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 

When Writing Becomes an Act of Worship

Two and a half years ago, God asked me to give up something. At the time, I wasn't sure if He meant put it on hold for a while, or actually give it up forever. All I knew was that He was asking me to trust Him and to entrust what had become one of the defining aspects of my life into His hands. This exchange took place early on in the summer of 2010, during my time at Ellerslie LeadershipTraining. I had come to Ellerslie with as clear of an idea for what my future held as I'd had up to that point, with several specific things God had highlighted that I felt He was calling me in. Among those things was writing. And it was special to me. 

See, a few years before that was when, through one comment from my Dad, I first began to realize I had any talent for writing at all. During the remainder of my time in high school, I began to branch out and write more than just school assignments and journal entries. I embarked on writing stories, and about a year before Ellerslie came around, I had written the first draft of a book meant to call my generation to rise up and live out what we say we believe. I felt strongly that God had led me to write it, and reasoned that therefore I was supposed to pursue self-publishing it once I had opportunity, which wasn't likely to happen before my time at Ellerslie was over. In addition to this completed draft, I had several stories in-progress I had been working on.

But then, when I least expected it, God asked me to give it all up. He wanted my gaze on Him, and though at the time I could not understand why He was asking this of me, I knew I needed to trust Him. The summer of 2020 was life-changing for me in more ways than I can probably come close to describing, but in the area of writing it was also pivotal. What I could not see then, when a large part of my identity was wrapped up in "what I could do for God," was that surrender was to be the avenue to something greater than I'd ever dreamed. God was drawing me to a life of worship--of adoration and communion with Him, not just part-time, but constantly. 

Surrender is not a one-time event. It means a constant, repeated act of choosing to yield to another's will. The beauty of true surrender to Christ lies in its continuation and the way God uses it for His glory. 

For me, I went through a season that summer where I literally could not write. It wasn't that I felt I shouldn't; it was that I tried over and over again, and found my attempts clumsy and inadequate. Part of it was that I was encountering things I had no words for, no way to adequately describe. In fact, that was probably a larger part of it than I realized at the time. But the reality, for me, was that for a time my ability was stripped away from me. And during that time, rather than collapsing into hopelessness, I found myself further enraptured by my God, by who He is and what He was doing in and through and around me, and lost sight of me and my own abilities. I became more satisfied in Christ than I had ever been before, and found that He truly was enough, even if everything else in my life was taken away. 

Toward the end of the summer, God surprised me by giving it back. We had an "assignment" of sorts, to write or compose something, some sort of remembrance, of what we had seen God doing during our eleven weeks of Basic Training. And as I sorted through the many things that had taken place in my own soul and those around me during that ridiculously short amount of time (for it seemed like so much longer, considering all that happened), inspiration struck. I found myself writing in a way I never had before, not just with the way I was trying to use an analogy to describe something, but with the sense of worship that accompanied it.

I had prayed during the writing process of that first-draft book I finished the year before, but by now something had changed within my soul. It wasn't just that I enjoyed writing more now that I had walked through a season without it. Something had changed, and suddenly writing became an act of worship. 

Two and a half years later, I am still in the process of discovering what it means for writing to be a form of worship. See, worship isn't just singing songs on a Sunday morning. It's more than a feeling that fades with the situation. Worship is a spiritual posture of surrender and trust and reliance and sweet fellowship with the God who created us to know Him. And it's meant to characterize every aspect of our day-to-day lives. If those in heaven are constantly worshiping the Lord (see Revelation 4:8-11), then "on earth as it is in heaven" (Matthew 6:10) looks the same, doesn't it? "For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be glory forever. Amen. I appeal to you, therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship" (Rom. 11:36-12:1). It's the beautiful, indescribable, joyous surrender and communion with our Creator that we were designed for. 

And recently, quite possibly more than ever before in my life, I have been experiencing times spent writing that are indeed simultaneously times of worship. I'm no longer writing for myself, out of simply a desire to create a story. It's not about trying to write something that will merely entertain people anymore. During a recent car ride on the way home from visiting relatives up North, I typed out just under two-and-a-half pages (which may just turn into a later blog post) about how I now perceive writing and why I write. 

But in the end, it's not about the writing or even what it produces. It's not even about the impact or effect it could have on others. Ultimately, it's about the worship, because that is what I was created for. Not stringing groups of words together on paper so that they make sense or prove some point. Not eloquence or lack thereof. Worship. 

Because we were created to live and thrive in a constant state of worship, of prayer, of communion with God. So "worship" may look different at different times. One moment, it may be singing to the Lord, and the next, it may look like loving the person next to you the way that God loves them. Sometimes it looks like picking up trash, and sometimes it looks like having a conversation with a close friend or a complete stranger. Sometimes it looks like getting alone with God, and sometimes it looks like sharing the Gospel. Sometimes it means painful sacrifice, and sometimes it means crying tears of astonishment when you see what God is doing or has done. Sometimes it looks like being completely still and silent and reflecting on God, or waiting on Him, listening. Simply put, worship means living in the center of God's will, every moment. Seeking Him, seeing Him, knowing Him more with each passing day. Sometimes, it even looks like sleeping--peacefully resting in His promises while you lose consciousness for a time...

And sometimes, it looks like writing.

. . .

Restless

Many times in my life, I have been restless. The reasons for restlessness have varied, but it's definitely been a recurring theme in my life. Sometimes, it's been a literal lack of rest--when I am not choosing moment-by-moment to trust in the Lord and His ability to work all things together according to His purposes, which are always far better than my own pitiful plans. Other times, however, I have experienced the type of restlessness that is more characterized by an earnest desire to see righteousness lived out, in my own life and the lives of others. And sometimes, it's sort of a combination of the two, when I want to see God's will happen, but fail to rest in His ability to accomplish it. 

There is, however, a certain restlessness we're called to as followers of Christ. It's the restlessness that cries out for God's Kingdom to come to this earth as it is in heaven, just as Jesus did (Matthew 6:10); the restlessness that relies on Him while yearning for Him to deliver and to have His way (Psalm 70:5), that shouts "Rak Khazak!" to others as it faces the seemingly-impossible, knowing that the Lord will overcome (2 Chronicles 32:7-8; Romans 8:31-39). It's the restlessness that causes us to forsake the temporary comforts this world offers us, and to plunge recklessly ahead into pursuing the fullness of the life Christ has given us--the eternal life which is defined as this: knowing Him (John 17:3; Psalm 16:11)...to count everything else as a loss compared with the greatness of knowing Him...to go all-out and be willing to sacrifice everything for the sake of following where He leads, trusting Him with everything He's given us. 

And so, today finds me restless. Restless in the desire to know Him more, restless to some extent in wanting  to move forward in certain things that He has shown me are part of His will for my life in the future, but also restless for the faith to trust Him more in everything, to seek His face and know His heart more and more, and to believe He will have His way. Restless for the world around me to see and know that He is God. I am restless to move forward in these things by continuing to entrust them to His perfect timing, for my ideas have never once proven to be better than His. So no matter how long I must wait, I will rest in confidence that the God who has never once failed to work all things together according to His good and glorious purposes will by no means fail to accomplish what He has promised. 

For example part of me wants to move into the Hood...now. In fact, if God were to suddenly tell me to drop out of college and move there, I'd do it in a heartbeat. But He hasn't, and it actually looks like He still has other plans for me in the meantime. And as I said, His plans are always better than mine, for He alone knows all things. So I will continue to trust Him with it all, to lay my life at His feet every day in surrender to His will, to follow where He leads and trust His steadfast faithfulness, knowing that when the time is right He will move things forward and it will all be far better than anything I could dream up or enact myself.

"I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, and in His word I hope; 

my soul waits for the LORD more than watchmen for the morning,

more than watchmen for the morning.

O Israel, hope in the LORD! For with the LORD there is steadfast love, and with Him is plentiful redemption. 

And He will redeem Israel from all his iniquities."

-Psalm 130:5-8

Watching for the Return of Manhood

We live in the midst of a generation which, for the most part, has no idea what real manhood looks like. Sure, we might catch a glimpse of it every now and then, in some character from a book or a movie--but it's more the stuff of legends, it would seem. Very rarely do we encounter real Men in everyday, normal life. 

In Job chapter 29, Job is reminiscing on his earlier years, and winds up giving us a poignant picture of a godly man. He talks of a life saturated with the presence of God, a man who is respected by all who know him, because he is moved by the God's love to actually do something about injustice around him and to pour his life out on behalf of the weak and the destitute. That's what real manhood looks like. 

And yet in our generation and our culture we're inundated  with examples of "manliness" that fall so short of the real thing. The role models young men have to look up to are rock-stars in skinny jeans with voices that can easily be mistaken as female if the listener is not paying close attention. That, or the football players who work and sweat to be "tough" but at the end of the day go home to cushy homes and wide-screened televisions where they can relax from a long day of training to chase a pigskin from one end of the field to another. Then there's the other side of the spectrum--the brilliant entrepreneurs and businessmen who work hard and eventually become successful millionaires. Okay, so there are better role models out there...like perhaps the scientists and activists who strive to make an impact beyond themselves with their lives, or those who devote their entire lives to a particular field of study with the same intention. 

But where are the men?

Where are the fathers worthy of the title "hero" even when their children have outgrown their phase of being enamored with Batman or Captain America? Where are the men who live out their calling and their faith to such an extent in their day-to-day lives that the Life that dwells inside them is poured out into their wives, their kids, their friends, their neighbors, total strangers, their communities, and this world? Where are the men who can say to those younger than them, "Follow me as I follow Christ" (1 Cor. 11:1)? Where are the men who can look back on their lives like Job did and say "I delivered the poor that cried for help...I put on righteousness, and it clothed me...I was eyes to the blind and feet to the lame" (Job 29:12, 14, 15)? Where are the men of faith and courage who will dare to truly surrender all like this guy did? In our day of esteeming the famous and the popular, we just don't see much of the real stuff that manhood is made of.

But this post is not about inspiring depression and pessimism concerning manhood, but rather, hope. Why? Because I believe God is in the process of raising up men with the characteristics I just mentioned (and others I haven't touched on). I'm about to borrow an illustration from Eric Ludy...

Fossils and other remains have been found of a certain species of deer known as the Irish Elk, which once roamed the earth with a shoulder-height of about 7 feet and a rack of antlers spanning a massive 12 feet. Irish Elk are extinct now, leaving us with only their smaller  relatives for comparison. Elk these days grow to a maximum of about 5 feet tall at the shoulders, with antler racks only about 4 feet wide...

But can you imagine what it would be like if elk suddenly started growing as big as some of their ancestors used to? What if a generation of elk started growing to the magnificent size of their predecessors?...What if a generation of men started growing into the fullness of genuine manhood as portrayed in Job 29 and so many other passages in the Bible, not to mention church history? =) Now maybe you see what I'm getting at with this post. 

The amazing truth is, I've seen a glimpse of this very thing happening here in our generation, in our day and age. I've been blessed to know and come into contact with a fairly significant number of brothers in Christ who have begun to catch the vision God has for manhood and masculinity, and who are following hard after Him and desiring to be made into the men He has created and called them to be. But that's just the start.

Ultimately, when you get to the heart of the matter, any society, culture, or generation is defined by the individuals that compose it. Blanket statements and stereotypes are often utilized to try to convey a broad or generalized view of a large (and often very diverse) group of people. This is why stereotypes don't wind up working on the individual level--nobody fits the mold exactly. Even so, such generalizations can be useful in depicting overall trends or characteristics that the majority of a given group may tend to have in common. So if I were to generalize the current state of manhood in my generation, I would have to say we're faced with some (no offense) fairly depressing stuff...I was about to try to describe and sum up the current state of things, but perhaps it's better if I refrain and leave that to the men to address. 

So why is a girl writing about manliness anyway? What am I, of all people, doing writing this blog post? Well, there are a couple of reasons. The first is that for the past several years, biblical, godly manhood has been something I've felt pressed to pray for God to restore and instill in the men of my generation. In this time, He's brought some specific brothers-in-Christ into my life at various points and directed me to pray for Him to further various things I could see He was starting to do within each of their lives. And along the way, I've become aware of the fact that sometimes it takes a female's perspective to know to pray for certain aspects of manhood. God created us as women with certain longings and sort-of "instincts" in regards to what a man ought to be. Not that we can always go by the desires of our hearts, for it does still ring true that "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked" (Jer. 17:9). However, where our feminine hearts' longings and ideals of what manhood is to look like do line up with the examples found in Scripture, we must do more than just lament and long for those ideals to become the norm. We must pray.

No great movement or change towards ultimate good in all of world history has ever come about without God enacting and enabling it and carrying it through to completion. Apart from Him, without Him, we can do nothing (1 John 15). But when God moves, so do His people. After all, we are His Body. So unless His Body has become disconnected from its Head, which is Christ, it will move in accordance with His will. But in order to do that, we must abide in Him, and remain abiding in Him. 

So let none of us cop out. Men of God, each of you have the unique and individual responsibility before Him to continually seek His face and surrender your life to His will. You have the privilege of coming before the Author of Manhood and Masculinity and asking Him to forge within your soul that which He created you for in the first place, to make His Name great in and through you as He works that which no human being is capable of in your life. Women of God, each of us, likewise, have a unique and individual responsibility to seek the face of our Creator and plead with Him to work in us that which He created us for. May we come before Him and plead to be made into what a woman of God ought to be. May we ask Him to consume us to such an extent that His radiance is the only beauty we care about the world around us seeing. 

Manhood and Womanhood were created to work together and to build upon one another. The rise of true masculinity will help make it easier for true womanhood to blossom and grow in our generation, and likewise the growth of true femininity will help to encourage and strengthen manhood as it ought to be. 

I genuinely believe that God is at work in our generation right now to raise up men and women after His heart and to do a greater work than any of us have either seen or imagined. And I believe that a rise and return of true, biblical manhood is a crucial element of what He intends to do in our lifetime. 

There is a quote from Keith Green's journal that has resonated in my soul ever since I first read it in his biography: "Lord, let there be a revival and let it begin in me!" It has struck me over and over again that praying for revival is empty and pointless if we are not simultaneously asking God to work according to His will in our own individual lives. For one thing, how exciting will it really be for us if the whole rest of the world gets set on fire by God to shine and live for His glory, but we're left out? If I settle for less than the fullness of God's will for my life--If I pick a spot and say, "Alright, I can stay here for the rest of my life and be content,"--I'll be missing out on the much bigger picture of the entirety of God's will. God doesn't stop with the individual. He uses one heart to ignite another, and in the process the flames should grow brighter in both. May we not hold back from asking and seeking after the fullness of what God desires to do--in our generation, yes, but also in every facet of each of our lives. 

Rak Khazak!!

Can You See It?

There are some things God has spoken very clearly about through the years, and other things that He's given me a vision for and just called me to pray for. But it's interesting to note that a common theme seems to be that the things God tends to call me to ask and trust Him for are almost always IMPOSSIBLE in the eyes of the world.

I mean, seriously, think about it: Who looks at Memphis, Tennessee, sees all its violence, crime, addiction, racism, etc., and assumes that it's going to be completely transformed so that it becomes a place where the Church lives out its calling as the Body of Christ? Instead of a bunch of fragmented body parts each trying to do their own thing, to see true fellowship of believers become a common sight. Instead of the "good" people staying away from the "bad" parts of town, to see brave-hearted souls willing to die if necessary to go after the people who are most broken and know it. To see the false walls of assumed-perfection come crashing down, so that people stop pretending they have it all together and realize (and admit!) their need for a Savior. To see what was broken be made beautiful by the redeeming power of Jesus Christ as the Gospel is lived out by His saints.

There have been so many people God has laid on my heart and told me to pray for, and in the process of praying for them He has given me His heart for them and caused me to pray bigger and bolder prayers than I ever would have prayed on my own. Friends, family, cousins, even people I didn't really know. But I've seen breakthroughs with so many of them! And while there are others I'm fighting for who haven't yet come to the point of surrender, I no longer find myself discouraged when I think about them. God has plans for each of them, and I know He is working. He is stronger than every sin and power of the enemy that can ever have a hold on any life. God is bigger.

So, I've just been thinking lately about how much God delights to do the impossible. Go read about Elijah and tell me He doesn't. Or better yet, go read Romans--start at the beginning and just go--listen to Paul as he lays out the "problem" of God's righteousness versus His mercy and love, and how Christ's life, death, and resurrection solved it. Read about the victory purchased for us through the blood of the Lamb, and tell me God is not able to defeat Satan. Think about the Gospel and what God's mission for this earth is, and then try to explain why it's impossible. With man, yes, it's absolutely impossible. But we're not relying on man, are we? I'm not. I believe my God, and I will keep trusting Him to pull off the impossible.

Leaving Memphis...Again

In a few short hours, I will be on the road, saying goodbye to the city I love and feel so called to as I follow God's calling elsewhere for a time. It's not the first time. The first time was a little over two years ago, when I left my family, friends, hometown--pretty much everything I'd known and was used to--in order to attend a discipleship training school called Ellerslie all the way in Colorado.

I remember crossing the Memphis Bridge and feeling torn between the place I was leaving behind and what God had in store at the place I was heading to. It wasn't just the city--it was also having to leave behind my family, friends that were so close they almost might as well be family, and all the people I knew and had grown up with here--but deep down, there was a painful awareness that I had to leave Memphis for a time, the city I had grown to love while so many I knew merely tolerated, if not hated, living in.

After I came home from Ellerslie about six months later and spent the subsequent six or so months here in Memphis, I found God calling me to leave once again--this time for college. That transition was rougher than the one from Memphis to Ellerslie, not because the move held more of an unknown (when I left for Ellerslie I had no idea what I was getting into), but somewhat because of the opposite; I knew I was heading into a completely different sort of environment and that even as I was going to college, I was going against the flow of our culture. I knew I wasn't going to college for an education and wasn't called to keep my head low and simply make it through. It was going to be hard, a different kind of hard than I had ever known before. And as we left Memphis, I once again felt torn between my more long-term calling to Memphis and my current call to this college three and a half hours away.

But it was a good kind of torn, even as the extremely similar bittersweet ache I am feeling right now is a good kind of pain. It's the kind of pain that comes with leaving someone--or a group of someones--you have grown to love deeply. This summer, God brought me to some of the front lines in the battle for Memphis. Through living and working with Street Reach this summer, I have gained a better perspective of that battle, as well as getting to know specific people who are also fighting it and other specific people whose souls hang in the balance.

The good news is that I do not have to be here to continue to fight in this battle. Prayer reaches farther, deeper, and faster than any weapon of this world. Still, it is painful to physically leave Memphis. But the One who has called me is faithful, and as always, He has a plan and will not fail to carry it out as He leads me on from here. His has a purpose for taking me back to Mississippi, and He will not fail to use me there or to use this season to draw me yet closer to Him and to prepare me for what lies in store. Just as He perfectly orchestrated the timing of leading me to Street Reach this summer--from preparing me for it even when I had no idea what Street Reach even was, to walking me through every day of it this summer--He has perfectly orchestrated everything about leading me back to MC this school year.

So, as bittersweet as leaving Memphis is going to be, at the same I am excited for what lies ahead. The same God who led me from here before into adventures I never could have dreamed of, who led be back here and walked me through even more, has infinitely greater plans for what is yet to come than I can possibly imagine. It's going to be hard, but at the same time it will be infinitely rich and beautiful because my King will never leave my side nor fail to draw me closer to Himself.

Here goes.

Apart from Me...

There is a very short sentence with an incredibly powerful punch that has been pressed into my heart more and more over the past year: "Apart from Me, you can do nothing." It comes from John 15, when Jesus is talking about the vine and the branches. In the first part of verse 5, He says He is the vine and we are the branches and then paints a beautiful picture of the relationship with Him we're called to by saying "he who abides in Me, and I in him..." That word abide means to dwell, to remain, to live in, to stay, to rest in. And not only are we to abide in Him, but Christ Himself--the King of Kings, Immanuel (God with us)--abides in us as well. There is to be no separation, no departing one from the other. And when that is the case, Jesus says we "bring forth much fruit."

But after that comes the humbling, wondrous truth "for without Me you can do nothing." At first glance, that may seem pretty obvious and maybe even somewhat tame; without God enabling us, we can't do anything. But take a closer look, and you notice that word without is depicting a situation exactly the opposite of the abiding life we just saw in the first half of the verse. The opposite of within is without. Abiding in--dwelling inside, remaining joined to--and being without--outside, separate from. And how about the word can? It describes ability, strength, permission, etc. And do? Brings to mind James 1:22 ("Be doers of the Word, and not hearers only...") doesn't it? But the word that has struck me the hardest as of late has been that last one: nothing.

nothing.

Absolutely nothing. Not even a little. The word nothing there is literally translated from two Greek words, both of which mean "none, nothing." So it's sort of like saying, "Apart from me you can do no nothing." It's a double negative, reinforcing the absoluteness of the statement, even if it doesn't make perfect sense in English to phrase it like that.

There is no thing--nothing whatsoever--that we can do apart from Christ.
Years back, whenever I would hear this verse, I would nod my head along and think, "Well, duh, without God holding everything together and giving us life we wouldn't even be able to survive or to breathe." But something deeper has begun to sink in for me...No matter how much I may seem to be doing--even good things--if I am not abiding in Christ and if He is not abiding in me, it is worthless. I can go out in my own strength day after day after day and put in long hours of hard work; I can smile and do the "right" thing as much as I want--but at the end of the day, without Him, it is all meaningless.

Sometimes it's easy to go through life in automatic and to make the best of the situations that come up by handling them the way I've been taught to or the way I'm used to dealing with stuff. But that's not what I'm called to. I'm called to a life filled to overflowing with the never-ending adventure of living with and for and in my King--of having Him living in and through me every moment of every day--of living and moving and having my being in Christ (Acts 17:28), constantly. I am called to a life surrendered to His will, His timing, His holy power. So are you.

But He doesn't want robots. God is perfectly able to reach every lost soul Himself and to get through to people without our help. But He has chosen to do a more glorious thing by allowing us to come alongside Him in His work to redeem this world. He has made a way where there was no way and pulled off the impossible by taking people who had turned from Him and by doing so earned death--and not only rescuing us, but filling us with Himself, His very Spirit--so that we may abide in Him and He in us, and so that through our frail lives His great glory can shine forth. What is impossible for man is not impossible for God. Just as we were utterly incapable of saving ourselves, we are entirely incapable of doing God's work apart from Him.

As long as we live off our own fuel and remain (abide) in our puny mindsets of what each day is supposed to look like and how our lives are supposed to play out, we will accomplish exactly nothing. We will not move forward; we will not spur others forward; we will be of no use to God or to anyone around us. The only way we can ever hope to be of true use to the Kingdom of God and the advancement of His plans for this world, is to be fully surrendered to and abiding in Him. He is the solution; we are not. We never have been, and we never will be. But He always has been, and ever will be. So may our lives be filled with more of Him. May we abide in Him, and He in us, that He may be glorified.

 He must increase; I must decrease.