Fake Empire

the chorus to one of my favorite songs simply says:

"we're half awake in a fake empire".

aside from the haunting and intricate piano-driven rhythm, this song plays my heartstrings in a way that much "Christian" music does not.  No, I don't get the lyrics to the verses either, but I have to say that I can't shake those words from my brain and my soul because it hits a little too close to home.

sometimes I sit in the empty chapel at RTS and play these chords and serenade myself with these words over and over again: to remind me that I am made to be more than half awake.

every once in a while it will hit me. like waking from a dream with a start, Passion will interrupt the lull and lethargy of life-half-awake and I'll wonder how I can live even a moment in such wasteful apathy.

but Passion is a sort-of fragile thing. it has to be nurtured and fed, pursued and invested in. Before we know it, the Fake Empire(s) of the world would have us lured into a dream-like stupor -- either going through life in a cloudy haze of apathy or running after sub-par pleasures (you know the kind of running in a dream, where you expend so much energy but never actually move at all? seems like a textbook illustration of the word hevel, translated in Ecclesiastes as 'meaningless' or 'frustration').

we. are. alive.  we're ALIVE!  we've been given life, folks, abundant life. not to fall asleep and live half-dead. not to be cogs and puppets and self-centered machines in the Fake Empire of this world.  We've been transferred from the Fake Empire to the Kingdom of God!

I could go on for pages and pages more, but chances are, you know where I'm headed because you feel it, too.  And if you want to read more, C.S. Lewis really got this -- he's written the most beautiful images about becoming more fully human and more fully alive as we go 'farther up and further in' the Kingdom.

I believe God's designed each of our hearts to quicken for different causes.  Okay, overall they quicken for the same things -- the more we know Him, the more our hearts burn for the things for which His heart burns.  But within that, He's given us each passions and interests and skills to use for His glory and the good of others.

What are those things for you?  What are the things that, when you do them, you feel the Father's pleasure over you?

Nothing makes me feel more alive than when I get to tell people about God's character and our purpose to glorify Him and enjoy Him forever.  His lovingkindness, His tender compassion, His unending mercy through King Jesus.  So discipleship/friendship/counseling is pretty much my favorite way to spend my time.

I am fascinated by cultures and exploring how God's is most glorified by people from EVERY nation, tribe, tongue and people coming together to delight in Him.  I want my life to be spent encouraging other peoples to delight, in their own special/God-given way, in King Jesus.

God has given orphans a special place in my heart.  And those hurt by sex-outside-of-God's-plan - those trafficked, taken by force, or tricked into believing the lie that it wouldn't affect them.

What are the things that wake you up? That call you back to the reality of the Kingdom?

Music and poetry wake me up.  Transparency and honesty and passion within community wake me up.  Prayer and the Word wake me up.  Sometimes just turning off the TV and closing Facebook help me wake back up.

Let's not give in to the lull and lethargy of the Fake Empire.

Let's live in and through the passion and abundant life found in God's kingdom.

For His glory, our good and the good of others. 

there is no fear in Love

You know those relationships that are comfortable?  The ones you feel you can simply be yourself - without the toil of working to make someone like you or the fear of being rejected?  Being in the company of these people is like a breathe of fresh air because it is freedom from fear. 

I was reflecting on this type of relationship because at the close of 2012, I feel like I had a series of interactions that left me feeling weary, deflated, and disappointed -- relationships that seemed like that should have the comfort and freedom that comes with acceptance and love, but somehow still do not seem to hold that freedom for me.  

2012 was, in some ways, characterized by what I hope was the pinnacle of fear in my life.  Stress and anxiety have pretty much always been things that I struggle with to one degree or another, but somehow in the Spring/Summer of last year they exploded into a consuming mess of paranoia and debilitating fear.   I was having trouble comforting myself with a Sovereign God who doesn't promise to protect me from the horrors of this world.  Slowly but surely (and with the help of a wonderful counselor), He began to lift my eyes to look at Him and remember His character and that He promises to be with me through everything -- to hear His voice over me telling me that everything would be alright, even if my nightmares ever came true.  His loving presence began to cast out the fear that had filled my life. 

He began to do this in other areas of my life, too.  The nature and depth of some other things I struggled with surprised and scared me - I began buying into the lie that I was doomed to seriously hurt myself and the people I love most.  I am learning to run to Him with those things, instead of away from Him in shame.  He loves me.  I can be myself, even with all the needs and desires and fears and doubts.  He wants it all: He wants to meet my needs and satisfy my deepest desires and calm my fears and ease my doubts.  I am perfectly loved. 

So yesterday on New Year's Day, in the shower pondering life, in the midst of mourning the losses and rejoicing over the victories of 2012 and wondering what 2013 might hold, it hit me...well, I believe Holy Spirit told me...  

For many, 2013 is the "Year of the Snake".  For me, it will be the Year of Perfect Love Drives Out Fear.  

2008 was the year I realized I didn't actually believe that God was good or that He would provide for me or that He really loved me.  2009-2012 have all been years of God is Good.  God will provide.  God loves me.  But I'm tweaking it in 2013.  I'm building on God is good/God will provide/ God loves me (because I know I will never "graduate" from that theme -- I never want to!) Because those things are true, and because I am loved so completely and perfectly, I believe I will see even more fear driven out of every part of my life in 2013.  

"There is no fear in love.  But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment." - 1 John 4:18

 Dear friends, if you are in Christ, you need not fear any kind of punishment. You are perfectly (completely and deeply) loved.  "This is how God showed His love among us: He sent His one and only Son into the world that we might live through Him.  This is love: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins" (1 John 4:9-10).  

We are loved

                   free

                         to live through Him

                         to love 

                                    because He first loved us. 

"New Year"

O LORD,
Length of days does not profit me except the days are passed
          in thy presence, in thy service, to thy glory.
Give me a grace that precedes, follows, guides, sustains,
          sanctifies, aids every hour,
     that I may not be one moment apart from thee,
     but may rely on thy Spirit
           to supply every thought,
           speak in every word,
           direct every step,
           prosper every work,
           build up every mote of faith,
           and give me a desire
                  to show forth thy praise,
                  testify thy love,
                  advance thy kingdom.
I launch my bark on the unknown waters of this year,
      with thee, O Father, as my harbour,
              thee, O Son, at my helm,
              thee, O Holy Spirit, filling my sails.
Guide me to heaven with my loins girt,
                                       my lamp burning,
                                       my ear open to thy calls,
                                       my heart full of love,
                                       my soul free.
Give me thy grace to sanctify me,
             thy comforts to cheer,
             thy wisdom to teach,
             thy right hand to guide,
             thy counsel to instruct,
             thy law to judge,
             thy presence to stabilize.
May thy fear be my awe,
             thy triumphs my joy.

- Valley of Vision.

All's Well in Heaven, All will be Well on Earth

Tonight, my cup is overflowing.  It is so nice to hear the Lord speak, to feel Him tugging at my heart, drawing me nearer to Him.


Tonight, the veil feels thinner between my sight and His face.  And He is holy, resplendent, glorious and His face...oh, His face is radiant. 


Tonight, I hear the voice of Jesus' blood crying out louder, deeper, and more powerful than Abel's.  Abel's cries for "justice"; Jesus' cries for "grace".


Tonight, I feel invincible. Well, not so much invincible as just a little bit reckless with the things the world and my flesh tell me to protect with all I am.  I want to do crazy things for the Gospel, for the sake of the glory of Jesus' name.


My soul wells up with hallelujahs tonight.  One day, it will not be so rare to be overwhelmed with worship of the Almighty God.  May the Lord hasten that day!

Bright, Brighter

You know those rare and fleeting moments when all the world seems to go dim except for the hope within?  When all of the problems that usually color my life go grey, and instead the world itself is painted with the most vivid shades of enduring reality; when I can almost imagine the world - recreated - and myself - made new.


This song helps me imagine that newness.

This is not the end
This is not the end of this
We will open our eyes wide, wider

This is not our last
This is not our last breath
We will open our mouths wide, wider

And you know you’ll be alright
Oh and you know you’ll be alright

This is not the end
This is not the end of us
We will shine like the stars bright, brighter

Is God a kill-joy? A Note for my high school friends...

God, in His infinite wisdom, has ordered this season of my life so that I work in a high school office. It's a small Christian (private) high school.  I never foresaw working in a school setting at all, let alone a high school, but it's been such a pleasant surprise in so many ways.

As I watch them, I find my thoughts wandering to my own high school days. And I think a lot about the book of Proverbs and Wisdom and the different paths that are laid out before us.

I watch them with a jealous eye. I am jealous for them to make good choices, to moment by moment choose the path that leads to life instead of the path that leads to death.

It wasn't so long ago that I was in high school. And I led a double life in some ways. I was a Christian in a public school. I sensed there were plenty of eyes watching my every move and waiting for a misstep. But I was pretty good at pretending. I don't want to be overly dramatic here -- it wasn't all pretending. I was growing in my faith and I wanted to know the Lord more and more, but I did find myself caught in the snare of secret sin.  Very secret sin.  I don't think I told anyone until I was in college that I struggled at all that way. Unfortunately, no one was really talking about my kind-of struggle -- the sort that seemed so gray, but only because no one was helping me see the blackness. There were lots of black and white rules: No drinking, no sex, no drugs, no cheating, no cussing, etc. I wasn't talking to anyone about it.  Everyone probably thought I was doing great. I was a leader in my youth group, I raised my hands in worship, I didn't do any of the big no-no's that everyone would know about. Meanwhile, there were many tearful nights agonizing over all the things that I so desperately wanted to hate...but did anyway...and maybe I enjoyed them...and even if I didn't, I felt powerless to stop.

I clearly remember often wondering why God was such a "kill-joy"? Why did He have to make things so hard for us?  Why did He set up so many rules  that were so hard to follow? Did He like to see me struggle and fail and be miserable?  Or did He "get off on withholding" from us? 

At that time in my life, I was so consumed with the problem of getting out of the snare of secret sin that I didn't really stop to address those deeper questions. I just wanted to be rescued and to be better. I just wanted to know that I know forgiven. The Good News is that, in Jesus, I was and am and will always be forgiven for all of my failures. That was really good news. Freeing news. Transforming news. Despite all my pretending and all my shame and all my secrets, I was forgiven. I was loved! 

But there was more Good News. News that began to take root in that season when my soul so desperately needed to feel the forgiveness and acceptance of the Gospel, but really started to blossom several years later.

It hit me like a ton of bricks on my honeymoon. Don't worry, I am not going to get too personal here. But I am going to talk about it...because somebody needs to.  

My snare of secret sin happened to be in the realm of sexual purity. It doesn't matter, for my purposes right now, "how far I went" or "if I was a virgin or not" or "what my definition of virginity is", the point is that I went outside the boundaries God set for purity.  Those are all of the wrong questions. Because the standard is not virginity, it is purity. But there are plenty other snares of sin to be caught in and they can also wreak havoc in your life, whether it's lack of submission to authority, purity, drinking, seeking approval of others over approval of God, choosing to manipulate and control others rather than to bless and serve them, performance, pretending, apathy, recklessness, and the list could go on and on.


It hit me that: "The law" is there to care for us and protect us, written by a Lawgiver who understands that life outside of God's created intent destroys us. 


God is the farthest thing He could be from a kill-joy. 
He's the opposite of a kill-joy.
He created you for joy - to enjoy Him!

He gives us the Law to protect us from going to lesser things - things that promise enjoyment or prosperity or respect or fulfillment of some kind, but that are empty and only lead to more emptiness.


I watch my high school friends with a jealous eye because I am still dealing with choices that I made in high school - choices that led to other choices that led to other choices.  And all choices have consequences.


The Proverbs tell us that there are choices that lead to life and they are choices that lead to death. They speak of Lady Folly and of Lady Wisdom - both call out to us, offering their wares. Folly will destroy us - it steals our joy, damages our relationships, warps our minds, sometimes even hurts our bodies.  Wisdom, on the other hand, leads to the abundant life that we were created for. 


I'm not just talking about those big fork-in-the-road choices, either. I'm talking about the daily choices that shape who we are: how we spend our free time, how we treat the people around us, how we spend our money, etc. When we practice making good decisions day-in and day-out (treasuring the Word, respecting our parents, loving our neighbor, serving others, living with humility), we are better equipped to make good choices when we hit the fork in the road.  In fact, often, we often don't even hit the same fork in the road had we been walking down the path of folly.


So, what if you have already befriended Lady Folly?  What if you've been heading down the path that leads to death?  There is Good News for you. Wisdom still holds out her hand to you. She welcomes you to turn around (repent) and follow her to the path that leads to life.  That path is the fear of the LORD. What do I mean by that? Mostly, trusting the Lord! Knowing the He created the world and everything in it - He knows how it works. And He created you - for a life of enjoying Him and glorifying Him (which happen to be the exact same thing). His heart for you is to care for you and protect you, to see you thrive in the life He's given you.


Folly's charm is deceitful. Her beauty is fleeting. The fear of the Lord - that brings good and not harm. It is more precious than rubies and nothing you desire can compare with it.


Oh, how I pray that each of my high school friends will choose to trust the Lord and His heart to protect them sooner rather than later! So much of what I learned, I learned the hard way -- being burned by folly.  There are easier ways, less agonizing ways :-).  I pray that they will choose - daily and forever - wisdom and the path that leads to abundant life.

More on Losing Myself...

I've been reading about addiction in preparation for a counseling class I'm blessed to be able to take this week.

The instructor writes about "The Last Addiction" in her book by that title -- the addiction to thinking we can save ourselves.  

The Holy Spirit has begun to whisper some of the substances/behaviors I may be addicted, too - broadly speaking, COMFORT and under that category, TV and Facebook, among other things.  But in light of what the Holy Spirit's already been whispering to me, I am seriously addicted to serving my self, the preservation of my pride, and the presentation of an ideal me - to myself, God and others.  

Pride has ALWAYS been a huge struggle for me.  Spiritual pride, intellectual pride, pride about my niceness, pride about my looks, pride about my friends, pride about my taste in music - the list could go on and would continue to become more and more silly and narcissistic.  I guess pride and striving for a sense of identity could go hand in hand.  

The wild thing is, God has done MUCH in my life to humble me.  The whole crux of my testimony is that I needed to be shown that I was actually a sinner - not just a really good girl who messed up occasionally.  And in the past year, He's done much to humiliate me.  The things that He's been attacking have been, often times, so superficial.  And I'm beginning to realize it's been all the more painful, once again, by the double-egged nature of pride: I've been humiliated by the superficial and humiliated to find myself so concerned with the superficial. 

The WILDER thing is, WHO CARES?!  What I mean is, I just need to repent!  To give up!  To turn my cheek to the humiliating situations that arise and to live in continual repentance of this obsession with myself and the need to prove myself.

Introspection can lead to sorrow that is godly in repentant OR sorrow that just leads to prideful despair.  

I spent a lot of my time in full-time ministry thinking of "Jesus, Who humbled Himself"...yet, somehow this wasn't hitting home in my recent humiliation.  I wasn't letting it hit home.  I thought it was far too beneath Him.  To be concerned with status and levels/quality education and clothes and titles and money...I felt too ashamed to associate that kind of humility with the humility that Jesus experienced.  

But I think He did experience it...every moment of every day (YET He was without SIN!).  And a humiliation far beyond what I will ever experience because I could never esteem myself as high as He had every right to esteem Himself.

O Jesus, most beautiful, most wise, most joyous and joy-giving, the Light of the World, the King of all kings...thank you for humbling Yourself, for making Yourself nothing, for coming as a servant and experience all the humiliation involved in being a man (as opposed to God!).  And thank You for seeking to humble me.  Inside and out.  My heart's desire is most definitely You and Your glory far beyond its desire for my own glory.  May You continue to increase and may I ever decrease.  

Help me to forget myself!  And remember You.  A servant King.  You make me whole.  You make me worthy. You are my joy!  You are my citizenship and my boast and my song.