Smoke Damage

All I can do is pray.

Ever heard that?  Ever said it?  I know I have.

I say it in those times when I've run out of ideas, solutions, and possibilities.  When there is nothing I can do, or nothing else I can do, I find myself saying, "There's nothing I can do.  All I can do is pray."

I say it like it's a last-ditch effort.  I've given up on everything else, and I've got nothing left to lose, so I might as well try prayer.  I'm not sure I really mean it that way; I pray often and passionately and boldly.  I pray because I must.  But then again, maybe I do mean it that way.  I have to admit that when things go wrong, my first impulse has not always been to pray.  My first impulse is usually to find a way out, to look for a solution.  So maybe I really have viewed prayer as a last-ditch effort to find a solution.

There have been so many times when I have prayed and nothing seems to happen.  Yes, I've heard the platitude that God always answers prayer (not true, by the way, according to Scripture); he sometimes answers yes, sometimes answers no, and sometimes answers wait.  Sure, there are a handful of times when the answer to prayer comes with startling clarity, rapidity, or certainty.  But most often, I have prayed and nothing seems to happen.  Nothing changes, that I can see, and being told that God might be answering with a "no" or a "wait" isn't particularly helpful in those circumstances.  So I am tempted to think that my prayers don't really make much of a difference.  They're ineffective.

But I am beginning to rethink my understanding of prayer.

If genuine power is gentle, if the still, small voice has more power than the whirlwind and the fire, then for me to assume that simply because I don't see anything happen or hear anything happen, or feel anything happen, that means that nothing happened, is a horribly shortsighted assumption.

In the Old Testament tabernacle, and later, in the temple, God's Glory above the mercy seat of the ark was veiled by a thick curtain.  The people could not approach or look upon the Glory of God without dying.  Only once a year was the high priest permitted to go past the veil and approach the holiness of God, and only with the blood of atonement in his hands.  But right in front of the curtain was a small altar for burning incense.  Every day, a priest was given the duty to take the specially mixed incense and burn some on the altar.  The smoke of the burning incense was a pleasing aroma to The Lord.

So what, you say?  So, in Psalm 141, the psalmist says this, "Let my prayer be counted as incense before you, and the lifting of my hands as the evening offering."  And in Revelation, John sees this:  "The four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each holding a harp and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints."  Later, he sees another angel who was "given much incense to offer with the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar before the throne, and the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, rose before God from the hand of the angel."  Somehow, the sweet-smelling smoke of the burning incense represents the rising of our prayers to the ear of God.  And Leviticus 16 tells us that the smoke of the burning incense penetrated the veil that hid the Glory of God from human eyes.  The smoke could go where the human could not.  The prayers could enter where the people could not.  It is not the fire that entered the presence of God; it was the smoke.  It is not the fire that represents the prayers of the people; it is the smoke of the incense.

Smoke seems so vapourous, so ephemeral, so unsubstantial.  You can't grab it.  You can't hear it. You can wave it away with a hand.  There's no heat, no light, no glow, no warmth.  It appears so powerless.  Fire has power.  It roars and flames and leaps and dances.  It licks and burns and destroys.  It has heat and light which can comfort or consume.  That's power.  But smoke?  Smoke just floats and drifts and wafts.

But in most house fires, it is smoke that causes the most damage.  It's not the flames, but the smoke.   It doesn't leave visible signs of damage -- walls are still standing, books are still on the shelves, pictures hang in their frames.  But it drifts and wafts and penetrates every corner and crevice and leaves an indelible imprint of its presence.   At most campfires, it is the smoke that drives people back, not the heat.  The smoke drifts and wafts and smarts the eyes and the lungs and demands a response.  The smell of the smoke lingers long after the heat and the light, the snap and crackle of the flames have faded away.

So it is with my prayers.  My prayers are not fiery.  There is no show, no outward sign of power.  My prayers are more often accompanied by groans and tears than by any kind of triumphalistic show.  Often, they're spoken in silence, cries of the heart that never make it past my throat.  They can drift, float away, vapourous, ephemeral, unsubstantial.  They may seem to die out as the sound of my voice fades.  They can appear to be powerless.  But somehow, those quiet prayers gain a life of their own. When I pray, I am taking into my  hands a power of cosmic proportions.  They rise before God long after the soundwaves of my voice have flattened and faded.  And it is my quiet prayers that move the hand of God.  Every prayer rises up and ignites a fire in the heart of God.  Every prayer that rises up causes earthquakes in the cosmos, even though my senses may be unaware.

So I've been rethinking my understanding of prayer.  I'm becoming more aware of the enormous quiet power I am yielding when I pray.  When I stand in the gap for a friend and pray, it is not all I can do; it is the best I can do.  I may be summoning angelic forces.  I may be holding demonic forces at bay.  Daniel did, when he prayed.  I may, in some incomprehensible way, turn the heart of God, even as Moses and Amos turned the heart of God when they pleaded for their people.

That's a lot of power.  That's a lot of smoke damage.  My prayers are not just words.  They are weapons in the war against all that is wrong in this world.

The thought of it drives me to my knees.

Power

On Christmas two years ago, my dog was dreadfully sick.  My dog was dreadfully sick, and I experienced a miracle.  (You can read about it here.)

That miracle changed my life.  It's taken me nearly two years to figure out what it was about that night that left a crater in my soul.  My mind and heart and soul have gone back to it over and over, like a tongue explores a hole left by an extracted tooth, trying to understand what it was about that evening that simply will not let me go.  And I think I have finally figured out why it staggered me so.It's not that the vet was available on Christmas Day, although that was cool.  It's not so much that my dog was healed, although that was incredible.  It's not that, two year later and multiple health problems later, she's still alive, although that's pretty cool, too.  (I'm rather fond of her.)  It's not even that God heard and answered prayer, although that is probably the most wonderful of all.  But it wasn't any of those things. 

That night has fundamentally altered the way I understand power.

You see, I always knew that God could and did heal miraculously.  I've never doubted that.  I have friends and family who have been miraculously healed.  So although it was absolutely amazing and glorious to experience it first-hand and personally, that wasn't what shifted my universe.
I also knew that he hears and answers prayer. I've experienced that, too, in some awesome ways.  So while I was (and always am) astonished that the King of all the universe stoops to hear his little child, it also wasn't outside of my world of experience.
I even knew that there are people out there who are so decent and gracious they'd stop what they're doing on Christmas Day to help out a sick dog (and maybe the people who love her).  So as wonderful as that was, it wasn't enough to pull the rug out from under me.

But what I didn't know, what I had never experienced before, was the kind of power I experienced that night in the vet's office.  Nothing had prepared me for that.

In my world, power was something to be feared.  It was big and strong, loud and dominating, fearsome and threatening.  It was used to control and hurt those who have less power.  But power got things done.  Power was strength.  Power made people winners.

In my world, gentleness evidenced lack of power.  Gentleness meant you were weak, ineffective, soft. And gentleness was, well . . . nice.  Nice, but useless.  Gentleness could comfort but not protect.  Gentleness could make you feel better but it wouldn't change anything.  Gentleness meant you would get hurt.  Gentle people were loving and sweet and kind and nice, but pathetic, like defenseless lambs in a lion's den, just waiting to be ripped limb from fleece.  Gentleness made people victims.

If you had power and I didn't, you would use that power to hurt me.  So I had to either pretend I had power, too, so you didn't hurt me, or if the power differential was too great for me to overcome with bluster, I had to hide from you so that you would never see how powerless I truly was.  You might pretend you weren't going to hurt me, or you might be nice for a while, but eventually, always, your power and my lack of power meant I would be crushed.  So I blustered and postured and acted tough to convince you I had power when I didn't, or I hid behind defenses to keep you at bay so you'd never see how weak I really was.  I covered my inner lamb in a lion's skin.  I hated the power game, but I thought I understood it, and I had learned to survive in it.

Eventually, I began to learn that sometimes power could be used for good instead of for harm.  I got to a place where I loved Psalm 18 -- that picture of a powerful warrior God coming down in the midst of thunder and lightning to stand in defence of his people.  I liked the idea that all that big and strong, loud and dominating, fearsome and threatening could be used against my enemies instead of against me.  I tried to trust a small handful of people whose power was greater than my own, tried to believe that even though they had great power, they would not use that power against me.  I entertained the thought that if gentle people were like lambs in a lion's den, maybe there could be a few lions out there who didn't like the taste of lamb.  I wondered if maybe there could be lions who could use their power to protect the lambs rather than attack them. 

But never once did it cross my mind that power could be gentle.  Power might be protective, but not gentle. I thought that it was the very bigness, strength, loudness, domination, fearsomeness or threat that created the power.  Strip away the noise and you strip away the power. It never dawned on me that power might not be big or strong, loud or dominating, fearsome or threatening, but would still be powerful.

But that night in the vet's office, I experienced a gentle power and it blasted a hole through the defenses I still had erected around my heart.  I knew, I knew my dog was healed before the vet ever operated.  I knew, and I said nothing.  Because healing requires power, and power is evidenced by thunder and lighting, by tears and shouting and fear and wild gesticulations, and there had been none of that.  I would have welcomed that kind of power if it had healed my dog.  It would have scared me to death, but I would have welcomed it at that moment.  But there was none of that.  There was only quietness and love, and the peace of an after-hours vet clinic bathed in dark while the rest of the world was off being busy with Christmas.  There was only a gentleness that whispered to my heart and held it while it was breaking, and reached out and healed my dog.  So, because He was gentle, I doubted His power.  I doubted that he had acted, and I held onto my silence until there could no longer be any doubt, and even then, I struggled.

That night shattered everything I thought I  knew about power.  I hate the yelling and screaming.  I hate the arm-waving and stamping of feet that so often seems to come with what is called a display of God's power.  I hate the raised voices and Bible thumping of the bully pulpit.  I am so tired of being yelled at.  I had gotten to the place where I understood that God wasn't yelling at me all the time.  I was ok with him yelling at people who deserved to be yelled at (whoever that might be).  I knew that sometimes he speaks in a still, small voice.  I had grown to love that still, small voice.  But deep in my heart, without knowing that I believed it, I believed that the still, small voice lacked power.  The thunder, the fire, and the whirlwind had power.  They got things done.  The still, small voice was comforting.  But I thought it had no power.  And because I didn't want the yelling and posturing, I had, absolutely unwittingly, resigned myself to a life with a powerless but kind God, a life without wonder.

On Christmas Day, we remember the birth of a baby.  The gentle baby, born in an after-hours stable bathed in dark while the rest of the world was off being busy, was utterly helpless and vulnerable.  A newborn lamb.  And somehow, with all my knowledge of Scripture, with all my theology, I made the mistake of thinking that meant he was powerless.  A victim.  But what does it mean that this Baby is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation, the one by whom and for whom all things were created, the one in whom it pleased God to have all his fullness dwell?  How can I hold that belief and still think this gentle baby is powerless?  It's a paradoxical wonder.

On Christmas Day, two years ago, in an after-hours vet clinic bathed in dark while the rest of the world was off being busy, I felt utterly  helpless and vulnerable.  And the still, small voice of my Saviour breathed into my heart and blew it apart with a power that has continued to stagger me for the past two years.  And I was not afraid.  It has taken two years for me to figure it out.  There is a power that transcends posturing.  There is a power that makes the power of size and strength seem silly.  The still, small voice has more power than the thunder and fire and whirlwind combined, and -- ah, here is the wonder of it -- it is a power that I do not  fear.  Not because it is not aimed in my direction, but because it is a power, a world-altering power, that is quiet and good, kind . . . and gentle.

I want to live my life in that power.

Finding the Courage To Go On

I used to think I wanted to be famous.  I wanted to do great things for Jesus.  I wanted to change the world.

Not so much anymore.

Perhaps it comes from the wisdom of growing up a little.  Perhaps it comes from the slothfulness of settling into a comfortable routine.  Perhaps it comes from fear.  But I don't want to be famous anymore.  I have rethought what it means to do great things for Jesus.  And I'm becoming cynical or resigned or wise enough to realise that the world is not going to change until Jesus returns to it.

So I've gone from flirting with the idea of fame to fearing it.  I have been horrified by how vicious humanity is.  We get on our high horse and tell our children that bullying is wrong, and we want to pass laws to prevent cyber-bullying, and we grieve the deaths of those young people who felt they could no longer go on under the pressure of being bullied online and made the terrible choice to take their own lives, but read the comment section of any newspaper, any well-known blog or magazine article.  Watch the Facebook feeds as mayors fall, as world leaders die, as religious leaders speak or write.  We are vicious, vindictive, mocking, self-righeous, arrogant, and ugly.  What we condemn our children for, we feel quite free to do as adults, and as Christians.  Cyber-bullying is alive and well.  And anyone who stands out from the crowd becomes a target.  The world of the internet is an ugly and barren wasteland.  More and more, I find myself longing to find a way to never have to leave the house.

Ah, but there's the rub.  The internet invades the house.  I innocently open up my Facebook, and I find you screaming at me.  In the privacy of my own home, in what is supposed to be my safe place, you barge in and you yell at me.  There is no warning.  There is no escape.  Every instinct in me is to bar, to block, to hide, to flee.

And yet . . . and yet. . . .

God has not given me a spirit of timidity, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.  A healed mind.  A mind that was broken and crushed under the weight of fear, but has been renewed and strengthened by His power.  Mine was a mind that was shattered into pieces, each piece trying to fit into someone else's puzzle, each piece trying to be what someone else wanted me to be.  But that mind has been knit together, patched with gold like a piece of broken pottery, into a whole created by God.  To flee is to go back to the broken, to reject the whole that God has made and try to fit my pieces into someone else's pattern instead of God's.  To quit is to reject love and power and a sound mind and return to timidity.  To quit is to let the bullies win.

I can't do that.  I won't do that.

So I will keep blogging.  There will be things I say that you don't like.  I don't see the world in black and white anymore.  I see it in colour, full of shades and nuances which dance and contrast and clash and complement each other and create a thing of beauty.  I hear it as a riot of sound --  melody, counter-melody, harmony,  notes blending and clashing, dissonating and resolving,  and resonating with the voice of the Creator.  So I'm sorry if my colours clash with yours.  I'm sorry if you think I'm singing off-key.  I'm sorry, but you're not the artist, and you're not the director of the choir.

I know that putting my voice "out there" opens me up to attack.  I hope it doesn't happen.  I hope people are gracious.  But it's not idealistic hope.  I know it's only a matter of time before I say something that you hate, and I will be crushed and hurt by the response I get.  I don't want that.  I don't look forward to it.  My heart flinches from the thought.  No one likes the thought of being attacked by people who are supposed to be friends, brothers and sisters in Jesus.  But then I look at the picture of that pot, and I think about what Paul says about carrying the Glory in jars of clay, and I think, What is the worst that you can do?  You can break my heart.  And God can patch it together again with gold, and my heart will just be more beautiful in the end than it is now.  It will only reflect more of Jesus, more of his glory.

C. S. Lewis wrote, "Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. To love is to be vulnerable" (The Four Loves).

Do I want my heart broken?  Of course not.  Broken hearts hurt horribly.   But I'm not going to back off and quit and run and hide in an effort to protect it.  I gave my heart to Jesus years ago.  He's held it in his hands ever so tenderly, even through the breaking.  He's called me to love.  He's called me to write.  He has not given me a spirit of timidity, but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.  So I will press on.

And hope I never become famous.

On the Defense

I have a love/hate relationship with this blog.

On one hand, I love the opportunity it affords me to clear my head, to think things through and bring them to some order instead of the snarl of tangled thoughts that tend to live between my ears.

On the other hand, this blog terrifies me, and I hate it.  I hate it with a passion.

I take my most precious thoughts, the things that I've mulled over for days, wrestled with, prayed over, the ideas I actually care about, and I put them "out there".  I don't do it because I think that what I have to say is so special or wonderful; I'm always blown away that anyone would read what I write.  No, I do it because the words won't let me go until I have written them down.

I could write in private and call it a journal, and there are many days I'm tempted to do so.  I'm tempted to lock this blog down, make it for my eyes only, or force any potential readers to ask for my permission to see what I've written.  Every time I sit down to write, there is a dread in the pit of my stomach, the horrible nagging thought, "What if this thing goes viral on me?"  Occasionally, someone has shared something I've written, and I've seen the reader-number spike, and my heart nearly stops.

Once in a while, I think, So what if it goes viral?  You'd be famous!  You'd be like all those other cool bloggers out there that everyone talks about.

Like Ann Voskamp -- the panentheistic pagan new ager who is all about feeling and can't think a rational thought.

Like John Piper -- the legalistic, mysogenistic Calvinist who weirdly talks about Christian hedonism.

Like Mark Driscoll -- the insensitive caveman who thinks being a real man involves farting and burping.

Like Billy Graham -- the Arminian preacher who sings Just as I Am and says everyone can be saved even though Christ died only for the elect.

Like Rachel Held Evans -- the feministic homophile who doesn't believe in the Bible.

Like Rob Bell -- who's going to hell because he doesn't think it exists.

Like John McArthur -- the divisive heresy-hunter who is trapped under the law and without the Spirit of God.

Like Beth Moore -- the floozy blonde who misinterprets Scripture and who thinks God actually talks to her.  Pfft!

And that's when my heart freezes.

Because Christians are cruel.

My ideas are important to me.  I take my ideas, my most precious thoughts, and I put them out there for others to read, and I know that one day, I am going to say something you disagree with, and Christians are cruel.

Because I'm not a "good" Christian:  the most theologically balanced, right-living, perfectly sensitive-without-being-overly-sensitive, rational, thoughtful, deeply caring, grace-filled individual walking the planet.  I don't think and act in all ways just like you.  I'm going to come to different conclusions, or live out my faith in different ways.  I'm going to offend you, unintentionally, simply by being me.  And Christians are cruel.

I'm not saying that theology isn't important, and that we should just turn a blind eye to differences.  I care deeply about sound theology, and I work hard to live out my faith faithfully.  I'm willing to think hard and consider seriously.  But it seems inevitable that when Christians start talking about those differences, at some point in the conversation, we start throwing out words like "heretic" and "hypocrite".  We start accusing each other of not taking the Word of God seriously because we've studied the same passage and come to different conclusions.  We accuse each other of hypocrisy because I have chosen to live out my faith in Jesus in different ways than you have.  We dismiss each other not because of our ideas, but because of who we are.  Well, you know, she grew up Reformed.  Well, you know, she's gone baptist.  We get angry.  We get to thinking that our way is the only right way, and if you don't agree, you must be either patently stupid or deliberately obtuse, or a heretic or a hypocrite, or part of the false church.  We attack each other, and the ideas never get discussed.  We become ugly, vicious, and cruel.  We disown each other.  We condemn our brothers and sisters to hell and we do it in the name of Christ.

So I don't want to go viral.  I don't want to be cool.  I don't want to put my ideas out there.  I don't want to write this blog.  But I do, because every once in a while, someone says to me, "That helped me.  That ministered to me."  I think, If I can help one person catch a fresh glimpse of God through something I wrote, is that not a good thing?  Chances are high it won't go viral.  I have no illusions.  It's probably the only reason I've dared to continue.  "What if it goes viral . . . NAH!  Like who cares what I write!!  Hah!"  In that imagined safety, I hit "publish".  But I know it's a risk, even a small risk.  Someday, someone will disagree with me.  Someone will hate me.  Someone will condemn me.  And that person will probably be a brother or sister in Christ.

Is it worth the risk?  I don't know.  I need to think about that.  I need to pray about it. I have to weigh it carefully.  After some of the things I've seen and read on the Internet this past week, I'm just not sure anymore.  So I'm going to take a break and regroup.  I'll admit it:  I'm a little scared.  So it's time to stop and pray.

Perhaps, in the meantime, I'll take to writing about the meatballs I had for dinner last night and what I wore to work today.

"For it is not an enemy who taunts me—

then I could bear it;

it is not an adversary who deals insolently with me—

then I could hide from him.

 But it is you, a man, my equal,

my companion, my familiar friend.

 We used to take sweet counsel together;

within God's house we walked in the throng" (Psalm 55:12-14).

Waiting for God

It has been a season of waiting.

Waiting for God to provide direction.

Waiting for renewed strength, a renewed sense of purpose, a sense of direction, passion, and excitement.

Waiting for the strength to walk, to run, and to fly on eagle's wings.

Waiting.

I hate waiting.

I'll do it if I have to.  I'll do it if I have no choice.  But I struggle to wait with grace.

Partly, that's because I'm a doer.  I like to slice and dice a problem into manageable bits and wrestle it into submission.  I love troubleshooting.  I love the feeling of stepping back, finding a solution to something that is broken, and fixing it so it works, or works again.  So I don't much like it when I can't identify the problem, can't break it down, or can't find a solution.  I don't like waiting.

Partly, it's because I'm impatient.  Even when nothing is broken, per se, I hate waiting.  I hate waiting for traffic lights.  I hate waiting for the water to boil.  I hate waiting for my computer to boot up.  I hate waiting in line.  In the world of Marianne, everything should go flawlessly and smoothly all the time.  The waters should part before me, allowing effortless passage -- without waiting.

And that is nothing but pride.  I can't stand the thought that I can't find a solution.  I rail against the notion that there's nothing I can do.  I ought to be able to do it all.  I ought to be sufficient unto myself. Everyone around me ought to know how wonderful I am, and how precious my time is, and how I have big, important things to do, and should just jolly well get out of my way.  How dare they hinder me?  How dare God hinder me?  Doesn't he know how remarkable I am?  Doesn't he know how much I want to serve him, and do big things for him?  I'm a world-changer; doesn't he know that?  How dare he subject me to small things and expect me to settle?  Surely he must know he's wasting my talents?  

It's pride, downright ugly pride.  Every time I steam at a stop light, every time I mumble under my breath about how waiting for my computer to boot up is a waste of time, every time I chafe under my God's direction, I am bowing down to the Idol of Self.

I want to blame others.  I want to blame this culture.  After all, I live in a culture of Do.  My culture measures me by the value of what I accomplish.  Everywhere I turn, I'm reminded that I deserve that faster phone, that more powerful computer, that more beautiful body, that fancier car.  It's always got to be bigger, better, faster, more exciting.  I shouldn't have to wait for it -- 0% down, 0% interest, take now, pay later.  Time is money.  Money is power.  Go, go, go.  And that's all true.  I do live in a culture of Do.

But that's not my culture.  

If I follow Jesus, that is not my culture.  If I follow Jesus, I belong to a culture where the first is last, and the last, first, where the smallest is the greatest, and the greatest, the smallest.  I belong to a culture where my value is measured not by what I do, not because of anything about me at all, but by the value of the one I call Master.  A culture where time is not money, but a gift, given by the Giver, where sometimes the thing that brings the most glory to God is that I simply show up and march.  And wait.

So I can't blame anyone for the fact that I don't wait well.  It is my own depravity.  And yes, it's depravity.  No, this isn't attention-seeking self-abasement.  It's the truth.  Because every time I take secret (or not-so-secret) pride in the fact that I don't wait well, every time I indulge in eye-rolling, deep-sighing (or worse) complaining about having to wait, every time I shrug it off with a flippant comment about not having patience, every time I embrace the values of the culture in which I live but to which I do not belong, I bow again to the god of Self.  I turn away from Jesus and I serve an idol.  And the worst of it all is that I don't really think it's all that bad.  I think he doesn't really mind my betrayal of his love, that he smiles benevolantly when I make a comment like, "Lord, I need patience, and I need it right now!"

Lord, I need to turn from serving myself instead of you.  I need to repent from serving idols of my own making instead of following my Lord, my Saviour, my Creator.  I need to turn my back on the values of this culture, and embrace yours instead.  Father, I need your forgiveness for my pride, my arrogance, my sense of self-importance.  I need the blood of Jesus to cover my sins.  I need a fresh vision of my own sinfulness and your holiness.  Abba, show me yourself.  I need to see you.

And keep me waiting until I do.

What's On My Mind?

I was having a really bad day the other day.  It was the kind of day that just made me frustrated, discouraged, sad, and mad all at the same time.  Everything seemed to be going wrong.  I found out that some dear friends of mine were having a really hard time.  Good, God-honouring people who have done their best to love and serve him.  I heard about another two families that are facing life-and-death medical emergencies.  Again, good people, people who love the Lord, who, in my humble estimation, don't deserve this, and do deserve a miracle.  Several transport truck drivers and luxury sedan drivers decided that my little Fit did not belong on the road and that 20 km over the limit wasn't fast enough, and tried to bully me, brush me off, or summarily dispatch of me.  It was just one of "those days".

And I really, really wanted to vent about it on Facebook.

I could have said something cryptic and attention-seeking.  Something like, "<sigh> . . . can't wait for this day to be done . . . " .  People would have responded with things like this, "Awww, you ok?"  "Why, what's wrong?"  "((Hugs))" "Tomorrow's a new day!"  A few spiritual folks might have put something like, "Aww, praying for you."  I could have continued the attention-seeking with a comment like, "Oh, you know, life . . . " under my own status.

I could have said something passive-aggressive-vaguely-humourous.  Something like, "To the transport truck driver that tried to crawl up my tailpipe:  You don't Fit."  And that would have gotten a plethora of other sorts of responses.  "Haha!", "LOL", "Hope you're ok," that sort of thing.  People who know me and my car might even have thought me mildly clever, and might have followed up with a pun or two of their own.  People who don't know me or the car I drive might have been tempted to correct my bad capitalization.

I could have said something attention-seeking-disguised-as-heroic, making other people's difficulties out to be my own.  Maybe, "Boy, it's going to be a long night.  I'm baking muffins for one set of friends who are having a hard time, and cooking a meal for another set of friends who are struggling with a life-and-death medical emergency.  And then it's off to work again tomorrow."  I can just imagine the comments.  "Aww, you're such a good friend,"  "Wow, you've got a lot on your plate,"  "Don't overdo it," blah, blah, blah.

Maybe I could have taken the online gossiper prayer-warrior approach:  "Hey, everyone, please pray for friends of mine.  They're going through a really hard time right now, and their little boy is in the hospital and they don't know if he's going to make it.  They have to stay with him 24/7, and they're all just so exhausted but their little guy is so sick.  Pray for them, ok?"  And here comes the clincher -- "God knows who they are."  (That shows that I'm really interested in prayer and not at all interested in sharing a bit of gossip.)

Or maybe I could have just come across as spiritual super-hero.  "Wow, life is so hard right now, but I'm just keeping my eyes on Jesus.  He is my strength and song."  Everyone will be so impressed with how holy and special and spiritual I am, don't you think?  "Wow, Marianne, you're such an inspiration." "Thanks for being such a good example to me."  "Jesus will honour your commitment to him."  "All things work for our good!"

I could have done any of those things.  I see them all the time on Facebook.  I'm sure that an examination of my own newsfeed might reveal similar updates (although I hope not too many).  But more and more, when my fingers are hovering over my keyboard to update my status, I find myself going back to a verse in Psalm 73.  "If I had said, 'I will speak thus,' I would have betrayed the generation of your children."

The psalmist has plenty to complain about.  He looks around at his world and sees that horrible, miserable people have great lives, and great people have horrible, miserable lives.  He wonders to himself what the point is.  Why bother trying to live for God when it all goes horribly wrong anyway?  I can just see the Psalmist's status update:  "That's it!  I'm giving up!"  But then he says, "If I had said, 'I will speak thus,' I would have betrayed the generation of your children."  So he doesn't speak thus.  He doesn't speak at all.  Instead, he spends time in God's presence, and reorients himself around God, without saying anything to anyone.

So my fingers hang above the keyboard, and I wonder, Am I betraying the generation of your children by writing this?  Could what I am writing here cause someone who reads it to stumble?  Could it cause them to question the goodness of God?  You see, when I vent on Facebook, I'm not venting in private, even though I may be alone in the room.  I'm not venting to an individual I know has the spiritual wisdom and discernment to help me reorient myself to God, which is what I really need -- to be reoriented to God.   Those are good and right ways of dealing with my struggles and heartaches.  But I'm not doing those things by venting on Facebook.  I am not being real and vulnerable, or building genuine community.  Instead, I am venting to a congregation of anywhere from 50 to 500 people, if my friends' list is conservative and if my privacy settings are tight.  (If they're not, I could have an audience of over 100,000 people -- bigger than any mega-church in the States).  And even if I know all the people on my friends' list fairly well, I can't possibly know them all well enough to justify unloading my doubts and concerns, my questions for God, my hurts and my hangups to all of them.  I may cause them to doubt.  I may add to their already-heavy burden.  I may find myself "feeling" better, but oriented to myself and my dutiful Facebook friends rather than to Almighty God, which is nothing but idolatry. If I speak of these things, I am betraying the congregation of God's children.  And if I've indicated that I'm a Christian under my religious point of view, I'd go so far as to say that I am misusing and abusing God's name.

So I don't write any of it.  It's been a hard day.  So what?  They happen.  The world doesn't need to know that Marianne had a bad day.  It is enough that God knows it.  If I have to, I have real friends, face-to-face friends with whom I can share and cry and pray.  Someday, I'll be able to look back on this day, too, and see God's hand of faithfulness in it.

In the meantime, it is best that I stay silent.  The status update bar will remain blank.  

Horse Sense

My horse is always on the fringe of the herd.  It's not that the other horses pick on him so much, or gang up on him to hurt him, but he's always slightly shunned, overlooked, brushed aside.  They pin their ears at him a lot and tell him to go away.  He hangs out at the edges, not bullied or beaten up, just not part of the "in" crowd.  He's not one of the cool kids.  So he hangs out by himself a lot.

He's a lot like me in that.  I have always felt like I was a step behind, or out of step.  When everyone else was watching Downton Abby, I was watching documentaries on the disappearance of the earthworm. When Uggs came in, I couldn't justify spending the money on a pair of boot-like blobs that were, well, ugly.  I'd spent all my money on Vetrap, dewormer, fly spray, and tail-and-mane detangler.  When other people were discussing Kim somebody-or-another, and Miley Siren, I had to look the names up on Google to find out who they were (and then wished I could not know who they were).  When gals my age were getting married and having babies and raising children, I was teaching, and working in Indonesia, and going to seminary.  It's been like that since I was a small kid and sat at the side of the schoolyard reading a book instead of playing soccer or skipping double-dutch or any of the other things kids my age were doing.  I wasn't bullied.  I wasn't ganged up upon.  I was just slightly shunned, overlooked, brushed aside.  Not one of the "in" crowd.  Not one of the cool kids.

But that's where the similarities end.  Because Raphi accepts his position in life.  When the other horses pin their ears to move him away, he moves off without complaining.  When they come to take his succulent patch of grass, he steps aside.  When he's drinking water and another horse approaches, he leaves the water and lets them drink first.  He's learned that it's safer that way.  Pinned ears are followed by flying hooves if he doesn't.  The survival of the herd depends on each horse knowing his place.  And Raphi knows his place.  He doesn't try to fit in.  He doesn't try to fight back.  He just moves out of the way. It's the price he pays for being part of the herd.

I, on the other hand, learned to rage against the world.  I learned to fight.  Pin your ears at me and you'll feel my fists.  Try to take my succulent patch of grass, and you'll find it occupied by a tiger.  Don't mess with me.  I decided very early in life that I'd rather fight alone than be at the bottom of the herd pecking order.  I do not submit well.  I think my way is better than Raphi's.  It makes me kind of mad for his sake when I watch him submit to all the other horses.  At one level, I love his meekness, but at the same time, it makes me kind of mad.

But over the last couple of weeks, I've begun to wonder . . .

You see, I've been working really hard at building my relationship with my horse.  He's learning to trust me.  He's learning that I've got his best interests at heart.  He's learning that I bring good gifts -- like hay, and carrots, and apples, and even, on special occasions, a peppermint.  (Is anything so lovely as velvety horse noses and pepperminty horse-breath when they nuzzle your hair?)  He's learning to follow me without a rope because he'd rather be with me than with the rest of the herd.  He knows that when the other horses try to crowd him, I'll send them away.  When Abby or Grace or Contigo reach out to nip him on the haunches, I'll keep their teeth away.  When Caliber tries to drive him away from the water, I'll let him drink in peace.  He knows that when he's with me, I'll protect our little herd of two.  Because he is so quick to submit, he is willing to submit to me.  And because he is so willing to submit to me, he suddenly finds himself in a more privileged position.  The other horses move away from him -- when he is with me.  The other horses let him have the good grass -- when he is with me.  The other horses let him drink first -- when he is with me.  Because he is with me.  Because he submits to me, he is lifted up in the eyes of the rest of the herd.  And a couple of weeks ago, I watched with amusement as the herd dynamics shifted.  Abby tried to take a nip at Raphi while I was there.  I sent her away.  And I smiled, because Raphi stepped safely behind me, and then, from over my shoulder, pinned his ears at an already-leaving Abby.  It was the horse equivalent to blowing a raspberry at the bigger kid from behind mom's legs.  Raphi could send Abby away, not by his own strength, but by mine -- by the strength of the one to whom he had submitted.  It's nice to be my horse's hero.

It made me wonder what it would be like to have someone in your life who was stronger than the rest of the herd, who could stand up for you so you didn't have to fight for yourself.  What if there was someone who would stick up for me the way I was willing to stick up for Raphi?  What if there was someone who could be for me what I am for Raphi, someone who loved me, who gave me good gifts, and who had my best interests at heart?  Someone who wanted to teach me to be brave and strong and trust him, but who understood my fears and uncertainties and who didn't shame me for them, someone who was willing to fight for me?  I wonder, if I had someone like that in my life, would I recognise him?  Would I be willing to submit?

Or would I, so used to fighting, so used to standing alone against the world, and so determined not to submit for fear of being pushed around, fight even my hero?

I stand and watch my horse meekly move out of the way.
I watch him submit so willingly.  I watch how, when he submits, he is lifted up.  I look at my own useless raging, the loneliness, the bumps and bruises on my heart and soul, brought on by a life of scrapping and clawing my way to the top.  It seems so counter-intuitive, this submitting to be lifted up.  It seems so illogical.  And yet, I wonder . . .

I wonder if my horse is wiser than I.

"Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up"  (James 4:10).

When Wings are Clipped

"Those who wait for the Lord will renew their strength.

They will rise up on wings like eagles.

They will run and not grow weary.

They will walk and not faint."

But lately, I feel like I'm barely crawling along.

It's not that anything is really wrong, because it's not.  It's the beginning of a new school year, and I'm glad about that.  I still love my job.  I love going out and hanging with my horse.  I love coming home to a dog who beats me with her tail because she's so glad to see me.  I have friends and family.  Indeed, I am richly blessed.  It's not that anything is really wrong.

It's just that God feels absent.

And I miss him.

Dreadfully.

Now, don't start lecturing me about how God is never absent from his children, how he never leaves us or forsakes us.   I know that.  I didn't say that God is absent, only that he feels absent.  I know he's as present with me now as he has ever been.  I know he still loves me.  I know he still cares.  I know that as much as I know anything, and maybe more.  My faith is not wavering.

And please, please don't give me the line that if God feels absent it's not because he's moved but because I have.  That line is just cruel.  It's cruel because it sounds like it might be true, but it isn't.  I have spent hours searching my soul, and while I know that there is much in that soul that, on a daily basis, does not line up with Jesus' way, I also know that the heart of my soul longs for the things of the Lord and anguishes over those things in my life that aren't of him.  No, he hasn't moved, but neither have I.  I still love him, still pray, still spend time in the Word, still seek to serve him, still want to follow his heart.

Yet, he feels absent.

And I miss him.

Dreadfully.

The missing of him weighs on my bones with a wearying intensity that startles me sometimes.  Rise up on wings like eagles?  Run?  Walk?  I feel like my feet are so heavy I can barely lift them to gain a painful shuffle forward.

And please don't assume I'm depressed.  I'm pretty sure I'm not.  There are many things that I enjoy, many reasons to get up in the morning, satisfying things to fill my day and to put me to sleep at night.  I don't feel depressed.  I just feel like God is absent.  And I miss him dreadfully.

So what do I do?

I'm tempted to spend endless hours in introspection, finding some way to blame myself for the state of affairs, so that I can then correct what's wrong and restore the feeling of God's presence.  I want to dredge up every possible sin I've ever committed and somehow make atonement for it, thereby forcing God to show himself.  But while there is great benefit in taking inventory and making amends, doing it for the purpose of earning God's favour falls dangerously close to salvation by works.  The fact is, my sins are fully atoned, and I am resting in that and trusting in it, and this yawning emptiness is not a result of unforgiven sin.  So I won't do that.

I'm tempted to run around endlessly trying to find something to fill the emptiness.  Maybe I need to try something different, have a new experience, explore a new theology -- something that will feel exciting and fresh.  But that sounds an awful lot like abandoning the known springs of living water to dig cisterns of my own, and that's always dangerous.  So I''ll hold tight to what has been tested and true.

I'm tempted to despair.  Maybe it's not just that I feel like God has abandoned me, but that he actually has.  No, no, that's all wrong.  I know that I know that I know that God is True, and his love is steadfast.  So I will remind myself of that truth every 30 seconds if I need to, to fight off any despair.

I'm tempted to tell myself that it's nonsense, that I shouldn't feel this way, that I don't really feel like God is absent, that I shouldn't feel this way.  I am tempted to distract myself from the feeling by working extra hard, playing extra hard, living extra hard.  But that is living a lie.  The feeling is real.  The feeling does not reflect reality, but it is a real feeling, and pretending I don't feel that way is to simply don a mask.  I won't do that either.  No, I will try to find the balance between respecting the feeling but not allowing it to rule me.

So what will I do?

I will carry on.  I will bring my feelings to God.  I will acknowledge them and feel them and grieve them.  I feel like God is absent, and I miss him dreadfully, and it is breaking my  heart.  It is just a feeling, but I will sit with that feeling in the presence of a God who feels absent but is not, until such time as he shows himself again. Why am I feeling like that?  I don't know.  I'm not sure it matters.  It's part of the ebb and flow of life.
 
I won't hide.
I won't cut and run. 
I won't wallow or feel guilty.

I will do the hardest thing of all:  I will wait.  Today, I may be crawling, but I will wait.

I will wait for the Lord, and he will renew my strength.

I will mount up on wings like eagles.

I will run and not grow weary.

I will walk and not be faint.

Plaque Words

The prophets were an inflammatory lot.  Come to think of it, so were the apostles.  So was Jesus.  They said things that got people all riled up, things like, "I wish those who unsettle you would emasculate themselves!"  (Paul), "You brood of vipers!"  (John the Baptist, and Jesus), and "You cows of Bashan"  (Amos, speaking to the women of Samaria, comparing them to a particularly plump collection of cattle).  They made outrageous claims, daring to speak for God himself, or even, in the case of Jesus, AS God himself.  And generally, their audiences didn't receive their words with particularly good grace or humour.  They persecuted the prophets, threw them into prisons and pits, stoned them, sawed them in half, even . . . even crucified them for the things they said and did.

No, the prophets were not particularly popular.

Which is why I am always somewhat amused when we pluck a portion of prophetic writ out of context and turn it into a platitude on a plaque or a mantra to rattle off.  We take these verses and turn them into something to make us feel good -- a purpose the prophet never really intended.

Oh, it's not that prophets weren't into comfort.  They were.  "Comfort, comfort my people, says your God," and all that.  It's there, for sure.  But it's there in a context, primarily a context of warning, condemnation, and punishment.  And it is that context we would do well to heed.  It is a context, which, if we took seriously, might warn, condemn, and punish us.  The words, in context, might make us feel a whole lot bad before they started to make us feel good, which was exactly their job.  And exactly why the prophets were so hated. 
 
You see, the people of God then weren't all that different than the people of God now.  The Pharisees of Jesus' day aren't all that different than we are today.   They all made the same mistake.  They all made the fatal error in judgement that the context didn't apply to them.  And that's why they were so stinking offended at the things the prophets and apostles, and Jesus, had to say.  How dare anyone accuse them?  They wanted the winsome words without the warnings.  After all, they were the people of God.  They were the good guys, the ones who had it right.  They weren't like those people, those miserable sinful people out there.  And when we pull a platitude out of context, without looking at the warning that precedes it, we do the very same thing.  We assume the warning doesn't apply.  We assume we've got it made.  We assume we're ok.  We don't allow ourselves to bow beneath the warning of God.

Take a verse like Micah 6:8.  "He has shown you, O man, what is good.  And what does the LORD require of you?  To act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God."  Plaque-able, really.  And so very inoffensive.  Perhaps some tough to do, but inoffensive.  After all, who doesn't like being just, loving mercy, and (cough, cough) walking humbly?  Such a person would be . . . nice.

Until you look at the context.

Even Micah 6:6-7 will do to get an idea:   

"With what shall I come before the Lord,
    and bow myself before God on high?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings,
    with calves a year old?

Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,
    with ten thousands of rivers of oil?
Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression,
    the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”

Do you see what Micah is saying?  On the outside, these people were doing all the right things.  They were coming before the LORD.  They were bowing to him.  They were bringing their burnt offerings, just as he required!  In fact, they weren't just standard-spiritual, they were super-spiritual!  They were in church every time the doors opened.  Their kids were in all the programs.  They tithed and more than tithed.  They gave till it hurt and kept giving.  They put serving the Lord ahead of their kids.  They were pillars in the community.  They were doing things they thought would please God, things that God himself had asked them to do.  And Micah came along and threw it all back in their faces.

They came before the LORD, but they cheated a little when they thought they could get away with it.  They overcharged where they thought they could make a bit of extra profit.  They underpaid and crowed about the great deal they got from the sucker who sold them the goods.  They forgot to charge taxes or forgot to pay taxes on the cash deal.  Nothing major, just watching out for themselves against big business, big government, or the little sucker down the street selling stuff at the garage sale.

They bowed before the LORD, but they lied to each other when it was to their advantage.  They made themselves look good, and someone else look bad.  They conveniently forgot their own mistakes but long remembered the mistakes of others, and made sure that everyone else did, too.  A joke, teasing, I-didn't-really-mean-it.  Whatever worked to get to the top and stay there.

They brought their burnt offerings, calves a year old, but also bid for power.  They aligned themselves not with the one who was right, but the one who had the most influence.  Money spoke.  They allowed the big donors to get their own way.  They made decisions based on what was popular, what was culturally relevant, what was politically correct.  Whatever it took to be the biggest, the best, and the brightest, the most happening place in the area.

No, Micah says, the Lord has already shown you what is good, and what he requires. And what does he require?  Inner transformation.  A heart that beats for the same things that God's heart beats for.  A willingness to fight as ferociously for the injustices of the world, to love as extravagantly the completely unlovable, to forgive as wholeheartedly the unforgivable, to walk and eat and serve as unabashedly among the most broken and hurting people of this world as he did when he gave his firstborn for my transgression and for the sin of my soul.

It's so easy to forget the context.  It's so nice to just feel good.  But I dare not do it.  The people of God have always forgotten context at their peril.  To claim that the context does not apply to me, to assume I'm ok without allowing the searchlight of the prophet to plumb the depths of my heart is to risk hearing God say, "Therefore I strike you with a grievous blow, making you desolate because of your sins."  What do you mean, my sins, Lord?  Didn't I do it all right?  Didn't I do what you required?  I thought I was ok, but I never really took time to look.

But when I look, when I examine the context, when I recognise in my own heart those tendencies to put myself first at the expense of someone else, to speak words that will make me look good and another look foolish, to align myself with pride and power, when I recognise these tendencies not as "no big deal" or "little things", but as symptoms of a sinful and corrupt heart, when I see how far I fall short of acting justly, loving mercy, and walking humbly with my God, ah, it is then that the prophet whispers comfort to my bruised and broken heart.  "When I sit in darkness, the Lord will be a light to me.  I will bear the indignation of the LORD because I have sinned against him, until  he pleads my cause and executes judgement for me.  He will bring me out to the light; I shall look upon his vindication."

Words that become too precious for a plaque.

Ending in Lament

I read through the Bible.  I start at one end and read through to the other end, and then I switch versions and do it again.  I read everything.  I read the stories of Jesus in the gospels and the weird mildew laws in Leviticus.  I even read the begats -- those long lists of names.  If my name was in those lists, I'd want someone to read it there, so I figure that they're worth reading.  Some of it's a bit tedious (if it's not heretical to say that parts of the Bible are tedious) but I read it all.  And some parts of it are just wonderful.

Like the Psalms.  That's where I am now.

And in that wonderful book there are Psalms that are especially dear to me:  Psalm 13, Psalm 18, Psalm 22, Psalm 73.  And Psalm 88.

They're all laments.  It is through the book of Psalms that I learned to cry.  It is through the Psalms that I learned that crying is ok.

That crying is, in fact, praise.

It's true.  The Hebrew title of the book of Psalms is "Praises".  And the book of praises is full of crying.  The single largest category of psalms in the book of Praises is lament.  People crying to God.  People yelling at God, questioning him, feeling abandoned by him, wrestling with him, asking him why, bawling out their eyeballs because life has gone horribly wrong.  But they're crying to God.  It's all wrapped around him.  That's what makes it praise.  Sometimes I praise God in my laughter; sometimes, I praise him in my tears.  But always, I am wrapping my life around him, and that's what makes it a life of praise.

So what about Psalm 88?  Why is it in Marianne's Top 10 List of Awesomest Psalms?  It's certainly not there because it's bright and cheery.

"For my soul is full of trouble and my life draws near the grave.

I am counted among those who go down to the pit; I am like a man without strength.

I am set apart with the dead, like the slain who lie in the grave, 

whom you remember no more, who are cut off from your care.

You have put me in the lowest pit, in the darkest depths.

Your wrath lies heavily upon me; you have overwhelmed me with all your waves."

It's the song of a soul in pain.  I get that.  I've been there.  I've gone through seasons where the pain is so bad I truly felt like it would kill me.  I couldn't eat.  I couldn't sleep.  I couldn't think.  I couldn't even really feel anything, except feel hurt in every fibre of my wounded being.  So I love that the psalm is honest.  I love that it gives me permission to feel that way and to be honest about it.

But mostly, what I love about this psalm is the end.

"Your wrath has swept over me; your terrors have destroyed me.

All day long they surround me like a flood; they have completely engulfed me.

You have taken my companions and loved ones from me; the darkness is my closest friend."

And that's it.  Boom.  The darkness is my closest friend.  The end.  And I love that.  I love that.

Psalm 88 is the only lament psalm in the whole psalter that ends without some kind of resolution.  All the others have a "turn", a "but" statement.  My life stinks, but you are good and I will trust you.  Things are really hard right now but I know the Lord will save me.  I can't tell which way is up, but it's all going to be ok in the end.  Weeping may last for the night, but joy comes in the morning.  They all have it.  Except Psalm 88.   And I'm glad for that.

I know it's true, those "buts".  I know God is good, and I know he can be trusted, and I know that he will save me, and I know that it will turn out ok in the end, and joy will come in the morning.  But there are seasons in life where it just doesn't turn around quite that quickly.  There are seasons of life with very, very long and lonely nights.  And without Psalm 88, I could start to feel guilty about those long nights of weeping.

Sometimes people expect "weeping for the night" to be kind of like a 1-hour TV show.  It's all a mess, and everything's horrible, but within the hour, everything is tidily wrapped up and they all lived happily ever after.  In the time it takes to read the psalm, I should be moving from lament to thanksgiving.  Just that quickly.  Fine, if you need to cry, cry, but get to the "but" in a big hurry.  We have no patience or tolerance for extended periods of grief.  We are so quick to slap on the guilt trip, to say, in hushed tones, "Oh, she's not doing so well.  She's still really struggling," sometimes only weeks after a major trauma, let alone months or even years.  If we allow lament at all, we feel so justified in ending it quickly; after all, the lament psalms end in trust!

Except then there's Psalm 88.  And Psalm 88 gives me permission to sit in the sadness and give the night of weeping the time it takes to dawn into a new day.  "Darkness is my closest friend."  Psalm 88 gives me permission to truly grieve.

To grieve, but not despair.  Because despair turns away from God, but there is not a single psalm anywhere in the book of Praises that turns away from God.  Psalm 88, in all its dark night of the soul, is focused solely on the One who can heal the broken heart.  It cries out to the LORD, the covenant God, the one who is I AM, the one who hears and who keeps his promises:  "O LORD!"  "O LORD, the God who saves me, day and night I cry out before you.  May my prayer come before you; turn your ear to my cry."    Grieving is not turning away from God or showing a lack of trust -- it is running right into his arms.  It is crying in the arms of the God Who Saves, the God Who Turns His Ear. The God who knows we trust him, not because we're not crying, but because we've brought him our tears.

I love the God who understands that sometimes nights of weeping last longer than the hours of physical darkness.

I love the God who Saves.

And who sits with me in the darkness, and holds me when I cry.

And that's why I love Psalm 88.

Fearing Fear

I heard it again this morning:  fear is wrong.  Fear is never appropriate for a Christian to feel.  It might be appropriate under certain circumstances to be angry, or to grieve, but never to fear.

I hear that a lot.  I hear a lot that Christians are never supposed to fear, that fear is not of the Lord, that fear is sin, that fear is wrong.  I've heard that the Bible tells us 365 times not to fear (or some variation of that) -- conveniently, one for every day of the year.  I don't know if it's true or not; I've never bothered to count.  (I wonder what happens on leap years?  Do we have free reign to live in terror that day?)  I certainly do know that the Bible tells people often not to fear.

But what exactly does that mean?

Am I really supposed to believe that fear, in and of itself, is a sinful emotion?  That the emotion of fear is never appropriate, never of God?

When I'm walking down a street and a guy jumps out at me to mug me, fear is inappropriate?
When the neighbour's dog approaches me, growling, tail twitching, teeth showing, fear is inappropriate?
When I'm driving through a winter storm with knuckles clenched on the steering wheel, fighting to keep my car between the lines of the lane I can hardly see through the snow, fear is inappropriate?
When I'm told that the results aren't good and it's looking like I've got only a couple years, or months, or weeks to live, and the end is going to be rough, fear is inappropriate?
When I'm laid off and I have no money in the bank and bills to pay and mouths to feed, fear is inappropriate?

I don't think so.  I really don't.  I really think it's a lie.

Fear, in and of itself, is no more sinful than any other emotion:  anger, grief, hurt, sadness, love, happiness, excitement.  It's just a feeling.   In fact, I believe it's a God-given emotion.

It's a feeling that warns us that something is terribly wrong and that our lives are at risk.  It is a feeling that shoots us full of adrenaline so that we are equipped for fight or flight.  Without fear, we would recklessly endanger our lives.  Fear keeps us in one piece.  When the neighbour's growling dog approaches, the snake of fear warns me to back away and get out of there.  When the snow whips across my windshield, the cold wind of fear cautions me to slow down, stay back, or get off the road altogether.  It's not a sin to feel fear.

But for too many years, I believed it was.  I believed fear was a sin, and it crippled me.  No matter how much I tried to not feel fear, there were times when I did feel it.  I tried to retreat from life and run from risk, because taking a risk meant feeling fear, and fear was wrong, so I refused the risk.   I tried to pretend that I wasn't afraid when I was.  I acted tough and strong and even mean so no one would see that I was afraid.  I brought a pretend-me into my relationships, with others and with God, but pretend-me wasn't real, and real-me was lonely.  My masks stifled me and suffocated me and distanced me from God -- God who was calling out to real-me while pretend-me tried to convince him that she was actually real-me, as if I could fool God.  All because I had heard and believed that fear is sin and never appropriate for a true follower of Jesus to feel.

But you know what?  I believe that Jesus felt fear.  Listen to this:  "He withdrew about a stone's throw beyond them, knelt down and prayed,  "Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done." An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him.  And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground"  (Luke 22:41-44).  In John 12, Jesus says, "Now my heart is troubled, and what shall I say? `Father, save me from this hour'? No, it was for this very reason I came to this hour."  Now, I know that neither of these verses actually use the word "fear", but they sure don't sound like the words of a man who is saying, "Bring it on!  I'm not afraid!"  As he looked ahead to the horror he was facing at the cross, I think Jesus felt fear.  And justifiably so.  His life was in danger, and fear warns us that our lives are in danger.

So I think it's a lie to believe that fear is, carte blanche, wrong, and sinful, and inappropriate for a Christian to feel.  In fact, I think it could even be a lie of the evil one to keep us in denial, to keep us from taking risks that might otherwise make us feel afraid.  I think it is a lie that cripples us.  In our desperation to avoid the "sin" of fear, we begin to fear fear itself.

No, fear is just a feeling, a feeling like any other one.  Where we cross the line from appropriate feelings of fear to sinful fearing is where we allow the fear to control us without stopping to analyse it.  It's not the feeling that's sinful; it's how we respond to it.  There are times when I feel fear, but when I stop to think about it, I know logically that there is no reason to fear.  So if I see the neighbour's dog snarling and growling, and my heart leaps and thuds to my toes, but I stop for a second and notice that the dog is tied up with a heavy chain (the dog does not exist, by the way -- he's merely an illustration), I will not allow the fear to cause me to run away in terror.  Instead, I will control it, and walk past the house, staying beyond the length of the chain.  There are other times when I feel fear, but I know that what I must do is right and it is what God is calling me to do, so I must move forward despite my feeling of fear.  My mouth might be dry, my hands clammy, my heart racing, my knees knocking, but I will do what I must do, because it is the right thing to do.  Like Jesus, who went to the cross, even though he was sweating blood.

It seems to me that for every time God says, "Do not fear," in the Bible, it's probably too late -- he's saying it because someone is already afraid.  Is he really saying, "You wretch, you just sinned"? Or is he perhaps saying, "It's ok.  You're on the right track.  I know how it looks, and I know how you feel, but keep moving forward.  I'm in control.  Don't look at the fear.  Look at me.  Trust me."  Fear is just a feeling.  It is not wrong.  It is not sin.  It is not inappropriate.  What is inappropriate, and sin, and wrong, is blindly allowing fear to rule my life, blindly assuming that just because I am feeling fear means that my life really is at risk, or that my life-at-risk is so all-fired important that I must preserve it at all cost, even if that means outright disobeying my Lord.  What is sinful is if I allow fear to control and paralyse me, rather than allowing God's Spirit to control and empower me.

I have laid down the masks.  I have quit trying to pretend I don't feel fear.  I have quit playing it safe in an effort to prevent myself from feeling fear.  I just admit it.  There are lots of times when I am afraid.  Shaking in my boots, mouth-full-of-cotton afraid.  And I'm ok with that.  I bring my fear, without shame, without guilt, and without fear of reproach to my Lord.  And I've discovered that the more honest I've been about my fear, the more courageous and bold in my walk with Jesus I've become, the more I have learned to trust deeply, to love passionately, to move forward with determination.

I can take risks.  I can do hard things.  I can go where he asks me to go, do what he asks me to do, face what he asks me to face.
Because I no longer fear fear.
I just feel it and move on.
And that's ok.

Touching the Heart

Do you recognise the painting?  It's part of the Sistine Chapel, from the creation scene where God reaches from on high and touches Adam.  I love this painting.  I love what it represents.  Michelangelo said, "To touch can be to give life."  And he is right.

Touch tells me that I'm not alone.  It tells me that you see me.  It tells me that you care.  It tells me that you love me.  You can talk until you're blue in the face, and your words may be nice and loving and encouraging, and I like to hear them, but they fall on my ears and they enter my head, and that's about as far as they go.  You can shower me with gifts, but gifts can be given with strings attached.  You can invite me out to dinner, hang out with me, and talk for hours, and all those things are lovely and lovely and I appreciate them, I really do.  I know you love me.  I know you care.

But sometimes, what I really want, all I really want, is for you to reach out your hand and pat me on the back, give me a hug, punch me on the shoulder (gently, of course), somehow, somehow make contact.  Sometimes, what I want, more than anything, is to be able to do that for you and know you're not going to misunderstand or think me weird.  Because to touch can be to give life.

But we in North America, and especially in our wi-fi world of data plans and cell phones, are an incredibly low-touch society.  We just don't.  We think it's weird.  Or wrong.  It's culturally unacceptable.  We barely want to shake hands in church, lest we pick up germs.  And really, I'm not interested in hugging strangers or going around touching or being touched by random people I don't know or aren't good friends with.  Touch can give life, but it can also bring death and destruction.  I know what unsafe touch feels like.  I used to fear and hate touch.  Sometimes I still do.  I'm not a touchy-feely sort of person who gets hands-on with everyone, nor do I want to.  But I have learned how much I need it.

Don't get me wrong.  It's not like I don't have friends or that I think I'm unloved.  I have fantastic friends, and I know beyond any doubt that I am deeply loved.  When I am with my friends, we hug.  But even great friends, apart from an initial greeting, might touch each other only once or twice over the course of hours spent together.  (In South American countries, that could be well over 150 times.)  Even great friends generally don't do much touching.  There are days (and occasionally even weeks, depending on the circumstances) that can go by when there is no physical human contact.  And that hurts inside.

I try to settle for this:

"I'm sending you a hug."

Or this:

((hug))

Sometimes that's about as good as it gets.  It's as close to touch as I get.  But it's not touch, and sometimes it makes me feel drier than ever.

There are times when I wish I could feel Jesus.  I don't mean that I wish I could sense his presence, but that I wish I could really feel him.  I wish he could pat me on the back.  I wish he could put his arms around me and hug me.  I wish he could hold me when I'm crying.  I wish he could take my face in his hands and look me in the eye and tell me it was going to be ok.  I wish I could feel him.  I know that I know that I know that if he was here (or I was there) he would wrap his arms around me and it would be the most wonderful thing.  His touch would be life.  I know he would touch me.

But he's not here, at least not in flesh-and-blood.

And I'm not sure what it's supposed to look like.  I know that there are lots of people who are perfectly ok with hands-off.  I respect that.  I'm not likely to singlehandedly change a culture.  I'm not even sure that it's not my problem, that I'm not the one who's just a little weird (although I surely hope not, because I'm writing about it in a public forum.)  Mostly, I think it just is what it is, and I have to accept it and be ok regardless.  I know that I am loved.  And when feelings fight with fact, fact must always trump.

So I settle for petting the dog.  I know it's ok to pet the dog.

She comes and lays her head in my lap, and I pet her.  She shoves her nose under my arm and snuffles in my pockets, and I pet her.  She comes up to me when I come home and she leans up against me and I pet her and hug her, and it all goes straight past my head into my heart.

Which is sad and ironic, in a way.  My head knows that my dog can't truly love me.  She is, after all, just a dog, and not a human being.  But my heart tells me she does.  And my head knows that my friends and family, and especially my Saviour do love me, deeply, profoundly, unconditionally.  I know that they love me.  I know that I am not alone.

But sometimes my heart feels too dry to feel it.

What brought this all on, you ask?  Good question.  My dog is sick.  And, for the last couple of days, I've been contemplating the possibility that she might not make it.  That she might not be there to put her head in my lap, to nudge my arm, or lean against me when I come home.  That she might not be there for me to pet and hug when my heart is aching, just to feel there's another living, breathing being here.  I can hardly think about it without tears.  I don't know it for sure.  She might be ok.  I keep praying she will be ok.  But it's made me think about why it would be so hard if she was gone.  I finally realised, I would miss her physical presence.  I would miss her touch.

To touch can be to give life.  Even if it's just a dog.

Without touch?

Tears.

And if you're out there and reading this?  Please don't send ((hugs)).

Just pray for my dog.

Thirsty

I read Psalm 42 a day or two ago.

"As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God.  

My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. 

When can I go and meet with God?"

Then this morning, I read Psalm 143.

"I spread out my hands to you; 

my soul thirsts for you like a parched land. 

Answer me quickly, O LORD; my spirit fails."

I've read these words many times, but I wonder sometimes if I have read over them. Yeah, yeah, I know what they say, and my eyes jump.  ♫As the deer panteth for the water, so my soul panteth after theeeee!  I want you more than any other, so much more than anything . . . .  ♫ I can even sing it (in at least two different versions), but do I know it?  Do I really know it?

Thirst.

There is a desperation to thirst.  Hunger is terribly unpleasant, but there is a desperation to thirst.  We can go for 30-40 days without food (and more, for most of us in North America who are carrying at least a two-week supply of food around our middles), but we can only go for three days without water.

Thirst is all-consuming.  When you're hungry, you can kind of put the hunger to the back of your mind for a while, but when you're thirsty, it's all you can think about.  And the longer you go without water, the more desperate you get.  (I'm getting thirsty just writing about being thirsty.)  I haven't been really thirsty very often, but I've been thirsty enough that even lake water that I know probably contains bacteria and parasites begins to look pretty darn good, and the trickling sound of water running over rocks in that nearby stream drives me almost to distraction.  I begin to think, Surely one mouthful won't make me sick.  I could just put the cold water in my mouth and swish it around, and spit it back out.  Just think how good it would feel just to have that cold water in my mouth.  I have to admit, I've taken the risk once or twice in my life and dipped my hand in the stream.

Because thirst cannot be denied or ignored.  Hunger is a nagging emptiness, but thirst is intolerable and demanding.

And I wonder, Have I ever really felt that desperate for God?  Hungry for God, yes.  A sort of gnawing emptiness in the pit of my belly, yes.  But thirsty?  Desperate for him?  So longing for His presence that I feel like I can't wait one more second, let alone a minute or an hour?

That kind of desperation frightens me.  Desperate people do stupid things.  Shipwrecked people, in desperation, drink ocean water that kills them.  People who don't have access to clean water drink anything and end up with a gutful of parasitic infection that causes such severe diarrhoea that they die of dehydration anyway.  How do I know that I'm not going to do something spiritually stupid and start drinking from cisterns of my own making rather than from the Water of Life?  I've seen people do it, swallow down any theology or theory that seems to slake a thirst, only to discover that the water is bitter and rots their bones, or, even worse, never discover it, and die a slow death drinking deadly water.  I get frightened of that kind of desperation.  Yet that kind of unshakeable thirst is what the psalmist described.

Because this world is a desert.  It sucks the life out of you, sometimes all at once, like being dropped in Death Valley, sometimes bit by bit, like a prolonged drought in a land that is normally quite green.  Sometimes you end up dry without even really realising it until the thirst awakes with a roar.

The world is a desert, and I'm beginning to feel how dry I am.  I am thirsty.   Very thirsty.  "As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God.  My soul thirsts for you, like a parched land thirsts" for those drops of life-giving rain.  I'm not reading over those words right now.  They are resonating with me.  "My soul thirsts for God, for the Living God."  I'm beginning to feel that kind of desperation.  I don't want puddles and pools of stagnant water.  I want the Living God.  I'm thirsty -- thirsty for him.

So I'm praying. 

"Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me? 

Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Saviour and my God."

"Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love, for I have put my trust in you. 

Show me the way I should go, for to you I lift up my soul."

I'm praying he will satisfy my thirst.  I'm praying he will lead me to streams of living water and give me the wisdom to avoid the polluted waters of my own cisterns.  I'm praying for rain.  And I trust he will answer. 

"Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls; all your waves and breakers have swept over me."

All that water sounds like heaven to a thirsty soul.