Prove It.

The other night, I was driving home after spending time with some believers, and the tiredness started to sink in. I guess you'd even call it a happy sort of tired, or contented exhaustion. And it hit me, that in a sense God's making me eat my own words by having me carry out a challenge I issued to other Christians a while back. About a year and a half ago, I wrote a post called "Burnout?" addressing the idea that's become pretty prevalent in our generation, that spreading yourself too thin will result in your being worn down to the point you become useless. I made some pretty bold statements in that post, but they were founded on Scripture.

And so, rather than letting me set things forth on principle and leave it at that, it seems God has asked me, "Prove it." So there's the answer to the vague question that's been hanging around in my head for the last few months about why my life is so hectic and outright busy these days, and why it just won't seem to let up. Towards the end of last Spring semester, as finals were approaching and I was working to finish and revise final papers and portfolios and other such fun college assignments, I thought (with a decent amount of dread), "And, it's not about to slow down one bit." And it hasn't. I went from wrapping up the school semester to working full time for a few weeks, to being gone to Mexico for five weeks (which was also fairly non-stop), to coming back to preparations for my sister's wedding, to a week-long trip with the youth group, to arriving back in Memphis just in time to rush to the airport to pick up the photographers, go straight to rehearsal dinner, and the next day was the actual wedding. Then, I went back to working full-time for the rest of the summer (roughly a month), had a brief respite of a long weekend visiting relatives and a friend in Atlanta, and just as this semester started a death in the family took me out of state for a funeral in the middle of the first week of class. I'd say things are finally starting to settle into routine, but this next week my schedule shifts yet again to accommodate training that will last most of this month, and after that I honestly don't know what happens.

Life, in a word, has been busy. But although the pressure of a packed schedule tends to bring out hidden abilities to somehow get everything (or close to it, at least) done, I don't thrive well off of sheer busyness. I don't particularly like sitting still, but just running all the time wears on me and makes me start to suffocate. When I don't have time for people, I feel as though I'm not really living; just existing in a blur of wasted efforts. Because people, they matter. Grades don't. Money doesn't. Sleep, is worth less (but that one is actually somewhat necessary for life).

So here I am in the midst of much busyness, much constant strain and wear and tear on body, mind, and soul. And it's seldom easy. And I've thrown my share of pity parties bemoaning the fact that life shows no sign of slowing down anytime soon. And I've walked through many, many days (including pretty much the entirety of that youth trip and even my sister's wedding) feeling like I was running on empty, like I had absolutely nothing left within me to offer to those around me. But do you know what happened because of it? I had no choice but to fully rely upon God for strength, energy, words, and everything else. It was that, or collapse in a heap somewhere and completely give up. But I knew my God is strong even when I'm weak and depleted. And He proved Himself as exactly that, and I watched again and again as He used my weakness to demonstrate His strength.

I'm still watching Him do it. Because I still, so often, just feel tired. But do you know, our God never gets tired; He's never weary, never sleeps, never ceases to watch over us and to work all things according to His design. He does not faint, but He increases our strength when we have none to call our own.

So if I have to keep on living this out, I'll do it gladly. Because there's no greater joy than following His lead and watching Him move in this earth, even just in the simple things like carrying me past exhaustion. There's nothing like relying on Him when you know you have nothing in yourself to lean on. And there's nothing better than watching Him use even the frailest vessel to show forth His perfect strength.

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!!