Caring

I was just out walking on my 15 minute break. I was thinking about caring about things. I mean having a passion for specific things like trees for example.

I was thinking about the lost stewardship of the earth and that if God had originally designed us to take care of it and continue to cultivate all that's in the earth then he must have put a desire in each of us for some specific thing, more specific than someone else.

I wondered about what my more specific was. What do I just care about more than my neighbor does? What am I called to remind my neighbor of in that caring? What do they remind me of that I don't feel as deeply about?

I thought about creatures. I care a little more for horses than some. I thought about God. I care a little more for worship than some. I thought about words. I care a little more for words than some. These things continue to mark me and form many of the decisions I've made. I can hear God blessing the caring, "yes, this is from me" he says. "It's not a mistake, you are not mistaken. Take up your stewardship again."

Christian Zeal and Activity

I found this song on NPR it's an orchestral piece by John Adams call Christian Zeal and Activity. What's really moving and powerful is that he uses a recording of a a man preaching on Jesus Healing on the Sabbath. It a great mediation. Thought I'd share it.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89145711

Revelation and Forming

"It came by revelation" . . . "till Christ be formed in you." Galatians

I'm swimming around in these two realities. Longing for both.

There is such a tension between these two statements. They are Paul's from Galatians. I'm caught between longing for revelation that transforms, as it did Paul and then the fact that there is a "forming" also. I've had my share of transforming moments. I've had my share of forming. I suppose I'm longing more for the former to occur at the moment, a revelation of who Jesus is and what he means to me that compels me with longing to share with others who he is.

Sunday Ken, the pastor at IAC, addressed the need for revelation so that we may go out and make disciples. God winks at me, letting me know that he is stirring desire for him within me along with everybody else.

I have to say there is a great deal of confusion that happens in my own heart as I hear the go out part. I don't feel like I have gone out in my Christian life, at least not where it's really counted. I think many believers feel this way. We wind up with a great deal of condemnation for not being more fanatic. I'm not sure fanatic is the word I'm looking for, but perhaps it's more like earnest or sure. I confess there is a lot about my faith I don't think I could ever hope to defend to a skeptic, and I even feel how keenly I don't want to defend. What I would really like to happen is to just love. I want to love by speaking truth but not wind up in platitudes. I want all those things we say about Jesus and faith in him to hit the heart of it all when I speak it to someone.

Later this week I read something in Acts that stirred me even more. Peter says to a crippled beggar "Sliver or gold I do not have, but what I have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk." And the man does. I suppose this is what I'm looking for. Yes, I would love for the Spirit of God to heal through me like this, but also what ever measure I have I want to give.

Joining the Chorus

Two advent seasons ago, Jan Meyers facilitated a wonderful retreat. In that retreat she brought up the idea or question of how we join the enemy's chorus. (I think that's close to how she phrased it. I don't remember the exact terms she used.) But this idea has floated up to me again today.

Primarily it is a question of how we have joined with the lies he tells us about ourselves. This morning I've been reflecting on some lies I've received as truth about myself (some really insidious ones, the kind that I wrote about in "Quieter Commitments").

It's sobering to realize that although someone has been cruel to you that in order to navigate that cruelty you've been crueler to yourself. This joining, this writing of your own line to make some harmony in the hopes of making those dissonant notes less unsettling is the playground of the enemy. As long as he can keep you listening to his song he can hold sway and keep you from real life and from knowing salvation.

I was angry as I thought about these things. I was angry with what was done and appalled with how I've agreed with and joined the lies. Helplessness creeps at the door here. How do I change, how do I come before the God of Truth and be made whole? Revelation is powerful and sometimes feels as if that is all that is needed, but it doesn't always produce repentance. I think I feel the pressure of needing a sudden all at once change to feel that it's real, but this may take time.

I'm draw to remember that it is Lent and this is the time to understand the darkness and need of our life before the Glory of Easter morning.

Quieter Commitments

I’ve been thinking a lot about the quieter commitments that I’ve made in my life that have guided and directed it. They are commitments that are so quiet I didn’t even realize I’d made them.

My life has a momentum I don’t like, yet it feels so much like unnamable forces are in control. I’m aware there are things I could change. There are some really obvious to do’s. Anyone could do them. I could do them. I’ve had many a well meaning friend, even strangers suggest them. Yet, I can’t seem to jump the hurdle, find the energy or even more importantly the desire.

But very recently God’s grace and light has come to me. In a very difficult conversation, someone I trust pointed out to me one of these barely audible commitments. I learned in an eye twinkling moment that the to do’s I’m not doing, have a whole lot to do with this very quiet, subconscious commitment I’ve made about how I will live my life.

It was a deeply sobering moment as the light poured down onto the far reaching consequences it’s had. The light poured down on the deep root of it’s presence in my life, a commitment with such an obvious hold that this person who saw it expressed fear that I may never change.

Her statement felt like a gauntlet, though I know that was not its intent. I could feel my heels digging in to letting this thing go and so I felt the validity of her fear and it became mine too. I’ve ruled my life this way for so long and have built up a litany of powerful justifications for it. I do want to change, but am I up for the price of it?

Am I up for the pain I will have to face in how I’ve harmed my self and others in this? Am I up for the reopening of fearful and painful wounds that caused me to create such a deep commitment?

I think of Christ who for the joy set before him endured the cross. I wonder if, in this revelation, I have now wandered into a chance to follow His way, that my feet are now walking on His path? I wonder, if I endure through what I know will be painful, if I will come into the joy. And what joy did the Lord set before Him and enter? What joy can I expect? He entered the joy of restored relationship with all His creation. He entered the joy of restoring a relationship with me. So in this journey I will reach to Him and enter that joy too.

An encouraging thought comes to me as I embark. His pain was not greater than his joy. If it were the universe would have fallen apart. Don’t you think? So I will take that promise of greater joy and walk. In the midst of pain, I will ever cast my self into the joy of being with Him.

The Past is Present

I’ve made it through, but lately it seems near. I was pulling out pictures the other day looking for a picture that represented joy. I found something else instead.

I was flipping through an album that was full of pictures from when I lived in Seattle and was attending graduate school. I burst into tears. I wasn’t even trying evoke memories as I looked. I was just suddenly transported to that time and washed over with the utter disappointment and enduring pain of that time in my life.

The experience of that pain has been dormant for several years now, but recently I’ve had conversations or experiences that have brought it up again. It’s such an odd thing to be going along with whatever daily thing and suddenly feel in the exact way I’d felt in the past as if I were there and not here.

I have to remind myself that I’ve already lived through it and I’m ok now, but I’m curious about why it’s come up again. I’m going to air on the side that God wants to speak to me and heal me. I love these words from “The Life Model”, “When pain from the past is unresolved, (you) struggle with it every day – it is not past at that moment, it is present. Pain from the past cannot stay in the past until it receives healing.” And that is where I’m at.

There is gratefulness in me as I realize that this is happening now because I’m actually more healed and well and stable than I’ve been in a long time. If I crash a little not everything will crash down. The experience of the pain won’t render me helpless as if it were the final word. Still, it’s not pleasant and I must be mindful to bring it before the Lord.

And I’m grateful to say that I’ve already begun to see the first of the fruit of this experience. A new thought has arrived in my spirit as I’ve experienced this that previously I’d not been able to handle. The thought is that part of the problem in that time was my own stubbornness and rebellion. I wanted certain things to be on my terms, and those terms were in opposition to God’s Holy design. Concretely, one of the biggest errors I made was in walking away from fellowship and ceasing to believe that the church had something meaningful to offer me. I was arrogant about it and didn’t really try to see the church beyond its imperfections.

In all previous attempts at contemplating this time I’d usually come out on the heavy ends. Either it would all windup being my fault or it would all wind up being God’s evil plan and mostly I’d be struck with a massive amount of confusion over the whole thing. If I admitted I was wrong or had a part in some of the pain, I could only admit it with a punch of self-contempt spiraling me down into a dark pit. Which I’m convinced is a clear sign that the enemy is polluting my thoughts. But this time the admission was covered in grace, in true sorrow. And instead of feeling contempt and a hardening I could feel my heart grow softer and a true I’m sorry come forth. I could feel myself want to draw near to God instead of feeling as if I needed to duck. I felt God’s wide open arms embracing me and saying something like. “I’m glad you see your part, it’s ok."

Hmm . . . It’s ok. I’m present now, to the pain, but even more to the presence of God, present to His redeeming love.