The Pursuit of God

Or really I should call it God’s pursuit of man.

For as Tozer tells us plainly, “We pursue God because, and only because, He has first put an urge within us that spurs us to the pursuit…”

“Hymnody is sweet with the longing after God, the God whom, while the singer seeks, he knows he has already found.”

- from The Pursuit of God, A.W. Tozer

His pursuit is amazing. it is relentless. it is life-giving. it is freeing. it is nourishing. it is exciting. it is indescribable. I wish I had words but am at a loss.

It is only by His grace we pursue Him.

I’m finding that our deepest need is an experience with God.
Daily.

It seems so simple, too simple almost but it really all comes down to this. A God we find not in the noise or the busyness of our lives, but in the silence. Solitude changes us in a ways only God knows. It is there we come to know ourselves and come to know the God who knows and love us more than we can comprehend.

Father in heaven, may we have the grace to seek You today and worship you as you are in yourself, not the God we’ve created. Lord, may your name be glorified. May your wonders never cease.

let her suppose all creatures too rude to inform her…

I’m finding these words below to be true, as I am being pursued and wooed in ways indescribable, as Brennan Manning says,“Every authentic spiritual experience is an experience of unrestricted, unconditional being in love.”A beckoning forth from my Love, One more incredible than ever imagined, one I thought I knew, but whose goodness and beauty none can inform me but are known in the depths within in ways that betray reason, words can’t even do it justice…

"Speaking of the Christian soul he says:

‘Let her suppose that all the world and the most refined conceptions of the wisest intellects can tell her nothing, and that the goodness and beauty of her Beloved infinitely surpass all their knowledge, being persuaded that all creatures are too rude to inform her and to conduct her to the true knowledge of God. . . . She ought then to go forward with her love, leaving all her understanding behind. Let her love God as He is in Himself, and not as her imagination says He is, and pictures him.”

- knowledge of the holy, tozer

tozer was an incredible man who knew the lord.
Jesus is amazing.

ruthless trust

“Every authentic spiritual experience is an experience of unrestricted, unconditional being in love.”

Each new faith journey is borne out of the victory of the last. This time it’s different. An overwhelming sense of being in love and feeling delighted in from the One who created me is everything I need to move forward.

There are few words that have stuck with me more than these from a book I read about Mother Teresa’s life, this time last year…

The more I’ve been studying the life of Mother Teresa, as I just finished her book, No Greater Love, the more I begin to understand her secret.

There may have been a lot of things Mother Teresa didn’t know. Like myself. There may have been a lot of things Mother Teresa didn’t understand. Like myself. But Mother Teresa KNEW God’s love for her. Not Mother Teresa knew God’s love, as God loves the whole world, no, it was intensely personal, intensely real to her. She knew God loved her. Period. And from this place came her strength, came the grace to trust Him no matter what…

For whatever reason, these words always enter my mind as if I’m reading them for the first time, they struck me then and have come to me in the midst of many times I’m tempted to believe what my circumstances are screaming for me to believe OVER what I know to be true. What I know of God’s character, what I know of God’s promises to me in His word, what I know to be true of His love for me… Yet our circumstances will always fight for our heart’s attention… I find this secret profound yet again and this always stops me dead in my tracks…

“Mother Teresa was not afraid to make such a serious commitment, though this implied renouncing her own will at each moment. She knew that God loved her and she trusted that His will for her would always be an expression of that unfailing love, however difficult or even impossible it might be at times to fathom His designs.” - Come Be My Light

This kills me every time. For whatever reason this quote always pops in my head at the most critical times…

In every situation, in every circumstance, she could rest… Why? Because no matter what was going on, she knew that His will for her in ANY given situation was always an expression of His unfailing love for her.

Wow.

I prayed last year that I would know the reality of her words, and each time this quote enters my mind in a situation, I find I know just a fraction more but cannot even fully comprehend the amount of ruthless trust she possessed. But I am a work in progress. Exactly where He wants me. Learning how to trust. Learning how to live loved.

“Our story is paradigm for every trusting disciple. The way of trust is a movement into obscurity into the undefined, into ambiguity, not into some predetermined, clearly delineated plan for the future. The next step discloses itself only out a discernment of God acting in the desert of the present moment. The reality of naked trust is the life of a pilgrim who leaves what is nailed down, obvious, and secure, and walks into the unknown without any rational explanation to justify the decision or guarantee the future. Why? Because God has signaled the movement and offered it his presence and promise.”

- Brennan Manning, Ruthless Trust

Arise O Sleeper…

“Passion, it lies in all of us, sleeping... waiting... and though unwanted... unbidden... it will stir... open its jaws and howl. It speaks to us... guides us... passion rules us all, and we obey.

What other choice do we have? Passion is the source of our finest moments. The joy of love... the clarity of hatred... and the ecstasy of grief. It hurts sometimes more than we can bear. If we could live without passion maybe we'd know some kind of peace... but we would be hollow... Empty rooms shuttered and dank. Without passion we'd be truly dead.”

The dancer within me is the part of me I always try to ignore. I always try to forget she exists.

But perhaps this is because she is the part of me that is the most real.

"To watch us dance is to hear our hearts speak." :: Hopi Indian Saying

I feel alive again. I just spent the last couple of hours taking a break and went back to the studio. A break from all the things around me I couldn’t comprehend, a much needed break, where my soul could live and breathe again. When I dance… a part of me, that’s always there, always lying dormant beneath the surface but can go for days, months, years undetected…

Comes to life.

I’m always surprised at what happens.

I recently heard someone say, “there is so much more our souls want to say.”

It’s as if, there has been so much more the soul wanted to say… it just never got the chance…

“Beauty is a quality of the soul that expresses itself in the visible world.”

There are certain qualities of the soul that can only be expressed in ways no word or thought can capture.

"The Dancer believes that his art has something to say which cannot be expressed in words or in any other way than by dancing... there are times when the simple dignity of movement can fulfill the function of a volume of words. There are movements which impinge upon the nerves with a strength that is incomparable, for movement has power to stir the senses and emotions, unique in itself. This is the dancer's justification for being, and his reason for searching further for deeper aspects of his art." :: Doris Humphrey

I recently started teaching dance again this year and getting back in touch with the dance part of me.

It is the most real "me."

A good friend of mine was going to take pictures for my prayer letter one Saturday, when she ended up asking if I could just bring my dance clothes. She runs a workshop for a group of budding photographers in town on Saturdays and they try out different locations and backgrounds to grow in their art. This week, they’d landed a theatre with a stage and they wanted to shoot photos of a dancer…

I was more nervous than I thought I would be. It’s one thing to have your picture taken. And its one thing to dance in front of people. But entirely different with a group of photographers, all male but Mallory, watching you. I finally settled into my own skin and forgot they were there.

When I saw the photos I was struck.

Struck because I recognized myself in them. I saw the emotion, I saw the "real" me.

I felt those were the most accurate photos of myself I’d seen to date, which is the only reason why I did something I would otherwise consider narcissistic and used a photo of myself for this post. It is the most "real" me, not portraying an image. Do you ever look at a photo and wonder who that person is?

I realized in that moment that when I dance, the part of me that is the most “me” comes alive. My soul lives and breathes on that stage. My heart comes to life in the studio. So what struck me was those pictures captured my soul in the most accurate way a photograph could. The part of me that is the real me.

Our hearts have a story to tell.

Some of us do this with writing. Or some of us by playing and writing music. Some of us by selling makeup. Some of us as engineers spending countless hours constructing a model.

What makes your soul come alive?

This is one of the most important questions we can ask.

Yet it is one we also deeply fear.

I’ve spent the last couple years without dancing in the public arena (aka outside of my living room or bedroom) but not only did I realize how it was affecting me, teaching it again reminds me of the gift it is to share it with others.

I love teaching girls who have never danced before and Sunday Night Dance has been a great experience for me and the girls I teach with, to see people just getting a taste of the dance world and seeing how much they love seeing the whole thing come together.

I also find it is something that unites us all. At the leadership retreat I went on recently with another church in town, I was nervous first arriving as it was a private retreat, only 30 of us ladies, most of all in the same stage of life, and being tapped as those who will be leading in our churches in the years to come. You always struggle with wanting to put on your serious face forward at these.

I met someone who is like a kindred spirit.
No surprise she leads their creative arts and dance ministry and is on staff with their church for that.

She threw out the idea on Friday night that she would be choreographing a routine to Xanadu if anyone was interested (as she shared her role model was Olivia Newton John) when we had to bring a picture of our mentors…

Well, a bunch of girls caught wind of this and knowing this girl, took her seriously. So it was 4 of us girls coaxing her to do a routine, all of a sudden you have 17 of us (mind you there were 30 total attending minus the staff who put on the retreat) team-choreographing a five minute dance routine to Xanadu. Look it up, I’d never heard this song either, apparently also a movie. Oh the 80s…

Anyway, it was AWESOME. And you have a group of girls in their pajamas working on a dance routine for 2 hours before we put on a show for the rest of the retreat participants.

What? Who does this lol.

It was amazing.

Something happens when I dance again.

It’s like an unsung melody written on my heart that was just waiting to be played.

Sometimes I’m shocked when I just let myself go and improv, how does your body know to do that?

All of this soul searching and dance being a part of me that is the most “me” came when I realized that it is because it has been a part of my life the majority of my short-lived time on this earth. A couple years ago I discovered pictures of me when I was three years old all dressed up to go to my first dance class. It has been a constant in my life and a gift God’s given me to give back to Him. A way my soul communicates to Him and worships Him in a way I can’t do any other way. An outlet and a way to express my emotions in way words cannot suffice. An experience transcending understanding, a coming alive, awakening the sleeper within.

- photo by Mallory Thomas Taulbee, Avia Photography

“You are a soul. You have a body.”

“You are a soul. You have a body.”

C.S. Lewis

“And what do you benefit
If you gain the whole world but lose
Your own soul?
Is anything worth more than your soul?”

MATTHEW 16:26 NLT

I'm posting part of the Introduction to a book that has become a dear companion. I heard Ruth Haley Barton speak about a month ago at a spiritual retreat for women in leadership in the church and it was riveting.

This is a book that resonates deeply with me on the last six months on my journey in taking critical and unwasted time to allow God to tend to my soul. At the end of my journey, I literally felt I came out a different person. I got to share my experiences recently with a large group and could not hold back from saying, I feel freer than I did 12 weeks ago. Life looks different. Feels different. This is the work of God in the tender mysteries of the soul. And coming out of that particular journey and starting the summer feeling like a different person, this book and Barton’s already mentorship in my life through this book has allowed God to give me a deeper desire to pursue Him and meet with Him there, in the depths of my soul, where “our spirit meets with the Spirit of God.”

Enjoy.

:::

From the intro:

“This book is about the soul—your soul, my soul and the soul of our leadership.

When I refer to the soul, I am not talking about some ill-defined, amorphous, soft-around-the-edges sort of thing.

I am talking about the part of you that is most real—the very essence of you that God knew before he brought you forth in physical form, the part of you that will exist after your body goes forth into the ground.

This is the “you” that exists beyond any role you play, any job you perform, any relationship that seems to define you, or any notoriety or success you may have achieved. It is the part of you that longs for more of God than you have right now, the part that may, even now, be aware of “missing” God amid the challenges of life in ministry.

Jesus indicates that it is possible to gain the whole world but lose your own soul. If he were talking to us as Christian leaders today, he might point out that it is possible to gain the whole world of ministry success and lose your own soul in the midst of it all. He might remind us that it is possible to find your soul, after so much seeking, only to lose it again.

If Jesus were speaking to us today, he might also point out that when leaders lose their souls, so dot he churches and organizations they lead. “Souls slip away easily from a church or an institution,” Gordon Cosby, founding pastor of Church of the Savior in Washington D.C., points out. “You may go to any of these places and find that the Spirit has departed and the Shekinah is gone. . . . When a local church loses its soul it begins to slip into mediocrity and is unable to give life. The average person doesn’t even know when a church begins to lose its soul. It takes unusual deeper wisdom to see it, and then when we see it, it is constantly beyond words to retrieve it.”

Losing your soul is sort of like losing a credit card. You think it’s in your wallet so you don’t give it much thought until one day you reach for it and can’t find it. The minute you realize it’s gone, you start scrambling to find it, trying to remember when you last used it or at least had it in your possession. No matter what is going on in your life, you stop and look for it, because otherwise major damage could be done. Oh, that we would feel the same sense of urgency when we become aware that we have lost our souls!

THE BEST THING WE BRING TO LEADERSHIP

…I have only one desire for this book, really, and that is that it will lead you into encounters with God that will strengthen the soul of your leadership in places where you need it most.

Truly, the best thing any of us have to bring to leadership is our own transforming selves…”

- Ruth Haley Barton, Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership: Seeking God in the Crucible of Ministry

:::

Hearing those words come out of her mouth at the retreat (and then to later find them in her book) completely validated my experiences. Experiences that I could not explain, but knew were necessary and a crucible that was necessary for me to pass through along with the task of support raising.

I couldn’t even understand it at times, but going through the process I just came out of, I had no questions, no doubt in my mind that that process was what ultimately God would use to save my life. not only my life but my relationships, present and future. My career and longevity in ministry. All of it was at stake. I knew it but could not describe it and she completely validated the prompting I had from God and even that one other person in my life confirmed as I had to convince the rest of those involved with my life that this was painfully necessary even though it didn’t make sense.

Every step of the journey revealed itself to me afresh that it was God-ordained and uncharted territory that was critical to being able to move forward.

I felt so “known” by God at the retreat, as we were guided in different exercises regarding our purpose and our leadership as well as solitude and experiencing His presence. He spoke to my heart in profound ways and revealed things in hindsight that were extremely comforting.

We need to be continually listening to and being led by the voice of God. The voice that drowns out all the others.

For He is always faithful.
More than faithful.
As He lovingly provides and lovingly guides His children.

Just a taste…

Here’s excerpts from the foreword of Ruth Haley Barton’s amazing work, Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership: Seeking God in the Crucible of Ministry.

A book that resonates deeply with me on the last six months on my journey in taking critical and unwasted time to allow God to tend to my soul.

On the day I called, you answered me,
You increased my strength of soul.

PSALM 138:3

“It is a lovely late fall day as I finish reading Ruth Haley Barton’s Strengthening the Soul of your Leadership, one of those days that lends itself to musing and memory. And it is fitting that I am in Rock Hill, South Carolina, a place where I have learned a great deal about the life and soul of leaders.

At nearby Winthrop University we gathered young men and women for many years as a part of our leadership development program. We taught about evangelism, about communication, about leadership values and practices. But what I remember most are the walks and talks across campus with emerging leaders who wanted most of all to share their inner dreams and difficulties—the soul of their leadership. During those years I myself was experiencing in this place times of both great fulfillment and agonizing despair. And all of this led eventually to a sense that God was calling me to a new ministry of spiritual companionship and mentoring of kingdom leaders.

Also fitting as I write this is the place I’m at: the Oratory, a retreat and ministry center in Rock Hill that has become for me a regular sacred place of listening and renewal for my own soul.

Perhaps this is why I am so moved to gratitude today for what Ruth has written. Although we have never met, I sense in her a kindred spirit, and her book has become a companion for me on the way.

I hope it will be that for many leaders, like a young pastor, who, at the end of one of our retreats, said, “I realize today that the best thing I can be for the people I work with is to be able to say, ‘It is well with my soul.’”

For him and others like him I want to recommend this book. Ruth’s style is warm and accessible. I like her insights into the inner life of a leader. I admire her love for poetry and prayers, which she shares in abundance. I am deeply grateful for the helpful practices she describes and recommends. But what draws me even more is that Ruth writes with realness and integrity out of her own intimate experience of the inner journey of a leader.

Moses is the biblical leader she has chosen as a model. I find myself musing, If Moses read this book, how would he react? Would he be grateful? Surprised? Dismayed?

Somehow I think his reaction as he read these accounts of his leadership would, over and over again, be, I remember that! I recognize myself! That’s how it was. She has caught me!

But, more than that, Ruth has, in conjunction of Moses and her own experience, caught me—and I think she will catch most readers.

I read here things that both sting and sing, thoughts like these:

You can gain the whole world of leadership and lose your own soul,

Your connection with the deep places within where God’s Spirit witnesses with your spirit.

I’m tired of helping others enjoy God. I just want to enjoy God.

What would it be like to find God, not to lose him in the context of leadership?

In solitude we must stop believing our own press.

God is not in any particular hurry to get us to the Promised Land.

Oftentimes our feelings of isolation increase right along with our success.

And my own soul responds both with “Ouch!” and “Yes!”

But most of all I respond with “Thank you,” because I am reminded here over and over that it was not Moses but the God who called Moses who ultimately got the people into the Promised Land. God was at the soul of Moses’ leadership, and is at the soul of Ruth’s and mine.

When I got back this morning, I read a story about a disciple who asked his master whether there was anything he could do to make himself grow spiritually.

The master answered: “As little as you can do to make the sun rise in the morning.”

Disconcerted, the disciple asked what then was the use of the spiritual exercises the master had taught him.

And the master replied: “To make sure you are not asleep when the sun begins to rise.”

I think that is what Ruth would say about this book. I certainly would. Reading this book will not strengthen the soul of your leadership. Only God can do that. But it will surely help you to be attentive to the God who is the strength of your soul, and the heart of your leadership.”

- Leighton Ford

letters from war

Made to fight.

It’s a war that’s never-ending. Some days that’s discouraging. Other days it’s what keeps me going.

I feel it every time I leave The Shelter, I’m walking away from a war zone.

Sometimes I don’t even believe the things I see and here there. If I didn't just see them or hear them myself, I would think it was all a horrible nightmare I heard about long ago.

How could this be possible?

I’m at one instant floored at the strength of the human soul, the way I’ve seen survivors endure and rise up out of their situations and at the same time deeply grieved at the capacity of the human soul to commit such horrendous acts.

I always feel strange leaving.

I get to escape. Come home to my nice little home. Tucked away. Insulated from the city that never sleeps. I get to have a peaceful night.

When was the last time any of these women had peace of mind.
The psychological damage and emotional trauma is gut-wrenching.

I’m thinking of the 17-year-old girl I spoke with tonight.
There was a connection there.

It’s always the young ones that kill me.
They give me hope cause I know they have more of a chance to turn their lives around... Yet at the same time I’m like you shouldn’t have to be dealing with this.

17 years on this earth. She’s already lived more life than most will ever live.
We really connected.
There was so much more there she wasn’t telling me. More she wasn’t even aware of.

"Is this even a big deal?" She asked me half not wanting to know. "I mean, is the judge going to…"

As she sits fighting for her life. Just hours ago she had come within an inch of her life. Her attacker brutally violent and lethal from the charges already on his record and his most heinous acts committed against her. Her life was spared as she sits with all she now owns, the clothes on her back. As her and her child continue to run.

Run.
To who knows where.
Just to safety.

CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER

In an emergency ex parte, or emergency order of protection, we have to prove that there is clear and present danger and that the victim needs safety and protection now. Not something that can wait until the courthouse opens in the morning. These are the ex partes we fill out way too often. These are the ones you never forget.

It's never not an emergency. Danger is always imminent and far too easy to prove unfortunately.

She asked me a question as we sat there filling out her protection order probably every other question.

It’s not uncommon for women in these situations to question themselves more than the average person. But you could see her wrestling with her situation and the words in fine print before her.

I always wait for this moment.

When they realize they were the victim of a crime committed against them.

I don’t know what to write.

Tell me what happened, I asked her gently.

Let’s just forget about the papers. Forget about the legal jargon, just talk to me.

She eased up.
She talked with me freely.
You could tell, like most women, this was the first time her story was being heard, validated and accepted.

I realized about a year ago that our number one job here, is to restore dignity.

There’s a lot of things we do here for the women, but above all else, this is the most profound act of service we can give.

Someone to listen to her and help her navigate her experiences.

She breaks my heart.

I’ve been learning the boundaries necessary for working in recovery whether its in ministry or in the social work world at the Shelter. To feel, but not own other people’s issues. To be able to give perspective from personal experience but not make it about you. to learn how to listen and help people make sense of their own situations and come to realizations on their own. But it is messy. It is sticky. You’re fighting a war you can hardly see half the time.

This is a battle I know I will never stop fighting.

I fight the shelter with everything in me. It’s always the thing in my life or schedule I think most apt to cut.

I recall words Bill Hybels said in Holy Discontent, that that which is most at the source of your vision, you will try to fight the most.

I know that something happens to me when I’m there.
I know that something else takes over.

It came out again today with this girl.
I know that’s my calling.

I have no idea what it will look like in 2 years. In five. In 20. But I know it won’t always look like what I think but I know I’ve been called to ministry. And to a particular ministry. One on the frontlines. Where the battle is raging. Lives are at stake. And where most of our battle takes place in enemy territory. It is not safe. My heart will continually be broken. I will be beat up. Bloodied. More than I know. I will suffer. Yet I will taste those moments of victory. However sweet, only a foreshadowing of what is to come.

Right now I know my fight is here.
Working with college age girls. So that they aren’t telling their story for the first time in 10, 20 years like the women in my recovery group this last semester.

Where they aren’t the women I see at the shelter, also 10, 20 years down the road. Whose story has controlled their lives to the point where there is a trail of disaster behind them.

I want them to find life.
To meet their Healer.
To know who they really are and what there life is about.

And then build them up to go out and fight.
Fight for the kingdom.
Be the love of Christ.
Be a reflection of the Gospel in a place that is falling apart at the seams.
Be a life-giver. Be a mirror of God in this broken world.

Show them redemption and restoration. Show them how to share this with others. Give them a glimpse of the life we have with Christ, here and forever. Give them a hunger for eternity with our Father.

Show them there is so much more to their story and they too have a vital role to play.

I want their lives to be changed.
This can only happen when they experience Him.
Any other effort is in vain.

I hate going back to war because I’m reminded there is still a war going on.
I love and I hate being there.
Every time I’m there I’m reminded why.

The war rages on campus as well.
The war at The Shelter opened my eyes to see the brokenness on campus in a whole new light.

I will never forget the day that happened.

It was the end of a 60-day period I’d blocked off to pray and seek God about whether to go on staff with GCM or to work full-time at the Shelter… it was that day when I saw the brokenness and how the two worlds were really more the same than they were different.

The wounds are just easier to see at the shelter.

Show me your bruises.

I asked this girl that tonight.

It’s a question I hate asking.
But one I know I have to.

We do the same on campus.
Only what’s broken is our hearts.
Show me your wounds. Show me your bruises.

It’s only when they’re brought into the light, that our Savior can begin to do His work.

grounded

written during my shift earlier tonite:

the shelter is always the thing in my life I always try to cut. yet it is the thing that keeps me the most grounded.

it jolts me back into reality.

gives me a perspective of the real world around me.
the war zone and the world that never sleeps.

the world we’re far too blind to. far too insulted from.
the invisible war raging all around us.

can you hear their cries?

the war zones of poverty. the war zones of living in a volatile abusive environment for years. the war zones of children who have been hit so many times they flinch at any attempt I make to embrace them. the war zones of mental and emotional abuse and the women who come in here so programmed; so lost; so confused. they know something devastating has happened to them. something vital has been lost. But it’s like they’ve awoken from a bad dream. is this even real?

that’s what I hear most often in working with crisis.

“the words coming out of my mouth do not feel real.”
“this couldn’t be happening.”
“this isn’t my husband.”
“it really wasn’t that bad.”
“is this even real?”
“this feels so surreal…”

you were never meant to live this way.

I thought as she relayed her story to me.

this girl is absolutely beautiful.

it’s always the young ones that get me.

I’m learning how to empathize and feel, without owning their pain and thus being a wreck for the next week. doing so is an act of trust.

but, i am called to feel the weight of it all.
breathe it in. and open wide your hearts also, i'm urged. don't look away. don't hold your breath.

breathe it all in.
yes it's stench is incredible.

but she’s not just another story.

she’s a life.
she’s a soul.

she has a future.

. . . .

She’s 17.

7 month old baby.

And then we have a three-year-old in the house with a black eye.

Three. Years. old. What?
every time I look at this little girl I try to imagine her face restored. what her left eye looked like before…

before… it all happened.

something wells up within me when I’m around this injustice.

Something is not right.
It’s not okay.

He places within us a capacity to go and fight for those unable to fight for themselves, just as we’ve been ruthlessly fought for and bought back. Reclaimed. Restored. Redeemed.

He saw our lives and his heart broke and he said the same thing.
This is not okay.

I must come for them.

He will come for all of them.
Every last one.

the noise destroying our souls

This article below is great.

This is something that absolutely will not let me go so I’ll probably be writing about it and talking about it a lot more even though everyone around me is probably tired of hearing it. I think there is so much more God wants to show us in this. I feel we are on the brink of something we as Christians will be wrestling with for years.

I’m caught in the tensions. Yet again.
Part of me wants to reject technology, the other part can't live without it.
I feel like either an old person or someone on their way to becoming a hermit.

I’m finding within me a growing dissatisfaction with the internet and technology, yet to be able to function in any job or keep up some level of a social life in order to get to face to face, we can’t live without it. But why? I try rejecting where society's seemingly pulling me and find I'm online less and less and only for the bare necessities for my job, and I'm more okay with that. I've wanted to quit facebook or not have to do email for months now but would not be able to keep my job unfortunately it is the most efficient and effective way to get in touch with people in order to sit down face to face; for ministry or support appointments.

But this growing distaste within began when my computer crashed July 2007 and I didn’t own a computer until this last December, December 2008. This was event I thought would kill me and I wasn't about to buy a new laptop at that point, yet this was an event that ended up having a profound impact on my spiritual life.

Something A.W. Tozer calls, "the joy of possessing nothing" where we are released from some of the things we possess that really end up possessing us, and we find our lives become increasingly more free and full of joy.

I went about a year and a half without owning one and this brought a tremendous amount of freedom in my life and order. I was blessed and able to do all of my responsibilities as my roommates were gracious to let me use their computers at night if I ever needed them, as we kept our laptops in the common areas, and then in December 2007, I got an office job at the Med. School to save up money before starting support raising that next summer. Working 8 to 5 in front of a computer every day gave me ample time to get work and extra non work related work completed. It can be done.

I learned a lot about managing my time online and even how much time was necessary for me to spend online. This is different for every person and my personal convictions are not to be imposed on others, yet I found the less preoccupation I had with online and even the shift in my life in checking my email fewer times a day, the more I felt connected and more in tune with my soul.

This taught me several things, mostly what I’ve seen in this process, and even when I got a computer again, was I didn’t feel a need to be on there as much. Sure, I couldn’t neglect responsibilities and a lot of my job requires me to be online to schedule appointments with people, and once I’m on campus, that’s a lot of how we schedule times with students, yet it serves a very specific purpose in my life and has its limits.

This was taken to a deeper level when I was placed in a Mother Teresa book study this last year at Woodcrest. The first chapter was on prayer, silence and solitude and the first few pages nailed me dead on. I realized silence was something I was desperate for and something God desperately wanted me to experience.

I cannot describe what happens in solitude. Only God knows. But I find more and more wanting to escape the noise as I’m seeing what a profound difference this makes in my life, the quality of my soul and our effect on people around us.

As Mother Teresa says, "We need silence to touch souls."

Not only that. We need silence to hear God.

I’ve made a lot of adjustments since I started the Mother Teresa class that ultimately are changing my life. Now, I’m experiencing more liberation as I feel God is giving me a deeper desire to seek Him in solitude in ways I never knew were possible. And waiting for Him to speak. Waiting for His presence. Waiting just to experience Him, Himself. In the fullness of His beauty… something we can’t find when we’re surrounded by noise.

Noise for us today is the constant bombardment we have with unanswered emails, the unchecked facebook messages, the text messages, the sound of another voicemail, the phone ringing, someone else’s phone ringing, the constant pulling and tugging… it’s destroying our souls.

But the thing is our souls are dying a slow death.

All of these things seem so natural to us now. We don't even see their effect. I now keep my phone on silent 95% of the time and it is amazing. This idea came to me when I was reading the chapter on prayer and solitude and I went the rest of my day with it on silent, (checking here and there as my phone is like my right hand for support raising), yet just the quieter it was without hearing every little interruption of a phone call or a text, is astounding.

Or even, walking. We can’t even walk without having noise in our ears. Someone the other day was shocked when she asked where my ipod was. I don’t have one. What? How do you sit here in coffee shops and work all day? how are you always outside working on stuff outside of Starbucks. She seriously could not fathom how I could “make” it. This is not to say ipods are wrong or listening to music is wrong, I do put my headphones in to listen to music depending on what I’m working on. I love having music on in the car, I love having it on in the house. But I’m finding when it’s off... The difference is incredible. I love my day off when I can turn my phone off completely. Free of obligations and able to be fully present to the here and now.

This is not to say all the ways we communicate and stay in touch are wrong or bad. They serve a purpose. We are relational beings. We have more and more ways to stay connected these days and those are a blessing. They are great. They are amazing. I love them just as much too. I just find them continually coming up dry.

I spend a lot of time meeting with people all day and I love it. I love meeting people for support appointments. I love meeting with students. I’m finding that face-to-face time is even rare for some of our students these days. The fact that I want to sit down and have coffee with them and take interest in their life is almost alarming. They’re used to living their whole lives on facebook. A deep conversation takes place chatting online. They share their deepest thoughts on a blog or note on facebook but wouldn’t dare share them with someone in person.

This isn’t meant as an indictment, it’s just the reality I’m experiencing. And am trying to come to terms with.

It kills community.

Authentic community is so rich. Which is why I find myself so dissatisfied by anything online and what it has to offer. And deeply grieving the deteriorating quality of relationships I'm witnessing for those in this next generation, who as Willard says below, shy away from skin to skin, face to face raw encounters with people. Why? Because it is way more of a risk. And it takes time. Work. Energy. They write it off as not worth it. It only leaves them more and more lonely. Less loved. And less known.

Online communication is not bad. It just has to be put in its place, but it can’t replace having community and people intimately involved in your life because as Dallas Willard says below, it only fosters a false sense of self and we’re left wondering who we are.

A friend and I coined many terms for facebook, one of them being "the facebook mask." The facebook mask is why we are so preoccupied with our profile picture. It feeds what image we want to project to the world by what we post, what we say, what we share and how we say it. it’s not real. Even our best attempts at authenticity will always be tainted online. We're all guilty of this, myself included. The issue here is much deeper than we realize. Why does all this matter? Why is this so?

What is the solution?

I feel this is a journey we all must take. For it is a journey in reclaiming our souls amidst all the ways our world is destroying our souls. This is going to look different for every person, yet I feel one of the beautiful mysteries about God is how He relates and speaks to us each uniquely and specifically. I’m finding for me personally, the more time I spend in solitude away from the world and the pressures and distractions, the more I know who I really am and am able to operate out of that self in all of my relationships. This includes online. We all have the choice. I can choose how I will operate there. Out of a false self. Or out of who I really am.

Yet a lot of things online or other technology only leave us with an illusion. That we are on the throne of our own lives.

We choose when to respond. We choose how we want to look. We manufacture and reproduce and edit and change what self may be socially acceptable and call it good. I have a lot of convictions about this mostly because I’m finding more and more the people around me who have an incredible impact and are some of the most beautiful godly people I know, are people who have been transformed in the presence of God, and find ways to get away with Him in ways that the world and even the Christian society would say is “taking it too far” or “taking this whole God thing too seriously.”

Being a follower of Christ means we are called to live radically different. This does not mean we're not online. I will counter a lot of what I have said and say it is important for us as Christ followers to engage our society and where we are at. 80% of why I text or facebook is because it is the most relevant way to reach the generation I desire to reach. The generation I apparently am a part of but find myself wanting to disassociate from at times lol. So, it is important for us to blog, text, twitter, whatever so we are not some Christian bubble that doesn't communicate or engage our culture. We just need to make sure these do not come at the detriment of our intimacy and connection with God and our intimacy and connection with other people.

And I mean, I love the internet. Hear me on this one. I just have less of a desire to be on here now, and now it's more like once a day for a couple hours at night and even that I dread sometimes. Ask anyone, I'm an avid emailer and obviously love to blog. But I have limits even on those. With my blog, I have this set up specifically to share things God is teaching me and how they intersect with my life, but I made a guideline for myself a few years ago that I would not post anything personal that I had not already talked about with at least one other person face to face so that I wouldn't be tempted to use this as my only way to process things without human interaction. It may sound strict but it has afforded me well because it forces me to not place anything on here I wouldn't talk about with those in my life, thus potentially damaging authentic relationship.

I've always spent time alone with God, but there is such a profound difference between "being alone" and "solitude and silence." They are worlds apart. I feel more and more a stranger here. As my soul is awakening to the God I never knew, a God I have just come to known by tender experiences of the soul, but cannot describe. A God we find not in the noise, but in the silence. Along with our deep need for the presence of God in our lives to simply enjoy and commune there, we also are filled with a deep need for our lives to be transformed there...

The only way to know our true selves is in the presence of God…
There, as Brennan Manning says, every other identity becomes an illusion…

Ironically, after this long rant, and my seemingly going back to the 1920s ways, I was glad to find something of this nature on facebook, a friend posted this recently:

***

In an interview with Relevant magazine, Dallas Willard talks about the connection between technology, sabbath, spiritual disciplines and authentic community.

"We live in a world where technology… creates a false sense of intimacy and a false sense of sense of self. People today are being constantly pulled by things that they submit themselves to. That’s the great temptation and the great problem for many people today. Most don’t even notice the temptation, but their lives are being pulled apart by it. And when it comes to issues of exercising character and will, it simply isn’t there for them. They can only respond to things that are pulling at them.

We have a generation of young people now who are living in a constant state of “dropped out-ness” from the real world and from its history and from community and from the integrity of themselves. …And they don’t even know that …Most of them don’t know what community means because community means assuming responsibility for other people and that means paying attention and not following your own will but submitting your will and giving up the world of intimacy and power you have in the little consumer world that you have created… When they look community in the face and realize that it means raw, skin to skin contact with other people for whom you have become responsible…that’s when they back away.

[Interviewer: what recommendations do you have for someone who is struggling with this?] You have to think in terms of radical disciplines that will return them out of this world of distraction they’re living in and help them find the center, and those are solitude and silence. You have to take yourself out of the place of running your world. And there is nothing that I know of that can do that other than the practice of lengthy solitude and silence. That will allow you to begin to understand what Sabbath means. But most people can’t approach Sabbath because they’re so revved up and so distracted by so many things that they couldn’t even begin to think about it… once you have begun to experience solitude and silence, you discover that you actually have a soul and that there is a God. Then you can begin to practice Sabbath and that will enable you to re-enter community. You can’t have community without Sabbath."

Thoughts?

.::mags and driscoll on marriage::.

One of the coolest things is listening to someone talk about something and then realizing it resonates so deeply within you because it is a truth you are already experiencing or witnessing.

So last fall, I started listening to most of Mark Driscoll’s sermon series on the Song of Solomon from a while back, "The Peasant Princess," and felt he was dead on with how he beautifully taught on relationships, sex, marriage, and a biblical model for engaging in those arenas.

Got through most of the series this fall, but haven't finished it yet, so I listen to a talk every now and then when I have time, and have started Talk 9 – "Do Not Awaken Love" a couple times but always get interrupted. Today at the Shelter I got to go through a good chunk of it and feel there were some things that were so critical to what he said. A lot of what I heard today falls in line with some really cool revelations I've had recently with the married couples' lives I'm blessed to be a part of.

First of all, I will stand by my previous statements, that this series has given me hope for relationships and marriage, whereas before this was still a desire but something I deeply feared. It has given me hope for the biblical marriage I desire but so often think doesn’t really exist, or if it does, it’s just for a few of the people I know who happened to get lucky. God is the giver, starter and initiator of relationships, if we are to experience one it is not something within our realm of control, yet God is not holding out on us or withholding anything from us. I'm finding that when I pray for God to bring "His best" into my life in terms of a husband, that I've already been given His best for me right now, in my current state. For His best for our lives is always His will, and His will for me right now is to live and experience the abundance of life as someone who happens to be single. Singleness is a stage of life for most people, as 90% of people will get married in their lifetimes, but singles can fall in the trap of feeling this is some state they are destined to forever. This a lie that has been deeply embedded in our culture rather stealthily, Christian and secular. That was a tangent, I will continue where I was going with the whole hope for marriage bit.

Now, I’m seeing more of the dynamics that differentiate the marriages in my friends’ lives that have a lot of the qualities I feel every marriage should have, and now I’m excited that those types of marriages are possible… with two people who are committed and willing to be humble servants.

More and more, I've been wrestling with, what is even the purpose of marriage. Especially given what I feel the Lord has called me to do with my life, it has brought me to a place where the only way I will be in a relationship or enter into marriage is if it will more fully help me fulfill the purposes God has for my life to glorify Him. Will he help me more fully fulfill the Great Commission or God's call for my life? If the answer is yes, then the purpose of marriage is there. If not, it's in vain. More and more as I'm around godly marriages, I find it's not really about you. The purposes for your marriage are so much greater than you just being happy or being together with someone you love. There are several blessings and benefits toe experiencing this type of soul connection and having a life partner that I won't go into on this post, but as Driscoll points out, many are disillusioned and many marriages don't make it because people fail to realize that the purpose of marriage isn't to be happy, it's to become more holy. With that perspective in view, being a servant takes on new meaning.

This quality: a servant, is one I see resurface again and again in the real-life marriages I see, and one Driscoll talks about the most. I realized the something different has been a decision made daily to die to self and serve one another. This sounds great in theory, but to witness it and see it play out in the lives of some of my closest friends, and to be on the girl end and get the inside scoop, the real life struggles, yet incredible joys that come with this, I see it is only possible with Jesus.

Jesus isn’t just a part of their marriage, everything is built on that. He is the only reason two fallen people can work through and restore conflict. He is the only reason one person would choose to put their will aside for the sake of another. It is a beautiful thing, when a marriage is a reflection of the Gospel, a picture for the world to see God’s love.

I’m most impressed by what I see in the lives of my girlfriends. There comes a tremendous freedom that becomes present in their lives that didn’t exist before. This is not to say in our singleness we cannot experience this sort of freedom because that is not the case, but there is a different freedom that comes in being and knowing you are fully loved and fully accepted by a person, a creature, made in the image of God, who is loving you reflective of Christ’s love in your life. I say you don’t have to be married to experience this because some of the same qualities are present as a single, as I’ve had several older women ask about the guy in my life attributing to why I’m so happy or at peace or free lately. The love is the same, the amazing love of Christ, when you are living loved, whether its directly from God or experiencing a unique reflection of that in marriage from another person, you are different.

There is a flourishing. A growth that happens. A woman becomes more and more beautiful. More and more free. more and more fully a beautiful picture of God.

I experienced this tonight hanging out with at The Worley household for the first time since they got married. Ryan and Melissa’s relationship and their marriage is just another example of this.

It’s a phenomenon to me, that it actually works and exists. Not just a Christian marriage, because even within Christians marriages this can’t exist… but a relationship that truly exhibits and distributes the love of Christ, a marriage that reflects such deep love and commune with God that you can’t help but know that God is real, that He is alive and He is beautiful.

I feel marriage is such a picture of redemption. Of God’s grace and just another way that God is glorified. He created us, male and female, to reflect His glory and to glorify Him. Marriage is such a beautiful thing because both parts are represented. Often times, in our society or church culture, one is placed above the other… in certain areas, that are dominated by females, the world sees only one half of the true image of God. In other arenas, that are largely dominated by males, women lack a presence, and thus only one half of the image of God is expressed. This is critical and the effect can be damaging. The truth is there are certain aspects of God’s character that were uniquely bestowed on men and there are certain aspects of God’s character that were uniquely placed on women. You need both. Men and women were created unique and different, yet together have the potential to reflect God’s glory in a way that provokes one to look upon the image of God and struggle to deny He is real.

One thing Mark also talked about today was the need for us to have intergenerational relationships and for single people not just to be friends with other single people… or for married people not just to have married friends because then we run the risk of becoming “silos.” I mean it’s so true. He says this not to bash having a junior high ministry or a high school youth group, or a college group, or a singles/young adult ministry, or a ministry for married couples… but that the high school kids need to interact with the junior high kids. The college kids need to interact with the high schoolers, the singles need to be around engaged couples or married couples… we always need to be with people maybe in a season we’ve been in previously and one that could be in our future, to learn wisdom from those in the future season, and to pass down to those in a season we’ve been in previously, what we’ve learned.

I find this refreshing as I’m realizing a huge blessing in having a lot of my peers get married. I am still a vital part of their lives and our relationship has become even more valuable. A lot of times we can think our married friends won’t need us or we won’t be able to speak into their lives anymore, I mean they have a husband after all, what can we do. but I’ve found and am learning where my role is still in their lives and that single or married – you need community. Men need other men in their lives. women need other women in their lives. period. This doesn’t change when you get married. Yes, these relationships will change, yes there are things you will only share with your spouse, but I’m finding that my friendship is just as needed and vice versa.

Aside from my peers, I’m now around a lot of older women who have families. This has been a huge blessing as well, both ways, as I’m always surprised at how much they love having someone younger in their 20s around. While I’m always grateful for their presence in my life cause obviously I look up to them and they teach me so much just by what I get to witness from how they live their lives and truly live out what they believe, but it’s always startling to me that they enjoy my company and friendship as well. Some of these moms have started calling me to vent when their 2-yr.-old won’t stop throwing a fit, just as I do when I’m having some drama. It’s really cool to see that I am needed and wanted in their lives just as much as they are in mine.

These marriages also help complete a picture in my mind of what this can actually look like, 10 years, 3 kids later, to see it in real life is amazing. It makes you want to wait. It also makes me cherish my singleness because it really is a gift. It’s a gift in that for most people, singleness is not a stage we will be in the rest of our lives, but something that is time-limited and for a specific purpose. Many times singles are tempted to pine away and long for what they do not have and thus miss the gift of what God has to offer in this time. Just the freedom I have and the time I have to develop my intimacy with God and spend time with Him, the time that I see these young moms not having, I know is something that will not be always be afforded to me. I’m able to do things that I know very realistically in 15 years will not be a possibility. I’m finding that I can be a blessing in their lives, just as they are in mine.

I’ve gotten to babysit for some of them recently and am floored at what these homes really are like. I’ve been blessed to have some amazing Christian families in my life the last few years, but am especially floored to know the wives and all the ins and outs they share with me about their relationships with their husbands and then to see it in action.

"Husbands love your wives, as Christ loves the Church…"

To see this in action. To see how a father loves and adores his children. To see how a husband absolutely cherishes and delights in and upholds his wife, is how it’s supposed to be.

If I just hung out with other girls my age, who were single, I would have missed what God wanted to teach me and to show me.

We all need examples to know that true, biblical, gospel-centered marriage is real and it is possible.

And lastly, of the 30 min. I heard today, the last few things Mark was saying was how singles settle.

They get desperate and settle.
The pressure here is astounding.

Just speaking from personal experience, I have recently been shocked at how other people have a problem with my singleness in a way that I will never understand… I ran into someone who was pretty blunt about how she felt about me "still" being single, as she said with clear disgust, like she'd lost respect for me as a human being.

I realized I wasn’t offended by the inappropriate comments made, but had more questions I wished I had asked her.

Basically she greeted me with, “so what’s up with like everyone from The Rock getting married this summer? Like all of your friends are. Again. I keep seeing all of this on facebook. I mean when are you going to be the bride, Mazvita and NOT the bridesmaid…”

I kid you not.

I was shocked by her bluntness and reacted really calmly because she was obviously feeling passionate about this, so I way underreacted, well, I’m actually done with all the weddings I’m in for the year, now I’m just going to friend’s weddings, so it’s really not a lot...

“I mean, when are you going to meet someone, Mazvita? And it’s a lot of people younger than you now that are getting married. I mean. I feel like you need to move somewhere to meet someone. Columbia is not going to have a guy for you. this place is too small. you just need to move somewhere else so it can happen.”

I kept protesting. Calmly. Trying to figure out the real “why” behind what she was saying.

And I realized that the person who had a problem with my singleness was her.

Everything she was saying, wasn’t bothering me because as I told her, that’s not what my life is about. If my life was about finding a guy, getting married, having 2.2 kids and living the American dream, I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing or staying where I’m staying. Me going on staff, with a campus church, and being continually in environments where everyone is staying the same age but I am getting older, was simultaneously me making a decision to trust God with bringing a relationship into my life if and when it happens, but also being okay with me choosing to be on staff here means most realistically not meeting anyone until the next place I move. I made this decision knowing full well that is part of the cost and I accepted it. When it comes down to it, that’s not what my life is about. And I am certainly not going to see my "singleness as handicap for serving God," as I’ve heard quoted… I’m not going to sit on the shelf waiting for a guy to come along, no, there’s life to be lived, there’s a kingdom to be fought for and I’m not sitting on the sidelines, I’ve been called to fight on the frontlines, and God can choose to fulfill his will for my life single or married. Neither marital state is a lesser or greater state, they are just different.

I realized that the more she saw I was perfectly content and at peace and the most alive and free I’ve ever been, the more she was annoyed by me. She expected me to be devastated.

I sat there dumbfounded, realizing there was something much deeper going on here as she was frustrated and even more so by my lack of concern.

She finally said it.

"I just don’t understand why you’re so happy."

I’m praying for more conversations with her. As she’s a girl who walked away from Christ years ago and I’m realizing her problem was probably more her own current state of affairs and how she views marriage. The problem is we're all tempted to operate in the lie.

For most people, secular or Christian, marriage is like a ticket out of social suicide.

Driscoll even pointed it out, our culture puts so much pressure for someone to be married that many singles settle. No one wants to be the 40-yr-old virgin.

He asks the question, I mean, what kind of movie was this? Was it a documentary profiling and praising someone like you’d find an MLK documentary, was it romance film?

No, it was a comedy.

This concept is how our culture views singles at a certain age: as a joke.

There is a cutoff where being single no longer is socially acceptable and unfortunately this is what most of us deeply fear. Being the butt of the joke.

This is incredibly disheartening but so real. Even at 25, I feel it. And it is utterly ridiculous and unrealistic. From this girl, who I really didn’t own a lot of her feelings towards me because I can see how deeply they were rooted in lies she believes, but was obviously looking down on my situation and marital status as a lesser state.

Really?

I was shocked at how much I didn’t agree with her, yet how much I saw how our culture feeds this idea that to be socially acceptable you should be married by 30.

More on this later, but all this to say a lot of my friend’s marriages and a lot of the older women’s marriages who are in my life, give me hope for that if this is something in God’s will for my life that the right guy is worth the wait and more than worth it.

I’ve had enough experiences with the wrong guys to know that I’d rather be alone than be with the wrong guy.

Nobody is better than the wrong body, as my pastor always tells me. This is so true. And just seeing the intricacies of what is really involved in a covenant relationship, I’m like this isn’t something you can mess around with. This person has got to be God’s best for you and you have got to be completely sold out to the Lord and to this person in a way that you are willing to die for them. Daily.

As Driscoll says…

“Marriage is about being servants...

A terrible marriage is someone who is selfish, with someone who is selfish.

Here’s an abusive relationship: someone who is selfish, with someone who is a servant. This person (servant) always gives. This one (selfish) always takes. That’s abusive.

Here’s a beautiful Christian marriage:

A servant and a servant.

BOTH are always asking, what can I do for you? How can I help? What do you need from me?”

Forever is a long time. And it will be worth the wait. I’m so grateful that by the Lord’s grace He has redeemed and restored my view of men, and continues to do so, and given me hope for what He intended marriage to be and the purposes it serves for the larger scheme of things, for the advancement of His kingdom.

To you be all the praise and the glory forever.
Amen.

- photo courtesy of Joe Devine Photography of my dear friends Ryan and Melissa Worley, married May 9, 2009

come cleanse our hearts

“Anything I demand that God give me becomes an idol in my life…”

I’m finding many reasons why silence and stillness is so powerful in our lives… one aspect I’m finding most incredible is the ability for silence and stillness to cleanse our hearts… to reveal the idols that choke the life the Father is so desperately trying to give us… to bring us back into restoration with the One who saves us, to turn us away from the things we look to save us but that are will only destroy us… silence creates a space within our hearts, a space where our souls can hear God speak, a space where we can turn from our broken cisterns that never satisfy to the life-giving Spirit that is closer than our very breath... that leads us into a life more rich and full and more real each moment, a cleansing and a freedom borne to save us from ourselves.

The Prayer God Always Answers

Since God offers to manage our affairs for us, let us once and for all hand them over to His infinite wisdom, in order to occupy ourselves only with Himself and what belongs to Him.

J.P. De Caussade (c.1700)

"HIS TIME OF TEACHING about his Father’s kingdom had drawn to an end. There would be no more opportunity to hold a leper in his hands or sit in Mary’s home in Bethany and talk of his Father’s wonders, at least not in this body, not in the way he had grown accustomed.

He had retuned to Jerusalem for his final visit. Days away from yielding himself to those who sought to kill him, his heart was deeply troubled. He stood on the threshold of the greatest act of love and trust our world would ever behold, but he knew in doing so he would be consumed.

What should he do? Would he trust his Father’s love and continue the journey, or would he cut it short in a moment of weakness and beckon angels to set him free?

Perhaps the most powerful lesson Jesus taught his disciples about prayer began by polling how they thought he should pray: “What shall I say? ‘Father, save me from this hour’?”

Perhaps there were nods around the circle as they all acknowledged how good that sounded to them. That’s how we’re used to praying. In moments of trial and pain, it is natural even for the nonbeliever to cry out for help: “Save me, God! If you get me out of this I will serve you forever.”

His disciples understood that prayer well enough, but Jesus wanted them to learn a better way. Even when it was his life at stake, Jesus was tuned to a better frequency. “No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour.” What he wanted personally wasn’t in the picture. He was focused elsewhere—on the purpose that transcended his personal happiness.

Then he prayed the prayer he wanted them to hear: “Father, glorify your name!” (John 12:27)

In this brief exchange you learn everything you will need to know about prayer and what it means to follow God in this life. For in every situation you’ll ever encounter, you will be offered two options in prayer: “Father, save me,” or “Father, glorify your name!” One will lead you to frustration and disillusionment, the other to the greatest wonders in God’s heart.

- Excerpt from Wayne Jacobsen's He Loves Me: Learning to Live in the Father's Affection

Daisy Petal Christianity

He loves me.
He loves me not.
He loves me.
He loves me not.

"THE LITTLE GIRL STANDS in the backyard chanting as she plucks petals on by one from the daisy and drops them to the ground. At game’s end, the last petal tells all: whether or not the person desired returns the affection.

Of course no one takes it seriously, and if children don’t get the answer they desire, they take another daisy and start again. It doesn’t take long even for children to realize that flowers weren’t designed to tell romantic fortunes. Why should they link their hearts’ desires to the fickleness of chance?

But it is a lesson far easier learned in romance than in spiritual pursuits. For long after we’ve put away our daisies, many of us continue to play the game with God. This time we don’t pluck flower petals but probe through our circumstances trying to figure out exactly how God feels about us.

I got a raise. He loves me.
I didn’t get the promotion I wanted; I lost my job altogether. He loves me not.
Something in the Bible inspired me today. He loves me.
My child is seriously ill. He loves me not.
I gave money to someone in need. He loves me.
I let my anger get the best of me. He loves me not.
Something for which I prayed actually happened. He loves me.
I stretched the truth to get myself out of a tight spot. He loves me not.
A friend called me unexpectedly to encourage me. He loves me.
My car needs a new transmission. He loves me not.

A PERILOUS TIGHTROPE

I played that game most of my life, trying to sort out in any given moment how God might feel about me personally. I grew up learning that he is a God of love, and for the most part I believed it to be true.

In good times, nothing is easier to believe… But that certainty erodes when those times of bliss are interrupted with troublesome events….

Then I wondered how God really felt about me. My disappointment with God could easily turn two directions. Often in my pain and frustration, when I felt as if I had done enough to deserve better, I would rail at God like the Job of old, accusing him or being either unfair or unloving. In more honest moments, however, I was well aware of the temptations and failures that could exclude me from his car. I would come out of those times committed to trying harder to live the life I thought would merit his love.

I lived for thirty-four years as a believer on this perilous tightrope. Even when there was no crisis hanging over my head, I was always wary of the next one God might drop on me at any second if I couldn’t stay on his good side. In some ways I had become like the schizophrenic child of an abusive father, never certain of what God I’d meet on any given day—the one who wanted to scoop me up in his arms with laughter, or the one who would ignore me or punish me for reasons I could never understand.

Only in the last twelve years have I discovered that my methods of discerning God’s love were as flawed as pulling petals from a daisy. I haven’t been the same since.

PERCEPTION VERSUS REALITY

Truly God has never acted toward us in any way other than with a depth of love that defies human understanding. I know it may not look like it at times…

But our perception is not necessarily reality. If we define God only in our limited interpretation of our own circumstances, we will never discover who he really is.

He has provided a far better way. Our daisy-petal approach to Christianity can be swallowed up by the undeniable proof of his love for us on the cross of Calvary. That’s the side of the cross that has all but been ignored in recent decades. We did not see what really happened there between the Father and his Son that opened the door to his love so cast and so certain that it cannot be challenged even by our darkest days.

Through that day we can really know who God is and embrace a relationship with him that our deepest hearts have hungered to experience. That is where we’ll begin, because it is only in the context of the relationship God desires with us that we can discover the full glory of his love.

He does love you more deeply than you’ve ever imagined; he has done so throughout your entire life. Once you embrace that truth, your troubles will never again drive you to question God’s affection for you or whether you’ve done enough to merit it. Instead of fearing he has turned his back on you, you will be able to trust his love at the moments you need him most. You will even see how that love can flow out of you in the strangest ways to touch a world starved for it.

Learning to trust him like that is not something any of us can resolve in an instant; it’s something we’ll grow to discover for the whole of our lives. God knows how difficult it is for us to accept his love, and he teaches us with more patience than we’ve ever known. Through every circumstance and in the most surprising ways, he makes his love known to us in ways we can understand.

So perhaps it’s time to toss your daisies aside and discover that it is not the fear of losing God’s love that will keep you on his path, but the simple joy of living in it every day."

- Excerpt from He Loves Me... (learning to live in the father's affection) by Wayne Jacobsen