finding worth amidst the worthlessness

i'm actually going to try to be diligent with my blog again...i miss it. writing to me is a comfort and a santuary of sorts. i promise to do this more often. not sure if people even look to see if i'm writing anymore but that's ok. : )

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"They worshiped worthless idols and became worthless themselves"2 Kings 17:15

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this verse has become my most beloved and hated verse i have read in a very long time (thanks to my wise mama). it's not a verse you hear a lot in church.... but it should be.

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tonight mark driscoll was on nightline talking about idolatry. his wisdom floors me. our society and culture has made so many idols to worship that many people are completely blind to the fact it is an idol at all. have we ever noticed how the TV is typically set in the middle of the house, in the middle of the room, surrounded by chairs where many people gather to be drawn in for hours at a time? have we ever noticed how football season is often more celebrated and more anticipated than Christmas? have we ever noticed how much we think and worry about money? i wonder if we all compared our time spent watching TV, football, working, what have you...to our time spend before the Lord, how would it look? do we spend more time learning sport stats than about our God?

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or in my case, people tend to be my idols. i put so much time and energy into building those relationships, pleasing them, and learning about what they love...that i often forget that only my relationship with God will fully satisfy and bring joy. only God will remain always faithful and fully loving, despite my faults. i rely too much on what a person thinks of me. Galatians 1:10 has to be a constant reminder in my life or i will fall quickly.

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all i have to do is look at myself and those around me to see that God is not all that we worship (if even that). especially in a Christian college, there seem to be categories... there are the athletes that worship sports, their own abilities, and the score on the board. there are the intellectuals that rely on their brains to prove their worth. there are the super Christians that do any and every Christian event on campus (this was me for some time, i regret)...the ones the rely on their "strong Christian" status more than their heart status, that only God can see. then there are those that say, "screw classes and the Bible, just give me beer". this was a side of umhb that i did not know existed for awhile (oh so naive..). they may even go to church hung over from the night before, but alas, they worship partying and giving of alms to the almighty porcelain throne (toilet).

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maybe it's not even those extremes...i've gotten to a point in my life where i'm not miss involved in everything (um, because i graduated, yay) and i have avoided the pursuit of knowledge for the sake of knowledge (to the point where it became an obsession so i could argue theology at the drop of a hat, or show off my awesome bible trivia skillz). my idols became less obvious to me so i got lazy...but now it's like a slap in the face. i idolize select people, their views of me, and my worth is found in their approval or happiness in me. which we all know is never going to last...

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but whatever it may be, there is something in our lives that we WILL worship. God MADE us to worship!! we can't NOT worship something. so it can be a team, school, our body, good deeds, control over our life, sex, music, beer, kids (if you have one), spouse, boyfriend/gf, or the desire to have one...

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but all that to say....when i worship something, anything, other than God, then i am worthless. if God commanded us to worship Him alone, our worship/obsession/consuming thoughts of anything else is completely and utterly worthless. and we will become worthless ourselves.

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personally the thought of being a worthless human is a thought that makes me sick. if a friend or family told me i was worthless...ugh. so why do we not listen when God tells us? why don't we care more about what God thinks of us? why do we always try to feed our own egos, insecurities and happiness with anything other than Christ?

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"You will suffer the penalty for your lewdness and bear the consequences of your sins of idolatry. Then you will know that I am the Sovereign LORD." Ezekiel 23:49

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"For you have spent enough time in the past doing what pagans choose to do—living in debauchery, lust, drunkenness, orgies, carousing and detestable idolatry. They think it strange that you do not plunge with them into the same flood of dissipation, and they heap abuse on you. But they will have to give account to Him who is ready to judge the living and the dead." 1 Peter 4:3-5

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it's so strange how many of us Christians seem to know the scripture so well, and yet we remain still so naive to it's truth...

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why do we make it so hard to choose Christ over ourselves and worthless things?

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"For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil." Eccles. 12:14

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rend your heart

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"Even now," declares the LORD, "return to me with all your heart,

with fasting and weeping and mourning."

Rend your heart and not your garments.

Return to the LORD your God,

for he is gracious and compassionate,

slow to anger and abounding in love.

Joel 2:12-13

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It's been too long. Coming back to my blog is like coming back to a sweet and quiet spot. An old secret get away that was forgotten for a time. Familiar and pleasant. A place I came to forget the world and be alone with my thoughts, prayers and the deep places in my heart. (and to then be placed all over the world wide web. ha. therefore slightly modified and vague without removing the initial meaning of course!)

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God has been doing a new work on my heart. Deep rooted pains along with new blessings and new pains have been cause for me to retreat into a different place. I've been in a battle to find my identity in Christ while trying to find my identity apart from my past. In desperation to remove myself from my past I removed many parts of me in an attempt to find out who I was not based on my circumstances.

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I have come to a place where God is beginning to rend my heart. In the past I was good at "rending my garments"...as in a public display of being torn before the Lord..not that it wasn't genuine. But it defined me. This time He is getting to the deeper parts of my heart that have been unreached. My heart is turning.

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I am far from perfect. I am even farther from a good representation of a daughter of God. But I am seeking to be worthy of my calling. Our hearts are often shown through our actions. But our actions aren't always a mirror of our hearts. I doubt that makes sense. I have yet to find a way to put that thought into words. There are just those times when I wish my actions showed my heart. But there is always hope.

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"Come, let us return to the LORD.

He has torn us to pieces but he will heal us;

he has injured us but he will bind up our wounds."

Hosea 6:1

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conundrum

I realize it's been awhile since I wrote last....This was my semester of over dedication and zero free time. I sold my soul to my school and it's organizations. Overcommitment is not wise. I tend to give myself fully to what I commit to...um, unless I commit to 100 things. Apparently it doesn't work like that. Lesson learned. Thank you.

I'm practicing my "No"'s. No. Noooo.

Regardless of my overzealous addiction to organizations and activities, it has been a beautifully blessed time. It has been a time of freedom, gifts, lessons and rest. I have been given more than I deserve and am thankful every day. Oh so thankful!

Struggles are still apparent in my life, even in times of joy. This calm in my life has been sweet. But something I have recently seen is that there is a risk in the quiet times of life. I have seen in myself that I have been lacking in my drive to stay strong in my relationship with God. Not that I have stopped desiring or pursuing...it's just been weak. I have seen it's effects in my actions and decisions. I was blind to it for awhile, but last week I saw that need in my life. Even in the good times there is still a need to fight. I wonder if it's deception....the thought that in good times we don't need to FIGHT. I still want to though. I don't want that mindset to take root.

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Lately I have been thinking about my inadequacies.

That's a positive topic! And a very deep well.

Really though, I know that many times I let my failures hold me back from living. I have the thought that when I fail, God cannot work in me any longer. I hold back because I believe that no good can come from such a dirty sinner like me. I make mistakes. Big ones. My sins are not small. I tend to do the things I know in my heart I do not want to do. I am lazy and apathetic. Why would God want to use me?

We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.
So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!

Romans 7:14-25

The wrong in me has kept me from worshipping what's right with God. I truly believe Satan has thrown my failures in my face, laden me with guilt, and worked it into my heart--resulting in my behaviors. I hold onto my weakness and let it take over God's strength in me.

But that is not how I want to live! I have gotten sick of it. I'm tired of living a safe life, hiding behind what little good I do to sustain me and convince me that my life is ok. That I should settle for a mediocre life. No, I have never been one to settle. There is something in me that drives me to the unknown, to unique adventures, to risks. I want to make my world a little bigger. I want to use my hands, get them dirty..I want to build walls and trust that God is the one who will keep them standing. God does not need me, but I want to put my hands in. I am not needed, but God's grace allows me to help.

God's love is different. He sees my heart. And in my heart is God's love. A thousand times I may fail but His mercy remains. I need to learn to lose the mindset of me--my failures and my success--to gain Him. He is the only good in me. And in Him, He can do great things.

Here am I. Send me.

This is my creed

Quit living as if the purpose of life is to arrive safely at death. Set God-sized goals. Pursue God-ordained passions. Go after a dream that is destined to fail without divine intervention. Keep asking questions. Keep making mistakes. Keep seeking God. Stop pointing out problems and become part of the solution. Stop repeating the past and start creating the future. Stop playing it safe and start taking risks. Expand your horizons. Accumulate experiences. Enjoy the journey. Find every excuse you can to celebrate everything you can. Live like today is the first day and last day of your life. Don't let what's wrong with you keep you from worshiping what's right with God. Burn sinful bridges. Blaze new trails. Criticize by creating. Worry less about what people think and more about what God thinks. Don't try to be who you're not. Be yourself. Laugh at yourself. Quit holding out. Quit holding back. Quit running away. Chase the lion.

blah--og

I'm battling the flu right now. A fun adventure, to be sure...

It's been awhile since I last wrote. A lot has happened since then. It's been a struggle to find words. Every time I tried to find the words to express what I was going through...I would end up typing just a bunch of blah.

Desperately I have been trying to seek God's wisdom and answers to everything. I have learned quite a bit....about contentment, grace, love, truth, prudence...So much. But even then I could never put into words what God was doing.

The other day I was driving down the road, listening to some sweet tunes when I realized something....something God had been doing all along.

Change.

My life has been all about change and I didn't even realize it. I have been growing in so many new ways that I could write probably 10 blogs on each new lesson learned. But it's all been surrounded by change. That little word: change...it does so much.

For the past two months I have begun to feel my nothingness--to despair of myself. In finding myself as nothing, I sought God and found that He was everything. Every aspect about me was laid bare. I held out empty, open hands. For awhile I let my wounds and emptiness rob me of communion, grace and living each day fully. It's still a struggle. Constantly I am having to run to my God with my empty hands. He finds me here every time. I have nothing to bring Him. And yet, He is still there. Who does that?? Who in their right mind would give love constantly to someone that had nothing to bring to the table in return?

St. Augustine said this about God that got me thinking, "God gives where He finds empty hands. A man whose hands are full of parcels can't receive a gift." Isn't grace odd?

God is quite scandalous, don't you think? God tells us all from the beginning we are forgiven. That we can come to Him as we are--dirty and broken. He takes a big risk with me...loving me when I can easily decide to walk away.

But the thought intriques me. Makes me want to love Him. In a weird way, it just does. If a person were to do that for me....it would makes me want to be everything to that person in return. Makes me think of Hosea.....

How I view God is changing...and that is the reason I am changing. I used to doubt God's character and goodness. Now I am learning that it was my definitions of the characterists I was confused about. Our definition of God will easily define how we live. Though I am a long way off, I am learning a better definition of who God really is.

I like change. I'm quite taken with it. We will get along just fine.

"The seasons remind me that I must keep changing, and I want to change because it is God's way." ~ Donald Miller

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My prayer is that your story will have involved some leaving and some coming home, some summer and some winter, some roses blooming out like children in a play. My hope is your story will be about changing, about getting something beautiful born inside of you, about learning to love a woman or a man, about learning to love a child, about moving yourself around water, around mountains, around friends, about learning to love others more than we love ourselves, about learning oneness as a way of understanding God. We get one story, you and I, and one story alone. God has established the elements, the setting and the climax and the resolution. It would be a crime not to venture out, wouldn't it? It might be time for you to go. It might be time to change.

the emptiest day

Psalm 33:4 “For the word of the LORD holds true, and we can trust everything he does.”

Everything?

Am I the only one that has a difficult time fully believing this?

Because everything around me seems to be falling apart. Things will never be the same after this week of--pardon me--hell. So many things have change. Including myself.

There are times in my life when things happen that make no logical sense. And I mean absolutely nothing - makes - sense. Questions, fears, and confusion flood my mind.

Do you know....something I realized in the story of Job....God never tells Job why all those things happened to him. No explanation or reasoning. The only thing God told Job, in a nutshell: Who are you to question what I do, when I have done everything. Who is Greater than Me? Who can understand Me? ..God may never give me answers, but He gives me Himself.

God is greater than this! Does that statement make sense to me? Not fully. But enough to make me stop and think every time I freak out. God is so much bigger than this! Did He not create this world?

He has never lost control of His creation.

I should trust Him in everything. Doesn't mean I always do.

But I really want to.

Though you have made me see troubles, many and bitter, you will restore my life again; from the depths of the earth you will again bring me up. You will increase my honor and comfort me once again - Psalm 71:20-21

Though good has come from it so far...

A freedom in my heart. I am free from so many terrible things that have bound me down in the past that I couldn't seem to move on from. Now I have. I am so thankful. God knew this is what it was going to take. If this is what it took, then so be it. I am glad.

Also....For the first time in my life I have been able to deeply feel grace beyond explanation. Not only grace from God....but the grace of God through the lives of others. I do not deserve one speck of grace. But from those that love me and love God....they have given so freely. I have seen God in the faces of my friends.

God proved Himself to me. I hate that He had to. Why couldn't I just believe?

But I am so thankful. I am thankful for all of this. Even though it makes no sense to me. Even though it hurts. Even in the pain...I am thankful.

God is faithful. And so good. So sweetly good.

I trust no other source or name, nowhere else can I hide

This grace gives me fear, and this grace draws me near

And all that it asks it provides
When I stand on the edges of Jordan

With the saints and the angels beside

When my body is healed, and the glory revealed

Still I can boast only Christ

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They say You live in hospitals and trenches
And towers in the sky
And I'm not dying or fighting any wars
Except on the inside

The only thing I need is a void that You can fill
And I jump ship and run even further in Your will
And I am looking for the well that won't run dry
The rest that weary thoughts cannot deny
When You wrap Your arms around me
I can walk away or face the emptiest day

The words I find impossible to mention
Are written on a star
They say that I can find You in a flower
But I need You in the car

The optimism of my youth is dead and gone
But I'll save these speculations for another time and song
And life is only perceived through chemicals and emotion
But love, love is the island that overgrows the ocean

another species

The other day I was watching some little boys playing. It was an interesting sight. It was cute watching the boys punch each other, touch things they shouldn't, make bodily noises, and all the while ignorant of their mother who was trying to tame them, rolling her eyes in defeat.

I had an epiphany.

Boys and Men are not so different.

They just get taller... and hairier.

They like to hit things. They find enjoyment in annoying girls. "No" is the equivalent of "Go for it!". If something itches, scratch it. "I dare you/I bet you can't.." is all it takes.. And women are constantly rolling their eyes at them.

Men are strange. Many single girls view men with such awe and mystery. We read into everything, because we are simply convinced there is something so much deeper going on in that head of theirs. There must be something else..right? I guess in a way they are a mystery. Weird ones. Like...what the heck were you thinking mysteries. You think they are deep because they’re silent, or they are strong because they are solemn. No. No.....

Men are very easy to read I have come to realize. They are quiet because they either don’t know what to say, they aren't aware they are supposed to be saying something, or they weren't even sure you were talking to them in the first place. They can be calm, grounded and solemn because they are clueless or they don't know they should be trying to impress you, even though you’re practically jumping through fiery hoola hoops to get their attention.

Another observation:

As a dedicated and slightly ashamed viewer of The Bachelor, I have learned quite a bit about the male ego. Each year they take a perfectly decent guy and ruin him with choice. Here's my theory: All men think they are worthy of a harem; it's like this innate flaw in the male species that perpetuates with each generation, becoming stronger. So we, as an entertainment obsessed nation, take this poor unsuspecting single guy, thrust him into a circle of beautiful desperate dingbats who fight for his affection, and convince him he is worthy of a Solomon-like lifestyle.

Said bachelor has his dreams come true, and we as a nation, tell him he must choose only one. Only one?! He'll select one, of course, but it's too late. In his ego-inflated head he is now worthy of ALL of the women, and he'll never be able to stick to just one ever again. He'll want them all back, misunderstanding that harems and polygamy are banned in the US, except on reality TV of course. Or if he is like this years bachelor, he will not choose either girl because the question, "Which one?" is up there with, "Why am I here?" Hence the ruination of another good man.

So I sit back in amusement by these strange actions of the male species.

Now, don't get me wrong...There is even more I can say about the silliness of the woman's thought process. But that is for another day.

Maybe after an episode of Desperate Housewives.

anfechtung

"My days have passed, my plans are shattered, and so are the desires of my heart." - Job


I don't quite understand what God is doing. Everything in my life is falling apart or being taken from me--my future, my relationships, my desires, my possessions, my hopes...even my health is failing me. Every day seems like another hopeless battle. God seems so far from me. "What I feared has come upon me; what I dreaded has happened to me. I have no peace, no quietness; I have no rest, but only turmoil." My worst fear has come upon me. God has hidden His face from me and taken His hand from my life.

Friends have come to me and told me what I have always told others in this situation...Oh, you just need to go to God. Pray about it. Read the Bible....Seek Him. You just aren't looking. For some that is true. But this isn't the case. Job says it better than I, after being told the same thing, "If only I knew where to find him; if only I could go to his dwelling!" I seek to find nothing. I have begun to wonder if I'm just a terrible Christian and if I brought this on myself somehow...



I came across an article that talked about the recent published writings of Mother Teresa. The world is shocked to find that she experienced quite a time of feeling disconnected from God. She compared her anguish to hell. Torture. Darkness. Oswald Chambers had a similar experience. It also wrote on Martin Luther's struggles. He called it his period of Anfechtung--doubt, turmoil, despair. He wrote, "God often, as it were, hides himself, and will not hear; yea, will not suffer himself to be found."

Luther found that the solution is to drive you to prayer, scripture and God's promises--faith in those promises.

"When one is possessed with doubt, that though he call upon the Lord he cannot be heard, and that God has turned his heart from him, and is angry....he must arm himself with God's word, promising to hear him. As to the when and how God will hear him, that is stark naught; place, time, and person are accidental things; the substance and essence is the promise."

I have to trust in His promises even though I feel like they are so far away...like I have no claim to them. Faith is a frightening thing for me right now. But promises and faith must go together... Without the promise there is nothing to believe...but without faith the promise is useless.



Why should my heart not be broken? When did this life become mine to glorify? Christian sympathy has me convinced I do not deserve this despair. It cripples me and hardens my heart. I am angry, because I expect blessing and comfort. I begin to question God's goodness, kindness, mercy....I sit at the door of self-pity.

The biggest trial I am facing is not in my belief of God, but belief that God's character is trustworthy.

This is the hardest trial of faith I have ever experienced. Feeling so far from God and removed from him is the very essence of hell. It could be so simple to fall into self-pity and give up. Holding on requires a strength so unknown to me, but it's what I desire. I am not going to ignore the fact that I am having these questions and feelings. I have learned so much from Job. He was always honest. But he never let go.



Even so, in all of this, I know that my Redeemer lives. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God. In the end he will stand upon the earth. How my heart yearns within me....

"Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him."