See None but Jesus

Dear Jesus,

I'm so blown away by you. By your capacity to love me. I've been making my life about me for so long but here it is. Less of me and more of you. I want people to look at me and just see you. See nothing but you. Like Tyler said, we can never worship you too much or too passionately. We can never exalt you beyond what you are. We can't over-exaggerate your glory. And our whole job is just to lift you up. Remove everything from my life that is not lifting up your victory. There are many things that make me happy but nothing fill my soul the way you do Jesus. We were made for this.

a lot of recent conversations have gone to religous relativism and the idea that we cant call other things wrong and other cultures are just different but no worse and beliefs are socially constructed and its one God different religions and none of those arguments really resonated with me and I've recently gained some knowledge in it...

We have this inherent moral code. There is a sense of right and wrong, of good and bad. Yes it varies a little culture to culture but not really. No one sees lying or stealing or backstabbing or raping or genocide is positive. To say there is no bad at all is to say that what the nazis did was just cultural or that mass rape in the sex slave industry is not that big of a deal or that cheating on your spouse is awesome. We know that there is bad and good. Thats why kids favorite phrase is "thats not fair." Thats why being cut off while driving makes our blood boil even though it makes a ten second difference in arrival time. We naturally want to see justice done. Yet we recognize that we are actually part of the problem. We hate evil but we do undeniably evil things in secret and in public, in our minds and out loud. So were not right. There is some higher right and wrong we know of and believe in yet we don't follow. So we try to get there and we fail. Every life is striving for some standard, some perfection that is unachievable. Be better, do more, try harder. And at the same time having a deep, unquenchable thirst to be known and accepted and love thats never fully satisfied. And Jesus comes and says: "none of your sacrifices and nothing that you have done, memorizing the scriptures, praying, fasting, charity: none of that will ever be enough for God. Its me. I'm the one." Our badness, which makes us need to surrender and die to ourselves, also keeps us from being able to do so on our own. Because of our utter brokenness we can't pay the price. Only one who is perfect can, only one who does not need to die and who does not owe that price.

Thats Jesus.

Nothing in Gods nature involves sin, suffering and death. We can only do it, if God does it in us, and that can only happen if God became human.

Thats Jesus.

So it costs us nothing and it costs God everything. WE've got to realize the hopelessness of our situation and have some inkling of the depth of our brokenness before we can realize that we are more broken and flawed then we can imagine and yet we are more loved and accepted and cherished than we can dream possible. We have been transformed and made one with Christ and his glory is ours.

Thats the gospel.

Its worth everything. Its my whole life. Its why I am here. This victory changes our eternity. There is nothing for me to do but proclaim is greatness and point to him and lift it up and rise up.

(this was all taken from Tylers sermon tonight and C.S. Lewis's Mere Christianity except the prayer at the beginning)

not home yet

Oh, love, how minuscule my patience has been in these weeks. I have been trying to speed up your movements to the pace the world has adopted instead of knowing that your timing is perfect. To you a day is a thousand years and a thousand years is a day. I'm sorry for humanizing you, God, instead of making myself at home in the inky darkness of the mystery of who you are. My self love and my impatience spur each other on, that I am so quickly discouraged by the rate of my own and everyone else's spiritual growth and critical of where everyone is. This criticism is not rooted in the cross. Your timing will never be fast enough for my sinful speediness. And if I am living this unbelievably fast paced life and finding glory in that, it will be so hard for us to interact because I'm blatantly disobeying the life I know you call me to.

God has already promised we will receive the love we have been searching for. Henri Nouwen says thats the thing we have got to cling to. That and one more...God is faithful to his promise.

That alone should stop my running about and hold me still.
Were on our way home.
We are not there yet but we're going.
We don't have to be afraid. We don't have to pretend everything's okay.
 Everything is not okay because we're not home yet. The darkness of being sojourners is meant to be leant into so that our hunger for home, our appetite, grows. Embracing the appetite is far better than filling it with endless substitutes that only create new wounds. This isn't the best there is. And nothing here will be the thing that finally quenches the deepest longing. Just saying that brings a flood of relief. SOmetimes it hits me that all my efforts to make the world a better place are not going to work. Its true. Because the world is going to be gone one day. So, yes, we can bring the kingdom here, but we cant act like this is it. This really isn't it. We were created for eternity. Its written on our hearts, God promised in Ecclesiastes. Thats so liberating.  We get to spend forever with the one who paints sunsets and sends winds ripping through mountains and tugs the oceans. That one is the one who said,

"I would rather die than live without you."

oh, Jesus.

Discovering how little of my joy is in Christ.
Its a terrible realization.
So much manic happiness and busyness and being full and feeling like the spirit is at work in me and then when things start to get stripped away, I realize how little was actually founded in Christ.
I dont even have anything to do right now so I'm just going to sit here, though I'm begging for any distraction and let his presence come in.
The darkness comes sometimes when you least expect it. And you begin to wonder if anything you're doing matters at all, and you begin to ache for things that you know will bring pain not life, and everything you were acting as if you overcame you haven't at all, its just been patiently waiting for a weak point.
Its a really ugly time but there is some beauty. Because something in me knows that Christ is in this with me. And just that he sees me when no one else can. And its really lonely in a sense but Jesus is deeper. He cuts more to the heart. And just when things seem to good to be true..they are. And life is really hard. And sort of sucks. Not long term or anything but in this moment.
When you're living off of momentum and adrenaline, you cant get out of it easily. You just sort of crash.
It can change in a moment.
Jesus is more real here though then usual. Usually
I think I'm actually my own savior. I think I'm the healer.
He's the healer. I'm just a kid. But he's crazy about me. Even now.
I think that I have my life together but it unravels at a mind blowing rate.
I've got to remember what I'm doing it for.
Im writing for Jesus. Because I love Him. I'm not writing for other people to read it and like it or to get followers. I'm loving girls because He does. Not so that they change and grow and become Spirit led and Christ filled. I'm not pursuing my city because I think I can change it or I want to make a difference or it needs me. I am to be obedient. I'm not praying or getting into the word to gain knowledge or be spiritual or be honored, I'm doing it because God is worth my whole life. And he's going to lead me where I would rather not go. I would rather not have gone here tonight, to this place within me, because I hate being here. But its a place where healing and restoration starts, a place where bandages are removed so wounds can be re-evaluated, a place where Jesus went and goes with me. It sucks but its beautiful. I said break me. I asked him to do it. And I hate it when he does but he breaks us so he can mend us and we can learn that were never the healers, menders, reconcilers.
Its sort of like he's saying, we've got to take off the bandaids and look at the wounds and see where they are. And you've got to experience it and know that I have already overcome it. It has been overcome. And though it is dark, there is light. And you can see light better in the darkness then in false light. False light may seem promising and trustworthy but its not at all. It burns out.

(I'm pretty confident this post makes zero sense so if anyone is stirred by it, that would be the Spirit not my words. Never but especially tonight. I don't even want to post this. I have no idea what I just wrote and I really don't want to read it so I'm just going to post it.
Spirit, I beg you to move in our lives and spur us to you. Its all you.)

The concern for our own comfort

One of the people I treasure deeply asked me if I would blog about this. She is beautiful and truly living uncomfortably, at a new school surrounded with culture she has never really known and with people living far from Christ. It is such a conviction to me because I tend to voluntarily displace myself but then go back to where I am comfortable. To live in discomfort is different.. The beauty of discomfort is that in it there is an intimacy with Christ we cannot know otherwise because we depend on him so much when we are uncomfortable.

I’ve always seen scripture as valuable but lately I have realized that it is more beautiful than thunderstorms and oceans and more useful and equipping then years of theology or PhDs or anything else. (Now when I turn to scriptures my first instinct is going to read it as quickly as possible and suck the knowledge and value out of it. Its how I read my textbooks, how I do research, how I learn. WE are all taught to learn in this hurried fashion, but if I attack scripture like a gold mine searching for tidbits to put into this blog, I deny what it is. It is living and breathing and a double-edged sword. So the discomfort starts as soon as we open the Word and we linger over it, chewing on it, searching each word, praying over it and through it, dancing and singing it. We can’t try to rush to finish Gods sentence for him. That would just be terrible. And this is the problem with our hurried existence, every moment has to be spent well and be useful and we move so quickly as if wherever we are a waste of time. I am the worst of anyone I know in doing this. When I talk about it, I use my life as an example of the opposite of patience. But God is patient and he will remain faithful.) So 2 Corinthians 1 3-4..

HE is the God of all comfort. All comfort. Which means that every affliction we suffer, he suffers with us, and we can allow ourselves to be deeply embraced in his willingness to suffer with us. Donald Miller talks about Job and how he thinks Job is the reminder that God presents life with only himself to cling to. In suffering and in discomfort, God maybe knows that clinging to him is far more beautiful than not suffering. We never are uncomfortable alone. If we are comfortable, perhaps that should be more worrisome because there was nothing comfortable about the life of Christ or Abraham or Esther or Paul or anyone else. Our natural response to discomfort is to get rid of it as quickly as possible, but God requires that we enter more fully into that discomfort and set up camp there.

And so back in 2^nd Corinthians a beautiful stream is developed. God comforts us in all our discomfort so that we may comfort others with the comfort of Christ. Essentially the comfort of Christ flows directly from Christ, through us, upon those who do not know him. Suddenly we find that Jesus was talking about us when he say Thy kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven. You and I are the vessel God is using to bring the fullness of his kingdom into a sin-saturated universe.

Dear Love,

I have no words to describe the mystery of Christ and will not act as if I know much about comfort at all. I consistently move out of my own discomfort instead of resting in it. But I really believe God that you want to be all my comfort, to satisfy all my hunger, to love me in my pain and loneliness and groaning.  And I think God that somehow you would like to use me to bear the burdens of other people, other beloveds, and to comfort them. Not to abandon them with and I’ll pray for you or tell them they should probably look to Jesus, but be your hands that hold and to cling and be clung to as Peter and John were. I know God that you are intentional about holding my hand and guiding me in and through deep discomfort so that I may walk that path with my brothers and sisters and go through it again with them. They cannot see you, but they can see us, your ambassadors. And you allow us to love them with your love. Which will demand more than I am willing to give, but take it from me. Lord when I look at girls who are hurting, cut me to the heart with the realization that I have to die to myself and my pride and my comfort that they may live. No matter what they think of you. Jesus, I keep running from my own discomfort, but you will ask me to go where I would rather not go. And that is beautiful.

Krystal

Hosanna

Community and solitude are becoming simultaneously more beautiful. I have never known time with Christ as I have had it here and I have never known community that I deeply depended on and found joy in as I have here. I always associated needing people with weakness but this isn't the case. I'd never make it without it...

Dear Jesus,
Tear me that you may heal me. Jesus you know that I am running from the weight of my brokenness and you want to walk with me into the thick of that sin, the sin which clings so closely, so that I may see that I am weak but that you use the weak to shame the strong. I have nothing to boast in but you, my love. Lord, don't let me care so much about the number of people who read this, about whether it matters, about the amount that I am doing for the kingdom. Please, whisper to me every day that you have called me by name, that you will dance me into the fullness of who you created me to be, that you adore me simply because that is who you are. Remind me God that my words don't really matter, that the only thing I have to say is that death could not hold you and that you came so we may have life and life abundantly. You did not ask us to save the world because we cannot. We need to be saved and we are part of what the world needs to be saved from. You already have. You have reconciled this earth and each of us to yourself. There is nothing for us to do. But you call us to obedience. Not to outcomes or to results or to conversions but simply to make much of you and to listen and know what you have for each us and to say "yes." Let us know Lord that you have called us to yourself and then to go out with you and be a part of what you are doing. You never say go and come back and show me what you got. You say, go and I will be with you always, to the ends of the earth, in you, through you, loving you, loving this world. That with you we have the courage to die to ourselves so that our friends and our spouses and our children and our professors may live because they matter to you and you have called every single person to yourself and you have called them beautiful. That when I am with my sister Katie I give her my attention and my time and my life that she may live because she matters to you. And when I am sitting next to someone in class I pay attention to them and listen to discern the nudges of the spirit on how to treat them well and pour out Christ onto them because they matter to you. And that the way I dress, and the way I drive, and the way I speak, and the way I spend my time brings glory to you and lovingly draws people to you. Lord, I say each of these things because I am becoming a steward of my own brokenness and beginning to see that my natural reaction will always be to run from you and to push everyone else a way from you as well and to use people and relationships to fill my needs and thirsts that only you can. So everyday, at every part of the day, I must let go of myself and let you come in and live in me and submit to your authority. You demand to be my King not just my Savior. It is only by your love that I become broken enough to let you in and let you take over. Thanks for not stopping loving me. Please, love dissolve the sin that clings so closely. Don't let tear us apart. I love you but I know that all my love for you stems from yours for me.

Hosanna in the highest, your love will not fail us, no..

not needing to be needed

I am consistently driven by wanting to be needed. I have an urge to lead but its still about power and wanting to do things so that I feel I am important and necessary and valuable. I want my life to matter. What if I actually wanted to build others to leadership? Why am I so afraid of them taking my spot? usurping my role? I want to people to do well, but not more than me. Still fighting for the top. Still not doing things in secret for Christ. Not really.
Jesus offered us into his family. Made us his hands and feet. Said you will do even more than I have. He said I have to die, so that you can have my Spirit. We have to die too. For people not worth dying for. Henri Nouwen says you have to seriously empty yourself to make room to put someone else in the center. That there is something deeply mysterious that happens when someone really listens to us. We feel unutterably loved. He said every time we truly pay attention to someone else we become emptier and the emptier we are the more healing space we have. To be quite honest, I have discovered that on my own, I sort of want people to fail. Not on the top level but deep inside. Its the competitiveness of being human. But that destroys me from the inside out. Our togetherness as the bride of christ, should be something so attractive that people see it and want it.
 There was a community of handicapped people in Rome that loved each other and called forth each others hidden talents. It was so beautiful that many healthy people joined them and were able to experience community as well.
When we know Jesus, the need to be needed and to lead and to be important can slowly dissolve and leave a healing place within us for others to be loved, to be central to us, to be made right. Maybe this is the healing the disciples offered. Not just diseases disappearing but a community where souls could be healed. Maybe thats why thousands were added to their number DAILY. As Pastor Tyler said, lets rise up.

hope in another life

So I'm starting social work classes and we spend most of our times talking about struggling people and the problems they are facing and its really hard because it seems like there are so many people who know so much and are trying to pull people out of poverty. And its really humbling because I have this thing where I think I know how to help people and I have all this knowledge on the practical basis to changing society but then I discover that there are tons of other people who actually know about it as well and are working really hard and yet problems are not going anywhere and poverty rate is stuck even though there are tons of programs in place and people way smarter than me doing exactly what I planned to do. The depth of the brokenness of our dying planet can be crushing. I think the beauty of it though is that it sends me to Christ. I leave class and I have to spend time with God. Its not really optional. Because there is nothing else to put hope in. It makes the beauty of our lives sweeter though. College is kind of like depend on Christ and then more and then more than that. And it makes me realize that so few people are dying to themselves. Including me. But when we go around class and say our biggest dreams and aspirations and everyone talks about graduating and jobs, thats as heart breaking as poverty. I have a problem solving nature and its so freeing to learn that there are so many problems I am not going to solve. And so many things I don't understand. Because its so satisfying to sit in Calculus and work out the right answer. Or to soak up culture in anthropology. Just to do things that produce desired results. I know that if I run, I will get faster and stronger and better. But if I pour into people they may not get better or stronger. My efforts aren't directly correlated with outcomes. They may be stuck in cycles they cant escape. And its not medicine. There aren't any easy cures for the soul. Jobs don't solve problems. Maybe surface level problems but not the problems of the soul. Being in shape isn't satisfying. Getting married doesn't dissolve loneliness.
And though I'm sure it sounds like I'm on the verge of nihilism, its really a beautiful place because there is nothing left but Christ. That is so glorious. And its like he said, if you're healthy you're indifferent to doctors. If you've sinned a little, you can only be forgiven a little. But I have sinned a lot and I am definitely sick and he is it. There is nothing else. And social justice loses all its luster but Christ cares for his creation and in Him all things hold together. And he is bringing restoration. There is nothing Christ will not restore. And I've always been fairly anti-Revelation but Revelation is creation being restored to Christ and the fact that God is here and eternity is here and as he said "It is finished."
And I can go to community group and I really do understand how desperately I have to cling to Christ and the body of Christ because it is beautiful. And we don't walk this alone. And it is so beautiful because we can come together and say, yes our hearts and our world are dark places and yes we are more apart from Christ than we can realize but he loves us more than we could ever hop or dream of being loved, IN our brokenness. We can come and be broken as one and know that there is healing. One of the lovely girls said healing is not when the pain gets buried and numb and comfortable. healing means unearthing everything and restoration. Complete restoration. Together. And we talked about bearing one another's burdens and that we will live out the gospel when we bear each others burdens. Burdens that we cant bear. There is no chance that we can bear them. But Christ can because his burden is easy and his yoke is light. But we have to come. And today I was so weary and so heavy laden, but as I type this I know that I offer it to him. I know that there is hope. And that he is here and has always been here and is coming still. And eternity becomes a deep desire in me because I dont want to cling to this life. I don't want to live for today.

Like Paul says in the end of his first letter to the Corinthians, "If we have hope in this life only, we of all people are most to be pitied."

pour out, pour in, pour forth

Community means loving people more than you love yourself. Thats always been super cliche but I love myself a lot. Usually more than I love Jesus and more than I love the people in my classes and more than I love my best friends. I think sin means loving ourself first. Which means that no matter how hard I try or how much I do I'm never going to stop loving myself first. However, Christ loved me first. Even though I didnt love him first. That is easy to write but so hard to grasp. So hard. Because there is nothing like that here. He loved you first, whoever you are. Today in sociology the teacher said that religion is something we make up to deal with things that were not sure of and scared of and too big for us. Maybe that is what religion is. I dont really know. The only thing I know is that Christ loved us first. Before himself. And God loved us first. Surrendered his son out of his love for us. I was reading Libby Ryders blog about how shes so crazy about Ava and I think maybe thats one of the ways we are least warped in Gods image. How people love their children. How few parents would do what God did. I think about that story jesus tells where they man sends his servants and they kill them so he sends his son but they kill him too. And then I wonder what it means to die to myself. I seriously have no idea. I never go that deep or love that hard or submit to people. We live on defense. I'm still living on defense and no pretense of a life full of Christianity and service and bible study is going to change that. I'm reading acts with a group of girls and its in such stark contrast with my life. About how they heal the beggar and he clings to peter and john. There are few people that I would allow to cling to me. Theres a lot of people, almost everyone, that I would really like to maintain a safe distance from. Its not the healing. Thats totally comfortable. I want to let Christ heal through me. But if I want to heal and peace out, onto the next person, accumulating healings like its cash, thats not the gospel.
I've been super humbled by the fact that I don't produce love on my own. Well I do but its not Gods love. Its human love, which is conditional and controlled and prideful and mine. Gods love is entirely different. I was not born with it and I can not grow it in myself. But, I can be a vessel of that love. Which means first I pour out to make room for that love. Because if I'm full, like full wineskins, there is no room for God. If I'm busy, if I have my own priorities, I'm basically offering God the back seat. Like, "yeah come along for the ride, maybe offer a tip here and there but this is mine. God do what you want with my summer but theres a few things I have to fit in, and oh I don't really have time to listen to see what you actually think. Or heres my semester, but, I reserve the right to this and this and this, so you can have the rest. Or heres 20 bucks but my bank account is mine and I think I'm going to save all this money." Okay, enough of that. So pour out. Then, God can pour in. But again, that means I give him all my time and affection and know that he is so worth it. And then Gods love, mysteriously, never stays in me. Its immediately poured forth into this creation. And maybe thats what Jesus was talking about when he said "thy kingdom come" Stewards of his grace and love. That we are the only way the kingdom is coming to this earth. In our love and in our life. he said "love one another." Thats what he left his guys with. He said thats how the world will know that you are mine. By your love for one another. So if the world isn't seeing Jesus and that we are his, something has gone terribly wrong. I mean, this is huge. And I think the only response is to love Him and get to know his heart. Because I will not change myself. I cannot will myself into loving people like Jesus. But he already knows how to love them well. So we've just got to let go.

tax collectors prayer

Dear Love,

I still am harvesting that longing to control my life. I am still keeping some of my life for myself though I know you have something far more lovely in store for me. I am resisting the quiet urge to a better, more thoughtful, slower way of living. The image that comes into my mind is you offering my hand in a dance and me resisting, saying, "not now, Jesus. I have too much to do. Don't you see what I am doing for you? I am loving people for you. I'm doing all this stuff for you and its really really important." But maybe you know that you have asked me only to dance. Maybe by getting lost in your love is how your kingdom will come to earth. Maybe its time to let go of all these missions I am clinging to and cling to you. Just you. When you came, Jesus, I know that your entire focus was on God and his will...

(pause, this is directed more to the reader than directly to God)

As I was writing this I was temporarily interrupted which is unique because it broke my thought flood and forced me to really look at what I just wrote. And it just hit me that its a coping mechanism. I mean its a genuine prayer and I really am writing directly to Christ but instead of actually changing I just write about how important is to change. This is really terrible ha. Sometimes it seems weird to me that I'm letting people into my life and my heart and my walk with Christ and learning how to be me, but I just keep trusting that God makes beautiful things out of our messes. And I tend to be a bit of a mess. But its holy. Thats the mystery.

(okay, back to prayer)

Alright, God, I'm going to keep working on prayer. I'm going to keep talking to you even when I look back and realize that was I was saying and thinking is ridiculous. Because I know that no matter how meager or small or distracted our prayers are they matter to you. And you, somehow, continue to paint beauty and yourself into our lives and prayer is part of that. Prayer is part of the dance. Take my heart, God. Take my impatience and my stress and all the ways I want to take your glory and keep it for myself . Because when you take my heart, you cherish it. And it is your love that allows me to want you to have the glory not me. Jesus talked about the guy who came and all he said was have mercy on me, I'm a sinner. Let that be me, God. Let me resist the urge to pray beautifully or fancifully or theologically and choose to pray simply and come humbly and touch your feet. And give me a heart not just for your feet but the feet of humans. The feet of the poor but also the feet of the rich and most of all the feet of equals. Which are hardest of all for me to love. Take this life and this heart and this prayer. Its yours.

Sabbath

Sabbath is a treasure. I literally cannot believe how my heart is softened by having a morning just to spend with Christ and to be loved. Sit and be loved. Not because I did anything lovely but just because. It changes everything. In changes the yearning in me. Making it deeper for Christ and lessened for the affection and adoration of everything else. It is so satisfying. That feeling that I need not anything but Him. Its quite rare that I feel this way. I'm not sure why I neglect the sabbath. I think the more I come to obedience, which is still  very little, the more I see that God knows what is best for us. He didn't say have a sabbath just for fun but because he made us to need a sabbath and to need him just like we need water and food and rest and a million other things. My heart is so filled by Him right now. I was reading Jeremiah and I realized that the Scripture will not work in me until I understand the fullness of being written into the text. As in, I have  been written into every verse, as has Christ. In Jeremiah he talks about Israel being a whore, and thats me. I'm the whore. I have to understand the weight of being the whore before I can begin to stumble upon the fact that Christ became the whore that I may become the beloved. That he stripped himself of his robe of splendor and holiness and took on my grossness and god-rejecting, yearning for every other lover and put it on me. Dressed me in it. Leaving him naked. That is love. There is no love like that. It is that love that will create in me a love for people that does not demand their transformation or appreciation. It is a that love alone that will keep me from pursuing a path of servant-stardom where I pursue more and more serving to satisfy my need to be important and useful and worthwhile. The point is not to convert people to Christ. The point is to be so loved by Christ that we love people with everything we possibly can just because he does, not for a response. That we give a few people all of our heart and attention just because they are beautiful and broken. I struggle a lot with community. I have this strange thing about being an individual. Doing my own thing. But when you look at Jesus you realize that GOD HIMSELF did not keep his power to himself but shared it with his disciples that he put himself entirely on their level though he was their Lord. He was with them. In fullness. He didn't separate himself because he was there God. And he even said, you are going to do even greater things than me. Jesus came below our level that he could draw us up to his, dying that we may have his spirit. He entrusts us with the gospel, which is the most important thing in the entire universe and beyond. The most important thing in all of eternity. Thats crazy.

I think there is deep danger when I fail to recognize my own powerlessness. Pastor Tyler said to Jessie once that when you think you understand the mystery of the gospel is when you understand it the least. I usually think I understand it, but in the moments of full vulnerability when I realize how vast and glorious and mysterious and incomprehensible it is, I know that this place is so much safer than when I think I understand.

but here is the thing. I cannot see all these things in myself until I am resting safely in him. Because he loves me. And when he loves me, it becomes okay that I am not perfect. That, on the contrary, there is nothing good in me. Yet God has made me his tabernacle. Only when I am safe in this never-ending love that pulls me again and again from the depths of Sheol that I can see that I am a baby in Christ and I am selfish and I am very very broken. I can stop being so defensive. My mom will probably smile when she reads this because she knows that I am very defensive and very bad with criticism and can be very closed off and protective of my own sin. The only chance I have to not be that way is to dive into Christ who allows me to see the weight of my brokenness in the light of his love for me. I am becoming more broken and more beautiful. I think that is maybe what it looks like to know Jesus.

I think maybe the reason I like to squeeze God in and find it much easier to read books and hang out with girls and go on runs than come see him, is that I get so scared of what will happen when I really give him my heart. It is quite frightening. Sometimes even painful. Because the closer you get to the light, the less you can hide. Being bubbly and busy and smiley doesn't really work that well with a light that penetrates my soul. But in the fullness of myself, I realize that God loves all of it, not just the parts I like or reveal to everyone else. And that is so freeing. And then he invites me to dance. With my life. "Have eyes only for me, and I will take care of the rest." Jesus says.

Prayer

I've been obsessed with prayer lately. I've been trying to pray and its far more difficult than I imagined. My mind wanders upon everything other than God unless I begin a list of all these things to be thankful for and all these people to lift up and I do these fast babbling type prayers to remain focused. And I'll be honest, my heart still thinks that prayer is unproductive. Because I have no sense of the mystery of how it works and the indescribable depth and importance of prayer, I would much rather do something where the results are evident. I would much rather go to Africa then pray for those in Africa. I would much rather hang out with girls then hang out with God. When I have down time I fill it with meetings adn phone calls and emails instead of knowing that it is a precious time for God. I like to box God into my schedule as I do everything else, creating some sort of "balance." I'm not so sure what that is all about. Jesus is entirely worth every moment of my undivided attention. Yet, even when I know that prayer itself is of utmost importance, my own prayers seem awful trivial and all over the place. But then the most beautiful thing happened. I discovered Henri Nouwen, who I'm basically in love with except that he's already dead, has experienced the exact same thing. he talked about how he cant stop thinking about all these different silly things but that its totally okay because its not the point. What we must do is be faithful. The first commandment is to love God with everything. All our heart. Mind. Soul. Body. We should at least be able to offer an hour of our day just to him. not church or service or anything else. One on one. And whether that hour, he says, is practical, useful, helpful or fruitful is completely irrelevant because the only reason to love is love itself. He said, and I really think its true, that regardless of how it seems to be, it really will change everything. He is at work in us all the time. And the more we give him to work with, the more he can do.

And so, we pray. We pray much and we pray hard and we pray when were passionate and apathetic, when we are in a place eager to worship and when it is the last thing we want to do. Lets whisper the prayers of the ancients in the mornings, and follow the paths of the monks and create our own petitions for our lover. It is of utmost importance. Prayer, really, is being loved by God. Prayer is the intimacy of his presence and from that will we be able to be present to those in our lives who we love and want to minister to. I'm scared of the intimacy. I'm scared of deep prayer. And thats okay. But, God is still calling me to Himself. And we've got to go.

Bearing beams of love

Dear God,
Sometimes I wish my words could indicate your greatness. That they could sketch a vision of your glory. That they would be woven into a tapestry that presented you as the holy, perfect downpour that you are. i wonder if all writers sometimes feel they have spent all their words. No matter how artistic or brilliant my expression, it will not be an indication of your glory. And thats okay. I love that the greatest vision of all is not a beautiful, intellectual expression carefully crafted and highly impressive. It is Christ crucified. Thats it. If I try to spruce it up with all these lovely add ons, I'm almost suggesting that Christ crucified that you may live is not enough. It is everything. There is nothing to add or take away from what Christ did. We can only testify to it as truth.
I was reading today about bearing the beams of love. How we al run to take cover, terrified of these beams and settling for far less radiant sources of love. Love that will not last, love that tells us we have to come to the well over and over and over again. Love that is conditional and based on what we are capable of. Everyone is afraid, the author said, of being irradiated by love. Maybe thats why I don't stay with Jesus to long. Maybe thats why I invest in everything else. Maybe thats why I don't want to blog if I "don't have anything to say"
I have found that God alone can remove our deepest sin. Thats where the beams of love come in. They simply irradiate the darkness on our souls. I've thought about cancer a lot more since Libby got cancer. And I think cancer indicates sin better than any other disease. Because its something that is entirely part of you yet it will destroy you. And you can't get it out of yourself. And you cant just move around it or ignore it because its growing. And the process of getting it out is very painful. And I think letting sin go is very very hard as well. Its irradiated. We want it to be accepted. To be told that we are strong enough to keep it in control. To not surrender. We have to let go of something that really is a part of us because it is foreign to God and it was never ever meant to be a part of us.
And I have to start taking God's creation seriously. Treating them tenderly and lovingly. Investing my heart in people, not just my time and energy and knowledge. Offering them my heart itself. The thing I never really want to offer to anyone. God offered his.

new perspective

Comparing, I have decided, is poisonous to our souls. My heart is constantly measuring itself to every person around me making physical, spiritual, service, intelligence comparisons. I love to leverage myself above others and I am often so discouraged by seeing people who seem to do such amazing things while I do nothing at all. These past few days I have stumbled upon a new heart, one that delights in the work God is doing in others lives. Now, this should seem obvious but I cannot express how rare it is that I am settled enough in Jesus to be okay with me and not want to be everyone else and not need to justify all that i am doing in my head. It is okay that I don't have plans for this week or this weekend. A full schedule doesn't change who I am, it doesn't increase my loveliness in Christ's eyes nor account for my sin. I wish I knew how to stop asking people about what they are doing because i think it may be subtly crushing them. Maybe like me they feel that they are what they do. I'm not really sure what else to ask.
I was also thinking about how it is ridiculous to feel bad when I have done nothing and great when I have loved people hard or done service or whatever. I think its all mostly the same to God. He never has needed nor asked for my help. He requires my gaze. Simple, undistracted gaze. at the cross. At him. Whoever I think I am loving, he has love first. He has loved since before time and will continue to love them. So though my love brings glory to Him and lifts Him high, he is perfectly capable of drawing every person in the world to to Himself.
Sometimes I think I should try to vary it up a bit and not talk about Jesus every time I blog but I don't really know what else I would write about. Its not that I think about Jesus every second or anything but he really is the best thing that could ever happen to me. I would probably just talk about how beautiful my friends are or how much I hate ice and snow days the first week of the semester or my mom and my family because they are written on my heart. But that all seems like its still Jesus to me just not quite so directly.

I trust that you can make my heart yours alone. And as I grow into a heart just for you, Jesus, I will be able to love people further and deeper and harder knowing that all my love and worth and beauty is in you alone and that my heart is yours. When my heart is overflowing, pouring out love itself is a release. Take me there, Lord. Let me look at every person I encounter or pass by and see you standing there. Let me encourage people to go where Christ leads them without trying to keep them at my level. I love you.

Back

Well.
Back to school.
Not as perfect as I remembered somehow. Its still hard. Lonely. Thats okay though, I'm quite convinced. Jesus is here and he is enough. He is enough for the ones I love in Chesapeake who belong to Him not me. He is enough for the ones I love here in Raleigh. He's enough for me as I sit alone in my dorm probably smiling at my over-enthusiasm that always leads to anti climatic situations. He knows I'm just nervous because I don't have any idea what the heck I'm doing ever and most of the time I act like I do. He knows I want it to be clear: this is what I am doing for Jesus. I want to report to people my life is for jesus because of this this and this. Jesus wants me to do this. But Jesus wants me to do THIS-have nothing so that I learn every, single. day. that he's the same no matter what I am doing. He's like "I am enough for your loneliness, I am filling your dorm, and I am in your heart. There is nowhere you can go where you would be too far for me to gather you to myself"

My job as a human is to make much of jesus, pastor tyler would say. That we get to proclaim the unsearchable riches of christ. That he is absolutely crazy about the gentiles and the jews. And we've got to believe it for ourselves if we are to ever love someone else with THAT love and proclaim to someone else that they are loved far beyond what their strongest desire could wish for.

Its funny that I spent a month wanting deep, soul quenching time with God but was never alone enough to get it and ended out constantly drained and love-less. Then I have a whole day alone that I can offer to him and I started to spend it sadly shuffling things around the dorm and checking emails and stressing about new classes. Isn't this what I've been aching for? It reminds me of my little brother who will eat chicken nuggets every single day when there are hundreds of exciting, delicious meals to try. I look at him and think how can you settle for that, cling to that, when you could have so much more?

 I wonder if maybe Jesus looks at me and thinks the same thing.


just settling for letting the day whittle away or hanging out with friends when the love of my life is patiently waiting, forever pursuing me.

God,
give me your heart to treat my suite mates and my classmates and my friends and whoever else I happen to encounter as you would. To see them as extravagant and worth all my time and attention and life. Love me Lord that I have love to give.

comfortable together

Hey God,

I feel differently about you than I did a month ago. More comfortable maybe? I didn’t love you well this break. I didn’t love my family very well. I don’t have nearly as many beautiful words to say to you. I don’t have miraculous experiences to talk about. It was just really hard and you were here. Every day. No matter how much I sucked or the situation sucked or that I wasted my time or that I am a new creation in Christ but I didn’t know how to be that in this home. Its like obviously you love me when I am serving you and spending time with you and living for you but when I don’t feel like I’m helping anyone I feel like I’m just surviving you love me. You love me at my ugliest. I feel more like I can just hang out with you now it doesn’t have to be revolutionary or life changing it can just be us. Like if I watched TV you’d be someone I’d like to just watch TV with.  Someone who knows me so well, all the bad and the good and still likes hanging out with me. Where you can show up at the door of my heart and I can say, I don’t want you to see me like this. But you say, “I’m here and I’m not going anywhere.” It was just us so much this break. And not like, I’m going to spend my day diving into Christ. More like I’m going to be really sad and unable to pray or get into God and not loving and just want the day to be over and you were here the whole time. You looked at me and saw what I won’t show anyone else and you stayed. And you even thought I was beautiful.

That’s love.

There is nothing in me worthy of your love but that does not deter you. You just don’t care how much I suck or rock. I’ve been humbled. I realized that I am not needed and that I cant change anyone and that you are much much more important than I am. First semester was so lovely I was always slightly afraid it could be gone or not real. Afraid of what it would happen. Well, its true. Things that seem too good to be true just are. Except you. But even in you, life gets real tough. We experience deep struggle. And it can be entirely internal irrelevant of what is happening in our life. I guess what I have found is that even when I really don’t like myself, you still really like me. More than anyone ever will. And I can do great things or okay things or terrible things and you pursue me so hard regardless. It’s sort of like when the honeymoon phase ends in marriage and you discover there are all these things you don’t really like about the person and you’re stuck with them. That’s what I’m probably most scared of in marriage. Yeah, of course they will like me when I’m funny, lovely, joyful, bright. But what about when they discover that I’m really hard to be with and imperfect and dark? This would have been that time with us. But instead this is how you respond..

My delight is in you.

            You are an oak of righteousness

I have made you beautiful.

As the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so I will rejoice in you.

(Isaiah 60 and 62)

crucified

I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me.

-Paul in the 2^nd chapter to the Galatians

That’s it. There is little else. There is little room to judge those in the church who aren’t living as Christ intended (me) to strive to be glorified for the work being done for the kingdom (me) to create full day planners and squeeze God into a spot (me). Paul says in 1 Corinthians “I die every day.”

Every day I wake up living life for myself. Every day I become very concerned with how God will use me that day, whether the day will be miraculous or worthwhile or significant, preferably all three. But that’s not what Jesus asked me to do. He said follow me to the cross and die with me, die all the way so that I can live through you. The cost is high. It costs us our life. It offers the only true life. It demands all our freedom but only he who dances to a rhythm superior to his own is free (that’s not mine). I’m still trying to make it about what I do and accomplish, still making it about the law, Christ died for no person. He died so I could come and die to. It demands the entirety of ourselves and our lives. Nothing less. Being led where we would really rather not go. Not humility like “oh you’re amazing,” “nah, its God” humility like you are humiliated by someone you love and you have the courage not to strike back.  

I read Paul’s words, a letter he wrote many years and years a go to a group of people stumbling through life after a guy named Jesus who told them everything they ever did and who loved them with his whole heart and who was and is the fullness of God. Who was life made manifest. I read it and I get that feeling that there is a deeper way of living that I am being invited to a costly, terribly beautiful life Jesus is beckoning me to. One that starts at the cross and returns to the cross every time I steal my life back. His love is enough. Really entirely enough.  Enough to stop caring so much about everyone and everything here.

God,

Here is my life. Giving it to you means I won’t work out so much because this is an earthly body and I know I am spiritually out of shape. It means I wont multitask you in and pray distractedly throughout the day. I think it most it means I will see people as your Beloved, the object of your utmost adoration. You counted them worthy to die. I will not try to prove that I am changed or spiritual or important I will be content being yours. I will not say college has been good because I love my school and city and friends, I will tell the truth that you’re taking my life by storm and you are more beautiful and present than I ever imagined. I will not continuously tear people apart in my mind while smiling at them. I will not choose everyone and everything over you. It means doing what I really don’t want to do. Loving the people I don’t really feel like loving at all.

God I write all this knowing that right now it is just words. But because it is to you, you can move mountains in my heart and my life. You have changed me. I can only go to the cross if you come with me. You already have. And you will every day. If I will. I’m sorry God for living apart from you, for letting hatred and disappoint and despair take root, for forgetting that there is one point and one only to be crucified with Christ. There are no options. The cross will take me all the way down. It’s everything.

I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me. Let me say this a hundred times today and every day letting it seep in my soul until the mystery of what Paul was taking about begins to unfold in holy discontent with the way I am living.