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"