Greater Works than Jesus

I'm really excited because I've had this great breakthrough in understanding regarding a verse that has haunted me ever since I first read it, or rather since the first time I've heard it used to encourage me to believe that I'm supposed to be able to do "great things", usually in the context of the definition of "great things" being miracles of healing and the such.

The verse is John 14:12 "Truly, truly I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father."

Now it's been explained to me that when Jesus said "...because I am going to the Father," he is talking about going into the Holy of holies in the heavenlies to sprinkle his blood and atone for our sins and meet the requirements that would allow the Holy Spirit to come.  He talks for quite awhile after this about the Helper coming.  So I was thinking it was worth consideration why Jesus said we could do "greater" works because he goes to the Father.  Greater how?  We'll be able to feed 50,000 instead of 5,000?  Cause fisherman to haul in a few thousand fish in their nets instead of a few hundred?  He raised a dead man who'd been dead four days.  We'll raise one that has been dead for four years?  Hmmm.... I think this sounds ridiculous.

I think Jesus was severely limited while he was here because he could feed with bread but not feed spirits yet.  He could open blind eyes but not blind minds' eyes.  He could teach amazing parables, but the men who were with him for three years still didn't get it.  But then the Holy Spirit came, and the dead were spiritually raised and his apostles officially became fishers of men.  Are those not greater works?  I suppose they might not seem so when we are preoccupied with the comfort of our body and our belly.

The weight is off!  I've been feeling guilty for too long that I did not have mountains uprooting themselves and throwing themselves into the sea.  The greater works are the sinners coming to repentance!  The dead being raised on a daily basis!

Repentance and turning back to the Doctrine of the Fathers

The past several weeks have been interesting ones for me.  God has shed light through his word and through some fantastic teachers I've been reading that I have accepted many teachings into my life and put them into practice and promoted them to others without checking them against the word of God.

We live in a postmodern age.  I'm not going to go about defining postmodern because there are so many that can do that much better than I.  But what comes with our current postmodern culture is a discarding of standards, throwing off of traditions and your own personal reasoning is all you really filter anything through.  Now as a Christian, I have used the excuse many times that the Holy Spirit is present to keep me in check and to keep me from falling into error.

It's become out of fashion to have a collection of agreed-upon doctrine with which to educate our children.  We have this solar system of faith that includes a few central truths we agree must stand firm, but everything that orbits around it is fair game.  But the central truths are intrinsically tied to other "non-central" points of doctrine.  And there are words that need to be defined properly and understood properly for the "central truths" to result in saving faith.  Words like "sin", "repentance", "faith", "disciple".

We pretty much try to make sure members of the church understand the "Plan of Salvation" and gear everything towards that.  (Especially to our children, who are least likely to understand the definitions.  And our Sunday School teachers are not given an agreed-upon definition to relate to their students.)  We ignore teaching what the bible teaches about heaven, hell, our own hearts, whether we are wicked or good "at heart".  And when older members discuss such things, nothing is presented in a clear, authoritative way, but comes more in a form of panel discussion by everyone present and the person with the best debate skills wins the point for whatever they feel  is the correct view.  The early Christian fathers had words of the very harshest kind for stepping outside of sound doctrine and leading others to do so.

Every church seems to be trying to "keep up with the times" or stay "relevant", but is it possible that the truth as set forth in God's word really is sufficient for saving and redeeming our souls and helping us become godly?  Is it possible that the message actually hasn't changed for 2000 years?  And is it possible that if you set forth the message in a way that is consistent with sound doctrine that it wouldn't be new and innovative and would sell no books?  It is amazing how things can sound right, and feel right and not be right.  Our hearts are deceitful and capable of making lies sound like truth.  We've got to wake up to the fact that we're receiving too much without questioning, and when we do question, the only filter we put it through is our darkened understanding... or the consensus of those we have happened to surround ourselves with.

My thoughts really aren't properly gathered to enable me to share all of what God's been showing me as I read the works of those who have studied the works of those who have studied God's Word for years in its original language, and who have studied the teachings of the early church fathers and of the Reformation leaders.  But suffice it to say for now that if Martin Luther was alive today, 95 theses might not cover all of what he would feel the need to nail to the church door.

But one of the things I would like to personally confess to is that in the past, I have had a love for books on psychology.  Unfortunately, most of the "Fathers" of psychology are people like Freud, Jung and Rogers who not only reject God's word, but embraced occult practices.  Is it possible for any truth to come out of the minds that have become darkened from rejecting God?  And the main business of psychology is to deal with "darkened minds" and guilt, and changing human hearts.  Should Christians be going outside the church for that?  I know I have in the past and it's warped, among other things, my interpretation of the Word of God.  Here is a great web site, by the way, that have several books made available online covering the reasoning behind rejecting any marrying of psychology with Christianity: http://www.psychoheresy-aware.org/

So that's all for now.  I'll be working my way through A New Systematic Theology by Robert Reymond and Augustine's City of God.  

Oh, one more thing!  I have totally been enjoying a podcast called "Pirate Christian Radio".  It's free on ITunes.  Check it out!!!

Depression is a Choice

The title of today's post is also a title of a really good book I'm reading.  The woman who wrote it is a psychologist (went to school to be one when she was about my age).  But she actually spends most of the book explaining how weak the foundation is for the modern approach to mental health and the general practices of most in her profession, as well as the psychiatric profession. 

I had checked this book out of the library along with several others as I simply pulled some in a relatively random manner from the shelves because I had decided it was time to do something.  I was sensing some of the emotional roller coaster that had me just about worn out was really not all about my circumstances.  There was something going on that I should be able to get control of instead of waiting on someone to come and save me.

Don't get me wrong.  I believe there is definitely a time to wait on the Lord and he makes sure that we are completely frustrated in our efforts to "better our life" so we don't become strong in the flesh and spiritually weak.  However... there are the pits we keep jumping into all on our own, and I was sensing that I was finding myself in the same pit over and over again in my life and it was time to figure out a way around the pit.  Yes, I've read Beth Moore's book Get out of That Pit.  And maybe some of this was covered, and maybe I wasn't ready to hear it.

I'm only halfway through the book, but that's enough to make a big difference.  Though she may or may not be a Christian (she quotes the Bible and theologians, but also philosophers and Eastern Mystics... who have been known to say some very wise things themselves, so I have just rolled with it so far) she says what many in the Church, that I've heard, are not courageous enough to say.  And this is it:  Depression is a choice.  It is a choice to allow our emotions to carry us away into a pit of despair and hopelessness.  We have control over what we decide to think about and the part of the mind from which depression springs is a separate part of the mind that is able to be analytical or creative, so if we do something as simple as count to 100 or sing a nursery rhyme, the thoughts that carry us away into an emotional frenzy, of either depression or of a manic nature, cannot remain.

The idea is to realize that we don't have to be depressed.  That depression will pass on its own if we don't give so much attention to it.  Though our body chemistry does change in response to these feelings that follow wrong thoughts, the chemistry is not the cause and can be changed by choosing better thoughts. 

The most cool thing she has expressed in her book is that Psychologists are severely missing the boat if they talk about fighting depression without bringing up ideas like Courage and Social Responsibility and Moral Authority.  In short, we have a responsibility to the people around us to maintain a  cheerful heart.  I have decided to take this approach in our family, by the way.  I have decided that I have a responsibility to provide for my children a cheerful mother.  The Lord knows that I know very well the effect depressed parents can have on their children.  They really aren't there, no matter how much they try to fake it, and the children know it.

And it works the other way too.  I am teaching my children that they have a responsibility to cheerful.  I'm not saying they're not allowed to be sad, but I have a few, one in particular, that really loves a good pity party.  When you ask her why she's sad and you show her how that reason does not hold up, she shifts quickly to find something else she should be upset about.  The truth is, she wants pity.  She's addicted to it.  (I can't imagine where she would pick up such a thing! :) )  So if she gets in that mode, I don't cater to it and tell her that she can go to her room if she wants to sulk and can join us when she's cheerful.  But most of the time it doesn't go that far.  Usually, I can distract her as she's starting to break down in tears but throwing some  math fact problems at her (she's 8) and it's amazing how quickly she snaps out of her downward spiral.  I do the same with the older children, but with times table facts.  The simply snap out of what is essentially temporary insanity and I can usually move them quite past the moment and they forget to be upset.

It works for me too.  There are certain subjects that are poison for my mind to dwell on.  I have had some things happen in my life that I only have to think about for a few minutes and easily end up in tears.  But what good does that do?  No good whatsoever.  No one is helped by it.  I'm starting to realize home schooling has saved me from a complete breakdown because I've been too busy to do much thinking at all.  Some people would call this denial.  But I've decided to not feel guilty for being happier than I "ought" to be.  I can't change my past.  I can learn from it and live the "right now".  And I've taken to singing the most simple praise songs and decided not to feel guilty if I'm not "worshiping" while I sing them.  Those songs make it impossible to keep a depressing thought from existing in my mind and maintain a cheerful heart for which my family is grateful. 

Oh, I have so much more on this subject. But I'm going to let that be it for now.

A very short post

I have come to the realization that all the things that I thought were causing my unhappiness have actually been the means by which God has revealed my unhappiness.  It might be more accurate to say, what has been taken away were the things I was using to cover up an unhappy heart, to distract it.  Must go think about this for awhile.

Church: Instant Circle of Friends for the Socially Inept?

I've been doing some thinking lately about how American Christians "do" church and how it's different from the way it all started 2000 years ago.  There are some that would say that the problem is that we have the overhead of the building or pay for pastor's salaries when Christ is supposed to be the head, etc., etc.  Now this may be so in some ways.  There's a function in one of my husband's desktop publishing programs (I think one of the music ones) that has a "snap to" function that can be turned on so that where ever you place a note, it "snaps to" the closest valid position for a note.  There's a similar function in windows when arranging your desktop.  You can push things around and have the setting on that causes the icons to "snap to" a nice,  neat little spot on the page that makes all your icons line up in neat little rows.  (Though according to my husband, you should have your desktop cleaned up to the point where you don't have enough on the desktop to actually make rows!)

The people of God are the same way really.  God intervenes to get them out of the pattern of the world, and it isn't long before we've "snapped to" the pattern of the world.  One of the biggest patterns of the world that the church has taken on in America is the tendency to pander to the wealthy, the successful, the popular... those who really have it together.  I'm not going to go into the details of how it's done differently, but the evidence is there.  It seems that the church is attracting the respectable more than not and I'm pretty sure those that fill the pews may look a lot like the religious establishment of Jesus' day.  I'm not questioning the faith of anyone in particular or saying that you can't have money and have faith in Jesus.  But Jesus did say it was incredibly difficult.  If it's such a rare and difficult thing to get a rich man into heaven (and yes, most who read this are "rich" or you wouldn't be sitting there on a personal computer in your own home) then why do so many fill the pews in America.  Jesus couldn't give away his message for free when he was on this earth.  Is it the very same message that is actually producing bestseller books and millionaire preachers?

So it comes down to what I've been convicted of personally regarding this.   I grew up attending a Lutheran Congregation (not Missouri Synod, but the very Midwestern conservative LCA.) in Dallas Texas, therefore gained few friends through church that I saw at school during the week.  There was a total of one person my age that attended, and she went to a different school in the district.  So then I came to U.T.  Some people I met in my dorm brought me to a Campus Crusade for Christ meeting.  I thought I had entered heaven.  Not because I had entered the presence of God, but because 2/3 of the  members were also members of Sororities and Fraternities on campus.  I was NOT popular in high school.  I now thank the Lord I wasn't.  But back then (or maybe still?), I was still hungry to be noticed by the beautiful people, and here was a room FULL of them and they were all being nice to me.

Now these may have been genuine Christians who really did have the love of Christ for me, but overall--let's admit it-- they had to be nice.  Everyone knows that you're not allowed to prefer the rich over the poor in church.  So even if we don't want to, we'll be nice to those we don't like, and we'll be especially nice to those we feel really uncomfortable around.  But we'll usually only let them so close.

Does anyone watch the show Community?  Jack Black guest stars as a member of their Spanish class who was so beneath notice that no one knew he'd been in their class all this time.  He plops himself into the middle of their study group and starts acting like a member of their "crowd".  No one wants to be the one to admit that they want to kick this guy out.  They don't want to be the mean one.  But ultimately, he gets dragged out kicking and screaming.  But it could have gone another way.  They could have let him stay, out of fear of being the bad guy, and never really let him in either.

I think there's a lot of that in the church now.  The "rejects" of this world come to the Church because it promises something different, and seems to deliver at first.  But they still end up on the margins of an organization that is supposed to favor the poor, the despised the down and out.  But isn't it partly the fault of those coming in for acceptance too?  If we are really following Jesus (and not those people we long to be accepted by) shouldn't we be searching for someone more needy than ourselves to reach out to?  James reprimanded those he wrote to in the New Testament for (this is a paraphrase) "seeking the favor of the very ones who treat you so badly".  I have been guilty of that for years, to be honest.  But these people weren't "dragging me into court", so my error wasn't quite as obvious.  But they were keeping me at arm's length.  They have been for years, but I've been in denial.  The test is, if I stop making effort, will the relationship's still continue?  If I don't show up, will anyone call?  Or will they be relieved.  I know this sounds pathetic, but it's been my reality.  I'm not having a pity part (at all).  I'm just stating facts.

So I'm going to start rejoicing in the special favor I have in my Lord's eyes in my "low position" (see James, chapter 1) and start calling on some people that are actually glad to hear from me!

A Beautiful Key

Here is something beautiful I never saw in Romans before.  I've always been intrigued with this section early in Romans but never have seen before how it can be used to interpret later passages in Romans 7 and 8.

This is from Romans 4:

"[Abraham believed] God, who brings to life the dead, and calls those things that are not as though they were.  Who against hope believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations; according to that which is spoken, so shall they seed be. And being no weak in faith, he considered his own body now dead, when he was about a hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of sara's womb...and being fully persuaded that, what he had promised, he was able to perform"

The references to a dead womb (unable to receive life) and his own dead body (unable to offer anything good) brings to mind the references to our dead flesh that can do nothing but produce dead works.  And God is able to raise the dead and the promise is made later in this letter to the Romans that the "Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead will also give life to our mortal bodies".  I wait for this, but when I read 1 John and other places about what those signs of life are, well, I'm starting lately to see them, but had not before.  Why?  Didn't I only have to believe?  Why was I acting more like a disconnected branch, a sick tree bearing bad fruit?

Look at Abraham believed God, that real life would be given.  But the actual quickening of the dead happened years later.  Now Abraham did not know how it would happen or when.  And when life did not appear yet, it was not the fault of Abraham, that he was doing something wrong.  Though he did try to readjust the understanding of the promise at one point and thought that since he had not seen the fulfillment of the promise yet that maybe he misunderstood, that it wasn't as wonderful as he thought it was going to be and that he needed to adjust his approach.  And the thing is, Hagar conceived.  It seemed to work.  It wasn't until later that the fruit was manifested to be a work of the flesh.

The sad thing is, in today's microwave, instant society, Abraham probably wouldn't have given up after the Hagar debacle.  He would have assumed that his approach just needed to be adjusted and he would have tried one misguided attempt after another and Isaac never would have born!

But he hung on and believed God would perform as he promised, exactly as he promised.  His faith became so strong that he actually was willing to sacrifice Isaac, after all that waiting.  But God is the one who raises the dead, and it may not happen in my timing, but it will be as wonderful, if not more wonderful, than everything I thought it would be, that it should be, if we believe what is described in the Gospels and Paul's letters and especially in 1 John.  Beyond belief!  But I'm going to believe exactly that.

Christ Plays in Ten Thousand places

Here are some quotes from one of my favorite authors from a book I'm reading by him right now, Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places.  The idea of the title is that of all the "games" that Man likes to participate in, the reality is, there is only one game going in God's eyes, the game of salvation, and Christ plays every position in a thousand ways.

Here are some quotes that most recently started my wheels turning:

"Salvation is God's work: Jesus saves.  In competence may be the essential qualification, lest we impatiently and presumptuously take over the business and start managing a vast and intricate economy that we have no way of comprehending.  To be sure, we get intimations; we are in touch with stories that reveal God's salvation work at certain moments in history to which we have access.  We know enough to get in on the life of salvation personally by repenting and believing and following Jesus, the architect and pioneer of salvation.  But when all is said and done, we don't know very much.  Most of what goes on in salvation is beyond us; we live a mystery.  We make our way through life in a "cloud of unknowing".  p. 152

"The Wonder at the Sea (the crossing of the Red Sea by the Israelites) is meant to be unederstood as miracle without qualification.  It was not even qualified by Israel's faith.  Brevard Childs makes the trenchant observation that 'Israel failed to believe right up to the moment of her deliverance.'  At the very outset we are meant to understand taht salvation is not limited by conditions, by impossibilities, by conventions.  The Wonder at the Sea establishes it as fundamental that salvation consists in what God does; it is not a human project.  We see and fear and believe (14:31) and that's it.  This is difficult to digest, for we grow up with and are surrounded with 'salvation projects' on all fronts (many of them in churches) that insist that what we do, how we get involved, is critical to their success.  When waws the last time that we heard one of our pastors or evangelists or politicians tell us, 'You have only to keep still'?  But that is what we are told here.  This is as indisputable and as clear as our story teller can make it: Our showcase salvation story anchors 'save' in the sheer, unqualified miracle of the Wonder at the Sea.  Only God did this and only God could do it.'  p.172

"[Resurrection] happens, we do not make it happen.  The more we get involved in what God is doing, the less we find ourselves running things; the more we participate in God's work s revealed in Jesus, the more is done to us and the more is done through us.  The more we practice resurrection the less we are on our own or by ourselves, for we find that this resurrection that is so intensely and relationally personal in Father, Son, and Spirit at the same time plunges us into relationships with brothers and sisters we never knew we had: we are in community whether we like it or not.  We do not choose to be in this community; by virtue of the resurrection of Jesus, this is the company we keep."  p.231

Absolute Surrender... for real this time!

Yes, yes... I know.  There will be re-surrender, again and again.  "I surrender all" has been the theme of prayers in the past, but there was a different flavor to this one, a brutal honesty that wasn't there before, mostly because so much yuck has come to the surface lately and I can no longer deny that I am unsound and covered in wounds from head to toe, as described in Isaiah.

Those who know me know that I rarely read one book at a time.  Right now I'm in the middle of several and lately I kept reading the same sort of message, no matter who I was reading: Larry Crabb to Johnathan Edwards to Nancy Lee DeMoss to Thomas Merton (and I could go on)-- they were all saying the same thing.  I'll quote the one I was reading when everything seemed to come to ahead:

"The person who has never acknowledged Christ's right to rule over his life has no basis for assurance of salvation.  he may claim to be a Christian; he may have walked an aisle or prayed the sinner's prayer, he way know how to speak "Christianese"; he may be heavily involved in Christian activities; but if he thinks he can have a relationship with God by retaining control over his life and somehow trying to fit Jesus in with everything else, he is deceived and is still at war with God."

-Nancy Leigh DeMoss, Surrender, from the trilogy Brokenness, Surrender, Holiness

This is what I was reading God seized my heart and put my face between his hands and turned it up towards his countenance.  I have been frustrated lately in my efforts to change some things in my life--some of them on the level of "bad habits" and some easily fell in the category of outright breaking of God's commandments.  But I know that truly they are all issues of the heart, because we do what we want to do.  That's what we eventually do, anyway.  And no lasting change would come in my behavior or my feelings until my heart changed.  I knew in my heart that I loved the world.  I know that I love the opinions of men and become a slave to such fear daily. (Most specifically, lately, the opinion of my husband.  And though I'm supposed to revere and obey him and should want to please him, there is no fear in love, so if I'm walking in fear, something is seriously wrong)  And my heart did not hate sin.  I was not facing, honestly, the wall I was building brick by brick between my and my family and me and my God.  (And all the people who were already out of sight because the walls were complete.)

But what hit me at this moment, is that I had not called Jesus "Lord".  I called him "Lord" in the morning, before the kids get up and the demands of the day come, but I have held onto the right to rule my own life and was making decisions all day long that I knew He would not approve of, and that Nick would not approve of, and when it comes right down to it, I did not approve of.  In fact, there was a little girl, a long time ago, who looked just like me, but shorter and with less gray hair, that would be shocked at the things I do, the sneaking, the lying, the distrust of almost everyone.  So no, he was not Lord, absolute authority, in my life.  I could not be described as a slave to him in any sense of the word, but rather a slave to my fear, my passions, to anger, to unbelief.

No, if I looked at what my life had seemed to become, my lips worshiped, but my heart was far from him.  Now what's confusing is, I could still come to experience his presence in my life.  I've heard his voice.  But is this the evidence that is the proof that I'm looking for?  To be free to obey God is what Romans says is the fruit of new life, of a new heart, of being buried with Christ (rejecting the world) and being raised with him to new life (a life which values Kingdom things, not things that feed the flesh).

So I was left with this dilemma: I needed to let Jesus rule my life, but I knew it seemed impossible because my heart was still bent towards the unholy trinity of "I want, I feel, I need".  It would just be another empty promise made in the morning, broken later in the day.  (Though this was actually close to midnight when this all happened, so even worse, I had a whole night to sleep off the effects of my resolve.  But I know it would take more than resolve.  So something else needed to happen, something I'd be completely out of control of whether it happened or not.  Something I could not do for myself.

Now I have told God that I surrendered everything before.  And I have asked for a new heart before.  But there a few things different this time.  I think this is the first time it clicked together at the same time, the conviction that I needed to surrender combined with the realization of my need for a new heart with new desires.  This is the first time I've come before him with such absolute honesty of how much I had hated him and spurned him every time I chose to be deaf to his voice and... oh, I don't know.  It's so hard to describe other than being in the light.  He gave me the grace, at that moment, to come so completely into the light, where everything became so clear.  And as I brought one thing after another before him in confession, his holiness surrounded me and healing was in the air.

The biggest difference this has made in my life is not that it's enabling me to "get my act together".  That would be old way, linear thinking--striving to live up to a code, the law, a standard.  The biggest difference is that it's brought peace.  I have been at war with God and not been admitting to it.  My heart was constantly straining in the other direction, so obedience took so much work.  Just existing, took so much work, because my head was full of so much knowledge of how things ought to be.  So guilt just weighed me down, the guilt of knowing that I didn't want what I ought to want.  Now I have lifted that work up to the Lord and my hope is completely in him to make it happen.

By the way, here are a list of some of the things that I laid down including many that I didn't expect to be on the list:

- the right to spend money how I want to (I am the one who takes care of the bills and who knows where all the balances are at on all the credit cards, and though I know it eventually comes out
- the right to my time, to have any leisure even
- the right to sleep
- the right to a good marriage
- the right to have good kids
- the right to stay home with my kids and home school them
- the right to fellowship with other believers (Really, this a a privilege, not a right.  And the kind of fellowship that first century believers enjoyed is such a rare commodity today, how could it possibly be considered a right?)
- the right to a devotional time in the morning, or any other part of the day.
- the right to read
- the right to feel good or be comfortable
- the right to be useful in God's kingdom.  I am only called to readiness.

I'll close with these words by Thomas Merton, which contain a surprising definition of lukewarm, but rings true...at least it did in my life:

"There is no neutrality between gratitude and ingratitude.  Those who are not grateful soon begin to complain of everything.  Those who do not love, hate.  In the spiritual life there is no such thing as an indifference to love or hate.  That is why tepidity (which seems to be indifferent) is so detestable.  It is hate disguised as love.
    Tepidity, in which the soul is neither "hot or cold"--neither frankly loves nor frankly hates--is a state in which one rejects God and rejects the will of God while maintaining an exterior pretense of loving Him in order to keep out of trouble and save one's supposed self-respect. "

Little Addendum to my last post

I don't know if I've ever posted twice in one day, but I wanted to get my thoughts on this out there because I don't want to lose this thread and let it vaporize in the attack from the Enemy of distractions and incredibly negative thoughts threatening to wash away all traces of the path that might lead me out of this pit.

I watched an episode of the Closer while on the treadmill. The storyline included a couple who had lost their daughter to a murdering rapist and watched him get convicted but receive a mere 8 years in prison. After he got out, the girl's mother found out where he got hired for work and pass out fliers to everyone at his job, telling what he had done, so he kept losing jobs. When police questioned the couple because they were suspects in the murder of their daughter's killer, the father asked, "Was he brutally tortured before he suffered a long painful death? No? Then it wasn't me." It was really clear that these fictional but realistic characters had clearly not only lost their daughter, but themselves.

As I pondered this story later, I considered how the offense doesn't really matter; the nature of the loss doesn't really matter. When it's all said and done, unforgiveness is amazingly consistent in its effect. I could search my whole life and never find someone who understands exactly what I'm going through, because as the Proverb says, "Each heart knows it's own bitterness." And somehow, it's tempting to believe the uniqueness of my situation justifies staying in that bitter place. But I'm starting to realize that my path is simply a different path that leads to an amazingly similar end.

The Lord illumined something else as I meditated on the effects of unforgiveness: the nature of my burden. I think I carry more upon myself because I have started to lay so much on others. If I cut others little slack, I end up cutting myself even less. I wondered, as this bitterness has grown in my heart, how much my burden of guilt has increased as well, so gradually that I forgot that my heart didn't used to be this heavy. As I allow myself to judge others in the ways they have not met my expectations, I become VERY aware that others have expectations of me as well. And sometimes these are actual expectations, and sometimes they are imagined, and they all increase the pressure, the burden, the weight.

It's like how it is to run on that treadmill. I used to run that same three miles in high school, but it's not the same three miles, if you know what I mean. I weighed 120 when I ran it back then and now I weigh.... well... more. I'm not going to put that in black and white. :) And it's been about 25 years since I ran and it's not like I added all that weight at once. So I don't remember being different, but I know it was. And if I could lose it all at once, I'm sure I'd feel like I was on wings once I started running.

Jesus offers a quick-loss program. I could lose this weight of unforgiveness, but sometimes it seems more elusive than that 120 mark on the scale.

A new Year, A new Heart... this is what I need.

Last night, I had a little meltdown that showed me just how angry I am about some things. I'm not a big fan of laying out my dirtiest laundry in cyberspace, but I'm thinking that maybe there are some that might relate and could be encouraged. Who knows?

As I was beginning to say, I'm very angry inside. What came out as I poured my heart out to God (I'm so grateful when my meltdowns happen with Him and not in other harmful forms with my family.) was a glimpse of the ugliness of rage that I was simply calling "resentment". Like God spoke through Isaiah, I had serious, gaping, festering wounds in my hearts that I was not treating seriously or tending to and they were poisoning my life. If you're married, you know how it can be when you have a fight with your spouse and you separate angrily and can't function to do anything else, can't concentrate on any task, until you resolve your conflict. Well, This is where I am, more or less. But it's over conflict with people I rarely see and whose relationships have become superficial and the conflict will probably never be resolved other than for me to lay my hurt down at the Cross and walk away and never look back.

So what has been happening is that I've been walking in serious poverty where I should have riches. I've entrusted my heart to sinful men, they've smashed it to pieces and I'm sitting here waiting on them to put it together again. And of course, they never will. They wouldn't know where to begin. I'm grateful to my husband who has counseled me over and over to resist the urge to let those who have hurt me know how deeply I'm hurt, to make an effort to get them to see what they've done. It's a tempting but foolish path for so many reasons. As I imagine what would happen if I did, not a single outcome is anything that would ultimately make me happy.

But the desire to "resolve" all this is holding me back from everything that could be called moving forward, or even simply abiding in anything that could be called contentment. And the tremendous shipwreck that I've had has caused me to not even want to set sail again. And I stay on the shores of a dry and weary land, still looking for water. I read "His lovingkindness is better than life" and it's never fallen so flat. But I think it's the first time I've had to depend on him and only him. I think I read that before and rejoiced, but was still receiving water from the broken cisterns that surrounded me. (In Jeremiah, the Lord accuses his people of forsaking the spring of living water and going to broken cisterns when they thirst.) Now I have no one but him and am facing a crisis of belief. Is He really enough?

Will I gladly not look back and gladly look forward to a life where He is my only portion? I have my face turned up toward him waiting for the grace to believe and am hopeful. "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life!"

Words we have lost but still use

Everyone who lives in America, who hasn't been living in a cave or something, has witnessed a flood of words entering our language to accommodate the flood of new technology, among other new things--new types of education, new ways of defining relationships and family and even new ways of committing crimes, and this only names a few of the avenues for new words. But does our language really have the capacity to expand infinitely? Or are new words coming in bound to force old ones out? Words only stick around if they are actually used and can we really use more words per day, per year? Or will the aspects of life that brought the new words in leave no room for the other parts of our life--or that used to be part of our lives--that caused the use of the old words.

I know, this is a deep thought. And may not seem significant in any way. Who really cares of we lose a few words, if we gain so many? Well, as a linguist, I care for one.

Perhaps, though, the greatest loss, is not when we lose words as much as keeping words that lose their meaning. I've been reading a book series to my kids (The Five Little Peppers) that was written over a hundred years ago and the language is so different, and certain words have completely different meanings and connotations than they do now: words like "cunning" and "elegant" and "prime"... and the one that disturbed my kids the most was when I first used in the 19th century sense--"toilet" :)

There was a learning curve, but after a few chapters, they caught on.

Eugene H. Peterson--the author of The Message--in most of his other writings spends a lot of time explaining precise definitions of words as they were originally intended in the Hebrew or Greek. I used to assume that every language was equally capable of translating the meaning of any phrase from any other language. But language reflects the culture. And the further our culture moves away from resembling what it did when the bible was written, that harder it becomes to translate, I imagine.

Some words have not changed meaning as much as become the equivalent of nutritional fillers and as potent as placebos--they, as far as I can tell, have little meaning whatsoever. We carelessly toss words around in such a way to certainly confuse the listener (as it can easily mean one thing as intended by the speaker and received as something completely different by the listener). Perhaps our lips have just become to far removed from our hearts.

The classic example, which I've heard mentioned in many a sermon, is the word "awesome", which we use to describe mountains towering above but may be just as likely be used to describe the news that a favorite team has won one of the hundreds of games they will play this year, or even more trivial, we have found the cap to our favorite pen!

The word that I'm tempted to stop using altogether is "love". The bible says "God is love." That sets the standard for the definition, or it ought to. There ought to be a certain reverence for a word that, in one word, encompasses the whole of God's character (and the summing up of God's law as well).

But I am as guilty as anyone of throwing that word around with little reverence. I "love" my children, my dog, my husband, chocolate, a joke, sleep and my favorite TV show--oh, and God. Jesus defines love as laying down your life (not being willing mind you, but actually laying it down) for the one you love. Does this definition apply to all these things on my list? I certainly hope not, though it probably applies more to things that it ought not to than the things that it ought. And what I probably "love" most, by this definition, would be my pride, my reputation, my comfort and my selfish lusts.

So what would I say about the things I say I "love" if I was forced to remove "love" from my vocabulary?

For my favorite TV show?

"I am diverted by this show and it numbs me from the pain that my heart constantly smarts from due to the blows life has dealt."

For chocolate?

"I feel good so little of the time and when I put this in my mouth, I feel good and feel pleasure, thought it's only a shadow of what I wish I could have in my life."

For my child?

"I see you, my child, and I feel a swelling of pride that my old, tired body could have produced anything so seemingly unspoiled and beautiful. I look at you and I can have hope that my life hasn't been wasted."

For my dog?

"O my doggie, I am so grateful to have anything look at me that way, like I could do no wrong and you would follow me to the ends of the earth and never complain about what I give you for dinner. You are so much easier than people."

For my God?

This is one that's going to take some thought, so I'll leave that for later. :)

I mostly just want to be left alone... but then I get lonely.

Every once in awhile, I get a fresh glimpse of just how vast is the chasm between myself and the Lord. Here is a description of my latest glimpse. Notice a common thread in all these sayings of the Lord--a spirit of welcoming with arms open wide: "Come unto me...and I will give your rest," "Come and follow me," "I long to gather you as a hen gathers her chicks," "Come all who are thirsty." This just scratches the surface. Pay attention, as you read his Word how the Lord constantly beckons: Adam out of hiding, Moses up the mountain, to his people to turn towards him and away from their sin... and even without the words, his posture is the one of the Father of the prodigal, arms open wide.

Then I considered myself and what my kids hear from me most of the time. "Not right now," "Go and get your work done," "Go back to your room and let me rest," "Go outside and play". Sadly, my kids are probably more likely, if they hear me actually calling them to come to me, to believe that I have a chore in mind for them and they don't come very quickly. Rarely do I call them to come with me to the store if Nick is home to be able to watch them, but may find myself trying to sneak out before they notice I've gone, because for every child I end up taking to the store, you can probably add 20 minutes to the trip and when I have all four, I'll probably forget several things on the list.

So of course, this is not characteristic of all my interactions with my children, and there are certainly good reasons for me to need time to rest or go the store alone. But I guess I'm not feeling guilt for my words to them as much as the attitude of my heart. I always have my guard up to protect myself from my kids and protect my own interests in general. The demands certainly are great and my supply is limited (except when God's grace intervenes) and I hoard my time and energies like the servant burying his talent. (And I won't even go into my poor husband and the leftovers he deals with if there are leftovers I'm willing to spare at all. And of course, he'll agree, it goes both ways. We're both guilty of assuming we couldn't possible ask for one more thing from our spouse that the world around us hasn't already sapped from us and have come to this sad truce best described in "I won't bother you if you don't bother me.")

This is where I am completely in awe of Jesus. He and his disciples have ministered non-stop and haven't even had a chance to eat (Mark 6) and Jesus leads them to slip away with him in the boat to a place without public demands for rest. The people on the shore are not caring whether Jesus and his disciples should rest and race on foot along the shore and are waiting for them when they land. Instead of having the breakdown I probably would have had (though a mother's heart does tend to rise to the occasion, but in the instance... I just don't know if I could have done what Jesus did), Jesus had compassion on them and decided they were needier than himself and continued to minister to them.

So I ponder how soon after we are moved by every instinct to bond with our parents and make social connection with others that we start to desire separation from others, starting to hate them in our hearts as we compete for possessions, turf, the affection of our parents, the last piece of cake. We see our siblings as in the way, making a mess, a source of annoyance or hurt, and we daydream of life as an only child

My girls (3 of them) all share a room. When they get to bickering or keep each other from going to sleep when they ought to, night after night, it's tempting to start seeking the solution of separate rooms (which would mean moving or renovating). But do we want to teach them this sort of solution to interpersonal problems? Do good walls really make for the best neighbors? Granted, certain respect for personal bounderies must be taught, but do the walls need to be physical?

Life without others is more simple, uncluttered, streamlined, productive... and lonely. The bottom line is, God says, "It is not good for man to be alone." I used to try to get around this by reasoning this just applied to the male of the species, that men cannot function will on their own, but women aren't near as helpless. Apparently, I've been brainwashed by the modern media.... Shame on me.

So this whole meditation caused me to reflect back on the book by C.S. Lewis called The Great Divorce in which Lewis gives a picture that we all are making progress towards heaven or hell throughout life and prepare ourselves in a gradual way for one or the other. And that hell is simply the end of the path which, as we travel down it, we become more and more isolated from others and we are fit for nothing but the ultimate isolation in the trash heap outside the city. (I'm mixing my own thoughts here with my memory of the book, I'm sure.)

And on our way towards heaven, we travel the path where are hearts become softer, more able to receive others into our thoughts, enter into their joys and sufferings, and we make ourselves fit for community, until we finally land, in the end, in the ultimate eternal fellowship with the Church and the Trinity.

Asleep in the Light or Awake in the Dark?

I've been considering how much the last few years (or maybe 20) has been an awakening and how much I was sleepwalking through life before--content to simply move forward (but not really) in in a state where choices of movement, words, even food, are moved by habit and instinct and feeling, without any thought as to how my choices affect myself or others or where they will eventually take me.

My great goal in life seemed to have become to "get through the day". And if I, on those rare occasions, aspired to greater goals, they were goals that I received unthinkingly from someone else who told me I ought to be this or that: thinner, more well-read, have more money. And I thought if I achieved those goals (though it was rare that I ever allowed a goal in that was truly achievable, therefore draining me of my courage to have any goals whatsoever), if I achieved them, I would finally be truly happy. And I thought this despite all evidence to the contrary in the lives of others, whether contemporaries or throughout history.

Though on reconsidering the matter, there were indeed lives who displayed evidence to the contrary, people who reached these goals (sad imitations of the upward call in Christ). But sadly, I often failed to take the time to sort out which evidence was deposited in my mind, into my memory banks of data used to calculate my choices, via the lives of fictional characters who entered in by way of television, movies, books, even songs.

So how did I start waking up? First consider how I went to sleep. Was it self-defense--a sort of post-traumatic syndrome of spiritual narcolepsy? Is it because life is simply too unpleasant to engage fully awake?

Yes, life is very painful. No one bothers to deny this. But a truth more difficult to accept is how much of our pain is self-inflicted. And even harder to accept is that changing our bent towards self-destruction and leaving destruction in our wake is beyond the reach of self-help, goals, programs, and 12-step programs.

But listen to Karl Barth as he considers how salvation comes through being a watchman--the antithesis to being asleep in the light, by the way, in that a watchman has to stay awake in the dark:

"The righteous whall live by faithfulness! (Hab 2:4). The righteous man is the prisoner become watchman. He is the guard at the threshold of divine reality. There is no righteousness save that of the man who sets himself under judgment, of the man who is terrified and hopes. He shall live. He has the expectation of true life, for, recognizing that this life is naught, he is never without the reflection of the true life in this life, never without the prospect of incorruption in that which is passing to corruption."
-Karl Barth, The Epistle to the Romans, p. 41

So we adjust our thinking and stop thinking about whose fault it is that we are going through pain, birth pangs rather. And rejoice that every trial is bringing us closer to rebirth, that he who has suffered is done with sin, if we hope in the glory of God being revealed in us, for by this hope we are saved (1 John). We refuse anesthesia because we no refuse to dilute the joy of the birth to come (or inhibit the birth by deadening our senses).

By the way, it's interesting that the phrase in Galations 2:20, which in the King James is translated "faith of Christ" is stubbornly translated in most other versions as "Faith in Jesus". Our only work is to believe, to hope. And the greater part of the work is on God's part. The phrase, I have heard, could be more properly translated "faithfulness of Christ". In our world of speeding along things, being in a hurry to be healed, to grow faster than nature allows, it is a hard thing to learn that so much our work is in the waiting and watching. And God is gracious. Just like the story of Frog and Toad where toad planted seeds and did all sorts of things to try to make them grow faster--read to them, play music, etc.--he felt victorious when they finally sprang up. But they would have sprouted anyway, and he would have been much more well rested had he simply waited. But God still brings life despite our crazy urge to participate in those works that can only be done by his hand. What a gracious God!!!

It's been awhile...

It really feels like jumping on the bandwagon to be finally adding a new entry to my blog today. I saw Julie and Julia last night and it made me want to blog. It also made me want to eat French food. Le Madeline is right across from the movie theater, but sadly, it was closed. Chili's was not closed and it was amusing how long we took to decide what to get because "southwest" this and deep fried that just was not what you feel like eating after that movie. You want baguettes and brie, or meat baked into bread or anything cooked with wine. And you want some sort of sauce on the side that has butter in it. I wonder what Julia Child thought of salsa. I'm pretty sure, though, if she ever deep fried anything, she probably did it in butter.

I also looked to see if her cook book was at Barnes and Noble, and every one is sold out. By the way, I would watch just about anything with Meryl Streep in it.

A Fresh Look at Philippians 3

There is nothing that will change your perspective on a thing like really needing it. Water is pretty unamazing stuff, until you haven't had it for a day or two. A length of rope is pretty unspectacular, until you're hanging from a cliff. This is what happened for me with one of the most taught-on, preached on passages from the bible, Philippians 3. Now, if you're not completely familiar with this passage, I tend to, in what follows, refer to the passage in a way that assumes knowledge of the passage. (And also keep in mind that Paul was a great persecutor of Christians before he became one and had to repent of being what basically amounted to a multiple murderer.)

I have come to this place in my life before, but probably never in such an exaggerated manner, in a way determined to get my attention. I am looking backwards (but only a moment, or I am lost) at several years of what I thought was doing things right--not just right, but much better than those around me. I'm sitting in a heap of ruins right now--I have been for awhile, so I believe my grieving period has ended--taking a look at what got me here.

I've gone through several losses over the past year, some that came against my will, and some that I layed down willingly, realizing they were beyond redemption--at least any redemption I could perform. So what do I do now? Do I figure out what my mistakes were and try to rebuild a replica of what I lost? Well, like I've said, I've been in this place before, where I walked in pride with a mistaken view of reality and came to a screeching halt when things came tumbling apart just when I thought they were going so well. And trying to redeem it all is what my response has always been. I figure out where I went wrong and go through a period of "self-improvement", hopefully to provide a better outcome.

Now I don't want to say that we shouldn't learn from our mistakes or be willing to improve ourselves, but this approach has not brought me freedom. It's merely ended me up in the same mes I was in before.

Now let's look at the passage that God told me to read this morning and I'll tell you the new way I'm looking at it. It may only be new to me, but here we go.

"Indeed, I count everything as loss compared to the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ." --Philippians 3:8,9

Now when I look back at the list of things that Paul counted as loss, they were things that looked familiar to me. I had always thought of him heroically laying aside all things, risking his life, etc. in order that he may gain Christ. Not to say that Paul is not a heroic figure, but I realize that it is never a proud moment when you have to look at something and count it loss.

The Great Pool Debacle

Here's an example that I just recently experienced. We had a quick set pool last summer that fit neatly on our patio and Abby and Emily played in it all summer while the older kids played in our larger above-ground pool. This summer, Emily was still in need of this alternative, although Abby had grown big enough to join her brother and sister. The pool from last year had been discarded, because it had been so well-used and could not beyond any more patching up. So we invested again in another one this year. But we had terrible luck with the thing. It kept collapsing. (It's one of those self-supporting quick-set pools) I thought this was because it was defective, because the one we had last year didn't do this. So we finally just threw the thing out. (write-off number one). I then began my search for the replacement. Being the end of June and with a mere 3 months of 100 degree temperatures in our future, of course, the stores are already clearing out their summer stuff. This is the annoying part of living in the south and having store chains driven by by New York weather.

So I finally found one quick set pool left at Academy and it seemed a great bargain. It was 12 feet wide and we got it for only $50! I eagerly went home to try to set it up. Well, it was too wide to fit on our patio, so I began to look for a relatively level spot of ground and the closest thing to it was directly in front of our shed. Hmmm... it will block the shed door, but I don't really need anything in there until Thanksgiving right? So I proceed to set it up and it proceeds to collapse while being filled up like the other pool. But I figure it's only because it's not completely level. So I go and by 7 bags of sand from Lowe's to attempt to level it. this of course was not near enough, so I began to transfer shovelful's of dirt from our old sandbox halfway across the yard and also building a ridge of slightly higher ground around the edge of the pool. This was about 3 hours of back-breaking hot work. As it filled up, it seemed to be doing relatively okay, sagging still on the end that was only a yard or so away from our big pool. so I took an old Little-Tikes playscape piece that we never use anymore and shoved that between the big pool and the little pool. Success... or so I thought until Abby tried to get in a swim. The water quickly started going over the side towards the big pool and the whole thing collapsed and washed the Little Tikes playscape half-way across the yard.

Now I wanted to cry. Not only did I have to face Nick, who had thought the whole thing was more trouble than it was worth from the start and advised me not to try this. (When, oh, When will I start listening to my husband?!) But I had 7 bags of sand completely unreturnable, a whole day devoted to obtaining the sand and moving sand and filling to pool lost, and when I remove the pool that I have to return, I'm going to have a really ugly spot in my yard where I put all the sand. By the way, if I'd only bothered to open the instruction manual, the first page says to find completely level, unbumpy ground to put the pool upon. Tell me, who has 12 feet around of this kind of space in their yard?! So the problem with the original pool had simply been, I guessed, that the patio had settled since it's been built on the end towards which we drained the little pool last year. We actually had a tree that almost died from root root because we didn't care for the water well enough and had to empty it too often. I checked with a leveler, and sure enough, the patio was not at all level.

Now what do I do, do I continue to try to redeem this situation? In my stubborner days, I might have actually tried to figure out a way to get that ground perfectly level and smooth. Bring in the construction team! Lay some concrete! Uh... no. Just stop. Move on.

Back to Paul's Life

So this is what Paul was looking at. He devoted his life to the pursuit of what he thought was holiness. He had achievements out the wazoo and alot to be proud of, so he thought. When he was faced with the truth of who his Lord truly was, he came to a fork in the road. He could deny the truth to hang onto the things that brought him the approval of his peers and made him feel good about himself because they were the things he had been taught all his life to value. But no... Paul could not. He valued one thing more highly than all, and that's doing the right thing. He did really want to do the right thing, and when he saw he was doing the wrong thing, he had no choice. He did not have a heart that could live in denial. All those things had to be left behind though to pursue Christ. It's bad enough when you spend $100 on dress that it's too late to return before you realize it looks terrible on you. But how do you feel when you have a lifetime of being mistaken.

You write it off. You cannot try to redeem the past and embrace the future Christ has for you. And you can't embrace Christ and keep your eyes on men. And the approval of men is what Paul had lived for formerly, and so had I. He had done all things correctly, except he had not love--neither the ability to give it nor was he lovable. I'm there... totally there. It's time to take a completely different direction. To write off that past, not hold onto old ways of doing things because it seems a shame to throw away what you've been perfecting for so long.

"Not that I have already obtained all this or am already perfect. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus." Philippians 3:12,13

I'm a happy tired. :)

Well, we wind up VBS at Central Baptist Church in Round Rock tonight. I was the leader for the music rotation for the 3rd and 4th graders. Jordan had wanted me to be his teacher this year since I had done preschool 2 years ago and was Abby's and Emily's teacher then, then last year I did 1st and 2nd, so I was Brynn's teacher. Jordan's particular group, the 4th-grade boys, was a group that was a particular challenge to everyone this year. There were about 20 of them! And they're boys! And did I mention they're all about 10 years old and... oh yeah, did I mention I get them right after they come from snack, which is usually full of sugar? :)

Actually, they were alot of fun, all four groups were and I got a chance not just to teach music, but there was a part of my 20 minutes where I got to teach bible concepts and that was a blast since on Sunday morning I'm usually teaching 4-year-olds. I love the little kids, but it was fun this week getting to touch on more abstract concepts.

The VBS theme was Hawaiian and my room was supposed to have a waterfall theme. I actually took a picture because I was so proud of the work I did on the waterfall. My kids pitched in too last week by drawing the lines on the palm tree fronds.

Also, I discovered sketching pens! A set was on clearance at Michael's marketed as pens for Manga anime, but as I found, they work just as well for landscape sketches. I'm also including a picture of my first painting that I did without step by step instruction. I simply imitated a painting in the gallery of the author of the instruction book I'm going through. My next step will be to pick my own subject. Nervous about that, but i need to take the leap I think.

To the ends of the Galaxy

A few of you may not know this song, but most of you do. We sang it in church this morning:

"God of Wonders, beyond our Galaxy... You are Holy."

This morning was one of those mornings where I tried to listen to the sermon, but God was preaching a somewhat different sermon to me during the one the Pastor was delivering. This song mentioned above was the last one we sang before the sermon started and God had already started speaking to me about the compass in my heart.

I thought about what it would be like to actually be "beyond our galaxy". If anyone saw the movie "Contact", they begin the movie by panning a shot away from a house on Earth and getting farther and farther away until the Earth is a speck, then our solar system is a speck and then our galaxy is too small to be seen and the sound is completely silent and you're left with this sense of complete awe at not only how small our planet is, but also how far it is possible to be from it. And the bible intimates that God's ways are higher than our ways and his love higher than our love in the sam the heavens are higher than Earth. God is that much more holy and distant from what we are. He is holy. He is beyond all our efforts.

As I imagined being "beyond our galaxy", it just sounded like rest. It sounded wonderful! I really wanted to be with God far away from all else like couples do on their honeymoon, where there is no interference from other obligations, other people, reality in general. :)

Then I started thinking about how distant I am now from even thinking about some of those people in my life that used to mean so much to me--their opinion, I should say, meant so much. There always seems to have been someone in my life whose opinion meant the world to me. In early years, it may have been a guy I had a crush on, or a friend who never really gave me their whole self but always held something back. And that person would then become the only person in the room when they were there, and sometimes would dominate my thoughts when I wasn't around them. It was like I had a compass in my heart like that one in "Pirates of the Carribbean" that always pointed at what you really want. It would always be honed in on that particular person and what they wanted, what they thought about me, how to please them. This compass would usually cause me to ignore people more well-deserving, ignore priorities and dull my sense of responsibility.

And it seems that our heart is made to do this thing, to have someone your hearts compass is pointed towards, someone who matters above all else, an other to care about. And what amazes me is how you can look back at some of those people and wonder, "How could I have allowed that person to mean so much to me?" And yet in the chronicle of a man stranded on an island portrayed in "Castaway", Tom Hanks' character becomes attached to a volleyball that he paints a face on and calls Wilson and truly mourns when the ball is lost in the ocean.

I am amazed at my own capacity to become too attached when I look back at the people in my life with a now objective perspective. I look at grade school pictures of some of the kids I had crushes on and they just look like regular school kids to me now... nothing that stepped off the pages of GQ or anything. And when I was in the work force, the early years, I was around people that I probably would never come across otherwise in my life. I worked at Merry Maids my last semester of college, and most of the women I worked with were very lower income and a few lived in trailers and there was this one women, Gloria, who befriended me who I became very emotionally entangled in the ups and downs of her crazy life. I probably treasured her acceptance because I wasn't exactly the most popular in that group of women, probably since they knew that they had to do this to make a living and I was just making a few extra bucks before I graduated from college and got married. So that fact that she befriended me was received by me with incredible gratitude. Now this woman means nothing to me...simply not on my radar.

Then there was Kim, a 20-something waitress at a Shoney's restaurant. This was a very unglamorous job with unglamorous people. I worked with her after my freshman year in college. I cared about whether she thought I was a good waitress and treasured her friendship. Now I don't even think about her.

I could list many others, but those are the ones that stick out the most for now.

So what this all brought me to actually tied back into the sermon from this morning. Psalm 86:11 says "Teach me your way, O LORD, and I will walk in your truth; give me an undivided heart, that I may fear your name." And the main idea of the sermon was to know truth, who is a person, Jesus. And our life should be ordered by that truth, or by that person, as is the case. And our problem tends to be that don't have one truth settled in our heart and we order our lives without Jesus as the central principle through which all our decisions are made. I think of an undivided heart as a heart whose compass completely fixed on Jesus.

So the rest that I felt in my heart as I imagined going to the ends of the universe to be with Jesus and everything else grows dim, that is the rest I want without actually having to be separated from people and responsibilities. People would stress me out alot less if I realized how much more important God's opinion is and their opinion would fade into nothingness. I want to have that confidence with people that I would have after a long separation, but I want to separate myself now, in my heart, without actually being separated from the people.

Those people from the past aren't even on my radar anymore.

Lord, can I live this way? Can live beyond the radar and in your embrace? I want to draw near to my Holy God and as I grasp, with the help of your Spirit, Lord, how much more you are, how much beyond, how much better... as I grasp this, all fear of man would simply fall off the radar. Lord, fix the compass of my heart on you. Give me an undivided heart. I pray that you would be the only one whose opinion matters and that I would do everything as unto you.

From 1 Corinthians 7:

29What I mean, brothers, is that the time is short. From now on those who have wives should live as if they had none; 30those who mourn, as if they did not; those who are happy, as if they were not; those who buy something, as if it were not theirs to keep; 31those who use the things of the world, as if not engrossed in them. For this world in its present form is passing away.
32I would like you to be free from concern. An unmarried man is concerned about the Lord's affairs—how he can please the Lord. 33But a married man is concerned about the affairs of this world—how he can please his wife— 34and his interests are divided. An unmarried woman or virgin is concerned about the Lord's affairs: Her aim is to be devoted to the Lord in both body and spirit. But a married woman is concerned about the affairs of this world—how she can please her husband. 35I am saying this for your own good, not to restrict you, but that you may live in a right way in undivided devotion to the Lord.

Lord, let my heart be married to you alone.

First attempt at rocks was much more successful than my first attempt at a tree-filled hillscape. I wasn't using the right sponge, technique with the sponge, and this was cheap paper and I was just doing about everything wrong, including not allowing my initial wash to dry before sponging in the negative space.

Here's what I came up with about 5 tries later:

My seascape

This is my favorite so far, because it looks very different from the painting from the instructional book. I just used the instructions as a guideline and ended up wtih something really different.

Doors are more fun to paint than I imagined!

Here's my latest. Nick went to practice bacground vocals, and this is what I did after the kids went down.