgiveness in my heart towards anyone....the cost of intimacy may seem great to us now, but in only a matter of time this undaunted love we must practice will become second nature. It's actually better if we don't do it like a rehearsed dance, we've just got to take our first stumbling steps.

For intimacy's sake, God, I pray today that you would deal with me. Break open my fears and pour your love into those areas in me so that I am unafraid to trust your Light. I forgive those authority figures, friends, relatives, and anyone else who has ever exposed me and reproved me bringing heavy embarrassment and condemnation on me. I release them and bless them, I turn them over to You. Your "yoke is easy". I pray for the truth about who You are to flood me so I can come into Light in every part of my heart. I pray that You will help me press into the relationships you have gifted me so that I will grow in love and freedom from fear. Thank you that You bore exposure and reproof for me and God never, ever deals with me out of a heart desiring to punish me and make me pay. Show me truth, God. Show me You.
In Jesus name, Amen.

"In Constant Touch"

One of those weeks, one of those days, nights, moments....years. Everything blurred together and nothing to grab onto. Plenty of: "abuse, accidents, opposition, bad breaks". Yet in all of it He stays here. Right here. My Shepherd calls and I answer through the blur..."When do I end? Can't you just take me out of me? You can do anything!" But it isn't the easy road that makes me remember. It isn't the "gift to the Lord that costs me nothing" that sticks with me. What costs, I become. What aches, delivers. What shifts and shakes and turns underneath me brings me to steady ground.

If there were no words in our language for how we feel, if we had no way to express our anguish, exhaustion, joy, fear or relief, He would still know it all. What refreshment it is to me this morning (the morning after the long night) to know even if I can't open my mouth He will hear me. He will "groan" for me. Even my lamentation will resolve and dissolve itself inside of Him. Big, big God. Big, big grace. Simple like a child's song but no less powerful as we believe Him.

"Because of the extravagance of those revelations, and so I wouldn't get a big head, I was given the gift of a handicap to keep me in constant touch with my limitations. Satan's angel did his best to get me down; what he in fact did was push me to my knees. No danger then of walking around high and mighty! At first I didn't think of it as a gift, and begged God to remove it. Three times I did that, and then He told me, "My grace is enough; it's all you need. "My strength comes into it's own in your weakness." "Once I heard that, I was glad to let it happen. I quit focusing on the handicap and began appreciating the gift. It was a case of Christ's strength moving in on my weakness. Now I take limitations in stride, and with good cheer, these limitations that cut me down to size--abuse, accidents, opposition, bad breaks. I just let Christ take over! And so the weaker I get, the stronger I become."

The Message
2 Corinthians
(page 388)

Dirty Work

"Fixing one's thoughts" takes diligent effort. I can't be naive about the graphic evil and filth of this world, but I'm also not asked to ruminate in that shadowy place. We have this Scripture so we know God knows we can't survive in a constant state of "saving the world". He hasn't required that of us. He knows if we internalize the images of grief, injustice and carnality we are hit with every moment we live in this world it's only a matter of time before we self-destruct. I have been given permission to live in heaven now, it is not demanded of me that I undergo some self-absorbed mental/spiritual initiation. Jesus Christ already went to hell and back. He does not ask me to go to hell and live there, so that I can somehow become strong enough as to be as invincible as He is. He is the only one who could have entered darkness and shadow and lived through it all. We think we have personal tabs on the depths of evil. We are cocky to run ahead so rashly. Our pride is only fuel for hell's sulfuric fire.

What I am asked for is humility enough to hide myself in Him, to realize the evil but not to be sidelined. To be invincible because I have been given the privilege of living in heaven right now, and there are no precursors other than simply knowing Christ. The more I know Him, the more of His purity, honor and loveliness abide within me for my access. Then, the paralysis (like chloroform) the enemy holds over our senses is knocked off. When we can see heaven, we can see the actions of God. We are not defeated any longer because we have given up replaying and planning our own heroic attack on the bowels of hell. This practice is useless because we know we will not be successful, for what human power can stand? In human strength we see ourselves rendered helpless even in the best blustering daydream we can muster.

In the "precious lifeblood" (1 Peter 1:19) of the Lamb we have the power to suffer earth because we're living in heaven. As we live in heaven, the Holy Spirit will impact earth through us. The actions we are to take on the behalf of those God is calling will be clear. We will not be overtaken by evil but we will respond, alive and well, with good. The trust of simple children, so grateful that Daddy does the dirty work, will release the power of heaven to devastate and regenerate the slimiest pit imaginable.

"And now, dear brothers and sisters, let me say one more thing as I close this letter. Fix your thoughts on what is true and honorable and right. Think about things that are pure and lovely and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise. Keep putting into practice all you learned from me and saw me doing, and the God of peace will be with you." Philippians 4:8

Recklessly, Messily

God's reckless love for the brokenhearted is coming. I am in for the ride of my life. I cannot presume to know everything, and I plead that I will not use past experience as my guide when this love begins to overflow me. Love is not an office schedule I make sitting in my high-rise. There will be plenty of moments when I am so full of God's compassion I will not even know how to proceed. How could I know this love that is completely inhuman? My response is to bow down low. Human love will never be perfection. God's love is perfection. In His presence my own downheartedness will become the "perfection for which He possessed me." In His presence I am safe in this abandonment. If I am afraid that I will make a mistake in loving someone, I will remain human in my love. If I am compelled by God, I will not even be afraid of someone else's motives, because I know in the end the greatest thing I will ever do is to be a reckless lover of God. When he loves me with heaven, I have been consumed, I have been overtaken. I am not loving humanly anymore. There are no formulas. Each person needs a stellar personal touch from God...in which God is the Star Performer. May I never believe that I have my own needs, or someone else's needs all figured out. When I am hurt, when I am broken and when others are hurt around me, the Spirit of God is hovering. Oh may I not run beyond those precious open moments. They are the portals to God-given wholeness. When I cry out to Him He begins creating with His love on earth. We are all here with God to be recklessly, messily consumed. This is what God has always had in mind as He loves us.

Oswald Chambers, page 570, "That Which is Perfect"
Philippians 3: 12
1 John 4:18
Image by Heart-A-Day, Gretchen

Journal of a Judge (Me)

I looked across time and space and caught in my eye someone who deserved to die
I planned the time and place I would carry out what was just and right...in my eyes
I wanted to make sure he got what he deserved
I took a life who's soul I had not created and did not know
I made that life mine to dissect and scrutinize
He was so free, he did not have a care in the world
He seemed always to look out and beyond Himself, as though He knew a secret I did not
And it irked me
I wanted to penalize everything about Him that made me feel less controlled, less important
I was afraid that if I let Him off the hook, I would lose what I had worked so hard my whole life to convert...I found a way to make something out of nothing...my own way
And it had worked for me
I could stand over Him and be completely composed...I knew what would happen all the time
And I knew why
This was my world...And Oh, I had power! Such power...I never worried, because I always came out on top, my life always made sense
And this time was no different
I planned it, I drafted the moment of payback
I knew exactly which moment would be mine, to watch Him suffer and gloat
To pull out His beard, poke at His eyes, dribble my own spit over His cheekbones...He so deserved this treatment: to be under my thumb
Someone had to do it
I would be the one
Because He never tried
He never had to strive the way I did, life came naturally to Him
He saw people and they saw Him...He was full without effort
I had to catch Him or else...the world would see my hollow shell
I wanted to make Him nothing, small and helpless in my hands, my slave...dead or alive

But when I made Him suffer, my plan writhed in my hands like lightning in the sky
I had no control
My punishment made Him gracious
My pounding made Him prayerful
My beating made Him sweeter
My death blow brought Him to life
Humiliation was His comfort and consolation
Judgment was His mercy

He encompassed me, every time I hit him I felt smaller and smaller
Panic choked me...my worst fear realized
My plan was failing...I couldn't give Him what I was so sure He deserved
He would not take from me
I could not defeat His Source
Though covered in wounds I had afflicted,
He seemed to live beyond demands for retribution, He took me and held on
He asked me if I wanted this: the life of a judge
Knowing I was bested I looked at Him, a good long look...a cold calculating stare
Was there any way out of this?
He understood me
Then I saw Him for the first time...who He really was, because the light in His eyes opened up
I was drawn over time and space to a moment all my own
All His own
He was not deserving, I was
He had done nothing, I had done everything!
Surprisingly enough to me, my barrenness did not detain Him
I saw myself for the first time
I saw Him want me...I saw Him pull me out from rubble...In His eyes
I saw Him do all necessary to secure me
So I would not have to secure myself

I am the judge receiving mercy from my unjustly accused
The judge who came through violent reckoning to sit close and tight with intimacy
The judge who is now Beloved would not dare decide an end
Beloved now filled with beginnings...endings made for beginnings

Cleave

I am among those blessed with physical pain. How can I use the word blessed in such a context? I remember now reading Elizabeth Barret Browning as a student and being deeply drawn to her immutability and passion despite her permanent set of disturbing circumstances. If ever there was a Job...still, she is recalled as having stood for something(1). She was also not without the blessing of God. I have been asking the oldest human question standing on a new plain: what do I do when "it" doesn't get better--ever?

Extended pain and/or deep grief is the kind of seemingly helpless experience that motives a person to start compartmentalizing and formulating out of sheer exhaustion. A person in real pain will feel no shame about trying every solution imaginable. "There is nothing new under the sun" by the way(2). King Solomon wrote that. (This coming from a guy who could have literally anything he wanted). I'm not sure whether he ever had physical pain, or if his problem was simply chronic boredom. Mindlessness is a sort of pain in itself; a disassociation from the reaches of God and the nonconformity of living in Him.

I see this offensive stance we take towards our pain as a normal human response to suffering. When there's discomfort, we fight it. Sometimes we even enjoy the fight--this makes us feel worthy. If we have to go through it, we'll stick some placebo in to mask the absence of real appeasement. I am no longer shocked by my inability to be composed during pain; I find there's nothing wrong with honest questions in the midst of maladies. These attempted judgments against our Maker only become infectious when we have seen them and continue to recline about with them. Unless we move towards God, they eventually become bedsores or gangrene and then we are terminal and must lose a leg or an arm to see bitterness go. The questions themselves are really just opportunities. We don't have to wait so long as to be engulfed by them. Questions are intersection points for action. If we fight this way, pain can't win.

I am not proud to say that I have frequented the halls of doubt--not at all a great champion of faith--but all is not lost. Doubt has been the implement of God's hand in forming many faithful heroes. I confess I have "consorted with flesh" in a myriad of compulsive questions against God(3). As though I could even hope to stand in His courtroom. My questions are something to this effect: "Why is everyone else being healed and not me? Is my faith not strong enough? I've been touched by God before, why wasn't wholeness sustained?" Though I have asked and asked again my pain seems indomitable, like I've rolled in a mixture of discomfort and super-glue. To those who know pain, I have compassion for your struggle, I hope the way God has compassion for mine. You are not alone. We ask the kinds of questions that cannot be answered with a trite word or a randomly quoted scripture verse. Those in some sort of pain, realistically most all of us, know what it's like to feel starved for encouragement.

Something new has begun to wake up in me, and I want to share. Encouragement has woken up in me. I have had a new opening of my eyes from God and now I know: perhaps His eternal dreams for my faith are greater than the immediate alleviation of my temporary pain. I have often wished that my body could keep up with my heart. Now casting a look across what my life has been I see moments when I felt so incredibly broken physically, when there was nothing that I could do to work harder or faster for God and no way I could try more or accomplish more. For me this has been a remarkably frustrating phenomenon, but those intersections were the "thin places" between heaven and earth, as CS Lewis calls them. The intimacy with God that has became my portion in those times is exquisite. I can almost say--I am almost surrendered to say-- this is intimacy worth all the suffering I've felt. Suffering is a process. Surrender is a process. God understands.

Impacting in my encouragement was the brinkmanship of Jesus's miracle in Bethany where Mary, Martha and Lazarus lived(4). What I read has brought me to a yielding I can't escape from. God has tested my reliance. Lazarus died and Jesus knew He was dying ahead of time. This gave Jesus plenty of time to get to the siblings house. Surplus time aside, Mary, Martha and Lazarus were also loved by Jesus. Amplified Bible says "they were His dear friends and he held them in high esteem." So wouldn't affection be enough to motivate Jesus to give to the need of the moment? Mary and Martha hoped so. Like me their pain took hold and they couldn't deny their disappointment. They too wrestled with Jesus's sovereign will to hold off on healing those last few days. They told (asked) Jesus, to His face, "Master, if You had been here, my brother would not have died." I see here this lovely concept I've been told of is truth: we really can be highly esteemed and dear to Jesus and still struggle with His ways--to His face! Jesus's response to Mary and Martha is catalytic in stirring up their belief, reliance and trust. Jesus is asking them to "cleave" to Him. His heart for the situation is articulated earlier on when He says, "This sickness is not to end in death; but (on the contrary) it is to honor God and to promote His glory, that the Son of God may be glorified through it."

Saturated in these words of God I know He requires the ultimate in obedience and trust from me. He desires me to attain wholehearted determination towards the larger focal point of His glory. If I can cleave to Him, then all I will see will be Him. There will come a point when my own suffering will just not be consuming to me. I will have vision of a vast and good plan unfolding about me. Do I believe that He is a Good Friend and Papa? Do I believe that He raised Lazarus from the dead? Now Jesus is the One asking me questions. He so often uses questions to derail the rigidity of formulaic thinking.

On Wednesday I visited my doctor and asked Him to remove my warts. He went into a detailed explanation of what the procedure would entail and told me that I would be in a lot of pain, especially because my warts are growing out of my knuckles. He said the pain would be deep into my bones and would last long after the actual freezing had been done. I found out the process only yields the desired result, complete killing of of the tissue and hopefully the virus that causes the warts, about fifty percent of the time. Never the less, having had these warts and watching them grow and multiply for about a year so far, I told Him that I wanted to go ahead and try. Warts can take up to five years to clear on their own; the immediate pain seemed a measurable trade for ridding myself of the virus' roots in my hands. He got the liquid nitrogen ready and while chatting with my husband and I, positioned the tube to jet out over my fingers. He paused for a second and, without lifting his head, said with gravity, "this is going to hurt."

How many times have cried out to God for relief from internal and external pain being accentuated by my circumstances? How many times have I expected Him to "pony up", essentially saying, "look God, right now I have a need." I will put voice to giving Him permission to "do whatever it takes"...."go ahead God. Shoot that liquid nitrogen into my heart--I can handle it" When the ache starts in my core as God obliges me, how often do I refuse His sweet medicine to go back to an old concoction of my own, knowing full well I can do no good? We all get stuck sometimes. The old pain is more manageable to us than the new that purifies.

Elizabeth Barret Browning retained her effectiveness in life despite a chronic problem with her lungs, spinal injury at a young age, tyranny of her earthly father and loss of her brother. Through all of these circumstances God lifted her up with a remarkable ability to write and with love she experienced through her devotion to God and in her relationship with her husband. She "saw the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living(5)" despite apparent hindrances. God is not asking me to despair of all miracles as though He will never make good on His promises. Jesus wept before Lazarus's tomb and He was troubled over the suffering He saw. He is compassionate. He is not without genuine pathos. He is asking me to trust His deeper work in me. If He desires this pain remain for this earthly season, He assures me it is only temporary. Pain well worthwhile, pain for His glory: deeper faith, love, purity and anointing. If I can cleave to Christ, walking steadfastly, I will see the dead rise in my own life and the life of my beloved companions who also suffer. This will come in God's timing, when all spiritual ground in my faith is ripe to receive His glory. I will be His testimony and His letter will be written on my heart. I must keep believing my Abba, no matter how badly I hurt.

Sources:
1)Poets.org
2)Ecclesiastes 1:9
3)Galatians 1:16
4)John 11
5)Psalm 27:13