Mel Zimms

For a week I have tried to blog about one of the greatest weekends of my life.  But in the same way that you had to touch the hot stove top even when your mom told you not to, feeling is always better than telling or hearing.  You never want to put words to experiences that are so rich, for fear they won’t do it justice.  But I will try.

Last weekend I drove across the state from Pittsburgh to my hometown of Bucks County for the wedding of one of my lifelong best friends, the friend formerly known as Melissa Walters.  As I raced against the clock on the PA Turnpike traveling straight from work to the rehearsal, I started to cry alone in my car before I even reached the church.  I had “tied up all of the loose ends” at work and listened to a significant amount of rap music on the highway before I let myself really think about where I was headed.  To the church that I grew up in.  To my family.  To the people I grew up with—Melissa, and Katie, and LeighEllen, and Eric Keller.  Tears of incredible joy marked my realization that this is the place and these are the people who taught me to love Jesus.

Sometimes in life you sort of “get” how the Lord is refining you and growing you in a certain season.  In my days of junior high and high school, I always knew that I had something special in my church community.  But it hasn’t been until now—five years removed from the days where we would see each other every week for youth group, small group, Sunday football, and endless games of Dutch Blitz—that I’ve realized how formative those years really were for me.

Memories came flooding back to me as we gathered for a weekend to celebrate “the one we always knew would be first”… 

Kneeling at that alter on Thursday nights after Eric had made us laugh for 30 minutes straight but then for 1 minute spoke to our souls in a way that made them long for eternal things.

Playing music alongside Heather each week and learning to lead people in to the presence of God.  Band practices that ran late so that when the service came we knew the songs well enough that we could really worship, too.  The one night where we couldn't leave the song "All I Need is You", and we sang that for the entire worship set.

Meeting with our small group on Friday nights because Adie assured us that there's no better way a high-schooler could spend their Friday nights than face down on a basement floor worshipping Christ and talking about Him.

Sitting in Dom's every Sunday after church before the back room was open and there were never enough seats.  But it didn't matter because the entire restaurant was filled with people you loved so everyone just sat anywhere you could find a seat.

Spending our Thursday nights during summers home from college together in the Loesser's family room, singing at the top of our lungs and learning from Chris and Christine how to pray for each other.

Many of these things seemed routine at the time, but it is so evident to me now that those were moments where my heart was being chiseled by my Creator.

And so, as the wedding ceremony proceeded, I stood at the exact alter where the Lord first started to take hold of me alongside the girls who had been there, and I wept as we watched Melissa walk steadily down the aisle in white.  Not because this was the end of a chapter, but because we had been together since the beginning.  (And I do mean wept—not the cute wedding tears that form in the corners of your eyes during “Canon in D,” I mean streams of freshly applied mascara.)

We partied the night away behind second-floor windows that overlooked one of the most beautiful views of Bucks County and that poured in sunlight and then moonlight as the evening went on.  We twisted and wobbled with each others’ parents while our youth pastor/wedding officiator cleared the floor to perform “Billy Jean” and our friend Steve dropped the beats.  You don’t realize how full your heart can be until it overflows on weekends like that. 

“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth…And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.  And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.’”

(Revelation 21:1-3)

   

Jesus

How often I neglect Jesus. The man. The tangible evidence that God exists and wants us back forever.

How often I make life about hardship (“In this world you will have trouble”—John 16:33). And spiritual warfare (“For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against…the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms”—Ephesians 6). And what I want (“He will give you the desires of your heart”—Psalm 37:4). And where I'm going (“In his heart a man plans his course, but the Lord directs his steps”—Proverbs 16:9). All of these things are promised. But the promises do not come without Jesus. After all, he is the one who fulfilled them.

No one comes to the Father except through Jesus. No amount of learning or overcoming my struggles or fighting or growing or being made new happens without Jesus. I don’t “get there” without Him—“there” being the Father, not some better version of myself. The purpose of our lives is to get to God, and for that, we need Jesus. He is all that matters. How often I neglect him.

I think our modern culture probably has a lot to do with this. It seems that most everyone, regardless of their faith, is trying to progress. No one would claim they want a static life. And so we all seek to grow and "come in to ourselves" and end better than we began. To "make our mark on the world". Myself included—I seek those things: trying to be better and move forward. But why? And how?

The fundamental difference between those who have the Spirit and the rest of humanity is that there is a person at the center of all of this hope for growth. And it's not me. It is Jesus.

At the end of each day, he is all that matters. My only aim is to get back to God, and Jesus is the only way. He is life.

That's a "rap"!

Well, I’ve come to the last day of my 40-day blogging spree, and after a little vulnerability and some falling-asleep-writing-this-on-my-phone posts, it looks like we made it (to the tune of Shania Twain)!

I think probably my favorite thing I’ve gained from this exercise is the way it has opened my eyes to the spiritual realities I encounter every day.

Francis Schaeffer in his book The God Who Is There says, “The more logical a man who holds a non-Christian position is to his own presuppositions, the further he is from the real world.”  In other words—people who feel they have a clearly defined explanation for why the Gospel and its meaning are not true are out of touch with reality.  Harsh, but true.  When you walk in the Light, you realize why things are how they are, because they’re real.  Every now and then you get this tremendous feeling of knowing that you are living in touch with what the universe was created for! 

Even small, seemingly insignificant things take on meaning.  I’ve had several of these experiences in just the last few days—where I realized why certain things are:

Why I can’t stop listening to rap music:

God’s word tells us that “a cheerful heart is good medicine.”  So true!--Sometimes you just gotta #GO!  I find that often I need to encourage myself and pick myself up, knowing I’ve got the Spirit inside of me.  I need to choose to put on a good attitude and let the prescription WORK!  Sometimes (a lot of times/all the time) I listen to rap music to engage my cheerful heart.  Kan’ is “just tryna change the color on ya moodring”.

Why road rage makes me sad:

I travel to and from work every day in rush hour traffic, and I’m usually driving somewhere in the city almost every night.  Which means that at least once a day someone cuts me off, I forget my blinker, someone doesn’t yield, etc. But instead of getting mad—regardless of whose fault it was—I get sad.  I get a sinking feeling every time I see one of my fellow drivers getting road rage, and I realized that’s because I know “the Father of compassion” (2 Corinthians 1:3).  I wish everyone would just love each other, not in a 70’s-hippie kind of way but in a I’ve-got-the-Spirit-of-Love kind of way.

Why I’m okay with my room being messy:

I’m a Lebo, which means cleanliness and organization are written in my DNA.  And while it’s true that cleaning dishes really is one of my favorite hobbies, my room gets pretty messy, and I don’t really mind.  I sort of consider my messy room evidence of an “abundant life” (John 10:10).  Not to say you have to forego being organized to live abundantly, but for me, in this stage of life, I am compelled to spend my time when I get home from work resting, engaging God’s creation in nature, or spending time with the brothers and sisters who encourage my soul—life to the FULL!

When you walk with Christ and consider Him, you realize that all of life really is about His truth.  I’m thankful that these last 40 days have helped me to stay in touch with that truth.  As for what comes next?  I think I will spend the next 40 days fulfilling my dream of eating fro-yo for every meal—just kidding…that wouldn’t be much of a diversion from the usual.

Fuh real doh, I’m going to keep blogging, just probably not every day.  This verse I posted a few days ago is my guide for the future:

“Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart.” (Psalm 51:6)

I want the Lord’s truth to live inside of me—deep inside of me—to the “secret heart” where even blog posts do not go.

Birthday Blogger

Here's a guest blog post from the birthday girl, Gabby!  Interesting insight in light (literally) of my post yesterday regarding the ways God fulfills each of our inborn needs.  There is such a razor thin line between needing things and people and needing things and people (read that sentence with the same tone as you would the question, "Do you like her, or do you like like her?").  Surely God provides all we need in Him, but there is no question that we are also sustained by things He created.  Some mysteries of God remain unfathomable (Job 11:7).

Anyways, not sure if I'm cheating by using a guest blog post during my 40-day blogging challenge...but go shawty, it's yaa burffday:

Horizontal lines. Direct lines. This is what we are taught, as kids, is best. The fastest way to get from one point to another is a straight line. When you have a problem, go straight to the source. Direct flights are always better than connections. You get the idea. Here's the thing: I think this is where we go terribly wrong in almost every relationship we've ever had. Maybe I'm being dramatic, but it's at least a temptation that I fall into nearly every day.

Let me try to explain what I mean. We have needs, and the Lord has put people in our lives to help us fill them. If we're in full-time ministry, we NEED supporters; when we are hurting and lonely, we NEED friends to comfort us; when we have surgery or other health issues, we NEED someone to take care of us. But too often we look to those people directly, and if they don't come through we feel angry and abandoned.

If we could alter our perspective ever so slightly and make that horizontal line look more like an upside down V a (  /\  so to speak )  we will better understand what God means when He says He gives us the privilege/responsibility to be His hands and feet. We must seek Him, ask Him, expect Him to fulfill those needs. He, in turn, can put it on other peoples’ hearts to serve us in whatever way we are needing, and they can respond by serving the Lord. We are simply the recipients of that obedience.

What We Have

I was encouraged recently to create a list of things we (I) seek in relationships and accompanying scripture that promises we (I) already have all of those things in the Lord.  It’s kind of a cheesy exercise, but it affirms that our desires for relationship are actually innate—they should not make us feel guilty or needy because they were created in us by God.  The promise, however, is that He is also the one who fulfills all of those needs.

Here is a sampling of the list I created (in the context of “the royal we” so that it doesn’t sound as real and personal as it actually is for me :) )

We want to be deeply known by someone who understands us better than anyone else

• “Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered.” (Luke 12:7)
• “O Lord, you have searched me and you know me.  You know when I sit and when I rise.  You perceive my thoughts from afar.  You discern my going out and my lying down.  You are familiar with all my ways.” (Psalm 139:2-3)
• "For you created my inmost being, you knit me together in my mother’s womb.” (Psalm 139:13)
• “I have called you by name, you are mine.” (Isaiah 43:1)

We want closeness

• "The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.” (Psalm 34:18)

We want a helper, someone who will encourage us when we aren’t confident

• “The Lord is with me. He is my helper” (Psalm 118:7)
• “Surely God is my help. The Lord is the one who sustains me.” (Psalm 54:4)

We want to feel loved

• “The LORD your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.” (Zephaniah 3:17)

We want someone to always be there all the time and never leave us alone

• “The Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.” (Deuteronomy 31:6)
• “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you” (Isaiah 43:2)

"For this world in its present form is passing away." (1 Corinthians 7:31)

Remembering what's important today...we are not here for long!

Gavin

"There's nothing like the warmth of the one who has put in the time and you know is gonna be there."