Speaking the Truth in Love

Oh, if you could but see the drafts of blog posts I have scattered in between ones I've actually published on here, on the topic I now find myself preparing to step into. One dates back to almost two years ago, when I had it on my heart, but after starting to write, found that the time was not yet right for me to speak up. Ever have those moments, where you have your two-cents'-worth ready to throw out there, but it seems like God sort of clears His throat and tells you, "Not yet"? And no matter how much you really want to say something, you know He's right and His timing is best, and that it wouldn't be walking in obedience to Him to go on with what you were about to say...Yeah, that's about where I've been on this topic for the past two or three years now. I haven't been silent for lack of an opinion, though there's definitely also been some wading through things and some research and a LOT of prayer going into it.

See, this is something that I am incredibly passionate about, and have been for just about as long as I can remember. And because it hits so very close to home for me, it's been a real struggle at times to keep my mouth shut and my fingers still. Most of the time, it doesn't really come up in everyday conversation that much, but even when the opportunity has presented itself, there have been so many moments where I've been chomping at the bit but God has (very wisely) held me back. And at the time, I don't think I ever understood why He was having me wait. But, as usual, hindsight reveals things with so much more clarity, and I now know it's because this crazy heart of mine had to be worked on (a. lot.) before I could say what I wanted to. Why? Because while my mouth was so ready to spout my opinion, my heart was not in the right place. And that's where this post comes in.

As I confessed in my last post, for quite a while I suffered from a judgmental-ness that kept me from acknowledging God's ability to move on other people's hearts. So He had to show me by moving on mine. He had to show me a glimpse of His heart, to help me see beyond the legalistic boxes and categories I wanted to place things--and people--into. See, it doesn't take much to speak the truth. Anyone can do it, really, whether they believe it or not (more on that coming in a later post, I'm sure). Trouble is, when you try to separate truth from love, you usually wind up with something that doesn't really look much like truth, because it's only a broken off piece of the Truth. Ever heard someone take a Bible verse out of context? The verse is still true, but snatched out of its context, it can be distorted to where it somehow seems to communicate something it's never meant. It's the same with the truth, with fact.

Take one portion of truth--let's say, for example, the truth that "God is love" (1 John 4)--and remove it from its context (namely, the description of what love is in 1 Corinthians 13 or in 1 and 2 John, or that it's a fruit of the Spirit [Galatians 5:22] or how essential it is in the Christian's life as seen in Ephesians, etc.)...and you've got room to start twisting it any way you like. Leave out the context and the defining that context offers to this statement, and you can start warping "God is love" to mean that God is a cozy or satisfying feeling or that, if He's love, He obviously somehow can't hate anything (*cough* sin). See what I mean? With its context (the rest of the Bible), the statement "God is love" is made that much clearer because it's demonstrated and shown and defined in and by the rest of the Truth. More than that, the rest of the Truth speaks to confront misconceptions and correct them. (God does hate sin.)

So now let's talk about love. Real love doesn't puff itself up, doesn't say, "Hey! Look at me!" Why? Because love is being focused on someone else, to the exclusion of yourself and your own desires and even needs. Love doesn't envy or boast--why? Because it's not wrapped up in itself, comparing self with others or wanting another to be lower so it can be higher. Love seeks after what's best for another. That doesn't mean love wants someone else to always have their way and get everything they want, because in the case of us humans, that would not be, or result in, what's best for us. Love wants what God wants for others. Why? Because God is Love.

(And if you're looking at your screen right now with a confused frown, questioning with, "Wait, I thought you just said love is being focused on what somebody else wants"--this is where part of the awesome mystery and marvel known as the Trinity comes into play. Take a gander at John 17 for a peek into that as Jesus talks to the Father. Jesus is always focused on glorifying the Father who is always focused on exalting His Son who is always focused on the Holy Spirit having His way, who is always drawing the attention to the Father and the Son. It's mind-blowing, but such a beautiful expression of what "God is love" means. But I'll stop with that tangent for now.)

So when Paul tells us in Ephesians chapter 4 that we as Christians are to speak the truth in love as we grow into Christ together--what does that mean? It means I speak the truth to you in patience and kindness, not arrogantly. It means I don't speak the truth to you in order to put you down or try to elevate myself. It means I don't speak the truth to you without caring about you (rudely). It means I don't speak the truth to you out of selfish ambition (to manipulate you into doing what I want or to promote myself). It means I don't get to insist on having my own way, and I don't get to use the truth to try to make that happen. It means I don't speak the truth to you because I'm grumpy or irritated or am harboring resentment towards you. It means that I don't get to rejoice in your being wrong and my being right, even if that's the case. It means I don't just tell you the truth, but I rejoice with you in that truth. It means that when I speak the truth to you, I am ready to bear everything alongside you rather than leave you to go it alone. It means I have to believe in that truth with you, and stand with you to endure whatever you may face. It means I don't get to tell you something and move on with my life. It means we're in this together. It means that if I'm going to speak the truth to you, I have to be committed to loving you, regardless of how you respond to what I say.

Discovering that has been the journey I've been on for quite a while now--the journey I had to travel before I could be ready to open my mouth about the things coming up in future posts here...Stay tuned. And while you're waiting, dig in deep and ask God to teach you how to love in truth and how to speak the truth in love. We all need to keep learning that one.

Until next time,
-Kala

There's a Battle Going on Here

I'm going to attempt to keep this short, because it's really too big a subject for me to dive into in one solo post, but perhaps this one will turn into an intro of sorts and I can return to the subject at a later date and go more in depth.

But there is a battle going on, and it reaches into many, many facets of our lives. Heaven and hell are vying for men's souls, and the war infiltrates every medium of communication, and even art, that we have. One area in particular that's been highlighted for me in recent years, is music.

Again, I am doing my best to keep this brief tonight, as this is something I've been thinking and praying about for quite a while now, so there's a lot I want to say, but now's not the time for all of it. I don't know how many people underestimate the power of music in our lives, but there shouldn't be any who can. At least here in America, where we have such a wide variety of music available right at our fingertips (or headphones), music is one thing that impacts us in ways many other means of communication can't. Words are powerful, don't miss that. But music has a way of aiding words' message, or even speaking on its own apart from words, that hits our hearts.

And I believe there is a battle going on in the arena of music. I'll be honest and say that although I have a very wide range of the types of musical style that I like--from instrumental to hip-hop to pop and folk and so forth--what I choose and prefer to listen to is generally within the ranges of "Christian" music. I put it in quotes because I've got a bit of an opinion on the labeling--because not everything that labels itself as "Christian" lines up at all with what Scripture or even Christ Himself says. I've grown up listening to largely contemporary "Christian" music, including more than a few songs that I wouldn't necessarily recommend to anyone now but that at the time were instrumental in getting my heart where it needed to be for God to work in it. The beauty I find in that is that we serve a God who is bigger than doctrinal flaws in lyrics and human flaws in general, and who is more than able to speak through the broken vessels that we all are.

When I first began to be aware that not all "Christian" music was entirely wholesome or entirely in-line with actual Christianity, the zealous hard-line prophet within me wanted to denounce any artist who had even one song or one line in a song I didn't agree with. I allowed myself to become focused upon the flaws and grieved over issues that, while not unimportant, never should have been my central focus. I became very judgmental about music. And it was in the midst of that judgmental season, where I was ready to completely give up on any artist whose doctrine seemed shallow or unfounded, that God nudged me and questioned my line of thinking.

These were my brothers and sisters in Christ that I was denouncing, acting as if one flaw or lack of understanding or a "correct" stance in my eyes, was enough to mean there was no hope that anything good could come from them from then on. All around me, I was seeing artists I had once respected falling short and failing to keep either their music or their lives in line with the teachings of Scripture. And I was giving up on them, left and right, clinging to the few who had yet to let me down.

But in the midst of my ranting and my disappointment, God posed a very pointed question to my soul: "So what are you doing about it?" As one of His followers, was I called to abandon my brothers and sisters taking on the spiritual battle (knowingly or not) in the arena of music? Or was I rather called to desire for them to be drawn closer to Him and made stronger by Him? Was I called to focus upon their flaws and say that because of this or that they couldn't possibly be used by Him?

I reeled back in shock as He reminded me of several songs and artists that had deeply impacted me only a few short years before, even if some of them had since lost my loyalty or respect. In the moments I needed to hear that particular message, it was there, and God used even flawed and imperfect lyrics and, yes, even trite music styles, to bring my heart to its knees and bring me to a place of surrender where I not only realized my need of Him, but His willingness to be the answer to that need.

Perhaps I'm rambling by now, but what is on my heart tonight to say is this: I have realized I am called to cheer for my brothers and sisters in Christ, to lift them in prayer whether I agree with everything they say or do or not. Can I endorse or applaud artists who hit the mark, whose lives and music are so evidently shining with the Light of the Gospel and the testimony of lives transformed by grace? Absolutely. But I no longer feel at liberty to put down those I don't admire as much or write them off the moment I hear something in their lyrics that grieves me. That's not what I'm called to. I'm called to forgive, and to hope and even expect the best for them. I'm called to pray rather than ignore, to look not to man but to God to accomplish His purposes in us and to draw all our hearts--musician and listener alike--closer to His.

More to come at some point regarding some more specific testimonies of how God's been driving this into me, but for now, hear me on this:

    There is a battle going on.
     We do not wrestle with flesh and blood.
    The victory is in the hand of the Lord.
    He's never lost a battle yet.
    There are greater things ahead on the music scene than any we've seen yet.
    Our God is on the move.

RAK KHAZAK. Be strong.

Let's Be Dreamers

For as long as I can remember, I've been a dreamer. I've been able to look at something as-is, and see what could come of it, what it could turn into or become part of. The first evidences of this trait didn't bless my mom much--all kinds of crafts made of things like gum wrappers, toilet-paper tubes, leaves, and anything else I found ways to create things with. As I've grown older, it hasn't gone away; I see what most people look on as useless junk, and can often envision at least a couple good uses for it. It's the reason for a drawer in my room that holds what I term "useful stuff," but it also comes from something that runs much deeper in my soul.

We serve a God who looks at ruined and broken souls that have been completely crippled to the point of being worthless--and sees the plans He's had for us since before the world began. He did not create us to be wrecks or failures, and He is not discouraged when He sees us in our most depraved state. Why? Because He is in the business of bringing beauty out of ashes, of redeeming what seems long-gone and utterly lost, of creating again that which He has purposed for us all along. I know that because I've seen Him do it, in me and in others.

So forgive me if I get a little irritated when people try to tell me or anybody else that any of us possess any kind of beauty or power on our own, because when I came face-to-face with my Savior I also came face-to-face with the reality that He saw me at my ugliest and my weakest and my most hopeless, and He had still been pursuing me all along. He wasn't blind to my shortcomings and my sin; He knew (and knows) me better than I'll ever know or understand myself. But neither was He intimidated by my darkness.

You see, no matter how much it ever seems like the odds are stacked against redemption or hope, there has never been a moment where Light has lost to Darkness. Ever noticed that? Flip the light switch on, and you don't have to wait for the darkness in the room to retreat; the fight is over in an instant, because light trumps darkness. Even where there are shadows, they're usually not pitch dark, because the light reflects and refracts off of other things around and lightens even the shade (which is how you can still get a sunburn sitting in the shade on a sunny day). If you ask me, there is great significance to the fact that God compares Himself to light in the Bible. He is greater than every force of evil this world will ever know.

That being said, it would be easy for Him to snap His fingers and obliterate all evil in an instant, so why doesn't He? Because He has a much bigger and more beautiful design in mind, and because He sees potential where we don't.

I love rooting for the underdog. There is perhaps nothing more inspiring and victorious than seeing the most unlikely odds flipped on their head. And our God is in the business of doing just that sort of things. Let the odds be stacked against His plans; let darkness seem to gain the upper hand in the lives of man; let a turnaround look about as impossible as water springing up in the desert. We and even all creation look at that dry, cracked, crumbling ground and say it's a wasteland; nothing can grow there; there's no hope for life to happen here.

Enter the God who says He'll make rivers break forth in a dry and barren land (Isaiah 35) and flowers blossom in the desert wasteland. It's what He does: He brings life where before was only death. He takes lives ravaged and ruined by sin and breathes life into them, creating again a clean heart inside and reversing death's hold. He's not intimidated by the insurmountable odds we see; His vantage point is higher, and He sees the real odds: the odds that say darkness will never win out against Light when they come up against one another. He is stronger.

So in light of who He is and what He is capable of, how can we look at this world and say it's hopeless? Do you know your God? Do you know that He is aiming at redemption? Do you know that He's chosen you and me to be part of that process? If you ask me, it's amazing.

So let's not be afraid to dream. Let's not be intimidated by the darkness; let's instead lift our eyes to the Author of Light and ask Him to give us His vision for what is to come out of this desert land. And let's not shield our eyes or avert our gaze from the places--the hearts--overshadowed by darkness. Let's not pretend they're not there or that it's not our problem. If you are a child of the King, you are called to shine His light. Reflect it into that darkness. Let's not cower in fear of the darkness, giving into the apparent odds that it will swallow us too. If you have been rescued and redeemed, His Light lives in you. He is with you. And He will not be beaten. So don't fear--follow Him into the darkest dens of Hell on this earth and let His light shine until every shadow disappears. You may feel like one lonely and fleeting matchstick. Well, fire tends to spread. So burn bright.

Let's not be afraid to hope. Don't look at the situations and relationships you face and allow despair to overtake you. Look to the One who saw you at your worst and never turned away. Look to the One who never gave up on this mess, never saw my failure as proof He couldn't use me--the One who knew all along that He is more than enough for me and more than capable of somehow taking my brokenness and inability and using it for His glory, using it to draw me to Himself and show me how much I need to rely on Him and not myself.

I get sick of people cheering others on with things like, "Believe in yourself!" and "You can do it!" because the longer I live the more inescapably convinced I become of the fact that I am absolutely incapable of doing anything good or right on my own. I can't tell you how many times I've been talking to God and paused a moment to look at my own track record--a long line of mess-ups and failures and even well-intentioned blunders--and then at His track record--unending faithfulness and grace that is greater than all my sin, that is actually capable of taking all my failures and using them for good in a way only He can. He has taught me through every season, and drawn me closer to Him even in the midst of the worst storms.

I am a firm believer in the fact that I can't do anything good on my own. But I'm a firmer believer that God can do greater things in and through you and me than we can even imagine. I'm a firmer believer in His ability to redeem and restore and bring life from death, water and flowers from the desert wasteland. His Light shines into the darkness, and will not be overcome.

So let's not be afraid to believe Him, to believe in His ability to do what we cannot--that He can redeem what is lost, He can remake what is broken, He can bring life out of death.

"For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that overcomes the world--our faith." -1 John 5:4

Let your faith look to Him. Rak khazak!!

Plans

Lately, I've been in or around quite a few conversations in which someone (sometimes myself) has said, "I don't know what it's gonna look like." And, believe it or not, those words have been deeply encouraging to me.

You see, I have grown up amid a culture that preached to me continually the importance of having a plan. When I was in high school, I was told I needed to set goals for myself, both short-term and long-term. I needed to have clear aims to focus on, self-imposed "deadlines," so-to-speak. Because, if you don't have a plan and don't know where you're going, you're obviously not going to get anywhere or do anything worthwhile with your life...right?

I struggled with this because at that time I honestly didn't know what my future was going to look like. There were a lot of things I could see myself doing as a job, but when it came to choosing what to pursue, I felt completely at a loss. Adults in my life told me it was okay to not have a clear picture just yet, as I still had several more years to figure it out before going to college and picking a major, etc.

But then something incredible happened. Just as I was starting to formulate my short-term goals for what would happen once I graduated college, God intervened. He started to nudge me down a different path than anything I had ever considered. As I walked a little hesitantly down this new path that started with putting college off for a year to attend Ellerslie, I tasted for the first time the sheer bliss of having only a general sense of what God was about to do in my life. I knew He had been clear that this was where and how I was supposed to spend the next few months (actually, at the time I thought I would be there for a full year), but as for what it would look like, I had no clue nor any way to predict it. Ellerslie was just starting up the summer I went there; there was no predicting just what was going to happen with students from all over coming to this tiny town in Colorado with the goal of pursuing Christ together.

Since that summer, it seems every major step I've taken--and even the smaller steps, too--have followed a very similar pattern of knowing where God was leading me but not having any kind of a clear or easily-articulated picture of what it was going to look like. And over and over again, I've seen God work in amazing ways, doing more than I ever could have imagined. His thoughts aren't like ours; He sees the big picture, as well as every tiny and minute detail that goes into it. Consequently, His ways are different than ours--they're higher; they're better (Isaiah 55:8). And they tend to look crazy or even a little more than crazy in the eyes of the world, because they don't follow the same line of thinking as our limited point of view. His plans often cause us to take risks--risks that don't make sense, even to us at times. But they always cause us to rely on Him more and in ways that we wouldn't otherwise.

And that is why I get excited when I hear someone talking about starting something new or doing things differently, and those words, "I don't know what it's going to look like exactly," come out of that person's mouth: because in those words I recognize a sense of willingness to let God take the lead and orchestrate the steps in carrying out whatever dream or desire or "goal" the person may be talking about. It's in those times where where we don't know exactly what will happen next or what something is about to look like--what an idea will look like when it's actually being lived out--that our faith grows and our hearts begin to taste the deep joy of allowing God to have all there is of us.

"The heart of man plans his way, but the LORD establishes his steps." -Proverbs 16:9

Dare I Ask...Says Who?

There is a mentality I've noticed quite a bit of, especially in more recent years (although I can remember hearing it when I was younger too), which says there is a limit to how far we should go in being inconvenienced, or even used, by others--that at some point we should just cut ties and abandon certain people. It makes sense, especially in trying to guard your own sanity or preserve a heart that has been continually hurt, and/or trying to get a point across to the other person that their behavior is not acceptable. I mean, how else is the other person going to see they're wrong? And how else can you keep your own mental and emotional health intact, when you have "those people" in your life that just wear you down? So we treat people the way they deserve to be treated, and it seems right and justified and clear-cut.

But, dare I ask...Who says this is is good and acceptable? As Christians (and I am speaking to Christians), we are called to live and love like Jesus did--and He laid down His life for His bride, for the people that are His. He didn't fight for His rights or try to protect his own dignity; He was reviled, ridiculed, mocked, spat upon, criticized, questioned, and let down repeatedly. But how did He respond? And how does He expect us to respond?

"You have heard that it was said, 'An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.' But I [Jesus] say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one who begs from you, and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you. You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For He makes His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? You therefore must be perfect, as your Heavenly Father is perfect." -Jesus (Matthew 5:38-42)

 Christian, I ask you--when has God withheld His grace from you? When has He left you to your own means, even when you deserved it? Because we all deserved it. As Lecrae put it in one of his songs, "If we fought for our rights, we'd be in Hell tonight." We do not deserve for the God of the Universe to look at us and to treat us the way He does--"For when we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person--though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die--but God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we have now been justified by His blood, much more shall we be saved from the wrath of God" (Romans 5:6-9).

A few months back, I was praying for a friend of mine who is an atheist, and it led to a suddenly deeper understanding of our God. My friend doesn't believe in God--isn't even willing to think He exists, or that if He does, He could possibly be at all good--and yet, this God who is ignored and shunned constantly, continues to enable my friend to inhale and exhale, to live and to breathe even when that breath is sometimes used to say He doesn't exist. God is still sustaining this person in the same way He sustains you and me. The sun still rises and the rain still falls on all of us--good, bad, rich, poor, prideful, saved, rebellious, shunned, prejudiced, racist, hateful, malicious, back-stabbing, and contrite.

And if He continues to give breath to an atheist who denies Him, who are we to withhold the love and grace and the faith in the One who saved us, from those who hurt and annoy us? In various circumstances we take Jesus' instruction in Matthew 5 and essentially tell Him, "Yeah, Jesus, but You don't understand. If I were to treat this person with love and forgiveness and go the extra mile, it won't change his mind. He'll just think he can keep taking advantage of me. I just need to stand up for myself." The problem is, when we do that, we rob ourselves of trusting Him. "Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, 'Vengeance is Mine, I will repay, says the Lord...Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good" (Romans 12:19, 21).

We are not called to be our own defense.

Am I saying it's never alright to set up barriers? Not at all. There are times when loving someone means not giving them opportunity to sin. You don't give a drug addict money. You can meet their needs in other ways by giving them food or helping out with other things, but you don't enable them to keep buying drugs. The danger is, though, when we start using our own reasoning to determine what boundaries should be set where. Sometimes God calls us to give of ourselves even when we feel like we have nothing left--no more patience, no energy, no time. And sometimes really loving someone means doing what is best for them even when it doesn't look like love to their eyes.

The bottom line is this: We are called to love others as God loves us. We're called to portray Christ to this world around us by being different--by looking like Him. And it is when we lay down our rights and allow God to work in us and through us to give us His love for those around us, that the world is changed. They will not see Him in us if we do not yield ourselves to His service. They will not see His grace if they do not see us living it out in our daily life and interactions with them. When you are mocked, scorned, insulted, trampled upon, or hurt, don't retaliate in kind; overcome evil with good. Allow God to give you His heart for your reviler, for the same God looked upon each of us when we were still His enemies, and chose to come among us and give His life to change that.

"Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the Father loves whoever has been born of Him. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome. For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world--our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?" (1 John 5:1-5)

"I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit. Already you are clean because of the word that I have spoken to you. Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in Me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in Me he is thrown into the fire, and burned. If you abide in Me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, an it will be done for you. By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be My disciples. As the Father has loved Me, so have I loved you. Abide in My love. If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father's commandments and abide in His love. These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may abide in you, and that your joy may be full. This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask in the Father in My Name, He may give it to you. These things I command you, so that you will love one another. If the world hates you, know that it hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the words that I said to you: 'A servant is not greater than his master.' If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you. If they kept My word, they will also keep yours. But all these things they will do to you on account of My Name, because they do not know Him who sent Me. If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have been guilty of sin, but now they have no excuse for their sin. Whoever hates Me hates My Father also. If I had not done among them the works that no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin, but now they have seen and hated both Me and My Father. But the word that is written in their Law must be fulfilled: 'They hated me without a cause.' But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, He will bear witness about Me. And you also will bear witness, because you have been with Me from the beginning." -Jesus (John 15)

God Is Good! And I Am Crazy.

Well, it's happening again: My plans for my life are on hold, and I'm venturing into a season of having no clue what's about to happen, but knowing beyond a shadow of a doubt that it's going to be awesome beyond anything I can imagine. I know this feeling. And, call me crazy if you like (don't worry, I'm not offended in the slightest!)--but I actually like this feeling. It's stepping out into the unknown, with no clear-cut plan or perfect outline to be able to articulate to the concerned adults in my life who will ask me what's next. It's when following Christ makes me feel intensely vulnerable in some ways, for there is no easy or put-together answer to give to people to reassure them, because this is where the rubber meets the road. This is where the decisions and actions of my life match up with my beliefs, with my faith that my God knows better than I do, and that He has plans that go beyond my own--that He knows best.

Between three and four years ago, I gave up my plans to go straight to college after high school because I felt God was leading me to attend Ellerslie for what I thought would be a year. Partway through my time there, He changed my plans again and told me I was to return home sooner than I expected--after only the Summer and Fall semesters at Ellerslie, instead of continuing into the Spring. About six months later, He took me to a Christian college in Mississippi, which was (again) not what I had exactly planned or expected beforehand. (During high school, I'd had my eyes set on a different Christian college, and then during my year out of school had also considered going to a state school). While there, in the middle of my second of what I assumed would be four years at MC, He began to speak once again about a change of my plans, and brought me back to my hometown, Memphis, two years sooner than I was expecting. Moral of the story: I should really stop assuming things! Every time I've thought I've known what the next few steps would look like, He's shaken things up--from going to Ellerslie to becoming a Resident Assistant this past year at college. And let's face it--His plans have always far surpassed and outshone my own. Even though every change has brought with it a degree of difficulty, the joy I've found in being in the center of His will and following His leading has been far beyond anything my old dreams could have brought me.

So what's this new, crazy step? Well, you see, when God began pointing me towards Memphis this past school year, I assumed (see, there it is again!) that I would pick up college "on-schedule" here at a state university less than half an hour from my parents' house. In case you haven't caught onto the theme of these past few years of my life I just summarized...let me just tell you, He's doing it again! God is taking my plans and my assumptions, and shoving them aside to make room for His plans. I'm not going back to college this Fall. Not that I'm not ever going back, but for now God's telling me to take this semester and spend it in a different way. And just as three years ago when I was headed to Ellerslie, I couldn't give any definite "Here's what's going to happen and what it'll look like"--once again I find myself left without a simple, straightforward answer to people's questions, other than this:

He has spoken to me in ways I cannot deny, and I am following even though I can't see the full path or exactly where it will lead. He's got a plan, and I trust Him. His leading is sure, and He has never once failed me or led me into circumstances He can't handle. So, here I go!

Will I look crazy to most? Probably. Will this come across as me being lazy or irresponsible in getting that all-important education this world tells me I will need in order to "succeed" in this life? Most likely. Will I seem reckless and misled, even to many Christians? It's possible.

But you know what? I'm still smiling. And it's not quite the insecure, nervous smile the eighteen-year-old me wore when I was fixing to leave for Ellerslie. It's the confident-in-my-God, helpless-to-avoid smile of readiness and expectancy that is hard to repress as it flows from the intense joy of abandoning my plans, my way, my ability to see or know what comes next. Because He is faithful, and I trust Him.

He is God.

Ache

Late at night--or is it early morning?--
My head on the pillow, I hear You whisper,
Asking me to forsake sleep, to die to myself,
Come away with You, and share Your heart.

"Will you ache with Me in the watches of the night?
Will you watch with Me for the dark to break to light?
Will you weep for what I'm weeping for,
Reach for those I'm reaching for--
Will you bear My heart tonight?"

I know it's not because You need me.
What's even better is the way You call me,
Inviting me to join You in Your mission for this world,
To walk with You and bear Your heart.

I yearn to ache with You in the watches of the night.
I want to watch with You 'til the darkness breaks to light.
I long to weep for what You're weeping for,
Reach for those You're reaching for--
Let me bear Your heart tonight.

   So I'll walk with You in the watches of the night.
   In the darkest times and seasons, I will look to Your Light.
   Help me welcome inconvenience and trust You with the rest,
   For there's joy that lurks in suffering,
   There is peace within this aching pain,
   When I care for what You care about,
   When I yield to be, myself, poured out
   By following my King.

I will ache with You in the watches of the night.
I will watch with You as the darkness breaks to light.
I will weep for what You're weeping for,
Reach for those You're reaching for--
Help me bear Your heart tonight.

Now.

In this life, every season has an ending. Just as we don't stay helpless newborns forever, there comes a day when you realize (or your parents realize) that you're getting too big to be carried. The days of being fed by others pass, and in time we grow and learn how to feed ourselves, how to make our own decisions, how to live. And even though we may sometimes look back at those special seasons of our lives where everything seemed great and want to go back to those carefree summer days in fourth grade catching fireflies in the backyard, that season has ended. A new one is here. And just ahead, peeking through the trees over the crest of this next hill, another season will come. And we don't always know what comes next. For me, I seldom do, and even when I have a glimpse of what lies ahead, I never, ever, know exactly how it is to unfold, and when it does, I realize that that little glimpse I had was just one very small part out of all God was doing.

But this is what has been impressed like a blazing brand upon my heart and mind lately: Now. Yesterday's seasons have passed, and God knows exactly how their memories and lessons will play into what is to come. Tomorrow is not yet here, but rests in the faithful hands of the very Author of time. But every moment, this is what lies before me: Now. I can't change the past or the future, but I am given a choice in the now, right here. Will I trust my God, or look to my own strength? Will I focus on those around me, who may only be nearby for a short amount of time, or on myself, whom I'll be stuck with for my entire life? Will I seek their good, or my own? Will I be bold when the moment calls for it, or will I cower? Will I dare to trust my God?

As with every season, this moment in my life is coming to an end--rapidly! I have just over three weeks left on this campus...three. Three short weeks. And then I venture into yet another adventure-filled season which I have no idea what exactly it may look like. God's leading me back home, leading me to transfer colleges and embark on a brand new adventure in regards to...well, pretty much everything. Life as I know it is once again changing. 

And it means a lot of painful goodbyes. For that, I'm truly grateful, because it's proof that God has blessed me so richly by surrounding me with so many people that I love dearly in Him and who have impacted and enriched my life in ways they may never know. Goodbyes for me are always intensely bittersweet, because I can't seem to help but deeply love the people God puts in my path. Even the ones my heart aches and agonizes over because they are so far from Him...in fact, those people are sometimes the hardest to say goodbye to, because some part of me they may never fully see expressed is inwardly crying out on their behalf, yearning for them to behold the Living God. 

But somehow, all these dreaded, agonizing farewells have come to hold a very special place in my heart. They are a token of God's goodness, and a reminder that even in my most painful moments, He is faithful to sustain and His joy remains unquenched. They may be moments I'd rather live without (I hate goodbyes!), but they are moments I would have never had unless God had brought me to them, unless He had never put people in my life whom I could care this deeply for. 

Still it is before me: Now. I have right now. Yesterday is gone, and tomorrow awaits, but unless my gaze is set on Christ's face and ready for what He has to say and do in the right now, that now will pass away before I had the chance to live it. When my eyes are straining ahead to try to figure out steps I haven't yet gotten to, they fail to see the now that lies between me and that future ahead. It is now I am responsible for. But praise God, I do not have to bear that responsibility alone. My life is mine to yield to Him. Now. Right now, in this moment.

So don't take the now for granted. Pull your thoughts from your to-do list and rest in His faithfulness, in the right now. He sees the future. He knows. He's got it. Quit worrying and trying to get there on your own steam and in your own ways, and let the One who laid this path at your feet lead you from the now to the tomorrow. 

Whatever season you find yourself in right now, don't take it for granted. Don't let now slip by without you getting to taste the beauty of living it with the One who brought you to it. Don't let it fade into the yesterdays by treating it as though it were gone already. Treasure it. Treasure Him. Seek Him. Follow hard.

Rak khazak!

Take Your Kid to Work Day

There is a scene in The Lion King where Mufasa takes his son, Simba, up to the top of Pride Rock at dawn and tells him, "Everything the light touches is our kingdom." 

After Simba's awed response, the young lion cub looks around and asks, "What about that shadowy place?"

"That is beyond our borders," Mufasa replies. "You must never go there, Simba."

Well, unlike Mufasa, our Father, when He shows us what all is under His dominion, does not order us to stay out of "that shadowy place" where the Light doesn't seem to be reaching. Instead, He says, "That's Mine too; they just don't know it yet." And rather than ordering us to stay put while He goes and takes care of things, our Father takes us with Him to work. He shows us the ropes. He teaches us how to defeat the enemy by relying on Him, and by training us to be like Him, enables us to reach others and win souls right alongside Him. 

I used to pray as if God preferred to do everything Himself, like a dad who would rather fix the car the right way and get it done more quickly than he would if he were showing his son what was wrong and what to do. But then God started showing me the grandeur of His plan. He is perfectly able to quickly, effectively, and effortlessly make all things as they ought to be. He could have destroyed Lucifer and the angels the moment they rebelled, could have extinguished Adam and Eve the very moment they ate of the fruit. He could have simply eliminated the sin that was trying to wreak havoc on His perfect plan for creation. But He didn't. Why?

Because He had a greater plan. He let Lucifer rebel, let him try to destroy and usurp what was rightfully His. God has been thwarting Satan's plans every day since. It started with a promise--the promise of a Messiah who would come and set His people free. And for centuries upon centuries, Satan accused God of having a double-standard. How come he was punished and cast away from God's presence, while the humans weren't? How could He forgive them? 

And then Jesus came on the scene and paid the price of sin, fixing the problem by offering Himself as the sacrifice for God's wrath, taking the just penalty of sin on our behalf. He made a way for us to be justified in the eyes of a holy God. Not only that, He adopted us as His own children. Us, who didn't even deserve to be slaves or servants, because what we really deserved was death. But He made us heirs of His Kingdom. 

But you see, our Father will never die--not in a stampede of antelope, nor by any other means. He is eternal. So we do not inherit the Kingdom by waiting until the present King dies. No, in His infinite wisdom and glory, God has made a way for something far better. We don't have to sit around and watch Him do His work. Instead, we get to be part of it! 

God uses people. It seems like a bad idea to us sometimes--why use the imperfect to represent the Perfect?--but God knows exactly what He's doing. Incredibly, He is able to better prove to this world who He is and what He is about through imperfect vessels known as human beings, because His strength is proven in our weakness, and His goodness in the midst of even our failure. And He doesn't leave us to an endless cycle of failure and forgiveness, either. He teaches and leads and builds us in His ways, after His own image, enabling us to be more like Him the more we seek His face and bear His heart for those around us. 

Do we always get it right? No. But just like a father teaching his child how to do something, when we mess up, He makes good come of it. Sometimes He uses our failures simply as a learning experience, but He also turns those situations around and uses them for good. Through it all, He leads us to follow in His footsteps. 

When People I Respect Break My Heart...

My confidence is not in people; it’s in Christ. Were it not for that, by now I probably would have been much more deeply shaken when people who are leaders in my generation give me reason to lose a measure of respect for them. However, it still grieves me deeply to see that kind of thing happen, especially with leaders who are Christians.

Lies can be powerful, but the Truth is stronger. Which is part of why I am not personally shaken in my beliefs or my stance when I see someone else believing or teaching a lie. But at the same time, witnessing that kind of thing always hits me squarely in the heart, because it grieves me to see anyone deceived themselves and/or deceiving others without knowing it.

I am currently in the middle of the third book in Ted Dekker’s Circle Trilogy, which have been my first introduction to his writings. These books are amazing and have deeply encouraged me in my own writing because of how poignantly and powerfully they display the Gospel through fiction and fantasy. Many times while reading these books, even though I haven’t finished yet, I have paused in awe as I witnessed within them something I have begun to glimpse in recent years about writing and its purpose. The ultimate purpose of writing is to communicate the truth, and fiction and fantasy provide an incredibly unique and—I believe—needed (at least to an extent) opportunity to talk about things that are real in terms of things that aren’t. Good writing will always, invariably, express at least some aspect of reality—be it human nature, a particular society or culture, whatever. But the most important thing any of it can point to is the reality of the things of God—who He is, what He has done, how He interacts with people, how He is at work in our world.

The Circle Trilogy contains a powerful and creative view of creation, the Fall, Christ’s sacrifice, and the new life we now have access to. Which is why I love them and part of why, when I found out Ted Dekker was coming out with a new sort of mini-series, I trusted him as a storyteller and expected to see the Gospel again within a different fictional premise.

He came so close.

But rather than the glory of the Good News, in the latter part of Eyes Wide Open, I instead found a painfully watered-down message posing in its place. The moment I started to realize where Dekker was going with the story, I started in shock and felt my heart tighten in a mixture of anguish and anger from the blow.

If it was only about me, I wouldn’t care this much. I learned a long time ago to “eat the meat and spit out the bones” when it comes to reading. But it’s not about me. That anguish and anger I felt? It wasn’t directed at Ted Dekker. It was directed at the subtle lies the enemy has somehow woven into our culture and which I suddenly realized Dekker had fallen prey to in some form.

Let me break away from this for a moment to give some explanation surrounding things here. In Eyes Wide Open, one of the main things Ted Dekker is confronting is self-image, which I agree with him is something that a lot of Christians struggle with. One of his main characters is a girl who is convinced she is ugly and who struggles with her external sense of image. I don’t want to act like all girls wrestle with this same issue of feeling the need to be pretty or beautiful, but I’ll admit that I, too, used to secretly lament that I felt I was fairly plain-looking and not attractive.

I haven’t believed that in years. 

What happened? Well first, I met the One who looks not on the outward appearance, but at the heart. Then, I realized just how vile and disgusting my heart was. Over the years, my sin had ravaged the thing and turned it into an icky, slimy, wretched, self-centered mess. But the same One who saw that even more clearly than I did, had already done something about it. He stepped into human flesh and lived a perfect life and died the death that alone could atone for God’s own, just wrath over the wickedness that otherwise would have forever separated me from His holiness. “He fought death, beat it, gave His life to the public,” as Flame says in the song “Joyful Noise.” He conquered sin and death and offered me new life in Him—His life.

Now my life is His, not mine. I died to my old self, and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. I get to share my life with the One who gave it to me in the first place! And right around that same time when I started to truly understand who He is and who I am in Him, my feelings of insecurity slid to the back burner and then gradually started to disappear. I stopped caring about what others thought of me, because I was beginning to care more what God thought of me. And, not because of my own merit or anything I had to offer Him, He loved me. He loves me because of who He is, not who I am. He is love. And Love reached down to fight for the soul of a feeble, rebellious, selfish young girl so that He could draw her towards Himself, the only One who could right what was wrong within that soul. He performed His surgery, removing my heart of stone and transplanting His living, beating heart within my chest. It was all Him.

And where I defined my confidence and identity as coming from started to change from myself to Christ, I found I no longer had to worry about what I looked like—my physical appearance or people’s perception of me as a person—because it just didn’t matter anymore. All I really started to care about was what God thought, and because of Christ I am justified in His sight. God looks at me, and sees Jesus’ sacrifice that has washed me clean and given me access to enter before Him and to commune with Him. And at the same time, amazingly, He is aware of my sin and continues His work of sanctifying me—leading me in repentance and helping me to love and trust Him more with every step.

Returning to the book: in Eyes Wide Open, Ted Dekker presents a message that is based on a somewhat-subtle distortion of the Gospel. And I don’t think he did that on purpose in any way. The idea is rather prevalent in our “Christian” culture today, firstly, that salvation is all about us. Don’t get me wrong; it is and it isn’t. Christ did not die merely to let us feel better about things or to give us a better life, just like He didn’t die just to get us into Heaven after we die. Jesus said He came that we might have life, and have it abundantly. He also said He is the Life, and that the only way to the Father is through Him (John 14:6).

See, something crazy happens at salvation. You die to yourself so that you may truly live—experiencing Life as it was meant to be, united with God. And, according to Scripture, you find your life and your identity in the person of Jesus Christ. (I highly recommend reading Romans—Paul explains all this much better than I can!) God doesn’t step into your life to empower you to live like you want; He steps into your life to empower to live like He wants—what He created you for, which also turns out to always be what is best for us in the first place. Crazy, huh?

But see, there’s this lie that has crept into some people’s understanding of all that. It’s loosely based on parts of Scripture but not the whole—saying that because God created everything good in the beginning, we’re still basically good at the core; the good’s just been somehow clouded over by sin. Again, I recommend Romans—specifically chapter 3—for anyone wondering what the truth on the matter is. (Paul spends about half the chapter explaining why nobody is good or righteous in God’s sight apart from Christ.) This idea so many people have swallowed, though, says that our “real,” “true” self is buried deep down there somewhere, and that it’s what God sees in us and that He wants us to discover. It says that when the Bible talks about “dying to self” it’s talking about rejecting the “fake” you, the sinful one.

But it’s not. It’s dying to you, your desires, your life, your plans. That’s a hard pill to swallow, which is probably why the more palatable idea offered by the above ideology has become so popular. But when you truly die to yourself, surrendering all that you are and offering it up as a sacrifice to God (by the way, sacrifices die), that’s when you’re ready for real Life to set you free. As often as we focus on ourselves, God did not create us to live an existence that revolves around our own little lives. He made us to get caught up in something much bigger—His existence, His story, His plans. To know Him. We have to die to our own will, so that we can be set free to live in accordance with His will—which is life and peace and hope and joy…eternal Life (see John 17:3).

A side-effect of the idea that our “true” selves are good at the core is something that is voiced by one of Dekker’s characters in Chapter 20 of Eyes Wide Open: “You cannot love anything or anyone more than you love yourself and you can’t truly love yourself unless you see yourself whole. If you secretly disapprove of any part of yourself, you will secretly hate part of the one who made you.”

Love yourself…nowhere is that commanded in the entire Bible. If that was such an important component of what it means to be a Christian or to be set free to live as God wants us to, don’t you think He would have mentioned it at least once? Nope, again and again throughout Scripture love is characterized by a willingness to offer up itself, to give of itself for the sake of another. In fact, Jesus actually said that your love for your self and your own life should look like more like hatred in comparison with loving God, or else you are not His disciple. 

I know that some people have acted like certain passages imply that we're supposed to love ourselves, and if you believe that's the case, I beg you to go back and read the context of those verses. See if that's really what God is saying there. Also, keep in mind that human reasoning about what a verse says or means will always, only, invariably be that—human reasoning.

We love others because God first loved us. It’s not dependent on us or our ability. Like everything else about our lives, when we accept Christ’s gift of salvation, everything comes to rely on not us, but Him. Our identity is wrapped up in who He is—for apart from Him we can do nothing, and without Him we are worthless and without hope.

But we have Him! Because of His great love with which He loved us, Christ died to impart to us the Life that we could not live apart from Him, and He gave us Life in abundance. We get to trade in our identities—who we once were—and embrace who we are in Him—redeemed, rescued, restored, made alive to God in Christ, bearing His Spirit whose fruit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. “And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires” (Galatians 5:24). “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I that live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me” (Galatians 2:20).

It’s obvious that Ted Dekker is addressing some major issues with Eyes Wide Open—identity being one of them. For that, I do respect him. I don’t want it to seem like I suddenly hate him or think he has terrible motives; I don’t. But like all of us, he is human and capable of being deceived. My prayer is that he would see the infinite beauty and know the peace that comes with the truth that our identities are not to be based on anything outside of Christ. It’s not up to us to do anything but believe and rely on Him. When we do that, we embark on the most glorious adventure of all: the life we were made for, a life spent knowing Him, more and more.

And the more you get to know Him, the more you get to know the person He created you to be. For that person cannot exist without Him, and will grow to look more like Him every day. 

{Philippians 3:7-16}

“My identity is found in Christ. Any other identity will self-destruct.” -Lecrae