Call/Hope College/Prophets

Rise up! Do not fear. The harvest is ripe.

Ezra 10/Mat 9:37

Flux

Ideas change nothing.

Grad school is harder than college, and it takes discipline and wisdom that I don't know if I have.

I think I need to stop asking why. I'm always always asking why (hello triangle personality). I have to know everything before I take steps. It's why I was freaked out at Compelling. I kept asking WHY. I didn't have any information, and saw no purpose. But then God said to me, If I call you, who are you to say no? I will bring my purposes to pass.

This, then, changes my entire perspective on life, on grad school. My life. is not. under. my control. My life is not. about. me. My life is not. about. my career. My job. My husband. My life is not something that I can plan out anymore, and my life is not something that I'm going to do my way and make it be Christian. If my life is truly to glorify God, my life isn't something I do. Following Christ is just that: FOLLOWING.
follow
–verb
1. to come after in sequence, order of time, etc.
2. to go or come after; move behind in the same direction
3. to accept as a guide or leader; accept the authority of or give allegiance to
4. to conform to, comply with, or act in accordance with; obey
12. to watch the movements, progress, or course of
18. to go or come after a person or thing in motion.

If I am to lead, I must first be led.

Ideas change nothing. Believing that an innocent man's death saves you means nothing. God changes everything. Once you understand that it was God himself who died on that cross that day, who died for you, that changes everything. Ideas change nothing. Truth changes everything.

God, love, and the Old Testament

They say that the depth of your pain when you lose someone shows the depth of how much you loved them.
They also say that the God of the Old Testament is not the god of love that we see in the New Testament.

Take a look at Deuteronomy 32. Listen to the language that fills the first 15 verses. "Listen, O heavens, and I will speak." Is that not a gorgeous opening to a chapter? But it continues! The poetry, the beautiful poetry continues! "Is he not your Father, your Creator, who made you and formed you?" "For the Lord's portion is his people"--what satisfies the Lord's innermost desire is his people! Ah! "He shielded and cared for him; he guarded him as the apple of his eye." "He fed him with fruit of the fields. He nourished them with honey from the rock....choice rams...finest kernels of wheat...foaming blood of the grape." Is that not gorgeous??

But they (the whole thing is about Israel of course) abandoned and rejected God. "They sacrificed to demons, which are not God--gods they had not known, gods that recently appeared, gods your fathers did not fear. You deserted the Rock, who fathered you; you forgot the God who gave you birth." Can you not feel the smoldering incredulity??

"For a fire has been kindled by my wrath, one that burns to the realm of death below. It will devour the earth and its harvests and set afire the foundations of the mountains." (Aside: He sends plagues and venom and such things. But it is interesting to note vs 26--God did not scatter them or blot them out for he knew the enemy would take triumph in that.)

If such is the jealousy and pain of God that the very mountains would melt, how much greater is his love for us?

Still don't believe that the God of the Old Testament is the same god of love? Check these verses out:
"I am now going to allure her; I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her.....I will betroth you to me forever. I will betroth you in righteousness and justice, in love and compassion. I will betroth you in faithfulness." In an age where sports celebrities cheat on their wives and try to by her heart back with diamonds, this God speaks tenderly, and his betrothal is in righteousness and justice, not compressed carbon molecules. Now tell me: Is this a verse you hear in the New Testament? No. Ok, maybe in the Psalms, because we like those? No. It's in a little book called Hosea, you know, in the Old Testament. About halfway between the Psalms and the end of the Old Testament. Hosea is about a prostitute. A prostitute who is married but dresses up and goes chasing after her lovers. Israel, God's people, we are that prostitute. And in the middle of all her foolish and despicable behavior (Chapter 2 if you're wondering), "I am now going to allure her"?! "I will betroth you in faithfulness" even though you have not been faithful to me.

If that's not love, I don't know what is.

God and math

I was reading youtube comments to song, and I came across this one:

"Call it regurgitation if you want[conversation had been about everything the Christians said was just regurgitating things that they had been brainwashed to believe]. But if I were to regurgitate an algebraic expression to you, would that make it an less true and valid? It would still solve for X. And Christ can solve for you as well, if you let him."

Score.

I loled too. The thought of God hunched over a pieces of paper with a pencil, tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth, concentrating on an algebra problem is amusing. :)

God rocks...still

I wish I could adequately describe how amazing God is.

When we forget this, we strive to follow out of our own forces, our own power. But we can't do that! Even if we what we are trying to do is ministry, we can't! We can't even follow without his grace! When we try to follow out of our own power, we are only kidding ourselves. We can't force God's hand! We can't force his hand. And when we just surrender...everything falls into place. Everything falls into place and everything comes to life.

LORD
lover
provider
Immanuel

God rocks

I don't have big, cool, awesome stories, but I do have little, cool, awesome mini-stories.

-All the rich of the earth will feast and worship;
all who go down to the dust will kneel before him—
those who cannot keep themselves alive. ~Psalm 22:29

How great it is that they who cannot save themselves are the ones who will be saved and will worship!

-The very same power who made the trees to quiver with life lives inside of me!

-I'm not working for perfection. I'm working to be faithful. If I'm faithful in following his call, and if being a scientist is what I'm supposed to do, he won't let me fail.

-Questions are valid. A faith that does not question is weak. Questions are valid--and here's the kicker: they're just as valid unanswered. Questions aren't validated because they get answered. They are valid because we can't know everything. It's trust. We are supposed to seek God, not necessarily answers. And in by seeking him, questions may be answered or changed or deemed unnecessary to know the answer to.


God, give us faith that is beyond what we think we can handle. Because faith we can handle isn't faith at all; it's twisted reasoning. Give us faith that dares to believe.

You're a fake!

38Two robbers were crucified with him, one on his right and one on his left. 39Those who passed by hurled insults at him, shaking their heads 40and saying, "You who are going to destroy the temple and build it in three days, save yourself! Come down from the cross, if you are the Son of God!" -Matthew 27

I wonder, do we ignore the events leading up to the crucifixion? For whatever reason, the details of the events are suddenly proving more interesting than they used to. These two verses, for instance. So Jesus was insulted. We know that. Big deal. But take a minute to think about it. Where are the insults coming from? And why waste all that breath on two complete complex sentences? Why not just call him a liar, a cheat, or if you were really that pissed, why not bastard? (After all, Mary did get "mysteriously" pregnant, right?) What had their blood boiling enough to let off that much steam?

There's a bitterness underneath these insults, a bitterness that comes from the fact that the feel like Jesus lied to them. "You said that you were going to save us! You promised! If you are really who you said you are, and if you can really do what you said you would, prove to us that you are who say you are!" They are hurt. They feel cheated and lied to. They had hoped that he would save them, and he isn't (so it seems). So they walk on by, and insult him, with mockery that lets him know exactly how they feel.


What insults are you hurling?

Laments

NEWS FLASH: Lazarus still died.

Yea, Jesus raised him from the dead. But Lazarus still died. And he died later on down the road, too.

The bible ain't all rainbows and roses and blind following. People have beefs with God and they take them up with him. Yea, there are a dozen psalms that are rather emo, Psalm 88 definetly being one of them. But there's also an entire book devoted to these. Ever hear of Lamentations? Yea. That book. It's an entire book of laments. "He has made my skin and my flesh grow old and has broken my bones." That was verse 4. Multiply that by about 66 and you've got chapter 3 of Lamentations--and there are 5 of them.

Some may view laments and cries as faithless whinings. I beg to differ. Being willing to completely lay it out for God, blow by blow--this is everything that I can't stand, about me, about life, about you, about your plans, this path you've laid for me, takes an immense amount of faith. Let me tell you, crying out even just a third of the verses of Psalm 88 into a microphone at church on Sunday had me trembling--these are hard, dark, rugged, anguished verses, and they are in the bible. They are in the Bible. And here I am, proclaiming it. Not the way you'd expect someone to proclaim the Word of God:
"You have put me in the lowest pit,
in the darkest depths.

Your wrath lies heavily upon me;
you have overwhelmed me with all your waves.
Selah

You have taken from me my closest friends
and have made me repulsive to them.
I am confined and cannot escape;
my eyes are dim with grief." (Ps 88:6-9)

But yet, there I was, my voice alone in a room of 50 people, putting forth those words.
And these are valid words. These are valid words to express. And God knows them, and knows me.
It takes faith to walk to the throne of God and say, This is not fair! I am hurt by this! And I don't want to take it anymore! It's a level of faith to which I have been challenged.


Something I've been returning to is an image from Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ. I saw it in high school, but a few weeks ago, they played a clip of it at IV. There was this one scene when Jesus (or at least, the actor playing Jesus) gets flung onto the cross on the ground. The camera is just above the ground, pointed along the crossbeam. Jesus, completely bloodied, lands on the cross and his head rolls to the side and looks towards the camera. And in that moment, I remember: this is Divinty. This beaten, brusied, bloodied, weakened, exhausted man getting manhandled and flung onto a cross for which he was not meant is God. This was no mere man, being wrongfully accused. This was God.

He knows this pain. Whatever pain it is, he knows it. He knows the hopelessness, the wieght of the darkness. He knows it, because he experienced it. That gut-turning ache inside when everything falls? He knows it. And he died to save you from it, so that death may be conquered and you shall live--despite everything in your body that feels otherwise.

On that day long ago, on that hill, God twisted the "rules." He said, This, what you've done, deserves death. But it will be _my_ death.

The Character of God, Issue No. 2

Genesis 2:19 Now the LORD God had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought them to the man to see what he would name them; and whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name.

God is curious! And he delights in his creatures! "He brought them to the man to see what he would name them"! And God takes pleasure in the work of his creature, giving to him what he wishes "whatever the man called each living creature, that was its name."

=D

The Character of God, Issue No. 1

I will write more here later about something I learned about God in John 1 a few weeks ago.

1 Corinthians 13

How often do we wait on God?

I've been pondering 1 Corinthians 13 for a few days, something that I've never done before. Heck, I doubt I've ever read it more than once, because, after all, it's that spot in the Bible reserved for those happy couples getting married, right? Ergo, not applicable to me. Ha. I'm learning some interesting things from this chapter...

What does it mean to persevere? How often do we wait on God?

I can handle hard circumstances. I can handle doing brave things at the right time, generally. But can I handle hard circumstances for the long haul?

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.

4Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

8Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.

Love always perseveres.
This requires faith and hope. Perseverance requires hope.

Jesus persevered. Three years spent traveling the desert country to teach and to bring his people to him. Three years of hardship, of knowing that this was all going to end in his death anyway. Is it all worth it?
And at the end of these three years, everything wasn’t resolved all nice and pretty. Instead, his perseverance was rewarded with betrayal, humiliation, and 6 hours on a cross—a criminal’s tree. His perseverance was rewarded with the sum of our scorn and sin.
But he persevered because he saw us. He persevered because he had hope that his children, the children he loves, would come to know the Father and spend eternity with them, and be made new.

And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

Hey, lovER

Here's a thought or two that's been swimming around in my head...

First, try reading a translation of the Bible you've never read or know anything about--and DON'T have your NIV (or whatever standard translation you use) right next to you to compare it to. When you come across something that doesn't make sense to you because it isn't phrased the way you were expecting, think about it. Why doesn't it make sense? What truth is the translator reading and trying to convey?

This comes out of the fact that, for whatever reason, I decided to snag my little green Gideon bible and toss it into my backpack the other day (you know, those free little New Testaments+Psalms+Proverbs that religious people pass out?). I was at lunch on Grand River and I decided to read some of it. Turn to a random book, I didn't care. I wanted a story. So I opened to 1 Corinthians, and the first chapter had some awesome stuff in there! And I was done eating, and the staff were cleaning up after the lunch rush, so I didn't want to keep sitting there, but I also didn't want to leave and go back to the chem building to study. So I decided, Hey! I'll go dump my stuff in my office and take this little book with me, and nothing else (except my office key--and my cell phone...couldn't quite let that go...what if I had an awesome revelation and someone else needed in on it!...) and go read it somewhere on campus or just walk with it?

Secondly, I now have a hankerchief in my bag that I will probably be carrying around for a few more days. Remember how I said that I had a brick to carry around for a week? Well, I wrapped it in a handerchief so that it wouldn't scuff everything else up in my bag. We (meaning IV people) were supposed to carry around this brick all week to remind us of our burdens, to give us a physical something to attach to our burdens. On Thursday, we were to (when we were ready) lay those bricks down at the cross in the corner. So I had been carrying this brick around in my bag for a week in a hankerchief, and I left the apartment Friday morning, and I felt like I was missing something. Now, when I picked up the brick I was thinking, yea, and then once I don't have to carry it around anymore, my bag will be lighter and I'll notice this. I didn't notice this. What I noticed was the fact that I could fit my laptop in my bag again, so I wasn't carrying my laptop. I felt like I was forgetting something; oh yea, my burdens! So that was really cool. But then I hadn't taken the hankerchief out of my bag, so when I opened my bag at school, I saw the handerchief--but didn't have to mess with the brick wrapped in it in order to fit things in my bag or get something out of it. So I'm keeping the hankerchief in there for a few days to remind me of the absence of the burdens--and that the burden is at the cross and I am not to try to pick it up again.

Third, have you ever heard people refer to God as their lover? If so, how did that make you feel? Did it make you uncomfortable, make you squirm? It did me. Why? Is it the connotation of mistress, of a string of nothing but one-night stands? Or is it the level of intimacy? Then I suggest looking at the definition of 'lover' and figure out what a lover really is. And then go to God with this definition and see what he shows you.

reaching out to hold onto Him requires letting go of me

.Learning again that I am not my own
Crawling back to where I belong
Caught in between knowing You and trusting me
Come on take a ride out of the in-betweens
Now I know I need you

When I can`t see, I will trust You
And when I get weak, I trust You
And when I just can`t let it go
I trust that You are in control

Shelter me so I can find some peace
Grabbing hold of You is letting go of me
It`s easy when I remember I possess all that lays beyond my grasp
You power commands the weight off my back
Now I know I need you.
.skillet.


I said: Please don't ever leave me or reject me.
He said: I never will...and I have sworn by my own body.

Jello

I'd like this blog to be a place to share thoughts about God--who he is, revelations he's shown me, things like that. Nice solid paragraphs of awesomeness about God and my encounters with him.

And I'm entirely jello right now.

I am entirely jello right now. It is 1 oclock in the morning, and I am tired, and I have other, practical things I should be doing right now, like homework or packing. But I'm still up because I feel like if I don't process things, I will drown in myself.

I've been stirring this over in my soul for the past two days:
24Now Thomas (called Didymus), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. 25So the other disciples told him, "We have seen the Lord!" But he said to them, "Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it."
26A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you!" 27Then he said to Thomas, "Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe."
28Thomas said to him, "My Lord and my God!" (John 20)

There's a desperation in this text, an intensity that my soul is resonating with. And I can't put words to it. There's just something there.

I've got a brick to carry around for a week. More on this later.

I think that I need to stop trying to put these things into words and just go SIT with them, with God.

God will defend me in battle

Go now, write it on a tablet for them,
inscribe it on a scroll,
that for the days to come
it may be an everlasting witness.
These are rebellious people, deceitful children,
children unwilling to listen to the LORD's instruction.
They say to the seers,
"See no more visions!"
and to the prophets,
"Give us no more visions of what is right!
Tell us pleasant things,
prophesy illusions.
Leave this way,
get off this path,
and stop confronting us
with the Holy One of Israel!"

Therefore, this is what the Holy One of Israel says:
"Because you have rejected this message,
relied on oppression
and depended on deceit,this sin will become for you
like a high wall, cracked and bulging,
that collapses suddenly, in an instant.It will break in pieces like pottery,
shattered so mercilessly
that among its pieces not a fragment will be found
for taking coals from a hearth
or scooping water out of a cistern."

This is what the Sovereign LORD, the Holy One of Israel, says:
"In repentance and rest is your salvation,
in quietness and trust is your strength,
but you would have none of it.You said, 'No, we will flee on horses.'
Therefore you will flee!
You said, 'We will ride off on swift horses.'
Therefore your pursuers will be swift!A thousand will flee
at the threat of one;
at the threat of five
you will all flee away,
till you are left
like a flagstaff on a mountaintop,
like a banner on a hill."

Yet the LORD longs to be gracious to you;
he rises to show you compassion.
For the LORD is a God of justice.
Blessed are all who wait for him!
O people of Zion, who live in Jerusalem, you will weep no more. How gracious he will be when you cry for help! As soon as he hears, he will answer you. Although the Lord gives you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, your teachers will be hidden no more; with your own eyes you will see them. Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, "This is the way; walk in it." Then you will defile your idols overlaid with silver and your images covered with gold; you will throw them away like a menstrual cloth and say to them, "Away with you!"

He will also send you rain for the seed you sow in the ground, and the food that comes from the land will be rich and plentiful. In that day your cattle will graze in broad meadows. The oxen and donkeys that work the soil will eat fodder and mash, spread out with fork and shovel. In the day of great slaughter, when the towers fall, streams of water will flow on every high mountain and every lofty hill. The moon will shine like the sun, and the sunlight will be seven times brighter, like the light of seven full days, when the LORD binds up the bruises of his people and heals the wounds he inflicted.

(Isaiah 30:8-29)

The Prodigal Son

God's love is constant. Constant as in E=mc^2 constant. That's pretty constant.


During IVLI, I was reminded that no matter what I do, God still loves me--loves me with a deep, all-consuming love. No matter how broken I am, he still died to save me. Jeremy Camp put it this way:
Nothing I can do, nothing I can say
Can make you love me more, your love remains the same
You gave it all for me, you gladly took my place
To rid myself of all, all my guilt and shame

I've soaked that in.

Then, I heard someone talk on the story of the prodigal son yesterday. The son runs away and does all this hideously awful things, and the father welcomes him back still. And the details of this are amazing. But something that I'm left chewing on is the role of the older brother. The older brother is all pissed off that he's done everything right and he never got a celebration like the one his good-for-nothing brother is getting. He speaks to his father in rude, disrespectful tones. Yet his father still speaks to him gently, addresses him "My son". And he reiterates that everything he has is his. --The son is rude and DOESN'T GET IT but the father NEVER TAKES AN IOTA away from what he has given his son! It's not like the father's giving is conditional upon whether the son "gets it". Everything the father owns is the son's, period.
Additionally, the fact that the older brother did everything right, as far as he knew, is equally as key to this story as the younger brother's foolishness. NEITHER ONE OF THE SONS ACTIONS affected the love of the father. NEITHER. The father didn't care that his eldest hadn't done the stupid things his brother had. All that the father cared about was the fact that he was his son. So just because I don't do the "bad" things, the things "sinners" do, the "litmus tests of faith"(ie, getting drunk on a regular basis, sleeping around, etc) (because I screw up too. Just not necessarily in those ways.)doesn't make him love me any more than he loves the prostitutes and tax collectors. They are my brothers and sisters.

Forgiven

Forgive me now cause I
Have been unfaithful
Don't ask me why cause I don't know
So many times I've tried
But was unable
But this heart belongs to you alone

Now I'm in our secret place
Alone in your embrace
Where all my wrongs have been erased
You have forgiven
All the promises and lies
All the times I compromise
All the times you were denied
You have forgiven

Forgive me I'm ashamed
I've loved another
I can't explain cause I don't know
No one can take your place
And there is no other
Forever yours and yours alone

Now I'm in our secret place
Alone in your embrace
Where all my wrongs have been erased
You have forgiven
All the promises and lies
All the times I compromise
All the times you were denied
You have forgiven
Take me to our secret place
(We'll leave the world away)
I get down on my knees
Feel your love wash over me
There will never be another
You're the only one forever
And you know I'm yours alone
--Skillet, "Forgiven"

I don't know why, but this song seems to have camped out somewhere in me. I mean, the meaning is simple. And it's amazing. But somehow I feel like I need to chew on it more.

I'm not sure what I was hoping to get out of blogging it, or why it's here instead of my livejournal, but it's here. Maybe it's food for thought for you, too.

IVLI 2009

All right, here's the deal,
This document has been sitting on my harddrive in varying forms for a couple of weeks, thinking that maybe I could provide a more cohesive story to tell, but...I can't. I just can't compress a month of Cedar into a concise blurb, and I'm still processing things. Though, I do have one or two anecdotes that I do know how to tell. So I will tell those. And then what follows after is a list summarizing the very main points I learned in July at Cedar Campus.

How I got to IVLI in and of itself is a story. Not necessarily one worth describing in detail, but God sent me on this crazy wild path, put the brakes on, and totally whipped me around and prompted me to go to IVLI. By the time I accepted this, I thought, you know, maybe God wants to do more in me than just train me by going on this music missions trip... And oh! did he!

First, he provided a community that was fun and supportive. But beyond that, it was a community that saw me for me--just me, for an entire month, and included me in it. They saw me and saw something there worth loving. There's healing still to be gained from this. I will miss the brothers and sisters I met there dearly.

But what outshines everything else about that month is that God made clear his calling on my life, that he had made me to be a leader. And I knew this while I was still at Cedar. I knew that that in itself was great and amazing. But it wasn't until after, when I was talking to my IV staffworker Curt that I realized just how much he had changed me. Two opportunities presented themselves: to speak about my experience at IVLI at the fall conference and to help lead by being volunteer staff at that conference. And I was GIDDY about them. Absolutely thrilled by these possibilities! And this was not normal for me, I would not be reacting that way in June. I wrote it best in my livejournal, "Ah, this is so cool! while at the same time realizing that i would not be reacting to these things this way a month ago. God really really did something in my heart that feels like he threw open the gates! I can be a leader! and it's exciting! I Am a Leader! aah! whoa."

Yea. God did amazing things at Cedar.

And now for the list: Basic, overarching ideas gained from the past month:

1.God is beyond our comprehension as LORD over ALL. He is not our personal god, who we make him out to be. A god like that would not be worth worshiping with our lives. He is the Absolute Truth that will accept no other, no compromise, no ifs ands or buts.
1a. We are weak, frail, FALLEN people. At our core. But he knew this already; he "remembers that we were formed from dust." (Psalm 103)
1ai. He chose to love us anyway. It's not like once we realize our sinfulness--no matter how paralyzing that realization is or how dirty we feel, that that fact changes. it's not like once you realize it and, understanding 1 above, Jesus suddenly hops off the cross and says no, not for that. Not for that. He died because he loved us, in full knowledge of who we would be. He didn't die for the dust he made us out of. He died for the person he made us to be, to SAVE us because he LOVED us. And he still does, even if we feel gross and unlovable. It is done. Once for all.

2. He has CALLED me to lead, so I need not be afraid or embarrassed to lead.

3. The burden of leadership is not the meetings or the planning or the lack of sleep or anything like that, but the COMPLETE and utter dependence on God and NOTHING of self.

4. You are either going to be Saul or Peter. (I would rather be Peter.)
4a. Peter's flaws were the most obvious and he was the one Jesus called to be his Rock of his church.

5. My leadership is not dependent upon my status, but on who I am in Christ (Luke 10:17-20).

6. The stakes are too high to waste time making contingency plans!

7. Be careful not to translate God's instructions (1 Sam 15)

8. The question is not "Do You love me?" but "Do I love You?"
8a. I have loved you. Go. Do so.

9. For God so loved the world that he DID something

So that, my friends, is what "happened" at IVLI. There is so much more to be told and shared, so if you want to know more, just ask!

Come to me...

The Bible is so amazing to me. First of all, God wrote 66 books--66 of them! in which we might learn about him and know his love for us. But the most amazing thing is how he speaks through them. Words that you thought you knew speak in ways you never knew they even could.

Case in point: Matthew 11. I read the last 5 verses of it (25-30) for my lectio divina reading this morning. I knew these words, so using them for a lectio divina reading, I was nervous. I didn't want to just read the words because I knew that I needed rest and hey, this passage is about rest. (Which is why I chose it over Psalm 50.) I was afraid of a useless 20-30 minutes of something I already knew. Heh. Well then.

The words that stuck out to me were not "rest" but, "Come to me."

To begin, this is an invitation. This is an invitation to find our rest in him. He wants us to find our rest in him. It's not like we are the little girl or little boy tugging on Daddy's pant leg to get his attention, and Daddy's like, Darling, I'm busy. But Daddy! Ok ok, fine. And picks you up and keeps on talking to whoever. It's not like the fact that I am tired and worn down and aching is a bother to him, that the fact that I need him is an inconvenience. I don't have to shyly wait outside his door, hoping that I'm not interrupting something with my stupid insecurities. No, he's saying, Come to me. Come to me, I will give you the rest--not just that you want, but that you need, the rest I know you need.

Secondly, I never really understood the connection between the middle verse (27) to all the rest. It felt kind of random to me. Hey God, thanks for doing this. Oh, btw, I have a secret noone knows--but I can share it with you, if I want to. And you know, you can find your rest in me. But it's not that at all. You can't interact with someone you don't know. You can't find rest in someone if you don't know who they are. And he says that he chose to reveal the Father to us, to me. "All things have been committed" to him. And he chose to reveal himself to me. This is all under his control. He wouldn't have shown himself to me if he didn't want to. But he did.

Finally, the verb is "come." Obvious, I know. But seriously. The verb is "come." The verb is not "go" or "follow" or even "seek." The verb is "come." It has an inward directionality to it, whereas go, follow after, and seek seem to have an outward directionality to them. "Come" implies a sense of definitive location. He's saying, I'm right here. Come to me. I'm right here. And I have always been right here. I am right here.