Eternal Echoes

I spent this past Friday night at a camp way out in the boonies of Waterloo with the Son Life youth group. Except for accidentally staying too late and spending the night on the world's most uncomfortable mattress, it was a great night. 

Aaron gave the message after a fantastic time of worship with one of the Greenville College touring teams. The theme for the weekend was Rise Up, and it had a superhero focus. (Sidenote: I have a messy house, lunch in the oven, a Barbie Fairytopia movie playing, and Jorie jumping around. This could be a VERY random and not well-written blog post ) Anyway, I jotted down a few lines that Aaron said that stuck with me. God was definitely getting my attention through this night. 

The first was when Aaron was talking about Superman and how he couldn't save his parents. Superman "had all the power; he just didn't have the discipline to know what to do with it." Last year, during what I've called the "year of fire," I felt like I (along with several of my discipleship girls) had been given a lot of "power." In other words, the Holy Spirit showed up among us and manifested quite frequently in different scenarios. Unfortunately, we lacked the discipline to always know what to do with it. And now, even though that same Spirit still lives inside us, the power is happening less frequently because of my own lack of personal devotion time with my Jesus. That was a convicting, yet hopeful statement for me to hear. 

To go along with it, Aaron made the statement that "God doesn't allow you to stay content." I'm definitely in a place of contentment right now. When last year's fire dwindled this past summer, it led me into an autumn of personal turmoil. I hit bottom, emotionally and spiritually, several times as God used a friend to help counsel me through some of my past wounds and hurts. It was difficult, it was painful, and I felt like I was drowning through much of it. However, it was also a time of growth and rising from the ashes. Since Christmas, I've felt peace and rest in many of those areas. 

But God doesn't allow us to stay content. 

So now is the season for me to "press in" once again (as much as I hate that phrase, I am starting to understand its meaning, and it's exactly what I should be doing). I want to begin pursuing my relationship with Jesus more than I have before. I want to learn more about His love and begin to love Him more than I have. 

And finally, Aaron talked about how each of us has a calling that God has placed on our lives and on our futures. He used a personal story to explain that sometimes, our calling comes directly from God and doesn't have to be placed on us through a word of prophecy from someone else. And I felt the confirmation, more than I have in years, that my calling right now is to teach and minister at CCA. In August of 2009, when I asked God if I should take the job that I was offered, His response was, "To this you were called." Nothing could have been clearer. And though the last four years haven't been the easiest, each season is shaping me into fulfilling that calling placed on my life. Since that time, I've also been given the word that I have the mantle of revivalist (in fact, I think Aaron spoke that word over me at a CCA chapel). I don't take either of those callings lightly, but I haven't been pursuing them with the passion that I should. 

During the worship time Friday night

After those words of conviction and inspiration, we went back into a time of worship. As we were singing and praising, Deedra offered an altar call for the spirit of the martyr, that the students would be willing to lay down their reputations, relationships, and possibly their lives to pursue His presence and to put more weight on the eternal than on the temporary. Every student knelt at the altar while we prayed over them. As we laid hands on them, Deedra prayed out that their voices would be, in her own words, "eternal echoes that resound in the heavenly places, where we're aware of the cloud of witnesses and the angels that surround His throne." 

As she prayed that, her voice began to literally echo. I don't mean normal microphone reverb; I mean her voice echoed supernaturally, and I "saw" it bounce through halls and cavernous spaces, off of pillars and through great big rooms. When I told her about that, she said that she had heard it too. She later told me that she felt an angelic presence all around as we were worshiping. I believe it. 

More things happened. More than I could write, and my words wouldn't do them justice anyway. 

As an English teacher, I know I need to wrap this in a tidy conclusion, but I don't have a great one. So I'm going to end with this statement: I choose to lay down everything that I hold close to pursue God and the calling that He's placed on my life with a passion I've never felt before. 

You are my cloud of witnesses. 

A Moment of Dawn

Time for another confession. Sometimes, when I'm driving, I take pictures of the sky. 

This morning's sunrise

Forgive me, police officers. But I live in a very shaded town, and the open highway past the first Highland exit is absolutely perfect for sunrise pictures. Plus, with the new iPhone, it only takes one click of a button to take a picture, so it's fairly quick and safe. 

This morning, the sky was beautiful. Dark clouds surrounded the sun, so it looked as if the sun was literally breaking through the horizon. In the past couple months, I've experienced some breathtaking sunrises. That's the one perk of driving to school before most of the world is awake. 

January 24 sunrise

And it made me think.God paints these beautiful skies for everyone to enjoy. Some mornings, I drive to school, worshiping His creativity and faithfulness. But other mornings, the sky is rainy, dreary, gray, and cloudy.

Does God sit back on those mornings, paintbrush in hand, and say, "Oh, shoot. I was going to paint the sunrise, but it's raining. Drats, foiled again!" (Because, apparently, God speaks like the villains in old Scooby Doo episodes.)

February 8 sunrise

No way. God isn't surprised by rain. It doesn't block Him in any way. Just because I can't see the sunrise doesn't mean that it's not there. It is. Somewhere beyond the clouds of my vision, there's a gorgeous sunrise. I just can't see it because of the circumstances standing in my way. 

This is the time for the parallel between the literal rain and sunrises and the metaphorical, but it's almost too obvious for words. So I'll leave you with the chorus of a Brandon Heath song called (quite serendipitously) "Sunrise."

All you need is a sunrise

Just a moment of dawn

If you're lost in the twilight

Close your eyes and move on

When you're tired in the waiting

Even though it's gonna take you

A little more time 

Just a little more time the sun's gonna find you.

Prepare Ye the Way

Total confession moment: I don't read the Bible very regularly.

Pick your jaws back up, smart-alecks. You're not surprised.

I try. I do. I go through seasons where I'm awesome at it. I read every night. God speaks to me. We have conversations. It's lovely.
...and then I don't pick my Bible up for months. I have a lot of excuses and justifications for why not, but none of them really hold up. But I can tell a difference from those seasons when I'm dwelling in the Word and when I'm not. And I like the seasons of devotion much better.

Anyway, all of that is to tell you about what I read last night. I'm in a lazy season, but last night I stared at my nightstand, and I saw the Karen Kingsbury book that I'm in the middle of and my new Bible that I got for my birthday. As much as I wanted to immerse myself back in the lives of Dayne and Katy, I felt that stirring in my soul. You know the one... it's that little voice from God, whispering, "I miss you."

My 2013 birthday Bible

So I picked up my brand-spankin' new, beautiful raspberry-colored, paperback, silver-edged, medium-sized Bible that Kristen gave me for Christmas (it's kind of our "thing." She buys me Bibles; I read them occasionally). And I randomly opened it to... the gospel of John, chapter 1.

Fancy that. The chapter that this entire blog is, literally, "centered" on. ANYWAY... (am I ever going to get to my point?) I started reading from verse 35 to 37, which say, "The next day John (the Baptist) was there again with two of his disciples. When he saw Jesus passing by, he said, 'Look, the Lamb of God!' When the two disciples heard him say this, they followed Jesus."

Whoa. Anyone else catch that? John the Baptist (hereafter referred to as JB, though not to be confused with the amazingly talented young singer with the same initials) had groupies. But then he pointed at Jesus, and his groupies deserted him for Jesus. And JB was okay with that. More than okay. It was his LIFE-LONG GOAL for that to happen.

The entire first chapter of John talks about JB. He was a man completely set apart for God. He's described as one who "came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe" (1:7). And the writer explains in no uncertain terms that JB wasn't the light himself; he was just a witness. When the Levites asked him if he was the Messiah, JB answered, "I am the voice of one calling in the wilderness, 'Make straight the way for the Lord'" (1:23).

JB's entire life had been leading up to the moment when he could point at the Messiah and say, "That's Him!" When he was able to do that, his mission was accomplished. JB's own followers turned and began walking after Jesus, and the story of Jesus's ministry began.

I feel like I would have been a little put-out at the moment. I probably would have said something really dumb, like, "Hey, where are you guys going? Come back! I can keep telling you about Jesus! He's going to do some really cool things. I read about them in Isaiah. Let me tell you about all the prophecies He's going to fulfill."

Obviously, that doesn't even make sense. Why would people want to hear secondhand information when they could follow the real thing? But don't we expect that sometimes? Especially those of us who work in ministry. Are we ever tempted to pat ourselves on the back and think, "Wow, I'm doing a really great job of discipling (or preaching, or praying, or leading, or teaching)," when really it's not about us at all?

What is the goal of my life? Am I pointing people to Jesus?

It's SO not about me. Or you. Not convinced? Go back to the theme verse, John 1:3. It's only, always about Jesus.

Throwback Wednesday: Surrender

A little over five years ago, my pastor at the GFMC preached a sermon series called "Harnessing the Power to Change." This was during a tumultuous time in my spiritual life, and God definitely used these sermons to do a transformative work in my heart. I wanted to share with you something I wrote during that time. These are my thoughts from October of 2008:

All the things in my life have led me to this point. I may not like the person I’ve been in the past, but I’m starting to like the person I’m becoming. God has been so good.

My xanga profile pic from 2008

I’ve had a xanga for well over three years, and I had a livejournal for the two years previous to that. I recently reread most of both. It’s been an incredible thing to see my musings, thoughts, writings, and actions from the past five years. Sometimes I made myself laugh, sometimes I remembered people or situations fondly, but most of the time I disgusted myself. I have been childish, immature, jealous, selfish, and stubborn. I’ve been judgmental, vulgar, angry, cynical and condescending. I’ve been inconsistent, arrogantly feeling tight with God one moment and defying Him the next. I’ve been analytical, unsure, broken, insecure, and faltering. In short, I’ve fallen short.

I’m grateful that I write. I’m grateful that I’ve kept careful record of the person I was. Of the activities in which I’ve participated. of the people with whom I’ve associated. Because knowing who I was will allow me to know who I am and who God wants me to be.

Doug’s sermon series on harnessing the power of change has been what it was meant to be, transforming. Last week's was on the power of cataclysm—what it means to surrender the self. Through the story of Jonah, Doug espoused three lessons that Jonah himself did not necessarily adhere to. Jonah was the ultimate "what-not-to-do" in terms of surrendering.

The first: let a specific desire of yours be overpowered by a specific command of God's.
He gave a few common desires as samples: to be liked, to be loved, to avoid pain, to be right, to acquire, to be noticed, for comfort, for pleasure. When I read my old journal entries, I realize that most of my activities and thoughts have centered on wanting to be loved, wanting to be right, and wanting pleasure. So now, as I receive and understand God's commands, I must be prepared to surrender those domineering desires in my life.

The second lesson: surrender not only to God's specific commands but also to His permitted outcomes.
This one's much tougher. I may be able to say, "Okay, Lord. I surrender my desire to be loved so that I may obey what you've told me." But it will be much tougher to accept that if I obey, I may not be loved by who I want to love me. I must adapt my hopes and expectations.

The third: surrender to God's passion to be gracious to anyone no matter whom, no matter when.
This one seems like it should be the easiest. It only involves loving others and extending the grace of God to others. I’m not so good at that. For someone who only desires to be loved, I certainly have a rough time loving others outside of who I deem "important" to me. But as Doug said, grace received but not expressed becomes grace forfeited.

I’ve been given a formula. I must obey, I must adapt, and I must love. And right now, right here, I choose to surrender. I surrender my desire to be loved, as hard as that is to even type, in order to follow any command God throws at me. I surrender my hopes and expectations for whatever the outcome may be. And I choose to love.

God, do what you will.

10/6/8

Faithfulness

If you're good friends with me, then you know I love my Karen Kingsbury novels. I love them so much, in fact, that I own every one of her Baxter family books (twenty-three in all) and re-read them frequently. Throughout this series, KK (as her true fans call her) sticks with several main themes. One is of redemption, one is of God's plan (as quoted in Jeremiah 29:11), and one is of God's faithfulness (as sung in the famous hymn).

Redemption seems pretty obvious for Christian fiction. The whole purpose of Jesus' death and resurrection was to redeem, yes? And I also am on board with the Jeremiah verse. One of my old youth leaders wrote that out for me years ago; it's a great truth to cling to. However, I never understood what made "Great is Thy Faithfulness" such a mainstay in these books. Of course, God is faithful. But do the characters have to sing it in every bout of sadness? They sing it when their mom dies. Ashley sings it when her newborn child dies.

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 wilt 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!

I mean, at first glance, the words seem like the song to sing from a  happy place. Lord, thank You for being so faithful! Your compassion is amazing! Your mercies are always new! This is a song of rejoicing, correct?

Tonight, my grandpa died. He was my last remaining biological grandparent. He's my daddy's dad, and he's a minister. He loved Jesus, especially in these last few decades. And tonight, as I sat in his house as my step-grandma rubbed his arm for the last time, I could only think, "God is so faithful."

This is a sad occasion. Death always is. Especially when it's yet another death for my step-grandma to endure, since she just lost her only daughter last month. But I'm amazed that this song expresses the sentiment of my heart so purely tonight. 

I've learned over the past thirty years that people fail. There's not one human that I can depend on one hundred percent. My parents aren't perfect. My husband and daughter can't fulfill all my needs. My friends...well, don't even get me started on the lessons I've had to learn the hard way there. But overall, people sin, people leave, people die, people let us down. My grandpa was a man who sinned. I've heard stories about the man he was thirty, forty, fifty years ago, and let's just say that Jesus performed miraculous acts of redemption on his life. God had a plan, and God was faithful through it. 

God doesn't let us down. He can't. It's not in His nature to. He is faithfulness. He is steadfastness. He is constant. He is unchanging. 

That's what I embrace with this hymn. Not the new mercies each morning, which are undeserved blessings, but the fact that God cannot let us down. He is faithful to stay. 

Year of Fire

I didn't know much about the Holy Spirit growing up, other than He was part of the Trinity. He was the Spirit of God, but He wasn't someone I interacted with on a daily basis. I didn't pray to Him, I didn't seek Him. In fact, I'm fairly certain that I thought the proper pronoun for the Holy Spirit was "it," not "Him."

I believed in the miracles of the Bible. I believed that they were literal, not metaphorical. I believed that Jonah was actually swallowed by a fish, and Jesus actually fed 5000 people with five fish, and that Lazarus was raised from the dead. Those happened. Then.

Not today.

I think I believed that miracles could happen, they just didn't. We were too advanced in science and technology to need healing miracles. And we didn't need people walking on water to advance the gospel. I had never heard the term cessationist* before. But I'm positive that that's who I was.

I wasn't always. In fact, I remember a time, vividly, when I was seven years old. I was sitting in the backseat of my parents' car, parked in front of Watson's Drug Store with my dad while my mom was inside. I had just finished reading a Baby-Sitters' Club book, and I needed something new to read. (I'm sure it's hard to believe, but even as a child I couldn't sit for periods of time without a book to read.) I was remembering a BSC book back at home (number 32, if my "steel-trap" memory is intact) that I desperately wanted to read at that moment. And I prayed this prayer: "God, could you please make this book turn into Kristy and the Secret of Susan? I really want to read that. I know you can do it because you turned water into wine. I promise I won't tell anyone about it, even my dad, so that no one else bugs you with these silly requests. Unless you want me to tell people because then they might like you more. Then I'll tell people. But could you please? I'm bored." And I prayed. Hard.

Jessi's Secret Language didn't miraculously become Kristy and the Secret of Susan. I had to wait until we got home that evening to find that book and read about the little autistic piano prodigy (I seriously learned so much from the BSC). I was disappointed. I knew God was capable of this miracle, so I wasn't sure why it didn't happen. I probably thought either one of two things. 1. God didn't perform miracles at all anymore or 2. I didn't merit a miracle because of something wrong with me. Or maybe I believed a mixture of both.

I am no longer a cessationist. I believe that the Lord performs miracles, healing or otherwise, every single day through His own strength and through believers calling on the power of the Holy Spirit.

I can't remember exactly when my beliefs changed. Perhaps it was during a church service in the spring of 2008 when Ivan Filby preached on the power of the Holy Spirit and how he spoke in tongues daily in order to better interact with Him. Or maybe it was in the fall of '09 when I began teaching at CCA and heard someone pray in tongues for the first time...and it wasn't creepy. Maybe it was when I began speaking in tongues myself just a few weeks later. Or maybe it was in July of 2011 when I watched the Son Life youth group worship at the Ramp Church in Alabama, and the service was so on fire with the presence of the Holy Spirit, it felt like I was swimming in it, even through a computer screen. Maybe it was when I heard the stories that erupted from that trip of the kids being slain in the Spirit, receiving emotional healings, being broken from addictions, and seeing angels and demons.

From August 4, 2011 until July 2, 2012, I wrote down every occurrence of miracles that I witnessed in my life and in the lives of those around me, particularly in my discipleship group. In that year, we experienced people receiving the gift of tongues. We received prophetic words and prophesied over others. People received physical healing over swollen knees, bad wrists, headaches, and stomachaches. We witnessed the gospel to random women in Wal-Mart. We were slain in the Holy Spirit and ushered the power of God onto those around us. We had visions and words for others. We were set free from doubts, addictions, and fears.

That was a year of fire. We sought out the Holy Spirit and pursued Him passionately. We dug into Scripture and learned about every miraculous healing and experience. We prayed, both individually and corporately, for more of God. And He was faithful. He didn't heal everyone we laid hands on. He didn't answer every prayer we prayed. But more often than not, He did. And we saw His hand working in every single situation.

Don't fear the unknown. Dig into the Word yourself. If you're a Christian, seek the Lord. He'll be faithful to meet you and answer your questions. Jehovah Rapha, the God who Heals, wants you to ask for healing. His shekhinah glory wants to dwell with you.

The best book I've read on the Holy Spirit is from one of my personal heroes of the faith, Bill Johnson of Bethel Church in Redding, California. It's called When Heaven Invades Earth. Read it, study it, and take it before the Lord. Find out for yourself if the God who parted the Red Sea still wants to send signs and wonders into your life today.

*Cessationism, in Christian theology, is the view that the miraculous gifts of the Spirit, such as healing, tongues, and prophetic revelation, pertained to the apostolic era only, served a purpose that was unique to establishing the early church, and passed away before the canon of Scripture was closed (http://www.theopedia.com/Cessationism).

Savior or Psychopath?

At the request of some students, I am showing the movie The Gospel of John to my Bible class. I've never seen it before, so I was excited to watch it, too. If you haven't heard of it (like I hadn't), it's a depiction of the book of John, spoken verbatim from the Good News Bible.

As I was watching well-known Scripture come to life, something struck me. (Again, it's not a new thought, but watching the action on-screen made this much for real for me.)

If Jesus wasn't who He said He was, then He was the world's creepiest man.

There are plenty of people who have uttered the words, "I don't believe Jesus was really the Son of God, but He was a good man, a good teacher." WRONG. Have you read Scripture? Jesus was either telling the truth, or He was a lying, crazy, let's-all-drink-the-koolaid psychopath.

Actually, He would have been worse than Jim Jones, because Jesus didn't tell people to drink kool aid; He told them to drink his blood. Wait...what?

Yeah. In John 6:53, Jesus says to the Jews, “I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you" (NIV). I gotta say, it's not a huge surprise that the Jews weren't big fans of this guy. That's a pretty intense thing to say.

We have the perspective of knowing the ending before reading the back story. We know Jesus was speaking metaphorically, and we wrap that verse up all neat and tidy by discussing the crucifixion and resurrection and communion and salvation through His blood.

But the disciples and the Jews didn't have that knowledge. For all they knew, He was about to start tearing off his own flesh and passing it out as an hors d'oeuvre. That's weird. That's creepy. I might have left the synagogue and started rumors about Him, too.

And yet, the disciples didn't leave. They stuck around. In fact, just a few short verses later, Jesus asks Peter who Peter thinks Jesus is. His response? "You are the Holy One of God." Wow. Peter chose, despite the doubt and the fear and the "hard teachings," to believe that Jesus spoke the truth about who He was. It was crazy, it was unknown, it was a little dangerous. But he believed.

What do we believe? Is Jesus a crazed liar, or is He the Holy Son of God who deserves all our praise?

There's no in between.