Intellectual Christianity?

With my family and educational background, I have spent a fair amount of time sharpening my intellect. You certainly don't go through a Scripps education without having at least a handful of conversations on philosophy and metaphysics. I am thankful for this background, thankful for the value of critical thinking imparted to me by my parents, thankful for the ability to ask intelligent questions and comprehend advanced concepts.

But there has been one ongoing struggle for me: much of the intellectual input into my life has been from an atheistic, often anti-Christian perspective. As a result, I spent many years avoiding interacting with God on an intellectual level, afraid that my deep questions might topple Him down. A couple of years ago I decided I didn't want to waste my time worshiping a God who couldn't stand up to the questions, so I started asking them. And, surprisingly (at least to me), I started getting answers. The deeper I delve, the more God makes sense on every level. When I ask my questions, I find that God isn't so small and weak and imaginary that He collapses under the onslaught. On the contrary, it's like sailing out onto an ocean when I've only ever seen the harbor. There is more, and it stands up to anything I can throw at it!

This is why I appreciate so much the work of brilliant thinkers like C.S. Lewis, R.C. Sproul, Lee Strobel, and so many others. These are people who have truly undertaken to worship the Lord their God with all of their heart, soul, mind, and strength, allying intellectualism with Christianity and providing unspeakable encouragement to people like me. If you haven't read or listened to anything of theirs, I recommend it. And if you have others like them to recommend, I would appreciate it!

Truth and counterfeit

I can't take credit for this one, but it's one of my favorite illustrations, so I'm passing it along.

There are people whose entire job is to identify counterfeit money. They examine bills under a special light and determine whether they are legitimate or false. They may see hundreds or thousands of bills in a day, but they are able to tell immediately which are counterfeit.

How do they do it? There are an unlimited number of permutations in the false bills. A person could spend a lifetime studying all of the different varieties of counterfeit money, and they still would not exhaust all of the possibilities. There is no way to know all of them. So they invest their time instead in studying the legitimate bills. They scrutinize and memorize the genuine bills until they know them backwards and forwards. They do not have to know all of the different varieties of counterfeits; they only have to know the real thing. Knowing this, they are able to tell immediately when something is wrong.

There are any number of lies, any number of untruths and half-truths and almost-truths that it would be easy to chase after. If we spend our energy obsessing over them, striving to know all of them, our energy is wasted in a futile endeavor. But if we spend that energy instead focusing on the truth, we know the truth and are therefore able to instinctively identify what is not truth. We must know our God, know ourselves, know our calling, know them inside and out. When we do, everything that is not true stands out on sight.

Only one righteous

I have read through all or part of the Old Testament a handful of times in my life. I inevitably find myself frustrated and discouraged, aggravated with the Israelites and their inability to stay on track for more than a generation at a time. The people as a whole stray to the right and left innumerable times, and even the most famous kings and leaders commit egregious errors.

There is no one righteous, no, not one.

Noah, Abraham, Moses, David... these giants of storytime all have black marks on their names. Even if their lives honored God overall, they each faltered and failed in humiliating ways.

But that is what makes the gospels incredible. When you arrive at the life of Jesus after reading page upon page of prophets lamenting the fallenness of Israel and foretelling the lamb without blemish who will take it all upon Himself.

All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.
Isaiah 53:6

They say the traits that irritate us most in other people are those we most hate in ourselves. Like Israel, I fall over and over again into the same sins, disbelieving God's all-sufficiency and seeking help elsewhere. I come back again and again to the same mercy, the same love, the same open arms. Thank you, precious Lord, for grace.

The creator impulse

I love to cook. I'm not talking about throwing together a mix, adding an egg or some chicken to a package of unknown ingredients put together unlovingly by someone in a factory somewhere. I'm talking about sifting the flour, chopping the onion, shaking in the spices, kneading the dough, stirring the batter (generally by hand), and carefully monitoring the sizzling pan or rising loaf. I never thought of this as a particularly spiritual desire. I just like to make things, to see ingredients become a meal (or, for that matter, a seed become a flower or a ball of yarn a sweater).

But was I not knit together in my mother's womb by the original Creator? Was I not made in the image of the creative God? And so my creative impulses become an act of worship, done in homage to the One whose creative nature I echo.

Shopping around

"A practical disbelief of God's all-sufficiency is at the bottom of all our departures from him."
Matthew Henry, in his commentary on 1 Kings 12

Why do we walk away? Why do we chase after anything else? We believe He is not enough. One who has found what he is looking for does not keep looking. If Jesus really didn't satisfy, if there really was something better out there, shopping around would make sense. But He is the one thing that satisfies. I've found it to be true in my life, even after shopping around more than a little. He is the answer, He is the desire, He is the satisfaction, the goal, the purpose of it all.

He is not a crutch to be clung to until we are able to walk. He is what makes us fly.

Where you are

Where are you? Is God calling you in a very obvious way to change situations? Follow Him, if He is. Otherwise, where you are is your calling for the time being. Maybe you have big dreams for the future, places to go, plans to fulfill. That is all fine. Or maybe you are exactly where you've dreamed of being. Is it everything you imagined? Does it fall short? Regardless, right now, you are where you are, and this is your only chance at this particular set of circumstances. Live it before it's gone.

"Wherever you are, be all there. Live to the hilt every situation you believe to be the will of God."
-Jim Elliot

The fruit of discipline

This week I played my guitar for worship at church and ran three miles. These might seem insignificant and unrelated to each other, but hear me out.

One of my big goals over the past six months that I've been living the cabin life in WA has been to build discipline across the board in my life. At first glance, practicing the guitar and being in shape don't seem like spiritual disciplines. But to be faithful in much you have to first prove faithful in little. I was talking to a friend a few months ago about the way that discipline in one area seeps into your habits in other areas. When I am consistently keeping up good habits in one part of my life, I am much more inclined and able to do the same in other areas. Thus the spirituality of playing the guitar and going for a run. In addition to reading the Word, fasting, memorizing Scripture, journaling, and praying, I've been practicing the guitar and exercising almost daily, working to develop discipline as an overall character trait rather than as an isolated characteristic of one part of my life.

The ability to play the guitar competently for worship and to run 3 miles are the outward symptoms of the discipline I've been pushing for these six months. I pray that the inward change is as marked.

Boasting of the future

"One who puts on his armor should not boast like one who takes it off."
Ahab, in 1 Kings 20: 11

Ahab certainly isn't the Old Testament king with the cleanest record or the most upright life, but he got at least one thing right. No matter how certain we are of the odds, we must wait until the battle is finished before we claim the glory of the results. Let us be patient and humble, preparing ourselves for what is ahead rather than claiming to know it already.

Straining toward what is ahead

"Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus."
Paul, in Philippians 3

There is a balance between healthy reflection and unhealthy obsession. If we don't examine our pasts and learn from our mistakes, we are fools. But if we spend our whole lives obsessing over our mistakes, we are fools. So we acknowledge our imperfections, incorporate our newly-found wisdom into our approaching decisions, place our identity firmly in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, and press on. Always forward, always upward, always heavenward to Christ.

That I may know Christ and be found in Him

"Whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may know Christ and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ-- the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead."
Paul, in Philippians 3

...that I may know Christ and be found in Him...

This week has been a hard one. Reflection, dissatisfaction, unfulfilled expectations, loneliness, feeling lost and adrift and lacking a sense of direction for my life. There have been some tears and some hours of crying out to God. But at the bottom of it all is this: the desire of my heart is to be found in Christ. I love Paul's language here-- to know Him, to be found in Him, the power, the fellowship, the surpassing greatness. This is all I want.

I am at the end of myself and, I hope, the beginning of Him.

Joy as a lifestyle

"Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."

We quote Paul's words from the fourth chapter of Philippians all the time. But I'm struggling to live it today. Joy is a choice, not a feeling. It is a lifestyle, not an emotion. Paul writes these words in chains, in isolation, suffering for the Gospel. Are your circumstances worse?

Rejoice in the Lord at all times.

Living and learning

This weekend is my birthday. This week I went through and either archived or deleted all 3000 (yes, with three 0s) emails in the inbox of the Gmail account I have had for just over four years. Both occasions give me cause to stop and reflect a little.

Item 1: A lot of life happens in a year. Maybe this is primarily the case because I am in that phase of life that is a constant transition from one thing to the next, but wow. A year ago I was graduating from college, pretty certain of three things: I was going to live in Chicago for the foreseeable future, I was going to be a teacher for the foreseeable future, and I knew who I would spend the foreseeable future with. All three of those things came true, but the foreseeable future turned out to be much shorter than I had anticipated. I'm learning to say "Lord willing" and not to make big declarations about things I don't know.

Item 2: I have some incredible friends. With as many moves and changes as I've had in my life over the past 6 years, I've found myself wondering from time to time who my real friends are. There are some that fade away and slip out of contact, but there are some that have begun to shine through as those that will always be there. They've been with me at my best and at my worst, they've been the constants in periods of turmoil and transition, and they have proven trustworthy and faithful. Thank you, friends.

Item 3: Hindsight really is 20-20. The emails made this especially clear. I see myself making mistakes, and then making those same mistakes over again, and then staying in mistakes way longer than I should ever have stayed. In the moment, it's so hard to see clearly and so hard to know which way is up. Lord, help me to learn from my mistakes, to be patient and deliberate, and not to lean on my own understanding.

So here comes 23. Year two of post-graduate life. What does it hold? I have some ideas, but I'm striving to be patient (see Item 3) and not to make any big declarations yet (see Item 1). I'm hoping for a lot more growth, a little more wisdom, and maybe even some direction for the future.

Trustworthy

"Neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow... Each one should be careful how he builds. For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ."
Paul, in 1 Corinthians 3:7,11

Is there any experience so earth-shattering as trusting someone and having that trust betrayed? Especially when that person is a leader, a mentor, someone you look up to and aspire to be like. You put your confidence in that person and start to build parts of your life on that foundation of trust, so that when the foundation crumbles the rest comes tumbling down as well. Is anyone truly trustworthy? "There is no one righteous, not even one." (Romans 3:10) But trust is necessary-- in ministry, in friendship, in marriage and families-- so how do we walk that line?

Let us put our confidence in the only One who is trustworthy. If we follow anyone, let it be Him. Let us weigh every decision, every relationship, every step against His Word and His guidance. And He, in turn, will show us where to stand, where to lean, where to walk. If we build anything in this life, let it be on the foundation that is the solid rock of Christ, the one foundation that will never be shaken and cannot be moved. If we trust in Him first and foremost, we have a firm place to stand and build all other things. When the sand shifts, as it always will, we will still find ourselves on the Rock.

On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand.

Grace and consequences

As I've worked my way through the Old Testament this year, I've noticed time and time again the tension between grace and consequences. God, in the Old Testament as in the New, yesterday, today, and forever, is a gracious god. Gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, rich in love. He is near to those who call upon Him; He casts our iniquities as far from us as the east is from the west; He paid the price for all sin and offers forgiveness to the wickedest of men.

But grace doesn't eliminate consequences. Forgiveness doesn't mean elimination of the chain reaction that began with your sin. I see this in my own life, as I deal with the ramifications of mistakes I made years ago. "Haven't You forgiven me, God?" Yes, He has. But sin, forgiven or not, still affects our lives and--perhaps the more painful reality-- the lives of those around us. David, in the 2 Samuel debacle with Bathsheba, commits adultery, lies, and murders a man. He becomes repentant, confesses his sin to God, and receives forgiveness. But the child conceived in his adultery dies, and his family suffers the consequences of his sin for generations.

So what can we do? Accept grace, but don't expect it to be a get-out-of-jail-free card. If your sin landed you in that prison, you will pay the time for it. Live in the truth that you are forgiven--guilt has no place in the life of a pardoned believer--, but accept and nobly bear the fruits of your decisions. And learn from it. Improve. If the rod is not spared, let it be useful for teaching and changing our paths.

Renewed thinking

"What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun." Ecclesiastes 1:9

"He who was seated on the throne said, 'I am making everything new!'" Revelation 21:5

"Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind." Romans 12:2

There is hope, there is life, there is joy.

Taking a step

"So he got up and went to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him."
-Luke 15:20

As humans and as American Christians, one of our greatest enemies is independence-- the "pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps" mentality. If we are to accomplish anything, it will be by the sweat of our brow. If we are to receive grace, we are going to deserve it. If we cannot get our own selves to a lifestyle of holiness or a disciplined routine or a worshipful mindset, we throw up our hands and proclaim that it can never be. But grace deserved is not grace at all.

'Twas grace that taught my heart to fear
and grace my fears relieved.
How precious did that grace appear
the hour I first believed.
Through many dangers, toils, and snares
I have already come;
'Tis grace hath brought me safe thus far
and grace will lead me home."
-from John Newton's "Amazing Grace"

But we are not left entirely as puppets or pawns in the hand of God. He asks of us a step. If we cannot bring ourselves to the place we need to be, He asks of us to take a few steps in that direction. If we cannot budge our foot, He asks of us just a desire to move. If we cannot convince our heart to desire it, He will accept a simple prayer for that desire to be there. I have seen this time and time again in my own life as well as in Scripture-- the father did not seek out the prodigal son while he was still living in rebellion, but as soon as he began the journey to the front door, the father was running through the fields to embrace him and welcome him in.

Can we humble ourselves enough to seek and accept grace in today's circumstances?

Coming alive

"Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive."
-Howard Thurman

"Calling is where your great passion meets the world's great need."
-Frederick Buechner

I like doing a lot of things. I enjoy theatre and music. I like to read and write. I am generally happy being outdoors. I find new languages entertaining. I am intrigued by the challenge of helping people to understand new concepts. Being around kids makes me smile. But as I've tried my hand at all of these things, I've been frustrated to find that none of them quite fit. I work at them while my mind wonders if there isn't something I would really love to do.

A few weeks ago, during a time of prayer, I felt God telling me, "I am calling you to come alive." This could mean a few things-- to live more fully every day, yes, and to be fully present and alive where I am. But a few days after that, a sermon posed the question, "What is it that God created you-- specifically you-- for? With your unique passions and gifts and understanding and personality, why are you here?" And so I've been pondering this, turning it over, wondering if there is something I could really do for a lifetime without my mind wandering.

Since I was about twelve years old, my "When I grow up..." was this: I am going to help domestic abuse victims. The more complicated version involves a shelter that works in conjunction with a bakery or coffee shop, so the women learn a marketable trade skill and have a purpose for their time while they get on their feet again, and the bakery in turn supports the financial needs of the ministry. (This is still my ultimate dream.)

In weighing the years I've had this dream (over a decade now) against my motivation for letting it go (primarily fear of failure in an arena where the stakes are high), I've decided to start taking the necessary steps. So I'm applying to master's programs in Psychology and Counseling. "When I grow up..." is getting a lot closer-- time to get moving!

Enough

When we are not enough-- for our families, for our friends, for our ministries, for what the day-to-day requires of us-- God is. There's no way to learn it except by coming to the end of yourself, but know that God is there. And, in coming to the end of all your resources, you find the Source of all you've ever needed. He is the fount of the true version of everything you've ever counterfeited with your best efforts at love and grace and strength. He is love. He is grace. He is strength. Why look for it elsewhere? Why settle for the world's version? The end of yourself is the end of the rainbow.

"My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." 2 Corinthians 12:9