A Reading for A Friend's Wedding.

I recognize this is somewhat of a repetitive thought, but since it took a slightly different form, I thought I would post it anyway. Clearly, God is still speaking to my heart so much about marriage and community and how the two go hand in hand.
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Here it is, you’ve made it. It’s your big day.

Today is not the finish line in your relationship, but the start of a new exciting chapter. Today is the beginning of the rest of your lives together.

“Happily ever after” looks different in reality than it does in fairy tales. Yes, it is fun and absolutely filled with love, but real happiness requires work and sacrifice. It takes dying to yourself daily and choosing to put the other person first. It’s about learning how to love in all circumstances.

Elizabeth Gilbert, in her book Committed says, “There is hardly a more gracious gift that we can offer somebody than to accept them fully, to love them almost despite themselves." You will not complete each other, but in your marriage, you will push each other to become better versions of yourselves. You will learn your strengths and your flaws and year by year, you will learn the art of becoming each other’s complement.

All of us are here today to witness this commitment you are making to each other before God and by our presence, we too make the commitment to see you through. Marriage is about more than the two of you as a couple, it is also about your community. It is about your family and friends and the people you choose to live your lives beside.

When you’ve got a good thing, you’ve got to hold onto it and fight for it daily. You will go through hard times. You will wake up some days and doubt. But I challenge you, during those times, to look back to this day and remember the promises you have made, and all the reasons you made them in the first place.

I pray God’s blessing upon you both, that through the years you may keep your marriage covenant, and so grow in love and the knowledge of the One whose love never fails, that your home may be a haven of blessing and peace.

Repost: Santa Christ? Jesus Claus?

So, this is kind of cheating. But I never "officially" posted this on my own blog, just on a friend's blog (Make A Difference to One), completely out of season this summer. I shared this last night as an offering at All Souls' worship service. The first time I read through it again, six months after writing it, my initial reaction to my own writing was, "That sounds so trite. You're really considering reading this in front of the entire congregation? You really think no one has heard some version of this before?" I had to remind myself of the stirring in my soul during the summer -- the recognition that Miller had finally put into words this understanding of God that I had never before thought to verbalize. It was possible that last night, in that room, were people who needed to hear it as much as I did. That maybe they would be touched. Maybe their views of God would be challenged. It's a scary thing to put something you've created out there for everyone to witness. I had to remind myself of what my high school Writer's Workshop teacher used to communicate to us: art is to be shared.

Art is the perpetual motion of illusion. The highest purpose of art is to inspire. What else can you do? What else can you do for anyone but inspire them?

- Bob Dylan

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Earlier this year I finished Donald Miller’s Searching for God Knows What, which is a book composed of Miller’s thoughts about and experiences with God. Miller’s books are always entertaining and thought-provoking. He is one of those authors who always seems to be able to put those things we struggle to verbalize into words with an artistic flair.

Chapter two of this book spent some time exploring the parallel between a child’s understanding of Santa Claus and Jesus Christ:

“In my opinion, there are two essential problems with believing God is somebody He isn’t. The first problem is that it wrecks your life, and the second is that it makes God look like an idiot.

When I was a kid and, to be absolutely honest, a teenager and perhaps even a young twenty-something, I believed God was like Santa Claus. I realize grown people should not think God is like Santa Claus, but you wouldn’t believe how perfectly convenient it was for me to subscribe to this idea. The benefits were astounding. First: To interact with Santa Claus, I did not have to maintain any sort of intimate relationship. Santa simply slipped into the house, left presents, ate half a cookie, then hit the neighbors’, There was no getting out of bed in the middle of the night to have sloppy conversations about why I was still wetting the bed.

Second: Santa theology was very black and white: you either made the list or you didn’t and if you didn’t, it was because you were bad, not because of societal pressures or biochemical distortions or your parents or cable television, but because you were bad. Simple indeed. Third: He brought presents based on behavior. If you were good, you got a lot of bank. There was a very clear reward system based on the most basic desires of the human heart: Big Wheels, Hot Wheels, Legos. You didn’t have to get into the spirit of anything, and there was nothing sentimental that served as the real reason for the season. Everybody knew it was about the toys: cold, hard toys. Fourth: Kids who were bad got presents anyway.

Perfect.”

After reading this section, a resounding “WOW” echoed in my head, because everything Miller just said, I had pretty much subconsciously (and sometimes consciously) believed about God at one point in my life. I’m still struggling to get away from it.

As an American kid, growing up, while I knew “Jesus was the reason for the (Christmas) season,” that big ol’ jolly guy in the red suit was definitely a reason, too. Always the inquisitive one, I had figured out by about age 5 or 6 that Santa Claus was just a story, but it didn’t stop me from wanting all the perks on Christmas morning that came along with believing. And yet there was still a magic about the whole Christmas experience – although I don’t think it came from a heart filled with wonder over the birth of the savior of the world. Sometimes it surprises me that although I knew from a very young age that Santa Claus wasn’t real, the idea of Jesus as a man who once walked this earth and now lived in Heaven remained very real to me. As a twenty-something, I am going through the process of stripping away this “pop culture” and “Americanized” version of who I believe Jesus is, and trying to figure out who he truly is.

While I have known this in theory my whole life, I am learning that in order to truly follow Christ, I have to be in intimate relationship with him. I have to come to him with every aspect of myself and my life and ask him, “Hey, what do you want to do with this?” And expect him not only to listen, but to answer. I don’t believe Jesus wants me to jump into his lap, list off the things I want, and then be on my merry way. He is eager to give me good gifts, but he wants me to understand why he’s giving them in the first place. He wants me to know that he loves me, that he’s proud of me, and that being loved by him should overflow into my life and how I love others.

Whether I’m naughty or nice, my God still loves me. There is nothing I can do that will make him end his pursuit of me. It does not mean that I have the license to run around and act like an idiot and make foolish decisions while expecting a pat on the back, but it does mean that whenever I screw up (which is often), he is there waiting for me to ask his forgiveness for breaking his heart, and start again. And there is nothing I can do to make him love me more, or want to give me more presents. His view of me always has been, and always will be the same, and that is that I am his creation, and because he made me just as I am, he loves me just as I am.

In this season of life, I am discovering that there IS a wonder, magic, and mystery to this man Jesus of Nazareth who called himself the Christ. I don’t have to wait anxiously for him to come around once a year, and wait with bated breath to see whether I’ve made the “naughty” or “nice” list. I can meet with him daily, and ask him with confidence what good gifts he has in store for me. A real, interactive relationship with Jesus is worth far more than any material thing I could have ever asked for from Santa Claus.

happy.

I had someone specifically stop me to tell me tonight that I seem really good. Really happy. In a place where God's peace is just kind of pervading from my being.

I love being able to say, "Yes. You're right. 100%."

I have no doubt that I am smack-dab in the middle of where God wants me. I am surrounded by a community of incredible people at All Souls, I live in a city which has turned out to be a real city (not a fake one!), and I have this incredible new house that just screams "come visit me!" with the sweetest roommates.

There are so many stories to be told, because I've done such a terrible job of telling them via this blog, but hopefully that will all change soon. This past weekend, I bought a MacBook. It won't be here 'til Thursday, but after that I have no excuse not to park myself at Remedy for a few hours in the weeks ahead and share some of them.

I'm not sure who even really keeps up with this, but dear reader, know that I am happy. Happy to the core. Inexplicably and undeniably happy.

God Calling.

I have so many things I want to write about, but I never seem to make enough time. I need to do that - I'm so annoyed with myself for only writing once each month since I started this new blog.

I just started taking this "Inner Healing Class" on Tuesday nights through my home church. Last night was the second class I've been to, and next week ends the first unit, but already, I am blown away by what I am learning.

In the first week, we covered the questions of "Does God speak to us? Does He want us to hear Him?" and "How do we hear Him?" These may seem like such simple questions, but I think a lot of us struggle with them. I know that I have asked, "Why would God choose to speak to me?" I sometimes wrestle with the idea that the creator of the universe would actually want to take the time to speak into my life, but this is the kind of relationship the Father deeply desires. He wants us to run to Him, and then He wants us to listen.

There are so many examples of how God has spoken to people through history, and the Bible is chock full of them. Samuel hears God's voice audibly but doesn't realize who it is speaking until Eli discerns that it is God and tells him (1 Samuel 3). Moses sees God through the physical manifestation of a burning bush, and then hears a voice (Exodus 3).

If Yahweh, the Hebrew God of the Old Testament is true to His character, from the beginning until the end of time, that means He still wants to speak to us today.

I believe I have heard God speak before – through His word, and through other people, but I have always had trouble with hearing God in prayer. I think my biggest issue has been that I feel like I had never been told or hadn't understood - until now - that God expects us to have a conversation with him like we would with a friend. My tendency has been to hand over my list of questions and requests to God, say “Thank you!” and walk away. Instead, when I ask him a question, I need to ask it with the expectancy that he will answer – and may choose to do so right then.

For years I have been waiting for God’s direction, some inkling as to what his will is, and yet I really haven’t sat down and asked him directly and waited for an answer.

An exercise we did last night in class really helped me in beginning to do this. We were told to picture a place to meet with God. This could be a physical place where we have met with God in prayer before, or it could be somewhere that seems peaceful, like the mountains or the beach. Then we were to ask Him to meet us there, and ask Him what he wanted to say to us.

It can be that simple.

Of course, there can often be things in the way, blocking us from meeting God – the sin in our lives. Unforgiveness, bitterness, hatred – these are things we have to work through with God before we can hear and accept what God wants to say to us.

One of the books that has been part of the leader’s preparation in this class is Jim W. Goll’s “Wasted on Jesus,” which is about cultivating a contemplative prayer life. I borrowed it last night, and am working my way through the fourth chapter. I don’t think it is necessarily the most compelling or well-written book I have ever picked up, but already I am being learning what a “contemplative prayer life” is, why it is essential in order to know God, and is challenging me to delve further into the subject.

One of the things I really appreciate about it so far is that Goll makes it clear that our focus needs to be God himself, on better knowing who the great I AM is - not the things He can do for us. There needs to be balance between seeking God's voice and carrying over out the truth we hear during those intimate conversations and living it out in our lives - in other spiritual disciplines, in conversations with people, and service.

I am realizing that I feel like Jesus could easily be speaking to me to in John 5:39-40: “You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.” I don’t want my life to be based on morals from a holy text, but about intimately knowing the holy God that these scriptures point us to.

The truly rich spiritual life is a life of balance, and I, with God’s help, am wholeheartedly going to be working on balancing my imbalanced prayer life. I am so excited to know my God in a new way and finally quiet myself enough to give Him the chance to speak the things He has always been waiting to say.