Trench warfare

I spent most of today praying against various personal demons and besetting sins that are besetting something fierce this week—things like discontentment, and irritation, and selfishness, and cowardice. And then...well....

Sometimes it seems I live my life on such a small level. For instance, I got my hair cut tonight and am unpleased with the result, and do not want to go back to have more taken off, and regret soliciting opinions and listening to them instead of going with what I wanted, and regret backing down so easily, and...and it's a HAIRCUT. And I'm going a little nuts about it.

So often the big things show up in how I deal with the small things. And even the big things, like the personal demons and besetting sins, seem bigger than they used to. Really? A haircut I don't like? I'm THAT vain? THAT insecure? THAT clueless about my actual place in God's world?

I'm tired of fighting off who I am and striving for what's ahead. Not that I want to stop striving, but it's disheartening to think of how much longer I'll have to do this. On the one hand, I can't wait until I'm not so confused and so disoriented on such a regular basis. On the other hand, there's nothing I can do but wait.

All of this digging in for the long haul is wearing on me. As is the sense that I'm having such a rough time, and I'm not even doing anything important.

Or maybe that's the Enemy talking...and maybe it's the Enemy trying to trick me into thinking I'm fighting off who I am. Because maybe who I am now, through grace, is just the person who's doing the fighting off. And maybe the reason these "little" sins seem so much bigger is not that they're looming larger in my life, but that my eyesight (and my aim) is getting that much better.

Constant vigilance (1 Peter 5:8). Even in these deep-down, day-in-and-day-out trenches.

Hovering

Today I have that annoying sense that there is another, better way to do things than the way I am doing them now. I've had that at work (has to be a way to catalogue these tasks coherently), and I had it at church tonight on two levels (has to be a way for teachers to focus on Jesus and Scripture over points and stickers; has to be a way to encourage young boys to calm and stillness without forcing them to look just like young girls).

I'm very much a "right answer" sort of person, but the answers aren't in a key at the back of some book. I have to puzzle them out myself, reason from Word and Spirit, live them until I fall naturally into the answers.

Which notion was never as strangely exciting as it is tonight. And I do mean "strangely." I didn't even feel it until I started writing this. But I realized that I know something about the way God works. And that tonight the following verses resonate in a way they never have before:

"The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. And God said, 'Let there be light,' and there was light. And God saw that the light was good. And God separated the light from the darkness." (Genesis 1:2-4)

Maybe that hovering at the edge of my consciousness is something more vital than I thought it was.

Okay, here's what I want:

• I want to clarify and communicate in my business writing, not create more confusion or tension. Wait, why settle? Let's make that ALL my writing.
• I want to speak of Christ to and with children, not just check things off a to-do list.
• I want to encourage brothers (and I do mean males specifically) of all ages out of love for them and faith in what God is doing in them, not harangue them out of frustration that they aren't what I think they should be yet.

And now I can sleep in peace. God will work out the details.

Laughter

They called him laughter

for he came after

the Father had made an 

impossible promise come true

~~ Michael Card

Tonight I am grateful:

• for a year and a half of depression, of anxious not-knowing, of mortally wounded self-certainty.
• for the countless times I have clung to the past and He has pulled me unwillingly into the future.
• for the relationships I sabotaged repeatedly and He preserved over and beyond my expectations.
• for that day in England last year when just about every one of my plans went wrong.
• for a work environment that's still up in the air, over a month after we've moved.
• for a brother who is getting married this November, and for his as-yet-mostly-unknown fiancee.
• for so much more that I wouldn't be fully grateful for if left to myself.
• for not being left to myself.

Tonight I am laughing at the impossible absolute truths of love, grace, and a God who is nearer and more essential than my next breath.

Grace has brought me safe thus far, and grace will lead me...wherever it will. 

I rest in and because of thee, Beloved.

Forget Rats and Dragons.

For me, this year is the Year of the Wedding.

For the past several months, I have been thinking about and planning for my friend Abby’s wedding. She and her fiancé (now husband) Ryan were married Saturday in a fairly simple and very warm ceremony in a beautiful yet non-air-conditioned church, and I was blessed with the honor of being one of her bridesmaids.

Later that afternoon, in the surreal blur that comes after a long-anticipated event has come to pass: "Do weddings still make you want to get married, or are you immune to that now?"

For the next several months, I will be thinking about and planning for my brother Jeremiah's wedding. He and his fiancée, Dorothy, will be getting married at the end of November. I will be standing up for them, too. It will be cooler then. 

Today, at work, from the woman who sits next to me: "Your brother's getting married? He beat you?"

Tonight, at dinner, from my slightly older and still unmarried cousin: "Have you been getting set up on blind dates yet?"

God's coming in under my guard something fierce this year. I don't know why I bother keeping it up.

And now for something completely different....

You're Short Round!

Hey, Shorty! You're Indy's street-smart little buddy. You're always watching out for your friends, and if necessary, you'll put yourself in danger to keep them safe. You treat the people you care about with a tremendous amount of respect, but you also have a silly, casual way of speaking, like "Hold on to your potato!" As sidekicks go, you're a really cute, helpful one to have around... and if anyone gets brainwashed, you'll find a way to snap them back to reality. 

When I vowed

practiced denial of fear

openness to whatever came

He sent change

several orders of magnitude greater

than I had imagined

 

When I wondered

if I would really be willing to give

sacrificially

He sent added financial obligations

 

When I confessed

unwillingness to serve unacknowledged

and desire to serve as Christ

He sent more needs, more requests

 

When I asked

for grace to love

those I wouldn’t on my own

He sent people

 

When I prayed

Thy will be done

my plans began to shift

 

I am feeling the danger

of a God who takes me seriously