accusations

Over the process of the last decade or so, the thing that God has been teaching me is that His character exists outside of my circumstances, meaning that my circumstances don't dictate his character. If I am poor it doesn't change the fact that he is still my provider. If God doesn't answer my prayer requests the way I want Him to, it doesn't mean he is not faithful. Things to keep in mind. His ways are not my ways and His thoughts are not my thoughts. His plan for each human being is that we would 1) know His son 2) be made into the image of his son. Anything else that happens in this world is superfluous. Wealth, health, success, fame, etc are all secondary (if not tertiary, or 293 iary) in the Kingdom of God. So what do we do then as humans when we are confronted with pain? We ask God to change our circumstances. It's the wrong thing to pray. The correct prayer should be to ask God to change us. Not that he doesn't want to change our circumstances, but that's like going to a bank and asking them to do a heart surgery. You're asking the wrong question to the wrong person. You've got to go to a doctor to get a heart surgery. So with God, we have to ask him God questions...heart transformation questions. That's the business of God. So let's say you're presented with pain, and you are asking God to change your circumstances and your circumstances don't change. Then what? The enemy comes in and lies to you. He tells you that God has abandoned you. He accuses the character of God to you. In the Garden, in Genesis 3, we see this being played out for the first time.
The Fall of Man
1Now (A)the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said to the woman, "Indeed, has God said, 'You shall not eat from any tree of the garden'?"

2The woman said to the serpent, "(B)From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat;

3but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, 'You shall not eat from it or touch it, or you will die.'"

4(C)The serpent said to the woman, "You surely will not die!

5"For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and (D)you will be like God, knowing good and evil."

6(E)When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate.

7Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they (F)knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings.
God told Adam/Eve don't eat from this tree. So when she was confronted with that boundary (rules are just like painful circumstances, because we are confronted with our weakness and we are given a choice of who will be God in our lives) the enemy came in and told her that 1) God is a liar. He says you'll die but you won't. 2) He is holding out on you. He is keeping good things from you like the ability to know good and evil. 3) He doesn't have your best interest at heart or he wouldn't be holding out on you. The enemy accuses the character of God to Eve. This puts her in a position of whom she will believe. Will she believe in the character of God or will she believe the lies of the enemy. Will she allow God to be God or will she choose to be in control of her own fate. Eve/Adam like the rest of humanity after them have been confronted with this exact same situation and have believed the lies of the enemy. We have allowed the enemy to convince us that God is not who he says he is. God's character is outside of the space/time continuum. He is: loving, just, faithful, a provider, merciful,long suffering, slow to anger, quick to love, peace, etc. When I am confronted with pain I get to choose who to believe. When I believe that God is who he says he is, I ask him to transform me into the the image of his son. So whatever his character is I step into agreement with that part of him, and am changed.

So when you have the capacity to see that God's character is being accused in your life, you are at one of those moments where you get to choose who will be God. You get to choose to be transformed. I imagine that God is like a waterfall and I'm standing in the desert. When I step into his character and believe him, I am refreshed. All of the sudden the places of fear and doubt are washed away and I believe that God does have my best interest at heart and that he is not holding out on me. He longs to bless his children. If an earthly father would give his child good gifts how much more will the heavenly father. Again, they are tertiary at best. His main purpose is that I know his son, and am transformed into the image of his son. That means there will be crosses to bear, and there will be a choice to die to myself. But those are the moments when we are closest to him. The cross is the greatest invitation to intimacy. When we share in the sufferings with Christ, we will know him better than those who don't go to the painful places.

I pray for our family that apathy will be removed from our house and that we will long see with clarity the beauty of the man, Christ. I pray that in times of pain and frustration we will choose to believe that God is who He says He is, and will ask to be transformed into the likeness of the Son. I pray that we will carry our crosses, choose to die, so that we may have new life in Him.

He is worth it! He is all together lovely!

Yertle the Turtle

When I was little there was a book, called Yertle the Turtle by Dr. Seuss.  I honestly didn't remember what it was about, so I just looked it up.  It's the story of the Tower of Babel written in Seussisms.  The Turtle King stood on top of all his subjects trying to be higher than the moon, until the turtle on the bottom burped and everyone fell down.

I bring up the title, for no other reason than, I feel like a turtle these days.  When tragedy strikes, I feel like I emotionally crawl inside my turtle shell and try to find God in my midst.  While that may seem noble and super spiritual, it's really just my own defense mechanism to protect me from pain.  Imagine if you will a turtle in the middle of a city during a massive earthquake.  The chances of that turtle shell actually protecting it from falling debris is slim to none.  My protective mechanisms are futile and often counter-productive. 

Really there is only one place that is safe for me to be:  my strong tower of Refuge, Jesus.  I feel like a little girl who's being threatened and who runs to hide behind her dad for protection. 

Love is so painful to me.  Donald Miller said recently in one of his blog posts by his dog Lucy, "It hurts to love, but it’s worth it. Love wouldn’t be so beautiful if you didn’t have to die a little bit to create it. Love has always cost pain."

I love deeply and intensly.  My sweet friend, Anne Baker said to me in an email, "My heart can well imagine the deepness of your grief. You have such a deep and compassionate and loyal heart. You love so deeply and completely. I know your pain is just taking your breath away. And I know there is only One who really understands that pain and grief. May His hold on you give you breath, comfort, and peace."  It was good for my heart to hear, that people know the depth of my passion.  Amazingly, I've spent my life with people who still don't fully understand me.  I know it's my own special way of sharing in the sufferings of Christ, that I love deeply and grieve deeply when my friends lives are going through turmoil.  I don't handle tragedy well, particularly unexpected tragedy.  I don't guess tragedy is ever expected.  I think a lot of it has to do with foundations.

I guess the truth is that I build my foundation on shaky things:  friendships, circumstances, etc.  So when tragedy comes and rattles my foundations.  Let me tell you, Jesus is shaking everything that can be shaken.  It is difficult for me to keep a mindset that Jesus and his character is the only thing that I can stand on firmly.  I want to believe the best in people.  I want to be able to believe that my friends are solid, their reputations are solid, their marriages are solid, etc.  I want to be able to stand and not be shaken in that.  I want to stand on the fact that people will live forever, despite the reality that people will die, sin, break up.  My heart wants heaven so bad because this world is painful. 

Keep me in your prayers as I go through this shaking. 

grammar

Tell me if I'm wrong grammatically.

This relationship has me in a paradox of emotions.

These emotions are paradoxic.

I'm feeling quite paradoxical today.

I am a paradoxic prophet.

Clearly the reason I've written this is because I see that my blogs title may be grammatically incorrect.  Why has no one pointed this out to me as of yet.

forgiveness

Was taught a new meaning of forgiveness today. So imagine someone does something that hurts you. They owe you a debt. Unforgiveness is wanting them to repay a debt they can never repay. Forgiveness is realizing that Jesus paid all of our debts. So you take the debt that someone owes you and give it to him to repay. Someone stole your peace/joy/innocence/trust, let Jesus repay you with a double portion.

This new revelation came in very handy.  I seem to be faced daily with a choice to forgive.  So if you'll bare with me, I think this blog is really going to be a letter to Jesus asking him to repay me for somethings that have been stolen.

Jesus, I bring to you today these debts that are owed to me and I ask that you repay me what was stolen.  Many years ago, my innocence was stolen, Jesus will you give me a double portion of innocence back.  Throughout the years people in various shapes and sizes have rejected me for various reasons.  This was them stealing my sense of belonging, my ability to trust, my sense of connectedness.  Jesus will you restore what was stolen from me.  Jesus, my sense of self worth was stolen from me many years ago.  Will you restore to me my sense of self worth.  Will you forgive me for the times that I tried to create a worth in my own right, outside of you?  Jesus, many years ago I trusted you fully and completely.  Different times of pain in my life have stolen the trust that I once gave to you.  Will you restore my ability to trust you completely.  Jesus, I have had relationships stolen from me that were very dear to me.  Will you restore these relationships to me?  Jesus, will you restore my faith that was stolen from me.  Jesus, I've carried around shame for years like a parting gift.  Will you take it from me and replace it with a sense of honor that only you can give?  Jesus, my reputation has been stolen from me.  Will you restore it, so that I can rightfully give it back to you? Jesus, as of late several people have hurt me deeply by not choosing to value me like you do.  In a way, they are stealing my value.  Will you restore my value to my friends.  I admittedly don't know if I'm doing this right.  All I know to do is to come to you with my hurt and ask you to fix it.  I don't even know at this moment what has been fully stolen as of late.  I know my ability to trust people at face value is gone.   Each time crisis happens, I feel as though my peace, joy and security are stolen.  Will you restore my ability to trust, be at peace, be joyful and feel secure.

Jesus, I release all the people who have stolen from me over the years from their false responsibility to repay me.

Jesus, more than ever in my life, I want you to be my all in all.  Help me let go of the lies and the false security systems and trust you more and more completely.