Pickup trucks, thunderstorms, and espresso

 This morning I had a lot on my mind.  Nothing serious or significant—just a lot of to-dos, errands, and some stress swirling around in my already-overwhelmed mind.  I was on my way from one stop to the next when I called my friend, MK, to ask her if she wanted me to pick her up in 10 minutes for the second leg of errands.  After I quickly spit out the request (probably in my matter-of-fact, business-y tone), MK responded in her most-typical jovial fashion—she exclaimed that she would “LOVE!” for me to pick her up so she could take her first ever ride in my new car “and then we go to Starbucks and get Americanos!”

In that very second, something in my spirit shifted.  MK had no idea what was happening, but it was almost as if the Spirit in me was activated by engaging the joy of the Spirit in her.  All of the sudden, everything was put in perspective, and any stress I had disappeared in the light of a close friendship and a soul that is glad.

It’s really true that “a cheerful heart is good medicine.” (Proverbs 17:22)

For the rest of today, I have found myself able to appreciate the small gifts that make life so fun.  Like taking an extra lap around the neighborhood in the back of the pickup truck before MK drove it home.  Or letting all of my senses engage the evening thunderstorm.  Or spending a couple of extra minutes chatting around the dinner table after avocado and tomato turkey burgers.

Sometimes life is just not meant to be taken so seriously.  I’m so thankful for friends like MK whose happy spirit help me gain perspective and for times when the Lord reminds that I like to have fun and be light in the Light.

Love and Wings

This weekend I am home in Philadelphia to be in the wedding of my beautiful friend, Melissa.  Amidst the dinners, dresses, nails, hair, make up, vows, arm locking, toasts, and dances, I’m reminded that these days are really about one thing—love. 

When I think about the significance of love and marriage, what I believe is of most importance is what we do with that deep love, should we find it.  How does it compel us?  To where does it take us?  Deep love, such in marriage, creates a risk in our relationship with God, as Paul warned us, because our “interests are divided” (1 Corinthians 7: 34).  But deep love also gives us great opportunity. 

“Perfect love drives out fear” (1 John 4:18).  Love gives us confidence and courage.  It lets us go to unknown places and take on uncomfortable circumstances because we know, at the end of the day, someone is there for us.  Surely, this Goliath-facing love comes from the Lord—“we love because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19).  In fact, God doesn’t just give us that love, He is that love (1 John 4:16).  But one of the great joys of life is that He has given us, humans, the ability to experience that same love with one another.  “If we love one another, God lives in us and His love his made complete in us” (1 John 4:12).  We get to experience God’s love in each other!  And because this perfect love leaves us without anything to fear, we don’t have to be preoccupied with the other person.  We don’t have to be constantly focused on winning their approval, worrying that we might lose it and be left alone.  Because when the love is real and deep, we don’t have to be scared.  Instead, we are free to take risks, especially ones which will see the gospel of Christ and His kingdom advanced on earth.

And so in love—whether manifested in marriage, soul-connecting friendships, or family bonds—we have two choices: we can let it distract us from our relationship with our Savior, or we can let it give us wings to fly to places we might not have gone.

Who

Remember when you used to come home from school and your mom and dad would ask you how your day was, and you would just say—“Good”?  Regardless of whether you discovered the solution for world peace in social studies class, or got all of your teeth knocked out playing dodgeball in gym class, or were elected class president and were carried through the halls on your classmates’ shoulders, or you got sent to the principal’s office ten times in one day, your day was always just…good.

That’s kind of how I feel right now (although I really did have a good—maybe great—day…I promise).  Sometimes after a really full day, I find myself forgetting who I am; feeling like I’m just good.  I talked to so many people today, thought about so many things, sat in meetings, heard presentations, made presentations, checked my email, made some calls, checked my email again, blasted music, listened, inquired.  I was a coworker, a friend, an employee, a customer, a stranger, a roommate and after all that, I think—“Who am I?...without all of this other stuff.  What did I do today?”  And I can’t come up with a good answer. 

I think those thoughts are lies.

Praise God that each and every day there is an answer to those questions.  How often I take for granted that whether I feel like myself or not (whatever that means), whether I am tired or alert, regardless of what things filled my life that day, I can know that because I “received Him” and “believed in His name” I have the right to be called “God’s [child]” (John 1:12).  My identity is determined and set in blood, and “I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.” (Galatians 2:20).

Here are a few lines from a poem I wrote last summer:

I hope there’s never a me

I want to be only He who was and is

I’ll deny all I find that defines less than a shell of the Divine

Tonight I am thankful that I can fall asleep knowing Who I am and Who I will wake up to be.

Hope and Hard Work

…no, that isn’t the title of Justin Bieber’s new album (that’s Believe and it did drop today—good luck, JB).

A couple of weeks ago my friend said these exact words to me:

“You have to have hope, and you have to work hard”

I wrote them down shortly after that because, in that moment, I felt the profoundness of such a simple statement—even though at the time I’m not sure that I was thinking clearly enough to really let it sink in.

Completely exclusive of this event, I have been stuck in 1 Peter.  I keep reading the entire book over and over again.  As I was reading last night I realized that two of the most prevalent themes in 1 Peter are just that:

Hope and hard work.

“According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.” (1:3)

“Set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.” (1:13)

“…always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you.” (3:15)

And…

“…so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor.” (1:7)

“Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart.” (1:22)

“Abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul.” (2:11)

It’s hard for me to know how much I should surrender control to God and how much I should exercise the free will that He’s given me.  Really, I need both.

Sometimes I need to get on my face when I want to get on the phone.  I need to get in the Word when I want to get in my bed.  I need to stand firm and fight when I want to wallow in weakness.

But none of those things mean anything without a Holy expectation.  Without the knowledge that I am not meant for the brokenness of this world, I am not who I once was, and life will proceed from death.

And sometimes the Lord lets us sweat.  He lets us feel, and see, and taste the salt of our hard work.  Tonight was one of those nights for me.  God lead me in to a place I thought I might never go, and there He showed me the ways that He has matured me and refined me through difficult situations; he wrote redemption in a conversation would have never existed four years ago.

Let hard work be my habit, and Hope be my guide.

Sleeping on the Couch

I have been doing this thing lately where I like to sleep on my couch at night.  At first I thought I was just in need of some new surroundings.  Sleeping on the couch made it easier to wake up to my alarm in the morning.  And the couch wasn’t much different from my twin-sized bed anyways.  I’m not so sure anymore because I’ve gotten in to the habit so much that the “new surroundings” are now comfortably familiar, it’s still painful to wake up in the morning, and I have my queen-sized bed back in my new apartment----open and empty and, yet, it sits cold.

The other day the Lord reminded me about Uriah—the seemingly insignificant character in the story of David and Bathsheba.  You’ve never heard a sermon about God’s grace mixed with the consequences of sin without hearing the story of David and Bathsheba: David is king.  David “lays with” Bathsheba out of wedlock while she is still married.  Bathsheba gets pregnant.  David tries to make it look like it’s Uriah’s (Bathsheba’s husband) baby.  That doesn’t work.  David has Uriah killed.  The son dies.  Later David and Bathsheba have another son and the Lord loves him.  It’s your classic Old Testament episode of Maury.

The character no one talks about is Uriah.  But in my phase of couch-sleeping, the Lord reminded me about Uriah who also refused to sleep in his proper place at home.  The details of the story are that Uriah was away at war when David conceived a son with Bathsheba.  To try and cover it up, King David had Uriah brought home from war for a time in hopes that Uriah would sleep with his wife and no one would think twice about where the baby came from.

“But Uriah slept at the door of the king's house with all the servants of his lord, and did not go down to his house.” (2 Samuel 11:9)

When David asked Uriah why he didn’t sleep at home, Uriah replied:

“The ark and Israel and Judah dwell in booths, and my lord Joab and the servants of my lord are camping in the open field. Shall I then go to my house, to eat and to drink and to lie with my wife? As you live, and as your soul lives, I will not do this thing.” (2 Samuel 11:11)

In a last ditch effort to cover up his sin, David gets Uriah drunk the next night—still hoping he will go home to Bathsheba—but “in the evening [Uriah] went out to lie on his couch with the servants of his lord, but he did not go down to his house.” (2 Samuel 11:13).

Humility.  Dedication.  Loyalty.  Uriah is so committed to his mission in battle and to the people he is fighting with that he evades even the most innocent opportunity for personal comfort.  He would rather sleep on the floor outside the king’s house or on his couch with servants than enjoy life’s pleasures while his friends are at war.  His dedication is such that even when his mind is sabotaged and David makes him drunk, Uriah still sticks to his conviction.

I get so excited when God speaks to me through the details in His Living Word—I can be thinking about sleeping on my couch and God has already written Scripture about that!

I want the heart and mind of Uriah—a heart so sure of its mission that it will endure sacrifice; so pure that it will not be swayed.  I want to sleep on the couch of humility forever.

40

I am a to-do list girl (not hard to imagine if you know me or have read my blog). I have actually been known to plan to plan for things (e.g. “Let’s plan to sit down this Saturday and plan our trip to Philadelphia”).  I like to think of things that need to get done, and I’m really good at thinking of things I want to do.  Unfortunately, I’m also really good at not always doing them.  You could assume I’m more of a “strategist” and less of an “executor,” but I don’t actually think that’s true.  Praise God that we don’t (always) have to live in labels.  Sometimes I am really good at being the one who gets things done, and other times I am the planner.

When it comes to changes I want to make in my life or things I want to pursue, though, I am more of a thinker and less of a do-er.  I want to get better at that. 

In one of our classes in The Fellows Program we were challenged to determine the eight most important areas of our life, evaluate our current status in each of those areas, and then make an action plan for how we are going to get from where we are to where we want to be in each of those areas.  At first, the thought of planning out every area of my life seemed daunting and almost anti-faithful.  Shouldn’t I be trusting God to make changes in my life through the power of His Holy Spirit rather than planning them myself?  But as I went through the process, I realized how important it is to make sure I am doing all that I can to be a good steward of everything I have in each arena of my life.  We must be “alert and sober-minded” (1 Peter 5:8), and to do so I need to think critically about the different areas of my life.

Anyways, I was running through the city the other night (something I love to do), and I decided I need to write more.  And I don’t want to just talk about needing to write more, I want to do it.

So I decided I’m going to write in my blog for 40 days straight.  Perhaps my posts will not be eloquent or verbose, but I will write each day.

There are a few reasons why I’m doing this:

One is because I like to write—I think.  And I think a lot of times the Holy Spirit can bear fruit from the things we really like to do, because there is passion involved and passion gets things done.

The most important reason I’m writing is because when I write, I have new eyes.  I’m a little ashamed to admit this, but when I know I’m going to/when I want to write in my blog I look at things differently.  I notice the significance of things more.  But I don’t doubt that God can use something like a blog for that very purpose.  There is so much glory and truth in everyday life, and it’s easy to miss it if I’m not looking for it.  All of creation groans (Romans 8:22), but I can walk through creation any given day and not hear a thing.  I’m hoping that writing will help me to see a little bit more.

Lastly, I’m going to write for 40 days because really important things in the Bible happened in 40 days (see Noah surviving the flood after it rained for 40 days and 40 nights and Jesus fasting in the desert for 40 days)…so I’m hoping to get on that train.  All aboard!