Quoted from The Sacred Romance by Curtis and Eldredge
"The whole life of the good Christian," said Augustine, "is a holy longing." Sadly, many of us have been led to feel that somehow we ought to want less, not more. We have this sense that we should atone for our longings, apologize that we feel such deep desire. Shouldn't we be more content? Perhaps, but contentment is never wanting less ; that's the easy way out. Anybody can look holy if she's killed her heart; the real test is to have your heart burning within you and have the patience to enjoy what there is now to enjoy; while waiting with eager anticipation for the feast to come. In Paul's words, we "groan inwardly as we wait eagerly" (Rom. 8:23). Contentment can only happen as we increase desire, let it run itself out toward its fulfillment, and carry us along with it...
Today at Spring Hill worship, Andy Huest gave a talk about hope and about longing. It was so applicable it was just scary. My heart feels so empty at times, but then others it makes me feel like the richest man in the whole world. I don't feel content anymore....I hate the status quo, and except for the last two months of school I wasnt following it. My heart was dead, it was killed by the despair that i let shut me out of the world, I let it push me away from those I was closest to. My heart is one of passion, and i am learning how to channel it each any every day. I am trying my best to learn how God is transforming my innermost being. I am learning how to make a difference in my life and to bring healing to those around me. I love the quote that is listed above. I want to enjoy want is here in my life, my friends, family, and new adventures....but that doesnt mean i dont want more. I long for so much more. I long to have my heart continued to be transformed into a new heart that God has inside me. I dont want to take the easy way out, that ends in tears for me and for others....its not that i wanted to put up a front but I had this dark veil covering over all the good things in life...I was settling for mud pies...I took for granted what i had and I was wrong. My relationships, my relationship with God stopped growing. I thought that everything was progressing so well so i just left it up to "fate".
Well there is no such thing as fate!!!! There is nothing but our actions that we take to strive toward God. Sure I was overwhelmed and even the last week of school in a feeling of abandonment....but i became so weak that i had to rely on all that I had. I had to build a foundation in my life so i could even wake up in the morning. This waterfall of pain, and sorrow was suffocating me under the surface as i was gasping for air. My life was falling out of wack with what my heart truly desired. But He pulled me out of it, like being drenched in the waters of baptism I was...I am cold and naked in front of my friends and family. I have been needing nurturing and I have been needed grace....and He has provided it all. My safety is my salvation and my heart dissolved away till barely anything was left but the core of me....any two facedness, any playing politics, and any veil is gone. The only thing left is that little ember I had always had.
But that ember burns my soul with a longing I have never experienced before. Its not a burning for now and then whatever isnt satisfied by that is what i look toward heaven for. For the first time in my life I not only feel my heart but i understand why i am feeling it. I can see right through me, and i would be surprised if those around me didnt see the same thing. I am no longer a man of lukewarmness. It is only hot and cold....there is no grey....not testing boundaries, i did that too long and played with the literal sanctity of God's plan and purpose for my life. It is a little ember that burns with the passion to serve God and to look toward heaven for my satisfaction. I am looking toward Christ for my safety. And as if looking into a mirror my passions convict my spirit toward that of what i dont have. Not in a covetous way, but in a way of appreciation and a prayer for a full life. That there is this piece missing in my life, dont get me wrong, I am blessed and thankful for where I am and what God is teaching me and bringing me to now.....but it is also a preparation for the future. It is a hope that it is a second chance, a preparation for bigger and better things when i am firmly rooted in Christ. When I have been fully emptied out myself for really only the second time in my whole life and yet in a completely different way.
I know what i means to be empty....I have been to that edge, I cried out to my Father in Heaven to ask Him to take it all away. I dont deserve Him. I dont deserve his grace and I sure dont deserve a second chance at His love or to experience His love in a way that I would be held accountable for so much more. And I know that in this instant I am not ready for that. God is preparing me for something, possibly a life that my life's work will be that of the image of the poorest King, Jesus. A man that gave so much and yet for His entire life did not have the physical possessions of even the lowest of noblemen. I want to live a life of poverty of physical pleasures but a life full of spiritual riches. I want a life that I can show this new passion to old friends, that those I had hurt, or ignored, or showed a false face to (on purpose or otherwise) in middle school, high school, and especially in college; my friends would notice a renaissance in my spirit.
I burn inwardly for what i can not express outwardly. Not because it untruthful...for my heart has no filter anymore, but this time of patience, and growth, and building upon things those things of old that survived the fire of our Lord, and then all things must be revealed. I have no credibility that I am trustworthy or that next time would be different. I have no foundation with this new self with my friends. I have already seen the joys and the pain from some of my friendships that were built on rocks and sand respectively. To some of my friends it will be a one way relationship, to some it will be reciprocal, and to some it can be so much more. An investment in each other to see what God can truly do when brothers or sisters trust God to lead. I loved it when i was down in PCB and sharing the gospel just as much as when i was @ spring hill and sharing the gospel. It takes a special person to do either, and to see my spiritual family banding together to make a difference like that was just amazing. Life is so tough and no one can go through it alone. It IS lonely living alone (by definition), and I am so thankful that I have brothers and sisters to be there with me.
I am so tried right now, its not that late but it has been a long day. I feel like I am babbling. I had an entire revelation about myself in the car that i wanted to write but i wanted to use prudence too. Sometimes i fear that if i dont record what is happening here and now it will be lost or lose the emphasis that i meant, but all things come at the right time.
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Learning to lean
SANCTIFICATION
"This is the will of God, even your sanctification." 1 Thessalonians 4:3
The Death Side. In sanctification God has to deal with us on the death side as well as on the life side. Many of us spend so much time in the place of death that we get sepulchral. There is always a battle royal before sanctification, always something that tugs with resentment against the demands of Jesus Christ. Immediately the Spirit of God begins to show us what sanctification means, the struggle begins. "If any man come to Me and hate not . . his own life, he cannot be My disciple."
The Spirit of God in the process of sanctification will strip me until I am nothing but "myself," that is the place of death. Am I willing to be "myself," and nothing more - no friends, no father, no brother, no self-interest - simply ready for death? That is the condition of sanctification. No wonder Jesus said: "I came not to send peace, but a sword." This is where the battle comes, and where so many of us faint. We refuse to be identified with the death of Jesus on this point. "But it is so stern," we say; "He cannot wish me to do that." Our Lord is stern; and He does wish us to do that.
Am I willing to reduce myself simply to "me," determinedly to strip myself of all my friends think of me, of all I think of myself, and to hand that simple naked self over to God? Immediately I am, He will sanctify me wholly, and my life will be free from earnestness in connection with every thing but God.
When I pray - "Lord, show me what sanctification means for me," He will show me. It means being made one with Jesus. Sanctification is not something Jesus Christ puts into me: it is Himself in me. (1 Cor. 1:30.)
My Utmost for His Highest
I have lived so much of my life to just serve my own selfish desires. I have lived a life of ME, ME, ME. I spoke as if my eternity was secure and yet I lived a life that reflected consuming as much of the here and now that I could. I lived a life that was so stupid, so useless, so empty.
And now my life really is emptied out of everything that is not of God. It is just me and God. It is so different. I am learning so much of ME. I am learning what truly matters in life. I am standing at the edge and looking over the edge of a red rock cliff. With jagged rocks above me and jagged rocks below and nothing but the horizon covered with the most beautiful trees, clouds, and breeze that only God to paint. I am above clouds but i am so far below the massive heavens above. The snow capped mountains overshadow me with their majesty, and they shelter me from the gusts of wind strong enough to push me over the edge. And then it begins to pour, and just as I feel as though it was a mistake to have my toes curled over the edge i feel this great hand holding me fast. I dont quite lean into it all the way at first but the more i do the safer I feel. It is a weird feeling to lean into a hand at your back, a hand that from its position seems as though itself is going to push you off to your doom....but it is more of a seat. It is a active decision to sit on the seat too. Its not a recliner, its not a stool either. It is a shelter from whatever the fall, mountains, gusts, or rain might try and freak me out with. It is also a foundation. That it might seem like a small seat but really it is a seat that wraps all around me and has room for certain things but not others. This seat can hold people's hearts but not their bodies, it can hold wealth but not money, it can hold dreams but not fears, it can hold challenges but not failures, it can hold a hope, a future but not disappointment or pity. This chair, this shelter; for those whose dare lean into it will keep all those things safe as the rest just slips away down the gorge and out of site underneath the canopy of the trees. You can't take anything into the chair that isnt supposed to be there otherwise it will cause you to slip and fall till I lose grasp of it. And interestingly enough, the more you lean into the chair the more cloudy the future gets but more important the vision becomes. Not that this is a circular logic, of course not. The future is that of our control, the schemes that we try and make in our own little worlds. But the vision are those passions, those permanent "chair-dwelling" items that remain there with us. Those visions that when my heart is stripped away from its cold outer shell, its tough metal skin, its guarded fleshy barriers, and then left with only the burning ember of my heart's true desire. A white hot passion that is so small and feels like it may go out at any moment. A white hot passion that consumes its true nature to express itself and set other eternal items on fire with the love I have already experienced through God. No one can just hand off God's love. What God's love does is it transforms us so that we even have the ability to love. And when we are able to love others, and when they are open to our love, it is then that we are so full of God's love that our attempt to love how we are uniquely created to...looks in distinguishable from the love of God.
"This is the will of God, even your sanctification." 1 Thessalonians 4:3
The Death Side. In sanctification God has to deal with us on the death side as well as on the life side. Many of us spend so much time in the place of death that we get sepulchral. There is always a battle royal before sanctification, always something that tugs with resentment against the demands of Jesus Christ. Immediately the Spirit of God begins to show us what sanctification means, the struggle begins. "If any man come to Me and hate not . . his own life, he cannot be My disciple."
The Spirit of God in the process of sanctification will strip me until I am nothing but "myself," that is the place of death. Am I willing to be "myself," and nothing more - no friends, no father, no brother, no self-interest - simply ready for death? That is the condition of sanctification. No wonder Jesus said: "I came not to send peace, but a sword." This is where the battle comes, and where so many of us faint. We refuse to be identified with the death of Jesus on this point. "But it is so stern," we say; "He cannot wish me to do that." Our Lord is stern; and He does wish us to do that.
Am I willing to reduce myself simply to "me," determinedly to strip myself of all my friends think of me, of all I think of myself, and to hand that simple naked self over to God? Immediately I am, He will sanctify me wholly, and my life will be free from earnestness in connection with every thing but God.
When I pray - "Lord, show me what sanctification means for me," He will show me. It means being made one with Jesus. Sanctification is not something Jesus Christ puts into me: it is Himself in me. (1 Cor. 1:30.)
My Utmost for His Highest
I have lived so much of my life to just serve my own selfish desires. I have lived a life of ME, ME, ME. I spoke as if my eternity was secure and yet I lived a life that reflected consuming as much of the here and now that I could. I lived a life that was so stupid, so useless, so empty.
And now my life really is emptied out of everything that is not of God. It is just me and God. It is so different. I am learning so much of ME. I am learning what truly matters in life. I am standing at the edge and looking over the edge of a red rock cliff. With jagged rocks above me and jagged rocks below and nothing but the horizon covered with the most beautiful trees, clouds, and breeze that only God to paint. I am above clouds but i am so far below the massive heavens above. The snow capped mountains overshadow me with their majesty, and they shelter me from the gusts of wind strong enough to push me over the edge. And then it begins to pour, and just as I feel as though it was a mistake to have my toes curled over the edge i feel this great hand holding me fast. I dont quite lean into it all the way at first but the more i do the safer I feel. It is a weird feeling to lean into a hand at your back, a hand that from its position seems as though itself is going to push you off to your doom....but it is more of a seat. It is a active decision to sit on the seat too. Its not a recliner, its not a stool either. It is a shelter from whatever the fall, mountains, gusts, or rain might try and freak me out with. It is also a foundation. That it might seem like a small seat but really it is a seat that wraps all around me and has room for certain things but not others. This seat can hold people's hearts but not their bodies, it can hold wealth but not money, it can hold dreams but not fears, it can hold challenges but not failures, it can hold a hope, a future but not disappointment or pity. This chair, this shelter; for those whose dare lean into it will keep all those things safe as the rest just slips away down the gorge and out of site underneath the canopy of the trees. You can't take anything into the chair that isnt supposed to be there otherwise it will cause you to slip and fall till I lose grasp of it. And interestingly enough, the more you lean into the chair the more cloudy the future gets but more important the vision becomes. Not that this is a circular logic, of course not. The future is that of our control, the schemes that we try and make in our own little worlds. But the vision are those passions, those permanent "chair-dwelling" items that remain there with us. Those visions that when my heart is stripped away from its cold outer shell, its tough metal skin, its guarded fleshy barriers, and then left with only the burning ember of my heart's true desire. A white hot passion that is so small and feels like it may go out at any moment. A white hot passion that consumes its true nature to express itself and set other eternal items on fire with the love I have already experienced through God. No one can just hand off God's love. What God's love does is it transforms us so that we even have the ability to love. And when we are able to love others, and when they are open to our love, it is then that we are so full of God's love that our attempt to love how we are uniquely created to...looks in distinguishable from the love of God.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
A Wealth of Perspective
"Luke Warming and Loving It"
Luke 18:18-30
I dont know how to live a righteous life with the money I could potentially make in my job, in my career, in my investments. I dont know someone who can live this new life, this new vision I have for my life. This vision of small houses but big families (not necessarily related), a vision of welcoming others in who i have never met A vision of strength by being weak. I want to live overseas, not because it will further my career but because it will weaken it. If God tells me that my mission field is in China, then thats where I will go. If its Bangkok, the Middle East, Estonia, or even the "safety" of Peru...thats where I am next. My job wont be in jeopardy because of the riskiness of the job, but because of my strong commitment to Christ. I wont be able to work that much because i will be so busy sharing the gospel. My kids may very well not have a single dime toward their education when they go to college because all of it has already gone to God (but i will leave that for each of them to decide). I dont care if my kids are in daycare anymore, I was in daycare and I turned out decent....or at least okay. I dont care if my wife works or doesnt work, its her choice....its not like her income is going toward paying bills anyway, it is all going to God (or if she's not comfortable with that, then all my income is going to God). I dont want my money to be a crutch. I dont want to be defined by how much i have and how little I give. I want my life to be truly full. I want my life to be that of sacrifice and not of regret. If my heart, my money, my life is in God...if my calendar and checkbook line up with that which sets my heart on fire....then well, it will be on fire. My relationships will be so much more full.
There are three little verses in the book of Matthew that I mentioned in my testimony my senior year of high school when i was speaking to my YL group. I was a junior leader (one of the most challenging and rewarding things i have done in my entire life ironically....just the mere fact that i was out of my comfort zone for the entire time i was serving in that role, a place i am rarely challenged to be in unfortunately). Well its about a treasure in a field....I found it in high school buried in my heart, covered it up till i was ready to fully submit to it...but unfortunately that wasnt until about 5-6 weeks ago that i remember where i buried it. Where i basically was hit over the head with a shovel 2 1/2 months ago and i just laid there bleeding for almost a month. Then....with that tool that my friend gave me I was able to finally realize the opportunity that they put in my life. I was stripped bare before God, and that treasure I found was finally able to be rediscovered. Yes, I forgot the exact location where i had originally found it, but God found me. He brought it to me by bringing me into the light. I can do nothing apart from Him. He pursued me, He found me. And that shovel has turned from a scar into a tool. A reminder that when God puts special people in my life they are meant to be treasured as sons and daughters of Him. And then at the same time now it is my responsibility, not to throw the shovel away, or toss it back at the person who gave it to me...but to continue to help others bring to light their treasures in their lives. And to make a difference in this generation echoing into eternity.
Matthew 13:44-46
Matthew 5:1-12
Luke 18:18-30
I dont know how to live a righteous life with the money I could potentially make in my job, in my career, in my investments. I dont know someone who can live this new life, this new vision I have for my life. This vision of small houses but big families (not necessarily related), a vision of welcoming others in who i have never met A vision of strength by being weak. I want to live overseas, not because it will further my career but because it will weaken it. If God tells me that my mission field is in China, then thats where I will go. If its Bangkok, the Middle East, Estonia, or even the "safety" of Peru...thats where I am next. My job wont be in jeopardy because of the riskiness of the job, but because of my strong commitment to Christ. I wont be able to work that much because i will be so busy sharing the gospel. My kids may very well not have a single dime toward their education when they go to college because all of it has already gone to God (but i will leave that for each of them to decide). I dont care if my kids are in daycare anymore, I was in daycare and I turned out decent....or at least okay. I dont care if my wife works or doesnt work, its her choice....its not like her income is going toward paying bills anyway, it is all going to God (or if she's not comfortable with that, then all my income is going to God). I dont want my money to be a crutch. I dont want to be defined by how much i have and how little I give. I want my life to be truly full. I want my life to be that of sacrifice and not of regret. If my heart, my money, my life is in God...if my calendar and checkbook line up with that which sets my heart on fire....then well, it will be on fire. My relationships will be so much more full.
There are three little verses in the book of Matthew that I mentioned in my testimony my senior year of high school when i was speaking to my YL group. I was a junior leader (one of the most challenging and rewarding things i have done in my entire life ironically....just the mere fact that i was out of my comfort zone for the entire time i was serving in that role, a place i am rarely challenged to be in unfortunately). Well its about a treasure in a field....I found it in high school buried in my heart, covered it up till i was ready to fully submit to it...but unfortunately that wasnt until about 5-6 weeks ago that i remember where i buried it. Where i basically was hit over the head with a shovel 2 1/2 months ago and i just laid there bleeding for almost a month. Then....with that tool that my friend gave me I was able to finally realize the opportunity that they put in my life. I was stripped bare before God, and that treasure I found was finally able to be rediscovered. Yes, I forgot the exact location where i had originally found it, but God found me. He brought it to me by bringing me into the light. I can do nothing apart from Him. He pursued me, He found me. And that shovel has turned from a scar into a tool. A reminder that when God puts special people in my life they are meant to be treasured as sons and daughters of Him. And then at the same time now it is my responsibility, not to throw the shovel away, or toss it back at the person who gave it to me...but to continue to help others bring to light their treasures in their lives. And to make a difference in this generation echoing into eternity.
Matthew 13:44-46
Matthew 5:1-12
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
