Isaiah 23:6, or I Saw the Light

Yeah... Sorry, Readers! I've had a heck of a time in the last two months. 

There has been quite a delay in writing to you. But what follows is a small glimpse of what God has been showing me in this time. Enjoy!

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Isaiah 26:3 (AMP)

 “You will guard him and keep him in perfect and constant peace 

whose mind [both its inclination and its character] is stayed on You, 

because he commits himself to You,

 leans on You, 

and hopes confidently in You.”

About a mile away from my house, there’s a dingy little playground with a grassy area behind it. Circling round the grass, there is a concrete path that looks something like a suburban attempt at Hayward Field.  It’s about a third of a mile long, and every morning I spend time walking around this little circle. If anyone out there has a morning walking routine, you’ll understand what I’m about to say. There comes a point where you simply forget that you’re walking.  Before you know it, you look around and realize that you’ve ended up somewhere quite different from where you began. The funny thing about my walk this morning is that I had spent a pretty good chunk of time meandering around the circle, when, as I was just finishing my very last lap around, I saw the sun.

You’d think, logically, that having left in the dark and walked in the grim cloudiness that is Oregon for nearly an hour, I would’ve noticed when the sun arose. But I was actually taken completely by surprise when, glancing up past the tree line, I was nearly blinded. I literally stopped and stared, mouth agape, until the dog started pulling at me to get a move on. How long had I been walking? How long had the sun been beckoning to me to behold its glory while I mindlessly marched around in circles? It gets even better.

While I was walking on the road home, I noticed that one of the larger buildings in my neighborhood was completely and utterly bathed in golden light. It was so weird! All the houses around it were the greyish color of the rest of the cloudy sky, but this one looked like some giant’s spotlight was fixed upon it. Like a moron, I started looking around for the source of the light. (Yeah, not kidding here…) It was so direct—how on earth could that be sunlight shining on one particular building?! Then, just as before, I looked up to the sky and saw that, peeking out from behind another large building on the other side of the road was, indeed, the sun. What on earth did I think I was going to find? A 20-foot Maglite? I’m not sure, but I almost had to laugh at the sheer idiot I had shown myself to be in that moment.

That’s when it hit me. The sun is always shining. Not just on summer days, not just at sunrise, and not just when you see it. Even at night! The sun, simply because it is the sun, is in a continual state of shining. By its very nature, the sun is a great burning sphere which burns at such unfathomably hot temperatures and produces such great light that, even as far away as we are, we catch glimpses of it and can even feel it. Have you ever thought about this? Maybe I’m still being an idiot here, but hear me out. How often do we wish for sunshine when it’s raining? Or long for the sun when we’re in darkness? More or less, our words come out something like, “I wish it would just be sunny,” or “If only the sun would come out today,” or “I’m so sick of these overcast skies—I want the sun!”

What if we re-worked that line of thought? Think about your life. Think about where you are, especially in terms of your thought life. Have you ever felt the same way about God? “God, I wish you would come here and do something!” “If God were real I would see Him” or how about, “I don’t know if I really believe God’s involved in my life—how could my life look like this if he were?” Imagine if we followed that line of thinking with sunshine. If you heard someone lamenting the death of sunshine at 2 in the morning, we’d laugh—of course you can’t see the sun at 2 in the morning! That’s nighttime! It hasn’t changed a thing about the sun, it just means that because of where you are positioned, you cannot physically see or feel the sun.

You see, we are so darn sure that the sun will rise. I don’t know of anyone that has gone to bed biting his nails about whether or not he will walk in utter darkness the rest of his days. We in the States re-arrange our entire time system based on the sun’s predictable patterns, for crying out loud! We know that when the sun seems to fall into the abyss of our horizon it is simply participating in what we call “sunset” and will assuredly still be the sun the following day. We do not lose faith in the “sun-ness” (if there is such a term) of the sun at sunset.

So why do we loose faith in God so easily?

How often are we, the very children of God, who have tasted of His salvation and accepted his bleeding love, prone to falling in the pit of doubting Him? Why are we surprised when we do see him—as I was this morning when I saw the sun—and cynical when he’s not present to us in the same way? If we experience his presence in, say, a “mountaintop” worship service or something, that becomes our basis to believe the reality of God. But if we go to a similar service and do not feel the anointing and presence in the same way, we find a convenient way to dismiss God’s presence entirely. In those moments we label experiences with God as “emotional” or letting our “feelings get the best of us,” and hold on fast to the so-called reality of mortgage payments and the grimness of day-to-day life. But, when we are in the act of participating in one of those emotional experiences, we call them our basis for reality and condemn our day-to-day life as unspiritual!

No wonder so many Christians live in a fantasy world of anxiety and stress. Good God, our thinking doesn’t even make sense! Either God is real or He’s not. Either His presence exists or it doesn’t. We need to stop basing our truth on emotional perceptions or the desire to stifle emotion altogether. Maybe you had an awesome time at church, maybe you simply didn’t, or maybe you’re hurting and don’t feel much of anything these days. The bottom line is this: Is God alive or not? If you can stand in the middle of the blackest watch of the night and declare, “perhaps I cannot see it right now, but the sun is shining,” could it be possible to stand in the blackest watch of your life and declare that God is real?

That’s where that verse from Isaiah comes in: “You will guard him and keep him in perfect and constant peace whose mind [both its inclination and its character] is stayed on You, because he commits himself to You, leans on You, and hopes confidently in You.” I love how the Amplified Bible digs up what it means to “stay” your mind on God—to “commit,” to “lean,” and to “hope confidently” in Him. Not, mind you, to keep your mind fixed on past experiences, not on your ability to live without succumbing to emotion, and dare I say it, not even by focusing your mind on Scripture! It is God—and God alone—on whom you must commit yourself to, lean upon, and in whom you must hope confidently. The more that we work ourselves up into a theological conundrum over whether or not God’s really going to come through, whether or not He’s all that we felt he was that “one time when His presence was so strong”, or whether or not His promises are all that they’re cracked up to be—the more we lay the burden of proof on anything other than who God is—the more we position ourselves for darkness, anxiety, stress, fear, and condemnation. It’s a little tough to convince even a 5-year-old that the sun is just something he invented when he was getting too excited outside. But how tough is it for the whispers of the Enemy to tell you, “See? You really let your emotions get the best of you when you were all worked up about God’s love for you the other day. Better settle into reality and figure out what you’re going to do to fix this mess that you call you [finances, marriage, job, etc.]…”

I think you’ll have to agree with me that most of us fall into that trap.

            Or maybe I’m the only one who has stood in the darkness of life and wondered if anything—good, evil, or indifferent—would rise again. Perhaps you’ve never questioned Romans 8, never wondered about whether the ash heap you call life can really be worked together for good.  Perhaps you’ve never wondered if God asking you to “test him” in your tithes and offerings was a cruel joke. Maybe you’ve never asked if God meant to call someone else and you got involved by mistake.

But I have.

So forgive me for getting a little “worked up” here. But I can no more deny the reality of God than I can be persuaded by cloudy skies that the sun isn’t real. Feelings or not, God is present. Whether God has chosen to put a deposit in your bank account or not, He is still the God who owns the earth and everything in it. Whether that healing you’ve been praying for is manifest in front of you or not, God is still the Healer. Do not let the winters of life convince you that God is nothing more than a children’s story. Brothers and sisters, do not settle for what this world calls “reality”.

I walked around this morning so convinced that the sky was cloudy that I missed out on sunshine. Don’t do that with your life. Choose God. Live in the expectancy that something is about to happen, but be not moved if God’s actions are not obvious to you. Trust in who God is. Commit yourself to Him, and allow Him to guard your mind and keep you in perfect peace.

I think C.S. Lewis, as usual, says it best:

“A man can no more diminish

God's glory by refusing to worship Him

than a lunatic can put out the sun

by scribbling the word,

'darkness'

on the walls of his cell.”

"another fine bit of writing brought to you by yours truly"

from the mouths of babes …or deep thoughts from The Lion King

              I’m sure that every one of us has, at some point, seen Disney’s ridiculously depressing and somehow heart-warming story, The Lion King. Well, it just re-released by a stroke of sheer marketing genius. And, like the sucker I am, I actually paid money to see a movie I’ve got sitting on a shelf in my house.

The funny thing is that when I saw the movie in theaters, it really was as though I had never seen it before. At least, back when I used to watch it, I was a little kid and really didn’t think too much about the “greater significance” of the script. If you did, then you’re a stranger breed than I. But this time when I watched the movie, there was one scene in particular that hit me like a two-by-four across the face. Do you remember the scene where Rafiki comes and finds Simba to convince him to go take his place back at Pride Rock? (yeah, I’m getting that specific with a kids movie…) Well, Simba has been living in exile for the majority of his life at the point where said primate finds him. Rafiki takes him to a small pond thing, and—poof!—an apparition of Simba’s deceased father appears in the sky. Here’s the bulk of the interchange between Simba and his father, Mufasa:

Mufasa: Simba, you have forgotten me.

Simba: No. How could I?

Mufasa: You have forgotten who you are and so have forgotten me. Look inside yourself, Simba. You are more than what you have become. You must take your place in the Circle of Life.

Simba: How can I go back? I'm not who I used to be.

Mufasa: Remember who you are. You are my son…

I know, I know. You’re still wondering how the strange exchange between an animated lion and his dead father relates to you. Well, all business about “the Circle of Life” aside, here’s what God laid on my heart in this part of the movie…

At its base level, the plot line deals with identity. Simba is the rightful heir to the throne, but because of an evil lie about his worth and his past mistakes, he runs off to find the “easy life,” where he can escape all his problems. The only real problem is that, even in the midst of the seemingly perfect new place where he lives, his identity as heir has not changed. Right or wrong, Simba is the King’s son. But because he believes that his mistakes—his sin, if we choose to use that term—have made him unworthy, he tries to run away from who he is. The Enemy (uncle Scar) has told him that because what he did cost his father’s life, the family will never accept him. No one can ever love him again.

Here’s the crazy part: in a sense, Scar is right. Had Simba put two and two together, he would have never allowed himself to be in a situation where his father would have to die to rescue him. That’s why the condemnation of the lie is so powerful. It is rooted in a partial and badly-twisted truth. Simba was often disobedient and rebellious. He had good reason to believe the lie his uncle was stuffing down his throat, one sugar-coated drop of evil after another. How could anyone want him back?

Now, follow me for a minute here. Realistically, the movie could have just ended. Simba ends up finding two new friends on his escape route. The trio could have simply passed the rest of their life away in relative mediocrity, more or less content until they died. But the True King was unwilling to allow it. Mufasa comes and meets Simba right where he is to communicate his acceptance, his true identity, and to call him to return to everything he was ever meant to be—without ever once addressing the validity of Scar’s vile lies.

I hope you see where I’m going with this. This is the gospel! In lion form!

How many of us screwed up pretty badly in our past? We all, in our own ways, murdered the King. Did we not? I don’t know about you, but I freely admit that my sin alone was more than enough to bear the penalty of death… a penalty of blood. You see? I, too, am responsible for the death of my father. How many of us feel a deep, unspeakable need to cover up our past because we think that if anyone ever truly found out what we’ve done, that person would turn and walk away? How many of us try to substitute the “easy life”—be it prodigious sin or simply the “success” ladder—in order to stifle that deeper calling we know lives within?  How many of us wake up in the morning with a sense of dread, knowing that there is something so much bigger within us but too afraid to open the carefully-laid maze of locked doors deep within ourselves? How many Lies have been whispered to us, forming the locks on those doors? Lies that condemn. Lies that makes us feel we are unworthy.

Well, the King would say to you today that it was never a question of worth. To borrow words from a sermon I heard recently, you are not a son by worth; you are a son by birth. Simba is not Mufasa’s son because he is great; he is Mufasa’s son because Mufasa is his father. The burden of sonship, then, lay upon the parents. It has absolutely nothing to do with the son. Simba could have actually murdered his father with a dull knife, for all we care. He would still be Mufasa’s son! That is his true identity. And, like it or not, you are a child of the King as well. Mufasa tells Simba, “You have forgotten who you are and so have forgotten me.” See, to forget who you are—to pretend that you’re not really a child of God—is to forget about God altogether. You cannot be you apart from God. Your sonship is not legitimate without your father.  All of us had forgotten not only ourselves, but the One True King in our attempt to escape. Our identity has nothing to do with worth—it is rooted and finds its only meaning in God. That is why Christ proclaimed forgiveness. Christ proclaimed that He is the Way, the Truth, and Life. And by his work on the Cross, we are accepted.

Here’s what I love about this analogy: Mufasa comes back to tell Simba, essentially, “become who you already are.” It’s that simple. Not to say we have some kind of latent ability within ourselves to conquer sin or to be accepted. The fact of the matter is that we are accepted. The price of sin has been paid. You are reconciled with your Father. The Gospel is the good news that love and grace has come forth to save you; salvation is to accept the free gift of that love and grace. God meets us right where we are and says, “Apart from me you can do nothing. I love you. Let me do everything.” God meets us on the gut-level of our true identity. He doesn’t waste time combing through the Lies of our life, or waiting for us to become “good enough.” Mufasa didn’t make Simba go to some kind of private school to prepare him for his coming rule.

He simply said, “Remember who you are.”

The choice is ours to make. Simba could have stayed with his friends, and honestly had an okay kind of existence, more or less. Many of us know this kind of life well: happy on the outside, but an insatiable, gnawing gloom devouring us from within. We are more than what we have become. You are more than some random student. You are more than a banker. You are more than a janitor. You are more than a sales associate. You are a child of the Most High God, and a co-heir with Christ who will sit beside him and reign with him. Romans 8:16-17 says, “The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ…” The hardest part is not what we have been taught to think. The hardest part is not becoming a child of God—it’s accepting that you are a child of God and allowing the truth of your identity to radically transform your life. You can stay lost in the Lies, hiding away in your comfort zone, or you can take the greatest risk you’ll ever take. You can listen to the voice of the King calling you back to your place as an heir.

You may have to battle it out with things that are trying to take the place of your identity. Simba had to fight the Liar, and for the first time saw the Lie as it truly is. The odds are that you have established certain patterns of life, perhaps even appetites and practices, which simply do not agree with a child of God. Your flesh will always war with God. But I promise that you will never have to fight to get your identity. It’s yours and yours alone. No one can take it away from you. You are an heir with Christ. The Most High God would have you come to him, to stop running away. To allow yourself to believe that He loves you. To risk it all.

I believe that the Spirit is calling out to all of His sons and daughters today saying (with the voice of James Earl Jones), “Remember who you are. You are my son. You are my daughter. You are more than what you have become. Come to me and take your place.”

Just call me Rafiki!

"another fine bit of writing brought to you by yours truly"

Of trees, winter, and this crazy thing I call "life"

Hello, everyone!

As you can tell… I took a little time off from blogging. I’ll get back into a deep thought next time, but I wanted to update you all as to my where- and what-abouts. As usual, everything about me is subject to change!

First off, I’m back in Oregon again. I know people always want to offer you some sort of convoluted congratulations on a new chapter of life, but let’s face it—life never fits neatly into chapters, or verses, or iambic pentameter for that matter. I’m unemployed, which is kind of nice but mostly just sort of humiliating. Thankfully, though, I’m staying with my parents while I look for work. I don’t think I’ll ever really seal off the “chapter” in Mexico—my love for that place and those people runs far too deep. It would bleed through the very pages of my life were I to be so foolish as to even attempt to deem it “over.” I will say that in the foreseeable future, though, I may not be south of the border for a while. It’s hard, as usual, to think that both of my lives have to be so separated by geography. Why my friends in Mexico can’t just stop by for dinner never ceases to baffle me. There are afternoons where I think, “I’ll just drop by and say hello to…  oh wait… I can’t.” That’s normal. I still wake up sometimes and wonder where I am.

All I can really say at present is that God has a plan for me in the midst of this chaotic thing I call life. And I wouldn’t trade my messy, fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants existence for anything. Obviously, I’m not in the middle of one of the fun parts of the story. I literally had to take soda cans in the other day just to pay for a cup of coffee! I may need to donate plasma here pretty soon. It’s almost funny, but then there’s this sudden feeling deep within and I realize that nothing will ever be the same. I don’t know how all of the pieces of what makes me Alyssa will fit together. I love Latin America, but it’s not time for me to go gallivanting off on another adventure just yet. I miss playing music with my band in Mexico, but I just… can’t. I can’t pick up my guitar and run down the street to band practice. Band practice is taking place many, many miles away from my parents’ house in Eugene, Oregon. And that’s a simple fact of life. I continue to pray for God to make a way for me to keep ministering through the gift of music and worship, but I really find myself in a season of waiting.

Waiting.

The very letters are bitter inside of my mouth.

Waiting to hear back from how many hundreds of job applications?

Waiting as I plug in with my new church body here in Eugene—friendships

always take time.

           

Waiting to start earning money so I can pay off what I owe to the Bank of Mom….

Waiting… waiting….

                        WAITING!

            It is unfathomably frustrating, to say the least. To go from “missionary” to “couch potato/job hunter” is a bit, well, overwhelming. I know, I know—I’m not actually any kind of failure here (I’ll always be a missionary), but the emotions are there. If you’ve never been here, then just wait. You will be eventually.

This is the kind of season where there are no words of wisdom, there are no magical little mantras, and no amount of “friendly advice” will ever cut it. All you can do is hold on to Jesus for dear life. Because there are times when all I want to do is yell something along the lines of “What the heck are you up to?!” and maybe a few other things that a girl raised in church wouldn’t put on her blog. Let’s face it: only God can get me through this. Only God knows where the other side of this equation is.

You know what this reminds me of? Trees. Work with me here. As I was walking the dog this morning (see? I’m not a total couch potato…) I saw a tree with the first tiny glimmers of fall peaking through its leaves. And the thought struck me: is the tree waiting for fall to start? What about winter? Does a tree spend the winter waiting for spring? What do trees do with the cataclysmic changes that affect them four times a year?

Biologically speaking, very little. The roots of the trees remain more or less the same. Water is still sucked up through the complex network of tubes that weave, snakelike, throughout the tree. Nutrients are still collected and distributed, used and expelled by the tree’s various cells. Only when the tree is long dead and we look at the rings on the inside of a tree’s trunk do we have any idea that something truly changed within. Yet, silly idiots that we are, we point at a tree in winter and declare that it’s “dead.”

I think life follows very much the same pattern. We so want to see big changes on the outside—bright emerald leave erupting into flames of red and then falling rather dramatically to their doom. But the idea of remaining constant, of having roots that run deeper than what we see at first… why, it sounds almost boring! Our highlight-oriented society feeds on the big moments. But what about the winters we spend with so little visible change that anyone might suggest we’d died, or lost our minds?  We are almost blind to the day-by-day existence that ultimately transforms our lives. Did you know that if a tree never passed through winter, the cork inside of its trunk would have no structural support? That the hard, thin rings from wintertime end up being the point of strength in a tree? The spongy, everything’s-great-thanks cork that grows in the rest of the year cannot long support the weight of an adult tree. Like trees, we need these seasons of winter. The hard, scraggly rings that it forms are simply irreplaceable.

Obviously, I am not advocating that anyone get out a chainsaw and cut me open to count the rings (there would be 22, you idiots). Nor am I attempting the lunacy of saying that these seasons are great fun or that I’m having the time of my life. All I’m saying is that, sometimes, you just hold on to God and wait for him to bring you to the other side. Can I explain and pontificate to you the intricate theology of why the heck God put it in my heart to leave the beach in Mexico to come job hunting in a terrible economy? Um, yeah… no. I cannot begin to fathom what God is up to. But let me make you a promise: When all is said and done, when all of the winters have passed and I finally stand before God, and He and I get to sit down and look a the “rings” that make up my life… I won’t stand aghast at His cruelty. Nor will I weep because somehow I lost God’s Will for my life and became some sort of runner-up to following Jesus.

Oh no.

Rather, I think that God will guide my hand along the many rings that make up who I grow to be. And in the midst of the dizzying complexity of all that I see, the intricate pattern that follows the highs and lows of my life, the beauty of what God worked together for my good… I shall simply fall before Him in worship and give thanks for everything.

At least, that’s the God I call "King."

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So, I have no great highlights to report to you all, my dear readers. I am rather sorry and feel kind of awkward even typing at all. But I can report to you from the midst of where I am that God is good, and He is faithful. And that my best times are yet to come.

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

Jeremiah 29:11

"another fine bit of writing brought to you by yours truly"

One Sad Camel...

Yesterday, I went to the zoo!

Well, OK, it’s a place called “Parque del niño”—yep, creepy name!—that just so happens to have an area with animals. Some other missionary families and I all decided to get away for a day. Now, I don’t… do… public swimming pools, and I’m a little big for swing sets and slides. So needless to say, I spent much of my time alone, staring into the eyes of these so-called animals (we’ll get to that in a second).

It was really depressing.

If you thought zoos in the states were depressing, let me tell you that this one was way worse. Not that I’ve ever been a fan of zoos really, but this one was exceptionally sad! Every single cage, or exhibit, or space, or whatever you want to call it, was exactly the same: bare dirt surrounded by a chain link fence with a little brick building in the back where the animal could go for shade. I kid you not. The camel, in particular, really seemed to hate his life.

I spent a long time staring into the eyes of the camel. Seriously, he was looking back at me. He didn’t spit, he didn’t make any noise… he hardly moved. He just turned his head toward me and gazed with his haunting, empty brown eyes. Something inside of me writhed at the sight of it. I could imagine him running wild across the Sahara Desert, or perhaps winning a camel race in the underground… Bedouin… camel scene? But no… there he stood… baking pitifully beneath the Mexican sun. His callouses, bald spots, and broken spirit somehow took the “fun” out of being at the zoo.

It was the same when I looked at the other animals. I imagined the deer running through deep, cool woods in the heart of Oregon. I imagined the zebra tossing its head back in the winds of the African Savannah, and the spider monkeys swinging from vines hundreds of feet about a forest floor that human eyes have never seen. That same, aching question burned inside of me: What on earth are you doing here?

If I could have spoken to these animals, I would have asked them where they were born. Do they have any memories of freedom? Of the wild? Were their parents zoo animals too? Are they another generation in a long line of captive titans? Just looking at the spindly, calloused legs of that camel was hard for me. Does he not know the power inherent in those legs? His muscles, at their full strength, could carry him through deserts that would kill me in a day! Those Bison could have easily killed any one of their trainers. The hippos, in a concrete zone that would barely qualify as a puddle, have no idea that their kind are actually the top killers in all of Africa. What a terrible, heinous waste! What a crime against creation! Such potential! Yet, there it sits… slowly suffocating and withering away behind a flimsy, chain-link fence.

Then I had this thought: Isn’t that just what we do to ourselves? How many humans spend their entire lives behind fences? Fences of fear, of bitterness, of failure—or perhaps of comfort and familiarity. I know that I harp on this subject a lot, but I believe, with every single fiber of my being that no one is here by accident. That every human being is uniquely loved by God and has a purpose so great that it can only be unfolded by eternity. Yet, how many of us are willing to lay everything on the line, literally betting the farm at times, on whether or not what God says is true?

If we’re being honest, very few.

Can you imagine if I asked most people the kinds of questions I wanted to ask the animals? Do you remember freedom? Were you born into captivity, already caged-in by the limitations your family put upon you? Do you remember ever being in the wild? Perhaps you were left beaten and bruised by life, and in seeking to keep yourself safe, you built a cage—is that what happened? For some, the questions would be a little different. For those of us who grew up in the church, maybe we have false ideas about God that cage us in. Maybe we only trust him so far with life, and that distance is roughly equivalent to the radius of our cage.  

I can’t speak to anyone’s specific circumstances. But I can speak to the Truth of God. Have you ever really read the Bible and taken it to the bank in your own life? Let’s think about this. The Word says that as many are the promises of God—everything God has ever said he would do—they are all “yes” in Christ Jesus (check out 2 Corinthians 1:20). Good grief! In the book of 1 Corinthians 3:16, it says, “Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you?” Now, call me a literalist here… but let’s put two and two together: Every promise of blessing, every promise of guidance, every promise of provision, every time God has ever said he will surely BE with us, everything God has ever said he would do, is “yes!” in Jesus Christ. Another way to say it is that the deposit has been made in the account of Christ Jesus—it’s all there and ready to go at a moment’s notice. Then, this same Jesus rose again, and in conquering Death itself he left us the Holy Spirit, which is even better (See John chapter 14). And this Spirit—one and the same with the Father and the Son—lives inside of us.

Hello? Are you hearing what I’m hearing?

Unlimited potential! Promises too great for us to imagine! Infinite possibility! All of this lives inside of us by the Spirit of Christ!

Goodness gracious….

If I got depressed looking at caged animals, what must Christ feel when he sees his children? Have you ever wondered what the God who rained manna down from Heaven must feel when his dear children, whom he loves more than anything else in all of the universe, come whimpering and begging that maybe, by chance, if it be his Will, could he give them a crumb of bread? Honestly! I can’t decide if I think he laughs or weeps.

Brothers and sisters, it’s high time we recognized our potential. Oh, that God would expand our imaginations! That he would expand our wildest dreams! Maybe you feel like you’re shut in and there’s no way out, that you haven’t the faintest idea how to open the door and get out of the cage you’ve built for yourself. Maybe you’re not even sure what your cage is…. But I’ve got news for you. Jesus says to you today, “Knock and the door will be opened.” Now, this isn’t the time for excuses. Don’t give me that, well, how on earth do I knock? What kind of door is he talking about? The question, really, is whether or not you’re willing to just give it a shot.

You see, so many of us go to church. We’ve memorized the Lord’s Prayer, and we usually even say a word of thanks before a meal. But I would bet my guitar that the average believer would be left utterly dumbstruck, terrified, confused, and possibly pass out if God were ever to respond to their prayers! We say our prayers so glibly, so quickly—do we realize that we’re talking to a person? Do we pray to get it over with and get out before giving God any time to respond, or do we have a conversation with a dear friend? I say very carefully that the issue is not how many minutes you spend talking to God. The question is whether you give God any time to talk to you! We have trained ourselves that as long as we keep talking, keep blessing every one that comes to mind—good grief, keep your tongue wagging before something talks back!—we’re OK. Well, church, I say it’s time to take a little risk…

Will you join me in this? Will you ask God to be true to His word? Will you ask him to set you free? Will you ask him to show you his glory? Will you demand that he fulfill his promises and hold on to them like a rabid dog?

Man alive, we give up SO easily! We pray for something, and if we don’t see the exact response we had in mind within 15 minutes of saying “amen,” we’re ready to throw in the towel and say that maybe some of God’s promises just “aren’t for today.”

WRONG.

Is Jesus alive today? Is he the same yesterday, today, and forever? Then in the name of our Lord, I say that every one of his promises IS. FOR. TODAY. I’m not saying that God is going to go around giving 90-year-old women babies or that you’re going to be swallowed by a fish or that you should go sit by a dry creek and wait for ravens to give you food. What I am saying is that God’s character, his goodness, his love, his purposes in Jesus Christ, and his covenant oath to his people haven’t changed. All of his promises are a resounding “yes” in Jesus Christ. And as his adopted son or daughter, you have legal rights to those promises.

I don’t know about you, but if I got a call from an attorney saying that a distant relative had decided to give me a million dollars, I wouldn’t sit around wondering if it was the “will” of the courts to let me have enough money to buy lunch. I’d break every speed limit in town to get there and get my money! Why won’t we do that with the things of God? Has God spoken a promise to you over your life? I guarantee you that he has. And maybe it’s time for you to start asking him what it is. It’s time to go through the Bible with a fine-tooth comb, like a madman searching for buried treasure. You find God’s treasure, and hold on to it with all you’ve got. Or maybe, you have a word over your life, but it seems like all hope has faded away and the flames of that promise are fading into dim embers. Well, today is your day! You bring that promise back to the source, and let God be true to his word.

With all the love I have, I say to you: Get your sorry camel butt out of that stinking cage.

You are a child of God, an heir of promise, more than a conqueror, and a warrior of the Most High. Whether you see it or not really doesn’t matter very much. You have no business rolling around in the dust. So for goodness’ sake, get out.

Romans 12:2: "Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will." 

"another fine bit of writing brought to you by yours truly"

You are what you... worship

Hey everyone! I have had a tremendous week. God apparently wasn’t finished with my previous blog… Last time, I shared with you all what God has been teaching me in the midst of this time of growth in my life: that confounded word we call “patience.” Well, consider this blog to be the sequel to that message…

After writing the blog, I really felt convicted. By that, I mean I knew that I had to live out the words and not just write them! I felt God whisper to me, “Alyssa, as long as you’re here, I need you to really be here.” I had to commit to being here. How many people out there know that you can be waiting patiently for something and, in the midst of it all, completely lose the place wherein you find yourself waiting? For example, if we go back to the dentist’s office, you can be so busy waiting for your appointment that you are completely oblivious to everyone else in the waiting room. Right? Well, God was convicting me of doing just that.

What do you suppose my response was? “Oh, yes, Lord, may it be! Oh, might we read the Holy Book with our neighbors?!” Are you kidding me? Like a beacon of righteousness, here was my prayer: “OK God, but I want furniture. I can’t feel like I’m committed here if my house is completely empty and I’m still sitting on tile floor to practice my guitar.” Wow. I know, guys—my spirituality is so flawless it can be rather suffocating at times. Haha! Now, here comes the interesting part: What do you think God’s response was?

Your answer to this question will reveal much about the God you worship. In one of my daily readings from this week, I found the most fascinating scripture. In the midst of the story of Israel’s downfall under a series of wicked kings, the Holy Spirit left a commentary on what was really happening to the people: “They followed worthless idols and themselves became worthless” (from 2 Kings 17:15). In other words, the people became like the object of their worship. Their idols were useless and could do nothing to save them from attacking armies; likewise, the Israelites found themselves completely outmanned in battle. They served gods of sexual immorality and drunkenness—what do you think became their new favorite pastimes? At base level, the image of God you carry will define who you are. You will without fail become like whatever god it is that you worship. Have you ever noticed that people who worship money—greed—seem to spend the majority of their time preoccupied and anxious about their perceived wealth?  It makes sense: if your god is the Hoarder, the One Who Must Possess All of the Wealth, then your anxiety about whether or not you have enough wealth is the appropriate act of worship. Am I making sense here?

 So I ask you again, what is the first thing that comes to your mind when you think of someone like Yours Truly here asking God for furniture?

I can tell you mine… I thought, Well, I know that nothing is too small or big for you, but… and I came up with justifications for why God might not want me to have any furniture right now. I’m just being honest with you here. Do you serve a God who gives gifts to His children? In Matthew chapter 6, we read, “’But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.’” Now, I know that you know that I know that you know that this verse follows Jesus’ commentary on clothing, food and all that “basic stuff”—but how often to we read this and believe that the provision being promised is somehow still spiritual? Do you really believe that God will give you clothing? Do you, at your gut level, worship a God who knows what size pants you wear and what your favorite color is? Think about that one for a second.

We are so quick to get lost in some mystical world of seeking the “kingdom” and “righteousness”—both of which are words that are horribly misunderstood by the Church today—that we shove God’s provision into some strange Never Never Land where we claim to believe that He’s going to take care of us, but we also have a thousand ready-made excuses if He doesn’t. Let me take a moment and show you what that “god” looks like: He’s distant, and if He ever figures out that you’re in need, He’ll be so frustrated about having to get off the couch and hand you your pittance for the week that He’ll probably make the Holy Spirit remind you that Jesus died for your sins in a desperate attempt to guilt trip you into not asking for anything ever again. Am I ringing any bells here? How many people feel like you shouldn’t ask God for physical things because He’s a Spirit—that is, he doesn’t really care about your physical needs because he wants you to have “spiritual” things. How many people also know that you can’t eat righteousness and you cannot wear patience? You can be a naked, hungry and “holy” person, can you not? Why are we so afraid to take God at His word?

That Scripture verse I just mentioned says “ALL THESE THINGS” will be given. It doesn’t say, “only holy things,” or “once you’ve one-upped Billy Graham,” or “only if you ask for things without really wanting them because you don’t think you’re allowed to have them so neither of us is really sure why you’re bothering to ask.” It says plainly, “all these things” will be given when you will “seek first his kingdom and his righteousness”. That is, give God the first priority in your life and you won’t have to worry about anything—ever! It doesn’t say “once you’ve found and obtained righteousness” or “once you’re a perfect citizen of the kingdom.” Jesus was talking to uneducated fisherman and a lot of rather plain people when he spoke. These weren’t monks secluded in the mountains or pastors with a full staff of people. These were men and women who were going to have to go about their day like everyone else, whose hands were tired when they got home from work, and who were hungry at lunch time.

Now, let me tell you the Truth. Let me tell you how my God responded to my prayer. Whoever we may think we worship, only God is God. He is faithful and true, and He loves His children and wants to provide for their every need.

The other day, I showed up at my house and found a man with an entire truckload of furniture waiting. “These are for you,” was what he told me. I had never seen that guy before in my life. After everything was loaded into the house, he took a look around and said, “You know, I’ve got some more furniture back at my shop. I’ll be back in a minute.” I only half believed him. I was still pretty stunned at the desk, sofa, and two chairs he had just loaded into my house. Well, the guy did come back—with a leather living room set! Good grief! I have a fully furnished house, the unspeakable blessing of my Father. God is not merely interested in the “spiritual stuff.” He wants to provide everything for you. God wants to take care of you. He longs to be compassionate toward you. I have a living room set to prove it! That was no coincidence. It was not just “my luck.” He sent some person I’d never met to my door to deliver furniture just because God loves me.

Again, ask yourself: Who do I worship? Often, your knee-jerk reaction in hard times will reveal this more clearly than anything. When you suddenly find yourself in great need, what thoughts come to your mind about the character of God? I can tell you that if you worship anyone other than the God who revealed himself in the Word, there will be some obvious indicators: anxiety, fear, anger, bitterness… perhaps statements like, “Oh, great, now this,” or “with my luck, it’ll only get worse.” Remember: we become like whatever we worship. What if sudden crises were met with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control? If you serve the Prince of Peace, is anxiety an appropriate offering? If you serve the God who is Love, does fear have any place in your heart? You will worship something; humanity is hard-wired to worship. What do we worship with bitterness? With hopelessness? To whom are we bringing an offering of anger? I will tell you that those offerings aren’t going to our Lord and Savior.

Now let me take a moment to declare that I don’t have this all figured out! I am no more perfect at this than anyone. If you have read this and thought, “Man, God just does crazy things for her. I wish He would give me what I need,” then I will have utterly failed. My prayer with this blog is that you will begin to question the deepest parts of your spirit. I pray that the Spirit will stir inside of you a longing for a deeper revelation of Himself. Don’t read the Bible trying to “figure God out”—read it asking God to reveal Himself to you as only He can know Himself to be.  I’m sure all of us need to repent of becoming like the worthless things we worship, but that’s not the point here. God wants you to know who He really is; He wants you to learn to worship Him. You can’t be like God if you aren’t worshiping Him.

There is power in what God’s children declare. If you declare Truth in situations (i.e., “God will provide my every need,” or “God will bless me today no matter what I may be seeing right now,”), you change everything and eternity will feel the ripple effect. In the same way, if you hold on to your current mindset and declare lies, you will also change everything. Who are you worshiping when you roll out of bed and say, “Today is going to suck”? To whose altar are you bringing the offering of “I’ll never get out of this one”? Who is edified by your anxiety? Have you ever noticed how when you say, “This ­­________ will just never change,” it never changes? That’s not a coincidence. That’s the fruit of a declaration made in the power of a child of God.

Therefore, brothers and sisters, let us keep our minds set on the true God. Not as we know Him, but as He knows Himself to be. Let us speak Truth into this world and, in the mosaic of words we create each day, let us create beauty and not destroy it. Let us become more like God by worshipping him. Let us take Him at His word and believe that He really will come through for us—for anything from furniture to rent money to gas for the car.

God bless!

"another fine bit of writing brought to you by yours truly"

Timing is Everything

1 Peter 5:6

“Humble yourselves, therefore,

under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time.”

Psalm 37:7a

“Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for Him”

Time.

Oh, blessed Time.

Do you ever wish that those old drawings of Father Time were true? Because then at least we would know that He’s probably going to die soon, or at the very least he could be killed. And we could take over! No? Well, perhaps I am the only one to think that way. I’ll bet, however, that in terms of how the average person lives his or her life on a day-by-day basis, we actually do feel the same way.

Impatience is practically force-fed to any member of Western Society from the moment he or she is given a bottle. We treat time like currency, only instead of dollars, pennies, and savings accounts we try to put a value on the moments that make up our lives. We describe things in that way, too: “a quarter of an hour,” “the better part of my afternoon” (meaning a large chunk of my time), and of course “free time”—what on earth does that mean? What if I asked you for a quarter of an hour? Could you actually cut the thing apart and hand me fifteen minutes? Can I put those fifteen minutes in my pocked and save them for later?

Think about it! Don’t feel guilty if something inside of you is resonating with this—it is ingrained into our very language and culture. Work is designed to occupy a set amount of time of our lives: think of the “nine to five” people out there. What we mean is that from the set time of nine in the morning until five o’clock in the afternoon, that person will be at such and such a place, doing such and such a thing; we disregard the fact that from 5:01 pm until 8:59 am, that person will still be at some place, doing some thing—it will just be a different place and a different thing. Do you see where I’m going with this? We need to completely overhaul the way in which we perceive time.

In this case, I am very much speaking to you from personal experience. And I can say that as long as you think of time from the viewpoint of the definition you were given from society (and therefore, Fallen Man), you will forever be at odds with God’s timing. And never was there a time when it was more critical for people to hold on to God’s time for dear life. We are so oppressed by the expectations of time placed upon us by our society. Our cell phones are more often used as clocks than a way to talk to loved ones, we have cars that can actually speak what time it is to us, we have laptops with built-in calendars that can interrupt something so sacred as Solitaire to remind us of something for which we’re late—it’s not hard to see why we are so stressed out, and why we writhe in agony when God starts up about “patience.”

Let me share with you a very strange discovery I made recently. That verse I put at the beginning from Psalm 37 contains an interesting word. It is translated there as “wait patiently,” but here’s the literal meaning from the Hebrew: “to swirl, turn, fall, dance; to wait; to dance (the round dance); to wait patiently; to swirl down; in some contexts this refers to a whirlwind—swirling down.” I’m serious! Check a Strong’s if you don’t believe me. Now, I don’t know about you, but when I think of “wait patiently,” the first image that comes to mind is not someone dancing a jig. I think of annoyed children in dentists’ waiting rooms, ready to tear the crinkled pages of “Good Housekeeping” apart out of sheer boredom. God’s definition of patience, it seems, is slightly different from our own.

When I got to thinking about it, it began to make perfect sense. God showed me an image of a dancer—that is, someone training for a performance.  If you’ve never had to learn a specific choreography, let me tell you: You spend a lot more time counting out the rhythm than dancing it! You may go over the same 16 measures a hundred times before you move on to the next part of the song. It takes patience to truly dance. Supposing said dancer got impatient and decided to do things her own way. What if she tried to do a step to “her own rhythm” or a combination out of order, or wanted to take the stage before she had taken the time to learn the ins and outs of the song?

That is what I believe the verse is talking about. That we are to “be still,” not in the sense of a kid in a dentist’s office, but in the way that we would say, “Relax!” to a friend in a stressful moment. Calm down. Dance in step with God’s timing. He is the choreographer, and it is His music. The choice is yours as to whether or not you will allow Him to teach you the steps. You can try to do it in your own way, making your 3/4 steps in the midst of His 4/4 song, but you will cheat yourself in the end! You see, God is not a malicious spirit waiting to take away your dreams. He longs to show you off. Was that not his plan with the nation of Israel? Are the saints of the New Testament not referred to as a “city on a hill” which “cannot be hidden”?

Don’t worry. God wants you to take the stage. He wants you to have the performance of a lifetime—for all of your life’s time. But you have to learn the dance! If you will not put in time in the secret place with God, where do you think you’ll learn the steps?

I love that the picture of the dance in this verse is a swirling, falling whirlwind. We’re not talking about a Russian school of ballet here where people are beaten for missteps. God knows that this is a learning process, that there will be missteps and mistakes. And he still holds out His hand to you. There is something wild, unstructured, and almost frustrating about dancing with God. There is no rulebook you can turn to for step-by-step formulas, no “Idiot’s Guide,” and no YouTube instructional videos. Only God.  You must learn to follow His lead, to become sensitive to His guidance, to anticipate His moving. That is something you can only learn by spending time with God.

Does that not change the way you think of waiting? It does for me, anyway.

However, to be honest, I still find myself struggling with this issue. Remember that other verse I put at the beginning? “Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time.”

In

Due

Time.

Ugh. I hate those three words! Now, we have it established that God does indeed want us to take the stage, yes? God is training us to dance according to His time, but now we have another kind of “time”—the awaited moment rather than the process of arriving. This is the trickier of the two, at least for me. This is where we get into the “are we there yet???” moments of life.  Waiting is one thing… But trusting that God’s not waiting too long to do “that thing He said he would” is different. We can wait for a dentist we’ve never met; to trust that he’s not back there drinking coffee while we witness the demise of an issue of “Good Housekeeping” is another thing altogether.

For me, one standing on the finite ruler that is Time, things seem so important. I sometimes catch myself thinking things like, Dear God, I just wasted five minutes! I’m not doing anything productive! But God stands so far outside of that. We get so caught up in our teeny tiny moments within Time that we forget that Time itself is engulfed in God’s eternal glory. We often refer to God as the “Author of Time,” but I wonder… Do we actually understand what that means?

When I say, for example, that Cervantes is the author of Don Quixote de La Mancha, what does that imply? Well, for starters, it means that every last detail of the book came from him. The pages did not write themselves. Every misadventure of Sancho and Quixote, every windmill attacked, every challenge to his imaginary Lady’s virtue—they all existed inside of Cervantes long before the book was published; perhaps they spent years inside of his mind before any other being found out about them. Now, does the fact that for a while those things were inside of Cervantes’ mind rather than on paper change anything? Of course not! If anything, the process of arranging his ideas onto the pages of what would become the masterpiece of Spanish Literature only added richness to the end result. Do any literary critics today look back and say, “Why, golly, it took him a long time to write that book. It must be terrible.” Can you imagine if someone had come to Cervantes and said, “Look, I know the book isn’t ready yet, but I’m really sick of waiting for the sequel. Will you just make x, y, and z happen to Quixote so I will know if he’s insane or not and wrap everything together? Thanks.” How ridiculous would that be?! That would ruin the most wonderful parts of the book.

Yet…

Is that not what we do to God? The Eternal. The Glorious. The Author of Time. He is writing His own masterpiece across the pages of our lives. And he’s doing a lot more than criticizing the Spanish status quo. He’s bringing to pass eternal promises and purposes in our lives. And yet we still want to interrupt him, to tell him what to write so that he can make the story “fit together” by our standards. Here I stand on a finite, miniscule dot contained within that which we call “Time,” and I am completely unable to see anything that is coming my way. And, standing here, I have an “in” with the One who can see ahead! How can I not grasp the wonder of it all? The Author of Time, the one who can stop, rewind, fast forward---who is present to all such “dots” throughout Time at the same time—He has declared me His child and told me He wants to share His heart and His plans with me.

Wow.

You’d think I would throw up my hands, jump for sheer joy, and thank God. You’d think I’d let out a huge sigh and say, “What a relief! Finally, I can stop straining my eyes. You take over!”

Well, that’s what would seem to be the logical response. Shamefully, though, I admit that my default is more often than not one of complaining to God that I’m “bored,” or lamenting “the good old days,” or working myself into a mental paralysis over an unseen future. This reminds me of a poem we used to have on our wall at home:

“I was regretting the past and fearing the future

When suddenly my Lord was speaking,

‘When you live in the past, with its mistakes and regrets,

It is hard; I am not there. My name is not I WAS.

When you live in the future, with its problems and fears,

It is hard; I am not there. My name is not I WILL BE.

When you live in this moment,

It is not hard; I am here.  My name is I AM.’”

Everything, everything, everything—it all comes down to a very simple question: Do I trust God? That was, essentially, the question posed to Eve in the Garden; her response of “no” has haunted us ever since. We either trust that God will work all things for our good in due time or we don’t. There is no middle ground here. You cannot love someone you cannot fully trust. Think of it this way… every time you feel like saying, “God! I am so bored!” try saying it like what you mean: “God. I know you have said that you have big plans for me, but I don’t see any of that happening right now. So if you could just make something happen, I would know if you’re really a good guy or not. Thanks.” Do you see what I mean? Do you trust the faithfulness of the author?

If he is the author, we are the paper. Yes, we have substance—sort of—on our own. But without His words written across us and throughout us, arranged according to His story, we have no meaning. Nothing will endure. God is the only one with a pen; everything else in Creation is trying to write with chalk. It will last for a while, but only God’s Word endures. Do you trust Him?

It is time the church stopped thinking like the world. It is time we recognized the power of the One we serve. Think of time according to God’s Truth: the passionate dance, the careful arrival of a masterpiece. Don’t let our culture convince you that time is a commodity. That it is yours. That it can be quantified like a retirement fund. That boredom is “normal.” That God won’t come through at the right time.

Make a decision. You can either trust God or not; it’s not my place to tell you what to do. But I will say that you will never regret living on God’s timing. I only submit that the amount of migraines, ulcers, sleepless nights, and destroyed lives exhibited in people entrenched in the world’s timing should be evidence enough that it’s a dangerous way to think.

* * *

Wow! That was a long one! OK… very briefly… here are some updates:

·      I was blessed to be able to lead worship at a women’s retreat this past weekend. A handful of women came forward at the end to receive Christ—that’s what it’s all about.

·      Leading worship at the rehab center has been going really well, but we definitely face a serious attack every time we go. The craziest stuff seems to go wrong with our sound system every time. Keep it up in prayer—if the Enemy doesn’t want us there, we know it’s because God wants to do something big!

·      My brother Davy graduates from college next week! I’m super bummed that I don’t get to see it.

·      God has been putting some huge dreams on my heart—as I hope you realize He’s doing in yours—and so I know first-hand the hardships of waiting for God’s timing. Please keep me in prayer for discernment, for strength to hold on to what God has spoken, and of course, for patience in letting God do things His way!

Thanks!!!

"another fine bit of writing brought to you by yours truly"