Falling Off the Wagon

Falling off the wagon of good intentions is a gradual event for me. It’s one tiny precedent setting justification after another that culminates in a long slide down until you don’t even realize you’re on the side of the road with no wagon in sight. Maybe that’s what people mean by the slippery slope. I suppose technically I didn’t completely fall off the wagon this time around. I still had my good intentions, and if I was to be graded on each goal I was probably somewhere between 50% and 80%. But I could feel myself sliding faster and faster. I was on the wagon about as much as a water skier is on the boat. Or like that girl in the old western movies who falls off her horse but her foot is still in the stirrup and the horse gets spooked and she gets dragged and bumped along in a cloud of dust. That was me. Still going along with the program, but not really.



I remember writing one time that I could understand why the Pharisees were sooo uptight and rigid about following everything to the letter of the Law. The Israelites had messed up so many times and been exiled and redeemed and reminded of God’s faithfulness only to go back to their idolatrous ways. It’s easy for me to imagine the frustration of looking at a cycle that you cannot shake, regardless of your good intentions, regardless of how desperately you want to be done with it, regardless of how you long to BE. BETTER. I can see how the tendency of the leadership, in their desire to do right and never go back, would be to overcompensate and try to stop the cycle by trying to control the situation with strict rules and regulations. Rules are easy. They make things black and white and universal. And they make you safe. Safe from yourself and safe from the influence of others. Better safe than sorry right?



But rules are not the answer. They weren’t the answer for the Pharisees and they aren’t the answer for me. So I found myself in a frustrating place. I knew I was being disobedient and defiant (yet again!). And I when I wasn’t being those things I was resigned and grumbling and immature. In the middle of this, I discovered some old journals where I was talking about the same issues. I was talking about how I longed for self control/self discipline and yet I managed to justify myself out of my own desires. Over and over in my journals I found the same themes. (Probably because the only times I actually journal are when I’m in the upswing of good intentions, but that’s beside the point). But there it was, on paper, in my handwriting (which, by the way, has had its own evolution…) and I was heartbroken by my own continued sin. But that emotion passed. And I still didn’t know what to do. I kept grumbling and doing the bare minimum I figured I could get away with and I felt very little response from God of how to FIX this. Or at least know what my part was. Finally, I heard a response. When I asked, what do I DO? He immediately said, “Go and sin no more.” I stewed on this. I’m still stewing on it. I wonder what it was like for Mary when he told her the same thing. Was it really that easy? Or was she more like Hosea’s Gomer who returned again and again to her old prostituting ways? How does one simply stop sinning?



A week or two later, I’m getting my butt kicked on this one pwog (my new word for powerwalking and jogging) and I feel Jesus pwogging beside me. He’s telling me he’s proud of me, run as far as that light pole, etc...really encouraging stuff.  Then he said, “See, I’m doing a new thing.” I finished my pwog and went to look that up, because I knew I had heard it before. It comes from Isaiah 43. God is talking about rescuing his people. He reminds them of what he’s done in the past and how he will provide in the future. He says, “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.” As I continued to read into the next chapter he talks about He has had a long history of provision and faithfulness and Israel has had a long history of idolatry and unfaithfulness. Then he talks about the guy who makes the idols. He talks about how he goes out and cuts a tree – a tree he didn’t water or provide the energy for its growth. Then he uses half of it to cook his dinner and to keep him warm and the other half he uses to make an idol and then bows down to it and hopes it’ll save him...this thing he’s made and manipulated for his own use. Then he says, “Such a person feeds on ashes; a deluded heart misleads him; he cannot save himself, or say, “Is not this thing in my right hand a lie?” At this point I’m in tears because I feel like I can identify with this man so much.  But then I continue reading and it says, “Remember these things, Jacob, for you, Israel, are my servant. I have made you, you are my servant; Israel, I will not forget you. I have swept away your offenses like a cloud, your sins like the morning mist. Return to me, for I have redeemed you.”



It’s his kindness that brings me to repentance.



The next time I’m out pwogging, in the very same spot a song comes on my Pandora and it’s one I’ve heard before, but don’t recognize it right away. It was Never Once by Matt Redmon. The lyrics are below, but I felt like the Holy Spirit was telling me, figuratively and literally, that I have never walked (or pwogged) alone and that someday there will be another side to this. Someday, there will be victory, yes, but also growth and depth and looking back to see how far he’s brought me. Most of all, yet again, after years of reminders, he continues to tell me of his faithfulness.



I wrote this because I’m still in the middle and I will need to read this. Also, because I want/need to continue to be held accountable. The Color Run is only 31 days away! I can’t believe it!


Never Once (click here to see the video)

"Standing on this mountaintop
Looking just how far we’ve come
Knowing that for every step
You were with us

Kneeling on this battle ground
Seeing just how much You’ve done
Knowing every victory
Was Your power in us

Scars and struggles on the way
But with joy our hearts can say
Yes, our hearts can say

Never once did we ever walk alone
Never once did You leave us on our own
You are faithful, God, You are faithful

Kneeling on this battle ground
Seeing just how much You’ve done
Knowing every victory
Was Your power in us

Scars and struggles on the way
But with joy our hearts can say
Yes, our hearts can say

Never once did we ever walk alone
Never once did You leave us on our own
You are faithful, God, You are faithful
You are faithful, God, You are faithful

Scars and struggles on the way
But with joy our hearts can say
Never once did we ever walk alone
Carried by Your constant grace
Held within Your perfect peace
Never once, no, we never walk alone

Every step we are breathing in Your grace
Evermore we’ll be breathing out Your praise
You are faithful, God, You are faithful
You are faithful, God, You are faithful

You are faithful, God, You are faithful
You are faithful, God, You are faithful

When God Speaks

There have only been three times in my life that I've felt like I've heard an audible voice of God. Over the years that I've been walking this journey of faith I've definitely known that God was speaking to me, either through his Spirit (something I don't always fully understand) through the Bible, even at times through other people. However, as far as an audible (and perhaps borderline schizophrenic) voice goes, it's only happened a few times. I don't know how God works in other peoples' lives, I don't know if these experiences are unique to me, or if they're even all that theologically deep. But I do know that it's MY experience. MY relationship. The first time I heard God's voice, He sounded like Forest Gump. The 2nd time, it sounded like a stage direction on a movie set. The 3rd time...well, I'll get to that. Even though these experiences might not mean much to anyone else, or seem very profound, I can't help but think of these times as both significant and precious.

The first time I heard God speak, I was 16. It was a Christ in Youth conference over Christmas Break in Denver, Colorado. One night during worship there was some song (or maybe several songs) about God's love for us. I can't remember what the song was, but during this worship service I became overwhelmed with my inadequacies and imperfection and High School level of insecurities. So in the middle of this Jesus-Loves-You-Fest I remember sitting down and crying out to God over and over again, "WHY do you love me?" And He answered. In Forest Gump there's a scene when Jenny asks Forest the same question. "Why do you love me Forest?" and he says simply, as if it's the most obvious thing in the world, "Because you're my girl." This was what I heard my Father say to me that night. "Because you're my girl."

I have thought about that moment many times since then and I have concluded that if I didn't hear anything else from God for the rest of my life, that this would be enough. In this I have found my identity. Who am I? I am a child of God Almighty, loved and cherished not because of anything I've done, but simply because I'm his girl. And there's nothing that I can do to mess it up. This is a truth that I've clung to when I've started to feel insecure or insignificant, when the devil tries to tell me lies about who I am and what I'm worth. It's a truth that I've come to know and embrace bone deep, something God wanted me to understand so intimately that he SPOKE.

The second time that I heard the voice of God I was 21. It was my Senior year in college and I was driving home. I don't remember the details of the day, I don't even remember if it had been a good day or a trying one. But on my way home, I suddenly realized that I was in the middle of a perfect moment. There was a song on my radio that was meaningful, I had the windows down and the weather was just right, the sun was setting, and even though I was in the middle of the city, the road cut through the middle of a hay field through which the wind was gently blowing. Suddenly a small flock of geese came out from their hiding place and flew low and magestically over the road a few yards in front of my car. And I heard a non Forrest Gump sounding voice say as if speaking into a megaphone from a director's chair, "Cue the Geese."

A friend of mine would say that it was Jesus romancin' me. I don't know if that's the message here, but I know that it made me smile. And it reminded me that God provides good gifts for his children. He also seeks to share intimate moments with me that maybe no one else understands because it was never intended for anyone else BUT me. Looking back I think this may have been the beginning of my true understanding of what it means to have a PERSONAL relationship with Christ. Since then, I've had several "Cue the geese" moments where in my busy-ness it hits me that I've just stumbled into something special God has prepared just for me to experience and I remember to be still. and KNOW that He's God.

The 3rd time I heard God's voice was two weeks ago. Before I can tell this story, I have to tell another story first. For the past few months God has been teaching me about his amazing ability to provide. He's been showing me how to trust in his provision instead of assuming that I can take care of everything on my own. The way he's been showing me this is (I think) the most painful way of all - through money. For quite awhile I hadn't been very obedient in tithing. However, a few months ago, I came to a point where I couldn't be unfaithful any more. So, I trusted and I've been less than joyfully writing the checks. And it's been hard. Yet, so far, I've been able to make it every month. Though, the month before last was REALLY tight. In fact, I was a week away from payday and I was out of money. But it was going to be OK...I had food in my kitchen and gas in my car, so I was going to make it. That is, until I started my "special time." And I realized I was going to run out of supplies before the end of the week. I began to worry about what I would do, until the day before I was scheduled to run out, I received tampons in the mail! Who ever in their LIFE has heard of tampons coming in the mail?!?!? But there they were: packaged and beautiful in my mailbox. I couldn't believe it. It wasn't mountais moving before my very eyes, but God had met my very physical need in a very concrete way that I never would have imagined much less asked for. Because he's good like that. Because He's a Father who is faithful and provides and takes care of His children.

So fast forward to 2 weeks ago. I was at church and apparently it was the day to have one of those weird, because you're a girl, emotional breakdown moments. In part, it was due to the exhaustion that comes at the end of an extended time of having a jam packed schedule and you can finally catch your breath. However, it was also due to reaching a point of choosing surrender, realizing that surrender sometimes means a sadness if God rightfully says no to something you want, but also experiencing the peace that comes in knowing that God is worthy of trust and that He's faithful. So I sat feeling overwhelmed, at peace, loved, at rest, surrendered, taken care of and balling my eyes out because I was just overflowing. In that moment, I felt Jesus sitting beside me, just chillin'. Not worried at all about my girl craziness. Just listening to the music. Being near. Then there was some line in the song about how holy He is, or how He is worthy or whatever, and I heard Him ponder, "I wonder why they don't write songs about my tampon delivery service?" I died laughing. It was one of those crying, laughing moments that cannot be flattering to watch, but I loved him so much for it. I loved that he wasn't worried about me, because he understood exactly where I was, and that this crying business would pass. I loved that He reminded me of his ability to provide and the love that causes him to do so. I loved that he made me laugh and that this joke was between me and him and it's us. Most of all, it made it finally click (in my heart, not my head) that if it's just me and Him and no husband, no family, no whatever else we'll be just fine.

What about when God doesn't make sense?

For the last several nights I've been going back and reading some oldie but goodie Bible stories. A theme has started to emerge that I've never noticed before. It has to do with how people respond to God when He doesn't seem to be making sense. So far, what I'm getting is that you have two options: have a little faith and go with it, or decide you know better and make up your own way. My churchified friends would probably call this "leaning on your own understanding." So far here's how the scoreboard fills out for the Old Testament people.

• Abraham (T*)- goes to Egypt, gets paranoid that Pharoh will like his wife Sarah, so he tells her to lie and say they're brother and sister. He does this again to Abimilech, another king. Then his son Issac does it too! To the same king no less!
  
• Sampson (L) - stops being true to who God called him to be, decides to befriend the wrong people and loses track of who he is.


• Ruth (W) - Becomes a widow, leaves her country to stay with her mother-in-law, works hard, proposes marriage to her boss because her mother-in-law tells her to


• Isrealites (L) - Samuel's sons turn out to be duds when they take over for him, so the Isrealites tell Samuel that they want a king just like everybody else. Samuel gets mad because God is supposed to be their king.
  
• David (W) - Is told he'll be the next king which upsets Saul, the current king, so much that he starts a manhunt and tries to kill him. David refuses to kill Saul in his sleep when given the opportunity, saying that it isn't his place to kill God's annointed.
  

*a tie?

Abraham's story is a mystery to me because it doesn't say if he was right or wrong to lie about being married to Sarah. I've always assumed that it was a cowardly act that was due to a lack of trust that God would take care of him. Which is especially heinous because this comes RIGHT AFTER God promised to make his lineage into a great nation. On the other hand, since God doesn't condemn his actions outside of punishing Pharoh (who could almost be seen as a victim here) it kinda seems like He's OK with it. Perhaps it's a cultural issue that I can't understand when I'm looking at through the my 21st century lens; maybe that WAS God's way or preserving Abraham and it doesn't have to make sense to me.

Sampson's story is hard for me to swallow because it's just SO violent and uncivilized. Yet he was filled with the Spirit of the Lord. Meanwhile, it blows my mind that someone who was so devoted and Spirit filled could be led astray so easily. I also feel for Sampson. Sure he was strong, and sure God was with him; but he seemed to have a really big target on his back. Not to mention that he was betrayed by people he loved multiple times. In the story, it's pretty clear that he gave up his secret because he was being nagged to death by a woman he loved but didn't love him back. And I understand that God's spirit leaving him when he got his head shaved probably had more to do with his choices and priorities than his haircut. But it's such a rock bottom moment for Sampson that I can't help but feel sorry for him. The woman he loved has just betrayed him for money, his strength is gone which means he's powerless against an entire nation that hates him, and, to top it off, God is no where in sight. It's difficult to imagine something worse. I'd like to think that God uses the time he's in prison to do a work in his heart and rebuild what had been broken; that the growth of his hair mirrored the growth of his relationship with the Father.

I think I identify with the Isrealites the most though. They were faced with a problem and instead of trusting God to provide an unknown solution, they had their own solution - something that made sense to them. But God wanted more for them than they wanted for themselves. Unfortunately, they thought they knew better. I think one of the hardest things to trust God with is the unknown. I don't know how many times I've prayed, "God, I know you CAN take care of this, but HOW?" Because we don't know the HOW, we feel insecure. The thing is though, that if God did tell us the HOW, the first thing we would do would be to analyze it and decide for ourselves if it's a good idea. What an arrogant response, yet so much in character.

I beginning to think that the key to trusting God's plan, even if it doesn't make any sense or even when he hasn't let us in on it yet, to is remember his faithfulness. He is faithful to his own nature - to be good, loving, in control, strong. But also that his faithfulness in the past is an indication of his faithfulness for the future. Remembering that the God who was faithful to Abraham, Ruth, Sampson, David, and all the rest, is the same God I serve and he will be faithful again.

Great is Thy faithfulness, O God my Father;

There is no shadow of turning with Thee;

Thou changest not, Thy compassions, they fail not;

As Thou hast been, Thou forever will be.

Great is Thy faithfulness!Great is Thy faithfulness!

Morning by morning new mercies I see.

All I have needed Thy hand hath provided;

Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me!

Fruitful

I heard this song last week and felt like it summarized so well where I was a year ago. And now, somehow through the grace and mercy of the Father, I've learned to trust Him.

From This One Place by Sara Groves

I was about to give up and that's no lie
cardinal landed outside my window
threw his head back and sang a song
so beautiful it made me cry

took me back to a childhood tree
full of birds and dreams

from this one place I can't see very far
in this one moment I'm square in the dark
these are the things I will trust in my heart
you can see something else
something else

I don't know what's making me so afraid
tiny cloud over my head
heavy and grey with a hint of dread
I don't like to feel this way

take me back to a window seat
with clouds beneath my feet

from this one place I can't see very far
in this one moment I'm square in the dark
these are the things I will trust in my heart
you can see something else
something else

VBS

Last week I went back home to help out at Vacation Bible School. I've always loved VBS and this year was no different. I love seeing a church care more about kiddos loving Jesus than their building. As I left on the last day I saw a roundish pink spot on a wall about three and a half feet up. It made me smile to realize that it was probably from the back of a kid's pink-hairsprayed head on crazy hair day. In my mind I could see him lined up next to the wall, waiting to go into Missions, completely unaware that the paint didn't have a chance against his fuchsia hair do. I love seeing a group of adults and young people sacrificing their time to have fun with kids because they want them to get to know Jesus. I love spending a week/getting to know/having a blast with kids I may or may not know. But I think what I love the most about VBS is that it's a week of hearing and remembering the most basic and profound truths of my faith.

The theme this year was about Creation. And I think the main message there is that you are special because God made you in his own image and He loves you SO much that He died for you. I've become used to that message because I've been hearing all my life, but it is so powerful. I don't know if I can ever truly grasp the big-ness of that truth or if it will ever really permeate all the way through. It's funny how something so foundational and so much a part of me can still be new and breathtaking.

As is not-so-unusual I was also taken by a song this week. My mom spent her week with Kindergardeners and she came home singing this song. Again, it's something so simple yet so...true.

My God is so big, so strong, and so mighty
There's nothing my God cannot do
My God is so big, so strong, and so mighty
There's nothing my God cannot do

The oceans are his
The mountains are his
The stars are His handiwork too

My God is so big, so strong, and so mighty
There's nothing my God cannot do

Remembering Faithfulness

On my way out the door the other day, leash in hand, I had one of those moments when a thought floats into your mind completely out of the blue and leaves you befuddled. I could almost feel it fluttering around my head a few seconds before it came to rest in my mind. The thought was this, "Sometimes God reveals His faithfulness and sometimes He asks us to remember it." So I've been chewing on it ever since. I have to say that I usually prefer God to do the first. I mean, wouldn't you? But I don't know how much growth actually occurs when nothing is asked of us. Ultimately, I think it has a lot to do with what we NEED (not always what we want). No doubt, God has chosen to demonstrate His faithfulness to me and I think it's usually when I don't have the strength, energy, or sometimes faith to remember on my own. In those moments I think that God, the Father, either out of pity or loving kindness recognizes my needs and reminds me of His goodness and faithfulness. Call it a time of refreshing, the Holy Spirit speaking, some kind of spiritual battery pack boost, whatever. But I don't think it's growth. It seems to me that growth occurs when God doesn't run to us when we fall off the bike and skin our knee and instantly kisses it away. I think that sometimes God holds back to see what we'll do...will we pitch a huge fit about how he didn't catch us when the bike started wobbling, or will we go to our mental bank account and withdraw on the memory of His previously deposited faithfulness?

One of my all time favorite CS Lewis quotes talks about something very similar. It comes from "The Screwtape Letters" which is a satirical collection of letters from a senior demon to his novice nephew demon. Enjoy! :)

"Merely to over-ride a human will (as His felt presence in any but the faintest and most mitigated degree would certainly do) would be for Him useless. He cannot ravish. He can only woo. For His ignoble idea is to eat the cake and have it; the creatures are to be one with Him, but yet themselves; merely to cancel them, or assimilate them, will not serve. He is prepared to do a little overriding at the beginning. He will set them off with communications of His presence which, though faint, seem great to them, with emotional sweetness, and easy conquest over temptation. But He never allows this state of affairs to last long. Sooner or later He withdraws, if not in fact, at least from their conscious experience, all those supports and incentives. He leaves the creature to stand up on its own legs—to carry out from the will alone duties which have lost all relish. It is during such trough periods, much more than during the peak periods, that it is growing into the sort of creature He wants it to be. Hence the prayers offered in the state of dryness are those which please Him best. We can drag our patients along by continual tempting, because we design them only for the table, and the more their will is interfered with the better. He cannot "tempt" to virtue as we do to vice. He wants them to learn to walk and must therefore take away His hand; and if only the will to walk is really there He is pleased even with their stumbles. Do not be deceived, Wormwood. Our cause is never more in danger, than when a human, no longer desiring, but intending, to do our Enemy's will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys."

For me, I think the obedience I'm often called to is remembering God's faithfulness, goodness, and control over every situation. And then once I remember I'm to trust, to stop the sin of worrying, the idolotry of valuing my fretting more than God's perfect providence, and simply rest in Him.

In Every Change He Faithful Will Remain

There's something about old hymns that really inspire me. I think it's because they speak of the faith of earlier generations. I hear hymns and I can hear my grandparents singing. Quiet country spiritual giants who, because of their faith and obedience, made a legacy for me. Hymns remind me of God's goodness and unchangable and timeless nature. My mom told me once that when she sings hymns that her great grandmother sang, that since God is unable to be bound by time, He hears them together as if they were standing side by side. What an amazingly mindblowing thing to be able to worship a timeless God with people I've never met but have played a huge role in my life. And I don't have to wait til Heaven to do it!

So, here's one that means a lot to me right now.

Be Still My Soul - Written in 1752
Be still my soul, the Lord is on thy side
Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain
Leave to thy God to order and provide
In every change He faithful will remain

Be still my soul, thy best, thy Heavenly Friend
Through thorny ways leads to a joyful end

Be still my soul, thy God doth undertake
To guide the future as He has the past
Thy hope, thy confidence, let nothing shake
All now mysterious will be bright at last