Sacred Mundane: The Blog

At about midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them.  Acts 16:25

I mentioned in yesterday’s post that I had the “blahs.”  Well, ok, to crack open the door a little farther into my heart — I was depressed.  Just plain depressed.  Jeff and I were both exhausted, he’d had no sleep, I’d had no sleep since I’ve been up at night with this stubborn cough, and as I got all my things ready to go to class for the day, Dutch was crying because I was leaving and Jeff was trying to console him.  After spilling my tea, misplacing my keys, and fratically realizing I needed to grab some food for my lunch, I finally got in the car and sped down the driveway, only to hit a pothole and jostle my hand, spilling my tea all over myself.  A small thing, really.  Spilled tea.  But at the moment it might as well have been my heart that was jostled just a tiny bit too much, because it spilled.  I pulled over to the side of the road and just started weeping.  Exhausted, weary, confused, tired. Just tired.  Somehow it just felt as if all of this was for nothing.  Why?  Why are we even bothering to “LiveDifferent” –what’s it all for?  Why do I even try to keep my eyes fixed on God. It feels like it’s all for nothing.  So after catching my breath, I simply cried to God, “Please God, just something.  Just something.  Just something.  Just a little something to show me that You’re in all this, that You haven’t forgotten us, that there’s actually a reason why we’re living this crazy life of so-called faith.  Just something, please.”  And with that came a little dose of peace, and I drove off to class. 

So this afternoon, after putting my little wild man down for his nap, I brought my lunch upstairs to find refuge in the silent indulgence of checking my email and reading blogs.  My little “Something” came.  An email from an old high school classmate who I’ve not seen in 10 years, who reads this blog.  Basically, it was my “something” from God and more — a reason to press on. It was the most encouraging letter I’ve ever received.  Hands down.  I wept as I read it, realizing that Acts 16:25 is the reason we press on in hardship, the reason we live this crazy life of so-called faith even when we don’t feel like–because our life always impacts others.  Paul and Silas were in prison (and my life is a Caribbean Cruise compared to theirs!), and while they were praying and singing hymns to God, the the other prisoners were listening.  The world around us is saying, “Inspire us, please!  Inspire us.  Why should we hope in God?”  I know I long for that. Why do I read those spiritual greats–Tozer, Murray, Piper?  Why do I love reading and hearing about the lives of my friends who are walking the life of faith–because it inspires me.  It calls me to hope in God, to lay aside my petty struggles and look to Jesus.  I crave the inspiration of those around me.  So when we give up we don’t just let ourselves down, we let each other down.  Because we’re all connected.  So when Paul and Silas were praising God, they were preaching the greatest sermon of their lives–believe in God.  Believe in God.  Believe in God. 

So my “Something” came as a tender, loving, encouraging reminder that God is at work in Jeff’s and my life.  He does hear, He does answer, and the world is watching to see how we will respond to life.  To the dear sister who wrote to me:  Thank you.  Words can’t express how you encouraged my soul.  I pray that this little blog would be a teeny tiny dose of inspiration, hope, encouragement to any of who also desire to live a life of faith in our gracious God.  And when you’re desperate, ask God. Ask Him for a little “Something” of your  own.  And share your little “Something” with someone else, for the glory of God.

I haven’t written in a few days because I guess I’ve been struck with a case of the blahs.  Just blah.  Tired.  Weary.  Feeling as if the end of the tunnel is finally showing (classes end May 5), and I realize that at the end of the tunnel there is … nothing.  Basically the gist of it is that something I’d kind of been hoping for looks like it’s not really going to be happening, and while we’d been hoping and praying that something would work out so that Jeff could get a job in May when school gets out, our house would sell in McMinnville, and all the pieces would fall into place for us to move out, etc. etc.  I guess without realizing it I once again got my hopes up. 

So this disappointment caught me off guard because I’d really been SO joyful and content and just sensing that God was up to something good (good in my perspective).  So this week it seemed to slap me in the face—this reality that the housing market is an absolute shambles, there are 53 houses just like ours for sale in McMinnville, and the fact of the matter is that May is coming and there’s no job on the horizon. 

So, what do we do with disappointment?  Yesterday I had the honor of playing the djembe at our seminary’s Day of Prayer.  It was SO GOOD to play again! Ahh … it felt like coming home after a long travel abroad.  My hands knew what to do, my spirit was worshipping, I knew I was doing a little bit of what I was created to do.  And after we played, Dr. Blom, who teaches all of the spiritual formation classes, shared a brief message on Vision.  Vision. Hm…  He shared about little “V” vision, symbolized by holding up your first two fingers as if making bunny ears.  Then there is big “V” vision, symbolized by stretching out both arms up as far as possible making a “V” shape out fro your shoulders.  Small V vision are the things like ministry, goals and dreams and hopes for our life.  Our big V vision is the glory and presence of Christ in our lives.  He is our vision.  But we spend too much time totally focused on the little V vision, so much so that we forget all about our big V vision–the glory and presence of Christ.  Our little V vision can be taken from us.  Disappointments, dashed hopes and dreams, failure–all these things can devestate our little V.  But nothing can devestate our big V.  Nothing. 

So after contemplating this, I spent our individual prayer time contemplating some of these things and asking God what it was that was stressing me out about our future.  And He answered:  My attempt to reconcile two opposing drives in my life:  The drive to serve the Lord Christ and the drive for a comfortable life.  These are the two driving forces in my life, and unfortunately they are at odds.  My stress comes from striving to reconcile these two things.  From trying to walk two directions at the same time.  Or, to put it in more biblical terms, from serving two masters.  You cannot serve both God and Mammon.  Seeking to serve God and seeking relative comfort don’t seem like they’re mutually exclusive. I mean, I’m not seeking worldly things, right?  I mean, who doesn’t want a house, enough money to pay their bills, who doesn’t want to NOT live with their parents into their 30’s? 🙂  Who doesn’t want to be financially stable and be able to have good health insurance and who doesn’t want a stable job and who doesn’t want to have a clue about the future?  I can tell you who didn’t … Jesus.  Not serving God and Mammon doesn’t just mean that we forsake attempts to get rich.  It means we decide once and for all who we will serve, and there can only be one choice.  Which drive will it be?  Christ or Comfort?  Which vision will be focus on–the little V or the big V?  What is my vision.  Or rather, Who is my vision?

Be Thou my vision, O Lord of my heart;
Naught be all else to me, save that Thou art.
Thou my best thought, by day or by night,
Waking or sleeping, Thy presence my light.

Be Thou my Wisdom, Thou my true Word;
I ever with Thee, Thou with me, Lord;
Thou my great Father, I thy true son;
Thou in me dwelling, and I with Thee one.

Riches I heed not, nor man’s empty praise,
Thou mine inheritance, now and always:
Thou and Thou only, first in my heart,
High King of heaven, my Treasure Thou art.

High King of heaven, my victory won,
May I reach heaven’s joys, O bright heav’ns Son!
Heart of my own heart, whatever befall,
Still be my vision, O ruler of all. 

There’s a great Chris Tomlin song (what Chris Tomlin song isn’t?) on my mind.  It goes,

You and I were made to worship, you and I are called to love.  You and I are forgiven and free. You and I embrace surrender, you and I choose to believe.  You and I will see, who we were meant to be. 

We were made to worship.  But a sad commentary is that trying to get people “to worship” can be like pulling teeth.  Each week at church I have to admire our worship team, especially during our 8:30am early service.  They give all they’ve got, full of energy and enthusiasm perhaps they don’t always feel, but they’re always there, pumping up the audience and encouraging them to praise God. 

I’m new to the Facebook world.  I like the idea of being able to share photos and catch up with long-lost friends.  I’ve already made several awesome connections with people from years’ past.  But one of the things I don’t like about it is that I feel like I can see into people’s lives a little more than I like.  For example, most will put “Christian” under religious preference, or some will write “Jesus” (like I did) or something of that sort.  But then sometimes, it seems like that’s where Jesus ends.  Everything else about the profile says nothing about being a Jesus-lover.  The reality of the profile is that He is just that — a religious preference.  He’s not praiseworthy, compelling, beautiful, captivating.  He’s not the reason tto live.  And please hear me in this, I’m pointing this finger at myself.  What do I love, adore, and crave?  Jesus?  That’s one thing that I love about my husband.  He truly loves and craves Jesus Christ.  Jesus is beautiful and compelling to him.  I long for a hunger that parallels his.

Now please hear me here, my point is not about facebook profiles.  It certainly doesn’t mean that every book, movie, quote, activity, or interest should be centered on doing Bible studies and singing hymns.  Not at all!!!!  I have seen and worshipped and experienced God listening to James Taylor and watching Sweet Home Alabama.  So really, that’s not what I’m saying.  What I’m saying is, what were we created to do?  Who are we, really?  We were created to worship, and we all do worship, we naturally worship whatever it is that we most love and enjoy.  What do you worship?

This Tuesday I have the awesome privilege of playing the djembe for Multnomah Seminary’s Day of Prayer event.  I’m thrilled to get to play again in corporate worship after almost three years.  BUt the best part is that I have to “practice” the songs … which means more worshipping!  Everlasting God, Step by Step, Agnus Dei … all these awesome worship songs have been blaring through our house as I practice my beats.  And as we’re caught up in how awesome God is, we see that this, this is what we were created to do!  Here is joy and peace.  Here is sweetness and rest.  Here is solitude and surrender.  We were made to worship.  We lose ourselves in His greatness.  Nothing compares to His love.

CS Lewis usually has some pretty cool things to say. 🙂  He usually says it better than me.  This is the essence of what my heart is beating right now:

“The most obvious fact about praise — whether of God or anything — strangely escaped me.  I thought of it in terms of compliment, approval, or the giving of honor.  I had never noticed that all enjoyment spontaneously overflows into praise unless (sometimes even if) shyness or the fear of boring others is deliberatly brought in to check it.  The world rings with praise — lovers praising their mistresses, readers their favorite poet, walkers praising thei countryside, players praising their favorite game — praise of weather, wines, dishes, actors, motors, horses, colleges, countries, historical personages, children, flowers, mountains, rare stamps, rare beetles, even sometimes politicians or scholars.  I had not noticed how the humblest, and at the same time most balances and capacious, minds praise most, while the cranks, misfits, malcontents praised least … Except where intolerably  adverse circumstances interfere praise almost seems to be inner health made audible …I had not noticed either that just as men spontaneously praise whatever they value, so they spontaneously urge us to join them in praising it: “Isn’t she lovely?  Wasn’t it glorious?  Don’t you think that magnificent?”  The Psalmists in telling everyone to praise God are doing what all men do when they speak of what they care about … I think we delight to praise what we enjoy because the praise not merely expresses but completes the enjoyment; it is its appointed consummation.  It is not out of compliment that lovers keep on telling one anther how beautiful they are; the delight is incomplete until it is expressed.  It is frustrating to discover a new author and not to be able to tell anyone how good he is; to come suddenly, at the turn of the road, upon some mountain valley of unexpected grandeur and then to have to keep silent because the people with you care for it no more than for a tin can in the ditch; to hear a good joke and find no one to share it with … This is so even when our expressions are inadequate, as of course they usually are.  But how if one could really and fully praise even such things to perfection–utterly “get out” in poetry or music or paint to upsurge of appreciate which almost bursts you?  Then indeed the object would be fully appreciated and our delight would have attained perfect development.  The worthier the object, the more intense this delight would be.”

You and I were made to worship.  I find it easy to praise Dutch. To praise Chris Tomlin’s worship songs.  To praise Nikki’s sweet mango with sticky rice.  Do I find it easy to praise my Savior?  What do I worship, really?  What do you worship?

Oops–Friday got away from me without doing the LiveDifferent challenge! My clothing fast is 5 days underway now and so far so good. I’m asking God to help me with my New Year’s Resolution to not worry about money. During the past two months it seems that someone has drilled a hole in our savings account and I’m watching it trickle before my very eyes. New brakes for the car, some unexpected medical expenses, car insurance … I feel like it’s draining faster and faster! So, while the world would stress out, I’m asking God to help me LiveDifferent, to give me peace to trust Him, to take extra care to manage what He’s given us.

Speaking of money, and tightness of it, yesterday my parents came home from grocery shopping and my dad made the comment, “I really don’t know how people with low incomes can live.” This surprised me because I think of him as the type of man who would say, “If you manage your money well you can do anything.” But he was being serious as he continued explaining that in their short trip to town they had spent $50 on gas, $70 for food, and $30 for a prescription. That’s $150 and they hardly had anything to show for it! I agreed. It really is getting harder and harder for families making say 25-40K/year or less to live.

So, how can we meet this in our LiveDifferent challenge for this week? Well, for those of you who live in the Portland area, right now at Multnomah Seminary the Women’s Leadership class is doing a Beans ‘n Jeans drive. Any day this week you can drop off gently used jeans or non-perishable food (it doesn’t have to be beans) to the seminary building (right up front on Glisan). But no matter where you live, there are always food banks and places where you can drop off items. The Portland Rescue Mission has a wish list of needed items on their website (click here to see) or just look in a phone book to find a nearby charity.

And I’d challenge you with this–don’t give the nasty canned-whatever that is hiding in the back of your pantry. Find something nutritious. Something tasty. Something that might actually bring delight to whoever gets to eat it. Or, when you do your next grocery trip (for me that’s today), actually pick out some nutritious non-perishable food items and take them this week, or take the charity’s wish list with you to the store and put together a small box of items they need.

Wherever you are, the LiveDifferent challenge this week is just to give gently used clothing and non-perishable nutritious food items to a charity in your area. What you give is up to you, but ask God and let Him speak to you. Use this challenge to draw closer to God, let Him search your heart, ask Him about your attitude toward the poor, ask Him to interrupt your busy schedule to take time for this. And if you’re like me and you’re being tempted to stress about money, ask Him to give you peace, to give you grace to trust Him, to rise above the pull that tempts you to focus on your own needs, and ask God for a vision of those around you in need. LiveDifferent. Thanks for reading.