Yes, operator, I'd like a direct line to God, please.

So, circumstances lately have left me feeling a bit flustered. That's putting it lightly. But the pain of uncertainty has had me wondering if I should just walk away. And here I shall leave things vague.

Two weeks ago I went to church with this "situation" on my mind. I picked up a bulletin for the sermon and read the title, "Know When to Run."

Fantastic! Here was my answer. It was as if God had prepped me for what I knew the sermon was going to be about. We'd been going through a series called "Christmas Through the Eyes of Skeptics." This sermon was going to be about how after Jesus was born, Joseph and Mary had to get out of town because Herod was a psycho-baby-killer - I just knew it. I sat in my seat, secretly already preparing to thank the pastor afterward for delivering to me this God-sent message that it was time to get out of my "situation."

Right. Not so much...

"Know When to Run" was apparently secretly titled, "Christmas and the Wondering Shepherds," taken from Luke 8. Instead of, "get out of Dodge," the message I got from God was, "Come to Me." Instead of a concrete "stick with it" or "run like you want to do," I was told, "If you want peace, run to me. I will put you back together."

In the end, I'm not sure that this is about whether pursuing or deserting a certain relationship will make me happy or bring me peace. God brought me a third, unseen, forgotten option instead to bring myself and my situation before Him. Only He can heal the fragmentation of my heart.

This is no quick and easy "fix-it" answer. It's an invitation to do relationship with God, to sit with Him. This invitation takes longer and does not produce what I'm initially looking for, but it's so much more substantial than anything else that I could hope for.

And in the end, I think that's the better end of the deal - a true relationship with the Person of God, as opposed to a robot dispenser-God who only gives me what I want according to when I think I want it. His love, grace, and mercy abound even when I'm not aware of it.

* * *

Fast-foward a week. (Or, look back to this Sunday.)

Circumstances haven't changed much. Again, I go to church with a heavy heart, full of strife and tumult. The normal Encounter service which I attend was combined with the Celebration service in the main sanctuary for a combined "family" worship service.

I hardly wanted to be there.

I showed up late and throughout the service listened to people from different ministries get up and give testimony to what God was doing and how they'd seen Him at work. After each speaker sat down, the worship leader would begin, "The Lord is good" and the congretation would answer, "and His love endures forever." (Taken from 2 Chronicles and from Psalm 100).

"The Lord is good, and His love endures forever."

I wish I could say that I wholeheartedly agreed and that hearing the professions of those around me moved my heart to gladness and gratefulness, but the truth of the matter is that I've had a lot of pain to deal with. I sat in anger, silently refusing to open my mouth. But, as I heard the phrase repeated over and over, my stubbornness was overcome with the truth of the statement. God's goodness and His love is eternal. The presence of turmoil does not diminish that to any degree.

Finally, I opened my lips and let fall the words, "The Lord is good and His love endures forever. At first, I spoke out of mere obedience, but the more I said it, the more the truth sunk into my heart.

My point is this: that God meets you wherever you are. He doesn't always answer the questions and grievances of your heart in a way that you want or expect Him to. He is not governed by your desires. But His steadfast love and goodness endure for you and all generations.

Joy.

(I can't figure out how to format these pictures so that you can see them fully in this post, but if you click on them individually, you'll be able to see them enlarged for all of their full wonderfulness.)



I said this recently to a friend, and realized it's something I'd like to share:

I'm currently listening to the "Christmas Carols" Radio station on Pandora. I've really been craving the spiritual significance of those (hymnal) songs this Christmas season. The classical manner with which they're performed really hits on the holiness and sacredness of the season for me. They inspire just a bit of awe and a sense of peace in me...I love it. I just want to listen to it forever and let my soul soak it in.



Here we have what Christmas is about - Christ coming to earth. The gift of love.
Not consumerism or a fat little man in a red suit.
Innocence. Love. The battle and triumph of ultimate good over ultimate evil. Pain. Messy, organic love. Fear, Trust. Miracles. Beauty. Glory. Humility. God coming to earth. Peace. Comfort and Joy.




And this, I extend to you, my brothers and sisters this Christmas season:
Good tidings to you, for you and your kin. Glory to the newborn King! Oh, come, let us adore Him.



I wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Save me, Santa

The official music video to "I Believe" (which I wrote about in "Sing Along..." on Nov. 29) has been released. Here it is.

Divisible by 2

I have eleven more minutes to say this: Today it is my birthday.

I am now 24.

I think that Dec. 18th is an aesthetically pleasing date. It just sounds pretty.

*Update: ten more minutes.

flicker . thoughts

Observation: When you stare into a fire and let your eyes unfocus from looking at anything, the flickering of the embers makes them look like they move according to stop-motion animation.
Things aren't always what they seem.
(Experience: Even though a fire can make your skin hot, sometimes that quick heat isn't enough to take the chill out that has sunk down into your toes.)

I have felt frustrated, but not irate; critical, but not cynical. I feel uneasy about my last post because I think it toes a very fine line in this area, but I will not recall it. I take issue with behaviors, people, and institutions that promote the destruction of others (or the adoption of [self-]destructive behavior of others) not because I think that they are necessarily inherently evil in and of themselves, but because I do not like to see the ambiguous group of "others" hurt or so led astray by lies. I could probably work on being more gentle though. Am I making any sense?

The past three days have been difficult ones for me. Physically, I'm officially fighting a cold and emotionally - well, they've been a rough few days. Here's what I've come away with though...

As I sat on the floor, leaning against the wall with my knees hugged up to my chest while I cried, I couldn't help but wonder, "Where is God with me in this?" Sure, I know the concept that God mourns with those who hurt - that He shares the pain of His beloved, but I'm not sure that I really know it. I don't feel God crying with me. If anything, it feels more like I've done something wrong and God is sitting on the other side of a sterile white room cooly observing me, waiting for me to learn my lesson. Okay, I know that this isn't true...but when I can't feel God, it's hard to accept otherwise. My prayers become something a little more like Psalm 88, and even if what I learned about "pain revealing Christ's love for me" becomes a little bit more real, it's still a minimal improvement as my head and my heart fight against each other to acknowledge it.

I was recently pointed towards the story of Gideon as encouragement about feeling inadequate regarding whatever my future may be. I wasn't quite up to scratch in remembering Gideon's story, so I decided to re-read it. It's funny... About 4 o'clock AM, I read before work and had only a few minutes to get what I could. I speed-read while I waited in the dark parking lot for my coworker to show up so that we could start the opening shift. During that time God served me something great. In the dim lighting of a street lamp, I scanned the header, "Midean Oppresses Israel," and then moved on to "The call of Gideon." I read the first 5 verses before my coworker came, but that's all I needed. I absolutely love the opening: Israel is being absolutely thrashed by Midian...enter our character in Judges 6:11-13:

11 Now the angel of the Lord came and sat under the terebinth at Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, while his son Gideon was beating out wheat in the winepress to hide it from the Midianites. 12 And the angel of the Lord appeared to him and said to him, “The Lord is with you, O mighty man of valor.” 13 And Gideon said to him, “Please, sir, if the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all his wonderful deeds that our fathers recounted to us, saying, ‘Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the Lord has forsaken us and given us into the hand of Midian.”

The angel of the Lord shows up, tells Gideon that the Lord is with him, and Gideon's response is, "Oh yeah? Then why does life suck so much?" I identify with this guy so much, it's almost shameful sometimes.
And yet, for all that (and more)...God uses him in mighty ways (as the rest of Judges 6, 7, and 8 testify).

So I'm left with this disconnect between my heart and my head that God loves me, that He doesn't abandon me for "not being good enough," and that He goes through the pain with me - not apart from me. I guess it's just up to the Holy Spirit to work with me to get that head knowledge to seep down into my heart...