05/22/13

Not Paying Attention in Church

So, Sunday I was sitting in church… just minding my own business. Ok, maybe not. I was minding other people’s business. A woman in my aisle needed to make a quick exit. I almost bumped her butt with my head as I tried to pick my coffee cup up. (I knocked it over when trying to move it out of her path, and didn’t know how well that little flap would hold all that coffee in. I certainly didn’t want to be the reason they stopped allowing coffee in the church, and I didn’t realize her urgency!)

She returned and her husband offered her a piece of gum. That’s a giveaway. She must’ve been nauseous So, does she have the flu maybe? Perhaps morning sickness? Oh, a baby… how exciting! Gee – look at all the seats empty in the middle of all the rows ahead of me. And beside me. Why do we all want the end seats? (I know I prefer them because I’m not very graceful. I fear stepping on people on my way in and out of the row.) What would happen if one week we all just filled in the middles? Maybe they could announce that and we could try it.

Then that poor lady with the little girl who came in late wouldn’t be standing in the aisle waiting for someone to let her get in to sit down. That’s so awkward – someone should let her in. I remember doing that when the girls were little. It isn’t so bad when it’s just me. Oh, that little girl is so cute!

Where is Danielle? I look around for her beautiful curly hair – I have that book she won on my blog last week and want to get it to her today.

BAM!

“Yet the hands that cradle the stars
Are the hands that bled for me

In a moment of glorious surrender
You were broken for all the world to see
Lifted out of the ashes
I am found in the aftermath”

WHAT!? (Church had carried on in my mental absence.) A spiritual tug from H.S. (Holy Spirit) spun me around and I looked up on the screen to see lyrics of a song I hadn’t heard before. “Aftermath” by Hillsong United

In that moment of glorious surrender
Was the moment You broke the chains in me
Lifted out of the ashes
I am found in the aftermath

And in that moment You opened up the heavens
To the broken the beggar and the thief
Lifted out of the wreckage
I find hope in the aftermath

I’ve been so broken. I’ve been in emotional chains. I’ve begged for God to make Himself real to me in the midst of a wreckage of my own efforts.

As I was paying no attention to the song whatsoever (don’t judge me, you know you’ve been here before) God gave me a little flick on the side of my soul’s noggin and said, “Pay attention! This is for you!!”

Up went my hands! Greedy to receive whatever blessing he’d drop into them, I exposed to him my empty hands. I wanted him to know, I’d let go of everything else and was ready for everything he had to give me that morning.

If I’d stayed home, as I was tempted to do, I’d have missed that. Every time I go to church, I’m expecting Him to show up. He never disappoints me. He always shows up.

I know other people probably loved that song too, but I’m glad I didn’t disappoint him by not showing up for His gift to me.

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05/20/13

Behold, My Freak Flag

So, what’s the point? The point of writing this blog. Well, it may or may not be what I thought it was. All I know is… it’s something I’m working on and working through with God. Recently I talked with a friend from our church about her writing. She shared with me the story of when she started blogging, and the specific purpose and circumstances her first blog helped her work through. It was a safe location to just work out all the emotions and thought processes of the situation she found herself in. It served a purpose and once that was fulfilled – she was ready to do something else.

Hmm. That struck me like a tuning fork. I vibrated for days from that conversation.

So, if I think of this blog in that way, what is it helping me to sort out? Every response to that is such a cliche, I can’t bring myself to type any of them. A new me. A fresh start. A second chance. It’s helping me become a woman aware and comfortable with the colors on my unique freak flag.

“I think everybody’s weird. We should all celebrate our individuality and not be embarrassed or ashamed of it.” Johnny Depp

One that’s healed from an all out spiritual warfare against my family. One that sinks into an intimate relationship with God like a warm bath, instead of only allowing him so close because I didn’t want to be “weird”, didn’t want to go to Africa (why do we think he wants everyone to go to Africa?), didn’t want him so close he might ask me to give up something I didn’t want to give up. (Mostly, I just didn’t want to be “weird.”)

One that’s able to handle change with anticipation and joy instead of thinking… “Oh, I must’ve taken a wrong turn.” No one always travels the interstate – there are turns that need made on the way to wherever I’m going.

One that can reclaim her energy and love of life from tragedy and defeat. One that lives for more than ease and comfort – uh oh… maybe a little weirdness – and doesn’t break in the absence of ease and comfort.

One that loves without insecurity – who lives out her identity as designed and defined by God rather than other people – even other people I love very, very much.

“Why had I sat on every gift he had given me to make Him known?
Because I cared more about being judged by everyone else but Him.” Jennie Allen, Anything

One who is finally restored in my energy by a God who found me as a lifeless deflated balloon on the ground and is breathing life back into me. Real life. Not experiences, distractions and activities. Healing, growth, a fondness for my suffering, maturity, wisdom, joy, laughter, friendships. Whoa! Did you see fondness for suffering in there? Yeah… suffering. (Weird again, I know.) Suffering builds and blesses me like ease never could. It binds me closer to God when I put him between me and “it”, or it empties me out when I try to handle it all on my own. It puts me on my face before God, chanting things such as, “You are my champion, my defender, my deliverer, my rescuer. You know the truth. You know me.”

It is the pinnacle of freedom, the warmest sensation of relief to feel him respond with, “Yes, I am, and yes I do. In my presence you are fully known and understood. Stay close, I’ve got this!”

“Until there is total surrender, there is no vision.” Jennie Allen, Anything

This is a journey. It may last years – it may last until August. There’s a verse in the Bible that says His word is a light to my path (Ps. 119:105). He intended to show me, just a little at a time, where I should walk next. He never intended to airlift me to a destination and drop me there. See, I like the whole, “I’ve arrived! Woot!” sort of travel, and apparently I won’t do that until I breathe my last breath.

“We will only understand the miracle of life fully when we allow the unexpected to happen.” Paulo Coelho

In the meantime, there will be books and songs and speakers that make each day new with God’s revelations. There will be quiet moments where I learn something earth shattering and completely over my head; wisdom so simple I can’t believe I missed it until that moment. God’s wisdom doesn’t give you a headache in attempting to grasp it. It’s real and simple and true and your jaw just drops.

There will be moments to spend with friends that restore me because they are gifts from God. They pray, learn, laugh, read, play, and experience beauty with me.

And for now – I’m just sorting through all of that. Being surprised daily. Living with a new expectation… and writing it all out so I can see it in black and white, and understand it.

“I write to understand as much as to be understood.” - Elie Wiesel

Behold, my freak flag.

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05/14/13

Was Jesus a Cult Leader?

In modern times, we hear of cult leaders with fanatical followers who give up their lives and their free will to serve ridiculous claims of deity (think David Koresh and Jim Jones).

Well, I’ve heard Christianity classified as a cult. Is it possible the disciples were just cultists of their day? Uh… no, absolutely not. Know why? Because they hadn’t given up their free will. Time and again, they did their own thing. They even tried to boss Jesus around – make him go here or there, cut short a sermon, send the people away for dinner, skip his time alone with God.

And then there was the crucifixion. Everyone knows that any cultist worth his salt seems to have no survival instinct left at all. Whether he dies from the Kool-Aid, or kills others in a homicidal spree, or refuses to leave a compound under attack… they just don’t run.

Except… the disciples? They ran. They scattered when Jesus was arrested. There’s no mention of them holding a vigil at the foot of the cross. In fact, Peter – the one Jesus said he’d build his church on? Well, he did take a swing, with his sword, at one of the men arresting Jesus. And then, right after that… he pretended he didn’t even know Jesus. He denied any involvement with him 3 times that same night. He was so afraid, he didn’t even want servants to know of the connection.

When news came of Jesus’ resurrection, the disciples were still hiding. Behind locked doors. Mary came with the news and they didn’t believe her. Peter went to see the empty tomb, and still didn’t believe it.

So then, what happened? I mean, eventually all but one of them would meet with violent deaths for this religion. (John was the only one to die of old age.) They’d die on mission trips to India, Britain, Rome and Greece. They’d criticize the religious leaders and accuse them of murdering the prophets. They’d proclaim Jesus as the Messiah, which really rocked the boat.

They went from terrified men of disbelief, hiding for their lives, to bold preachers martyred for their faith. Jesus was dead – there was no reason to continue along this path to their own deaths if he was, in fact, just a good man who was now just a dead good man.

Something had to happen to get them out of their houses. And they personally documented their own stories. Honestly. Embarrassingly. Stories of cowardice and fear. Stories of disbelief and demands for proof.

What happened that changed everything for them? Jesus must have been resurrected. If he were still dead in the tomb, they would’ve continued to wait it out in the safe house. Letting things calm down until they could resume their ordinary lives safely, or sneak out of town. But they didn’t do that. And as a result, they were beheaded, dragged, hanged, stoned, crucified and flayed. And while they were martyred – not one denied Christ to save his own skin.

These weren’t crazy men, deluded and fearless in their insanity or cultist devotion. Christ had been denied by them. They’d been in hiding. They’d already abandoned him. But what happened was so huge, it was impossible for them to quietly disappear. The way they lived and died are proof of Jesus’ resurrection.

photo credit: Lawrence OP via photopin cc

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