I feel like I’m finding my voice again. There was a time when I used to write a lot. Not writing that I would talk about to a lot of people, but writing where I would process my feelings, my thoughts, my epiphanies, and my desires. For too long, I haven’t taken time to really think through things and that has led to all sorts of messiness in my mind. I’m writing this from Flagstaff. There is such a peace and a happiness that I associate with this place. Even though it’s only two hours away from my actual home, I feel that this is an escape; a chance for me to really get away and deal with the things that are going on in my heart. As I was coming upstairs to get ready for bed, I saw something that really got my mind going.
I am a person who loves traditions. I love to make traditions and I love to keep them. In our family, there are so many different things that we have to do exactly the same every single year or there is a certain sense of unrest and dissatisfaction at the end product. I think this boils down to something that has been grown in my mind over the years; I don’t like change. For some strange reason, I took off with this tonight. I walked upstairs and I opened a drawer knowing that there was going to be a blue pen in there. I know this because that pen has been there since the first year we came up to Flagstaff (we are now on 4 years). I found a real sense of comfort in the fact that I knew what was about to happen in that moment. I was going to open the drawer and that pen was going to be right where I left it the last time. As this comfort hit me, I was also hit with a sense of dissatisfaction about the way things are in my life.
I don’t like change. This single statement has been a big defining characteristic in the man that I am right now and has really shaped my life in so many ways. I think that growing up, I buried this ideal in my mind and that meant that nothing was going to change this, even if that meant sacrificing healthy life patterns. Recently, I have been finding that as I grow and mature in Christ, there is so much wrong with this mindset. The idea of change is found all over the Christian faith. In fact, this year, I have been hit with the fact that I am not changing enough. My “ideal” life ends with me doing what I want, when I want, and how I want. Tragically, I feel as though I have allowed myself to settle into this mindset. A lot of times, I really don’t feel as though I am a different person than I was a year ago. The split comes as I see that I live in between two different worlds.
In one world, I feel as though I live how I would like to live. This involves me coasting. Life comes and life goes, but I don’t adjust who I am in order to really deal with the obstacles that life is throwing at me. If I am truly honest with myself, I find that I live in this realm more often than not. I’ve been having some really great conversations over the past 2 months that are we really starting to shake me.
In the other world, I feel as though I need to change. There are so many different Biblical bases that suggest this pressure that I feel. I know what the Gospel says. I know that I am saved by grace, through faith, that I might come into right relationship with God. I feel as though I have the answers, but my life is not reflecting that. I guess I’m finding that as I see my brokenness, my response is not supposed to be such that I take it for granted. The Gospel saves me daily from myself. I guess that I find that I fight that too much. I want the good news of the Gospel, but not the response that flows from a transformed heart. God is really starting to impress that thought upon my heart and I’ve been wrestling through this idea a lot for the past 6 months or so. There is a fight in my heart. A split that needs to occur.
Rebuilding
The past few weeks have been really great for me. I feel as though I am coming to a point where I am really just excited to see what God is going to do. There are two things that I know to be true in my life: 1.) I am utterly and completely broken 2.) God is utterly and completely good. I have been really fighting to find my worth and contentment in so many different things over the past year and they have all been failing me miserably. As this has been a season with lots of unexpected surprises and adventures, I have had to look outside myself in order to find hope. I feel that God has really broken me of so much these past two weeks and I have really been able to see and experience his faithfulness on a first-hand basis. Something that I have been praying for and thinking through over this past season of my life is that I would get a grip on exactly how broken I am. It's amazing to me that even though I mess up so many hundreds of times every day that I can still puff myself up to be someone who thinks he has life together. God answered my prayer. There have been so many different instances of hopelessness felt over the past couple of months. There have also been so many different moments of hope. The moments of hopelessness come when I feel like I have lost everything and that my life isn't going anywhere. The moments of hope are moments where I realize that God has plans to prosper me and and plans for good. Now I recognize that this does not mean life is going to be happy all of the time and that I won't have issues. In fact, I know that not to be the case. What I do know, however, is that my hope is found in what Jesus did for me at the cross. Because of the cross, I have hope for a future. I am secure. In the midst of my brokenness, I am being made new. I am being rebuilt.
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Strong
Today has felt like a roller coaster. I'm finding that my mind has a funny way to run around in circles. I feel as though I can be in one state of mind for a second and then a thought or song or phrase will come to my mind that causes me to sink back into a mindset of defeat. I find myself in a constant place of realizing my need to find a sense of satisfaction in something outside of myself. This year has been a year of lots of different emotions and states of mind. The one thing that has remained constant in the midst of my mess is the fact that God is good. I have questioned that on several different accounts throughout the year, but I find myself coming back to the one thing I know to be true: I am worthless outside of the cross. This statement is funny because my life doesn't reflect that truth in my thoughts and actions. So many times I look to different functional saviors and I always find myself coming back to a place of dissatisfaction and loss. As I'm writing this, the Spirit has been impressing this verse on my heart:
"My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness" 2 Corinthians 12:9
I don't have life put together, and I never need to because Christ put it together for me at the cross.
"My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness" 2 Corinthians 12:9
I don't have life put together, and I never need to because Christ put it together for me at the cross.
Learning to Crawl
This week has been tough. I've found myself being really sad about lots of different things that are happening and it's really tough to keep a straight head on. I want to start blogging more regularly again and use this as an outlet to process what I'm going through and how to deal with that. I'm excited to see what God has for me in this net season of life as I learn what it means to be utterly and completely dependent on a God who knows me better than I know myself.
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Tension
It's way too late for me to be up seeing as how I have to be awake at 7:15 tomorrow morning, but I was laying in bed with my mind racing so I figure why not take some time to write and get it out there! Rick Mckinley's This Beautiful Mess has been absolutely what I needed to hear this week. Every where I go , I see tension. Not necessarily tension between people (although that's everywhere too :)), but a tension that's crying to be realized.
The word of the year for college group at RMCC has been inaugurated eschatology. It kind of makes me feel really smart even to repeat and spell it out. Inaugurated Eschatology is the principle that the Kingdom of God is already here, but not yet completely here. I'm finding that this has a way of manifesting itself in so many different ways that we just don't take time to sit and think through. Why is it there's so much brokenness in the world? Why is it that when things don't necessarily work out the way I picture in my life, my world falls apart? Why is it that I find that sin has this uncanny way of creeping up and infecting my life? Why? Tension. Jesus is in the process of ushering in this Kingdom that we can't wrap our minds around, but because of sin we must wait. At the same time though, there's this awesome picture of a people completely broken; waiting for a God who desperately wants to rescue them. So while I wrestle with the thoughts of a fallen world and with the continual reminders of the fallenness in myself, I rest in the fact that Jesus is making all things new.
The word of the year for college group at RMCC has been inaugurated eschatology. It kind of makes me feel really smart even to repeat and spell it out. Inaugurated Eschatology is the principle that the Kingdom of God is already here, but not yet completely here. I'm finding that this has a way of manifesting itself in so many different ways that we just don't take time to sit and think through. Why is it there's so much brokenness in the world? Why is it that when things don't necessarily work out the way I picture in my life, my world falls apart? Why is it that I find that sin has this uncanny way of creeping up and infecting my life? Why? Tension. Jesus is in the process of ushering in this Kingdom that we can't wrap our minds around, but because of sin we must wait. At the same time though, there's this awesome picture of a people completely broken; waiting for a God who desperately wants to rescue them. So while I wrestle with the thoughts of a fallen world and with the continual reminders of the fallenness in myself, I rest in the fact that Jesus is making all things new.
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Community and the Church
In the past weeks, a common theme that God's been placing on my heart and in my path has been this intrinsic need for Christians to be in community with one another. It all started with the college retreat that we went on two weekends ago up at Prescott Pines. The speaker, Andrew Faris, had an awesome foundation at Biola and Talbot from which he was able to speak in the context of our group's temperament. The Book he was referencing and borrowing material from (of course, outside the Bible) was called When the Church was a Family by Joseph Hellerman. Basically, the main message was that you can't grasp the fullness and entirety of that all Christ has given us through Himself outside of the church.
I guess what I've been wrestling through and thinking about with all of this is how much I never saw and thought about in regards to community. Honestly, my thoughts have always been very me-centered. With that train of thought, God has presented so many people and obstacles in my life that have simply been hammering this notion that life is better lived together. The book that I have been reading on my own the past week or so is actually called Life Together, written by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and it's been pretty much a punch in the stomach to several of the things that I thought, keyword thought I had going well. In the 4th chapter, he talks about meekness and he says this, "Only he who lives by the forgiveness of sin in Jesus Christ will rightly think little of himself." My Response: I want to experience life in community and allow those relationships to be shaped by the Gospel.
I guess what I've been wrestling through and thinking about with all of this is how much I never saw and thought about in regards to community. Honestly, my thoughts have always been very me-centered. With that train of thought, God has presented so many people and obstacles in my life that have simply been hammering this notion that life is better lived together. The book that I have been reading on my own the past week or so is actually called Life Together, written by Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and it's been pretty much a punch in the stomach to several of the things that I thought, keyword thought I had going well. In the 4th chapter, he talks about meekness and he says this, "Only he who lives by the forgiveness of sin in Jesus Christ will rightly think little of himself." My Response: I want to experience life in community and allow those relationships to be shaped by the Gospel.
Book List So far for 2010!
2010 Reading List!
1.) Prodigal God- Tim Keller
2.) Counterfeit Gods-Tim Keller
3.) A Thousand Miles in a Million years- Donald Miller
4.) The Pursuit of God-A.W. Tozer
5.) Searching for God knows what- Donald Miller
6.) Forgotten God- Francis Chan
7.) Christless Christianity-Michael Horton
8.) Life Together-Dietrich Bonhoeffer
9.) This Beautiful Mess- Rick McKinley
10.) The Reason for God-Tim Keller
11.) Jesus Wants to Save Christians- Rob Bell
12.) Mere Christianity- C.S. Lewis
13.) Flickering Pixels- Shane Hipps
14.) The Great Omission- Dallas Willard
15.) The Road- Cormac McCarthy
16.) Surprised by Hope-N.T. Wright
17.) The Cost of Discipleship- Dietrich Bonhoeffer
18.) Doctrine-What Christians Should Believe- Mark Driscoll
19.) Scandalous- The Cross and Resurrection of Jesus- D.A. Carson
20.) The Tipping Point- Malcolm Gladwell
21.) Outliars- Malcolm Gladwell
22.) In the Name of Jesus- Henri Nouwen
23.) Jesus of Suburbia- Mike Eerie
1.) Prodigal God- Tim Keller
2.) Counterfeit Gods-Tim Keller
3.) A Thousand Miles in a Million years- Donald Miller
4.) The Pursuit of God-A.W. Tozer
5.) Searching for God knows what- Donald Miller
6.) Forgotten God- Francis Chan
7.) Christless Christianity-Michael Horton
8.) Life Together-Dietrich Bonhoeffer
9.) This Beautiful Mess- Rick McKinley
10.) The Reason for God-Tim Keller
11.) Jesus Wants to Save Christians- Rob Bell
12.) Mere Christianity- C.S. Lewis
13.) Flickering Pixels- Shane Hipps
14.) The Great Omission- Dallas Willard
15.) The Road- Cormac McCarthy
16.) Surprised by Hope-N.T. Wright
17.) The Cost of Discipleship- Dietrich Bonhoeffer
18.) Doctrine-What Christians Should Believe- Mark Driscoll
19.) Scandalous- The Cross and Resurrection of Jesus- D.A. Carson
20.) The Tipping Point- Malcolm Gladwell
21.) Outliars- Malcolm Gladwell
22.) In the Name of Jesus- Henri Nouwen
23.) Jesus of Suburbia- Mike Eerie
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