Going after it

I was blessed this week to be a part of putting on a winter camp for high school students. The theme was "The Pursuit," based on 2 Timothy 2:22-- "Flee the evil desires of youth and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart." I also recently read most of Alex and Brett Harris' book Do Hard Things (which I definitely recommend). The result of these things, and of spending time around a good number of people who are living lives in full pursuit of God, was a hard look at my own life.

What am I doing? Where am I going? In a session with all the girls at the camp, a major point of emphasis was the idea of trajectory. The path you're on leads to where you're going. The person you are becoming is the person you will be. The patterns you develop now are the habits you will either thank God for or have to break later. It starts now-- it has already started-- and it's going to go quicker than you realize.

The result of looking at my life was this: I came to the conclusion that I am doing "fine." And I came to the conclusion that I do not want to be doing "fine." I am not way off the path of righteousness, beating around in the bushes somewhere, entangled in sin and unable to see the light. I praise God for that, because I have spent some time in the bushes and have come out by His faithfulness alone. But if I am on the path, I am barely moving. I am in the Word, but is it really illuminating every step? I am praying, but is the Spirit of God speaking into the deepest parts of my soul? I am in fellowship with other believers, but are we encouraging each other to throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and run with perseverance the race marked out for us? Not really.

But I want to.

If Jesus is everything that I say He is, everything I proclaim Him to be through the course of my days, my life needs to be adjusted accordingly. He is the only goal worth pursuing for a lifetime, and I'm a quarter of the way through this lifetime already. It's time to go after it, to stop ambling along and begin to run again.

I hope I am not alone in this. I hope I am not the only person who came out of winter camp with this determination. I am writing in this blog again in order to encourage and challenge the young men and women that came to camp this week, and I am writing in order that you, by reading what I write, can hold me accountable to seeking truth from the Word of God. Let us run the race together, friends, and keep our eyes on the prize that is worth a thousand lifetimes!

Bread

I've spent a lot of time the past few months crunching numbers. On the plus side, I've become much more faithful in keeping track of my finances and knowing where every dollar goes. Today, though, I was convicted of how much I resemble the disciples in Matthew when they are confronted with Jesus' proposal of feeding the 5000 (and, later on, the 4000). The people are hungry. The disciples present the rational response: the people should go home and eat. Jesus counters with nonsense: they don't need to go anywhere because we will feed them. The disciples gather the food and crunch the numbers, but there is no way of stacking the five loaves and two fish that makes them look like anything more than a meal for a family of 6. They point this out to Jesus, and He prays for the food, breaks it, and gives it to the disciples to hand out. And they feed the five thousand, and leftovers abound.

I'm not sure where the food multiplies here, but it doesn't seem like it's before it starts to be handed out. Matthew doesn't tell us that Jesus waves his hands over the loaves and fish and they suddenly become numerous. He tells us that Jesus prays and thanks God for the food and then takes a tangible step of faith and asks His disciples to do the same.

Proverbs 30 caught my eye today. In verses 8 and 9 it says, "Give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread. Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you and say, 'Who is the Lord?' Or I may become poor and steal, and so dishonor the name of my God." This goes so against everything I hold onto in my daily life. I want savings, a nest egg, something to fall back on when times get tough. I want a buffer between me and the grace of the Lord. But how much do we lose when we separate ourselves from the hand that feeds us? How much do we lose when we have so much that we can comfortably disown Him and live (we think) on our own resources? What would it look like to truly awake every day and depend on Him for that day's bread, the manna from Heaven that He will surely give to those who look to Him?

Return (a few updates and a challenge)

It's funny how quickly a month flies by when one's routine is interrupted, but I am back now. After a few weeks of travel (oh, blessed time!) and another week of adjusting to a new job, my days of quiet reflection, reading, writing, and prayer seem more distant than they ought. My new schedule, still changing, won't allow for quite the same amount of introspection as the old one, but I do hope to maintain a few of the disciplines briefly explored during that time. Continue to check here for the fruit.

The purpose of this blog is not to provide a narrative of my life, so I will keep the personal details brief, but I would be remiss to skip over them entirely. The Lord has blessed me greatly over the past few months with opportunities to spend time with friends both new and old and to be encouraged and renewed. I have met new circles of friends in North Carolina, Chicago, Belgium, and Germany, and have been reunited with other friends: a dear partner from my ministry three years ago in Costa Rica and, at long last, my best friend, "the one whom my soul loves." Returning from these journeys, I found myself with a job that, while not perfect in every way, will pay the rent until I can find something better. God is faithful, and someday I will learn to give up guessing what is coming my way next; reality always surpasses anything I can invent.

As I return to Chicago and begin to settle into somewhat of a routine, with most of this year's many travels and transitions behind me and a long, perhaps lonely winter approaching, I struggle to find a sense of purpose. In talking with the aforementioned best friend earlier today, I found myself exclaiming, "I just don't feel like I'm doing anything!" I meant doing anything worthwhile, accomplishing anything for the Kingdom, and I was quickly reminded of a comment this friend had made a week or so ago. To paraphrase, he said that "it's not the things we're doing, but the type of person we're becoming, that matters to God."

This is a hard truth. I do things well. I love to do things. I have a resume over-full of things I've done and a to-do list of all the things that would, in my eyes, make my life "worthwhile." But, without the depth of character, that caliber of gold that can only come through refining fires, our acts and gifts and deeds are nothing but a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.

Who are you? What type of person are you becoming? What caliber of person have you already become? Can you stand before the Lord, works set aside, and say you are satisfied in the work He has done in your character?

Hiatus

One of the beautiful things about the Kingdom of God is the closeness felt by fellow believers regardless of distance, time spent apart, or even never having met one another. I experienced some of this a few weeks ago when I went to North Carolina to visit friends of a friend and spent four days enjoying deep fellowship and great conversation. I'll be spending the next few weeks enjoying much more of this, as I spend time with a dear sister in the Lord that I haven't seen since we served together in Costa Rica three years ago and then travel to Europe to see one of my very dearest friends (after a year and a half of separation) and spend time in fellowship with him and other members of the body in Belgium and Germany.

I'm incredibly excited for both of these opportunities, and I cannot wait to see the sweet times the Lord will bring in these coming weeks. That said, I'm also a firm believer in being where you are and not tied to where you are not, and I will be leaving my computer behind. I aim to continue these reflections when I return, and I hope that some of you will continue to be blessed by them then.

Inwardly renewed

If you are on Facebook, you have probably noticed the flood of Myers-Briggs test results being posted and discussed of late. While, as my brother pointed out, there is probably some amount of confirmation bias at play, I am consistently amused to find how accurate the descriptions can be (I'm an ISFJ, for anyone wondering).

The most interesting aspect of these tests is, for me, to see how the results change (or stay the same) over time. Through junior high and high school, I was a strongly expressed extravert, thriving on attention and the energy found in large groups of people. Over the past four years, I've made a solid shift in the opposite direction, now registering as a fairly solid introvert. Where before I would have sought out big events and placed myself squarely in the center of the action, I now gravitate toward the side of the room and really prefer to spend my time conversing with one or two loved ones or simply watching the goings-on.

This has happened for a number of reasons: God's healing of my depression means I'm no longer afraid to be alone or silent, the increasing manifestations of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome make it easier for me to maintain a slow and steady pace in life, perhaps I've simply matured out of some of my need for attention...

Where I used to find my energy in the affirmation of the masses, in laughter and music and action, I find that these things now sap my energy and leave me exhausted. I find strength in quietness, joy in listening and observing, rest in the confidence that I am loved--first by God, and second by a great number of people--without needing to earn it. Possibly my favorite passage in all of Scripture is in 2 Corinthians 4, where Paul writes, "Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal."

Being sick is frustrating. The past six months have left my body broken and weak. But if Paul can say of his troubles, which are beyond comparison with mine, that they are light and momentary in view of the eternal glory toward which we strive, then I stand with him in rejoicing as my spirit is renewed. It is a truth that I have only been able to learn through struggle, and it is indeed both glorious and true.

Not because we are righteous

Today I was reading in the book of Daniel and came across the passage where he is praying for the city of Jerusalem. This had struck me earlier this summer, and it stuck out to me again today. He has seen a vision that Jerusalem will be in desolation for seventy years, and he lays out his heart before the Lord on behalf of his city, confessing their sins, blessing the name of the Lord, and pleading with Him for mercy. The whole prayer is powerful, but the part that stands out to me is the end:

"Now, our God, hear the prayers and petitions of your servant. For your sake, O Lord, look with favor on your desolate sanctuary. Give ear, O God, and hear; open your eyes and see the desolation of the city that bears your Name. We do not make requests of you because we are righteous, but because of your great mercy. O Lord, listen! O Lord, forgive! O Lord, hear and act! For your sake, O my God, do not delay, because your city and your people bear your Name."

We do not make requests of you because we are righteous, but because of your great mercy. So basic, but so essential, so beautiful, so pure and empowering and freeing. This truth alone sums up so much of the Christian faith, of the character of the God that I love and serve. This is it. I live and breathe and thrive not because I am righteous or have any inherent goodness, but because of God's great mercy. And for that I praise Him and bless His name.

Then they will know that I am the Lord.

I just finished reading the book of Ezekiel. While I had read it before, it had been a couple of years since I read it in its entirety. The overwhelming theme, in the midst of a mind-boggling amount of rebellion by the Israelites and a mixture of justified punishment and freely-given mercy from the Lord, is this: that they might know that I am the Lord. Everything God does, He does so that the people might know and understand that He is the Lord. Everything the Israelites do wrong, it boils down to the fact that they are placing themselves or some other idol higher than the Lord.

Is God so egotistical? Does He really have such a petty need for glory and attention that He would act out like an ornery two-year-old? Or is something else at work here? In A.W. Tozer's The Pursuit of God, he writes that "the cause of all our human miseries is a radical moral dislocation, an upset in our relation to God and to each other." We are not God. As long as we live as though we were, we will know a life of deep dissatisfaction, a sense of strangeness and discomfort that comes from trying to be that which we are not and trying to carry a load that we were never meant to bear. How much trouble could be saved if we would simply humble ourselves before the Lord and give thanks for the position He has given us? Let it be enough to be God's dearly loved creation, to live in a right relationship to one another and to Him, and to bear His image humbly as we walk this earth.

On debate and action

Quite a number of my acquaintances and good friends enjoy a pastime that I spent a lot of years avidly avoiding: theological debate. Often, after a good meal or sermon, when friends are relaxing together and conversing, the conversation will turn to one or more of the often-debated aspects of our faith. There are a handful of topics that come up repeatedly, but I would place predestination/free will/the sovereignty of God as the favorite.

For a long while, I avoided these conversations because I was not sure we could ever arrive at an answer. Or, worse, we could arrive at the conclusion that there was no possible answer that allowed for the existence of the God in whom we believed, and my entire world would come crashing down. My arrival at a place of secure enough faith that I can engage in these debates is a story for another time, but suffice it to say that I now rather enjoy them-- to a point.

I value the exercise of engaging with the loftier concepts of faith and life and God. I think the practice can help us to grow immensely in our understanding of God, and I think He has given us minds capable of thought so that we could use them for such purposes-- again, to a point.

For a couple of years, I have been working through A.W. Tozer's book The Pursuit of God. It has been slow going, largely because the book is so full of challenges and solid truth that you cannot simply breeze through it in one sitting. Last night, in the section that I read, Tozer (himself a man of great intellect) addressed the idea of debate and higher understanding better than I ever could have. I encourage you to read the book for yourself, but his conclusion was this: "Prying into [those things] may make theologians, but it will never make saints."

So yes, debate. Engage with lofty ideas. Discuss difficult concepts within the context of Christian brotherhood. Think and wonder and grow. But, at the end of the day, what are you doing with the knowledge you have acquired? It is not what you know, but your response to that knowledge, that paves the road to glory.

What's the point?

It was bound to happen. As a recent graduate of a liberal arts college, an artist-philosopher whose mind is no longer consumed by homework assignments, it was only a matter of time before I started pondering the big questions. Today, after walking several miles to Target and before studying French, I found myself asking, "What is the purpose of life?" No joke.

But it wasn't as much of a sudden attack of existentialism as it might seem. I got to thinking about the way that I am spending my days now and comparing that to how I would have been spending them if I had stayed with my plans for this coming year. That led to thinking about the value we attach to different ways of occupying our time, which led to thinking about how we can possibly measure the worth of a day's business, which led to thinking about what, if anything, is our ultimate purpose as humans. If we have a set purpose, it would naturally follow that a day spent wrapped up in that purpose would be a worthwhile use of our time.

So that's how I got there. And the answer that came to mind was (though I didn't know the source at the time) from the Westminster Catechism: "Man's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever." That could certainly be pulled apart into much more detail, going in depth to establish what it means to glorify God and how we go about doing that, but I think the key point here is motive. In what we are doing, are we striving to bring glory to God and to rejoice in Him always? It's not going to look the same for everyone. It's also not going to look the same for any one person at different points in his or her life, but it's a question that we need to be asking.

Patterns

Those of you who know me well know that there are certain patterns that I tend to follow in life. Those of you who don't know me well, or even at all, probably could have guessed this, as I think it's a universal truth for fallen humans.

Yesterday was fantastic. While there were times when I struggled with the sheer amount of time in a day and the ingrained impulse to fill the hours as quickly as possible, I was able to turn that impulse over to God and spend the day in a simple way. I spent hours praying, reading, meditating on Scripture, picking up a few fresh vegetables at the farmer's market, going for a run on the lakefront, talking with dear friends... I ended the day feeling refreshed, invigorated, and excited for the coming weeks.

Today I woke up sore. Here's where the pattern comes in. First, my circumstances change in a way that forces me to reconsider some or all of the things I'm doing. Second, I decide on new things with which I'd like to replace the old things, and I do those new things with renewed energy and enthusiasm. Third, I wake up groggy, sore, and distracted, and I chuckle at the seeming naiveté of the previous day's list of resolutions.

But the Lord is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love. He is never surprised by my weaknesses; instead, His power is made perfect as it works through them. So I pray that He would build in me a discipline that I cannot build in myself, and that He would be gracious enough to help me step aside as He works in and through me.

The beginning of an untitled chapter

The way I see it, there are two ways to look at just about everything. We can give in-- to defeat, fear, dismay, hopelessness, bitterness, cynicism, or any of a number of worthless mindsets-- or we can choose to live. Looking at the past several months of my life, it would be easy to call it failure, to curl up in the fetal position and lament the things that have gone wrong, the dreams that have turned sour, the best-laid plans that have fallen to pieces. And don't get me wrong, there have been days when this was really all I wanted to do.

But the mystery of the Gospel is the way it turns everything on its head. In a time of failure, sickness, exhaustion, and loneliness, a time where I couldn't even begin to hypothesize what my life will look like a month from now, I have been given a sense of peace that surpasses anything I have known before. God, in taking away all of the things that previously consumed my time and energy and thoughts, has called me to Himself. For years I have dreamed of a life that would allow me ample time to read and reflect and pray and meditate for hours about things of the Lord, and at the same time I have consistently filled my schedule with busyness and proceeded to wonder why I never have time to develop all of the spiritual disciplines I pray for.

So here I am. It's funny how the things you pray for tend to become a reality you would never have asked for. In all my prayers for the time following graduation, I never considered unemployment or asked God to give me an absolutely empty schedule. I have been a slave for years to my need for busyness. I don't handle free time well, but rather than developing the discipline necessary to make free time a fruitful and blessed gift, I have filled my days with purpose and service and importance. And now it's time for that to change.

I don't know how long this time will last. But I do know this: I enter every situation in life purely by the grace of Jesus, and the only appropriate response is to live it for His glory. So I will strive, in this time of empty days, of hours and hours stretching out before me, to build the discipline I never had before, and this blog is a part of that. I have no reason to believe that my thoughts, stories, and reflections would benefit anyone, but having a public venue for them will compel me to continue on with them. If they bless you, I am thankful; if they remind you to pray for me, I am blessed. If they do nothing more than provide me an opportunity to form my thoughts into coherent shapes and record them for prosperity, my time will have been well-spent.