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.