Patience

I have heard a lot about patience in my life, especially in the church. Patience is a good thing. It is a fruit of the Spirit. It paves the way to deep beauty in our lives- any wise person would agree that patience is necessary to live a life that truly honors God.

Often when I speak to someone about a difficult situation in my life, the well-meaning advice is usually this- "God wants you to be patient". Sometimes the advice goes as far as telling me to proactively pray for patience. Most of the time, this great advice. But is it always?

What if sometimes the Spirit wants us to pray with an urgency? I think that sometimes patience is the last thing we ought to be praying for! Perhaps sometimes the enemy is pleased that we are piously praying for patience- after all, we could have prayed for leigons of angels to attend to us and the Spirit to fight for us in the day of evil, and that just may ruin all his plans. How better for him that we merely pray for endurance as he causes us to suffer!

I have been rocked by this quote from Karl Rahner lately: "Sometimes we merely pray for the strength to endure evil, rather than praying against evil itself". I used to subscribe to a form of fatalistic Calvinism, where I thought that every shitty thing that happened to me was purely from God. I don't think this anymore. Now don't get me wrong- God is never suprised. The enemy is ultimately His servant rather he likes it or not. But I am begining to understand that we are in the middle of a deep spiritual battle, and under attack is every bit of life, beauty, and joy this side of heaven. And I am the daughter of the One who will win the battle- may I never doubt the dignity of that, and that my prayers are indeed a powerful weapon that causes the enemy to tremble and retreat in fear of the One who sealed his fate on the cross.

I have been learning things lately that I cannot put into words- things filled with paradox and mystery, beauty and pain, peace and joy. So bear with me as I try to find words to write in this blog.

But here is what I can say- life is really beautiful, God is so good. He is so intimately involved with our lives, it amazes me. He is saying "I love you" in so many ways lately that I have lost count, and am completely overwhelmed. More details later.

Ruth pt 2

So here is my epiphany:

God cherishes our dreams. They are beautiful and precious before Him, and were even His dreams before they were ours. So why would He crush them?

If the object of our dreams becomes an idol, you better believe that He will crush them. It's the most loving thing He can do. Otherwise, the validly good gift that we desire will be destroyed, sacrificed to a lesser god, and never truly enjoyed as an act of worship to Yahweh- and He gives us gifts in order to worship Him as the Giver. But is He ever jealous.

I have never thought of myself as an idolator. I know my theology- I am a sinner, and Jesus died on the cross so that I could be reconciled with God. But never before have I deeply seen the weight of the sin that I am powerless against. And never before have I deeply relished in the fact that my sin is completely nailed to the cross.

The nature of this sin isn't one that I chose. It wasn't willful, as if I daily made a conscious decision to pursue this lesser thing. However, I couldn't just decide to stop- it wasn't even something I could comprehend. Instead, it was one that overwhelmed me, and completely submerged me in it's waters. It tainted my every thought. I have heard surfers and divers talk about getting the bends- when your senses no longer tell you which way is up or down, and you are completely disoriented and therefore cannot make sound judgement. In the song "the Bends", Thom York laments the alienation that he feels because his friends seem to have this sickness. I grieve over that fact that I have hurt people that I love deeply in my idolatry. But I am so thankful that God is using this present time to forgive me, purge me of my sin, and make me more like Jesus.

I have never felt so powerless over sin before in my life. And I have never relished this deeply in grace before. I pray that Christ would indeed nail this to the cross so that I and the people I love would bear it no more. I have never cherished the miracle of redemption more than I do at this moment, where my one and only plea is that the blood of Jesus covers me.

I'm gonna go hang out with homeless people tomorrow with the yearning that the God who is bringing forth my healing will bring forth theirs. This healing is never anything short of a miracle.

Ruth

In the past when I have read the book of Ruth, I have always seen the book like this: Naomi is bad, Ruth is good. And that's kinda true. But lately I have had a bit more sympathy for Naomi.

Naomi was a widow whose 2 son's had died (aka she had absolutely no one to take care of her daily needs.) Plus, there was a famine in the land. She had God given needs that were not being met. Was it so wrong for her to send ruth and orpah back to Moab where they could find husbands to care for them? Was it so unfair for her to claim that God had set himself against her? Was she unreasonable in wanting to change her name from happy to bitter?

I am seeing now that the ruth good/ naomi bad thing isn't really accurate. It's more of this- Naomi was normal and reasonable (thought still quite flawed), but Ruth had absolutely supernatural faith. This was the same faith that caused barren and elderly Abraham and Sarah to believe that their descendants would outnumber the stars.

I believe in God. I trust Him. And this is the greatest cause of my suffering. He wounds me. And then after He heals me, He wounds me again. And again. And again. And again. I get all excited that even thought Job had to suffer, the story ends with him recieving twice as much as God took. I think "woah, what's coming to me next- it's gotta be good!" Signs point to blessing, and I become hopeful. And then He wounds me again, and once again crushes my dreams. I am weary of this cycle, so weary. It seems He can't be trusted.

Today for me to believe that God is merciful, kind, benevolent, good, and loving in His plans for me is supernatural and unnatural. Most of what He has done in my life in the last 5 years has screamed otherwise. Yet I believe. Sometimes I start to think that Buddhists may be on to something- if I could just say that pain is an illusion, I wouldn't have to suffer. But Buddhism is full of shit, so that's not an option.

I heard His voice and followed it yet again, and the result is more pain, and the pain is progressively worse. Mother Teresa once said "God, if this is how you treat your friends, no wonder you have so few."

My calling is to tell the world that Jesus loves them, and that they should follow Him. How can I do that when I know that I am inviting them into a relationship with a God who seems to take away more than He gives?

Romans 8:28

Has anyone ever asked you what your "life verse" is? When I was younger I thought it was some kind of rule that all "mature" christians had to have one. People would ask me what mine was, and I would usually just lie and spout one off to sound spiritual. The usuals were Proverbs 3:5, or that one in Isaiah about God knowing the plans He has for us (which is actually talking about Israel), and also Romans 8:28, where we are promised that God is working out all things for our good.

Kind, well meaning Christians in my past tightly held on to these promises. To sum it up, they took these verses to mean that everything was going to be ok; that God would make life as comfortable and easy as possible. It was a kind of insurance policy that allowed them to sleep better at night, so that they would not have to confront the reality that the God who made these promises might actually lead them out into the wilderness.

So in Romans 8:28 we are told that God is working out all things for the good of those who love Him, who are called according to His glorious purpose. But what is that "good" thing that God is working in our lives? Is He working all things out for our comfort? No. The "good" thing is that we would be "conformed into the likeness of His Son". That we would become more like Jesus.

So God has promised that He will work all things in order to make His children more like Jesus. Sometimes (not often) this happens thru comfort. Sometimes this happens by pain. However it happens, it is our greatest good and deepest joy. I thank God for my pain, because without it I would not intimately know the love and beauty of God in the way I do now. I would not have the deep, overwhelming joy that today is mine- the kind of joy that only comes by being completely in love with Jesus Christ. I found that love in the wilderness.

Sticky sandals...

Dave Chapelle's son spilled lemonade all over me today. My feet were sticky. Yay for Ohio.

Epiphany on fasting...

I have always wondered what on earth was the deal with all the fasting in the Bible. Jesus did it a lot, and Paul instructed the early church to do so regularly. Especially troublesome was how we are told very explicitly to do it as Christ-followers, even though I rarely knew of any Christians doing it. I read about it, and even tried to do it a few times (which my anemia did not appreciate), but I just did not get it. So I asked God a long time ago to tell me what the big deal was. What could be the spiritual benefit in being hungry? How does it help prayer? Isn't that asceticism?

I think I'm beginning to understand...

Sometimes we decide to refrain from something for the sake of prayer, and we call it fasting. Other times we have a really deep hunger for a valid thing (i.e a fulfilling job, marriage, peace, healing, ministry, etc.) and God says "You can't have that good thing for now." We ask Him for it. We try to grow and learn, because maybe if we finally understand that thing that He's been trying to teach us, we'll be ready for whatever it is that we yearn for and He will give it to us. So we learn and grow, and we still don't get what we want. God says no. But I am beginning to think that this is a kind of fasting too, except it is a kind of fasting that God chooses for us.

Today I decided to fast so that I could seek God regarding some of the deep desires that He has put on my heart, the things that He has decided to withhold from me for this season. I also fasted in order to interceed for the body of Christ, as well as for the world. I yearned to eat leftover cheesecake, but I didn't. In my hunger I prayed. I asked God for a fulfilling job, and for help with my school debt- and I want this so that my daily energy and resources will go to promote His kingdom on this earth. I asked for true Shalom in Uganda and Sudan, because I really want those people to deeply enjoy the life that God had given them. I prayed that my sick friends would be healed. I asked God to give me a man after His own heart, who is gifted and passionate in the same areas as me. I asked this so that we could live peacefully and promote God's peace through our relationship (I Cor 7), and also so that we could understand the deeper things of God by living life together. I prayed that my community and I may know God more deeply, and that He would use us to heal this broked world.

So here is what I discovered: there is a theme to each one of these requests. In all these things I wanted peace, intimacy, healing, fulfillment, and joy. So essentially, I wanted God's Kingdom to come. And I realized- as creations waits and groans for this Kingdom to be established, we are fasting! We do not have that which we ache for. Every human who has ever lived thirsts for this Kingdom, even if they do not realize it. This hunger gets pretty annoying, so in an attempt to fill it we earnestly try to turn stones into bread. We get used to this hunger and cope with its daily ache, and eventually we forget that we are hungry (though we never stop trying to satisfy our appetite.) So as I ached for food today in prayer, and as I ached for good things in my life and my community, I realized how much we ache for God's kingdom. Today we do not have that which we were created to enjoy- but we can pray for it. My hunger today fueled my prayers, and lead me see what the worlds deepest hunger is. Today I prayed for it with a new zeal, and I want it now more that I ever have.

So that's my epiphany for the day.