This might be an awkward blog post, because I want to talk about the honesty involved in composing a blog post. I often read blogs of ones who really truly want to dig down to the most honest pits of their souls and put all that stuff into the most honest words possible in a blog post. I love those posts. I want to write those posts, but that is hard.
Recently, I read a post on Tim's blog and made a comment about how much I appreciate his honesty. Here's part of what he said in response to my comment: "I struggle with being honest on the blog: I want to be honest, because I believe that's the best way to live, but I am ever afraid that people will think poorly of me if I am truly honest. Fact is, I am not completely honest on the blog. Sometimes people say that, you know, there's a line of what is appropriate to be honest about, but I don't know why or where."
Sadie and I went to see The Invention of Lying at the beginning of last school year, and in case you don't know the premise, it's a movie about a society that only speaks truths. Then, Ricky Gervais "invents" lying when he goes to the bank and tells the teller he has more money in his bank account than he actually has so that he can pay his rent. The weird thing about this film, though, is that truth never appears offensive. The reason we lie is because we don't want to offend. We lie to avoid negative consequences, but those negative consequences don't appear to exist in this world--at least not in terms of hurt feelings. Somehow pride and ego must be diluted when the concept of lying is removed from the picture.
Which may or may not be far from the truth, but that seems an impossible experiment to conduct in our lying reality. As far as blogging goes, though, I don't know that I'd say not being completely honest is a blatant lie, but it can be misleading. Sometimes I get in the mood to blog, and I'll write a post that really does not quite encompass the reality of a situation or of my own thoughts. With that, I do echo Tim's feelings on honesty in that such vulnerability is a scary thing when it can lead to others thinking less of me. Often times the image I put off to others becomes a much bigger concern to me than the image I put off to God. God knows those depths of my soul that even I don't know. I can't lie or hide anything from Him, and the fact that God still loves me more than anyone else can, despite that, is extremely humbling when I bother to appreciate it.
Unfortunately, I can morph other people's opinions of me by controlling the image I put off. I can write about how great it is that I'm babysitting Kasper, but then in reality, I've been fed up with him for the past week. I got home really late last night from a concert, and in my sleep-deprived state this morning, I was straight up grumpy and lost my filter. Kasper's parents only let him watch two hours of TV when they're working, but he likes to remind me that he watches endless amounts of TV when his parents get home. Sometimes when he's done with his two hours and decides to bug me, I become very annoyed by this rule. Today he told me he had half an hour left and I told him I really did not care how much TV he watched. He reminded me of the rule, and then, yes, I exposed his parents' rule being void when they got home and how it really makes little difference that he's not watching as much TV with me when he's vegged out in front of a TV all evening. I know, it was a terrible terrible thing to say, and I have apologized to his mother for it already after he called her and told her what I said. He's bound to be as sick of me as I am of him, and it's rather unfortunate that we're leaving off on this note. But, that is the reality of the situation. As much as I'd like to look like a good person, I am not, and God is even gracious enough to humble me today as my pride has definitely been flaring up to a maximal level over the past few days.
We all are sinful, and that word "sinful" encompasses a lot of muck we sure do want to throw blinders over. I think sometimes these blinders are even used to delude ourselves, and that's when Satan can drag us further into the muck of that specific sin. Honesty is hard enough to embrace within myself, and it's that much harder to throw down in a blog post. I guess that's why we keep pointing at God and the fact that He is Honesty, and in maintaining that perspective, he will point right back at us and say, "Well done, my good and faithful servant."
Thursday, July 29, 2010
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
22
Mathematically, 22 is a semiprime. As my actual age, it already has a much more exciting description. It gave me the first birthday I can recall really spending any time with Jesus, and I don't mean just at church (since my birthday was on a Sunday). It was raw, and it was real. I felt invited, and I felt loved.
I wrote some posts at the beginning of the summer about how much I didn't want another doubtful summer to bring another faithless and fruitless fall. By the sheer grace of God, I am pretty sure this has been avoided (so far). When Claire and I were visiting with Abby Bates in DC a few weeks ago, she talked about how God is the one who grants anyone (including nonbelievers) the ambition to really do anything and chase big dreams. I thought of how true that has been in my own life. If anything, I see God giving me the ambition for ambition. There's less, "Well, I just don't know what God wants me to do," and more, "I desire to treat each hour's task as a task from God." I finally really truly want to see God change hearts on my campus enough that I will make sure there are many opportunities for that to happen.
Last summer, I was fretting over what to do with my life and all the difficult math classes I had to take. While I still do fret over these things sometimes, I am more concerned with God being glorified not only by *my* activities this year at school but also by everyone else's, including the faces I simply walk past everyday on my way to Real Analysis. What's cool is that I know I'm not alone, and I can't wait to see a united God-given passion for Christ penetrate our little block we call UMW.
He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?
-Micah 6:8
I wrote some posts at the beginning of the summer about how much I didn't want another doubtful summer to bring another faithless and fruitless fall. By the sheer grace of God, I am pretty sure this has been avoided (so far). When Claire and I were visiting with Abby Bates in DC a few weeks ago, she talked about how God is the one who grants anyone (including nonbelievers) the ambition to really do anything and chase big dreams. I thought of how true that has been in my own life. If anything, I see God giving me the ambition for ambition. There's less, "Well, I just don't know what God wants me to do," and more, "I desire to treat each hour's task as a task from God." I finally really truly want to see God change hearts on my campus enough that I will make sure there are many opportunities for that to happen.
Last summer, I was fretting over what to do with my life and all the difficult math classes I had to take. While I still do fret over these things sometimes, I am more concerned with God being glorified not only by *my* activities this year at school but also by everyone else's, including the faces I simply walk past everyday on my way to Real Analysis. What's cool is that I know I'm not alone, and I can't wait to see a united God-given passion for Christ penetrate our little block we call UMW.
He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?
-Micah 6:8
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Solomon and Jesus in cahoots
Since I started teaching the youth Sunday school class at the beginning of this month, I've basically been conducting my own personal experiment (and God's more controlled "experiment") of talking to a few 14 to 17-year-olds about the meaning of life and purpose as exposed by Solomon in the book of Ecclesiastes. I was going to go into this class with a more comfortable and common study, maybe looking more specifically at one of the gospels or Paul's letters or digging into some of Isaiah's prophesies. But then I know how heavily God has laid purpose and meaning on my heart and mind that I figured it was more than appropriate territory to explore with some teens who are in a phase I only so recently left behind.
I've discovered that the hardest part about tackling Ecclesiastes not only in personal study but especially in group study is understanding why Solomon speaks throughout most of the book from a secularist point-of-view. There is so much explicit doom and gloom, you almost miss those glimmers of "there is a time for everything," "eat, drink, and be merry," and "fear God and keep His commandments." So far we've looked at the first chapter as well as the last chapter partially because I only have a few weeks with them and also because I wanted to get straight to the hopeful conclusions of Solomon's wise discoveries. All of the "this is meaningless" and "that is vanity" business in the middle has been mentioned but for the most part left unexplored.
But this coming Sunday we're gonna get into it. At least, we're gonna get into chapter two and talk about the vanity of self-indulgence, which underlies most strictly secular pursuits.
The night of my 22nd birthday (July 18th), I started a house-sitting job. I arrived, dropped my stuff on the floor of the living room, pulled out my Bible, and read straight through Mark and about six chapters into Luke. And as God does, he showed me many sides of Himself that I truly have never even seen before. With the words of Ecclesiastes on my mind a lot lately, I started seeing how much more radical and uncomfortable Jesus' words are than anything Solomon ever said. I also saw how much Jesus basically reiterated the points Solomon had made two hundred years before.
The secularist POV is a straight-up-in-your-face illustration of exactly what Jesus later warns us against.
Just look at the parable Jesus told about "the rich fool":
Someone in the crowd said to him, "Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me."
14Jesus replied, "Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?" 15Then he said to them, "Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions."
16And he told them this parable: "The ground of a certain rich man produced a good crop. 17He thought to himself, 'What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.'
18"Then he said, 'This is what I'll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. 19And I'll say to myself, "You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry." '
20"But God said to him, 'You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?'
21"This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God."
The nice thing is that Jesus throws that verse 21 bit in there, whereas Solomon generally leaves that out until around the end of his entire book. But really, this one parable gives a great summary of most of the things Solomon gets into. You may also recall that story about the guy who says he's kept up with all of God's commands, but when Jesus says that's terrific but go on and sell everything you have, the guy is filled with sorrow.
Having stuff isn't the problem. It's "the love of [having stuff]" that brings problems. Mostly, it's loving having stuff more for ourselves rather than having stuff for God. And by stuff, I am referring to everything Solomon goes into, which is beyond just material. It's sensual, spiritual, and all dimensions of "-ual." I mean, Solomon took every path toward illusions of happiness that one could even imagine.
And so the having stuff and the doing stuff for God is such obscure territory itself that we really can't just get it right, and it's when we run into those walls that we lift up our hands and let God's sufficient grace overwhelm our helpless situation once again. God's love and mercy cleanses all dimensions of "-ual," and that's the hope that arises from this anomaly we call Ecclesiastes. There's more hope in this book than most people can see, but if you just go listen to Jesus for a bit, maybe He can convince you of this truth.
I've discovered that the hardest part about tackling Ecclesiastes not only in personal study but especially in group study is understanding why Solomon speaks throughout most of the book from a secularist point-of-view. There is so much explicit doom and gloom, you almost miss those glimmers of "there is a time for everything," "eat, drink, and be merry," and "fear God and keep His commandments." So far we've looked at the first chapter as well as the last chapter partially because I only have a few weeks with them and also because I wanted to get straight to the hopeful conclusions of Solomon's wise discoveries. All of the "this is meaningless" and "that is vanity" business in the middle has been mentioned but for the most part left unexplored.
But this coming Sunday we're gonna get into it. At least, we're gonna get into chapter two and talk about the vanity of self-indulgence, which underlies most strictly secular pursuits.
The night of my 22nd birthday (July 18th), I started a house-sitting job. I arrived, dropped my stuff on the floor of the living room, pulled out my Bible, and read straight through Mark and about six chapters into Luke. And as God does, he showed me many sides of Himself that I truly have never even seen before. With the words of Ecclesiastes on my mind a lot lately, I started seeing how much more radical and uncomfortable Jesus' words are than anything Solomon ever said. I also saw how much Jesus basically reiterated the points Solomon had made two hundred years before.
The secularist POV is a straight-up-in-your-face illustration of exactly what Jesus later warns us against.
Just look at the parable Jesus told about "the rich fool":
Someone in the crowd said to him, "Teacher, tell my brother to divide the inheritance with me."
14Jesus replied, "Man, who appointed me a judge or an arbiter between you?" 15Then he said to them, "Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions."
16And he told them this parable: "The ground of a certain rich man produced a good crop. 17He thought to himself, 'What shall I do? I have no place to store my crops.'
18"Then he said, 'This is what I'll do. I will tear down my barns and build bigger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. 19And I'll say to myself, "You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry." '
20"But God said to him, 'You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?'
21"This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God."
The nice thing is that Jesus throws that verse 21 bit in there, whereas Solomon generally leaves that out until around the end of his entire book. But really, this one parable gives a great summary of most of the things Solomon gets into. You may also recall that story about the guy who says he's kept up with all of God's commands, but when Jesus says that's terrific but go on and sell everything you have, the guy is filled with sorrow.
Having stuff isn't the problem. It's "the love of [having stuff]" that brings problems. Mostly, it's loving having stuff more for ourselves rather than having stuff for God. And by stuff, I am referring to everything Solomon goes into, which is beyond just material. It's sensual, spiritual, and all dimensions of "-ual." I mean, Solomon took every path toward illusions of happiness that one could even imagine.
And so the having stuff and the doing stuff for God is such obscure territory itself that we really can't just get it right, and it's when we run into those walls that we lift up our hands and let God's sufficient grace overwhelm our helpless situation once again. God's love and mercy cleanses all dimensions of "-ual," and that's the hope that arises from this anomaly we call Ecclesiastes. There's more hope in this book than most people can see, but if you just go listen to Jesus for a bit, maybe He can convince you of this truth.
Monday, July 19, 2010
Evan Moses Haufler
Please read Evan's incredible journey home. This family is related to one of our beloved families at my church, and they've also attended a few times recently. They went to the country Georgia to pick up their son Evan, who they've been in the process of adopting for two years. Evan's journey landed him in a far greater home than any of us could have anticipated and listening to Tim's link to "Come to Jesus" refocuses my heart, mind, and soul on where I know my own journey leads.
And with your final heartbeat
Kiss the world goodbye
Then go in peace, and laugh on Glory's side, and
Fly to Jesus
Fly to Jesus
Fly to Jesus and live!
And with your final heartbeat
Kiss the world goodbye
Then go in peace, and laugh on Glory's side, and
Fly to Jesus
Fly to Jesus
Fly to Jesus and live!
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Death and Desire
"My question--that which at the age of fifty brought me to the verge of suicide--was the simplest of questions, lying in the soul of every man... a question without an answer to which one cannot live. It was: 'What will come of what I am doing today or tomorrow? What will come of my whole life? Why should I live, why wish for anything, or do anything?' It can also be expressed thus: Is there any meaning in my life that the inevitable death awaiting me does not destroy?"
-Leo Tolstoy, A Confession
This is what fascinates me to no end. I just finished The Reason For God, and it may be one of the best books I've ever read. I've been through Ecclesiastes 1 with the youth at church so far, and though it is an enormously depressing introduction basically making the same point as Tolstoy here, I recall discussing the passing joy of something new with the kids. I asked them why everything new becomes boring and what makes them so desire the next big thing when they know that it, too, will fade. Answers were uncertain, of course.
My deep desire for purpose has not waned since it first was sparked however many years ago, and I don't suspect it ever will. The way it seems to me, my desire for a general purpose is becoming a more direct desire for the glorification of God--that is, my desire is becoming less about my purpose and more about God's purpose. That sort of desire cannot possibly wane as long as it is being fed by the words of God himself.
-Leo Tolstoy, A Confession
This is what fascinates me to no end. I just finished The Reason For God, and it may be one of the best books I've ever read. I've been through Ecclesiastes 1 with the youth at church so far, and though it is an enormously depressing introduction basically making the same point as Tolstoy here, I recall discussing the passing joy of something new with the kids. I asked them why everything new becomes boring and what makes them so desire the next big thing when they know that it, too, will fade. Answers were uncertain, of course.
My deep desire for purpose has not waned since it first was sparked however many years ago, and I don't suspect it ever will. The way it seems to me, my desire for a general purpose is becoming a more direct desire for the glorification of God--that is, my desire is becoming less about my purpose and more about God's purpose. That sort of desire cannot possibly wane as long as it is being fed by the words of God himself.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
ShoutLaughLove For Reals
Looks like it's ShoutLaughLove day! I just wanna give a quick shoutout to Suzannah to say thanks for starting this up. I admire you in all your roles that I've experienced whether in person or through the web.
As for shouting, laughing, and loving, today was full of all that for sure. In a past entry, I mentioned this babysitting job I have for the entire month of July. The Alberts are members of my church, and I've gotten to know the mother of the clan pretty well in the women's Sunday school class. Back in the days I was gimping around church in my massive knee brace, she approached me about watching her almost 9-year-old son Kasper for the month of July while her daughter is in Texas visiting her dad. I agreed to do the job immediately, realizing it'd be a pretty big time commitment with little payoff--not to mention Kasper has a lot of energy. Today was our first ten-hour day together, and it really was a great day. I am grateful to have a sweet boy to get to know and love and pray for this month. I am glad his mother could find someone to watch him so that he didn't have to go to local childcare facilities that really don't treat the kids very well.
Before I left this evening, he wanted me to take a picture of him with my phone, so now, fortunately, you get to enjoy his face. You're welcome.
Saturday, July 3, 2010
Still Trying To Figure It Out
According to Wikipedia, "spirituality can refer to an ultimate or immaterial reality; an inner path enabling a person to discover the essence of their being; or the 'deepest values and meanings by which people live.'"
Christian spirituality makes this definition a bit more specific and a bit more complicated. When I think of a spiritual Christian, I think of one who speaks her thoughts as a conversation with God. This person makes her decisions because "God revealed it" to her. This person says, "Praise the Lord!" when you tell her of your good fortunes, and "I will be praying for you," when you tell her of your misfortunes. This is all what pops in my head when I contemplate Christian spirituality, and this is where there is some sort of exclusivity in what I perceive to be a more devout Christianity. My thoughts don't usually follow as a conversation with God, and I'm not always so quick to see what God is revealing to me. Saying "praise the Lord!" and "I will be praying for you," would both be awkward statements coming out of my mouth if they did come with much frequency.
That's the parallel to my thoughts and questions from a year ago. Ever since I went through such a serious season of doubt, I've wondered what all of it was for. I haven't really been able to figure out how my faith has been strengthened as a consequence of that time. Either that or my faith has yet to be strengthened as a consequence of that time. That would be a scarier realization for sure.
My aforementioned perceptions of Christian spirituality are off. A holy exterior can't be trusted as a definition for the heart of a believer. When I read Don Miller's Blue Like Jazz my freshman year, it was refreshing because I had a guy telling me he would go months without praying or reading his Bible and he knew lots of Christians who appeared to do a lot of things fundamentally wrong within the Christian sphere. I was reading about a lot of people I could see myself in as opposed to a book by someone like James White who makes me feel like I can never even hope to achieve the spirituality he possesses. I've been encouraged by failures and discouraged by the seeming Christian elite.
But then I step back and reassess the sources that feed my perceptions. Those sources are all of the world. Even the Christians (including myself) in this world can confuse this concept of faith for me, but they're not the source of truth.
Jesus is the Savior of the poor. I don't suppose He suspects I will be encouraged by Christian elitists. "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to them." This isn't to say those who seem to be more spiritually mature are wrong (clearly), but making comparisons doesn't do much good for a purpose toward loving and enjoying God.
I'm learning how to measure my faith using Scripture alone. I'm not that woman singing daily praise to the Lord like the Psalms command repeatedly, but I am still a woman who knows that the Lord is the one to be praised. I want to be cautious and sure that my praises come from faith and not from blindly following commands. I don't know if that's wrong, but it's real for me. Perhaps I'm clinging to cynicism, but then I surely do pray that God loosens my grasp rather than some more misdirected notions of truth.
Christian spirituality makes this definition a bit more specific and a bit more complicated. When I think of a spiritual Christian, I think of one who speaks her thoughts as a conversation with God. This person makes her decisions because "God revealed it" to her. This person says, "Praise the Lord!" when you tell her of your good fortunes, and "I will be praying for you," when you tell her of your misfortunes. This is all what pops in my head when I contemplate Christian spirituality, and this is where there is some sort of exclusivity in what I perceive to be a more devout Christianity. My thoughts don't usually follow as a conversation with God, and I'm not always so quick to see what God is revealing to me. Saying "praise the Lord!" and "I will be praying for you," would both be awkward statements coming out of my mouth if they did come with much frequency.
That's the parallel to my thoughts and questions from a year ago. Ever since I went through such a serious season of doubt, I've wondered what all of it was for. I haven't really been able to figure out how my faith has been strengthened as a consequence of that time. Either that or my faith has yet to be strengthened as a consequence of that time. That would be a scarier realization for sure.
My aforementioned perceptions of Christian spirituality are off. A holy exterior can't be trusted as a definition for the heart of a believer. When I read Don Miller's Blue Like Jazz my freshman year, it was refreshing because I had a guy telling me he would go months without praying or reading his Bible and he knew lots of Christians who appeared to do a lot of things fundamentally wrong within the Christian sphere. I was reading about a lot of people I could see myself in as opposed to a book by someone like James White who makes me feel like I can never even hope to achieve the spirituality he possesses. I've been encouraged by failures and discouraged by the seeming Christian elite.
But then I step back and reassess the sources that feed my perceptions. Those sources are all of the world. Even the Christians (including myself) in this world can confuse this concept of faith for me, but they're not the source of truth.
Jesus is the Savior of the poor. I don't suppose He suspects I will be encouraged by Christian elitists. "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to them." This isn't to say those who seem to be more spiritually mature are wrong (clearly), but making comparisons doesn't do much good for a purpose toward loving and enjoying God.
I'm learning how to measure my faith using Scripture alone. I'm not that woman singing daily praise to the Lord like the Psalms command repeatedly, but I am still a woman who knows that the Lord is the one to be praised. I want to be cautious and sure that my praises come from faith and not from blindly following commands. I don't know if that's wrong, but it's real for me. Perhaps I'm clinging to cynicism, but then I surely do pray that God loosens my grasp rather than some more misdirected notions of truth.
Thursday, July 1, 2010
July, July
Um wow. It is July. I've always thought of July as the most hardcore summer-y of summer months. Perhaps because this seems to be the month most people are vacationing? Or because the vegetables are coming in much abundance at last? July is most hardcore for me this summer simply because everyone and his mother are hitting me up for garden jobs. I'm starting to think I'll have to say no to someone simply because I won't have the time to dedicate to pulling their weeds that they probably want me to have. I guess this is how people start businesses, but I was never in this for the business. I was just gonna come home, have surgery, and recover. There was no plan beyond that. But now I am seeing God decided He'd plan this all out for me, so I'm just gonna run with it and not fret about my (many) babysitting hours overlapping multiple gardening jobs.
In other news, I recently sat in a Barnes & Noble reading The Reason For God by Timothy Keller. About a year ago, I started slipping into some serious doubt about this very topic. I tend to get caught up in truth, logic, reason, rationale, etc., but it seems getting too caught up in all this leaves my faith in ragged form. That was a rough season of life, but I can see how God is perfecting me through it. With all the wisdom I lack and as cold as my heart can be, God gave me a season to point to and say, "Remember that? Remember how unwise and confused you were then? Above all, remember what that was like without Me?" Oh, I remember, and I hope to never be so stupid as to pretend it never happened. Loving God is not a matter for skeptics. Not all forms of doubt are really okay for freely infiltrating a believer's mind. This whole following Christ business is so dang difficult. And we're all experiencing different difficulties in our varied walks with Christ. I want to know your difficulties just like I know my own. I want to know how God has shown provision in your life as well as I know He has in mine. God has so much to show us through our relationships with one another, and that makes deep family bonds and friendships that much sweeter.
Starting this coming Sunday at church, I want to take this perspective to the youth Sunday school class when I talk to those kids about who Christ is and why He even matters. As simple a lesson that should be, it is so dang difficult.
In other news, I recently sat in a Barnes & Noble reading The Reason For God by Timothy Keller. About a year ago, I started slipping into some serious doubt about this very topic. I tend to get caught up in truth, logic, reason, rationale, etc., but it seems getting too caught up in all this leaves my faith in ragged form. That was a rough season of life, but I can see how God is perfecting me through it. With all the wisdom I lack and as cold as my heart can be, God gave me a season to point to and say, "Remember that? Remember how unwise and confused you were then? Above all, remember what that was like without Me?" Oh, I remember, and I hope to never be so stupid as to pretend it never happened. Loving God is not a matter for skeptics. Not all forms of doubt are really okay for freely infiltrating a believer's mind. This whole following Christ business is so dang difficult. And we're all experiencing different difficulties in our varied walks with Christ. I want to know your difficulties just like I know my own. I want to know how God has shown provision in your life as well as I know He has in mine. God has so much to show us through our relationships with one another, and that makes deep family bonds and friendships that much sweeter.
Starting this coming Sunday at church, I want to take this perspective to the youth Sunday school class when I talk to those kids about who Christ is and why He even matters. As simple a lesson that should be, it is so dang difficult.
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