What if

Just an Ordinary Day

2010-04-18T05:19:00.001-07:00

I had a bad night last night. One of the worst I have had in a long time. Normally, this is not something I would post on the internet so that everyone can see how I have failed as a human being, but God is been talking to me repeatedly about being real and more honest about who I am - the good and the completely ridiculous. Fantastic.

This night, like most bad nights, consisted of me completely wallowing in my own self pity. I am not proud of this. It is in fact quite embarrassing, but there is the truth and some guy once said something about the truth setting us free. Thought I might give it a whirl as there are in fact no other words anyway.

Lately I am really tired of having to go everywhere by myself - the grocery store, church, plays, and the dreaded wedding. O. M. G. not another freaking wedding.

I am 29 years old and I really thought things would be different for me by now. And I wanted them to change without any effort on my part. Really, is that so much to ask? Its worked for so many other people. I use the term 'worked' in this case very loosely.

Yesterday I fought cramps nearly all day. The curl up into a ball and try not to scream cramps. Eventually I had the thought, 'I may as well fix it so I don't even have a period anymore. Its not like I'm going to have kids at this point.' And that was it. After that thought was nothing but screaming, loads of profanity and breaking things.

I was angry at God because I feel like He just doesn't care. I was angry at people because sometimes I feel like I don't exist - don't they know this whole things is about me? I was angry at myself for being angry with God and people and for in general sucking at life.

So I threw a glass. I threw it as hard as I could on the kitchen floor because I didn't know what else to do. It bounced.

The stupid glass just bounced. What the eff? I can't even be successful at shattering glass? Isn't that supposed to be easy?

I picked up the stupid glass and threw it again. Same thing only higher.

At this point I wish I could say that God spoke to me and taught me some deep spiritual truth using unbreakable glass as an illustration. Or compared me to the unbreakable glass or something. He didn't. I found another (thinner) glass and smashed it to bits.

Maybe this was the lesson. Maybe I am trying to smash the wrong glass in life. Maybe God is trying to tell me I should find a new kind of glass to break. I don't know.

What I do know is this - always reach for the wine glasses first. That's all the lesson I need for today.

*Note: that stupid bouncing glass cup eventually did shatter while I was cleaning up the glass confetti from the wine glass. I found this quite irritating.

Truth

2009-12-06T14:22:00.001-08:00

As harsh as it may sound Jesus does not have time for my own insecurity. I need to get over myself and just do what He tells me to do.

Just a thought

2009-08-14T08:46:00.000-07:00

Freedom is being able to admit to what you are really feeling without regard to whether or not you SHOULD be feeling that way. Only then do you have hope to change.

Freedom isn't Free

2009-02-08T11:49:00.001-08:00

So I am in a completely different place with God than when i first started writing this blog, which I guess is a big part of what following Christ is all about. I think a small portion of that journey is documented here. I will forever be amazed at the ways that Jesus continues to show up in my life and at the ways in which He loves me. I feel like He has shattered the walls in my beliefs and in my spirit so that I could see Him more clearly. So that I could love Him in ways I previously did not even know were possible. I feel like I am for the first time starting to experience what 'freedom in Christ' is really about.

Joy

2008-07-08T14:11:00.000-07:00

So, it is interesting me to that in any culture, any civilization, any person, everyone knows what joy is. I would assume that every language has a word for it. Everyone has at least one story of when they have felt joy. It seems like joy shouldn't be a noun because its so wobbly, like a vapor. So fleeting. Like if you breath it will vanish forever in the next instant.

I think to feel joy is to feel God. He is always around you, but for that moment He chooses to make you aware of how close he really is. He allows you to feel Him. Every other touch is just a pale shadow of that divine touch, which keeps us always longing, always looking and always seeking more, even when we don't realize what it is that we are truly chasing after.

What now?

2008-03-05T09:58:00.000-08:00

So I guess my real problem now is that I have lost my unshakable belief that God is good and everything will be ok. Because everything wasn't ok and I almost didn't make it. I thought knew something about spiritual warfare, but i didn't know i could feel so separated from God. I thought I knew what it sounded like when God spoke, but I didn't know you could follow God and still feel like you had been horribly wrong.

So now, I have lost my belief that God is good, but I am not the first. It happened to John the Baptist (Matthew 11) and then he was beheaded. It happened to Elijah (1 Kings 19:3-5) and he never died....

It happened to Jesus "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

2008-02-25T20:57:00.000-08:00

Dear God,

I cried a lot today. It sucked.

I know you know.

Thanks for being there with me.

Thanks for carrying me when I can't even crawl.

Love,
me

Hope

2008-02-25T19:55:00.000-08:00

If I am sad or even devastated, it does not mean that I am letting God down. God is not disappointed with me because I can't pull it together and just be happy and just cast all my cares on Him. Or maybe I have a wrong idea of what the casting looks like. I have always believed that casting my cares on Him was just telling Him what circumstance is bothering me in a very stoic way, "God, it really bothers me that..." and then trying to be happy.

What if casting my cares looks more like crying out to Him with everything in me that hurts, everything that is suffering with shocking and incredible honesty. What if it is saying, "God, I hurt so much right now I can barely breathe. I know you are bigger. I know I am supposed to just give it to you and go on and be happy or content or whatever, but I can't. It is too painful. I just need you to be here with me while I cry."

If I know anything, I know that if Jesus is inside me like He says He is, He weeps when I weep and He hurts that I hurt. I think when we are honest about our sadness, God isn't irritated that we can't pull it together. I think His heart is moved by our honesty and pain and He is there with us.

God never said life would be easy or without suffering. He knows it is hard, He has experienced hard, and I don't think He expects us to pretend like our experience is any different.

What do you want?

2008-01-16T19:51:00.000-08:00

Maybe it is ok to tell God what you really want even if you don't know if you should want it.

Jesus did it - "if it is possible, take this cup from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will."

Is it possible to change a want by shear willpower?

It is that Simple

2008-01-09T17:45:00.000-08:00

If someone were to ask you "How do you know you have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ?", how would you answer?

Works?

2008-01-09T17:08:00.000-08:00

It seems like every time I hear about this idea of faith producing works, the works are simply described as the nice things that nice people or Jesus would do for others. When I read Hebrews 11 which talks about all the things that people have done 'by faith' and even in James 2, which explicitly states faith without works is dead, the works mentioned are not things that makes us feel like we are a good person or others would pat us on the back for doing. They are risks taken by people who had incredible faith that 1. what they were doing was what God actually wanted and 2. God would do what He said He was going to do. The things they did would have failed miserably, made them seem completely crazy, or gotten them killed had they been wrong. The works described in these two places were things that totally depended on God's intervention to be successful. Works were not things that people before doing them could say, 'well, if nothing else, i will feel better about myself at the end of the day.' It cost all of those people something to live 'by faith'. There was no guarantee except the one given by the unseen God about the results of their actions, yet they did it anyway because they trusted Him.

What if we lived out our faith in this way? What if our works started to cost us something? What if we took risks on God that would cost us dearly if God did not show up? I can only imagine it would create a new infatuation with God, revolutionized life and a deeper connection with the one who truly loves us.

Lies We Believe #9- Faking Joy

2008-01-05T20:40:00.000-08:00

It is better to fake joy, to pretend that we are happy and fufilled when we just are not.

I think we do it because we are afraid of letting God down. Like somehow we have failed because there are just some moments where we just can't think of anything to be happy about. Like if we let God or others know that there are times when we just aren't happy that they will think we are ungrateful.

That may all be true, but faking joy doesn't make it any .less true and it especially doesn't hide the real truth from God. Maybe we believe that we will get some sort of extra credit for sucking it up. Even as I write this, I want to believe this is true because without a doubt, it is what we are taught. No one likes a whiner. No one wants to be around someone who isn't happy. So we learn that there is more to be gained by (and lets call it what it is) lying.

When you pretend that everything is ok when it isn't, it puts a wall between you and the people around you. Let's be honest, most of the time we know we are being lied to, which means we know that that person doesn't trust us all that much. I think we pretty much say the same thing to God when we feign joy. It puts the same wall between us and God.

The Bible records centuries of people being brutally honest with God about their lack of joy. He loved them anyway. He always showed up. Sometimes He would bring comfort as only He can. Sometimes He would say (in summary) 'shut up and quit whining', which on the surface seems like something you would never want to hear God say. I would say though, if I really am just whining, I'd like God to tell me so I can forget about it and move on. Otherwise, I would just keep pretending and never move forward.

In the end, Jesus is the source of joy so its not like He doesn't already know when we aren't joyful. We may as well let Him know so He can do something about it. Its not like we can create real and lasting joy for ourselves.

Sometimes it just hurts

2007-11-20T08:37:00.001-08:00

That's all. Its unfortunate but it is true. Pain isn't always an indicator that you broke some rule of God's or anyone else's. I feel that I have been so taught that if something hurts I must have done something to cause it. I have definitely been taught that if I follow all the rules I can avoid most if not all pain. If I could beat down anyone who has ever taught that even indirectly, I would. I would probably have to start with myself, though, for ever believing it.

I have learned through experience that sometimes life just hurts. I spent a lot of time racking my brain trying to figure out what I did wrong that would cause me to feel so badly. The more I searched, the farther I fell, the more i hurt. Until I realized sometimes there just isn't a reason. Sometimes you just cry. Sometimes you wish you weren't.

A long time ago I read something that said 'pain is not the enemy'. I thought it was one of the most profound yet stupid things I had ever heard. It certainly feels like it should be. No one asks for pain. No one prays for pain to come down upon another person, at least not if they love them.

What if it were true - what would life look like? How differently would people react to one another? How would I react? Could I survive? Isn't that asking for pain?

I have heard it said that Kingdom principles are complete opposite of the principles of the world. That makes me more likely to believe that it is true. Everyone is doing everything in their strength, power, and knowledge to avoid pain. Some people go to unbelievable lengths to outrun it, yet no one has ever won that race. When something hurts it sticks with you. It doesn't let go or take a break. You can't forget it or abandon it. So how is it not the enemy? Right now, I think God and the guy who wrote that are the only ones that know.

Finding my Way

2007-07-29T05:49:00.000-07:00

I don't have GPS. When i get lost I call people I think know the area I'm in (or are near a computer) until I find someone who is home. There have only been a few times when this method hasn't worked for me. I almost always can find someone who will help me get where I am going.

Lately, I've been thinking that having a GPS would be a good idea. I don't always trust the person at the other end of the line completely to get me to where I am going. They are not there with me. They cannot see what is around me. They are relying on information from me to determine where it is I actually am. Its a wonder this method works at all.

GPS on the other hand knows exactly where I am. It knows the streets around me. It can direct me back on course if I make a wrong turn. It can alert me that I have gone the wrong way long before I would have realized it myself. It knows things about me and my location a person on the end of a telephone line can't possibly know. The GPS is right there with me at every turn. It 'sees' me and what is around me and because of this I trust it much more to help me find my way.

I wonder how different my life would be, how a lot of lives would be, if we recognized that when God speaks and gives us directions He is right there with us. He sees us. He is in us. He knows what is around us. Would we trust Him more? Would would be more willing to just follow His leading without question? How different our lives could be if we started giving God credit for who He really is.

Conviction

2007-04-08T07:10:00.000-07:00

Lately I've noticed that we tend to base our convictions on the convictions of those around us. Sometimes the result of this are convictions that are more lenient than what God would give us ("at least I'm not doing that" mentality) and I think the consequences of that are fairly obvious. This type of thinking also seems to be talked about a fair amount in church circles. But I'm starting to learn that basing our convictions on the convictions held by people who we consider more spiritual than us has equally painful consequences. Sometimes we have a friend who we feel is more connected to God than we are so we start to think that if we start abiding by the convictions that they have we will also become closer to God. Perhaps more often, we base our convictions on those who God has set as spiritual leaders in our lives (pastors, mentors, parents even). I’m starting to wonder if this is where much of legalism is coming from. When we start doing (or not doing) things not because God has placed it on our heart, but because we fear others’ disapproval or we slip into the belief that the mere actions will bring us closer to God, we are again falling into the trap of believing we can do things on our own apart from communion with God.

In the case of actions: Will God honor us for the attempt? Maybe. Probably? But I know He desperately desires us to seek Him, ask Him and know Him. "For I delight in loyalty rather than sacrifice, And in the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings."(Hosea 6:6, NASB). Its not in the actions, but the seeking and in the knowing Him. It seems that He wants us to ask Him directly and daily “What do you want to do today, God?” Even Christ while on Earth said "the Son can do nothing by Himself; He can only do what He sees His Father doing"(John 5:19, NIV). In this way we are constantly in conversation with Him and our actions (or inaction) draw us closer to Him as He speaks to us through our obedience. Otherwise, we are just trying to do something on our own that may have mediocre results at best and we will never know how much we could have learned had we asked Him what we should be doing instead. Does He appreciate the effort or sad because we missed the point of obedience? Its ironic because we do something out of a desire to be obedient to God, and essentially have failed before we even began because we didn't discuss it with God.

If we dig deep and really start to question our convictions honestly, how many of them are actually based on fear of man and not fear of God? I see this happening in two ways. First, assuming that more “spiritual” people obviously know more about God than we do and therefore taking on the convictions that God has put on their hearts and applying them to our lives. For whatever reason, this really does seem easier than directly asking God what He wants. I can say for me it is easier in part because of what I was taught at a young age. I’m not sure anyone ever said, “look around at who is more spiritual than you and do what they are doing”, but I did hear a lot of "good Christians don't do that" or "good Christians are always doing this".

Secondly, God has recently shown me that some of the rules I was putting on my own life were based on fear of being judged by others. I believed the lie that if this other person who knows God thinks it is wrong, well God must think that is wrong too and even if He didn't they will think that I am not really following God if I don't abide by their convictions. I did not even think of asking God about it because then it may begin to appear to others that I was not being obedient to Christ. I also believed that if someone else thought what I was doing was wrong, it would cause them to stumble. I didn't want to cause others to stumble. When I really thought about this I found that I don't know that I have seen a lot of people stumbling because of other's behaviour, but i have seen a lot of people judging because of other's behaviour. Maybe judging could be lumped into the category of stumbling. I don't know. In this case I don't think the root cause of the judging is in the other person's behaviour...

If we could just start recognizing that we do this and start asking God what He would like us to do instead, we could start to be free of the legalism and bondage that is holding us back from doing the things that God really is wanting us to do. We could start letting go of some of the guilt that is a result of not living up to expectations that God didn't intend for us in the first place.