10 tips for growing in your faith while at home this summer

This post is definitely of a different style than most of my other ones, but you will see shortly why I am writing this and how it came about.  This post is mostly directed at Christians who have just finished their first year in college and are now back home for the summer (or any other year in college and are back home for the summer), but do NOT stop reading if you do not fall into these categories.  I mean, I guess you could but a lot of this stuff could definitely apply to you.

Now, I try to steer clear of "10 ways to [fill in the blank]" type articles for the most part, not that they are all bad--there are some really good ones out there!  I do believe that God does in fact teach people different things in different ways from different angles, so once you set out to check off numbers 1-10 on your way to a better relationship with God, you are contriving God to a list, putting Him in a box, and stifling His Spirit.  When these 10 or 12 or 50 or how ever many things reach at the root of the Christian faith--the Gospel--then read on, test it (1 Thess. 5:21), and decide for yourself if this is indeed applicable to your journey.

This post is about how to handle going home after growing in your faith in college.  The other day I was meditating over last summer and how incredibly wonderful it was.  Did I go on a cruise?  Did I feed starving kids in Africa?  Did I take summer classes and hang out with my friends in Raleigh? No.  I went home.  I went home to a small southern town where "supper" is the only allowable word for dinner and where you have to watch out for wild turkeys while driving on the roads.  I was bitter.  I even got a speeding ticket on the way home from college and backed into a bus at the school I had just starting working after-school care at.  A big, yellow, in-your-face-how-could-you-miss-it, parked bus.  Talk about your spiritual warfare!

You can read more about last summer here, here, here, here, here, or here.  If you are going to read just one, I would read the last "here."  It is a summary of the summer, hence the clever name.  For the rest of this post, though, you are going to have to just trust me when I say that I was NOT happy about coming home for the summer.  I wanted so badly to be going on all the adventures my friends were going on, visiting all these exotic places, meeting all these new people.  I tried to make it happen for me, I prayed to God for months for an opportunity to open up, for guidance, for something, anything, but Shelby.  But all I got were a few smirks from God, a sour attitude, and a one-way ticket to the YMCA I had worked at for the past 4 years.

I'm sure some of you feel the same way.  I was worried I would lose the faith I had gained in college.  I missed my friends.  I was angry at God for not "using" me--because I deserved to be used, I was ready.  I thought.  I compared myself to my friends.  I was spiritually lazy and barely talked to God the first few weeks I was home.

And then I had wonderful summer.  A hard, fighting, glorious summer.  But it didn't just magically change.   God had to fight to get to me.  And I had to fight to accept my summer and embrace it.

I went back to school a different person because of that summer.  I am not the same person because of that summer.  And it is easy to write about now, but it was a hard season.  A beautifully hard season.

Now.  I realize that not all of this is going to stick.  But I do believe and have seen from personal experience that God works through us when we tell others about things we have struggled with, things we have learned from God, things that God reveals to us about Himself.  So I am going to take my experience from last summer and tell you about it and pray that God is glorified.

10 tips for growing in your faith while at home this summer:
1.  Pray.  Why is she writing this?  It's so redundant and obvious!  We learned this in preschool!  When I say pray, I mean pray a lot and pray with passion.  Talk with God.  Something so special about this time you have at home is that you can go to your room, closet, take a walk, etc. and pray alone with God.  It can be as long as you want and you can be as expressive as you want.  Pray out loud, write it down, keep a journal.  Whatever you do, talk with Him and listen to Him.  This in itself will always increase your intimacy with Him.

• So...what do I pray for?  How do I pray?
• Ask God what to pray for--this one gets overlooked a lot.  Allow Him to speak through you, even if it seems a little weird.
• Cry out to God.  Don't be afraid to show God a little emotion.  He knows what you are feeling anyway.  If you are frustrated, tell Him!  It's not like He doesn't know.  Embrace vulnerability and tell Him everything. 
• Pray for more of Him.  Pray for God.  Pray for intimacy and a flourishing relationship.  Pray for revelation and for more reception of His love.  Pray for this season to be used to grow and to learn more about Him.
• Pray for opportunities.  To share His love.  To speak His name.  To serve.  To go on adventures with Him.  Pray for friends with whom you can talk about Him.  A lot of us go home to virtually no community, no friends to talk about God with.  Pray for that.  
• Pray for life.  Pray to reject passivity and to embrace an active relationship with Him.  Pray for energy and drive to continue and further this relationship with Him.  Pray for desire to do this.

2.  Steer clear of reliance on Facebook and texting or any other social network or means of communication.  Don't stop reading.  This might sound like a joke to you, but I am being for real.  Facebook is a great way to keep in touch with people, but once you rely on that to keep you "connected" to people, you should probably start weening yourself off of it.  Is not your common ground of Christ enough to keep you connected to your brother or sister?  Texts on the 5-minute mark only distract you and keep you yoked to that need for communication, like you HAVE to talk to that person.  It is much more special to catch up with someone you haven't talked to every day...for the entire day.  Write letters, skype every other weekend, meet up for a day trip.  Put down the cell phone and limit the Facebook usage.  These things are good and can definitely be used for the Kingdom, but once you become attached to them to the point where you feel uncomfortable without them, you are letting them take away from the overflowing freedom you have in Christ!  Be more connected to Christ than you are connected to the world.

3.  Spend time with just God.  How?  What does that even mean?  Well, it kind of goes along with the one above...and I guess praying too!  Build your one-on-one relationship with God.  One really beautiful thing that comes from this is self-confidence.  Not the cliche kind in your psychology class, but the kind that only spending time with your Maker can produce.  You learn as you spend time with Him that all these quirky, weird things that you do, He made.  He loves them.  There is no reason to worry about people looking at you, because you've already been fully exposed.  And you've already been called beautiful.  This isn't cockiness or self-righteousness, this is confidence in your identity as a child of God.  You'll learn that He loves every weird part of you and warning:  you might even start embracing it (there's my excuse).  As much fun as community is, make sure you are not reliant on your community as a means to know your God.  I once talked with a group of young people I volunteered with and each of them were so fired up as a group--"I love God with these people!"  "I love these people and I love God so much!"  And that is great.  But when I asked them, "How is your relationship with God when you are alone?  How do you talk to God, then?" their answers were all similar enough to be summarized as, "Oh, I don't know how to do that!"  Learn who He is when you are alone so that you don't have to depend on others to be around--because they won't always be.

4.  Spend time with God and others.  Community.  Ah, so blissful.  I have learned so much from others and their relationships with God and I have loved so hard because of my brothers and sisters.  Pray for community.  Seek people who are passionate about Christ like you are.  Sometimes you have to find these people, and sometimes they just seem to appear out of no where.  Get lunch with them, even if you don't know them that well.  Serve with them.  Keep each other accountable as you are both home.  Meet with them weekly.  Read a book of the bible together.  You know, the works.  Just have fun with them!

5.  Avoid just "doing" your quiet time.  Live your quiet time.  Do not do your quiet time with spite or obligation or for the sake of a possible blessing.  If you have a job, don't get trapped in the "routine life."  Fight it.  Serve even if it means washing the dishes for your parents when they don't ask.  Be changed when you read the word.  Let it overflow out of your life.  Don't be afraid to do weird things.  Don't be afraid to get uncomfortable.  Don't be afraid to let Jesus interfere with your life.

6.  Expect and look for Him.  Live in expectation.  Look for Him to show up in the same place you have grown up in for years.  Ask for new eyes to see that place differently.  Invite Him into your hometown.  Pray for revival--in your heart and in your city.  And if you expect big things to happen and you don't see them, the big things are probably in the form of a heart change or a newly found passion or just a better attitude.  Or even the fact that you are beginning to expect things from God when you usually just sit back and live and whatever happens, happens...

7.  PLEASE DO NOT view this summer as a place-holder time.  Do not just go through this summer with the mind-set, "Well, I will just get through this then grow when I get back at school and have all my friends and my campus ministry and my bible study and my set schedule and church."  No!  I pray you, my friend, to see that He wants you to learn NOW!  He wants to love you now and He wants you to enjoy Him now!  There is so much potential for you these next few months, so please don't settle for just waiting until you go back to school.  Don't miss this chance at this place at this time.  Fight the war.  Do not monotonously wait around.  Boring.

8.  Do not compare yourself to others.  This only leads to jealousy, self-pity, and/or sulking.  Or maybe that's just me.  God has a life set out for you and if you are confident that He only wants the best for you, then you are exactly where He wants you to be.  Just because you aren't on a summer long project or in another country does not mean that your faith is inferior (or superior, depending on how you look at it).  God's got His own adventures for you!  Measure your life by the cross, not by what others are doing or where others are.  He DOES have things for you in your hometown.

9.  "But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well." -Matthew 6:33  This is the biggest one I think I had to learn.  Do not look for things to do FOR God, look for God.

Now what?  Go and live and love your hometown and be changed!

It might not be that simple, but the simplicity of the Gospel covers the complexity of, well, everything.

10.  Cherish the Gospel.

LMB

Questions

Last summer, I knew I had been appointed to lead a bible study of freshmen girls the coming year.  So, I started praying.  I prayed for them and I didn't know them.  I prayed for the love of God to sink deep into their hearts.  I prayed that girls would come.  And one day I was praying and I couldn't tell you why I said what I said.

"God, I pray for that one girl who is thinking about not coming, the girl who is torn and who is on the verge of not coming but isn't sure.  Just make her come."

I had no idea why those words came out of my mouth.  I don't know why I prayed that.  And for a few days I tried to shake that prayer and push past it with other prayers for my bible study.  But somehow it kept coming up.  I was confused.  But I prayed it anyway.

I probably prayed that prayer for about a month, up until school started back.  I felt a little weird every time I prayed it.  And then bible study started and so new, different prayers took over for girls I actually knew by name and for faces I could actually see.

That was a year.  A whole year.  Last Thursday, I was eating lunch with a precious girl in my bible study.  My car was all packed up and literally right after lunch, I was making the 3 and a half hour drive back home for the summer.  We talked about the past year and about the year to come.  She is leading a bible study starting in the fall, so she was asking me what kind of things to pray for her soon to be girls.

"What kind of prayers did you pray for us?"

I told her the main prayers and then I laughed and told her about that prayer, the one the Spirit kept bringing up about the girl who was thinking about coming but wasn't sure if she wanted to or not.

It was her.

I am pretty sure I about threw my sandwich across the dining hall when we both realized that she was that girl.  She had told me before about how it took some praying and convincing from her mom to come back to bible study after the first time or two of coming.  She wasn't going to come back.  But then she did.  She just did.

I smile as I write this because I had so many questions and doubts about that prayer.  Why, why would I pray that weird prayer?

That's why.

And this prayer isn't over.  This girl is about to pour into the hearts of her own little freshmen that God has appointed for her.  The Spirit knew what He was praying even if I didn't.

Don't just pray to God, pray with God.

How sweet it is to stare into the face of an answered prayer.

I wish I could say that I am done questioning what God does.  I long to embrace the mystery set forth to me, to stop worrying about how it doesn't make sense or how I could spend my time doing something else or praying something else.  I want to welcome questions, not push past them for answers.

In a recent book I read, Pastor Bill Johnson says this:

"If your encounters with God don't leave you with more questions than when you started, then you have had an inferior encounter."

Strong statement.  But if we truly come in contact with God, won't we leave awed, changed?  Won't we wonder?  Or will we just know Him--all about Him, everything there is to know?  If we knew everything about God, He wouldn't be much of a God.  Questions about who God is or what He is doing are absolutely wonderful, wonderful gifts.

That's our communion.  That is life--to live with this supernatural Being who has an infinite number attributes that we get to learn and unending glory that we get to discover.  That is revelation.  That is beauty.

But what about those unexplained times that are not so sweet?  Those times where you have prayed every prayer and read every verse that is set in front of you, you have obeyed everything you feel like God has called you to, you have prayed in power with the Spirit.  You have done everything "right."  And yet you still don't have an answer.  You still don't get it.

I have learned a lot about this.  And I am not finished learning.  Because this will be my whole life.  Not knowing.  Not ever knowing why things happen--but trusting.  I wouldn't need trust if I knew how everything was going to go.  Life with questions is a fun, fun life.  Because those questions mean trusting God.  And trusting God means knowing God.  And knowing God, well, there aren't many words to describe how absolutely marvelous that is.

Sometimes it's about the questions, not the answers.  Sometimes it's about seeking the answer and not so much about finding it.

That's a hard one.

The mystery of God is a sweet one.  It's one that will leave us with all of these things in our head that make no sense.  I can't tell you how often I have to use the word conflicted.  "God, I am just so conflicted about this because I don't understand how I can feel both of these things"  or "Why does this situation leave me so conflicted?" or the all too often "I AM CONFLICTED BECAUSE I AM CONFUSED."

Sometimes I act like I know everything.
Sometimes I like to "figure God out."
And that's just not possible.

But out of all these questions, there is always one answer: Jesus.  When we don't understand and our hearts are torn apart from the confliction and confusion and we are tired, so, so tired from doing everything we think will get us an answer, when we chase after God like our lives depend on it and we lay it all out, interceding for these other people we love so dearly and we throw ourselves at the foot of the throne just for that one answered prayer, that one answer... and we see nothing.  Exhausted and confused.  But still in love.

Our love for Christ must come in front of our need for an answer.

God answers all of our questions, no matter how complex or silly or hard with His own question:

"Will you take my love?"

When we don't understand, let's chose Him.  Let's take His love.  Yes, I would still love to have it all figured out.  I want to know what He is doing.  Sometimes, He will tell me, show me.  And other times I will be left throwing my hands up in the air saying, "What could You possibly be doing right now?"  But no matter how many answers I don't have, I will always have Jesus.

Always.
No questions asked.

LMB

Impossibly Unchanged

I know I have to write this.  I know I cannot let this one slip by, left for me to meditate on and keep to myself for the rest of my days.  I know that this one is a screaming post, one that has been set to my ears and placed on my heart.  It follows appropriately the post I wrote a few weeks ago about the presence of the Lord.  And now I have received new revelation.

We can't be the same.

When we enter His presence, we can never be the same.  Every time we worship, every time we pray, every time we talk about Him or witness Him work, every time we write His name or speak His truth.  When we gather together for bible studies on random days throughout the week and when we join together on Sundays to unite as a body for church.  When we look at the masterpiece of His sunrise or feel the coolness of His wind as it blows by us on a Tuesday.  When we come in contact with Him, He does not want us to leave the same.

So what does this mean and how do we do it?  What kind of radicality does this assume?  It's not that it's radical, it's that it's only obvious.  We are coming in contact with the Creator of the Universe, how could we not be affected?

He touches us.  We are touched by His mighty presence.  Do we invite Him in?  When we sing of His Name do we tell Him to draw closer; do we make ourselves vulnerable to His power?  Are we open to His refinement?  Are we available for His revelation?

Or do we leave with the same burdens we carried in?  Do we sing those songs with familiar words, simultaneously clinging to the familiarity of the world we are used to?  Do we even let Him in at all?  Do we leave in the same state of romance in which we entered?

Or do we fall more in love with Him?

That, oh, that is what I want!  To enter into His presence, to know Him and to never be the same because of it.  What are our expectations?  To go to bible study and to leave with no practical application, no heart change, no sweet, sweet revelation of how good Daddy is, or no awareness of some piece of my heart that has been wrecked and needs rebuilding?  Do we allow change at all?  Do we expect change at all?  Do we welcome change at all?  No?

That is "doing."  That is legalism. That is religion.  Why even go!

When we invite the Lord into our lives (and we should), we are saying, "God, I don't want to be without You."  When we enter into a time of worship and praise to Him, His beauty becomes magnified to us and His Spirit manifested in us and every bit of His glory swallows us whole as we realize we are singing to the Maker of Heaven and Earth.  And when we declare His matchless glory an unspoken comparison of who we are with who He is takes place and we are overcome with the realization of how broken and little and unworthy we are and through His exaltation we fall on our faces and say, "Make me more like You!  I don't want to be this person anymore!"

So, you see, worship is all about Him.  And if our life is worship, wouldn't that mean our life is all about Him?  This is not a new statement, but it is a different angle.  We ask God to come about us because we love His presence.  His presence is where we are safe.  His presence is where we are created for--that realm, not this earthly one.  When we enter into His presence, lives are changed.  Cliche as it may sound, it's true.  If we attempt to enter into the presence of God with no expectations, but familiarity, if it is just something we do every Sunday, another part of our schedule, "Oh, you know, just meeting up with the Savior of my Soul, no big deal," we will find ourselves trapped in a mundane prison of monotony.  We will see ourselves as conversing with a humanized God, one without limitless power and with just enough love to fulfill to our appropriate time frame.

Let Him change you!  Let Him wreck and rebuild you, His child.  Let Him enter into the deepest parts of your heart, the ones that no one knows, the shame that no one sees, the battles you have struggled with for years.  Don't hide these things.  Don't contrive His Lordship to your own appointed heart hierarchy.  Don't pick and chose what areas of your life you want Him to refine.  Let His revelation fuel your transformation.  Surrender all!  Do not let an encounter with Him leave you still holding onto these things.  Let Him take them.  He wants to.

Not one scripture read, not one journal entry, not one strum of a guitar or one line of a song or one healing or miracle or gathering or fellowship, not one mention of His name...


Let not one of experience with Him leave you the same.  If they do, why are you doing them?  An important question to ask.

Make us like You.

LMB

Indeed, I cannot

But if I say, "I will not mention him or speak any more in his name," his word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot. -Jeremiah 20:9

Just read this verse.  Insane, isn't it?  Is that how I feel when I am told to contain Him?  Is that how I feel when I am told to hold it in, to calm down a bit, to act a little more restrained?  Is that how I feel?

Do I feel weary?  Does it even strike a place in my heart?  Does it make me even think for a second that it's not right or that it's not natural or even that it feels kind of funny?

Do I feel the fire shut up in my bones, does it burn my heart to the core like a flame screaming inside of my skin just to break free?  Is that the type of pressure that I feel?

Or could I go on like any other day?

Could I go on?

I have been thinking a lot about the phrase "I can't live without your presence" because a song I have been listening to lately says that sentence in the bridge.  And I really liked it.  My ears perked up a bit and I sang along and I liked it.  Yeah, I liked it.

And then I started thinking about it.  Then I started to ponder it in my heart and it hit me.  The Holy Spirit hit me.

The sentence doesn't say "I can't live as well as I want to without your presence" or "Life isn't as fun without your presence" or "I can't call on you when I need you without your presence" or even "My Sunday mornings are free without your presence."

It doesn't say "I don't like it without your presence but I can still live."
Or "I miss you and all but I can go on without your presence."

And so I got to thinking about how I literally think without His presence... I could not live.

I could not breathe, I could not think or act or talk or move.  I would toss an turn in my bed at night for I could not sleep without having Him in my life.  I wouldn't be myself.  I wouldn't know what to do.  My identity would be in major crisis and everything on which I have built my life would be shattered and I would inevitably fall to the ground, left lying on top of the pieces of rubble.

I would be confused and disoriented and unsure.  I would be tired and drained and hopeless.  My head would probably snap right off at the pace of my neck twisting and turning, just looking, just looking for Him.  Somewhere, any sign of Him, His shadow, His breathe, even just to hear His voice.  I need it.  I need Him.

And there are people who don't have Him.

How do they do it?

No, really.  It's this serious.  It's not just that I can call on God when I need Him or laugh with Him when something funny happens that only He sees or cry out to Him when I am desperate and alone.  It's His presence.  It's the way He's always there and never leaves.  It's that at any given time I have an army of angels surrounding me protecting me against the enemy.  It's times like this moment now where I am alone in a coffee shop and am completely satisfied in Him and have nothing better to do but write to Him out of worship. He's here.  Times where I am walking and the wind is blowing and there is nothing on my mind in particular.  Or times when I am trapped behind a cubicle in the library and want to be anywhere but there, but I know He's there too.  It's sitting in my room by myself every morning, drinking in His word and just talking to Him like He is right there.  Because He is.

It's not only those extreme times.  It's those times, too.

It's times when thoughts of my past are completely shameful.

It's times when thoughts of my present are completely confusing.

It's times when thoughts of my future are completely frightening.

It's times in all this change.  And one thing remains.

So there is this stillness in the midst of war.  There is this peace in the middle of chaos.  There is this rest in the middle of busyness.  That's Him.  That's His presence.

And when I lay my head to sleep at night, He is there.  And when I wake up in the morning I imagine Him looking over me saying, "Good morning, sunshine!"

I can feel it.  I can feel His presence.  And sometimes I can't.  But I have this hope and this trust and this hidden, secretive feeling ingrained deep down in the calcium of my bones that says "I'm here."

There is this intimate connection between Father and Child, Rescuer and Rescued, Redeemer and Redeemed, Sinner and Savior.

There is this connection, this indestructible bridge that connects God and me.  Forever.  The cross.   And I have been sealed by His promise.  I am His.  Forever.

There is the Holy Spirit, living inside of me and it will never move to a new house or get tired of me or get fed up with my consistent disobedience or pride or discontentment or unbelief.  Grace overflows from this Spirit and fills the whole neighborhood within me and it bubbles out of me until I taste and see and realize that He is there.  I realize that I have no other choice but to respond to this grace, to move, to smile, even.

His presence.  I could not live without it.  I would be crawling on the dirt floor out of starvation and suffocation, weary and lost.  Desperate and hopeless.  Drained and dreary.  I would be nothing.  I would be useless.  I  would be pulling myself with every last bit of strength that I had.  I would collapse on my flimsy arms, lying in the puddle of my own tears whimpering, "I can't live without You, God."

What a humbling picture.  Is that how much I depend on Him?  Is that how much I value His presence?  Is that how much I treasure the Treasure?

My skin would explode, pore by pore, my bones would be clanging with the pain of suppression. My spiritual stomach would be growling for Bread, surpassing the pangs until it finally shrinks and shrivels up.  The Spirit would be pounding, kicking, screaming inside of my heart like someone locked alive in a casket, being lowered to their grave.  Pounding.

Tell me to hold it in.

I will tell you, "Indeed, I cannot."

LMB

The experience

Good Friday.  It's Easter season.  What does that mean?

On Monday, Easter is over.  The day will be passed.  Easter is over.  What does that mean?

I like to think that there is no difference.
I like to think that Easter is everyday.
I like to think that resurrection is recurring.
Daily.
Moment by moment.

What is the difference between a day set aside for celebration and family and church and sunrise services and chocolate bunnies and the next day of our lives and from then on?

As a person who is directly affected by the resurrection, what is the difference?
As a person who is forever changed by the blood of the Lamb, what is the difference?
As a person who is constantly redeemed and refined and renewed, what is the difference?

As a sinner, what is the difference?

It's not enough just to know about Easter.  It's not enough just to have head knowledge of it, to know all the theology behind it, the history.  It's not enough to know Easter.  We must experience it.

Let us experience Easter.
This year and forever more.

We have been saved!  We have been rescued!  He died for us and rose again and we pass by Him as He hangs on the cross.  We look at Him one Sunday as a Savior and forget about it the rest of our days.  We pass by the tree on the hill.  We pass by.

But blood can cause a scene.  Blood can turn heads and make you stop in your tracks.  Blood can make you do a double take, turn your head and look back and point and see and say, "What is going on there?"

And this is not any blood, this is perfect blood, this is blood of a sinless Man.  And then you find out that the Man is dying because of you.  So your eyes get wide and you thank Him once and walk away.

Our lives will never be the same.  We will never be the same.  The death, the gruesome, ugly, chilling death that sends shivers up my spine, makes my knees weak and my eyes water when I stop and think, "That Man loves me!"


That Man loves me and here He is dying!
Dying because of me!

How He suffered and died.  He bore all this grief that I feel every day, He bore all the shame that consumes me and suffocates me and makes me stay up toss and turn night after night.  It's heavy.  It's so heavy.  The justifications.  The idols.  And all these days I turn my face from Him and all these moments I lie and lust and cheat and steal.  The instant I give into temptation and the denials I serve to Him daily, I beautify them and place them on a platter and serve them right to Him.  Right to His face.

And He takes them.  How can He take them!  He takes them onto Himself.  He bears them on his back and with every stone we throw, He feels it.  It's just another sin He has to carry. It's just another sin.

It's just another day we live in disobedience.  It's just another idol we worship.  It's just another area of life we can't give up.  We say we can't give it up.  We won't.  It's just a little thing.  We say we will change tomorrow.

It's just another day.

It all adds up.  He carries it on His back and it gets heavy.  He is beaten and battered and bruised and mocked.  People rebuke Him, challenge and test Him and tell Him to come down.  If He is really the Lord can not He just come down? Can not He save Himself?

But He chose to save us instead.

We are the mockers. We are the spitters. We are the stoners. We are the sinners. We are the redeemed.

He redeemed us!  He gave us life when we had none!  When we were dead in our sins He revived us!  By His last breath we breathed our first.  The saints rise up when His head hangs down.  This is our life.  This is our Savior.

This is our Savior.  This is why we live.

He carried the weightiest burden of the world to deliver the weightiest truth to the world.


He chose me.
How could He chose me?


We have no other choice but to spend the rest of our lives pursuing this God.

He was satisfied with the will of the Father.
We aren't satisfied with Him.
He chose to pray instead of sleep.
We chose to sleep instead of pray.
So much sleeping.
He humbled Himself.
We raise ourselves up.
He carried others' burdens.
We turn from the troubles of others.
So much turning.
He loved.
We hate.
He was perfect.
We are sinful.
So much sinning.
He died.
We live.

So much living.

And it doesn't stop at the cross.  The grace doesn't stop there.  By the power of God, Jesus rose again!  He rose and lived and lives today.  The earth shakes with His power and the boulders can't bear to stay in place.  He is alive!  He is alive and death is no more.

A death like His cannot just be considered. A death like His means complacency is impossible.  A death like His deserves all of us.  It deserves all of our praise, every bit of our hearts and our souls and our deepest, deepest dreams and fears and insecurities and worries.  He handled death.  He can handle that.

Trust me child, I can handle that.

Our graves are being dug and our energy drained.  Our arms are being crossed and our eyes shut.  Our bodies are being lowered and our lives decayed.

But He says No!

He says there is no fear in death, He says there is no death at all but only life and life in all its fullness!  And He says it's eternal!

He says there is only Love and redemption and resurrection.

Everyday.

He reaches His hand down to us and pulls us out of these tombs.  Jesus doesn't do tombs.  He doesn't like tombs very much and He knows you won't either.  He pulls us out of these graves and makes us live.

And it's all because He died.
It's all because of Him.

It's not because of us.  When did the resurrection become ours to control?  When did Easter become about us?  When did it start being about our preferences?  When did we get to start choosing when to live and when to sleep?  When did we start worshiping this fuzzy feeling we get when we go to church on Sunday and read the Easter story once out-loud with our suits and ties and new dresses and baskets filled with candy and flowers and our schedules to abide by and our time constraints to meet and this and that...

When did we start living comfortable?
The King wore a crown of thorns and a robe of bruises and lashes and nails in His hands and His feet and a hole in His side.  He died on a cross!  That is not comfortable!

What about our Savior!  Have we experienced His life for us?  We worship a God who died to give us the greatest gift of all.  Grace.  We worship a God who died with our names on His mind.  We can run to Him.  We can talk to Him.  We are His because He bought us.

Adopted as sons and daughters.
We say thank you one day and walk away.

But this changes everything.

Let this reality sink into your heart today.  He loves you.  Marinate your heart in this love.  Let the resurrection permeate your heart to the core.  Let it fill the emptiest part of your heart.  Let it bring you to your knees and fill your eyes with tears.  Let it stir inside of you, His blood rushing wildly through your veins.  He loves you.  Meditate on this.  He bought our lives and gave them to us.  And we keep them for ourselves?  They are His.  It's all Yours, God.  He deserves it all.

Glory to the One!  God's murdered Son!  He took our sin and shame!  He is our hope and peace! Hallelujah to the One who died and rose and lives today!  Praise be the Him in the highest!

We are set free because of Him.  Free.

We have life because of Him.  Life.

It's not enough to know about Easter.  Experience it.  Every single day.

LMB

...I say "we" in this post because I mean me, too.

Freedom

I am starting this post with absolutely no idea where it's headed.  I don't know what I am going to write about, all I know is that God's love is exuding out of me and I have to find an outlet somewhere.

So, this has to be the Holy Spirit.

I don't know how I got here and I don't know if I ever want it to stop. Those moments in life when you have nothing in your brain except for thoughts of eternity and heavenly places and it seems so ironic because you don't even know what you are thinking about because you have never been there.  I mean, I have never been to heaven.  So what exactly am I thinking about?

I do believe that our God meant what He said about life on earth as it is in heaven.  So why do we not live that way?  Why do we not live like our God is alive?  I ask myself these questions.

Easter looms around the corner but honestly it has never left.  Each day is a new resurrection and if you live your life thinking that God is far and that these fleeting thoughts you have about Him are just a phase or just in vain or whatever else you think, think again.

And again and again.  I told someone the other day that I am a firm believer in meditating on things.  Which is a really weird sentence to even utter and I'm not even sure how it even came out of my mouth.  I don't even know how my lips formed that statement.  Sometimes I will have a conversation with someone and just sit there for silent awkward minutes at a time until the other person has to say, "What are you thinking about?"

And then it gets even weirder when I have to say I don't know.  I mean, it is so far beyond my comprehension and still I know it is about Him.  It gives me this swaying feeling, like wind blowing the lightest object in the wind to where it flutters and moves back and forth with grace.  I don't have much grace.  But Jesus does.

So we have these thoughts about whether or not God loves us or whether or not He is even real or whether or not we can give this up or that up or whether this sin or that sin is holding us back or whether or not God wants this for us or that or whether or not we are "called" to this thing or that place and then we get rid of them.  We banish these thoughts and then we say, "I just don't feel God."  But are we letting Him in?  Are we even giving Him a chance?  We get scared of hard things and this radical life God has called us to and we pray with loud voices because we want to override the whispers that we know He wants to speak to use because we know they are scary.

He wants to do impossible things with us.

If we aren't living differently then we aren't doing something right.

What do we expect?  Really, what do we expect?  We expect good worship that makes us feel good and we expect truth to be spoken through other means and through someone else and we expect God to show up when we are pretty and we think God is only there when it's a beautiful day outside or when it's raining really hard and He's like the umbrella or something.  He is the rain.

Let Him rain.

He's the clouds and the stream and the sun and the moon and the cars and the trees and the industries and the smoke and the air and the furnace and the completely normal day where nothing extraordinary happens and yet everything but normality is fluttering about us in our very midst but what do we expect?

Do we really have to have special circumstances to see our God?  Do we really have to have a ministry or a worship night or a summer trip or a crazy conversation or a pretty sunset or a devout blessing?  What about in the corners of our rooms sitting on the floor by ourselves?  Can we talk to God then?

Where did all these lines come from?  These lines of our hearts that God just wants to erase, demolish really and I'm not talking about these lines that say, "I never want You anywhere, God."  I'm talking about these lines that say "God you can be here at this time and here at this time but only a little bit here and only if we sing this song here and only if someone is with me here and only if it doesn't hurt anyone's feeling here and only if you call me here." We tell Him He can't make us look too weird or He can't make us offend anyone or He can't tell us this because it would completely change the way we live and that is just too much to handle right now but maybe later when things calm down.  Maybe later.  We tell Him we will sacrifice this or that on the surface because it's easier than saying "God change my heart."  We tell Him we will abide by the rules because that's all we need to do and it's easier than bringing up these insecurities and these bad memories and these ghosts of our pasts or these fears of our futures.  We tell Him we'd rather Him not interrupt out lives because they are going good and we're feeling good and we are reading really good verses and singing really good songs and having really good conversations with our brothers and sisters.  We tell Him that once we get alone we don't really know how to talk to Him so we just don't.

We just don't.

We think about these things and just let them go in a minute and we don't even stop to think that that one hint of doubt we have in our hearts needs to go to God.  It was just a fleeting thought, right?  No big deal.  We don't even let Him speak to us because we don't give Him a chance.

God is relentless.  God is louder than our voices could ever be.

These lines and these categories and segments and definitions.  These time constraints and these pretty plans and these ministries and these rules and boundaries.  What are we doing?!  We live in this freedom, the freedom of the One True God that nothing could ever hinder.  We live in the wind, the mighty rushing wind that  doesn't just come in the hurricanes or the breeze of the beach.  God's presence is not stimulated by a guitar or a conference or a few tears.  It is stimulated by anything.  It stimulates everything.

Just tell Him to come.  Tell Him you will let Him come.

Come about us, Father.

This freedom.  Ah.  Let us not make our ministries our lives but our lives our ministries.  Let us not follow the rules of time and space but let us follow the flow of the Spirit that never leaves.  Let us not get caught up with life and God just be there, but let us get caught up in God and life just be there.  Let us not worry about stepping on people's toes anymore, but let us be concerned with speaking truth into people's hearts.  It's not about toes anymore, it's about hearts.

Jesus stepped on people's toes.  Jesus captured people's hearts.

Church, in order for revival to take place, God is rising up His body.  He is telling us to wake up, to be the vessel for His Spirit to run freely, flow freely into each passing body, each passing glance, even.  Those cutting eyes that see us ordinary people and know that we have been with Jesus.  Those double takes.  Erase the lines, church.  Stop stifling His Spirit because it feels weird or it looks strange or it offends people.  He has sent us here to pave the way for His Spirit to move.  That road right in front of us.  Are our structured Christian lives displaying the freedom that that Christ has given us?  Or are they actually just the road blocks?

Are we entertaining the very things that crucified Christ on the cross?

Reject passivity.

You could lock me in a dark and empty room and sit me in a corner and tell me to think about the resurrection and I think I'd be just fine.

I preach this to myself, brothers and sisters.

Chaser

I have been learning about this for quite some time now.  You could say I have been learning about this ever since I first heard the word Father and that I will be learning about it for the rest of my life.  This is an impossible thing to describe.  This is an unreachable thing to grasp.  This is a cliche topic that is anything but.  It gets thrown around and contrived to fit our circumstances and is apparent to us only when we need it.  It sits on a shelf in a box for us to grab and go when we please and sometimes that shelf collects so much dust because we never think that we need it.  We don't even look at it.  This is not a light matter.  This is not a word on a page or a line in a song.  This is not even a tingly little feeling we get inside of us that makes us think  in our heads that God is close in that one moment.  This is not something we can pick and choose to have.  This is not something we deserve.  This is not even something that makes dark days disappear or light days last forever.

This is something that is realer than any stigma of real you have in your head.

This is something that penetrates, pulverizes us.

This is something constant, something that will never go away even when we don't accept or acknowledge it.

This is something that makes dark days lighter and light days kingdom days.

This is something that changes everything.

This is the love of God.

The love of a Savior, a Master, a Redeemer.  This is the love of a Father, totally undeserving.  It's revolutionary.  It's love unlike any other love.

Words do not do this concept justice and they never will.

Oh, the love of God.  It grips me and compels me.  It knocks me off of my feet.  It is that powerful.  It is the hurricane, the whirlwind.  And juxtaposed to our love, our little human love, the love we have for the very person we love the most, that love that hurts from the strain it causes us and every chemical we have inside of us that has to do with love is active and moving and flaring and our hearts for these people and things feel like they are about to burst.  The love for our mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters and friends and husbands and wives and boyfriends and girlfriends and dogs and cats and whoever else it is that we love, that we would do anything for, that we would willingly stop what we are doing in our tracks just to utter to this person a single word.  Yes, this kind of love.  His love makes this love look like hate.

His love makes no sense.  It is one big paradox.  He needs no reciprocation and yet it does not take away the intensity of His love.  We spit at Him and mock Him and rebuke Him and refute Him.  He loves us.  We disobey Him and run from Him and turn our ears from Him.  He loves us.  We never call Him Father and we never will.  He loves us.  We try so hard to love Him and fail time and time again.  He loves us.  We don't deserve this.  Who loves like this?

His love is furious and gentle at the same time.  He pursues us.  He does not relent.  He runs after us with fury and might and He strains for us.  He is jealous for us.  Jealousy is a consuming emotion.  Just think about it.  When you, little human, get jealous, it consumes your thoughts and you feel your chest turning and your ears reddening and you clinch your fists and grit your teeth because your heart wants so badly what it does not have.  That is Him.  But that is Him multiplied by infinity.  He hurts when He doesn't have you in His arms. He wants to hold, child, and let you rest.  He cringes when He sees you turn away.  But He does not stand and pout and let emotion override Him.  He runs.  He runs after us.

He chases us.  He never stops.  He is so much faster than we will ever be.  And when we run for the rest of our lives He is running too.  He goes before you.  He is in the belly of the whale before you are tossed from the ship.  You cannot hide from Him.  He wants you too badly.  He just wants you, child.  He says you can run.  Just run to Him.

His arms are open.  He delights in every detail of your life.  He will never let you fall, though you may stumble.  He cries when you cry.  He laughs when you laugh.  And when your heart is latched onto something other than Him, it saddens Him.  Because He wants you.  When no one else wants you.  He wants you.  When you don't want yourself.  He wants you.

Let Him have you.

All of you.  This is not a halfway love.  This is not a love we get at our convenience.  This is not a love we can wake up one day and say, "I think I will have some of God's love today."  This is a love we cannot lose.  This is a love that interrupts our lives and attacks our normality.  This is a love that flips everything else upside down.  This is a love that makes even the very thing your heart desires the most look like rubbish.  It will change your life.

His love burns.  It burns like fire and your heart will never be the same.  This is a love that if you taste it one time you hunger for it all the days of your life.  He screams for us.  He whispers for us.  He carries us and watches us and waits for us.  He does not give up on us.  He does not become discouraged by us.  No matter how far we run He knows you can never be too far off from Him.  Never.

He sees our brokenness.  He sees our skewed thoughts, our insecurities, our dreams, desires, fears.  He sees the deepest parts of our hearts.  He sees the war.  He is in the war.  He never stops fighting for us.  He loves us.  He loves His children.

He needs no conditions.

He needs no confidence.

He needs no self-esteem.

He needs no perfection.

He needs no reciprocation.

He needs no clean record.

He needs no obedience.

He needs nothing from us.

He still loves us.

He shatters our idols.  He throws them against the wall and watches them break right in front of His eyes.  He loves us so much that He is willing to put Himself through pain to save us.  Consider.  He allows us to hurt which hurts Him even more because He knows that these tears will one day be a stream of living water that will rush so freely and wildly, turning every bend, with waves that crash loudly and leave drops of  this water to soak into this dry land that surrounds it on every side.  He only wants good for us.  It hurts Him to see His children hurt.  But He loves us that much.

He is the rushing wind.  He comes riding on a white horse.  He rescues us.  He pulls us out of the pit of destruction.  The enemy is under His feet.  He rebukes Him and casts Him away.  He goes through lengths that we will never see and never know about and never be able to thank Him for to protect us from the enemy.

But He doesn't need "thank you's" to love us.  He does that anyway.

When He looks at us, He doesn't see a banker.  When He looks at us, He doesn't see an immigrant.  He doesn't see a student or a lawyer or a homeless person.  He doesn't see an orphan or a disloyal husband or a prostitute.  He doesn't see a hypocrite.  He doesn't see a convict.  He doesn't see the girl with the insecurities that are ruining her and causing her grief and making her reach for things of this world to satisfy her and give her worth and who pours into herself lies from the ruler of the kingdom of the air instead of heeding to the truth of the Father.  He doesn't see the boy who thinks he is too far deep in sin to go to God, that he could never change his ways, and he thinks there is no turning back now so he runs.  But God doesn't see a runner.

He sees beauty.

When He looks at us, He sees Christ's righteousness.  When He looks at us, He sees His creation.  When He looks at us, He sees His beloved.  He sees perfection when He looks at us.  He sees worth when He looks at us.  He sees past the surface when He looks at us, past the blemish, past the shame and the guilt and the dirt and the sin.  He sees something beautiful. He sees something that He wants, He strains for and yearns for and strives for.  He sees His son.  He sees His daughter.  He looks into our eyes and smiles and sees something that He loves.  When He looks at you, He sees something He loves.

He just loves you.

That's all He knows to do.

That's who He is.

The love we do not deserve.

The love that completes us.

It makes us whole.

We were made for this love.

He stretches out His hand.

He says take it.

It's free.

He says won't you just take it?

Won't just just take my love?