Sight

Strength and dignity are her clothing, and she laughs at the time to come.—Proverbs 31:25

The Lord has done a magnificent work in me since the last time I posted. I have prayed hard over the past couple weeks about perspective. If you’ve been reading this blog, you know that I was sorely in need of a change of lenses. And I am overjoyed today to tell you that He has heard my cry, and He has answered me.

So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight (2 Corinthians 5:6-7).

I don’t know about you, but I want to always be of good courage. However, apparently, to be courageous, you also have to be blind.

Talk about a change in perspective. How about no perspective—that’s what this scripture seems to suggest.

Let me back up a little.

Two Mondays ago, I had a challenging day at work and drove home feeling completely inadequate. I was frustrated at how frail I become under pressure, how easily I crack under stress. Then, of course, I got mad about feeling inadequate, and mad that I was immature enough to be mad. I just wanted to skip ahead to some point on this timeline of my life that I was imagining, a place where I have become this super-godly, super-mature, super-put-together woman who loves the Lord and impresses everyone around her with her ability to handle pressure. I wanted to stop being so young.

Clearly this was insane, so I called my therapist: Mom.

What Mom told me to do (or, rather, what the Holy Spirit told me to do using Mom) was to stop thinking about my purpose, to stop obsessing over the big picture of my life as this intense mission, and start focusing on my relationship with Jesus.

She also told me to pray in the Spirit. I took that advice, and over the past week or so, I have felt mountains being moved in my soul. You see, we humans are so inadequate that we can’t even hardly pray for ourselves; for we know not how to pray as we ought (Romans 8:26). God has had to pray for me, then answer His own prayers for me. I had no part in the whole process except to receive.

Isn’t God awesome?

I got on a plane last weekend to head to Alabama for a close friend’s wedding, and, while I was suspended in the air, I finally got some time to sit still and further chew on this idea of focusing simply on Jesus. (Kind of sad that God had to strap me down and jet me 4,000 feet in the sky, or however high planes go, to get an uninterrupted word with me….)

It may be different for other people, but for me right now, the “sight” mentioned in this verse in 2 Corinthians doesn’t necessarily mean believing in something that I can see literally in front of me. Like many people with a visionary, passionate personality, I have turned my imagined “mission,” my vision of my future, into a kind of mental security blanket. It’s my default thought, the thing I daydream about. In this imagined world, my future is this neat scenario that plays out: I marry some church planter or something, and we blast off for the kingdom together. It’s a neat little narrative.

It is very easy to daydream when you feel dissatisfied with your daily life. Everyone knows that. You end up living in the future. And that’s why we are often not “of good courage”: we plan too much in the earthly realm, which allows God little room to submit us to His greater plans.

Here’s the bigger sin: visualizing my future all the time not only takes away from the present moment, the time when Jesus always is (I AM is present tense, you know); it also leads me to worship my spiritual growth, my vision for who “I should be”—that person who is “worthy” enough to receive the things that I want for myself. This spirals into self-condemnation: I didn’t do that right. I shouldn’t have made that mistake. I am not prepared enough. I am not organized enough. I…me….my……

Time to get real. I realized that, as I said before, I was angry that I had been reminded of my immaturity. But there was an even bigger issue (as usual). See, I was thinking, in my little earthbound heart, that only “mature” people are worth anything for God’s purposes. My stressful job had brought out a side of myself I didn’t like, and I was feeling that I wasn’t worthy yet of the future I envision for myself. I was believing this lie: that I am not worthy yet of the godly marriage and ministry I imagine; that right now, at this life stage, I’m just piddling around. When I am worthy, when He grants me these things I have envisioned, then my life can really start.

Meanwhile, Jesus is standing right in front of me, jumping up and down and waving His arms, shouting, “I paid a great price for you! Stop living in fantasy land and just let me love you!”

I didn’t realize what a sneaky sin sight could become.

Leave it to Mom to bring the real issue to light when I least expected it.

At His feet….

I’m an artist. Sight is kind of my thing. And this vision is a gift from God. But like all gifts, it can easily be inverted.

My human perspective of the future is completely inaccurate. All the things I visualize for myself are probably never going to happen—or at least, they won’t happen the way I imagine them. If they did, something would be wrong. God always acts in unexpected ways. Read the Bible. Some of His plans are weird, ok? Like Jesus being born of a virgin, then being crucified…and the whole communion, “this is my blood” thing. Everything about the gospel is the opposite of the kind of predictable, world-affirming legend humanity would invent.

Humans write stories they can imagine might be true. God writes stories that only He can imagine. (The pastor did a whole sermon on this today…further confirmation that I needed to write about it.)

So what I’m saying is, God’s plans for me are so much bigger than my own, so awesome and crazy that I can’t even visualize them, no matter how much time I waste trying to do it.

What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him (1 Corinthians 2:9).

And again: He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end (Ecclesiastes 3:11).

The way I visualize my future is the “sight” that I am not supposed to be living by.

So…what is this “faith” thing?

When I was a little kid, I thought I understood faith.  I grew up in a charismatic household where we talked about healing miracles and spiritual warfare at the dinner table. I got the impression that faith was something we did, as humans.  Faith meant, simply, believing hard enough.

I didn’t realize that faith is a spiritual gift. You know what that means? God has to give it to you. And in order for Him to give it to you, you have to receive it.

Here’s the thing: God hasn’t set some great cosmic timer, some agenda, some deadline, for me to “become” something, so that He can rain blessings on me (as if I don’t have enough blessings already); so that He can grant me my heart’s desires. All He wants is for me to sit at His feet.

Literally, that’s all He wants.

It’s hard for our human minds to comprehend that. But it’s right there in scripture.

Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act (Psalm 37:4-5).

Then, two verses down: Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him.

I did a double-take when I read that. “Wait…what?” I said to myself. “I thought I was supposed to be doing something here…? You know, ‘committing my way’ and all that….”

Nope: be still.

I mean, maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t think “being still” involves scurrying around your life, trying to plan everything.

Good courage….

On the next Monday, Columbus Day, I had another crisis, a much worse one. When I got back from my trip to Alabama, I checked my emails and saw that there was a job prospect opening up in Nashville in arts education. I already signed a contract here, of course; and it would damage my integrity to break that.

But don’t you think I didn’t consider it.

It sounded so lovely: moving back to a city I love, away from this city I have hated. A more predictable schedule. More stability for my future.

I knew I couldn’t take it. But the thought spiraled me down into a pit of self-doubt. What if I was wrong to move here? What if I am completely off-course? What if I misread the direction, navigated wrong, somehow got myself marooned here on this island, thinking it was part of divine purpose when in fact it was just a random breeze? I mean, we all miss it sometimes.

It was a pretty bad day.

Then I prayed and called to my Father, asking Him to give me peace and quiet in my spirit, because I can’t change my decision now.

Thank the Lord that He is faithful.

There is no way I could seek after and catch a sense of peace myself. But I asked the Lord for it, and He provided. In the past week, I’ve had more peace here than I’ve ever had before. I feel like I’m standing on something solid, finally. And I know Who it is I am standing on. He calls Himself the Rock.

Basically what I am trying to say in all this is that God is awesome, because He sent His Holy Spirit to comfort me. I desperately wanted a different attitude, but there was such a bitter taste in my mouth toward Northern Virginia and DC that I just couldn’t bring myself to make positive memories here. So I told Him that. I asked Him to change me. And He did.

Psalm 121:1-2: I lift up my eyes to the hills. From where does my help come? My help comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth.

Amen!

Don’t let your sight be a stumbling block.

I don’t want to offer vague platitudes here about “keeping your eyes upon Jesus,” or advise you to pray more, read more Bible, sweat and gasp trying to spend enough time with the Lord to achieve this peace, on your own efforts. What I am trying to tell you is that you can cry out to the Holy Spirit to do the work in you—to rescue you from your own vision. Let Him do the work. There is no other way for it to get done.

Toward the end of Psalm 37, we read this: for there is a future for the man of peace (verse 37). I don’t know that this can always be interpreted as “keeping peace” between people; rather, it might refer to being at peace within ourselves. We ought to rest in the peace He gives us. If we do, we can “laugh at the time to come.” And that is how we are always “of good courage”: we trust in the vision of the One who created sight.

Prepositions

“How can one feed these people with bread here in this desolate place?”

That’s how the disciples responded to Jesus when He observed that the four thousand-plus crowd of His followers was hungry.

Actually, He didn’t simply observe that they were hungry. What He actually said was, “I have compassion on the crowd, because they have been with me now three days and have nothing to eat. And if I send them away hungry to their homes, they will faint on the way. And some of them have come from far away” (Mark 8:2).

The disciples’ first response was, basically, “Well, what do you want us to do about it, Jesus? There ain’t nowhere to get bread out here. We can’t even bake it. We have nothing with us. What are we supposed to do?”

I mean, I don’t know if the disciples were sarcastic guys, but I have to imagine that they might’ve been here, just a little. The place they were was desolate. That means it was in the middle of nowhere, inaccessible, the country. People had walked a very long time to get there. (Which begs the question, why didn’t they bring lunch? Maybe they did, but I guess they didn’t expect to be so impressed with Jesus that they stayed three days. The PB & J was long gone by then.)

But the disciples were missing the point here. Jesus didn’t say, “Go get some bread for these folks!” He said, “I have compassion on them. They have come a long way to be with me.”

And He was ready to feed them.

Are you in the crowd? Are you drawn so far out into the wilderness that you have to depend upon Jesus to feed you?

If so, just so you know: He has compassion on you. And He will take the seven little loaves you have and make them enough to feed thousands.

I always say this is my favorite chapter of Mark because, less than a score of verses later, the disciples are sitting around talking about how they don’t have any bread.

Um….

I mean, now that I think about it, I guess they had given all they had to the people. But there were seven basketsful left. And Jesus had done this breaking-bread miracle another time before. So as they sat around talking about their lack of bread, He said, “Do you not yet understand?”

In case you didn’t catch that, it was a rhetorical question.

And it’s a question Jesus has to ask me again and again. Praise be to Him, though, because I think that after all this time, I am beginning to understand.

I have been finding over the past few weeks that there’s just not much to me. I reach the end of my own strength sooner than I thought. (Surprise, right? There’s nothing like working 10 hours a day to cure you of your unrealistic perspective.)

Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.—Hebrews 4:14-15

That means Jesus was with me when I got lost going to the DMV today; and he was with me, feeling my pain, as I stood in line for an hour, only to find out that I didn’t have the proper documents. (What up, Virginia? Put it on the website!) Jesus was there when I cried out and sobbed in my car for a pathetically long time last Saturday. He was there this week when I was angry or tired.

He is with me right now as I am sitting here terrified to fly by myself next weekend—terrified of making a mistake and ending up in Ohio or something.

Jesus was tempted to be afraid sometimes. But where I fail and give in to the sin of anxiety, He is strong. He has been tempted in every respect as I am—and more.

I know that He looks on me now with compassion, saying, “She has followed me out to this desolate place, and if she goes home, she will faint on the way.” I know He is faithful to act on His compassion, because the little crumbs of bread I have had—a few minutes stolen to study the Word and pray—have been fruitful beyond my expectation, when I have come to Him with a true heart, seeking.

Jesus feeds me with His spirit, if I will stop complaining about how I have no bread for long enough to chew.

I am the Lord your God, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt. Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it.—Psalm 81:10

He ransomed me. He paid a priceless bride-price to marry the church. He will feed us.

The Israelites often failed at opening their mouths (to receive food, anyway). This week, I read Jeremiah.  Jeremiah was this sad little guy who had to go tell the Israelites that they were sinning against God by worshipping foreign gods. (I bet he felt pretty desolate most of the time.) Through him, God told the people, “for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water” (Jeremiah 2:13). Then He asked a question (another rhetorical one, actually): “Have you not brought this upon yourself by forsaking the Lord your God, when he led you in the way?” (Jeremiah 2:17).

He led us out here; He’ll provide for us. It’s that simple. Don’t dig your own cistern. It’ll just be a fruitless pit for you to fall into. If you don’t turn to Jesus for your bread, you’re guaranteed to build a broken cistern. By the same token, if you do turn to Him, you’ll have seven basketsful leftover—no matter how “desolate” your location is.

This week has been much better, but last week was really stressful. I was angry because I felt that my job was sucking down 25 hours of my day away and grabbing greedily for more. And, really, as far as the DMV is concerned, I was mad today because I felt that my Saturday had been wasted, and it was somebody else’s fault. In other words, my time was so valuable that I had a right to be furious at the state of Virginia for messing it up.

The pastor I heard last week said, “If there is anything you think you need in addition to Jesus, the devil is probably using it right now to steal your joy.”

Ouch. He said if we don’t know what it is we think we need in addition to Jesus, we should look and see what is causing us stress and anxiety. Then he asked people who felt stressed to raise their hands.

I had to raise my hand.

Apparently, I think I need “my” time in addition to Jesus. (What I need it for, I’m not sure.) The cistern I keep trying to dig is this perfect schedule that I control completely. And it doesn’t give water; it only steals my joy.

To take us back to elementary grammar, I’ve been thinking in personal pronouns: I, me, mine. For a little while, I have forgotten about prepositions.

A quick run through Colossians chapter one: …He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins…and in him all things hold together…For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell...the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory….

And Ephesians chapter one: Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing…even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him….In him we have redemption through his blood…according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight, making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him…In him we have obtained an inheritance….so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit…

When we feel lost, and when we feel isolated, we must try to remember where we are. And we get there by following the prepositions.

Psalm 23:4 says, I will fear no evil, for you are with me….

I have felt very homesick and alone at various times over the past few weeks. Jesus has been the only one with me in my hardest moments on my hardest days. And God is even more than “with” me by the amazing power of Jesus. He is “in.”

We are not in some “perfect life,” or in our future, or in our past. We are not wandering around in fantasies; and we are not even really in time, actually.

And we are not “in this desolate place” either, beloved.

Here is the beautiful, splendid, ever-amazing gospel: we are IN HIM.

We exist in an entity Who is not constrained by all the little bits of time and physicality that concern us, that upset us, that cause us anxiety, that ruin our days, that make us sit around and talk about how hungry we are.

My time is not important. (Still wrapping my head around this one….) It’s His time, because everything I think, do, and am is in Him.

And maybe I don’t understand that all the way right now. Maybe I’m not sure how not to fall face-first into my cistern. But I know that He who has begun a good work in me will be faithful to complete it (no matter if I have to stand in the DMV line all day). In this I have faith: that over the next few weeks, months, and years, I will burrow much further into the arms of Jesus than I ever have before. I know because He has been drawing me closer by the day, patiently, for my whole life. Glory to God: I won’t faint on the way. He will provide me with spiritual nourishment. My soul will have something to eat, no matter where I am.

By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us his Spirit.—1 John 4:13

There are no qualifiers in that statement. This is how we know, says John: His Spirit is in us. By the Spirit’s miraculous power, Jesus multiplies our loaves of bread.

And John just may have known something about that.

The Underside of His Wings

In the Lord I take refuge; how can you say to my soul, ‘Flee like a bird to your mountain…?’…For the Lord is righteous; he loves righteous deeds; the upright shall behold his face.—Psalm 11

It’s in your worst moments that you begin to see who you really are. But it is also in these moments that God reveals who He is. And this week, praise the Lord, I have seen the underside of His wings.

Here is my life over the past month in bulleted form.

• ·         Leaving home before light every day
• ·         Working weekends
• ·         Nine, ten, eleven-hour days
• ·         Meeting tons of new people (exhausting for a natural introvert)
• ·         Trying to run a reading center and learning as I go, on my feet
• ·         Being far away from everything and everyone I know and love
• ·        Getting habitually lost in the hardest city to navigate in the USA
• ·         Getting lost at night when it is late and I want to be at home asleep
• ·         Being honked at by people while I am lost; or being made to feel like an idiot for getting lost
• ·        A kid shutting down on me this week (two days in a row), and the junior high kids next door messing with my stuff
• ·         Not getting enough time with the Lord (due to many of above reasons)
• ·         Not getting enough time for exercise and relaxation

All of that stuff hit me this week. It’s like it balled itself up into a fist and punched me in the face. And, while I was down, it kicked me hard in the stomach.

That’s why I cried after I almost hit a raccoon. Last Tuesday, I was on my way home from staying late for training at work, and it was getting to be 9 o’clock (this little early-riser’s bedtime). It was very VERY dark on the Fairfax County Parkway (why don’t they have street lights in Virginia??), and I almost hit this raccoon, and I pretty much stopped in the middle of the road. (I think I did actually run over its tail or something, because I felt a bump.) This guy behind me beeped at me. I kept going but thought I was lost, and I began to just sob and repeat over and over to the Lord, “I just wanna go home…I just wanna go home...” while I waited for the light to change. Pathetic? Yes. I admit it.

It gets even better. The very next night, I got distressed over working 10 hour days and still not getting everything done (problems that have since been worked on by my understanding program manager, praise God), and I broke down crying again in bed. Then I was angry that I couldn’t fall asleep because I was crying, so I cried some more. I called my mom and didn’t even say hello. I just sobbed into the phone while she tried to make me feel better.

Again, pathetic, right?

And it gets even better: today, I had to volunteer at the National Book Festival (it’s not really “volunteering” if you are forced to do it), and I got lost on the way and broke down and cried again. (Third time’s the charm, right?) I was so mad. Here I was in my lease car, which has a limited number of miles, driving around this infernal city, so close to where I was supposed to be, and I couldn’t find it.

Earlier in the week, when I’d had to work on Saturday, a pedestrian thought I was not doing a suitable enough job driving and banged her knuckles angrily on my window. (Really, lady? You’re walking. You can’t have road rage.) Where is the forgiveness in the world? Oh yeah…the world hates me (1 John 3:13). To the world, I am just an inexperienced, unknown girl who is trying to make it somewhere, and I am in its way. In the world’s opinion, I ought to be forgotten and thrown into the potter’s field that Judas’s blood money bought, the “burial place for strangers”—the place where it throws all its worshipers when it is through with them (Matthew 27:7).

Thank the Lord that, because of His son, I do not have to be what the world thinks I am.

A couple days ago, the Lord led me to read Jonah. At the time, I didn’t understand why, but today it hit me (the burst-of-light kind of hitting, not the bus-at-eighty-miles-an-hour kind). It was because when I was lost today, I was seething with hatred toward the DC metro area. I called my mom and told her, “I HATE this city. It’s awful. I hate it! I wish it would just burn up—and Virginia too!” Later in the day, when I wasn’t quite so hateful (and I was more sure of my location on a map), I remembered that I am not the only one who has hated a city to which I have been called.

When the Lord told him to go to Ninevah, Jonah got up and ran the opposite direction. At the beginning of the story, the Bible isn’t clear on his reasons for running. He believed in the power of God: he admitted to the other boat passengers that it was God’s wrath against the storm, and even suggested that they throw him overboard. And when he was in the belly of the fish, he cried out to God for salvation and praised Him, even in all that smelly stomach acid and digested food. So he knew what God was up to—he just didn’t want to do it.

It becomes clearer later in scripture that Jonah just simply hated Ninevah. He thought it deserved what it had coming. In short, he wished it would burn up and be destroyed.

He did what the Lord asked, proclaiming judgment on the city. When they all repented, “it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry” (Jonah 4:1). Why would you be angry when people repent?

Honestly, I think Jonah was angry at God, at least partially, for interrupting his life to give him this assignment he didn’t want. That explains why, when the Lord first approached him with it, he fled “away from the presence of the Lord” (Jonah 1:3). When the Ninevites repented, Jonah said (quite melodramatically), “O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live” (4:3). This because people repented. But all the Lord said back in reply was, “Do you do well to be angry?” (4:4)

What a jerk Jonah must have been. But now, as I look upon the city to which I’ve been called, I understand the fears, stress, and pure exhaustion that Jonah must have felt. He felt things were unfair. He felt he was called to do more than he could do. Then, when the Ninevites repented, he was probably embarrassed because he had been walking around telling them they were going to be destroyed, and then they weren't. He felt angry, so angry that he probably cried and screamed, “I wanna go home!”

Apparently he actually enjoyed being angry, because he just sat himself down on the edge of the city and stared at it with an evil eye, “to see what would become of it.” God made a plant grow up over his head to shade him. Then He caused the plant to wither. Jonah complained (of course), and the Lord said, “So, you’re going to mourn over this plant that you didn’t even tend and care for, and you don’t expect me to have compassion on this great city where there are 120,000 very confused and lost people?” (4:11)

Scripture does not record Jonah’s reply, but the question is rhetorical. It's so rhetorical that that's where the book ends, with a question mark. Go look if you don't believe me.

Do I expect God—the God that I know, the God who is so full of mercy and patience—not to have compassion on this city? That is why He sent me, and other believers, here in the first place.

I don’t think I have “fled the presence of the Lord,” at least. That’s a step in the right direction. I actually came here the first time and didn’t have to be swallowed by a fish. However, the devil has been trying very hard to show me that I am not welcome here. He has been trying to get me to hate this city. And, on several occasions, he has succeeded. I must admit, although I do love my students, I have never loved living here; at best, my attitude toward the DC metro area has been neutral.

If you hate a place, you don’t have much compassion for it, and you certainly don’t care if its people get saved.

But even though I was crying with hatred today, I don’t want to just go sit on a hill and watch DC burn: not because I love the city, but because I love Jesus. And if He wants me here, I will stay here.

That’s the sweet part of this. God knows that my life is hard. He knows because He lives it with me.

Keep me as the apple of your eye;

Hide me in the shadow of your wings.

Psalm 17:8

The more adversities tear me down, the more He climbs into my soul right with me and builds me up. His mighty wings surround me, and I grow more faithful, not less.

Every day this week has had to be an act of complete surrender. I know I can’t do what I am called to do without Him. No one can. I know I will become tired. I will cry in my car. I will be nothing, fit for a field of strangers. So I have asked Him every day—sometimes even with a heart full of despair, or eyes filled with tears of anger—to just hijack my life and make it miraculous, in spite of me.

And I have seen Him working. I have seen Him calm my little spirit inside of me like a mother comforts a child. I have seen Him send people my way to encourage me—strong people in the Lord, building me up at opportunities and in ways I did not expect. Just today, after I arrived at my volunteer post and was suffering from a bad attitude (see last post), I prayed for encouragement. Who should come up to me but a fellow Mississippian who just happened to be a minister as well? She gave me a good word of encouragement. How He cares for me! If He didn’t, come to think of it, the devil wouldn’t waste his time attacking me. Thanks for the compliments, devil.

I belong to Jesus. Although I may not be having the time of my life, and although my life is hard to wake up to sometimes, nothing can touch me. I am free to sing praise to my God. How awesome is that?

We will never find peace or wisdom from our own minds. As Kenneth Copeland says, that’s like “trying to fish in your bathtub.” There’s just no peace there. I know, because I have fallen into the black hole of my own mind this week. All it has to offer me is a worn-out cycle of stress and anxiety. And there is certainly no wisdom there. When we need peace and wisdom desperately, we can find it only in Christ.

I’m not trying to be cliché here. I’m not saying, “Just say a little prayer, and peace will come fall on your head like pixie dust and sparkle around your ears.” What I am saying is that when that seven-year-old student is sitting there with his face in his elbow, unresponsive, we have to say to the Lord, “What is it that I need to do now, Lord?” When middle-schoolers disrupt me and I am angry, I have to ask the Lord to love them for me. When I am lost and distressed and don’t see how things will get better, I have to cry out, “Jesus, I still believe that You are sovereign in this, and I resolve to follow you.” If we turn to Him, He will tell us what to do; He will comfort us. I am proof of that. Praise God!

Life is hard. It is especially hard for people who follow after Jesus. He said it would be (Matthew 7:14). “…they will lay their hands on you and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kinds and governors for my name’s sake,” said Jesus (Luke 21:12). But in the very next sentence, He stated simply: “This will be your opportunity to witness.”

Praise God, that I have the opportunity to witness! I am not just a third party. I have seen His mercy and His triumph. I am not afraid of the devil’s persecutions, because I am following the man who got out of the boat and walked on water in the middle of the storm; I am following the God who came down to earth to touch dead and dying people and awaken them to life. If I did not follow this God, my only choice would be to follow my fears and listen to the world, and, instead of walking on water in a storm, I would be thrown overboard and swallowed by a fish. Ew...bad alternative.

Life isn’t what I expected. If it were, it would be a life of my own creation, and not God’s.

So here is another rhetorical question for you: Who is it that overcomes the world except the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?—1 John 5:5. I pray that you find victory in that.

**Speaking of prayer, I’d like to ask for prayer for my sister, who is having a difficult time adjusting at work and feeling confident. And, of course, you can always pray for me, that I do not submit to anger, but instead go about the work He has assigned me with zeal. I admit, this week looks scary to me. But I know whom I have believed (2 Timothy 1:12). He is good.

A Bad Attitude and a Good Father

Hear my cry, O God,

    listen to my prayer;

from the end of the earth I call to you

    when my heart is faint.

Lead me to the rock

   that is higher than I.

                --Psalm 61:1-2

Prepare yourself, because this is going to be a long post. A week long, in fact.

This week, I have found myself oppressed by various waves of homesickness. It’s been more than a month since I have seen the faces of any of my family or friends. I found myself stomping up the escalator in the Metro station on my way to work, coffee mug in hand, grumbling in my head: “I hate this city. It’s stupid. I hate everything about it. I hate Virginia, too. I hate the whole flippin’ state!”

This summer, I hardly ever complained. I was at home, cooking with Mama, playing guitar, not working. My life was so hard. It was grueling, waking up when I wanted to and doing art projects and swimming all day, let me tell you. Nevertheless, I congratulated myself on my good attitude. I managed to maintain a sunny disposition through the three months of complete and total vacation I had.

I know—an accomplishment, right?

Then I put on big girl clothes and moved 1,000 miles away from Mama and started getting up at 5:00 a.m., giving up control of my daily life to the monster of a service-based job. I totally expected my good attitude to last. Why wouldn’t it?

Shockingly, I have experienced a bad attitude this week. The observable symptoms of a bad attitude are (among others): whining, complaining, general self-righteousness, scowling, and sometimes (in rare cases, or if you’re seven), crying. It’s a disease that commonly afflicts teenagers. (I know none of you have ever had a bad attitude, so I felt the need to explain it in clinical terms.) People give all kinds of reasons for having bad attitudes. However, the heart of a bad attitude is usually selfishness, self-righteousness, and an attitude of entitlement.

That’s right. I said it.

A bad attitude is this phenomenon that happens when you feel like you have been done wrong. Most of the time, it creeps up just when we have convinced ourselves that we are in control, that we are capable—and then we are unexpectedly reminded that we aren’t. In other words, a bad attitude may look like a series of justifiable complaints, but when you dissect a little further, what you find at the center of your heart is the idea that, not only do you believe that you know best when it comes to planning every detail of your life (self-righteousness), but also that you deserve to be in control of your circumstances (entitlement), and that you deserve to be comfortable at all times (selfishness).

Paul said, “Do all things without grumbling or disputing” (Philippians 2:14). If you have a bad attitude, right now you are thinking, “Well, Paul was a saint! He may have suffered, but he was called!”

I got news for you (and for myself): we are all called. We are all saints (hence the constant referral to the readers as “saints” in pretty much all the epistles). There was nothing special about Paul other than that God called him to a more public spiritual walk. So you’re not getting out of this one.

I can’t say, “But I’m different from the apostles.” Because if I follow that statement to its logical end, I find some pretty nasty narcissism: “I’m different….I have always been comfortable and in control. I am a strong individual who knows what I want, and I should have it, but my life is stealing this control from me. I basically have no ability to plan out my day to the minute, like I did before…this isn’t fair.”

“If God loves me, why doesn’t He let me have control, like I used to?”

I told you—it’s ugly.

Obviously, God’s love for me is completely independent of whether or not I’m comfortable. I just happen to have been very blessed in my life. I hate to use the word, but I’m spoiled. God has let me have so much circumstantial peace and ease, and so much narcissistic control over my daily plans, that I am a big baby when it comes to the slightest change. I shouldn’t be acting like the poor kid I saw last week who didn’t want to do his worksheet: “I’m tired! I had to get up so early in the dang mornin’!” Honestly, that kid probably had more right to complain than I do. He probably didn’t get a cup of coffee.

But let’s get back to the “if God loves me” thing.

Finish this statement: “If God loves me, then why….”

What part of yourself are you holding back from your Father because you think He ought to treat you differently?

Maybe you don’t have an answer. Maybe it’s just me. I know it’s stupid that I think God’s love for me depends on how comfortable I am. None of the men who followed Jesus were comfortable. They were nomads (a lifestyle I am beginning to identify with, since I spend 3 hours a day commuting, roundtrip). And they certainly weren’t comfortable when they were being tortured or killed or marooned for their faith. Yet John, in his forced isolation on the Isle of Patmos, wrote abundantly of his Father’s love.

You know how he knew God loved him? Not because of anything God didn’t or wouldn’t do for him, but because of something He had already done: sending His son Jesus to die and finish the work so that we could follow Him to heaven.

Put out of joint….

So my bad attitude, my complaining, is on the surface a result of unpleasant or unexpected circumstances. But the real reason lies in my heart: I have forgotten, for a moment, what Jesus has done, and who I am in Him. I have forgotten that my life was never mine to control in the first place.

For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross.—Colossians 1:19-20

I mean, He’s not just a nice guy—He’s a savior. And you know what He’s saved me from? Having to be in control.

Somehow this week I have failed to appreciate that.

Why is being in control such a big deal to me? Because, in the still-stony parts of my heart, I think I am important. I think I am entitled to be in control. That’s what the TV tells me, right? Every billboard I see says that I am important, I am special, I deserve to have things however I want, whenever I want. But let’s remember that this is a lie. Let’s remember in whom “all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.” It wasn’t me, and it wasn’t you.

It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons….but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.

Therefore lift up your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed.

--Hebrews 12:7-13

Oh yeah, I forgot that drooping hands and weak knees are also symptoms of a bad attitude. Apparently, the recipients of this letter were also having trouble with that. Maybe they had to get up at 5:00 a.m., too.

Let me just qualify one thing right here: I definitely don’t believe that God wants us to be uncomfortable. In fact, I believe the opposite. He wants to bless us. That’s biblical: “What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent…?” (Luke 11:11). But I think—and the Bible backs me up on this—that, like a good disciplinarian, our Father wants us to be comfortable no matter what—which is actually better for us. The goal is not for all of our little everyday comforts to line up, for our happiness to depend how much we control our circumstances; the goal is that all of our hearts will belong to Jesus, so that our joy depends solely and completely upon Him—and that is something that cannot be taken, unlike the little comforts of sleep and our favorite foods and even time. The goal is for the Holy Spirit to “strengthen [our] weak knees” by His gentle discipline, so that we can yield “the peaceful fruit of righteousness”—and “share in His holiness.” He wants to take “what is lame”—the entitlement and narcissism that cripples you—and heal it, to keep it from breaking you further.

I think people sometimes confuse the words discipline and punishment. Punishment is just negative consequences in response to an action. Discipline—or discipling—has a higher goal. Discipline is creating a relationship to model correct behavior and avoid problems before they happen. To be a good disciplinarian, you have to make disciples.

Sound familiar?

The best parents are disciplinarians. They are invested in their children and spend lots of time with them in positive ways so the children are more inclined to do what they say when it’s important. A bad parent only interacts with the child as a reaction when the child’s behavior affects his/her own comfort level. A good parent will teach a child to think for himself by modeling good behavior, which requires copious amounts of quality time. A bad parent will ignore his/her child until the child begins to scream in the grocery store, because only then is the child’s behavior embarrassing or irritating.

The world is a bad parent. It offers only a series of consequences based not on our own well-being, but on how our behavior affects the selfish motives of culture—and we develop a bad attitude because we resent this system that controls us, yet we have convinced ourselves that we are in control.

Conversely, God is a perfect Father—one who is so deeply invested in every little piece of our hearts that He makes His home there and bends and shapes its curves like a gentle potter.

Going back in this chapter of Hebrews, we find that, in our “struggle against sin,” we “have not yet resisted to the point of shedding [our] blood” (v. 4). True enough for me. The author of this text says, “let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings to us so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us”—and here’s the key admonishment—“looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith” (v. 1-2).

I have never taken much interest in this verse because, let’s face it, I am about 0% competitive, and the metaphor of running a race just doesn’t appeal to me. But now that I know what sin really is—that grumbling, questioning, complaining attitude, which has its roots in my own selfish desire for comfort and control—I can understand the laying aside every weight part. I know what it’s like to run with a heavy weight. (Carrying a backpack while chasing the Metro bus…need I say more?) When I am chasing after Jesus, I don’t want my self-motivation and self-righteousness to “cling so closely” to me. Ew. That just sounds wrong.

I feel despair, because I don’t know how to “lay it aside.” But luckily, the answer is right there: “looking to Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith.” Not only is Jesus the founder, the reason for, my faith, He is also the one who makes it perfect. Yes, that word is perfect.

Sharing His holiness….

Instead of releasing control to God, I have tended to use Him as a means of control. For example, the other day I was running a few minutes late getting off work, so I prayed that the trains would come fast and that I wouldn’t miss my bus. It wouldn’t have been a disaster if I’d missed my bus. Another one would have come right behind it. But that was the bus I wanted, because it got me home earlier, so that I could do what I wanted to do. The person I was focused on in my prayer was not Jesus and glorifying His name. It was me, getting home and getting out of my work clothes.

But do you know what the most beautiful thing was? Even though I was a few minutes late, and on a normal day would probably not have caught it, the bus just happened to be running exactly the same few minutes late I was. It pulled up just as I ran up to the stop. He let me have what I asked for.

But then there was yesterday. I decided to drive to my school for the first time. A weird light came on in my control panel, and I didn’t know what it meant, but I decided to keep driving until I got to work and check it then. It’s too bad I missed my exit. And if you miss your exit in DC, you just put yourself out for about an hour, because that’s how long it takes to turn around. So here I am, with my control panel light on, and I’m lost in Anacostia, which is, statistically, the worst neighborhood in DC. I stopped at a gas station and figured out that my tires were low, and tried to fill them up, but the machines were broken (which I only found out after I had used the sketchy ATM inside, had to buy some TicTacs to get quarters in change, and was approached by two random men as I tried to figure the machine out). The gas station workers were not helpful or understanding at all from their view behind the bulletproof glass. Needless to say, I decided I’d rather ride on the rims than continue there, so I navigated my way to work. I called my mom and asked her to pray for me as I was driving, because I needed to hear her voice.

But the whole time, I wasn’t really scared. I believed that God would protect me. He always has. I knew my tires wouldn’t blow, and that no vagrant was going to murder me and or even take my smart phone. What I was actually upset about was my loss of control. I didn’t want to be late for work; I didn’t want to deal with putting air in my tires (on the car that I prayed for, no less); and I didn’t want the stress of having to figure out where I was and right my route. I just wanted things to go the way I wanted them to.

My Father got me to work. He got air in my tires, later that day, with no trouble. He got me home. But He didn’t make everything go so smoothly that I felt like I was in a convertible commercial, or that I felt like a celebrity. In fact, I felt like a nobody—someone who was not worth helping. And the world looks a lot different from that perspective. I felt that I was being attacked…and, from what I know about the devil, I can say that I probably was. He has done a lot of things to try to scare me and my program manager away from my school—not the least of which was to try to convince me to have a bad attitude.

Paul wrote, “we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us” (Romans 5:3-5).

Rejoicing in your sufferings does not sound like bad attitude behavior. Neither does hoping. But notice the order: to get to the “hope,” you have to rejoice in your sufferings…which means you have to suffer. When I am comfortable and in control, my life is easy. What do I have to hope for? What reason do I have for God’s love to be poured into my heart?

I’m not saying that God got me lost in Anacostia. As I mentioned before, someone else was responsible for that. But in that situation, I learned to pry just one more finger off of my death grip on control.

So this is what I am learning: how to not just use God as a way to control my life through demanding things in prayer, but instead to develop a daily relationship with Him so that I can be filled with the waters of everlasting life (John 4:14). How fondly John must have recorded these words of Jesus, sitting in exile with no physical home or comfort. My desire is to know the healing power and the joy of that kind of resurrected relationship with Jesus.

Thinking about that makes me angry with myself for giving in to a bad attitude. I have been disappointed in myself, because after a summer of Jesus highs, I have reverted right back to stressing and complaining whenever I see an appropriate opportunity. I’m not saying we don’t have hard days, or that I should expect perfection from myself. I know I shouldn’t. But that doesn’t stop me from being disappointed nonetheless, especially because my “hard days” are not nearly as hard as many people’s, and I am afraid I am much more immature than I thought.

But I’ve got more news about bad attitude days: God isn’t surprised. You may be disappointed in yourself (which only feeds the bad attitude, at least in my experience). But, as my pastor in Nashville said once, “To say that God is ‘disappointed in you’ is to imply that you surprised Him.” God is not surprised at our bad behavior. He’s used to it by now. He saw it coming 1,000 miles (and ten million years) away. I may be disappointed in my immaturity, and surprised about how much I still need to grow, but He is not. And His patience is long, much longer than your bad attitude can last.

Grasshoppers

So, before I even begin, I want to thank the Lord for what He has done for me this week.

My direct supervisor at work is not much older than I am, yet I have been slightly intimidated by her and at the same time very curious about her. Ironically, because I actually had problems at my site (more about that later), she came to visit me this week much more frequently than she would have otherwise, and we were able to share a great conversation. I found out that, not only is she a Christian, she was raised in the same charismatic atmosphere I was, and she loves digging into the Word and hearing the gospel, and she also thrives on Christian community—which is not AT ALL what I expected. Don’t you remember when I complained about how secular this city was? Here is a person, right in the heart of it, who seeks after the Lord like I do—and who will be working closely with me, so that these kids can not only receive the benefit of great instruction, but also the benefit of our prayers of agreement (whether we’re allowed to actually pray together or not).

Sometimes the Lord has to bring somebody 1,000 miles in order to connect them with the work they will be doing, and the people they need to do it with. You know, when my mom said the Lord told her I’d be “working alongside people in DC to accomplish His work,” I assumed He meant volunteering in my spare time.

But God is more literal, often, than people give Him credit for.

I was also able this week to hang out with and get to know a girl who will be leading a Bible study in a couple weeks; the way she describes it, the group is full of women who have the same passion and goals as I do, so more friends are in store.

And speaking of community, I have been struggling this past week with issues of selfishness and self-focus, and my same old sins have been trying to creep back and bring me down; so I knew I needed perspective and grounding, and I prayed this morning for my community. I said, “Lord, I can’t wait for a couple weeks until small groups start…I need them now. I need people who will hold me accountable.” Then I went to church, and my friend group was there waiting for me. Some of the people I went to lunch with last week were having lunch again, so I went with them…and we ended up hanging out for six hours. We were all seeking community—and we all found it. We talked about everything, especially about the Lord. We’re hanging out again tomorrow. It was like my friend group was one of those little capsules you put in water, and suddenly it turns into a dinosaur-shaped sponge. It grew instantly.

Ok, maybe that’s a weird metaphor…but you know what I mean. I asked God for a group of friends; and He smiled and said, “Ok, you can have that.” More often than we dare hope, God’s answers to prayer are immediate.

Even as I write this, I am realizing how much I qualify God’s blessings. I don’t want to set them down here, because I am afraid they will not be what I expect them to be—that this friend group will fall apart, or something crazy will happen at work and my boss will hate me. Which is insane. I need to accept the fact that God is faithful.

Which launches me straight into the rest of my post.

But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified, and said, “It is a ghost!” and they cried out in fear. But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, “Take heart; it is I. Do not be afraid.”—Matthew 14:26-27

Fear not. It’s a commandment, not a suggestion.

So in my last post, I referenced the story in Matthew 8 that describes the disciples rousing Jesus from sleep when they thought their boat was sinking. This week I reached another story in Matthew 14. Both are stories of storms and boats. Both times, the disciples followed Jesus onto a boat; and both times, they completely freaked out when the storm came. But something is different about this second storm: Jesus walked on water, right in the middle of the raging wind.

Not only were the disciples anxious about the storm, they were also “terrified” when they saw Jesus approach them on the water. I’m kind of feeling the disciples here. I mean, it was probably pretty weird, and they were probably afraid to believe it. But our good friend Peter leaps up, as usual: “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water,” he exclaims (verse 28). Those are pretty strong words. If it is you, command me.

Well, we all know what happens next, right? You’re like, “Yeah—he sinks.” But something happened in between: Peter got all the way to Jesus on the water. I don’t know if it was a distance of a yard or 25 yards, but in any case, he managed just fine until “he saw the wind.”

I don’t know about you, but I have never seen the wind. Sure, the effects of wind are scary—but clearly Peter was having no trouble at all, and then he thought about what could happen. He got a mouthful of saltwater, and Jesus grabbed him by the hand and said, “Why did you doubt?”

Jump back to verse 28: If it is you, command me. When Jesus asked Peter why he doubted, what He was saying was perhaps not, “Why did you doubt my ability to save you?” Peter obviously did not have a problem with that—he cried out to Jesus to save him.  What Peter doubted was who Jesus was.

And just who is He?

He is the sole expression of the glory of God [the Light-being, the out-raying or radiance of the divine], and He is the perfect imprint and very image of [God’s] nature, upholding and maintaining and guiding and propelling the universe by His mighty word of power.—Hebrews 1:3 (Amplified)

….Yeah.

We can make fun of Peter all we want (which the other disciples might have done), but the truth is, we’ve all been in his place before—if we’ve had the courage to step out of the boat. Or (going back even further in the text) if we’ve had the courage to even follow Jesus onto the boat in the first place. Like the wind, the possibilities for pain, for suffering, are scarier when we can’t even see them—when the effects haven’t even happened yet.

Take a look back at the Old Testament. When the Lord told the Israelites to go and take the land that He had promised them, they sent out spies to get a feel for it, whose report was less than promising: And there we saw the Nephilim (the sons of Anak, who come from the Nephilim), and we seemed to ourselves like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them.—Numbers 13:33

The Israelites have one up on Peter here, because at least they could see the people they would be up against, instead of being terrified of wind. But again, they were afraid of things that hadn’t happened yet. The Lord commanded them to go and get the land, just as Jesus commanded Peter to step out of the boat (at his own request, need I remind you). The Israelites’ response? They complained that they seemed to themselves like grasshoppers. They were looking at the whole thing from a human perspective—and forgetting who God was.

The Lord is at hand; 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. Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.—Philippians 4:5-8

I showed up for my first day at my school this Monday, and when I got there, the room that my program manager had spent 9 hours setting up was filled with afterschool care’s stuff. Like, boxes and boxes of it. Coincidentally, this was also a surprise to the afterschool staff, who were not told anything about it. People had taken a lot of our supplies. And someone had literally gone into my room, took the books off of my bookcase, and stole it. (I had to go get it back, of course—nobody messes with my Dr. Seuss!)

I have worked in schools before, so I wasn’t surprised. My peace here was a mercy to me. What looked at first to be a disaster actually has worked to my benefit, I think…I have met people in the school in the process of getting it worked out that I wouldn’t have dealt so closely with otherwise. Important people, like the principal and the custodial staff. (If you have ever worked in a school, you know that both parties are at least equally important.) As I mentioned before, I got time to bond with my program manager. Also, afterschool had to get rid of a lot of their supplies—and, hey, just so happens, we needy nonprofit workers were there to accept them with open arms. Not to mention that now I have a great working relationship with the afterschool staff, a bond forged through the experience of sorting through boxes full of mixed-up supplies.

He makes all things work together for our good, right?

You know how a couple weeks ago I accidentally went to Maryland, and I cried in my car? Last Friday I had to drive to a different site, which was in the Anacostia neighborhood of DC…and I had to take the same bridge to get there that I accidentally drove on the other weekend. So it was familiar to me, and I didn’t get lost. I mentioned this to my coworker friend, who is also a Christian, and he chuckled and said, “Jeremiah 29.”

Indeed.

I prayed over my day Wednesday, over everyone in my school, and it just so happened that everyone was exactly where I needed them. I showed up in the office for something, and the IT guy (who can be hard to find) just happened to be in there working on a computer, so I asked him about my printer.  

Getting the picture? God works in the little things.

Because I can see His hand in so many small things, I begin to wonder how many little details He has His hand in that I don’t see—how many times a day He works things out for me, knocks obstacles out of my way, makes things smoother for me, while I walk around oblivious to His careful attention behind the scenes. Like a sheep, I don’t understand how much thought goes into my care. I only want to complain about how I look to myself like a grasshopper.

Now I understand even better the verse I posted last week: 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

The Lord—the Light-being—is at hand. He grabs us and pulls us up out of the ocean, when our own fear makes us drown.

Again: …in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. “With thanksgiving” implies that you attribute to God (rather than coincidence or luck) the blessings that have already befallen you, and you believe with wholehearted faith that you can thank Him already for blessing you with the requests you will make.

And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. It seems ironic that “peace” would “guard” our hearts and minds—implying military watch, vigilant shielding. But it makes perfect sense. Let your heart and your mind, where anxious thoughts like to stagnate, and doubts like to stew, be shielded with peace.

Think only about good things. Know that your Lord goes before you, and that He cares about very small things.

Even grasshoppers.