June 7, 2008

During Intercession a few weeks ago I roomed with my friend Melissa Scott. Within days of completing our finals for the spring semester we were caught up in something like a training camp, it felt like a virtual world that did not yet fit into the way the world was at the time. It was there in the land of strange things that we encountered “Shaker Man” (I have to call him that because his real name is unspeakable). At His feet things in our heads and hearts that had been detached and cast into corners making dust and leftover ruble throughout the past year were shaken off and vacuumed away. Fragments of boxes that I had been disassembling all year were taken, cleared from my head and the disorganized pieces of machine that were left from their original destruction earlier were cleared away and destroyed forever.

And the Lover beckoned, “Come here. Trust me more. Love me better. Love me deeper.”

Many of us have fallen and risen again and in both our falling and rising God is glorified, His name is lifted up because when the wind blows even the trees dance and none of us – even the dead – can keep from being shaken, being moved, being beckoned to join in the dance.

Sometimes hope is our most desperate need in order to be able to move forward toward something better. God is teaching me through stories, through mine and Melissa’s stories and the stories of others that a bigger change and a bigger vision than the ones that I thought possible are within grasp. And, the great things I saw from a distance beckon me to move forward through hope. At the time, a world that was not possible and much bigger than anything I could have imagined was opened up to us as God said “Yes” to desires I had not even realized I had before.

God is ahead of us as a people and leading us forward to a place way above that cleft you are aiming for.

Watch for the King, He will move even in the last days and He is brilliant.

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Something that has been very much on my heart for this summer is my relationships and what some might call “personal ministry.” I have kept this in strong consideration as I make decisions about what I will do this summer. I don’t have a job yet but I’ve been making a game out of applying to a lot of different places. Yesterday I had an hour to race to pick up applications from 8 places I would think seriously about working for. I won! Then I realized I filling out applications doesn’t pay. My glory was short-lived.

Most of my time though has been filled with taking many purposeful steps toward several important things in my life. First, I have been spending a lot of time with people. A friend of mine, David, is leading a group he calls Momentum where four of us get together twice a week and to journey together, grow to know one another more, seek God together, and dare to move as a response to God’s movement in our community and world. Second, I am looking for God’s direction on further outreach efforts because while I have had many many ideas for things to start or get involved in that would expose me to more people I have not seen much movement directly towards any of them. I anticipate all the things God is doing and I’m pretty sure I will be seeing something along these lines pretty soon. Finally, I have been working on a number of projects, one of them being my room which consists of many different smaller projects. I have been trying to surround myself with reminders of who God is and who I am as a result (not just in my room but I have been setting it up with this purpose in mind). I’ve put some pictures here of the way it looks for Calea. (Thanks for inspiring me so much by your own creativity and helping me with ideas Calea!). I hope to make some changes but I like it so far, it’s pretty and comfy. I keep the ceiling lights off most of the time and get some soft light coming in from the curtained windows and lamps that I have.

Yes, I have two beds in my room.

June 6, 2008

I’m having trouble with this blog thing because I want you all to know what I’ve been learning and doing and how God has been moving but there’s just sooo much to tell!  Then, I realized that God works in stories and that’s part of us being made for relationships.  We are designed to know people and know them well and follow them through the stories that God is writing in their lives.  So, I can tell you small pieces but that bothers me because I don’t want to reduce what God is doing.  He’s sooo much bigger than that.  If you have any thoughts or suggestions on this let me know.  I might just have to sit down and tell a long story that still wouldn’t cover everything but would be better than the smaller thoughts I’ve written so far.

May 29, 2008

“Life begins at the intersection.”

Every choice is an intersection from which we have the power to move towards life or towards that stale, half-eaten lemon pastry you found in a paper sack on that bench you sat in while waiting for your mom to get done grocery shopping yesterday.

Every choice requires of us a portion of this power we have, the power of volition, the power to choose, whether we realize it or not.

Every choice, in a way, carries with it the weight of the next because up ahead you want to choose right but right won’t be the same if you turn left here.

Every choice, in a way, has nothing to do at all with your past; it has everything to do with the present intersection, the intersection from which God is prepared to perfectly play the rest of your song or write the rest of your story.

Every choice – life begins and ends there.

Choose life.  Look for the King.

May 27, 2008

Here are the meditations of my heart tonight:

God’s love is great, love which He has lavished on us.
Remember who you are.

Here is what the Lord says to you, the One who calls the earth to life:
“’Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine.
When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
And when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you.
When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze.
For I am the Lord, your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior…
Since you are precious and honored in my sight, and because I love you,
I will give men in exchange for you, and people in exchange for your life.
Do not be afraid, for I am with you…
Lead out those who have eyes but are blind,
Who have ears but are deaf…
You are my witnesses,’ declares the Lord, ‘and my servant whom I have chosen, so that you may know and believe me and understand that I am He.
Before me no god was formed, nor wil there be one after me.
I, even I, am the Lord, and apart from me there is no savior.
I have revealed and saved and proclaimed – I, and not some foreign god among you.
You are my witnesses,’ declares the Lord, ‘that I am God.’”
Isaiah 43

Wake up. Open your eyes. God is showing Himself in mighty ways. He is moving now. Watch.
Live strangely today, in a peculiar way that brings powerful hope to the deafened heart of this machine.

May 6, 2008

There is a Pygmy legend in which a boy finds a bird with a beautiful song in the forest and brings it home. He asks his father to bring food for the bird, and the father doesn’t want to feed a mere bird, so he kills it. The man killed the bird, and with the bird he killed the song, and with the song, himself. He dropped dead, completely dead, and was dead forever.

I have a friend from Ghana whose name is Eric. The other day he was telling me about the sad things that have been happening to him. He doesn’t have many friends here and it makes it worse that he lives off campus, his grandfather died this semester and he can’t be with his family, and his fiance called him and said she couldn’t wait so many years for him to come back and broke off their engagement. He was telling me about how sad he had been and then he looked at me with a big smile and big, bright eyes and said, “I’ve been so sad over this but, as we say in Ghana, you can’t die before you die, ya know?”

What do we kill that brings us life?

May 3, 2008

Do not be defined by who you are not.

Let who God is define your dreams.

May 2, 2008

Clap your hands.

Swing, like a chariot
At the trumpet call
When we’re all unsaved,
Swing like a wrecking ball
Like the heart of god
What a mystery
Filled with the wedding feast
For the snakes and bees
With the angel teeth, swing
Come and carry us
Come and marry us

To the blushing circus king

Dance like elephants

As he comes to us
Through a fiery golden ring
With a violin and a song to sing
As he brings for us our wings
Now he’s one of us
Plays the tambourine
Breaks the bread for us
And sings
Will you wait for us
Will you stay for us
Will you grace us everything
You’re a wrecking ball
With a heart of gold
People wait for it, swing
Like a chariot
Swing it low for us
Come and carry us away
Fire come and carry us
Make us shine or make us rust
Tell us that you care for us
We need to hear a word for us
Let your body stand with us
Or let our rags be turned to dust
Chariot you swing for us
We think that you can carry all of us
So we will become a happy ending

April 30, 2008

(Note to Calea, Katherine & Sam: Yes, the switch in blogging sites was strongly influenced by peer pressure and jealousy of wordpress formats)

April 28, 2008

Today I was worshiping and I ran across this song.

Everyone is broken and in need of a Savior
So He came and was broken for the marred, for the shamed
Still our eyes are blinded by the culture, by lies
We can’t see that we’re filthy, we’re fallen, and so dry

But He invites us
Can you hear Him sing?
He invites us
Hear Him call your name

Welcome to the river
Come drink, come wade, come find your very life
Welcome to the river of God
Where your brokenness is washed away

Everywhere is the sorrow and the pain of empty living
You can see, look in their eyes, all the hopelessness of the world
But look closer. He is right there. In the midst of every fear.
Healing water is the offer, restoration is the call

And He invites us
Can you hear Him sing?
He invites us
Hear Him call your name

Find your healing, find your freedom in the river of God

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God is good. I know this because I remember good in the past and I desire good for the future.

Habakkuk is said to be the prophet of the “Yet.” He saw the destruction of Jerusalem and Judah and uttered “Yet” knowing that God was not finished. He hoped in His vision of God despite the affliction before Him. The Lord said, “For the revelation awaits an appointed time; it speaks of the end and will not prove false. Though it linger, wait for it; it will certainly come and will not delay.” (2:3) I have found that we all have a vision, Christ-follower or not, of what is good. Some have rejected it and hidden in but it was once there and it can be restored to us. Romans also talks about hope in a time of waiting, in a time when what you hope for is not seen and what you hunger for is not in your hands. Romans 8 speaks of the whole creation groaning “as we wait eagerly for the adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies…if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.”

This vision, this hope, this desire for good that we have speaks to the world of the end. Romans 8 also says that it is in this hope that we are saved. Today in developmental psychology class we talked about abused and battered women and what it takes for them to decide to get out of the awful situation they are in. What it takes is hope and the women interviewed in the video we watched made no effort to leave until they allowed themselves to dare to hope for something better, something right, something good.

As Habakkuk waited for the Lord, His justice and goodness to be known, he uttered “Yet” and sang His praises in hope.

“I heard and my heart pounded, my lips quivered at the sound;
decay crept into my bones, and my legs trembled.
Yet I will wait patiently for the day of calamity to come on the nation invading us.
Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines,
though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food,
though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls,
yet I will rejoice in the Lord,
I will be joyful in God my Savior.” (3:16-18 )

I learned today that offerings of love shake the world because they bring hope, they poke a hole in that veil that Satan likes to get us to construct around ourselves to keep us in the dark despite the light shining all around us on the other side.

April 19, 2008

During this past Christmas break I spent some time sitting sideways, feet dangling over the armrest, in my blue velvet chair reading Christmas letters from family and friends. I really like reading Christmas letters – and I’m not talking about the short “Seasons Greetings” cards or the hurriedly-written page long letters that basically say in many more words, “We are too busy to tell you everything that’s been happening but we’re writing you a Christmas letter anyway because it’s a tradition.” No, I’m talking about the two or three envelopes we receive each year packed with three pages front and back of stories telling of the discoveries and experiences that are true and essential to the lives of these families. I laugh, I sigh, I delight in these wonderful stories coming from friends and family who I rarely see. I am blessed in reading these testimonies of God’s goodness year after year.

Two weeks ago I was, yet again, sitting sideways in a big fluffy chair except this time I was reading at night by a lamp another letter – the one from God – and I was in Nashville at my friend Calea’s house. I sat back and examined my heart and realized that I missed my friends and family back home. Yet, at the same time I was having a wonderful, fulfilling time here with other friends and another family. For a long time I did not think these two states of mind could exist together at the same time and when I realized they can I didn’t understand. I will come and go many times in my life yet in every place that I am at I want to cultivate rich, deep, lasting relationships. I asked myself, “when phone conversations are impossible and communication is sparse how do I keep up these relationships that are so valuable and important?”

There is something very good about sitting down over a meal with a friend and talking, laughing, and sharing in life together. Today I spent most of the day looking at the cloudless sky next to friends laughing, talking, and enjoying the sun. The time I spend alongside people that I love is really valuable to me because God is there revealing Himself through His creation – most markedly through people – and I feel His presence as I share in life with them. It is God that I thirst for when I am lonely and God that I experience when I feel loved. When I miss people it is those characteristics of God that are revealed to me through them that I long to see and when I am with people those characteristics of God that I delight in. And so I can say:

I miss you and I love you, my friend,

and know still that God is good and present and alive today. Here. There. Everywhere.

I want to bless you by writing to you of the things God is doing in my life so that as I leave this place and return home and then leave home and go to a new place – when I don’t talk to you for months at a time and we don’t roll around laughing in the grass like we’ve done before – you will be reminded to see God’s presence in your own life as I find Him again and again in my own.