Singing through the Lump

And I will lead the blind in a way that they do not know, in paths that they have not known I will guide them. I will turn the darkness before them into light, the rough places into level ground.—Isaiah 42:16

So…I did it last week, finally. I cried. I admit it.

People have said, “Wow, DC is a cool place—you’ll have lots of fun!” Maybe it is a cool place. But it sure doesn’t look that way when you have to wake up in the dark in order to be on time, or when your commute is stressful and time-consuming. You’re visualizing everything that could go wrong at work and you haven’t even gotten past job training yet. You get lost in what has been named the worst traffic in the country. And even if you do something fun in the city, it doesn’t matter a lick unless you have someone close to you to enjoy it with.

And it doesn’t help if you haven’t had a really good cup of coffee in a long while.

I know—first world problems, right?

But deeper than all of those little physical “problems” is the fact that I desperately miss my people. I’d rather be doing things with my parents and brothers and sister than anyone else. And I miss my church family, young people who will sit down and put their hands on me and pray for me, if I need it. People who are not afraid to touch me.

The reason I cried last week was because I visited a new church. I liked it, but it wasn’t exactly right. Once you’ve had that family connection to a church, it’s hard to accept anything less. I know, I know, I only tried it once, so I really shouldn’t judge this particular congregation so fast, but the whole experience just reminded me how much I wanted instant connection…instant family.

Driving back from church, I stopped for gas, and I was so desperate that I asked some random people at the gas station where they went to church. They were nice people, about my age, dressed in Sunday best. They gave me some recommendations. But then I got back into my car and accidentally drove to Maryland, and (after I asked some random guys at a random car show for directions) I heard this song on the radio about somebody desperately wanting to know God’s will, and that’s when I cried. I tried to make a joyful noise and worship, but the lump in my throat just wouldn’t let me. And I even cried later on the phone with my mom, walking through my neighborhood. Luckily the neighbors weren’t out.

This morning I got all emo and turned to 1 Peter so I could whine about “suffering.” 1 Peter is the go-to book if you feel like you’re facing trials. Even if they are first-world trials.

To those who are elect exiles of the dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood: May grace and peace be multiplied to you.—1 Peter 1:1

Right away, I noticed (for the first time) that this letter is to “the elect exiles of the dispersion.” I identified with that immediately. Ok, maybe I am not a missionary in Asia driven from my home and hiding from persecutors. But I do feel pretty exiled. I feel as though I have been dispersed, a word that brings to mind separation from family and familiarity.

But check it: according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ—and here’s the kicker—for the sprinkling with his blood. Peter is telling them that they may be exiles, but God knew about this from the start. As a matter of fact, they were out there because they were obedient to Christ—who had sealed them (keep in mind, this is the Prince of Peace, the Lord of Lords, the first and last, the ruler of all) with HIS OWN blood.

I wasn’t sure if Peter understood about commuting and coffee, but I kept reading.

Verse 3-4: …According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

You know, just in case you were wondering about that inheritance thing…it’s eternal. Unlike your life on earth. We get a new life—or, as Paul would put it, “that which is truly life” (1 Timothy 6:19). This is a “living hope.” Which explains why Peter uses the word “rejoice”—in the present tense—in the next verse.

Rejoice. Not really the word I would use to describe my feeble, tearful attempt to worship in the car on the way back from my accidental detour into Maryland.

(For those of you who are wondering, Maryland is visible from DC. So it is not as far as it sounds. I’m just being dramatic.)

Then Peter continues about “various trials,” going on about how we are “tested by fire”…you know, all the things you want to hear if you are feeling sorry for yourself (and if you think that getting up at 5:20 a.m. falls under the “tested by fire” category). But then he says something interesting: Though you have not seen him, you love him.

This is coming from a man who had seen Jesus; who had, in fact, been His most intimate friend when He walked the earth, and had seen Him when he came back from the dead.

Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

You do not now see him, not in this moment, not in these trials. But you believe in him. And it is in the rejoicing over this hope that we obtain the salvation of our souls.

There’s that word again: rejoice.

Not only do we rejoice, we are filled with the kind of joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory.

I have to wonder how these words must have sounded to the exiled missionaries Peter was writing to, men and women who had been obedient to their calling and were likely were spilling blood, sweat, and tears every day for their faith. They could sing because, in their new eternal lives, although their bodies would perish, their spirits actually couldn’t be killed. To people who were probably being hunted, this was reason enough for joy inexpressible.

D.C. isn’t some evil city or anything, but it is a place where I’ve heard the name of Jesus used as a swear word at least 20 times in the past week. In other words, it’s just like the rest of the world. So when I, an exile from the spiritual nest of my parents and church family, hear the words of Peter, I feel encouraged.

Physically, I don’t feel my best or look my best. Let’s be real: my hair looks crappy. My eating habits have been off, I’m losing my tan, my clothes are always wrinkled, and my face is breaking out. My body is confused by my sleep schedule. Between intense workdays and commutes, and living with relatives, I feel like I don’t ever really have a true, honest-with-myself moment alone, or with the Lord. (My relatives are awesome, generous, and a blessing, but it’s not like having my home territory completely my own like I have for two years before.) My whole life is like a hotel. It’s almost like I am a perpetual traveler, someone always on my feet and strapped to a backpack, far from everything familiar and having to adjust myself by the day, and never really finding rest.

Oh yeah…that’s probably how missionaries feel.

And how Jesus Himself felt. Because I am adopted by way of His blood, the way that I feel like an exile is the same way He did: a Son of the living God, stranded in a dead world that doesn’t understand the meaning of the word rejoice.  

Talk about not getting any rest. Jesus was wandering around here with a bunch of guys who woke Him up from much-needed sleep with their cries of, “Jesus! Help us! We’re about to die!”

And when he got into the boat, his disciples followed him. And behold, there arose a great storm on the sea, so that the boat was being swamped by the waves; but he was asleep. And they went and woke him, saying, “Save us, Lord; we are perishing.” And he said to them, “Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?” Then he rose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm.—Matthew 8:23-26

Jesus wasn’t sleeping on the job. He was just trying to get a little rest…Dude was tired, ok? But even more than that, He trusted His Father. He knew the plan from start to finish, and He knew He wasn’t destined to die in a boat on a dinky little sea. (He knew exactly how He would die, in fact.) He could rest, because He knew who was in control.

Peter saw Him, and went and woke Him up, because he was afraid. But we do not even see Him, and yet we love Him. More than our physical bodies are saved from the storm; the outcome of our faith is the salvation of our souls.

Let’s revisit the very first lines of 1 Peter again:

To those who are elect exiles of the dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with his blood: May grace and peace be multiplied to you. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! He is in control. He’s got His eye on the ship. And it is not going down. I mean, especially if you followed Him into the boat, which is apparently what the disciples did. And what I have done. I know I am not preaching on another continent or running Bibles into China or rescuing children out of slavery. But I know for a fact that I have been called here.

Check out the link at the bottom of this post for an awesome song. It’s about wanting to stay in a comfortable place in a little nook of Jesus’ glory, but being called higher by God.  Story of my life, right? I could sit in a comfortable place with my Bible on my lap, with plenty of sleep and complete control of my schedule, and I would grow…but in verse 13, 1 Peter says, Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

Prepare your minds for action. Being still is very important (it is what Jesus told the storm—or the disciples, however you choose to view it—to do), and we should never compromise on time being still and communing with the Lord. But we also must move. We must set our hope fully on salvation. We must step onto the boat.

The bridge of the song says: “And I will be yours, Lord/I will be yours for all my life.”

As painful as early mornings are, and as out-of-control as I feel, in my heart of hearts, I would rather be His than my own. I would rather have that which is truly life. And so I guess I must learn to sing through the lump in my throat. What looks like a storm to me is something that Jesus can look at and say, “Peace. Be still.”

Rejoice. And, may grace and peace be multiplied to you.

Oh, and side note: if you pray for opportunities to share your faith with your coworkers, it will happen. It might even be forced to happen, in diversity training, when you are made to go through a list of touchy subjects and discuss what they mean to you, religion included.

Just fyi.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twnAwiO1O9U

I seriously want to join this band.

Stepping...or running...out in faith...

...do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.--Philippians 4:6-7

This is the path that I ran on the other morning. It is just a wooded path—the same kind I have run on before. I know how to run, and I am familiar with gravel and trees. It seems straightforward enough to go running.

I’ve been down so many wooded paths by now, however, that they all start looking the same—and there’s the problem. It is comforting to be surrounded by trees…. But the setting is so familiar that they all start looking alike, and I am not quite sure where I turned. Gravel is plain and commonplace, but if I have never run on this path before, I have no idea where it leads. It could be incredibly long, or just a quarter mile. If I keep running, I have no clue how long I will have to run until I reach the end. If it begins to rain on the path, I don’t know how much farther I will have to go until I reach shelter, or what that shelter will even be, if there is any at all. I generally can tell what direction I’m going in relation to where I started; but whether or not I will get back there is another story.

This first week, my life in the DC area has already begun to look like this path: the familiarity of woods and running, coupled with the terror of not knowing what is just around the corner, and having none of my little everyday comforts on a strange road—just myself and my shoes. It’s like looking at your face in a spoon: everything looks the same, only it’s upside-down.

Granted, I have lots of family here, and I am living with my great-aunt and uncle. But I live in the suburbs, a far ways out, and that makes for a long commute.

That has stressed me out more than anything: the logistics of getting from one place to another. There are about a million different ways to get to anywhere around here, and they all take different times and different routes according to the time of day or week or month or year, so it is really just a lot to take in. Take into that the fact that many people I have spoken with who live in the city itself have looked at me funny (literally) when I told them where I am living, like I am some kind of idiot.

I am unaccustomed to stress; I don’t often do it, to be honest. After I’ve been submerged in my little Christian hippie hidey-hole all summer (my parents’ house), where everything is about and for and through and around and inside God, this city is a bit of a shock to my senses.

I didn’t really prepare for that, because I didn’t spend this summer thinking that far ahead. I was busy tending the home fires, and learning to sit at Jesus’ feet. Now the world is coming at me, slapping me in the face like a cold, smelly updraft from the city sewer.

I think the issue goes deeper even than logistics.

But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. –James 1:22-24

That’s really what I have feared: becoming that person, a person who thinks she is receiving the implanted word (verse 21, just above), but then gets on the Metro and gets consumed by the day’s “civilian pursuits” (2 Timothy 2:4). A person who has such a long commute and such a brain-absorbing job that she never makes enough time to talk to Jesus.

I don’t want to become entangled in civilian pursuits. I would rather be tucked away in my little hole. I just don’t like to be bothered with all that stuff…you know, daily life.

Yesterday afternoon, after reading the employee handbook and faxing my paperwork and trying to plan this commute thing, I had a moment when I honestly thought, “Do I have to do this? Father…can I go home now? Jesus…Can I be excused?”

I am very much a Peter. “Cool!! I wanna walk on water!! Let me try! Oooh, oooh, pick me, Jesus!....Wait…hold on…aaaahhh, what am I doing??? I’m sinking! Help!!” (Matthew 14). Or: “I will NEVER deny you, Jesus! We’re bros!” …[less than 24 hours later]… “I do not know that man” (Matthew 26).

Needless to say, I can be a bit, um… wishy-washy. (Although I prefer the term “cautious.” It sounds better.) In my natural state, I am introverted and love-lazy, and I would rather operate in the imaginary realm of adventures instead of having one for real.

But my spiritual self is different from my natural self. My spiritual self is the first one to accept adventure, and seek it out gladly. Which makes for an interesting contrast in a high-pressure situation. Even though I will keep going, my natural self might wake up and hyperventilate a few times on the way…forgetting that, spiritually, this path is one I have chosen. I wanted to go running.

As much as I have grumbled internally over the past few days (what happened to that verse about “do all things without grumbling”?), I asked to be here. I asked for adventure, for a place to serve the Lord, to not be afraid to go where He calls me. I did not realize that I, a little stranger who is set apart by blood covenant from the alien planet on which she has landed, would fall face-first into “the world.” And several times over the last few days, I have wanted to retrace my steps and go back the way I came.

But it’s too late. I’m already on the path, and I don’t know how I got here. I only know the general direction I need to go, so I am going to have to keep running until I find my way back around.

I have thought to myself, how can I ever, ever love this city? How can I ever take it into the possession of the One who called me to it? (Deuteronomy 1:8).

How can I go and claim a place for God if I don’t even want to be there?

I read Isaiah 49 the other day. (Thank you, Jesus Calling.) It is widely accepted that this chapter is about Jesus.

I will make you as a light for the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.—verse 6

Someone has to carry the word, right?...And I did kind of volunteer….

Hop down a few verses:

Can a woman forget her nursing child, that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you. Behold, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are continually before me. Your builders make haste; your destroyers and those who laid you waste go out from you. Lift up your eyes around and see; they all gather, they come to you. As I live, declares the Lord, you shall put them all on as an ornament; you shall bind them on as a bride does.—verses 15-18

I don’t know much about all those builders and destroyers and stuff, but I do know that God can no more forget about us than a mother can forget about a nursing child. He is full of milk for us—He longs to give it to us, the helpless babies who need to be nourished. And Jesus binds us on Himself like a bride binds on ornaments. Not the masculine, grim-faced God that people often imagine, huh?

You know what’s cool about that?

Jesus is not the jewel in my crown. He is not something I put on. I am the diamond that He wears. Once again, I am not the point here. He is. And yet, I still get to be beautiful.

Last night I talked to my mom and my brother, and they really helped me out. My brother, twenty years old though he is, just said, “You’re stepping out in faith. God has your back in this adventure.”

He’s right. I asked for an opportunity to step out in faith, and He has given it to me. He has bound me on. He has everything worked out. I can just see Him up there shaking His head, saying, “If you would just calm down and stop striving for a minute, I will show you how I have worked all this out already, daughter.”

So, last night, I got out my guitar and played a little worship, and I gave it all to Him. All my commuting, all my living situation(s), my new church (yet to be found), my new friends (also…yet to be found), my training, my coworkers—every last thing.  I needed that reminder from my brother (who is not just a natural brother, but a spiritual brother as well) that when you step out in faith, God has your back “in this adventure.”

I slept a lot better after that.

Then this morning, I hit up James chapter 2—“faith without works is dead.” For an example of works, James uses the story of Abraham being willing to sacrifice his son Isaac—not exactly a “good deed,” or a “work” that would be approved by the little old ladies in Sunday school. But Abraham knew God had given him this son; he believed God when He said that his line would continue through Isaac—even if that meant He had to raise Isaac from the dead. “Works,” then, are acts of faith—not just saying you believe that God will protect you in the fire, but actually walking into it.

I think I’ve got a big toe in right now—stepping out in faith.

I know people around here think I’m naïve. They don’t say so, not in so many words. But I can tell by their faces. They see my smile and my attitude, my warm love, and they really think I don’t know anything about the world. They probably think I’ve never watched the news, that I’m a sheltered youngster with a country accent who ain’t seen much of the world.

But I’m not naïve. I just know who has my back.

The Lord of the universe has engraved me on the palms of His hands, and it is His love that they see in me, if they see any. The devil wants to steal that from me. But you know what? I am keeping my eyes on the back of Jesus’ head, because I am following right behind Him. The last thing you ought to do after you follow someone into the wilderness is turn around and start trying to find your way yourself, right?

I may have my eyes wide open and an eyebrow raised, but I’m getting my feet shod with the gospel of peace (Ephesians 5), and I know what direction I am going, even if I don’t know how to get there. Praise the Lord, that we are able to enter His rest, even while we’re running!