When I set out to create this blog, my intent was to be a place to write about all solid stuff that would come out of my times spent in Scripture (in various ways), or reflections on articles I still want this blog to be encouraging, even challenging. It hasn't taken quite that shape lately. Even as I write these opening sentences, I realize the importance of what I'm going to describe about my life lately.
So let's start by describing what, exactly, my life looks like right now, and how it's gotten there over the past few weeks:
I decided to move to Holland into an apartment on 12th street. Five days before I would have to move out of my apartment in Lansing, my roommate calls me with some less than stellar news that she might not be looking for a roommate after all. So I find myself a third of the way packed (past the point of no-return, but the end still nowhere in sight), without a place to move to in five days time in a town 100 miles away. The job that I had set my sights on doesn't respond to my resume or return my phone call (the way they said they would).
It's now about 4 weeks later. I am living on 16th street, and I have a good part-time job. It's been a long story of one step forward, three steps back. But in every instance when I've taken those three steps back and I'm stranded, something comes along to give me a little bit of hope. They've been days when I'm frustrated and scared, and I say, Okay God, what do you want from me? And then, the next day, I get a little ray of sunshine. It's been like following breadcrumbs.
You would think after the way I've seen God provide all this for me, after the way I've seen God pave my way to Urbana, after the way I was able to afford IVLI when it cost more than what I had to my name, that I would be so grateful and hopeful for how this current adventure that I've found myself in is going to play out. I'm back where I want to be and feel at home in, and I get to see how God might use me to answer the prayers I've been crying about for Hope College.
My bills still cost more than what I make, my apartment is not unpacked, I don't know where I'm going to go to church, I don't have friends to hang out with, I'm worried about the roommate who's going to move in next week. I'm worried that I'm being absolutely ridiculous by even THINKING about missions/ministry work. I'm scared to send out reference forms for volunteering with Hope IV. I'm excited to hear back from Teach Overseas, but nervous that they'll actually "hire" me--I'd have to raise almost $5,000.
I don't feel qualified to be asking questions about my calling. I don't feel qualified to be applying for ministry opportunities, whether at Hope or in Russia. I can't even knock on my neighbor's door to ask to borrow a mixer, so how am I supposed to go renew campus? Some people are perfectly content to "worship love and personal dignity." How do I combat love with love?
I went to a prayer meeting at Engedi this evening, and while someone was praying for me, they used this picture of having one foot on the solid rock and the other in the shifting sand. The solid rock doesn't feel very solid when you aren't standing on it completely. It just feels in the way. But I know, I know that when I am standing in His Temple, in His Courts, when I am reading the Word like Oliver, asking, "Please, sir, can I have some more?" that life steadies. That strength is in my veins, peace is in my heart, and words are in my mouth.
It's only when those things are true that I can dream with the vision of God: campus renewal, joy from mourning, freedom for the oppressed, the very earth being cared for: darkness pushed back. I've been trying to figure everything out on my own, including myself, denying the inherent fact that I cannot redeem anything. My pride has kept me from seeking the very one that has the Authority and Power to redeem all those things, and would take this weight from my shoulders.
Blessed is the man
who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked
or stand in the way of sinners
or sit in the seat of mockers.
But his delight is in the law of the LORD,
and on his law he meditates day and night. -Psalm 1:1-2
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Friday, October 15, 2010
Hijacked
I love it when the Holy Spirit decides to interrupt your day and suddenly it's 2.5 hours later...
I definitely was going to get some application writing done, call my Dad, and instead, I decided to pray for a bit and then it's 8:30, the sun has gone down, and I haven't eaten dinner. And I could definitely keep chillin' with Jesus for the rest of the night, but I have some pressing things to do...like turn on lights and put on a sweatshirt and finish this application! And feed myself.
I'll post an update of what's going on a little later. Suffice to say that I'm learning the art of surrender.
I definitely was going to get some application writing done, call my Dad, and instead, I decided to pray for a bit and then it's 8:30, the sun has gone down, and I haven't eaten dinner. And I could definitely keep chillin' with Jesus for the rest of the night, but I have some pressing things to do...like turn on lights and put on a sweatshirt and finish this application! And feed myself.
I'll post an update of what's going on a little later. Suffice to say that I'm learning the art of surrender.
Wednesday, October 06, 2010
The Appalling Inefficiency of Sabbath
Posted At : September 24, 2010 7:39 PM
Related Categories: Sabbath
I am currently on sabbatical living among and observing various expressions of Christian community. In the future I will blog about what I am discovering regarding Christian community – particularly among the marginalized, but at the moment I’d like to consider the appalling inefficiency of rest.
If I confess that God made humans with intention and foresight (“fearfully and wonderfully” as the Psalmist puts it), I must either concede that God created terribly inefficient creatures, or that there must be some purpose in dormancy which is built into creation. I think it is safe to say that every living thing has regular periods of sleep, hibernation, dormancy or some kind of inactivity.
Humans appear to be genetically programmed to go dormant every single day of our lives one third of the time. If anyone tried to market a computer or car or appliance that only worked 2/3rds of the time it would be laughed right off the market (Mac users please exercise restraint in tossing jabs at us PC users). Since God neither “slumbers nor sleeps,” (Psalm 121:4) and since we are made in the image of our Creator, it stands to reason that there was some purpose for God deviating from making a creature that does not require sleep. Seems as though humans are not like God in that critical respect – that of 24-7 work (Jn 5:16-17).
We do know, however, that this sleepless God chose to “Sabbath” after making the universe. The resting of God was completely voluntary. It was not because God was exhausted after all that ex nihilo “Let there be …” stuff (Gen. 2:3). God chose rest – perhaps to give us an example. Because in addition to building dormancy into creation, God commanded that humans were not to work one full day in seven. Genetically we’d already lost our ability to function 1/3 of the time, but then God had to go and tell us to do no work one seventh of the remaining time that we could otherwise be productive.
Add to all this the dozens of feast and festival days – several of which included the command to “do no work,” and you’ve got a workforce which is, either by design or command, inactive about half of the time! The computer game “Age of Empires,” where we get to play God, would be pretty boring if your entire population did nothing half the time.
Now with a labor force which is only available to work 50% of the time you’d think God would be pretty insistent about snappy productivity during those few waking hours of work each year. There’s plenty of being fruitful, multiplying, subduing the earth, and having dominion over every living thing to get done (Gen. 1:28). Oddly, however, God commands an agrarian Israel to a sabbatical year. No planting, watering, fertilizing, weeding and harvesting for a full year – not just once in your life, but every seven years. If an adult worked for 50 years of their life, five of those years would be sabbatical years.
So here’s what I am only just beginning to learn about the beauty of regular periods of dormancy.
Identity: Our work can get perversely attached to our sense of identity and worth. We can very easily begin to think that we are what we do. I believe that the genetic and Biblical call to inactivity aids us in separating our identity from our activity. Our personhood is not defined by our work.
Trust: Think of it. Every year agrarian Israel relied on a good harvest to live through the winter, spring and summer before another harvest was available. But God told them not to plant anything for one full season in every seven. That means that after they’d harvested crops in year six, they had to survive somehow until the harvest came in year eight. This required dependence on God.
For a variety of reasons, in my sabbatical period we have experienced a diminishment in income and an increase in expense. We are learning how to trust God for daily bread in deeper ways. While here in the UK, where housing costs (along with many other things) are more expensive, we are dependent upon the generosity of communities to provide for us. We are being stripped of our sense of financial independence and self-sufficiency.
Measurability: For many in the West and certain parts of Asia productivity is measurable. Results, outcomes, growth and production are things toward which we strive (I find this a bit less so in many African and Latin American cultures). Sabbath denies us the indulgence of measuring our outcomes. We must satisfy ourselves with internal growth, more space for intimacy with God and relationship with others. These things are hard to quantify. We must learn to be content with things which cannot be counted – deeper encounters with God, time to spend with a friend, rediscovering what it means to be a member of a family, and space simply to “be.”
While I have not quite yet entered into a state of transcendent, sabbatical bliss, I have begun to slow down just a little and am learning to separate my sense of self from my work, to grow my dependence upon God and others, and to deny myself the measurability of productivity.
http://www.urbana.org/blogs/blog.main.leastofthese.cfm
(Italics mine)
Posted At : September 24, 2010 7:39 PM
Related Categories: Sabbath
I am currently on sabbatical living among and observing various expressions of Christian community. In the future I will blog about what I am discovering regarding Christian community – particularly among the marginalized, but at the moment I’d like to consider the appalling inefficiency of rest.
If I confess that God made humans with intention and foresight (“fearfully and wonderfully” as the Psalmist puts it), I must either concede that God created terribly inefficient creatures, or that there must be some purpose in dormancy which is built into creation. I think it is safe to say that every living thing has regular periods of sleep, hibernation, dormancy or some kind of inactivity.
Humans appear to be genetically programmed to go dormant every single day of our lives one third of the time. If anyone tried to market a computer or car or appliance that only worked 2/3rds of the time it would be laughed right off the market (Mac users please exercise restraint in tossing jabs at us PC users). Since God neither “slumbers nor sleeps,” (Psalm 121:4) and since we are made in the image of our Creator, it stands to reason that there was some purpose for God deviating from making a creature that does not require sleep. Seems as though humans are not like God in that critical respect – that of 24-7 work (Jn 5:16-17).
We do know, however, that this sleepless God chose to “Sabbath” after making the universe. The resting of God was completely voluntary. It was not because God was exhausted after all that ex nihilo “Let there be …” stuff (Gen. 2:3). God chose rest – perhaps to give us an example. Because in addition to building dormancy into creation, God commanded that humans were not to work one full day in seven. Genetically we’d already lost our ability to function 1/3 of the time, but then God had to go and tell us to do no work one seventh of the remaining time that we could otherwise be productive.
Add to all this the dozens of feast and festival days – several of which included the command to “do no work,” and you’ve got a workforce which is, either by design or command, inactive about half of the time! The computer game “Age of Empires,” where we get to play God, would be pretty boring if your entire population did nothing half the time.
Now with a labor force which is only available to work 50% of the time you’d think God would be pretty insistent about snappy productivity during those few waking hours of work each year. There’s plenty of being fruitful, multiplying, subduing the earth, and having dominion over every living thing to get done (Gen. 1:28). Oddly, however, God commands an agrarian Israel to a sabbatical year. No planting, watering, fertilizing, weeding and harvesting for a full year – not just once in your life, but every seven years. If an adult worked for 50 years of their life, five of those years would be sabbatical years.
So here’s what I am only just beginning to learn about the beauty of regular periods of dormancy.
Identity: Our work can get perversely attached to our sense of identity and worth. We can very easily begin to think that we are what we do. I believe that the genetic and Biblical call to inactivity aids us in separating our identity from our activity. Our personhood is not defined by our work.
Trust: Think of it. Every year agrarian Israel relied on a good harvest to live through the winter, spring and summer before another harvest was available. But God told them not to plant anything for one full season in every seven. That means that after they’d harvested crops in year six, they had to survive somehow until the harvest came in year eight. This required dependence on God.
For a variety of reasons, in my sabbatical period we have experienced a diminishment in income and an increase in expense. We are learning how to trust God for daily bread in deeper ways. While here in the UK, where housing costs (along with many other things) are more expensive, we are dependent upon the generosity of communities to provide for us. We are being stripped of our sense of financial independence and self-sufficiency.
Measurability: For many in the West and certain parts of Asia productivity is measurable. Results, outcomes, growth and production are things toward which we strive (I find this a bit less so in many African and Latin American cultures). Sabbath denies us the indulgence of measuring our outcomes. We must satisfy ourselves with internal growth, more space for intimacy with God and relationship with others. These things are hard to quantify. We must learn to be content with things which cannot be counted – deeper encounters with God, time to spend with a friend, rediscovering what it means to be a member of a family, and space simply to “be.”
While I have not quite yet entered into a state of transcendent, sabbatical bliss, I have begun to slow down just a little and am learning to separate my sense of self from my work, to grow my dependence upon God and others, and to deny myself the measurability of productivity.
http://www.urbana.org/blogs/blog.main.leastofthese.cfm
(Italics mine)
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