Desires and Drives

In looking around me, at society, at my own heart, at how we as a people seem to move, I've come to a small conclusion:

Sex comes easy, but relationship is hard.

With our over-sexed society, we can get sex in a myriad of forms for a variance of prices. "Open up the menu, see what you like and if it fits your price. We can even customize it!" However, relationship (what I think our hearts really desire) takes vulnerability, commitment, and absolute work. It's not something that we can get by opening a magazine, turning on the TV, cranking up the radio, or flirting around. Sure, those things can temporarily dull the aching desire in our hearts, but they don't provide what we truly desire - love and relationship.

Here's the thing about sex - it's not something you can really get a la carte. It's designed to be within the context of absolute vulnerability, danger, and commitment. Hearts get involved, and that's a tricky business. Giving into that drive may feel good at the moment, but when that person goes away - the hole of loneliness is only ripped wider.

In looking at my own heart, I think that's one of the reasons why I'm waiting for marriage. I'm not one to be sustained by empty flowery language, passing admirations of beauty, or indications of love. No. I'm not here for the quick and easy - building a house of sticks in hopes that it will protect me from the wolves. Give me something of substance. Give me something that lasts. If I ever get married, sex will be there...but it won't be the reason for which I marry. It'll simply be the icing on top of the cake.

And if I never marry, I already have that dangerous, vulnerable, committed love.
Just give me Jesus.

Lessons in Sleep

I dreamed last night of the loss of innocence and of evil incarnate in the form of a giant spider (comparable to Shelob from The Lord of the Rings, I suppose). Interestingly enough, I'd call it a dream and not a nightmare. It was a setting where I understood the gravity of the situation and the intention of the monster (to destroy and consume all human life in order to feed her own procreation). I understood my own fallenness, and I understood that I had to destroy her in order for survival (not just of myself, but for others). There were some who gave into the despair of "knowing" that they were going to die. I fought for them. She was was stronger than we were. She had a higher intelligence and awareness of our activities (and thoughts). But she did not know everything and she was not indestructible...

I say a lot of this in hindsight (and with the commentary of a friend), but it makes sense (concerning matters in my own life, but also in a macrocosmic sort of way).

It may seem obvious, but I think she might be taken as a huge commentary on the nature of evil and its force (and intention) in human life. However, no matter how stark the circumstances may seem...there is always hope. Christ provided that victory. So, rather than submit passively to the raging appetite of evil, we fight the good fight.

That's not to say that it's all in our power though. Remembering back to an actual nightmare I had about a month ago, I dreamt that I fought a cobra - first hooding it with a towel and then pinning it to a wall. Yet, for all of its "disarmament" and inability to bite me, it still squirmed beneath my hold and sought for any possible way to get at me. I knew that my job was not to kill the beast (because I was unable and unequipped to). Rather, the next step was to wait for rescue from somebody who could free me by taking it away.

Does that sound like another picture? We are told to resist the devil, but we are never told to defeat him. In truth, the only one with the power to do so is God.
Thank the Lord for His care in rescuing us through the Cross.

The LORD and the Wife

I needed to read the passage of Ezekiel 16 in order to find context for some verses I was invited to recite. I was supposed to read the New American Standard Bible (NASB) translation, but stumbled across the New International Version (NIV) first. Both had something unique to bring to my understanding (and each link directs you to its rendition of the passage). Wow. It's passages like these that leave me with in firm agreement that if it was not for the fact that the Bible is the basis of Christian faith, it's one of the books many would be trying to get taken off of the shelves. Its content is not tame.



The story of the adulterous wife...and some renditions are more graphic than others. And yet - I find it to be such a depiction of the Gospel message. Through Israel's example, it sets up the unmerited love of God; our vile, sinful rebellion (in shades that we would not otherwise like to admit); and God's merited wrath at such unfaithfulness. The problem of sin is clearly set up. God's pain is evident. His broken heart is there. And yet, in the face of Him promising the consequences of such actions (His wrath), He still offers restoration at the end.


Again, the heartbeat of His love carries through. He promises in verse 60, "Yet I will remember the covenant I made with you in the days of your youth, and I will establish an everlasting covenant with you" (NIV). God, in the image of the betrayed husband, offers to His wife more than any human could ever offer considering the magnitude of betrayal.

The passage ends with Him describing the new relationship in verses 62-63, "'Thus I will establish My covenant with you, and you shall know that I am the LORD, so that you may remember and be ashamed and never open your mouth anymore because of your humiliation, when I have forgiven you for all that you have done,' the Lord GOD declares" (NASB).





Pause for a moment and let that sink in.





This passage is directed at the nation of Israel, but we can still learn from it and see how it points to the cross. Just as Israel fell short and was unfaithful in the covenant with God, so we as indivuals also rebel. Pride fills us individually (and as a society). We are good. We are beautiful. We are young. We are strong. We don't need God. We can do it on our own.

...at least, that's what we often wish to believe. We work harder and harder to convince ourselves that these things are true, and our frenzy consumes us. And when we are faced with the truth about our character, it can be devastating. This is true of ME. This is true of YOU.



Yet, God speaks of a covenant. Looking at the covenants in scripture, they became more inclusive and more one-sided as God offered then on the contingency of His own faithfulness (rather than ours). Ezekiel 6:60 promises an eternal covenant. Through Christ, his (innocent) death on the cross (for our sins), and his resurrection, that covenant offers redemption to the unfaithful. The humiliation spoken of is not one of vindiction. I think it is merely the recognition of realizing the depth of the depravity that we were saved from. We no longer boast in our own goodness, because we realize that our goodness is there because of God.

The cost to God was unimaginable to us. In the face of the heartache at being rejected, betrayed, and stolen from, He then gave more of Himself - to the point of a sacrificial death on the cross - in order to bring about a restoration of the unfaithful. This is true of me. This is true of you. And that love is what saves us from destruction when we have our masks pealed back so that we might see how bad off we really are. The strength of God's love rescues us from being crushed beneath the weight of our sin.

I don't understand that kind of love. I mean, I cannot fully comprehend it. But it is my prayer that I come to understand it more.

How deep the Father's love for us
How vast beyond all measure
That He would give His only son
To make a wretch His treasure

A Hug and a Kiss

At the end of this night, I have to tip my hat to a holiday that I love so much. Yes, "cynics" are right when they say that Christmas has been smeared with commercialism, consumerism, watered down to mean nothing more than "magic and childlike happiness," over-produced and under-enjoyed (and I have to admit that there are times when I get caught up in that)...but my heart is captured by the meaning and purpose of Christmas. I find Christ in Christmas. The wonder and love of a God who would miraculously send His son to earth does not escape me.

I've heard it said by some that Christmas is a lesser holiday compared to Easter when considering theological importance. However, I disagree. Christ's death on the cross, burial, and resurrection from/conquering over death was crucial, I agree. Yet, on the day of Christ's birth he started on that physical, linear, time-lined path to the Cross. I don't really see one holiday (holy day) as more important than the other. I see them as intermingled. Both were actions of love that stand out as markers on the Christian calendar.

Christmas was the embrace that led to the kiss of Easter.

"Created Beauty" - from The Beauty of God

I'm currently reading a book given to me, called The Beauty of God: Theology and the Arts. It's a series of essays and the first one is entitled, "Created Beauty," by Jeremy Begbie. Here are a few of my favorite excerpts:

"The deity celebrated in Christian faith is not an undifferentiated monad or blank "Absence," but a triunity of inexhaustible love and life, active and present to the world as triune and never more intensively than in the saving life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. " (Begbie; p. 21)

"We are not overpowered by God as a sublime truth; we are romanced by God as pure beauty." (Rosty Reno, quoted by Begbie; p. 24)

"...a theological account of created beauty will speak of creation as testifying to God's beauty, but in its own distinctive ways. Much here turns on doing full justice to a double grain in Scripture's witness: the Creator's faithful commitment to the cosmos he has made, and his commitment to the cosmos in its otherness. Creation testifies to God's beauty, but in its own ways; or better: God testifies to his own beauty through creation's own beauty." (Begbie; p. 25)

"The vision is rather of the artist, as physical and embodied, set in the midst of a God-given world vibrant with a dynamic beauty of its own, not simply "there" like a brute fact to be escaped or violently abused but there as a gift from a God of overflowing beauty, a gift for us to interact with vigorously, shape and reshape, form and transform, and in this way fashion something as consistent and dazzlingly novel as the Goldberg Variations, art that can anticipate the beauty previewed and promised in Jesus Christ." (Begbie, p. 44)

*I think I will update this with more quotes as I continue to read the rest of essays in the book.*

"The Tree": An Attempt at an Exegesis

A little over a year ago, I got to be a camp counselor at Hume Lake for a group of wonderful freshmen girls. One particular day at camp offered the opportunity to paint for a few hours by the lake. The cost was only $3. Excited, I jumped at the offer. However, by the time I got there, they had run out of canvases. As a deal though, they offered that if I found something that I'd like to paint on, they would supply the paint to me for half the price. Deal. Along with another girl (who shared my name) I went out in search of an appropriate substitute. Along the edge of the forest, we found some bark.

I painted two and then kept the one that I liked. The other, "Good News from Distant Lands," I left on a pile of logs for the campfire when I went home. (As a side-note, one of the characteristics of beauty is it's transitory nature - that it is marked by a certain time, where it exists for a period and is then gone. What I mean is that I didn't like this, so I threw it away...but I took a picture!)

My intention in painting was to express the message of the Gospel, but in a way that was more abstract - that engaged the mind while hooking the emotion. I wanted people to feel something when they looked at the piece, and then to wonder why they felt what they did. For me, the story expressed in my painting was clear, but I still wanted it to be thoughtfully challenging for the viewer so that their heart and mind engaged in worship while pondering and finally arriving at the meaning.

And here's what I produced: "The Tree."

(I took it home like this, unfinished, and left it like that for about a year.)

For me, it's a piece that tells the story of redemption. The vibrant colors painted into the cracks and multidimensional surface of the bark represent the beauty of life. However, the black that covers and threatens to completely hide the vibrancy represents the destructive power of sin in our life. Through the work that Christ did on the cross when He died for our sins (and then resurrected three days later), we are restored to life. Thus, the only space I left "unpainted" was the area that leaves the shape of the cross - pure and untainted. His perfection and glory shines as it covers us, washed in his blood. At the cross, also referred to as "the tree," our sins were atoned for and God proved the victor in the battle for eternity. Red splashes across the piece signify the shedding of Christ's blood.

"The Tree" does not exist as a linear piece. We are redeemed, but we still struggle with sin. In Romans 7:15,18a Paul confesses his own weakness, " For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. [...] For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out." Our process of sanctification is ongoing as we continue to struggle with our fallenness while simultaneously growing in holiness (a continual process of restoring the "vibrancy" marred by sin). Thus, this piece is meant to convey the continual grace provided by God as the Holy Spirit works in us towards that restoration. Our ability to desire and do "good" can only have deep and lasting progression if it is fueled by the gift and power of God. We are too weak to be righteous out of our own strength or pride. However, as a static piece of art, it also serves as a reminder that the justification of our souls, bought with the blood of Christ, only needed to happen once and for all. Christ's words, "It is finished," come to my mind (John 19:30). Paul writes in Romans 5:9 "Since, therefore, we have now been justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God." (Actually, Romans 4-10 seem to have a lot of things to say about justification. I encourage you to check it out if you're curious.) It's a tension reflected in 1 John 3:1-2 that we are legally and eternally considered innocent and children of God, but practically speaking, we still have to deal with the sin-nature embedded in us as we live our linear lives.

Basically, what it comes down to is this: I wanted to paint something beautiful that presented the Gospel message in a way that wasn't cliche and that dramatically expressed what happened at the Tree. Really, just as an individual must work out his or her own personal faith with God, so I want the viewer to come to his or her own understanding of what is found to be the meaning of the painting.

I had no sermon to guide my intentions, but in looking back on my original intent, I think it was fueled by statements made in things like the old hymns. The Catholic hymns for Lent, "En, Acetum, Fel, Arundo" and "Vexilla Regis Prodeunt," provide a good example.

The lyrics of the hymn "Alas! and Did my Savior Bleed?" by Isaac Watts also fit well with my thoughts on what was done on the tree.

Here, I will include one final piece that I think captures my intent. "Not Without Love (Benediction)" by Jimmy Needham.

I should probably mention that I DID finally finish the piece a few months ago in time for an exhibit. All I had to do was add the nails and cord...

(And here it is again with a different setting for better color capture, but with annoying shadows. Meh. I guess I'm not a photographer.)

Drama. Trauma. Struggle. Life and Death and Resurrection. Redemption. Rescue. Absolute love. Absolute sacrifice.

I don't think that the Gospel should ever be tame.

Statement of Intent

I've found myself experiencing push-back over my desire to go to grad school. Honestly, it's hard to hear when what I would like most is to have what I think the desires of my heart to be supported by those whom I love. However, I think that it's actually a good thing because in experiencing opposition, I go through a refining process. In having everything questioned, my motives and intentions are kept in check. If anything, it proves to me the absolute need that I have to ground myself more in seeking discernment through communication with God - prayer, His word, and keeping alert to how else He might guide me. Oh, it would seem that I have a long way to go. However, in the refining, here are my thoughts:

I do not want to make the worship experience "cooler" for the participants. In looking at worship arts and trying to bring that into the corporate experience at church, I want it to be something that unifies the body for the glorification of the Lord. I want it to be something that at all times challenges or moves (intellectually or emotionally) the congregation into a closer relationship with God. I think it should be led, of course. But I think that it should never be a one-man show. The whole purpose of corporate worship is that we come together as one to glorify He who is worthy. Thus, I think it should be something that is contributed to by as many people as possible. And since we are multi-sensory beings, I think that worship should be as holistic as possible.

However, it is never about a show. It is never about being cool. The purpose or value of art and beauty is not for art and beauty in itself. Art and beauty are only the means to a goal - tools that move, inspire, and enliven us as they point to God. When we stop and use them as a way to glorify ourselves they, like cut flowers, quickly wither and fade from the depth of life from which they came.