We are "kalein." Yay-uh!

In his book The Ragamuffin Gospel, Brennan Manning says that, "The bending of the mind by the powers of this world has twisted the gospel of grace into religious bondage and distorted the image of God into an eternal, small-minded bookkeeper."

How do we break from this idea that our relationship with Jesus is one of great freedom and deep affection rather than one that paints the picture of a business transaction: "Ok,, Jesus. I'm going to make myself perfect, and then we'll hang out. Cuz i'm pretty sure that you wouldn't want anything to do with me otherwise..."  

How do we break from religious bondage into spiritual freedom? We break from bondage by knowing who we are and Whose we are. It seems to always come back to those two truths.

The lies are that we have gone too far, waited too long, or not done enough to receive love. The lies then tell us that we have to make up for lost time, earn rights to or somehow work hard enough to be received and accepted. 

For all the lies that there are,they are countered by one truth: That's just it: we can't do anything. We can only be--be who He has invited us to be. We are His beloved children, honored guests at his banquet table, and heirs of the kingdom. Nothing we do creates distance between ourselves and Jesus. It's our flesh that tells us there's a rift. We have the Holy Spirit dwelling within us...always.

In the New Testament where Jesus was known to dine with sinners and tax collectors, the word kalein is used--the Greek word for invite. The craziest thing about this word is that it implies that these were guests of honor. Honor! Those considered outcasts and scum of their societies in that their time were invited as honored guests in the presence of Jesus.

Let's be honest here. Grasping the depths of this is freakin' hard. We can and will spend our whole lifetimes being blown away at the ginormousness (yes, I just used that) of His grace. 

We are not ostracized from the grace of love of God; we are guilty of ostracizing ourselves when we believe the lie over the truth. Not only does He pursue us, He takes joy in doing so.

"Never confuse your perception of yourself with the mystery that you really are accepted."

-B. Manning

Grace.

To have His mind...

...is my prayer for all of us. May we have the mind of Christ.

I'll leave you with this excerpt from Mr. Chambers--good old Oswald.

Come unto Me." Matthew 11:28

God means us to live a fully-orbed life in Christ Jesus, but there are times when that life is attacked from the outside, and we tumble into a way of introspection which we thought had gone. Self-consciousness is the first thing that will upset the completeness of the life in God, and self-consciousness continually produces wrestling. Self-consciousness is not sin; it may be produced by a nervous temperament or by a sudden dumping down into new circumstances. It is never God's will that we should be anything less than absolutely complete in Him. Anything that disturbs rest in Him must be cured at once, and it is not cured by being ignored, but by coming to Jesus Christ. If we come to Him and ask Him to produce Christ-consciousness, He will always do it until we learn to abide in Him.

Never allow the dividing up of your life in Christ to remain without facing it. Beware of leakage, of the dividing up of your life by the influence of friends or of circumstances; beware of anything that is going to split up your oneness with Him and make you see yourself separately. Nothing is so important as to keep right spiritually. The great solution is the simple one - "Come unto Me." The depth of our reality, intellectually, morally and spiritually, is tested by these words. In every degree in which we are not real, we will dispute rather than come.

I love the emphasis on the fact that freedom, healing, and experiencing love have so little to do with what we do--but rather Who we come to. May our awareness of Him--His love and grace move us. 

Love: Freedom's Catalyst

There is nothing more exhilarating, more freeing and more natural than being able to be yourself. When you can laugh with possibility of snorting, cry with a chance of getting all drippy around the nose, speak freely and openly, express your opinions and expose your deepest heart cries with never once having to filter a single thing because you know that you are fully received--it is then that you are able to experience a huge, integral part of God's heart of love, grace and freedom.

In this place of full exposure and full acceptance, there is no striving, no pushing, no judgment, and no unmet expectations. Rather, there is the most beautiful expression of celebration of one's uniqueness--rejoicing in the insane reality that each individual bears the image of Christ. Here in this place of freedom is where we run free, dance with reckless abandon, and worship without reservation (in this place, there is an ease in seeing and experiencing everything as worship).

Here there are no anxious thoughts, no knots in the stomach, no guilt, or shame. They only filter through which we are seen and see ourselves is that of the Love of Christ. Here we sit next to His throne as sons and daughters of the king--as royalty. We join Him as those deemed part of the royal priesthood, His favorite friends, His most precious treasures.

This is a part of His kingdom. The fact that this can be our reality in greater and greater measure is crazy exciting!! This is present for the here and now, and this is what He desires for His children. We are given each other as community, we are surrounded by fellow royalty, fellow children of the King. He sees us as such and wants us to see ourselves and each other in the same way. I pray that He opens our hearts up and helps us to see the scales that He will continue to remove from our eyes. Let us love each other for who we are and what we're really worth. May our love for each other facilitate a deeper realization in our souls as to how much Abba loves us.

I don't write this as though i've figured it out. I'm just tasting it more and more, and I can't get enough of it. The joy of this type of freedom runs deep, and I pray that it is contagious. Eat up, friends! May we eat this up as it nourishes our inner wo/man!

"Oh taste and see that the Lord is good; How blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him! O fear the Lord, you HIs saints' For to those who fear Him there is no want...But they who seek the Lord shall not be in want of any good thing. Come, you children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the Lord."

Ain't no Easy Bake.

In a culture of microwaves, drives thru's and achieve-thus-and-such in x number of days, we've lost sight of a great necessity. We've loosened our grip on the process of being restored because it apparently doesn't happen quickly enough. It's too hard. It's too painful. We don't see results quickly enough. We want to be free, but we don't want to be freed from the very things that get in our way of attaining it. Habit, comfort, you name it.

Restoration is, in fact, a meticulous process. If it weren't, how would we explain the beautiful tapestries that He so carefully weaves (our lives). Again, I go back to the fact that our God desires wholeness--all of who we are to be restored and made well. We may disregard the teeny tiny little snags in the tapestry, but He desires the restoration of all parts. The process requires discipline and endurance. Though we may feel frail at times, it's imperative that we see how tightly woven the threads are. I hope we are astonished as to how the Weaver's hand has made us strong and sturdy.

In the middle conversation I had recently, I briefly but openly admitted that i'm in the midst of this process. You know when you want more than what you've typically had--or to experience more than you have before? Well, I know that deeper, fuller restoration has to happen in order for me to fully receive all that He has for me and for me to be freed up fully for His work. Sure it's easier to bolt, but I didn't ask for easy. I'm asking for life, for vibrancy, and for freedom. Does my flesh get in the way and tell me that it's too hard or too scary? Yeah, but my flesh is flawed and thankfully His Spirit in me is not:

"Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely, and may your spirit and soul and body be made complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is He who calls you, and He also will bring it to pass." 


We have great hope that what we are going through puts us in a posture of looking forward to something amazing. And even better? It readies us to behold the amazing: Him.  Exciting :D.

May we allow Him to do this work in us--more deeply, more fully, from the tops of our heads to the bottom of our feet.

So this time around I pray for increased discipline, joy in the process, and that we would see with His eyes.

Finally found chords to a song that really strikes me, so I'm sharing the song and the learning it process with anyone who's reading: 

Almost Full Circle

With only one more week of school left, I found myself overwhelmed--by how crisp it's getting outside when it was in the 80s just the other day; by how much I still have to get done, by how badly I had to use the ladies' room (again within a matter of minutes--silly coffee); by how quickly time has flown by; and by how on August 26th, I had experienced a great sense of awe and wonder at the thought of the mightiness and greatness and the intricacies of God that i'm experiencing again in the same class today.

It's been about 16 weeks since my first semester of grad school started. I remember sitting in my first class and experiencing a feeling of great warmth as tears welled up in my eyes as the teacher opened up the class time with prayer. This may sound strange, but I had spent 4 1/2 years acquiring and applying knowledge at a secular campus prior to this experience where my encounters with God at school were not so blatant and forthright (I don't mean to say that I didn't see Him there--He was there, alright :)). Here, I wasn't inviting God into my class, into my studies and into the of these materials seemingly alone. This was my first encounter, since my last experience as a senior in high school (at a time when I didn't appreciate it nearly enough), that a teacher was caring for me as a student in aspects of spiritual as well as professional development.

It really does feel like I just started a few days ago, but so much has happened since the end of August. Countless ups and downs, sprinkled with smatterings of both expected and unexpected changes--all through which I kept on being reminded that I was truly loved and fully pursued by God. Mind you, this wasn't always at the forefront of my mind or my heart. In fact, sometimes it took mildly deep lows to bring me back to this truth. This semester has been marked by great breakthroughs, times of numbness, as well as times of wrestling with what I know as true and what my flesh is inclined to without the power of the Holy Spirit. It has been stamped with times of astounding joy and speechlessness as I was overwhelmed by God's beyond skillful orchestration of my life.  I have been blown away by His provision, but in the midst of acknowledging Him, I've also been deeply disappointed with the posture of my heart. Too quickly inclined to choose myself before I choose Him. Immediately reminded by His grace as opposed to a spirit of condemnation. These thoughts with many others swirled around my brain--the ones worthy holding on to, traveling sometimes rapidly and other times a bit more slowly to my heart where they now reside and will hopefully continue to be cultivated.

More than anything else, I have been shown and reminded of my immense and undeniable need for our God. The most striking reminder is that I need Him for every breath that comes into my nose and out of my breath. He sustains my everything. Deep breaths become more and more powerful with that thought in mind. Not only does He sustain my everything, He is everything. It's all about Him. this story is His story, and we are vehicles--honored and chosen vehicles to demonstrate His grace and His character. We are made in the image of Almighty God. We were created to receive His revelation, to integrate that into our lives and to be changed more and more into the very likeness of Him.

"I'm taking this class because God's been revealing Himself to me through the Old Testament, and I really just want to see more." That's what I told my professor when he asked us why we were taking the OT Survey class. Needless to say, that happened. He is in every word, on every page, and repeatedly reveals himself despite the shortcomings of the people we encounter in the respective books of the Old Testament (Good for us, right? Despite our shortcomings, HE will be made known). All scripture is revelatory because our God is a revelatory God. He showed up the first day of class when I was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, every day in between and today as I was over-caffeinated and a lot more than just a little bit tired.

Psalm 34:8 says "Taste and see that the Lord is good." Whenever I read this verse, I think "Yes! I have tasted and He is good!" Though, what has come to me over and over in the past few months. God gives His children access to an ever-increasing, sensitive taste palate. The first taste is WOW/Whoa!!, and the next taste can be even WOW-er/WHOAAA!!!, etc... Using those terms probably isn't doing this justice, but there aren't the right words, you know? There will always be more of God's goodness to be tasted--to be beheld and internalized and transformed by. We don't deserve it! My mind spins when I think about this.

I don't know how to end my thoughts. They've seemed all of the place since the beginning of this entry. The only thing that seems appropriate is embodied by a sound that is often packed with a meaning of great satisfaction:

Mmmm.

Unchanging, almighty, holy, indescribable, constant, gentle, piercing, loving, caring, patient God. Thank You. We may need to be reminded at times, but You are all we need and You are far more than enough. You could have made our lives black and white, but you chose to paint them with rich colors, great perspective and much depth. Your subtleties give dimension to our lives. Seriously, Thank You. 

A Touchy Feely Matter.

Some of us are naturally inclined to being rather in tune with our emotions, while others of us are not. On occasion it seems like we feel everything with the sensitivity of that of a flower petal--completely exposed and aware. Other times, we are numb to everything: nothing feels like anything, and it almost appears as though we fear feeling. Too many of us make all of our decisions on the basis of our feelings, and others of us don't take them into consideration when making decisions.

We dance on extreme ends of the reality of emotions and feelings. Neither end of the continuum is healthy, and we really are challenged constantly to find the balance. Neither end is safe or sound. A number of us feel ashamed for feeling too much, and others of us think we're weird for not feeling enough.

Feelings and emotions help us find commonality, but they also have the capacity to be a mechanism that brings about ostracism. These feeilngs can be rooted in believing lies that we've been told or that we have believed about those around us, but they also have the immense power of affirming what is true!

In the midst of experiencing what we feel when we hear the lies, it is imperative that we ask ourselves what is true. Emotions in light of these moments too often lead us into a posture of wallowing and thinking that is very narrow-minded, self-centered, self-degrading, and self-destructive. Those emotions completely undermine the freedom and truth found in the powerful work of  Jesus that has already taken place in our lives. Lies and defeat have no room in our lives--and absolutely no power in our lives.

The beauty in emotions is found in the very moments when they affirm what is true.  This is not to say that all that is true is joyous and a cause for celebration. Tears from one who grieves, laughter from one who rejoices, sorrow from one who experiences death of a loved one, joy and relief from one who has experiences freedom, righteous anger towards injustice, etc.. These are all very real processes. We aren't meant to ignore what we feel but rather ask the Lord what it is that He wants to show us through them. What is He trying to teach us? What is He trying to show us of Himself?

We are not to live without emotions, but our emotions should not drive how we live. Emotions are a gift--that which allows us to experience and feel and be very much alive. They weren't meant to reap and sow destruction. The combination of emotions and sound mind produces a lovely depiction of a healthy and thriving soul whereas the combination of emotions and confusion produces a portrait of chaos and angst.

Father, show us Your heart. Give us the strength to sit in what we feel as you teach us to surrender what we feel to You. Give us your strength so that we don't run from what we need to face. Teach us to walk in the freedom of knowing You--that we would see ourselves as You see us. Refine what we feel and the ways in which we feel, so that our actions and our responses reflect your Spirit in us. We pray for clarity and sound mind, and we ask for hearts that are sensitive to You. 

It's a long one, but it's been a long time in coming.

I had been carrying a backpack of bricks around for a year. You'd think I would know by the strains, the tiredness, and this unyielding sense of, "Seriously? C'mon...this has gotta end..." that I would have figured out I was carrying some kind of superfluous weight on my back.

Call it maternal, call it the "developer," the carer, or the controller in me. It's a mixed bag of all of those things. There is much room for those things to be sifted out with hopes of removing more of the control while strengthening the other traits.

I know that I didn't need to wear the backpack this long to learn what I learned, but God gently helped me carry that as he knew the scales would fall off of my eyes. Impeccable. That's what His timing is. Much came to my attention yesterday and the past few weeks that solidified some revelation that had been given, and more revelation was given that finally released me of the weight of the backpack--it just slipped off of my proverbial shoulders.

I wasn't able to go to every session of The Torrey Conference (an event that takes place every year at Biola University), but I was able to go to the closing session. I appreciated the fact that there was a recap of the overarching themes/messages of the week :

* Trust the process of suffering & move into it.

(rehearsing the whole of your faith/Psalm 60/77)

*Trust God for treasures in darkness.

*Trust the power of incarnational love. 

*Trust the bigger pictures.

*Trust His care for us.

All that I've shared is the bare minimum backdrop to a very complex, multi-layered, bittersweet friendship of mine. I don't know how you deal with things, but I have an incredibly hard time watching and being present with friends who I know are walking straight into a hole--a hole of heartache, a hole of destructive behavior, of whatever--you name it! Whatever the case, there's much self-inflicted pain; all of which, in my mind's eye are events that are completely avoidable. I want to love, but I don't want to condone certain things. I want to be there for, but I don't know If I can hold the hand of someone who is hurting themselves. I wanted to love her, but in trying on my own, I more so realized that I wanted to fix her.

There is the problem. "I" want to love, "I" don't want to condone, "I" want to be there, "I" don't know if... "I, I, I!" All of the I's in my thought process slanted my heart towards what I thought as wise (doesn't even matter whether or not I was right). My heart was bent, and trusting God became even more difficult--the focus was off of Jesus and placed onto myself. Wisdom is crap without a deep rooted trust in Love.

Well, there in the raw, has been one of the biggest struggles in my life in this past year. I wanted so badly for a friend to be well that a posture of love quickly turned into a posture of control masked as   love. Trusting God with that friendship was lip service. Well, no--more like a tug-of-war between trust and myself; there was much back and forth with me foolishly thinking that I was actually winning at certain points.


Let me revert you back to these previous statements: I want to love, but I don't want to condone certain things. I want to be there for, but I don't know If I can hold the hand of someone who is hurting themselves. Like a ton of bricks, it came down on me one day; God loves me when I'm a complete idiot, and He also is present with me when I am self-destructive. In God's love, He shows His wisdom. He's doesn't love me if, He loves me even if. 

In places where I know nothing else but to be with someone, I was reminded that I need to trust in the incarnate love of Jesus. Just be, and He's got the rest. I am helpless, but He isn't.  

While I was hanging out with some friends, a friend shared a vision God gave him for me. He saw me writing with an ink pen in this journal with a huge smile on my face, splattering ink everywhere, but loving every moment. Things shifted, I was still writing, but now I was writing frantically and there were no words showing up. I started writing my own story.

I'm writing your story. Let me show you how amazing your story is going to be because it's a part of My story.

So, I don't know if it's appropriate to call it this, but there was a sequel to that vision. He also saw me trying to hold someone else's pen as I attempted to write her story (mind you, this is what the Spirit's telling him; this friend wasn't completely unaware of the situation with my friend). This is when the backpack just seemed to fall off of my shoulders, and as I just cried, the tears seemed to cleanse my soul. The very thing that "did it" though was the verbal declaration of, "God, I give my sister to you." The verbal act happened in community, and that's what I had needed all this time. I don't know how many times I had said that in my head or in my heart, and it still wasn't enough to bring that darkness into light. There was a release of that to the Lord in the Body. Healing!


God is with us. Emmanuel. El Emet. God of Truth. Thank You for being with us and being Light for us and in us. I don't know and will never know how it is that You love us so much.

Weird. And He's OK With That :)

There are those moments when we are completely and utterly free--being who we are and feeling incredibly alive. There is a joyous rush of exuberance that seemingly travels from the soles of our feet to the very tops of our heads. Arms may be flailing, bodies may be twirling, snot may be flying out of our noses from uncontrollable laughter--whatever the case may be, we are free. Fear of judgment is non-existent; we are truly meeting face to face with liberty.

Sometimes this happens in the confines of privacy. Other times, these moments take place in the company of trusted, dear, life-long friends. There are even those moments when these occurrences happen around the presence of those we do not know, and oddly enough--we don't care.

Here is where a sense of sadness seeps in; these experiences seem to be the exception. We are way too aware of ourselves (mind you, when I say we, I'm just admitting that this is true for myself). We fear being rejected: we feel as though rejection of that one portion really reflects rejection of the whole. Suppressing these quirks, these oddities, really does suppress our spirits; it almost seems like those parts of us begin to fade. They don't come so naturally anymore; we almost have to go looking for them.

You know how good friends point out each others quirks? In those moments,  a strange happiness is experienced--wow, those things are noticed. It demonstrates how others care for and receive each other. I just think...whoa, God sees everything I do--all the weird, quirky, i'm-really-glad-no-one-was-around-to-see-that type of stuff. And the best part? He's watching with that twinkle of sheer delight in His eyes. He's watching me be fully me:

"For you created [our] inmost being;
       you knit [us] together in [our mothers' wombs]

[We] praise you because [we are] fearfully and wonderfully made;
       your works are wonderful,
      [May we] know that full well."

My hope is that there would be a deep sense and understanding of joy as we continue to step into more and more of who we already are.