From Telling Secrets by Frederick Buechner

"I have called this book Telling Secrets because I have come to believe that by and large the human family all has the same secrets, which are both very telling and very important to tell. They are telling in the sense that they tell what is perhaps the central paradox of our condition - that what we hunger for perhaps more than anything else is to be known in our full humanness, and yet that is often just what we also fear more than anything else. It is important to tell at least from time to time the secret of who we truly and fully are - even if we tell it only to ourselves - because otherwise we run the risk of losing track of who we truly and fully are and little by little come to accept instead the highly edited version which we put forth in hope the world will find it more acceptable than the real thing. It is important to tell our secrets too because it makes it easier for other people to tell us a secret or two of their own, and exchanges like that have a lot to do with what being a family is all about and what being human is all about. Finally, I suspect that it is by entering that deep place inside us where our secrets are kept that we come perhaps closer than we do anywhere else to the One who, whether we realize it or not, is of all our secrets the most telling and the most precious we have to tell" (p. 2-3).

Scary, yet comforting, to read the thoughts of your heart written by another human being. Could possibly rename my blog to "Telling Secrets" as that is precisely what I have been trying to do - tell my secrets so as not to lose myself in the facade and hopefully in the process to connect in a real, authentic manner to my fellow members of humanity. The inability or unwillingness to be real with each other and ourselves is one of the tethers that I believe is holding the Church back from experiencing the gift of true community we have been given through the shed blood of Jesus Christ.

How much is enough?

A recent post from LittlePurpleCow Productions a photography blog by Stephanie Roberts that I read regularly. From what I can tell, this lady is not a Christian - but like many "outsiders" she seems to get it better than many of the people I encounter in the church.

Tuesday, September 15, 2009 at 12:00AM



"I love it when my priorities are challenged. Seeing homes like this in the villages of Umutara in Rwanda reminded me that home is what we make it. And that we really don't require much.

Growing up in a working class neighborhood in New Jersey, our family of four lived in a home that would be considered modest by current standards. Three bedrooms. A living room. A kitchen. A laundry room. And one bathroom. We didn't have a fireplace, or a playroom, or a second story. My brother and I played race car drivers in his closet. In the summer, my Dad would install one window air conditioning unit in their bedroom and my brother and I would camp out on the floor on the hottest of nights. I remember my parents jumping at the opportunity to find a bigger house in the South when the opportunity presented itself. For us kids, the idea of living in a house with four bathrooms, a security system, and a formal living room seemed too good to be true. Gone were the days of banging on the bathroom door.

And this notion of expansion and acquisition stayed with me. I always dreamed of building a big house and filling it up with lots of expensive things. I suppose most of us want more. Something bigger. Something grand. Something more than we have. Yet, as we acquire physical possessions to fill our expanding spaces, how much are we really gaining? Does it define us or dilute us?" {emphasis mine}

Love

See Luke 6:32-36 and Luke 14:12-14

Frederick Buechner writes in The Magnificent Defeat,

The love for equals is a human thing - of friend for friend, brother for brother. It is to love what is loving and lovely. The world smiles. The love for the less fortunate is a beautiful thing - the love for those who suffer, for those who are poor, the sick, the failures, the unlovely. This is compassion, and it touches the heart of the world. The love for the more fortunate is a rare thing - to love those who succeed where we fail, to rejoice without envy with those who rejoice, the love of the poor for the rich, of the black man for the white man. The world is always bewildered by its saints. And then there is the love for the enemy - love for the one who does not love you but mocks, threatens, and inflicts pain. The tortured's love for the torturer. This is God's love. It conquers the world.

What if...

"I think of the scandal of grace - freely received into our lives and then freely distributed to others. Jesus himself said this should be the mark of the Christian, and the single dynamic that would arrest the world's attention." -- Jim White as quoted in unChristian

Personal reflections after reading the book, unChristian.

What if... instead of picketing outside abortion clinics, yelling hateful things at the patients of these establishments, and gunning down doctors, we took the hand of one of these broken women, offered to drive her to weekly counseling, prepared a place for her around our dinner table and listened {truly listened} to her story until God's forgiveness through Jesus could make her whole again?

What if... instead of spending so much time lobbying against the lifestyles of homosexuals, we sat in a hospital room holding the hand of one of God's precious ones as they say good-bye to their beloved partner? What if we walked side-by-side, hand-in-hand at the next event to promote AIDS awareness? Because those are people dying - all over the world, including our neighbors, our friends {hopefully}, our aunts and uncles, brothers and sisters.

What if... instead of spoiling our children and ourselves rotten by purchasing every single thing they/we desire, we flew across the oceans or walked across the street and saved the life of an orphaned or unwanted child?

What if... instead of pronouncing judgment from our pedestal, we were willing to get down on our hands and knees to pick up the pieces of the broken lives of both fallen saints and sinners no matter how many times we might be cut in the process?

What if... instead of constantly meeting at the church house, we encouraged one another to live out our faith in the marketplace? What if instead of signing up for yet another Bible study, we signed up to serve food at the local homeless shelter, or deliver food to a shut-in, or sit with a forgotten one in the nursing home, or read a book to a neglected child, or help teach English to an immigrant {illegal or not}, or take phone calls from the desperate at a crisis pregnancy center or suicide hotline, etc.? We do NOT need more knowledge, we need to put our faith into action {see the book of James}.

What if... we let our light so shine before men, that they may see our good works and glorify our Father in heaven? {See Matthew 5:16}

What if... we stopped marketing Jesus and started loving Him? What if we stopped manipulating people to Christ and started loving them? What if we loved extravagantly and without abandon completely disregarding what it might cost us personally?

What if... instead of filling our lives with trinkets, we filled it with people?

What if... instead of pursuing personal comfort, we pursued - chased after, even - Christ?

What if... we spent our lives on behalf of the poor? {see Isaiah 58}

What if... we practiced pure religion? {see James 1:27}

What if... we found our Calcutta?

What if... we obeyed the commands of Christ?

What if... we lived what we profess to believe?

What if... we stopped pretending?

What if... we dared to be Christians?

What if...

May it be so.

Final quotes from UnChristian

From the chapter, Sheltered:
1. Christians enjoy being in their own community. The more they seclude themselves, the less they can function in the real world. So many Christians are caught in the Christian "bubble."
2. If we allow the actions and attitudes of outsiders to shock us, we become either isolationists or crusaders, and neither extreme will have much influence on outsiders.
3. God wants to use us in the gritty and raw places of people's lives, but our usefulness is hindered if we are more concerned about our protection from sin than the effects of sin in the lives of others.
4. Too many churches expect unchurched people to come to them, but the church is called to go to unchurched people. The church is called to compete for the kingdom in the middle of the marketplace.
5. Christianity is the most exciting story ever told. It needs to be told, not the way we typically dumb it down, but the way it is.

From the chapter, Judgmental:
1. Christians talk about hating sin and loving sinners, but the way they go about things, they might as well call it what is is. The hate the sin and the sinner.
2. Christians like to hear themselves talk. They are arrogant about their beliefs, but they never bother figuring out what other people actually think. They don't seem to be very compassionate, especially when they feel strongly about something.
3. Being judgmental is fueled by self-righteousness, the misguided inner motivation to make our own life look better by comparing it to the lives of others.
4. Yet in our efforts to point out sin, we often fail to do anything for the people who are affected by sin. Think of it this way. The perception is that Christians are known more for talking about these issues rather than doing anything about them.
5. Outsiders might think of us as friendly or that we have good principles, but we are not known for our love.
6. Are you softhearted enough to see a clear picture of your motivations? Just because you are doing the right things does not mean that you have the right attitudes or motivations toward outsiders.
7. God says he "opposes the proud and gives grace to the humble" (James 4:6). We have to start seeing ourselves and those around us for the people we really are - needy and hurting but with great potential as God's sons and daughters. Maybe then we would reject arrogance as adamantly as we do any other sin, because it is especially corrosive to the faith of Christ followers.
8. The writer Philip Yancey offers a great insight about judgmental attitudes, pointing out that the opposite of sin is not virtue; it is grace.
9. We judge because we do not understand.
10. What could happen if we viewed them with the same grace we extend to ourselves?
11. I want Christians to be know as the most loving people - the kind of people who love you until it hurts.
12. We all share the same fallen DNA. The fact that Christians have accepted this grace and are redeemed should create humility in us.
13. Our culture doesn't look at us as a faith of second chances but rather as a religion of judgment.
14. Because it appears at some level that the secular world is capable of "doing grace" better than we are. Christianity's main export has been co-opted by nonbelievers.
15. We must begin by loving each other, forgiving each other, and carrying each other's burdens, especially when we fail. When a brother or sister is steamrolled by life, we don't run from them, we rally around them.

From the chapter, From UnChristian to Christian:
1. Be more concerned with what happens in you than what happens to you.
2. But we should consider whether our response to cynics and opponents is motivated to defend God's fame or our own image.
3. Many outsiders specifically articulated that they think Christians "eat their own."
4. Our future reputation as Christians is intricately connected to our passion for justice, service, and sacrifice.
5. We have lost sight of being for Jesus rather than against outsiders.
6. Read Isaiah 58: 1-4, 6-12. The passage in Isaiah describes on simple yet difficult solution: to rebuild our lives and restore our nation, we have to recover love and concern for others.

More from unChristian

From the chapter, Get Saved!
1. This is a key finding of our research. Only one-third of young outsiders believe that Christians genuinely care about them (34 percent). And most Christians are oblivious to these perceptions - 64 percent of Christians said they believe that outsiders would perceive their efforts as genuine.
2. Rather than being genuinely interested in people for their friendship, we often seem like spiritual headhunters.
3. This leads to the sobering finding that the vast majority of outsiders in this country, particularly among young generations, are actually de-churched individuals.
4. Our research indicates that we have let discipleship languish in far too many young lives. Our enthusiasm for evangelism is not matched by our passion for and patience with discipleship and faith formation.
5. Outsiders' familiarity with Christianity creates the fascinating condition of people actually having too much background in the faith.
6. Many outsiders actually miss the chance to experience true life in Christ because we cheapen the message of Jesus to church membership or denominational loyalty.
7. A deep shift is needed from the sin-altered, me-first, and consumer-minded perspectives that so often plague us as Christians in America.
8. I think the unChristian faith is potent primarily because of this disconnect between our knowledge of God and our ability and willingness to love people.
9. There is nothing more powerful than the Christian life lived out in obedience, there is nothing worse than a flat, self-righteous form of faith that parades around in Christian clothes.
10. Why should the most important message in human history be perceived as a cheap marketing gimmick? If outsiders stop listening, we cannot just turn up the volume. The middle ground between these extremes suggests that we focus on cultivating relationships with people developing environments that facilitate deep spiritual transformation.
11. a few thoughts in the book from Chuck Colson - The church grew because Christians were doing the gospel and had a community - a local church - where people really loved each other.
12. More from Chuck -

One of the things I do when I meet people is ask them, "What is Christian?" Undoubtedly half will respond, "A relationship with Jesus."

That is wrong. The gospel cannot be merely a private transaction. God didn't break through history, through time and space, to come as a babe, be incarnated, and suffer on the cross so you can come to him and say, "Oh, I accept Jesus and now I can live happily ever after." That's not why he came....Jesus came as a radical to turn the world upside down. When we believe it is just about Jesus and yourself, we miss the point.

I even dislike using the words "accept Christ" anymore - because it is so much more than that. Christianity is a way of seeing all of life and reality through God's eyes. That is what Christianity is: a worldview, system, and a way of life. I believe that when you truly see the gospel in its fullness, it's so much more. It is the most exciting, radical, revolutionary story ever told.

I will wait until tomorrow for more to allow you to catch up.

Just a bunch of quotes from unChristian

I would recommend that you actually read this book for yourself. But knowing some of you may not and desiring to still be able to discuss some of its content, I am going to spend the next few days posting some of my highlighted portions of the book. Realizing that by taking the quotes out of the context of the book, they may not be fully understood. But that is the price I pay for not finding an actual book club to participate in.

If you have questions, please ask and hopefully I can clarify what the author and the book is saying. Would love to hear your thoughts, as well. Hopefully, I will be sharing mine after I share the quotes.

Here goes:

From the chapter, The Backstory
1. Often outsiders' perceptions of Christianity reflect a church infatuated with itself. We discovered that many Christians have lost their heart for those outside the faith.
2. Through these surveys and interviews, the Lord has graciously helped me understand the experiences and in may cases the very real offenses, confusions, questions, discouragements, and disappointments that people have had when interacting with Christianity.
3. In fact, the title of this book, unChristian, reflect outsiders' most common reaction to the faith: they think Christians no longer represent what Jesus had in mind, that Christianity in our society is not what it is meant to be.
4. Our task is to be effective agents of spiritual transformation in people's lives, whatever that may cost in time, comfort, or image.

From the chapter, Discovering unChristian Faith
1. Our tracking research suggests that today young people are less likely to return to church later, even when they become parents.
2. As you will see later in this book, the premise of Christianity is not a mystery because the vast majority of outsiders have been to Christian churches and have hear the message of Christ.
3. One outsider put it this way: "Most people I meet assume that Christian means very conservative, entrenched in their thinking, antigay, antichoice, angry, violent, illogical, empire builders; they want to convert everyone, and they generally cannot live peacefully with anyone who doesn't believe what they believe."
4. We have become famous for what we oppose, rather than who we are for.
5. Only a small percentage of outsidersstrongly believe that the labels "respect, love, hope, and trust" describe Christiantiy.
6. The important thing to remember is these experiences have deeply affected outsiders, and the scars often prevent them from seeing Jesus for who he really is. This should inspire our compassion for those outside our churches. We should be motivated not by a sense of guilt but by a passion to see their hurts healed.
7. "You are what you are, not what you tell people you are." As Christians, however, we need to make continual, honest evaluations of ourselves so that we can uncover the ways in which our lives do not accurately reflect what we profess.

From the chapter, Hypocritical
1. We are not known for the depth of our transparency, for digging in and solving deep-seated problems, but for trying to project an unChristian picture of having it all together.
2. In many ways, our lifestyles and perspectives are no different from those of anyone around us.
3. The most common message people hear from us is that Christianity is a religion of rules and regulations. They think of us as hypocritical because they are measuring us by our own standards.
4. The fact that lifestyle is the most common priority of Christians suggests a related difficulty: the temptation to give a false pretense of holiness.
5. Our passion for Jesus should result in God-honoring, moral lifestyles, not the other way around.
6. The unChristian faith - hypocritical, judgmental, and full of empty moral striving - is what Paul warned his readers about! And it is part of the reason we are known as hypocrites.
7. Another significant antidote to hypocrisy (in addition to integrity and purity) is transparency. On one level, hypocrisy is failing to acknowledge the inconsistencies in our life. It is denial. It is, as the Bible describes it, trying to remove the speck from someone else's eye when you have a log in your own. Living with integrity starts with being transparent.
8. I figured that people wouldn't listen to us until we got off our high horse and became real with them. We needed to recognize where there have been faults and sin. Then maybe people would be disarmed to the point of actually listening to the true message of Christ.
9. Transparency disarms an image-is-everything generation.
10. The problem is not fundamentally hypocrisy. We're all hypocrites at some level. The problem is the air of moral superiority many of us carry around. We stop acknowledging imperfections in our lives.
11. The building fund, the pew fund, the organ fund lose their importance when you encouter hungry people daily. Those who have put in a year or more living with families in pain, people on the street, adn victims of injustice, quickly lose respect for the church.
12. Young adults are turning away from a modern church that they see as nothing more than hypocritical. Standards and rules without sacrifice and solidarity is hypocrisy. Christian rhetoric without tangible acts of love is hypocrisy. Churches on every corner with hurting people outside is hypocrisy. A large building with little connection to the streets is essentially empty.
13. The only way to regain our footing is to remind ourselves - and others- that an authentic Christian is simply someone who has made the decision to believe in Jesus as his forgiver and then attempt to follow him as his leader.
14. Novelist Leo Tolstoy wrote this in a personal letter: "Attack me, I do this myself, but attack me rather than the path I follow and which I point out to anyone who asks me where I think it lies. If I know the way home and am walking along it drunkenly, is it any less the right way because I am staggering from side to side!"

Don't jump to final conclusions just yet. There is more. Much more. Tomorrow maybe.

Excerpt from unChristian by David Kinnaman

"We can be defensive about the idea that we are hypocritical. We can ignore it. Yet what if culture's accusations of hypocrisy are God's way of waking us up to the overwhelming needs of others? What if he is using our culture to make us aware of our hollow religiosity and empty answers?

Busters and Mosaics {16-29 years old in this book} are searching for authenticity. They want to find people to trust and confide in, but they often find more transparent, authentic people outside the church. We have opportunities to help outsiders - if we are willing to put aside our unChristian ways of interacting with them.

Philip Yancey, in his book What's So Amazing about Grace? makes his own candid conclusion:

Having spent time around "sinners" and also around purported saints, I have a hunch why Jesus spent so much time with the former group: I think he preferred their company. Because the sinners were honest about themselves and had no pretense, Jesus could deal with them. In contrast, the saints put on airs, judged him, and sought to catch him in a moral trap {sound familiar?}. In the end it was the saints, not the sinners, who arrested Jesus.

If only our view of outsiders were more like that of Jesus. And if only we condemned hypocrites the way he did: "They crush people with impossible religious demands and never lift a finger to ease the burden" (Matt. 23:4).

Think of the overwhelming perception among young outsiders that we are merely hypocrites. Does your life point people to a life in Christ that bursts with freedom to love, restoration, purity, and transparency?

Or are you burying people - insiders and outsiders - under the weight of a self-righteous life? Do you lift a finger to help?

As a Christian, it's my duty to ask: Are you lifting a finger now?

Which one?" (p. 60)

Chew on that a while. Just try not to choke!

Quotes from A Three Dog Life

"Suffering is the finest teacher. It teaches you details." (p.10)

"The season is changing, I take Harry (the dog) to the park and watch the leaves turning underfoot. There is something else I don't know yet, something I'm straining to feel, as subtle as the change in humidity or temperature, or the shift in light as summer becomes fall, the most beautiful season, with its gift of beauty in loss, and the promise of something more to come." (p. 24)

Emphasis mine.

Whom shall I fear?

A qualification before I begin. Sometimes when I am in the midst of worship, it is almost like the Holy Spirit is playing a YouTube video in my mind of all the different people in my life and their struggles. And while I may never actually know what it is they are truly going through, for a moment I feel their hurt and the weight of their burden rests upon me. And at the same time, I feel the strength within me that they need to make it. It is in these Holy Spirit inspired and empowered moments that I am able to truly rock intersession for my fellow brothers and sisters in Christ.

"In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express" (Romans 8:26).

As we sang the following song this past Sunday, I had just such an experience. Again, most of what I am sharing comes from the trials of other people. I fully realize that I am taking some liberties with the application of the verse in this song as David was writing about his enemies and I am translating that to "things." Changing the whom in some cases to what. Please forgive me.

Darrell Evans: Whom Shall I Fear {from Psalm 27:1}

Verse:
I Will seek You, Lord,
While I am in my youth
I will serve You, Lord,
And I'll proclaim Your truth
While I was far away
Always keep me safe.

Chorus:
The Lord is my light, and my salvation
Whom shall I fear, Whom shall I fear
The Lord is the stronghold of my life
Whom shall I fear, Whom shall I fear

As we sang, I praised through my prayers:

The Lord is my light, and my salvation
Whom shall I fear, Whom shall I fear
My uncooperative womb? - NO

The Lord is the stronghold of my life
Whom shall I fear, Whom shall I fear
The cancer or other sickness taking up residence in a body? - NO

The Lord is my light, and my salvation
Whom shall I fear, Whom shall I fear
An unfaithful partner? - NO

The Lord is the stronghold of my life
Whom shall I fear, Whom shall I fear
The unstable economy? - NO

The Lord is my light, and my salvation
Whom shall I fear, Whom shall I fear
A broken relationship? - NO

The Lord is the stronghold of my life
Whom shall I fear, Whom shall I fear
A sick child? - NO

The Lord is my light, and my salvation
Whom shall I fear, Whom shall I fear
The judgement of men, even fellow Christians? - NO

The Lord is the stronghold of my life
Whom shall I fear, Whom shall I fear
An uncertain future? - NO

The Lord is my light, and my salvation
Whom shall I fear, Whom shall I fear
The corrupt world that surrounds us? - NO

The Lord is the stronghold of my life
Whom shall I fear, Whom shall I fear
The decisions of others or a circumstance that is beyound our control? - NO

The Lord is my light, and my salvation
Whom shall I fear, Whom shall I fear
Our own propensity for sin? - NO

The Lord is the stronghold of my life
Whom shall I fear, Whom shall I fear
The dangers some face in real persecution? - NO

Whom shall I fear?
Whom shall I fear?
Whom shall I fear?

"If God is for us, who {or what} can be against us?" (Romans 8:31). We are the only true Untouchables. Now let us stand at arms together with the strength of our Lord in this battle called life.

Real vs. Pretend

The following incident happened a few weeks ago. In the midst of it, I was immediately struck by some brilliant spiritual significance. Then I waited to write the blog entry about it until I could give it my full attention {i.e. early in the morning is the best time for me to write deep stuff}. We started watching another season of 24, and so I have not been getting to bed at an hour conducive to early morning awakenings. Thus the lag in Dust entries.

All that to say, I forgot the point of my story. I wrote the general subject down in my writer's journal so I wouldn't forget to write about it later. But the brilliant spiritual significance has vanished. I even talked it over with Steven hoping that a good discussion would jar loose some of the cranial muck that is hindering my memory. But alas, nothing.

What to do, then? I decided to share the story anyway, and allow you to make the spiritual connection and life application for yourself. {Just between you and me, I need to be able to check it off the list in my journal or it may haunt me}. I would love to hear your thoughts on what you glean from the "parable."

I have a bowl of fake fruit on the end table between the couch and love seat. It contains 3 green apples surrounded by red cherries. The child has been taught not to touch the "forbidden fruit." To which end, she is generally successful.

Not long ago, she was crawling between the couch and love seat and subsequently underneath the aforementioned end table. Which she has done countless times. In this case, she miscalculated and actually tipped the end table. Luckily, I was in the proximity and caught it before it fell over. But some of the fruit spilled out of the bowl. I picked it up, and we returned about our merry way having learned to be more careful.

A few days later, I noticed a cherry on the floor that appeared to have escaped my earlier attempts to clean up the mess. Before I retrieved it from its hiding spot in plain sight, I was distracted. Then forgot about it until a few days later when I spotted it again. Mind you, the child has been crawling right past the thing for days now.

When I finally reached down to recover the errant cherry, I was astonished to realize that the little booger was REAL. You see, in the midst of all of this we had been visited by my parents who brought and ate a package of real cherries while they were here.

But my 18-month-old daughter was so accustomed to the fake cherries and had been so thoroughly trained not to touch them, that she failed to recognize {me too} and completely missed the opportunity to experience the real thing {thankfully}.

What does this mean? You decide.

Draw near to the throne of grace.

The following excerpt is from Pleasures Evermore
by Sam Storm:

"God only looks for humility and desperation in those who would petition Him. So come. Ask Him for grace to love Him, to obey Him, to enjoy Him. Come falteringly, come failingly, but by all means come frequently. (emphasis mine)

What if the believer is unable to put words to his wants? Because this is a gracious throne God will read your desires without the words. Spurgeon explains that 'a throne that was not gracious would not trouble itself to make out our petitions; but God, the infinitely gracious One, will dive into the soul of our desires, and He will read there what we cannot speak with the tongue.' When my daughters were young and struggled to articulate their desires and needs, I didn't berate them or denounce their feeble efforts. I would help them any way I could, even by suggesting the very words they longed to utter. Will our heavenly Father do less for us? Spurgeon put it this way:

He [God] will put the desires, and put the expression of those desires into your spirit by His grace; He will direct your desires to the things which you ought to seek for; He will teach you your wants, though as yet you know them not; He will suggest to you His promises that you may be able to plead them; He will, in fact, be Alpha and Omega to your prayer, just as He is to your salvation; for as salvation is from first to last of grace, so the sinner's approach to the throne of grace is of grace from first to last.

Because it is a throne of grace, nothing is required of you but your need. Your ticket to the throne is not works but desperation. (emphasis mine) God doesn't want sacrifice or gifts or good intentions. He wants your helplessness in order that the sufficiency of His grace, at work on your behalf, might be magnified. This is a throne for the spiritually bankrupt to come and find the wealth of God's energizing presence. This is not the throne of majesty which supports itself by the taxation of its subjects, but a throne which glorifies itself by streaming forth like a fountain with floods of good things" (p. 285-286).

Called to Him.

The words of Karen Watson, servant of the Lord, who was killed in a drive-by shooting in 2004 while living as a missionary in Iraq. She wrote them in a letter to the pastor of Valley Baptist Church with the instructions to open it only upon her death. I painted these words on a wall in the house in little B-town. I pray that someday they would truly be written on my heart, and perhaps even said about the way I chose to live this life He has given me. For Him. For His glory.

The Purple Martens

My neighbor has a purple marten house in her backyard. She recently shared the following story with me, and I thought that I would pass is along.

One morning my neighbors awakened to the blessing of five baby martens perched upon the top of their marten house. Apparently, this was the day designated for them to learn to fly. The four females in the group promptly launched themselves from the safety of their perch, caught the wind and soared to heights yet unknown to their little hearts.

After much frolicking in the breeze, they noticed that the last of their siblings, the lone little male, was still gripping tightly to the bar unable to let go and enjoy the freedom of flight. Periodically, he would flap his wings in an attempt to bolster the courage necessary to take the first plunge into the unknown. But it was only after his beloved sisters returned to his place of fear and fluttered all around his head while chirping incessantly that he was able to overcome his paralysis and finally embrace the call of the wind. He was FLYING!

Even the birds of the air understand the importance of encouragement.

What person is there in your life that, even today, requires your encouragement in order to spread their wings and fly? That encouragement may come in the form of your acceptance of who they are, your forgiveness for what they have done, your gentle push in the direction they should go, or perhaps, just your presence in the midst of their struggle.

May we be found willing and faithful, for the sake of our flightless friends, to flutter and chirp until our wings can beat no more and our song becomes hoarse. That, they too, may soar.

In Christ Alone

After my earlier post this morning, I just had to listen to one of my all time favorite songs. Adrienne's voice and the instruments in this version speak to my soul like no other song can. It is the closest thing I have heard to what my mind imagines the praises in heaven to sound like. I used to make my 30 minute commute to work listening (while singing at the top of my lungs, and yes my hands left the steering wheel on occasion) to this song over and over.

Feel free to share your favorite.

Winsome

Have you ever been around someone that made you feel like you were in the presence of the Lord? Their entire being radiates with the joy of the Lord. They truly are the sweet aroma the Scripture talks about. You leave their company feeling refreshed, encouraged, perhaps even challenged or maybe pushed beyond your comfort zone - all in love.

No matter what, you want to spend more time with them. Because you know that with them you will encounter the Living God. Winsome. Characterized by joy. Charming, not by the world's definition, but in the supernatural, Holy Spirit empowered manner that draws people to the Lord and invites them to taste and see that He is good. Esther had it. My beloved friend Rachel has it (by the way, Happy Belated Birthday, precious one - if only we weren't separated by the pond). The people in the church we have been attending have it.

I want it. More accurately, I want to live it. The truth is we all have it (we are the very presence of the Lord here on earth as members of His Body and inhabitants of His Spirit), but some of us don't know how to live it yet. We are still trapped in the bonds of religious performance, unable to walk freely in the grace of God. Myself included.

If I were honest, I would have to admit that being around these people can be intimidating. Sometimes when I sit in this congregation, I feel like I am back in college attempting to take a senior level English class without having all the prerequisite courses. Perhaps you know the feeling, like everyone around you knows something that you do not, but that you should and everyone assumes you do. Only, I do know what they know I just don't know how to truly know it. Do you understand the words that are coming out of my mouth? Perhaps not. Me neither.

An example always helps.

What is the difference? What do they understand and live that is missing in my life, and perhaps yours as well? Let me offer a few quotes followed by life examples to illustrate what I believe is the answer to those questions.

Sam Storm states, "God delights in our delight in Him." Or as John Piper says it, "God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him."

Makes me think of my little Emmylou. You know what brings the most joy to my heart? Not when she performs some feat or task for me. Not even when she is pleased with something that I have given her. No, my greatest joy comes when I see the delight on her face at being in my presence. The contentment that takes over her little body when we just snuggle on the couch reading books together. The fact that being with me brings her happiness makes my heart sing. Her love brings me honor and delight.

Contrast that with other human relationships. The people in your life for whom you feel the obligation to earn their approval. They are not merely satisfied with nor do they enjoy your presence but instead require your performance. Their company becomes a burden to your heart. The work it takes to please them steals any joy there might be in just being with them.

Translate those examples to our relationship with the Heavenly Father. Which God do you serve? The God of the Bible looks at me in the same way I look at my Emmylou.

The irony is that by delighting myself in Him, feasting on Him, basking in His glory, I find the desire and strength to obey Him. His yoke truly is easy and light. By enjoying Him and His presence, I become a true reflection of Him to the world. I attract others to Him. I become winsome. Characterized by joy, not obligation and burden.

I want it. I will live it. Not for the approval of man. Not for them to praise me and say "how wonderful I am." But that they might "see my good works (and even my joyful countenance) and praise my Father who is in heaven" (Matt. 5:16). He is worthy.

"Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart" (Psalm 37:4). Even when the desire of your heart is to learn to delight in Him.

The very same Jesus

We are called to a Person, to Him. As A.W. Tozer states, "to the simplicity of Jesus Christ and His unchanging person."

From the July 23rd entry in A.W. Tozer on The Almighty God:

"The very same Jesus - a Brother who bears your image at the right hand of the Father, and who knows all your troubles and your weaknesses and sins, and loves you in spite of everything!

The very same Jesus - a Savior and Advocate who stands before the Father taking full responsibility for you and being easier to get along with than the nicest preacher you ever knew and being easier to approach than the humblest friend you ever had.

The very same Jesus - His is the sun that shines upon us, He is the star of our night. He is the giver of our life and the rock of our hope. He is our safety and our future. He is our righteousness, our sanctification, our inheritance."

In time may I learn to love Him in the manner worthy of Him, in which He deserves as the reward of His suffering.

Meditation on God and His Works

Quote from Pleasures Evermore by Sam Storm:

"Just thinking about thinking about God can be a mind-altering experience. Actually thinking about Him is even better" (p. 196).

Well said.

For starters, see Psalm 145.
Psalm 27:4
Psalm 63:6
Psalm 77:5-6, 11-12
Psalm 111:2
Psalm 119:27
Psalm 143:5
Psalm 145:5
Colossians 3:1-2
Hebrews 12:2-3

Becoming that which you already are...

Inspiration can come from the most unlikely places. And this instance is no exception. Steven had recorded a new drama directed by Jerry Bruckheimer and was watching it while I was in the same room preparing photos to be posted on the family blog. I won’t go into the nitty gritty details of the show, but you might need to know the overall premise to understand the quote that struck me while I as “listening.”

The show chronicles the deeply undercover work of a specialized group of Los Angeles policemen and women. The assignments obviously include elaborate “cover” stories, or second lives, that the people must lead in order to get to the bad guys. At a crucial point in the pilot, one of the more seasoned agents is sharing with the newby regarding the difficult balance it takes to keep your real self separate from the “cover” self and the confusion that sometimes blurs the line in understanding who the real you actually is.

He states, “How long can you pretend to be something before you become it? Right?”

At which point I turned to Steven and said, “That could be true both good and bad.” I would simply like to replace the word “pretend” with “believe,” and I think we are onto something.

It reminded me of a tween fantasy-adventure series called The Wilderking Trilogy which is the re-telling of the story of King David only in an imaginary world that is fashioned after the woods, rivers and swamps of the southern half of Georgia. It has a definite Lewis, Tolkien feel to it. At one point in the story, the “prophet” known as Bayard the Truthspeaker visits Lord Errol’s land and announces that his youngest son, Aidan is destined to be the much prophesied “Wilderking.” I will never forget a conversation the prophet has with the would be king (I would quote it directly, but my library collection is in storage at this point in time).

The prophet says that Aidan is the Wilderking, but Aidan asks how he is supposed to become the Wilderking. To which the prophet simply states, “Live the life that is in front of you.”

There it is. You are. Believe that you are (or in some cases pretend to believe until you actually do). Live the life in front of you. And you become that which you already are.

Hopefully that is clear as mud. Makes sense in my head, but the words seem to mess it all up. Maybe a few examples would help.

1. I am victorious (1 John 5:4; 1 Corinthians 15:57). Believing that I am victorious, I live the life in front of me. I become victorious.
2. I am holy and blameless (Eph. 1:4; 1 Corinthians 1:8). Believing that I am holy and blameless, I live the life in front of me. I become holy and blameless.
3. I am set free (Romans 8:2; John 8:32). Believing that I am set free, I live the life in front of me. I become set free.
4. I am more than a conqueror (Romans 8:37). Believing that I am more than a conqueror, I live the life in front of me. I become more than a conqueror.
5. I am the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21). Believing that I am the righteousness of God, I live the life in front of me. I become the righteousness of God.
6. I am a light in the world (Matthew 5:14). Believing that I am a light in the world, I live the life in front of me. I become a light in the world.
7. I am Christ’s friend (John 15:15). Believing that I am Christ’s friend, I live the life in front of me. I become Christ’s friend.
8. Etc, etc, etc.

What is your cover story? And how close is it to the truth of who the Bible says you are in Christ? Believe, live and become the truth.

Sippy Cup Envy

I have actually had this episode written in my head for a week or so, but could not decide whether it belonged here or on the family blog - Adventures in Serendipity. But after writing yesterday's post, I realized that it would support the point I made rather nicely. So, lucky you, here it is.

Last week I met a friend and her two children at the mall so we could visit while the kids ran wild (as you may know I use the term "ran" loosely when referring to my child). After 30 minutes or so, I noticed an interesting phenomenon, more accurately an epidemic, taking place all over the "playground." It began with one child noticing the abandoned sippy cup of another child who was busy jumping off the toys and generally enjoying his life as a carefree three-year old.

Then, before I could comprehend what was happening, it was on. I watched in amazement as mothers all around the play area struggled to pull their respective children back from grabbing and drinking from a sippy cup other than their own. Tempers flared, tantrums were thrown (yes, I am referring to the mothers). Sippy cup envy had turned what moments before had been peaceful playtime full of frolicking children into a maelstrom of discontent and extreme frustration.

As I watched this episode unfold in front of me, I was immediately struck by a few things. First being, how scary it is to realize that the propensity for jealousy and dissatisfaction with one’s own things can manifest itself in such young children. Phooey on The Fall and that pesky sin nature we are born with. Secondly, how tragic it was that because these children had become so obsessed with wanting something that was not theirs and that they could not have that they were missing out on the incredible gift and blessing of the freedom to play – to run free, climb high, jump far, and just plain enjoy the company of other kiddos. A temporary desire or supposed pleasure was stealing the joy set before them.

Hmm. Sound familiar? How many times do we allow our joy in Christ to be stolen by our childish jealousy and dissatisfaction with our present condition? Why does this happen? The object of our focus. Perspective. 100 ft. Rubbish or Risen Christ?

I am reminded of Sam Storms’ comments on the words of Paul found in Colossians 2:20-23:

“Holiness, in this case the ability to say No to ‘fleshly indulgence’ (2:23), comes not from rigorous asceticism or self-restraint but from a mind captivated and controlled by the beauty and majesty of the risen Christ and all that we are in Him in the heavenlies!

Yielding to fleshly urges is overcome by ‘seeking’ the things above. Fixing our minds on ‘things above’ leaves little time or mental energy for earthly fantasies. The heart that is entranced by the risen Christ is not easily seduced by ‘the things that are on earth’ (verse 2b). Paul uses language that requires both the energetic orientation of our will (‘keep seeking’) as well as the singular devotion of our mind (‘set your mind’). This is a conscious and volitionally deliberate movement of the soul to fix and ground itself on, indeed to glut itself in, if you will, the beauty of spiritual realities as opposed to the trivial and tawdry things of this world” (p. 131).

“’Seeing’ Jesus in the Word reconfigures our emotional chemistry and transforms the disposition of our hearts in terms of what we love, desire, cherish, hate” (p. 133).

Or the words of a dear sister in Christ and gifted photographer, Dejah Quinn: “I know it feels like an uphill marathon....just keep running my dear! Chasing HIM...Don't EVER stop. And keep listening...He will coach you. Listen to His convictions...and His alone. (Us humans have really screwed up the recipe of the gospel buy adding our own ingredients....haven't we?!).”

The object (or person) of obsession is our choice – the neighbor’s sippy cup or the incomparable beauty of the Son of God?

Truly, only Christ matters.

Perspective

I am going to share a real life story with ya, but let me apologize in advance. Because it is either one of those "you had to be there" stories or one that is fully appreciated when it is told in person, or both. Anywho, let's give it a shot and hopefully this not-so-spiritual example will turn out to be just the tool I needed to make my deep, spiritual point in the end (this could be a train wreck). Because, as Rob Bell says, "Everything is spiritual."

Not so long ago, the family was driving north on I-35 from Norman into Moore. It had been awhile since I had taken that route, but not so long that I was not abreast of any major changes. As I was gazing at my dear husband (no worries, he was driving - not me), suddenly I saw a neighborhood just west of the highway that in all my many travels I had never noticed before. My first thought was, "Hey, where did that come from?" This new discovery prompted me to investigate my surroundings more thoroughly upon which I realized that I no longer recognized where I was.

The logical part of my brain reminded me that we were heading north on I-35 between Norman and Moore, the more powerful, not-so-logical side was beginning to panic. Against my better judgment, I decided to share my concern with the long-suffering driver of the vehicle. Only to be greeted with an even more disturbing reality. He lovingly pointed out my window to show me that "our highway," the one we would normally be driving on was just a mere 100 ft to our right, or east.

You see, the new stimulus package had created yet another road construction project in OK so that this particular section of the north bound highway was closed and the traffic diverted to one lane of what would normally be part of the south bound traffic. I had an eery, out-of-body type feeling watching the road we should be traveling on passing by without us on it. Boy, did we have a good laugh over that paranoid episode. So much so, I arrived at our destination looking like a raccoon.

But I digress. I can hear you begging, "Point, please, Misty. Get to the point."

Change in perspective. 100 ft. That is all it took to completely discombobulate (go, Cha Cha, go) me. I was totally lost. EVERYTHING looked different to me, even when we reached sections of the road where there were major businesses that I did recognize. Familiar, yet different. 100 ft. rocked my little world.

Somehow, I think that is what Paul is talking about in his "rubbish" passage in Philippians 3:7-11.

"But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ. More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them rubbish in order that I might gain Christ, and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, that I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; in order that I may attain to the resurrection of the dead."

Admittedly, Paul's conversion on the road to Damascus was a much more drastic change in perspective than a mere 100 ft. But the principle applies: a change in perspective caused EVERYTHING to look different to him. What he once prized, now disgusts him. Why? Because when our focus is Christ, knowing Him, being found in Him - all else just fades away.

Paul made a list (man, I love that guy) of the things he boasted in prior to his change in perspective.

From Pleasures Evermore by Sam Storm:

1. He was circumcised the eighth day.
2. He was of the nation of Israel.
3. He was of the tribe of Benjamin.
4. He was a Hebrew of Hebrews.
5. He was, as to the Law, a Pharisee.
6. He was, as to zeal, a persecutor of the church.
7. He was, as to righteousness, blameless.

"Perhaps it would be wise for each of us to pause at this point and draw up on own list. So let me ask you: What are the seven things in this world, in your life, that compete with the most intensity to win your heart away from Jesus? If you were of a mind to boast in earthly achievements and accolades, what would they be?"(p. 116).

I am going to share my list, and then I would love for each of you to share your list in the comments section if you feel prompted to do so. Or, you could share a personal perspective change experience. Not just the initial conversion experience, but maybe a gut-check along the way that brought you back into proper focus of The King. That is basically what this blog has been for me. A chronicle of the Master planned and orchestrated change in perspective of one, Misty Garrison, humbled wife and mother who is finally learning what it means to fall in love with Christ.

My list, in no particular order:
1. My Christian heritage and upbringing
2. My personal sacrifices made for the kingdom
3. My self-righteousness - or human attempts at "being a Christian" and doing what Christians do and not doing what Christians don't do (whatever that means)
4. My "knowledge" and "study" of spiritual thingys
5. My station in life (as if I have anything to do with that)
6. My faithful "church" attendance and service
7. My ability to "earn more points" than the next guy

Your turn.

Today's quote:

"God is not so much about fixing things that have gone wrong in our lives as finding us in our brokenness and giving us Christ."

from A Jesus Manifesto for the 21st Century Church
by Leonard Sweet and Frank Viola

Grace.

I just love reading books written by authors who have struggled with legalism and yet are now living in the beauty of grace. Or the letters written by our beloved brother Paul. They give me hope. I, too, will get it someday. The light will come on, bells will start to ring, and I will allow God’s grace to wash over me, filling my cup to overflowing that I might then be an agent of grace to those around me.

With that in mind, I was reading the highlights I made in the books of one of my favorite authors of late and would like to share of few thoughts that struck home with me. Sometimes a little too close to home, if you know what I mean.

From Grace Based Parenting by Dr. Tim Kimmel:

“Home grown grace. I personally have no idea what this kind of grace looks like.

There’s nothing about grace that comes naturally to me. My appreciation for this wonderful gift has grown from the myriad ways I’ve received it rather than the isolated cases where I’ve happened to exercise it (p 127).

In one sense, legalism is a lazy man’s religion. It’s an empty Sunday suit that doesn’t require much of a personal relationship with God. It doesn’t require much thinking either. You simply memorize the list of things that good Christians do, and then you try to check off as many as possible during the week. You also study a much longer list of things that Christians don’t do. You have to work overtime to avoid doing these things, while at the same time avoiding anyone who does them as well (p. 128). {Sound familiar to anyone else but me? Oh, the elaborate point system I have concocted in my mind.}

Lest you think that being raised in strident, legalistic churches is a prerequisite to an adult life of legalism, the fact is that legalism is the path of choice for many, if not most, people who come to know Christ personally. There’s something instinctive about turning a belief system into a checklist and faith into a formula. It’s also easy to distill beliefs into programs and rituals that substitute for true intimacy with God. When God gives you children, you head to church to see if someone has some answers in a pre-packaged and predictable plan for turning them into strong Christian kids (p. 130-131). {Good, I’m not alone in this craziness after all. Oh, I am deeply sorry if you are one of the poor saps in this mess with me.}

One of the great things about God’s grace is the safe haven it offers to a transparent heart. He doesn’t require masks in His throne room. I know. I’ve been there.

Jesus makes people feel comfortable even when He catches them without their make-up. When circumstances scrub off the layers of their self-confidence, and their shortcomings wash away the foundation of their self-righteousness, Jesus isn’t appalled by the blemishes He finds underneath. There’s no sin too bad, no doubt too big, no question too hard, and no heart too broken for His grace to deal with.

These are the very things that children need to learn early on in their lives, and God has given parents the responsibility to be the gatekeepers of His grace. It is your careful response to these fragile issues that plays the key role in whether your children will even be inclined to head down the path to God's grace. Further, seeing your regular trips down this path for your own personal vulnerabilities make is easier for your children to trust you when you try to take their hands and show them the way (p. 164).

You’ll probably never know the profound impact that the giving of grace will have on your children’s vulnerabilities, but it’s obvious how much devastation can be wrought if you don’t. If God had not visited Paul with grace during his times of vulnerability, his letters and his history probably would have turned out quite differently. It’s the same for your children. Those things within their lives that give them pause are the very things you are called to meet with grace (p. 177).

My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9).

Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong (2 Corinthians 12:9b-10).

It was in God’s grace that Paul figured out how to feel secure, significant, and strong. His personal weaknesses and points of vulnerability weren’t removed, but he had the necessary grace to face them and accept them (p. 176).

Could it be possible that after we have accepted this gift for ourselves, we might begin to extend it to our children, our loved ones, our hard-to-love ones, our they-hurt-me ones, our they-failed-me ones? Instead of focusing on shortcomings, failures, weaknesses, irritations, inconveniences, what if we celebrated the beauty in our people? What an amazing gift it could be. May it be so, Lord.

I have said it before, and I will say it again:

“I want to be safe – that place where people can fail and still be loved” (from Quaker Summer by Lisa Samson).

A few quotes before bed...

From The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses by C.S. Lewis:

"If we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered to us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased."

From Pleasures Evermore by Sam Storm:

"The goal or purpose of the Christian is precisely the pursuit of happiness - in God. The reason for this is that there is no greater way to glorify God than to find in Him the happiness that my soul so desperately craves" (p.33).

"God is most glorified in us when we are most happy and delighted and satisfied in Him. And it is this happiness in Him that alone will, at the end of the day, win our hearts for holiness and wean us from sin. Pleasure in God is the power for purity" (p. 29).

From Trading Sorrows by Darrell Evans

I'm trading my sorrow
I'm trading my shame
I'm laying it down for the joy of the Lord

I'm trading my sickness
I'm trading my pain
I'm laying it down for the joy of the Lord

Chorus:
And we say yes Lord yes Lord yes yes Lord
Yes Lord yes Lord yes yes Lord
Yes Lord yes Lord yes yes Lord Amen

I'm pressed but not crushed persecuted not abandoned
Struck down but not destroyed
I'm blessed beyond the curse for his promise will endure
And his joy's gonna be my strength

Though the sorrow may last for the night
His joy comes with the morning

And I would add:
I'm trading my list of rules,
I'm trading my efforts against sin,
I laying them down for delight in the Lord

I'm trading my self-righteousness,
I'm trading my religiosity,
I'm laying it down for delight in the Lord

Emptied, that I might be filled……

with joy. Thanks to Cha Cha and his comment recently on joy, I have a nice transition into my next post.

From Cha Cha: I think as we mature in our Christian walk the more we realize how messed up we are. (Sinful creatures) But we need to remember lots of things one being...Joy...the Christian life is supposed to be full of joy.

That is why, lately, I really like Romans 15:13 "Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing..."

As a recovering Pharisee (one of these days I plan to be able to say “former” Pharisee but as for now the battle is too fierce and the lapses too frequent and long to claim that victory. Soon, please Lord, soon), I have spent a great deal of my life dedicated to keeping up with the “rules” of Christianity and the “performance” that goes along with that. In the past satisfaction was found in my human efforts at righteousness in an attempt to please God, my fellow man, and myself. Yes, that is called sin. If only they had special meetings for people like me…..oh, yeah, they do. It is what we like to call church.

Despite the fact that my head knows and believes God is interested in a relationship with me instead of a list of rules that I have followed, my heart struggles. Or perhaps it is the other way around. In either case, my temperament along with years of living in a performance-based society (sometimes church included) have made this a difficult weight to bear and to unload. Oh, what I would give for a few more late night discussions (otherwise known as therapy) under the tutelage of Rob O and his precious wife. That brother gets it. He is hard-wired for it.

Instead God, in His infinite wisdom, has chosen to chip away at my addiction to religiosity through His Word and the words of human authors in the various books I have been reading. Through religious detox, He has stripped me down to zero. I no longer know what I thought I knew. Now begins the rebuilding. God can rebuild me, He has the technology. He can make me better than I was before. Better. Stronger. Filled with more joy!

A few words from the book Pleasures Evermore by Sam Storm (who just so happens to pastor the church we have been visiting – coincidence? – I think NOT), and then I must go for today as the baby begins to sing and tell stories in her crib:

“Holiness is then measured by how successful we are in saying No to our list of personal prohibitions. Being a Christian becomes an issue of restraint. We define our identity in Christ in terms of what we don’t do (that’s me). We judge the spiritual status and maturity of others based on how diligent they are to withdraw from the same list of prohibited activities we do (ouch!). Love for God is measured by our commitment to separate from the unsavory and avoid the unacceptable (p. 22). The result notes Jeff Imbach, is this:

‘Life becomes proscribed by all the things we should avoid and prescribed by all the things we must be careful to do. We get so busy trying to demonstrate our spiritual correctness that we lose the art of living out of our souls. We downsize our souls to achieve a safer bottom line of religious acceptability. We are left to live between the rock of crisp correct religious doctrines and rules, and the hard place of duty-bound activity as supposed proof of our spiritual fervor (from The River Within: Loving God, Living Passionately, p. 23).

I say, “No more!” I have had enough. I choose victory. I choose joy! But, how?

“There is no way to triumph over sin long-term unless we develop a distaste for it because of a superior satisfaction in God. The only way to find sin distasteful is to eat and savor the sweetness of all that God for us in Jesus. The solution isn’t to stop eating. The answer isn’t found in ignoring our hunger pangs. They key is ingesting the joys of Jesus and the grace, mercy, kindness, love, forgiveness, power, and peace that He alone can bring to the famished soul” (p.21-22).

May it be so! And in case you still don’t get it, because I sure haven’t.

“I’m convinced (Sam speaking here) that we have only one of two options. Either we can devote ourselves and our time and our energy to demonstrating the ugliness and futility of sin and the world, hoping that such will embolden our hearts to say No to it as unworthy of our affection, or we can demonstrate the beauty and splendor of all that God is for us in Jesus and become happily and joyfully enticed by a rival affection.”

“The only way to liberate the heart from servitude to the passing pleasures of sin is by cultivating a passion for the joy and delight of beholding the beauty of God in the face of Jesus. What breaks the power of sin is faith in the promise that the pleasures of sin are temporary and toxic but at God’s right hand are pleasures evermore” (see Psalm 16:11) (p. 31).

Amen. And in case you missed it the first time you read it: “We get so busy trying to demonstrate our spiritual correctness that we lose the art of living out of our souls” (Jeff Imbach). Chew on that a while.

Confused, confident and in need of comments

I feel like I am finally hitting my stride. Thirty-something and getting comfortable in my own skin. Not satisfied mind you, but comfortable. You might even say confident. I don't have it all figured out by any means, but that is why I feel confident. I can finally admit to myself and to others, without shame, that I do not have the answers. I don't need the answers - I have Him. I can finally begin to rest in Him. So there it is - still confused, but utterly confident.


Being able to express myself in this blog and by journaling in my other new obsession (digital scrapbooking) have helped tremendously in treating what I like to call "my crazy." It has been extremely cathartic to get my thoughts out there. I have experienced a tremendous comfort in having an outlet of expression, no longer bottling everything inside. Nothing has changed per se....as I stated earlier - no answers. But each time I allow a piece of myself out through the written word, I feel another weight being lifted. As if by admitting it to whomever may or may not be reading, I am releasing my grasp of it. I still need to continue to work out my salvation with fear and trembling as it says in The Word, but I don't feel the need to hold so tightly to my "issues." They are still there, but they no longer crush me.


So I guess I am saying thank-you to anyone who might take the time to read, because even if I may not hear back from you, somehow the Lord lets me know that you are carrying the burden with me. And for that I am eternally grateful. I know all too well the weight of "my crazy," so your willingness to experience it with me goes beyond words.

We were made in the image of a triune, relational God who is in constant communion. Therefore, it is part of my Christian DNA to desire to share my life with others, and while life circumstances (raising our crazy critter) have taken me out of circulation so to speak - this avenue of expression is all the more precious to me. Some days I wish that it could be more of a dialogue instead of a monologue. Add that desire to the fact that one of my love languages is "words of affirmation," and you have a blogger in need of more comments. As much as I tell myself and my husband that I do not write for comments but instead for self-reflection, healing and perhaps the opportunity to help another on this journey, I still find myself logging in numerous times a day to check to see if there have been any comments added.

I do not share this to cause guilt or coercion of comments, but instead as encouragement to any of you who have been feeling lead to share but have been hesitant to do so. We have so much to learn from one another, and I know for certain that I am not the only one with something to say. You never know who your words might help, yourself included. Of course, I must confess that I, myself, am negligent when it comes to commenting on the blogs that I read regularly. I read, am encouraged, challenged, touched, etc. then go about my merry way without letting the people I read know how much their words have blessed me. Pot calling the kettle black, so to speak. Yet another example of hypocrisy in my life. Will it ever end? Yes, the day My Lord comes to take me home. Selah.

I saw God today.

in the bread and the cup.
in all the mommies holding babies in the sanctuary.
in the tears of a grown man struggling to say good-bye to his church family.
in the laying on of hands and prayer for families being called away to serve Him.
in all the voices being raised as one in praise and worship to The King.
in all the little voices "talking" during the service.
in the Truth of His Word proclaimed with honesty and dignity.
in the inexplicable joy that there is now therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ.
in the loving fellowship of brothers and sisters in Christ.
in a room full of imperfect, real people gathered in His Name.
in the faces of His children.

I saw God today, and I plan to look for Him again tomorrow.

Finally.

Might I suggest you grab your beverage of choice. We are going to be here a while.

One interesting note before we get to the good stuff. A few of the symptoms of a person suffering from my condition include that I must finish any book that I start (with one exception to remain nameless – wouldn’t want to be responsible for bad press), and I am usually unable to read more than one book at a time. But, as of late, I have been reading some pretty heavy stuff and have been forced to give myself breaks every now and then in order to attempt to digest the words of people much smarter than myself.

It just so happens that I was in the middle of such a break with a fun book during a visit with my sister’s family one weekend. My brother-in-law had recently found out about my silly little blog and subsequently stayed up late catching up on all the entries. A few days later he suggested a topic that he would like me to address. Pentecost, but more specifically, what he considers to be one of the most incredible miracles of the Bible: the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the entire group of believers at Pentecost. Even more specifically, why God chose to send His Spirit to all of them at once as they met together in one place instead of to each individual believer as they went along on their individual journeys of faith with Him. If you have been paying attention to the themes of my blog entries, you have probably already figured out what I think the reason is. But first, back to my story.

I told CAT that I would definitely give it some thought and do my best to honor his request. Upon returning home, I had finished my fun book and was ready to dive back into the depths of Frank Viola’s book From Eternity to Here. Have you figured out where I am going with this yet? No worries, I am not sure either. Would you be surprised if I told you that the next chapter in the book addressed Pentecost, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, the birth of the church, and His purpose to make one out of many? I thought not.

Nice coincidence, you say? Lucky, fortuitous timing? (that one was for you Cha Cha – go ahead and look it up) No way, Jose. That is what I like to call divine appointment. As you are aware, I’m sure, God has been known, on occasion, to show off. Praise Him, praise Him. And so, without further ado, let me share with you a few of my thoughts and excerpts from the book that I think capture the heart of God and His purposeful decision at the birth of the church to move the Spirit on His people as ONE instead of individuals.

God never intended us to function as lone ranger Christians pursuing only our own personal faith and ministry.

And believers were increasingly added to the Lord, multitudes of both men and women. (Acts 5:14)

And a great many people were added to the Lord. (Acts 11:24)

Added to the Lord. Or as it is stated in Ephesians, the church is the Fullness of Christ. “That means the church is the enlargement of Christ. It’s His completion. It ‘fills Him out,’ as it were, just as your physical body fills out your head. Put another way, the church is the rest of Jesus Christ” (p 264).

"Point: We Christians are not simply disciples of Jesus. We are not simply believers in the Savior of the world and the Lord of creation. We are members of Christ. The body of Jesus is not detached from Christ the Head. The Head doesn’t have one life and the body another. The body of Christ shares the same life of the risen Head” (p 262).

“Christ the Head is the great mystery of God. Christ the body, which is the uniting of Jew and heathen into one new human, is the great mystery of God. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer put it, the church properly functioning is ‘Christ existing in community’” (p 279).

“According to the first-century use of the word, an ekklesia is a local gathering of Christians who live as a shared-life community and who gather regularly under the Headship of Jesus Christ” (p 174).

“The first thing the Christians did after believing on Christ and receiving the Holy Spirit was that they met. And they met continually (Acts 2:46). Deep down in our inward parts, every genuine believer has a broad thirst for the experience of community. In this connection, there was no such thing as individual salvation in the first century. You were saved and baptized into the body. You became part of a living community that gathers together continually.”

“According to the New Testament, salvation is not simply an individual transaction. It’s rather a translation from one community into another (Col. 1:13). It’s an incorporation into a collective spiritual reality, the body of Christ” (p 241-242).

So we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another” (Rom. 12:5). Because we are connected to the same body, we are members of one another. Not rogue individuals.

“I cannot fully know Christ on my own. Neither can you. I must know Him through His body. I must know Him through my sisters and brothers. And so do you. But in order for us to know Christ through other members of His body, we have to get close to them. Christian community is God’s answer to that requirement” (p 264).

Are you beginning to appreciate the genius of the Father in sending His Spirit to the believers as a group? From the birth of the church, he established a new community, a new species. He left no question as to the importance of our new identity as members of the Body of Christ.

And not only the Body, but also the House of God.

“When Jesus lived on the earth, the house of God was limited by space and time. It was also limited to one person, Jesus of Nazareth. Consequently, when Jesus was in Nazareth, the house of God was restricted to Nazareth. When He was in Jerusalem, the house of God was restricted to Jerusalem.”

“When Pentecost arrived, the ekklesia was born. And the many stones that poured forth from the Lord’s resurrection were built together in the city of Jerusalem to form the Lord’s house in that city” (p 162).

“I want you to imagine countless living stones scattered all over the earth. I want you to see innumerable living stones living their own individual Christian lives. I want you to see scores of living stones who love God, but who are isolated and independent of other living stones. They may attend religious services, but there’s little to no ‘building together’ among the members.”

“The burning intent of your God is that all of His living stones be built together with other living stones to form His house. Not for themselves, but for their Lord. To be the house of God, by God and for God.”

"Jesus Christ did not die and rise again just to forgive you of your sins. He died in order that His Father could obtain a home. The Lord saved you and me for a high and holy purpose” (p 169).

“God’s intention has always been to take us humans (created from clay) and turn us into gold, pearl, and precious stone for the building of His house. How does He do it?” (p 219). “One of the chief methods God uses to obtain precious stones is to throw a group of His own people together – fallen, damaged, and roughly hewn – and summon them to live as a community” (p216).

“The intense heat and pressure that create precious stones often come from the hands of our brothers and sisters in Christ. The closer we get to them, the more the heat is turned up” (p 216).

“Write it down: Scattered stones can never make a house, no matter how many of them exist” (p161).

“I’m inviting you, dear reader, to participate in the building of God’s house. That means making the decision no longer to be an independent isolated living stone. But instead, to throw yourself into the building of Lord’s dwelling place with others of like mind and heart."

“Stones that are not built together with other stones ruin good land (2 Kings 3:19). Thus lone-ranger Christians are of no use in the building of God’s house. We have been redeemed to be material for God’s building. Consequently, God is monumentally disinterested in raising up spiritual giants. He’s looking for a people who are willing to be cemented together for His dwelling."

“The Lord Jesus is looking for willing vessels who will abandon their Western-styled individualism and live a shared life with other under His exclusive Headship. This is our high calling” (p 170-171).

So, why did God’s Spirit come to the believers while they were meeting together instead of as they went on their individual way? Together, not seperate, we are ONE: the Body of Christ and the House of God. And that’s all I have to say about that. At least for today, anyway.

Saying good-bye to a dream; eagerly awaiting a new dream to be revealed

“In his heart a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps” (Prov. 16:9).

For the past two years I have known that I had two precious babies waiting to be given the opportunity to grow, be born, and be added to our family. I have dreamed of them, given them faces and names, and loved them as if they were already here with us. I have even delayed having them placed in my body, because in my twisted mind as long as they were there waiting – hope was still alive. They were still alive.

On June 11th we were scheduled to have the embryos transferred to my womb. When we arrived at the hospital we had only one surviving embryo. As much as my heart broke for the lost baby, my hopes for another baby were still alive and well. You see, in the back of my mind, I had convinced myself that God owed the world another child from the Garrison Family. He had already blessed me with a precious girl who looks like her daddy but acts just like her mommy. So the way I saw it, with a little me in the world with tendencies toward crazy including obsessive compulsive disorder, surely the Father knew we needed a little Steven – full of love, acceptance and the desire for everyone to be happy (okay that last bit is the middle child syndrome but it could happen). But, alas, He must have other plans to bring balance to the universe.

This past Monday we found out that our final “medical” chance to have another baby was not successful (who knows what God may have planned, though). As I mourn the loss of those dear babies I have been dreaming about for more than 12 years and who have been real in my heart for the past 2 years, suddenly my Emmylou’s life becomes even more precious to me. Just when I think that I might be overwhelmed by sadness, she does another one of her crazy stunts making me crack up. It is bittersweet, though, because the desire for more like her remains a lump caught in my throat right behind the laughter.

What could have been has always been a struggle for me, and those little lives lost, dreams unrealized, futures unlived all have the potential to send me back to the place of darkness I functioned in for so many years before God brought us Emmylou. For her sake and my own, I will choose to walk in the light.

And what does a perpetually glass-half empty, un-medicated OCD person do to find the bright side? Why, make a list, of course! In order to stay true to my temperament, I will have to include both the positive and negative sides to each of my thoughts. We must be careful to never take ourselves too seriously, so in the midst of my grief – let’s laugh and celebrate this crazy thing called life, even if it must be at my expense.


 No more gestating and lactating for me (my apologies gentlemen readers).
 Unfortunately, I can’t think of a better way to spend the next couple of years of my life.

 No more painful shots in the backside.
 I would give anything to need to continue receiving those unfortunate shots.

 Now I am free to work out to lose the rest of my baby fat from Emmylou.
 Phooey, now I lost my excuse not to sign up for that Boot Camp class at the YMCA.

 Caffeine, need I say more.

 No more sleepless nights – feeding and soothing a newborn.
 No more nights spent feeding and soothing a newborn instead of sleeping. Sleep is overrated.

 I do not want my little Emmylou to be alone in the world. I truly desire to provide a brother and/or sister to be her forever companion(s).
 As my sister so lovingly pointed out, she already has four little people who adore her completely. And while they are cousins, not siblings, she will never be alone. Thank you, Lord.

 Really would have liked the opportunity to correct all the mistakes we have made so far in raising this critter. For instance, I was determined to get the next one to take a pacifier – nipple confusion, peshaw!
 Who am I kidding, we just would have made different mistakes. Isn’t this parenting thing the most humbling experience of your life?

 A sibling would have helped to prevent the critter from being spoiled rotten.
 Oh yeah, too late for that.

“God gives. God takes. God’s name be ever blessed” (Job 1:21). And while I would have preferred to hold those babies in my hands not just my heart and know them in life not just my dreams, the Father knows best. Though my heart may be breaking, my faith will not be shaken. For I know that even when God chooses not to, HE IS ABLE.

And really, how could I ask for more?

Confess your sins one to another

Please see the revision to #5 of my list of excuses posted on June 4th. I must confess that the original version was written under the influence of my sinful flesh mixed with anger, hurt, self-preservation and a dash of passive aggressiveness. A rather lethal combination. I am reminded, yet again, of the words of Paul found in Romans 7:18-20, “I know that nothing good lives in me, that is in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do – this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.” Can someone help me get off this train?

It never ceases to amaze me that equal to the capacity of the human heart to love is its ability to cause pain to the very people that we love. Even more amazing is the fact that, God, knowing this about our fallen nature, still includes us in the participation and fruition of His eternal purpose to build a home and grow a family for Himself and birth a beautiful Bride for His Son. The Flood seems like a much more appropriate plan.

Thankfully, “we know that in ALL things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose” (Rom. 8:28). I have to believe that ALL truly means ALL – including the sins, mistakes, offenses I have committed in the past and will commit in the future.

I am encouraged by the countless examples in the Bible of men and women who committed grievous sins against God and their fellow man, and yet God, in His awesome, overwhelming power and love, used those same fallen individuals to accomplish His Will in heaven and on earth. Just take a quick peak at the faith hall of fame in Hebrews and consider for a moment their stories and what God made of them.

He gives us beauty for ashes, strength for fear, gladness for mourning and peace for despair. The wretch that I am is a rather big fan of God’s economy.

And while those transgressions committed against fellow human beings may result in the loss of a relationship, they do not have the power to separate us from the love of God. As The Word states, “neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present or the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 8:38).

Amazingly enough, I can readily accept the fact that there is no outside force that can change my standing with God through Jesus, but the one that is hard for me to comprehend is life, that is, my life. I get that death cannot take me from Him, but the life that I live, the mistakes that I make, the people that I hurt, and the sins that I commit – those are what scare me. His love truly is AMAZING. Incomprehensible, really.

And yet, He gives us even more than His acceptance and love in that He blesses us with people who love us as well – the good, the bad and the ugly. Oh, the gift of experiencing the love of Christ in the face of a husband who endures much pain and agony in dealing with my quirkiness. Or a sister who despite having countless wires crossed over the years is my best friend. Or a mom and dad having endured the abuse of raising me can still tell stories about me with such pride in their eyes. Or numerous friends who are honestly shocked when I share something negative about myself, because their love has blinded them to my faults – they have chosen to see and believe only the good in me. My heart almost explodes with the joy and gratitude I have for these precious gifts.

God is good. Life is good. Go love someone who does not deserve it. Thankfully, my people do.

....to the Pools of Bethesda

Part of our wilderness journey included isolation and loneliness. Noone's fault in particular, except maybe life, but there were many contributing factors. Although our previous move brought us much closer to family (2 hours instead of 24), we struggled to make the intimate relationships with friends that we had experienced in every other location we had lived.

Small town life where people are content to keep to themselves combined with our own natural hermit tendencies made living life together with other brothers and sisters in Christ seem like an insurmountable obstacle. Add to that the birth of our first child who refused to take a pacifier or allow anyone else to take care of her other than one of her people, and we ended up living holed up in a bunker being suffocated by the desire just to share our life with others.

We were meant to live in community. It is in the sequence of our Christian DNA. Not a choice or a preference, but a God-designed condition. Period. We are His Body made of many parts, His Family full of many members, and His House built with many living stones.

As Frank Viola states, "One of the great problems in the Christian faith today, I believe, is that Christians are taught to be salt and light in the world as individuals. We are exhorted as individuals to change the world for Christ. We are motivated as individuals to be agents of God's kingdom."

"'Church' has be redefined as the place you attend to be educated and motivated to go out and live a better individual Christian life. Sadly, the individual emphasis in comtemporary Christianity has overwhelmed and eclipsed God's central purpose, which is corporate. To compound the trouble, we have been handed individualistic lenses by which to read, study, and interpret in the Bible."

"Please observe that is is not the individual Christian who is the fullness of Christ. It is the church, the ekklesia. Also observe that the vast majority of the Bible was written to a people, not an individual. That includes your New Testament, the bulk of which was written to Christian communitites."

"Our new species lives, works, and behaves in community. We are a colony together. Thus the great need of the hour is for Christians to begin learning how to gather together and embody Christ in a shared-life community where we live. The Christian life is not about you or me. It's about us. And that is the church."

And so after numerous years of religious detox and lonely isolation, God, in His infinite mercy, has now lovingly brought us to the Pools of Bethesda, a place of healing. He even saw fit to include guardian angels as our across the street neighbors. They are an elderly couple who have been extremely kind to us and have been loving on our little family. We needed to be loved upon. We needed to live in community with other believers.

We went to church and a picnic with them a few Sundays ago and were truly blessed by the experience and the company. We see and talk to them at least once a day "as we go," and it has been so good to find community outside the church walls. Already in a few short weeks, we are building more intimacy with those around us than we did in years of "attending church" in our previous town.

Exalting Jesus while sharing life with others satisfies a need knit in the very fabric of my being so much more so than looking at the back of someone's head for an hour every week, stopping to answer the obligatory "How are you's" in the hallway before rushing out the door, and sitting in a circle during Sunday School for a specified amount of time no matter what the Spirit may have in mind.

One other interesting by-product of our time detoxing in the wilderness and healing in Bethesda is as a recovering Pharisee that found security in a specific denomination's doctrine (see previous post), I am now thoroughly comfortable in fellowship and worship with my precious brothers and sisters from various Christian backgrounds/denominations. What a beautiful gift. We are one in Christ, truly. May you find it so in your life as well.

It stands to reason...

that the next entry in the blog should be ...To the Pools of Bethesda. But, alas, I was stirred even haunted by a quote from C.S. Lewis in a book I am reading and felt the overwhelming need to share. As it expresses my humble situation much like the Pooh quote I shared earlier. Did I just compare C.S. Lewis to Pooh? Is that allowed? Which one of them, do you suppose, would be more offended by such a comparison? On to the topic at hand.

From J.I. Packer's Knowing God:

"I do not ask my readers to suppose that I know very well what I am talking about. 'Those like myself,' wrote C.S. Lewis, 'whose imagination far exceeds their obedience are subject to a just penalty; we easily imagine conditions far higher than any we have really reached. If we describe what we have imagined we may make others, and make ourselves, believe that we have really been there' - and so fool both them and ourselves. All readers and writers of devotional literature do well to weigh C.S. Lewis' words. Yet 'it is written: I believed, therefore I have spoken.' With that same spirit of faith we also believe and therefore speak" (2 Cor. 4:13).

From the Wilderness........

A few years ago, my husband Steven and I found ourselves in the midst of a struggle that surprised both of us. After being raised in church and spending our adult, married lives in places of service to the church, we were suddenly faced with an uncomfortable effort to fit in at church and with fellow Christians. The weekly messages began to seem trite and even gimmicky on occasion. Most of the time the church service left us feeling restless and hungry to participate in the exaltation of the Lord. We found ourselves learning and deepening our faith through our own personal pursuits of Bible study and reading everything we could get our hands on concerning the Body of Christ (something that I do not think was God’s intention for His people – more on that in a future post). We began begging God to show us what sin had infested our hearts that would breed such dissatisfaction.

Through those continued personal pursuits mentioned above, God lovingly revealed to us that instead of sin (while we all know there is plenty of it in us) causing our struggle; it was a new desire being born in our hearts to see Jesus high and lifted up and His Bride to take her rightful place at His side; His Body to function with Him as the Head; His House to be built by living stones instead of stones made of mortar and by His blueprint and not man’s; and His Family to truly be united under our basis for fellowship which is Christ alone. We caught a glimpse of the heart of God and nothing else will satisfy our deep longing to see His purpose fulfilled. We must know Christ, and Him crucified.

God has been using these years in much the same way He used the “wilderness” in the lives of the Israelites (although their disbelief extended the experience), the followers of John the Baptist, and even the apostle Paul.

As Frank Viola states in his book From Eternity to Here, “the wilderness has but one goal: to sift us, to reduce us, and to strip us down to Christ alone. Those of us who have left Egypt and Babylon need to be emptied of a great deal of religious baggage. The wilderness experience is designed to do just that. It’s the place of religious detox.”

“Shortly after Paul’s conversion from being a racist, sectarian, self-righteous, bigoted, highly religious Pharisee to a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ, God led him to an Arabian desert for three years (Gal. 1:17-18). What was he doing there? Detoxing.”

“Undoubtedly, he was allowing years of human religiosity to drain out of his veins. Everything that Paul knew as a zealous Pharisee had bled out of him in the desert. Paul was beyond being reformed. He had to have a spiritual lobotomy. And that’s what the wilderness is for.”

He goes on to say that “there are essentially four ways you can spend your life. You can waste it in Egypt by living for worldly pleasures and material success (all of which are temporal and fleeting). You can waste it in Babylon by living for the growth and success of organized religion. You can waste it in the wilderness by living your life in transition. Or you can spend it on Jesus Christ in a building site in Jerusalem.”

While we both firmly believe our time in the wilderness has been ordained and orchestrated by God in order to bring us up to ground zero and to make us empty wineskins for the Lord to pour his new wine into, we do not wish to remain there forever and thereby waste our new beginning. It’s a detour, not a home.

In our search for home, God has now seen fit to bring us out of the wilderness and into the healing pools of Bethesda. But that is a story for another day. Until then, may we truly be in Christ alone.