Archive for 2016

Home Archive for 2016

How should I come to the one I love? I will find a way. - Jason Gray

I have fuzzy memories of celebrating Christmas. I can vaguely remember putting together the plastic tree in the corner of our living room, decorating it with lights all ablaze and glittering baubles. I remember sneaking out at night past bedtime when all the house lights were turned off, just so I could sit on the carpeted step and gaze at the beauty of it. There was so much joy in all of us tearing open our gifts Christmas morning, exulting over them, and then running off to play with our newly acquired treasures. Though fuzzy, they were good memories.

It was when I was around ten or eleven that our family made some new friends. They were Seventh Day Adventists, and we learnt a lot from them. One of the biggest things they shared with us however, was the pagan origin of Christmas. Torn by a lot of what we had heard and studied for ourselves, the difficult decision was made to stop celebrating Christmas in our family.

For us kids, we were too young really to know what we were missing out on. The holiday didn't get a lot of fanfare in our house, and although we did celebrate it, it wasn't the be all, end all. So - we ceased with the tree and the presents, and instead celebrated my brother's birthday (and yes, he was happy to have the day all to himself).

And so it has been; for the past fifteen years. We happily celebrated my brother's birthday, and spent the lead up trying to avoid all the questions people asked us as to why we didn't celebrate Christmas.

Until my brother got married. And moved out.

This year the sudden realization dawned for us: we have no birthday to celebrate.

It was probably only two weeks before Christmas that this thought hit me. Suddenly the day did not hold any meaning for us as a family. Of course, we would see my brother and give him gifts, but the bulk of the celebration would be done in his own home, without us. The dawning came as a bit of a shock.

Deep in our hearts, there was still the desire to make the 25th of December special. It's almost like it's bred into our culture so that it runs in our veins unawares. Though we may try to escape it, something lingers... the idea that there really is something to Christmas that is worth celebrating.

I've made no bones about my staunch beliefs on Christmas. Yet throughout this particular December, I felt God whispering to my soul; whispering of things I had forgotten, or perhaps had never really heard.

It started when I received Jason Gray's Christmas album as a gift. Let me be clear: I don't listen to Christmas music. I find it is usually a crutch for popular artists, trying to scratch together another album to fob off on their fans. It would have to be a darn good album for me to listen to it, with some originality that didn't just copycat carols. If ever there was an album to convince me, this one was it. The words began to stir something in my heart—The Story. The miracle of it... the wonder and awe of just what God had begun long ago that finally arrived in that tiny stable.

I could call out her name with love through the walls / but condemnation is all she hears / I could break down the door and take her into my arms / but she might die from the fear. - Jason Gray

The next thing was when I read chapter three of Ann Voskamp's The Broken Way. The way Jesus was born into brokenness... embraced our broken, entered into our sin and shame to bear our sin and shame. He was born to die. Born to pay the debt we could not. What a remarkable, unfathomable thing—that boundless perfection would be bound by broken. The humility with which He comes and offers Himself to us: I love you. Will you love me? Will you receive me? He offers us the cup of His blood in a covenant of marriage: communion. This baby, an infant, came to rescue us, and He grew to carry us out of our broken world.

The music and the precious truths of these words poured together into my soul until the season and all of its trimmings sparkling around me began to take up the sweet murmur. What Child is this? What Love is this; that the maker of the universe and the author of all would come and reside in this sinful, dirty world? To enter in so vulnerably as a helpless infant, to scream and cry to be fed mortal food, to feel the dust on His feet, and sweat on His brow; that the hands that carved galaxies would feel the pain of blisters and callouses, and the piercing of nails? One of Jason's songs sings it, 'let the Spirit find you wherever you have been, and bring you to the Child that makes us children again'. Such beautiful words made my spirit soar.

How astounding that the only way for us to become children of God was for God to become a child Himself.

This is the miracle: that we were so loved.

Experiencing our humanity was worth it to have us, us.

We who have fallen so far, who grovel in sin and shame, and peddle immorality. We who broke things, and damaged the perfection of Creation with our rebellion and disbelief. We who hated Him who we did not know, and loved what was hateful. We—humanity—who disgraced our self, chasing after other loves as a harlot, spending all we have on that which would not satisfy; breaking the heart of our eternal Lover over and over again. This, He would enter into. This, He would choose as His bride to save. 'Long lay the world in sin and error pining 'till He appeared and the soul felt its worth'.

She gave up on love waiting for a change / but a change is coming soon / how could she not love the helpless babe / Who is waking in her womb? - Jason Gray

Though it poured rain, my family attended the Christmas Eve service at church. The church was full, and the air was thick and steamy from the summer heat; thunder rumbling in the distance. There was an expectancy in the congregation; excitement, even. Anticipation shone in everyone's eyes and travelled like an electric current to everyone in the room. (must this have been what they had felt, those many years ago? Waiting for the Messiah to come?) We all sang the tried and true words of the Christmas carols at the top of our lungs, my eyes were filling with tears at the sound. (What must the sound of so many angels have sounded like!) As truth upon truth, revelation upon revelation had been filling my heart, I felt myself coming undone by this love; spilling over in overwhelming tears. I cried as the media played, proclaiming the newborn King, Jesus: Emmanuel, God with us, the hope of glory.

The next night—Christmas night—my Mum read to us:

God, divine Light, tabernacles Himself in skin and lights the darkness of men.
Jesus left the starry heavens to save us from our sins.
This day, this night —this is the time of the awed silence.
Now, a thousand thousand trees dance with light.
Now, a thousand thousand gifts carry love.
Now, at the foot of every tree, we are all only recipients of grace.
Christ, who called all things into being, gives you sun and moon and stars, the earth under you and the sky over you, and this ocean of air for every breath that fills every lung of every living thing —to you, to you, to you! We live in an ocean of grace. Gifts are our air.
And when we sinned and weren’t satisfied with what God gives, as if we refused to breathe air and died, when we longed for something different, something more, something better, He came and gave us Himself.
Am I enough?
Jesu, joy of man’s desiring.
Love birthed Himself and births us life.
I’ll take your broken heart and give you My warmed one; I’ll take your broken body and give you My fresh Spirit; I’ll take your burden-broken back and give you weightlessness.
Take Me? Let Me be your enough? Always now, no matter what —let Me be your enough.
You can have this as the best Christmas ever as much as you gaze into your Father’s face and receive His gift.
“Only He who has experienced it can believe what the love of Jesus Christ is,” whispers the pen of Bernard of Clairvaux.
A heart could burn with a love like this. — The Greatest Gift, Ann Voskamp

Indeed, my heart burned (Lk, 24:32). I was being wooed and beckoned by The Story—one I thought I had known, but had never really heard. I marvelled at what Christmas truly was. How fascinating it was for me to realize that the same way people can focus entirely on the exterior of the holiday—praising the gifts, the tree, the decorations and the good cheer—and miss the whole point, I too could disregard and scorn the holiday for its pagan beginnings and materialistic rituals and miss the whole point: Jesus.

Every sin that she suffered at the hands of men / every single disgrace will be washed clean again / I will love her completely and when I am grown / I will carry her out of that tenement room. - Jason Gray

I first heard the song I Will Find A Way by Jason Gray a long time ago. I liked it, and listened to it often, but I didn't truly understand. I didn't quite get who the girl was, or why it seemed to tie the birth of Christ into it, since Mary was righteous, and a virgin. Something about it didn't quite make sense, yet I continued to listen to it. It was only during this time of God's gentle whispering when suddenly it hit me:

We are that girl.

We, humanity, bruised, abused, and beaten by sin, and cowering in a dark corner away from the Light that saves.

Into this girl—Christ's chosen love, His bride—the disgraced, ashamed, unfaithful, stubborn harlot—He was born into the womb of this world to save it. We, I; you and me, part of this cursed race; cursed with the disease of sin that kept us apart from God, Christ came to redeem. To draw us unto Himself, if we were willing.

Trading His innocence for our guilt; His righteousness for our shame, we now bear His holiness. Amazing! And someday... someday soon, He is going to take us Home. He's going to take me Home to Himself, wholly. 'A thrill of hope the weary world rejoices, for yonder breaks a new and glorious morn'.

I once was blind, but now I see. Christmas. How gracious and loving, that my Father would be so patient with me on this journey; gently leading me to the Child who makes us children again. Though I cannot say what future Christmases will look like for me or what kind of celebrating I will do, this year—2016—has been a year of seeing, really seeing. Not many people my age get to hear the Christmas story with fresh ears, and I am so thankful that God has taken me on this long, round-about journey to get to this place... Where I can sit as His feet and hear His voice tell me The Story for the first time. I will deeply cherish the memory of this Christmas in my heart. For this is The Story:

Et venit, vidit, amavit. He came, He saw, He loved.

This is the greatest gift: God with us. Nevermore alone.

Glory to God in the highest.

I am doing a new thing and soon you will see / I am coming among you and my name shall be / Emmanuel, Emmanuel, Emmanuel / and I have come to take you home. - Jason Gray

He who finds a wife finds a good thing, and obtains favor from the Lord. — Proverbs 18:22

For the longest time whenever I heard this verse referenced, it was very quickly followed by the statement, "and by 'find', it means you need to be out there looking!" A concept that basically exhorts guys that you can't hope to find a wife if you're sitting around at home praying that she will show up. You need to be actively seeking one out.

On the flip side of this, the next gem you will often hear is: "and ladies, you can't be found unless you're out there being available!" This one is meant to encourage women not to hide at home away from social functions, but to be actively out-and-about so that people know you're available.

I don't know about you, but I've often felt both of these annoying—though well intentioned—sentiments miss the mark. Yes, there are those who stay at home in a sheltered cowardice and need encouragement to face the world and make a difference in it. But the whole idea that the only way you can find a spouse is by something you do seems to go against the grain. Faith without works is dead, yes, but did no one notice the last part of this verse?

...and obtains favor from the Lord.

Call it a stretch, but none of us deserve favour from the Lord, so you could easily say that finding a spouse is nothing short of God's grace, and has nothing to do with what we do. So why do we put all the emphasis on what we do in order to find a significant other?

"Yes, but Jasmine, you can't just expect your happily ever after to turn up at your front door! Searching is a big part of finding!"

Two things. Firstly, if you're thinking this way, your focus is more on being married than on God's purpose for your life (read more on this here). Secondly, how would this concept play out in another example?

He who finds twenty bucks in the gutter finds a good thing.

Everyone! Listen up! Put your nose to the drains, and search! You can't hope for a twenty dollar note unless you get out there and look for one! They're out there, you just need to go find one!

Um, no. Bad application. No one with more than half a brain would agree with this.

So... what does it really mean to 'find', and if we have any part to play in the process, what does it really look like in light of God's grace?

Well, maybe that poor application is closer to the money than you think (pun intended). Just how do you find twenty bucks in the gutter if you weren't searching for it?

You were simply aware.

God drew your attention.

You see, if God is the entire object of your heart instead a potential romantic relationship, you won't have to go out and diligently comb the streets for a husband or wife. This is what the Psalmist meant when he said delight yourself in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of your heart. The Passion Translation puts it this way:

Keep trusting in the Lord and do what is right in His eyes. Fix your heart on the promises of God and you will be secure, feasting on His faithfulness. Make God the utmost delight and pleasure of your life, and He will provide for you what you desire the most. Give God the right to direct your life, and as you trust Him along the way you'll find He pulled it off perfectly! — Psalm 37:3-5

It's as we turn our eyes to Jesus and seek the Lord with our whole hearts that opportunities are made available to us. The Lord promises to direct our steps, and guide our hearts. When we keep our focus on Him, we can't help but be aware of the doors He chooses to open before us. This takes the pressure off us and our own efforts and puts the emphasis on God's grace.

This is what I believe God means when He says a man who finds a wife finds a good thing: It's not that the man made an active practise of seeking and searching for someone to be the object of his affections.

He sought God, and God showed him.

After all, God is quite good at finding things. He is like the woman who searched for the coin, the shepherd who found the sheep. He went to the ends of the earth to find us to begin with. Why shouldn't we trust Him to find for us what we need?

I feel like we put way too much emphasis on finding a spouse. After Solomon spent so much time indulging every desire he had, he finally summed up his binge in one of the most profound statements in the entire book of Ecclesiastes:

Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: fear God and keep His commandments, for this is man’s all. — Ecc. 12:13

The Message puts it even simpler: Fear God. Do what He tells you. What does He tell us? To find a spouse? No. Actually He tells us this:

You will seek Me and find Me, when you search for Me with all your heart. I will be found by you, says the Lord. — Jer. 29:13-14a

God wants to be found by us. He wants to be sought. What should our answer be to this humble and beautiful request from our all-knowing, all-seeing, all-creating God who gave everything to redeem us?

When You said, “Seek My face,” my heart said to You, “Your face, Lord, I will seek.” — Psalm 27:8

So to those of you who are seeking a good thing, let me tell you where you'll find it—

In God.

In your Father who loves you more than life, who delights to give good gifts to His children. He is waiting to be found by you.

And don't worry. If there's a husband or wife out there for you, He'll let you know. Because after all, they who find a spouse find a good thing...

...and obtain favor from the Lord.

God You don't need me / But somehow You want me / Oh how You love me / Somehow that frees me / To take my hands off of my life / And the way it should go / God You don't need me / But somehow You want me / Oh how You love me / Somehow that frees me / To open my hands up / And give You control / I give You control — Tenth Avenue North

I had my life all planned out. 14-year-old me knew exactly how it was going to go. I was going to meet some guy who loved God and was amazing, I was going to be married at 18 (ya’know, because that’s the youngest age you can be decently married at) and have at least half a dozen kids by the time I was 25. I was going to be a wife, a mum, a homeschooler, and a homemaker. That was my dream. It was also the dream of everyone else around me, growing up in the conservative homeschool circle.

We talked glory boxes, sewing, cooking, and what it would be like to be a mum. We mooned over new babies, and read books that filled our heads with the noblest of idealism. All the while we spruiked purity, the importance of waiting, the do’s and don’t’s of courtship, and how valuable our single years were. Except, none of us believed that last part. Getting married was the pinnacle of life, and the sole purpose of a woman’s existence. What calling could be higher than that, right? So obviously. We ignored that last point.

Time passed, and all of us began to grow up and experience this thing called life. I have to admit, I was confused most of the time. Firstly, life wasn’t playing the game. I knew how things were supposed to turn out. 18 and married with one on the way, remember? There honestly weren’t any guys around that were even remotely near my age. Get it together, Life. Secondly, as time was flying by and my prospects were growing dimmer (and my grip on my dream was slipping) I had this sneaky suspicion creeping up on me that perhaps there was something to the whole ‘called to be single’ thing I had been in denial of. What if that was me? Crumbs, I didn’t want to die of that kind of martyrdom! This could destroy my entire life’s plan. Talk about a contingency I had definitely not planned for. This would take some study. I needed to prepare myself for the apocalypse.

It was at about this time I hit the young Christian conservative women’s world of magazines and online blogs. 16-year-old me was going to get the inside scoop on this whole singleness thing. Surely there was a bulletproof way to survive singleness without heartache (if it truly was my calling… I was still hoping I was wrong). Yet for all my blog-following and magazine-subscribing, I honestly did not believe much of what I read. Besides, the single ladies writing these blogs and articles were… well, crazy. I did not get them one bit.

For example, a lot of them? They talked about contentment like they really were content. They wanted me to believe that having Jesus in their lives and investing in that relationship was the most fulfilling thing in their whole world; that having a boyfriend or a dream for getting married didn’t compare to the love of God. Please. Like you’ve never read the Janette Oke books where the handsome cowboy gets the girl and they ride off into the sunset and sighed painfully as you closed the book. As if you never cried yourself to sleep because no one has ever looked your way! You never sat through Pride and Prejudice and felt like that was the closest you were going to get to having a relationship: dreaming about Mr. Darcy. As if reading the Bible could be better than kissing someone, or serving in church was so much more exciting than having kids. No—all you had were “some trying days” where it was “harder to focus on the Lord”. Call me a hardened, blind cynic, (or a stubborn teenager) but I was calling their bluff. No girl—I repeat—no girl, can be THAT content. Period. I had tried singleness and found it wanting: wanting marriage. I was convinced that I could never be content as a single woman and that contentment was a delusion for the disappointed. I would not resign myself to that.

However life is a good teacher in the hands of a loving Father, even if it comes with bruises. As time continued to pass, I threw my heart into things that definitely did not fill the void. Whilst I believed I loved God and had a growing relationship with Him, my desire for marriage had the potential to be more consuming than anything else. I clung to Bible verses that promised “the desires of my heart”, “a good plan and a future”, and “a man who finds a wife finds a good thing”; strong-arming God through the manipulation of His Word (always a flawless plan). I’d read enough in my singleness binge to know that this was the time to “prepare”, and become the best version of myself. So I did all I could to become one amazing piece of wife material. Very unfulfilling stuff. Every new person I met became a prospect, and the chance of meeting “the one” was always at the forefront of my mind at social functions. Whilst on the outside I may have been an active participant at home or church, enjoying life; on the inside I was very much pining away for someone to fall in love with.

After one particular pet hope I had been nursing for two years was completely crushed, I finally came to the end of my own efforts. I dropped off the bottom rung of the ladder of my plans and landed with a dejected thud. I was done. For a while, I didn’t want to talk to God. He had ruined everything. I was 23, more unmarried than ever, stuck in the same place I’d always been, and I had nothing left to hope for. But since I had enough brains to realize that there was nowhere else to go besides God, I crawled back to Him and settled into a lengthy pout session, Him patiently and lovingly holding me as I ranted and railed. This was the end of me, but the beginning of something quite different.

It's okay, this is just the end / Don't be afraid, this is where it begins, oh / 'Cause everything here had to fall apart / But in the ruins of a broken heart / I found peace like a river to attend my soul / Hope running over when I let go / I found joy that was hidden for all these years / And love overflowing to wash over everything / Here at the end of me — Jason Gray

Bit by bit over the next couple of years, God began to teach me about myself. I realized that being single and wanting to be married was not actually my problem (WHUT). Much of what I thought I wanted was not really what I was looking for at all. I began to see that this life I had tried (and failed) to orchestrate, was not about me, or my wants, or even my needs. I was not here just to have the “desires of my heart” fulfilled. As I was learning more and more about myself, and who I really was apart from the dreams and desires I had idolized, I made some major discoveries.

My life is not my own. Aka, “it’s not about me”. We all know this in theory, but when I came face to face with the fact that when I gave my life to Christ it was His to do with what He wanted, I realized this left little room for my little old desires. Desires are good, and we ought to pursue them, but the pursuit should lead us to the heart of God, not the satisfaction of our own selfishness. This was the part where I opened up my hands and was able to completely surrender to God by saying, “married tomorrow, or single till I die, my life is at Your command. Your will, not mine.” Habakkuk 3:17-19 became my prayer, and I prayed it till I meant it.
His dreams are better than mine. I realized that a lot of my dreams of marriage and family came from the expectations of people around me, not from what God had put in my heart. I wanted to be married because I did not understand who I was in Christ, and I know that should someone have paid me attention, I would have clung to them as my worth and value. In letting go of what I thought were my dreams, I gained His. I also gained a greater understanding of my personal worth and identity in Christ. Though this doesn’t mean I scorn the idea of marriage, my reasons for wanting it have changed. Marriage should be for the glory of God, and for the benefit of His kingdom. Otherwise there is no earthly point to it.
Waiting is a myth. To live one’s life waiting for dreams to come true is to waste it. I bought the lie that if you wait patiently on the Lord, He will give you what you want. That is not what Scripture says. We are to wait on the Lord the same way a waiter waits on a guest: actively pursuing and obeying the wishes of Him. It is to be ever attentive to His ways, and eager to accomplish them out of love for Him, and a desire to serve. It is in this kind of waiting, we are fulfilled. It really has nothing to do with what we “want” in life. Whilst God does care about our desires, and wants us to be free to come and bring our requests to Him, we should never use waiting as a bargaining chip with God. It doesn’t work. Don't wait to live. Life is now.
Contentment is not a lack of desires, it is not being governed by your desires. Contentment does indeed exist. It just doesn’t look like what many single women bloggers have portrayed it as. Contentment is the next door neighbor of trust, and trust means that you believe God is reliable. He will come through. He gets you, and will give you what you need. A contentment issue, is a trust issue. And trust only comes from one place—
Love.

What I was really missing all those years was a grasp on the love God has for me. Understanding how deep the Father’s love is for us is vital to the way we live the rest of our lives. It wasn’t pursuing a relationship, pursuing a career, investing in people, serving in the church, or honing my skills that gave me a sense of fulfillment and worth. For it is not by works we are saved, lest anyone boast (Eph. 2:8-9). The past year, and especially the past month, I have learned just how incredibly loved I am by my extraordinary Father in heaven. It is in tasting this love—grasping it—that all other desires truly do die. I’ve come to the place where I realize those girls who blogged and wrote articles were right: you truly can be content, but it’s not in what you do for yourself, or what you do for God, it’s in Who God is, and who you are, in Him. God is love. You are His beloved. That’s it. That’s all there is to it.

You see, I’ve seen discontentment in so many people: successful people, married people, single people, gifted people, busy people, quiet people. I’ve seen people who have so much I could be envious of, be the most discontented. Contentment has nothing to do with your circumstances. It has everything to do with your situation in God.

Are you trying to get from God, without recognizing what He has already given?

Are you seeking the gift, not the Giver?

If you are, you haven’t truly discovered His love for you. Because that kind of love is enough. Contentment is not a single thing. It’s an everyone thing, because knowing you are loved by the Father is a truth everyone needs to understand, and something no one will find outside of Him. It fills you up so you overflow, and instead of clinging to God in order to get something from Him, you will rest in His presence more satisfied than you have ever been. This love is unswayed by the world, unswayed by your relationship status, your job status, or anything else anyone might tell you. No circumstance can remove this contentment, and no situation can shake this foundation in your life. It only requires one thing from you—

Everything.

It’s a scary leap to give up all the plans you have for your life. It’s a fearful thing, to surrender. But I can tell you that when you give everything for God’s love, there is nothing that can take it away from you.

Not a single thing.

It's alright, we're not alone, we don't have to fight / The very things that might lead us back home, oh / 'Cause every wound here is a place to start / The healing of a broken heart / The end of me is not the enemy / It's where mercy gets the better part of me, oh / The end of me is not the enemy / It's where love was always leading me — Jason Gray

Leaning up against the kitchen counter whilst looking into the teary eyes of my littlest sister, my mind flashed back to when I was her age. Fourteen, and trying to make friends I desperately hoped to keep forever and ever. Honestly, I remember it far too well: the striving, the pleasing, the bending-over-backwards for people, and being everything I felt like they expected me to be. It was hard work, even at fourteen. I honestly didn't even know what problems were back then. Dear fourteen-year-old self: just wait until you become an adult. You've never had it so good. Yet at the same time, as I listened to the all-too-familiar words coming from my sister's heart, I so get it. I know the struggle. Keeping friends and making sure they liked me really was one of the all-consuming and eclipsing issues I had to deal with when I was a teenager.

Why do we feel it is so important that we be liked and accepted by others, come hell or high water? Probably because we're made for it, I tell myself as I flick back through my journal pages and ponder the places my heart has wandered. We were created for perfect fellowship, perfect unity with one another where each person is celebrated for their strengths, and where the strengths of one another make up for the weaknesses. But the world is broken and full of broken people with broken perspectives of the world. We were hurt, so we hurt. We expect and assume the best of people and are disappointed. We see our own failure and despise ourselves, so we cover it up in an effort to be loved for our perfection rather than being okay with just being "okay". The older I get the more I realize that friendships are not built on a mutual respect for each other's perfection (or appearance of). Friendships—real friendships—are made from a lot tougher stuff. The stuff of salvation.

Think about it: salvation is not earned. It is a free gift. Christ died in order to achieve the perfection we could not. His blood covers our failure. By the Spirit we are enabled to live righteous lives, but for the times we mess up, fall, or absolutely train wreck, He's got our back. God's glorious grace is more than enough to cover whatever sin we may commit. Because of Jesus' sacrifice, we are able to love like He does, and live free knowing that the debt we could never pay, that debt—Someone picked up the tab for us. We live free because we are saved through nothing done of ourselves, with the understanding we are carried by an incredibly merciful and loving Father in heaven who went all the way for us.

How does this relate to friendships? Well sadly, it often doesn't. Somehow salvation doesn't always make it that far, and instead of just being honest and open about who we are and how our mess has been restored by Jesus, we would far rather hide it and pretend we have it all together. It's easier to just brush stuff under the rug and tritely say "God is good" with no visible reason, as opposed to revealing all your ugliness for why God is so good. Holding up a mask makes it difficult to love people because once you've established your character to someone, if they get too close, they'll see under it. So the only way to keep your charade in place is to hold people at arm's length. This results in shallow "friendships" that never come close to the fellowship and camaraderie we crave. In short, we'd rather earn our friendships.

Don't get me wrong, relationships take work. It takes selflessness, honour, the swallowing of a whole lot of crud and communicating hard things in order for a relationship to flourish. But there's a difference between working on something and working for it. Just as it's a red flag when you recognize you are striving unhealthily for the love of God, I believe it's the same warning sign if you find yourself trying to earn a friend. Newsflash: you can't earn true friendship any more than you can earn salvation. If you're doing this... well, it's a "friend" you'd be better off without.

As I shared this with my sister, I could see the struggle in her face. Yeah, because who wants to be told that if you have to be anything more than yourself to keep a friend your friend isn't worth having? It hurts. I've been there. When I did a lot of growing through my later teen years, learning that I didn't have to strive to become some figment of my imagination that I thought I was meant to be, I was lonely. I lost friends. I learnt a lot about the phrase quality over quantity. I didn't want to be that person on Facebook with over six-hundred "friends". It was quite the dry spell for me when it came to fellowship. The most wonderful thing however about waiting in the dry spells instead of digging your own well, is that the drought is broken by God Himself—heaven's rain.

I can now point to people in my life that—only by the extraordinary hand of God—became cherished friends; divine interventions of my ordinary, every day life opened miraculous windows of opportunity for relationships to form. Following blogs. Joining internet circles. A random movie date. An honest word at the right time. Crazy ideas chased down and realized. Courage to take risks. To be open. To dare. I've formed friends who exhibit a Christ-like grace to me that I could never have earned by my own perfection. Ever. This is what makes a real friendship. It's hanging onto grace for dear life, and not being afraid of what people will see when you stand in the Light. It's being confident of the goodness of your God, and how much you are worth to Him; trusting He will shine His light on the gold in you for others to see and be drawn to. God brings people together...

...but only if we trust Him enough to be real. It is in our weakness God makes Himself strong. I would rather live bravely, letting my weaknesses be the cracks of a broken vessel letting God's light shine out like a beacon for all the friends who could be drawn to it; to live in a way that is unashamed of love, unafraid to be messy, and grounded in the love of Christ that cannot be earned. I no longer have time to waste pretending to be anything, or show myself perfect to anyone in order to attain their friendship. I want grace, and He gives more grace.

I see His grace in the face of my friends.

I watch my little sister smile, and see the lightness in her step after she's spent time with her friends, learning to be real. Practising honesty. Learning to love, and to give grace. She's smarter than I was at her age. But it's not too late for us.

The best is yet to come.

I frequently struggle with the way the western world does church, and I use the phrase "does church" very loosely. The definition of church as far as I can see defined by Scripture is the body of Christ; a gathering of Christians. A whole bunch of Jesus followers in one place. The multitude of saved and redeemed saints coming together collectively to celebrate Christ. It frustrates me then that even Google defines "church" as a building used for public Christian worship, a hierarchy of clergy and an institutionalised religion. What church isn't can be put quite simply as not a building.

But my frustrations don't just end there. Inside the building you will find all manner of politics and rivalry that doesn't look unlike any worldly corporate ladder. Positions are raised above people, growth goals become the focus, and appearance literally is everything. Oblique phrases are used to justify volume, lighting, media, stage, preaching, emceeing, and fellowshipping such as worshipful atmosphere, contemporary, relevant, captivating, dramatic, connection, pursuing excellence. What happened to the early century church that met in homes with fellowship over meals followed by unaccompanied singing to the Lord?

Before I am labelled a hyper-conservative that believes we should meet in a park and that instruments in a worship service is of the devil, don't get me wrong: I love well orchestrated, well led and artfully performed worship songs. I'm a multi-instrumentalist and a passionate singer with an ear for music besides, so I appreciate excellence when I see it, and am not backward in coming forward about commending it. I am also a graphic designer who has dabbled in media production, so a professionally crafted flyer or quality media does not go astray for me. A speaker with a sense of humour that is true to themselves and unafraid of making a pertinent movie quote is something I am definitely a fan of. I don't wear a straitjacket. I can enjoy a sense of fun and lightheartedness in a service. Yet where is the line between what we do and where our focus is? When does the pressure to perform erode purpose?

I don't really know where this line is. I have felt the weight of position, juggled politics, and bit my tongue to perform for things I felt were nothing more than a prop, rather than the real deal. Yet at the same time I know that God is a God of order, and without leaders and direction, congregations fall apart for a lack of drive and vision. Whilst I have felt my soul soar on the heights of emotional swells from a full stage of musicians, I have also experienced the quiet peace that entered my spirit when singing quietly with a few friends without accompaniment. I've experienced the restrictions of guidelines that strangled the willingness and creativity out of me, whilst at the same time seen the chaos and disorder of a group trying to pull a service together by being solely "Spirit-led". It's a pendulum swing I can't seem to get to stop in the middle.

I've spent a lot of time mulling this over, and will probably continue to do so for the rest of my life. There are so many different Christians who see "doing church" so differently from one another that we're never going to nail it universally. However I think one of the keys to unlocking this debate is simple: the church doesn't need props. The church needs Jesus. Whenever we come to a place where we find ourselves saying that we need a certain media, a certain lighting, a certain type of music, pew, altar, stage, sound system, or else, we've strayed. When a material item becomes a priority, we've lost our first priority. When we care about a task getting done more than we care about the people doing it, we've failed. When loving Jesus and loving people gets replaced with anything else, it's only a matter of time before we turn into an institutionalised machine that steamrolls people and destroys relationship.

If the Gospel needs lights, volume, and media to be effective, it's not the Gospel. If the Gospel needs to be free from a building, holding no trace of worldly influence by way of art or music, and be full of traditions to be effective, it is still not the Gospel. If Christ alone is not enough to draw people, maybe we are preaching Him wrong. Jesus never had a publicist, a stage, or a media team yet managed to take the world by a storm in three short years which history has never forgotten. I love the fact that God still chooses to use us as His church despite the boxes we've climbed in. Praise God for His grace in this! However I for one am not content to stay here. I hope for the day that the church lets go of its crutches and walks free: free from props, and free from the different hats it has tried to wear in order to fit in. Let's fit out. Let us be a church that carries the Gospel to the world in His power that doesn't need anything we bring. Let Jesus be the only requirement. Nothing more, nothing less.

"The problem with aging has nothing to do with merely 'getting old'. The problem is the curse of yesterday's youthfulness."

"How do you mean?" he asked. "I'm assuming you're not talking about physical appearance."

"No." Her gaze shifted to the open window, eyes soaking in the innocent blue of the sky as memories raced around in her mind; striving to be articulated. "You can never escape the person you were, at any point in time." she said finally. "No matter how old you get, you can never be free from the immaturity of who you have been, or the foolishness of those former decisions. Even if you recognize the mistakes you make or learn the lessons on the morrow, you still cannot escape your immaturity of today. The folly is always as fresh as yesterday."

He pondered this for a moment before replying. "Can you give me an example?"

She turned then, eyes blazing with frustration. "I remember being a three-year-old and drawing on my bedroom wall with a crayon. At ten I dressed up and spouted ridiculous nonsense when the home video camera was pointed my way. When I was thirteen, I had a new obsession every month that was just as fruitless as the last. Sixteen brings memories of the folly of a crush on some person or fictional character. Just before becoming an adult, I understood the futility of trust in friends by experiencing hurtful betrayal. After that I fell deeply in love with someone who eventually married another, and who never even knew I existed. I imagined ridiculous things, from living in an enchanted castle as a child, to the mythical existence of people who love always without prejudice. I dreamed dreams, only to find them impossible. I hoped hopes, and they didn't measure up. I have looked up to people who failed me. I have believed in lies. I have said things I regretted, hurt the ones I love, made myself look foolish, given myself to worthless things. . . yet—yet every day I get older. . . and instead of discovering wisdom, I discover my immaturity of the previous day. It's. . . inescapable."

"Do you view maturity as something we can attain by years?"

"Is it not? Or at least, shouldn't it be?"

Rubbing his chin, he answered thoughtfully, "It depends. I think maturity is more than just becoming immune to mistakes so that you never need acknowledge them. A wise person. . . well, put it this way: wisdom never arrives, but it always looks back with grace and forward with hope."

Her eyes reflected a sort of despair at his words. "Am I to be forever haunted by the people I've been?"

"You'll never be free of them, if that's what you're asking." Pausing for deep breath, he continued. "It . . . it is a frightening thought—I own—that we can only ever be the sum total of our experiences, with all the people we have ever been staring back at us over the years we have lived. It's like. . . the cloud of witnesses we are surrounded by are all the people we failed to be; hundreds of us's, hoping against hope that we turn out better than our varying stages of immaturity dreamed we would."

Here she let out a deep, wounded sigh; tearful gaze meeting his thoughtful stare across the room. Darling little bird, his heart whispered. Don't you see you're trying to fly free of your feathers?

Moving across the room to where she was seated, he dropped to his knees on the carpet and reached for her clenched fists held tightly in her lap. "These hands," he said, gently unfolding them, "have a choice of what to hold. They can hold resentment and regret for past mistakes,"—he turned over one hand—"or grace and hope for the future," he said, turning over the other.

Her downcast eyes looked thoughtful as he went on. "No one can change their past, though all of us would try in a heartbeat if given the chance. What if instead you saw all your past selves not as failures throwing stones, but as milestones cheering for future victory? What if. . . what if you recognized that the One who created you—He who is outside time—loved every single you that ever was, just the way you were? Including yesterday's you?"

A tear splashed onto his hand, and she wiped it off absentmindedly with her finger, pondering his words. "How do I see with those eyes?" she whispered hoarsely.

He smiled, reaching up to tenderly thumb away another tear rolling down her face. "Look up, dear one. Look into His face and see your reflection in the eyes of Love. Put your face into His glorious sunlight and the shadows will fall far behind you. As you hold fast to hope, regret will slip through your grip into hands bigger than your own. Someday you will learn to love the journey that you are on, and you'll be better able to love your past selves when you discover them in the faces of people around you."

Raising her head, she nodded; freedom flooding her smile. Then, as a flicker crossed her face, "But what of tomorrow." she said gravely, "when I wake in the morning. . . what if, with fresh hindsight, I regret my words of today? What then?"

He squeezed her hands. "He will give even more grace in exchange. And besides," his smile widened to a grin. "It will give me opportunity to love one of my past selves in you."

Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. - 2 Cor. 5:17

The weekend just gone, I suddenly felt a dire need for a piece of fiction. Something light and diverting, with maybe just a bit of sap. It'd been a stressful couple of weeks, where I was wrestling with many things in my heart, and I got to the place where I wanted nothing better than to be distracted by a good story I could be certain would end with a "happily ever after".

The last time I was up the coast with my family, I bought a massive stack of Christian dramas/romances from a second hand store for next to nothing, which I was pretty pleased about (I left the Amish ones on the shelf). So I went through my shelf to see which I would devour in my free time, and selected a western written by a lady who will remain unnamed for the sake of this post.

Almost from the beginning, I recognized how terrible the writing was. I took a great interest in learning English and grammar during my school years, and though I'm far from a professional, even I could recognize how poor the quality was. The sentence and paragraph structures were so bad that they pulled me out of the story every five minutes as I tried to wrap my brain around what the author was trying to say. The writing wandered aimlessly, following every, single, rabbit trail for about ten miles longer than necessary. It was infuriating.

Add to that, the romance was contrived, and I had to listen to the soulful, deep inner feelings of each character described again, and again, and again, in amongst being peppered by repeated facts from secondary characters. By the time the couple shared a kiss that meant nothing after knowing each other a grand total of two days, a sentence that completely switched tenses was the last straw, and I put the book down with disgust. Admittedly, I checked the front page to see if it had been a self-pub job, but it wasn't (shock horror, some publisher paid for this??). Giving the book a quick look up on GoodReads, I found that it had a 4.5 star rating and had plenty of rave reviews. Oy vey. God help the Christian drama and/or romance industry. A moment of silence for the death of cultured literature (#bringbackAusten).

Frustrated that I still did not get my satisfaction met, I turned to another book on my shelf. This one a book by Janette Oke. I've read a fair bit of her writing, and I knew it would be quality, but when at midnight I put down the finished book, I had never been more impressed.

The story followed a young woman who, having completed Bible college, was called into the ministry to become a deacon of a church plant in a small western town. You shared in her trials of coming into a community that did not welcome her, the hardships of refurbishing the church building almost single-handedly, reaching out to people with little return, and her deep sense of loneliness; the desire to live out her calling with a man who shared her passion for ministry. I was immensely satisfied by the book, and even more so, felt deeply touched, encouraged and inspired from having read it. I sensed God's comforting presence through reading this story.

The difference between the two books was immense, some of them being key advantages which I believe a lot of authors miss. Here are a few observations:

1. Good writing.
No doubt about it, this experience has taught me there is such a thing as good writing, and bad writing can seriously detract enjoyment from reading. Comparing these two books has really shown me how much of an improvement good writing can do for a story.

2. "Christian".
Where the first book equated Christian as half-hearted prayers of "God have mercy" punctuating the story every couple of pages, Janette Oke's book threw into stark contrast how Christianity permeates life in every way. Though prayer did play a part, the life of faith was best illustrated in the way the main character sacrificed or went through hard situations as a direct result of her faith. Her actions spoke louder than trite words.

3. Romance.
For the love of all that's worth reading, if you're going to write a romance, make sure you have characters that will uphold the weight of the love story. 2D characters that talk about their "feelings" all the time carry about as much weight as a feather. Take things slowly. You have the whole book to tell this tale of love! Don't have them kiss the second day. Build a good foundation for the romance to grow upon. Take the reader on a journey, don't just throw them a book.

4. Show, don't tell.
Yes, yes, I know. This is what everyone says, but it doesn't make it any less true! In the first book, if I had to hear another reference to how good a shot the bad guy was, or just how good the sidekick was at tracking, I was going to tear my hair out. Give your reader the credit for being able to remember important facts that you took the time to illustrate well. You don't have to tell them. And tell them. And tell them!

5. Research.
The knowledge that Janette Oke's book had been written with historical accuracy added to the book's authenticity and inspirational effect. Women in the 1900's actually did become deacons of churches in remote areas of the west in order to spread the Gospel. The prologue gave great insight into the hardships these women faced, and how they overcame them. It gave the story a greater depth that the first book failed to plumb.

These are just a couple of things I noticed and felt compelled to write about. Good writing is important, and we shouldn't waste our time writing - or investing in - poor quality books. There are many truly inspirational stories out there that effect people's lives. Let us support that side of the industry.

... end rant.

Subscribe to: Posts ( Atom )