Poolside Reflections

Do you know that there is true freedom in Jesus? Do you even know what that means or what that looks like? Oh, let me tell you, when you experience it you will never want to turn back. Freedom in Christ is better than any liberty you could experience in this world.

I am quite certain that if you spoke to any Christian who has understood and experienced this freedom you would hear story after story that testifies to this beautiful reality. . . The first time I experienced and understood this freedom in a real and tangible way was in Israel. I might have shared this before, but I really love this story - so bear with me as I share it again. . .

We were in Israel together with Matt's parents. There were other youth leaders from all around the world gathering together in Jerusalem for a conference - it was unreal and amazing to see so many nationalities come together and worship Jesus.

There were a few incidents that brought out the reality of my insecurity and my enslavement to other people's opinions. I was shocked to realize how much I was still controlled by those kinds of feelings. . .

And then one day we went to visit the pools at Bethesda. This is the story that recounts what happened there one day 2,000 years ago. . .

Some time later, Jesus went up to Jerusalem for a feast of the Jews. Now there is in Jerusalem near the Sheep Gate a pool, which in Aramaic is called Bethesda, and is surrounded by five covered colonades. Here a great number of disabled people used to lie - the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there and learned that he had been in this condition for a long time he asked, "Do you want to get well?" "Sir," the invalid replied, "I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me." Then Jesus said to him, "Get up! Pick up your mat and walk." At once the man was cured; he picked up his mat and walked. John 5:1-8

On that day I felt the power and presence and tender love of Christ in a way I had never experienced it before. There were guard rails separating us from the actual pools (which, by the way, were not filled with water). It took every ounce of self control within me to keep from climbing over the guard rail so that I could sit at the bottom of the pool. I suddenly - and very tangibly - felt healed of the insane insecurities that had controlled me for so long. It was simply amazing and completely transformational.

I wish I could take each one of you on a little trip to Israel and show you this place in person. I wish we could read the story of the healing at Bethesda and share what struggles in our own lives need the healing power and freedom of Jesus. . . But, since that is probably not going to happen any time soon, here is what this story revealed to me about freedom in Christ on that beautiful day:

1. We are never alone in our struggles. Did you notice that there were a "great number" of disabled people with this man? It is so easy to feel like we are the only ones who have failed, or who continue to struggle with sin. But the reality is that there are many among us who are facing the very same things. . .

2. It makes no difference how long you have struggled or how many times you have failed. This man was an invalid for 38 years, and Jesus still had the power - and the desire - to heal him. I think one of Satan's greatest tools in keeping us from experiencing freedom is Christ is convincing us that we've messed up too many times for way too long. . . We begin to believe that we are unworthy and just unable to actually experience healing and freedom. I hope you see that those words could not be further from the truth. It is never too late to be healed and freed and to then begin again.

3. We have no idea the great extent to which Jesus can and will heal us when we surrender to him. I have to laugh when Jesus asks this man if he wants to get well and the man responds with his frustration over never making it all the way to the pool. Seriously? Do you think he had any idea of what Jesus was about to do? This guy just wanted to get to the pool and Jesus is trying to offer complete physical restoration of his body. Our sight is so limited and our understanding of the powerful ways Christ can work in us is so narrow, isn't it?

You are not alone in your struggles - sinful or circumstantial. There is no struggle or sin too great for Jesus to heal and free you from. The healing that Jesus can and will bring goes far beyond what you can even begin to imagine.

There are still moments in my life when insecurity rears its ugly head, but I can tell you with amazed transparency that it is nothing like it was just 3 years ago. I am a different person - stronger, freer, and so much more comfortable in the skin that God knit together for me. I am what I am. . . and at the pools of Bethesda I realized something profound: I'm ok with that.

Where am I, you ask?

I am cleaning my house. Not at this precise moment, but in many of the moments that have recently passed that has been my activity of choice. I don't know why. I've never had this kind of obsession about keeping things picked up and clean before. It probably has something to do with the recent change in my cleaning routine. A friend introduced me to an environmentally friendly line of cleaning products that requires nothing but water to clean most everything in your house! Simply amazing. . .

But, the point of this blog is not to sell you green cleaning products (although I should just say one more time - they are amazing!!). The point of this blog is to share what God is doing in my life in the hope that it will then draw you nearer to Him as well. So why haven't I written much lately?

I have been cleaning. My house, yes, but my heart as well. I had a great conversation with a friend yesterday who had some encouraging insight into my seemingly strange change in behavior.

It has to do with the fact that for almost 5 years I was living a rather extreme existence. I was pouring myself out in friendships, in ministry, in worship, in writing posts for this blog, and with my kids. I was running at about 100 miles per hour and with little or no time to stop and rest. For the most part, I was loving every minute of it. I'm a social girl, and I seriously love doing ministry and being with friends.

But how long do you think someone can run at 100 miles per hour before they break? How long can we live in ways that - while fun and fulfilling in the moment - do very little to breathe life, and rest, and peace, and comfort to our souls?

I'm not just staying home more often and spending more time cleaning because I'm suddenly obsessed with a clean house. I'm staying home because without even conscientiously recognizing it I am swinging the pendulum the other direction and experiencing a time of rest.

And in this brilliant revelation there is a principle that applies to us all. Sometimes when we are living at an extreme in an area of our life, we need to swing the pendulum and live at the other extreme for a while in order for healing to begin.

I still love ministry, and doing fun stuff with my kids, and hanging out with dear friends. But in this strange period of hermit-like cleanliness I think I've restored some of the energy and passion and joy that was lost in the reckless running I had been doing for years. . . I've lived at the other extreme for a bit, and I'm ready to find the middle ground. I'm not sure what that will look like, but I'm kinda excited to find out. . .

If you're living at an unhealthy extreme today, I hope that you know its alright to swing the pendulum in the other direction for a time and enter a period of rest. I have come to learn that this is where the healing begins. . . But it isn't something we do on our own. We set Christ at the forefront of our minds and hearts and seek to know Him more as we walk through all of it.

You should come over some time. We can talk about the extreme you might be struggling with over a cup of coffee and you can ooh and ahh over my clean house. . . =)

Until then, may Jesus be your guide in it all!

Goodbye to the Pen

I started reading a book yesterday that has put fabulous words to one of the thoughts that has been rolling around in my head over the last couple of years. I am totally lovin' it. The book is called, "Sitting at the Feet of Rabbi Jesus," and the following quote is taken from the end of the 4th chapter. There it says this:

". . . at the sound of the shepherd's voice, like magic, the sheep separated again into three flocks. Apparently some things in Israel haven't changed for thousands of years. Just like these sheep, what distinguishes us is not so much the "pen" we inhabit but the shepherd we follow. Some sheep coming running as soon as their shepherd calls, but some struggle to obey his lead, going astray whenever temptation strikes. It takes a lot more energy to follow a wandering shepherd than to be cooped up in a pen. But we are called to be disciples of a Rabbi who is always on the move, one who wants us to go with him, making disciples to the ends of the earth. . . "

I read that paragraph and had a total "Aha!" moment. I have to admit, over the last few years I've developed some frustrations with the Christian church. I don't mean to be negative, but every time I looked at the churches around me I felt like something was seriously missing. . . like the call that Jesus gave and the mission that we inherited had somehow been watered down and marginalized. I think the sheep and the pen story perfectly illustrates and explains what has been plaguing my heart for a while.

As Christians, we have become consumed with our "pen." We have worked tirelessly to create easily identifiable boundaries for our churches, our kids, and anyone who wants to consider following Christ. We have poured our hearts and our money into church buildings, and we have spent countless hours in church meetings arguing over single words in our mission statements. . . All the while we have sat comfortably behind the gate of our pen, oblivious to the fact that the very One we have done all of this for is not inside the pen with us. He is standing outside. Waiting for us to leave the comfort of the Christian community we have created - leave the safety of the pen - and follow Him into the world.

I'm not trying to say that church buildings and mission statements are not important. We find encouragement, refreshment, and growth within the context of these things. . . But while they are good, they are not supposed to be our primary focus. The means have become the end, and suddenly we are suffocating in an environment where there is sometimes little to no connection between deepening our knowledge of the bible and living like Jesus in this messed up world. . .

I am praying that I would be brave enough to follow my Shepherd's voice no matter where it leads. . . Begging God to give me the strength to follow Him. . . even if it means leaving the comfort and familiarity of my pen.

Tunnel Vision Jesus Style

tunnel vision

n

1. (Medicine / Pathology) a condition in which peripheral vision is greatly restricted

2. narrowness of viewpoint resulting from concentration on a single idea, opinion, etc., to the exclusion of others

After Matt and I were first married I taught music at a middle school in the Northern suburbs of Chicago. It was a wealthy area, and I have to admit that I got a little consumed with the material side of life during those years. It was a difficult thing, though, because I was a public school teacher and Matt was in seminary, so there wasn't much I could do to satisfy those desires. We were, honestly, odd ducks in that part of town. I was surrounded by 6th graders who were carrying Louis Vuitton bags and on the (thankfully seldom) occasion that my car was unavailable I had to pull up to school in this:



Sweet, right? When Matt and I would cruise around town in this baby we would often receive an unfortunate greeting (involving a particular finger) for pretty much no good reason. I think people just didn't like to have to look at it. . .

But anyway, I found myself obsessing over things I wanted (and often couldn't have). If I saw a fabulous outfit I would begin organizing my life around finding a way to buy it. I developed tunnel vision focused on satisfying the material desires of my heart. And, unfortunately, as a result I lost the ability to see a lot of the blessings God was pouring over us at that time of life.

Thankfully God and I dealt with that whole issue years ago and I have widened my scope when it comes to the material things I think I need.

We all do that, though, don't we? Our team loses (or wins!) some big championship and we become so consumed with grief (or joy) over the event that our identity begins to be shaped by passion for our team. Or our boyfriend/girlfriend breaks up with us and our whole world crashes down around us and we feel unlovable and insignificant. . . all the while completely losing sight of all of the people whose love for us is constant and of the great worth that we have in Christ.

Tunnel vision isn't just something that effects us in areas of life outside the church, though. Sometimes we develop tunnel vision when it comes to our faith, too.

We can become so consumed with the need for personal holiness that we forget that God calls us to go out into the world and interact with it. Or we become so motivated and impassioned about living the life that God has called us to that we can no longer see the grace the washes us clean and enables us to enter God's presence in the first place. . .

So much of the Christian life is a balance: grace and truth, free will and God's sovereignty, prayer and action. . . I can't help but ask the question, is tunnel vision ever ok? Is there any area in which we are called to have a "narrowness of viewpoint resulting from concentration to a single idea at the exclusion of others?"

My proposition: Yes.

In John 14:6 Jesus says this:

I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

When it comes to the source of our salvation, we don't need to look any farther. We don't need to widen the scope and look to other ideas or people to know and believe that we can be saved. I think tunnel vision that honors God is vision that focuses so much on Jesus that our whole lives are shaped by our understanding of and love for Him.

If you are struggling with the "tunnel vision" of believers around you, simply ask yourself this question: Is their tunnel vision focused on Jesus? Or have they let Jesus slide into the periphery and allowed other things (even good things!) to become the center of their line of sight?

Jesus-centered vision is the only vision that will satisfy our souls and draw us to God. We look to Him as our Savior for eternity, and we look to Him as our example for living life now!

I think there is a good reason for why kids in Sunday School always shout out "Jesus!" as the answer to pretty much every question. . . I think they've got the right idea.

Facebook or Friends

A few weeks back I wrote a post about loving Jesus more than Facebook, and I committed to pondering the issue on a personal level. Here is my conclusion: I do not love Facebook more than Jesus, but I think Facebook might be creating a bit of a stumbling block between me and making new friends (which, although it is a different kind of problem, is still quite unfortunate and grave). Seriously.

7 months ago we moved to a new city and began work in a different church. I kinda thought I'd be like a magnet and some new BFFs would just find their way to me without much intentionality or effort on my part. Amazingly, that has not happened. And I think its because of Facebook. No, really, I think its true. When God made me He gave me this intense need for friendship and community. I love being with friends, having fun, analyzing life together. . . but who needs friends when you can log on to Facebook at any given hour and fill that hole with incomplete but somewhat satisfactory interactions with people who were at some point in your life 'close?'

If I didn't have Facebook to turn to when I needed some relational connection I think I would have been more intentional about making time and reaching out. . . I think I'd have more friends if I didn't have Facebook.

Weird.

Anyway, I'm going to do a little experiment. We'll see if I'm faithful. . . The plan is that for 1 month I will not log on to Facebook more than 2 times a day. Once in the morning and once in the evening (well, now that I read that it sounds a little ridiculous. . . for heaven's sake, how often was I checking Facebook before?). My hope and prayer is that by the end I'll have found deeper fulfillment in real human contact; that I will have made some actual friends.

There is nothing spiritual about this plan. . . just me peeling back another layer so you can see what is real. I recognize that it might sound a little ridiculous, but you know what? I am totally ok with that. =)

Saran Wrap River

When I was 6 I dug a little trench behind our garage and lined it with Saran Wrap in hopes of creating a girl-made river in our backyard. My plan was to create this river and then baptize the little girl next door in it. Now, the denomination in which I was raised didn’t encourage these kinds of things, exactly, but I knew that in the case of an emergency a layperson could administer this particular sacrament, and I was quite certain that God would feel that the baptism of my neighbor qualified as an emergency. The plan fell apart, though, because for some unknown reason lining the trench with Saran Wrap didn’t prove to be an effective means of retaining water. And, I am guessing that tricking my neighbor into getting baptized in my backyard would not have been an effective means of evangelism either.

And that right there, my friends, is the inspiration for what I’m about to write. Not the mechanics of building bodies of water behind our houses, but the beautiful possibility of moving from well-intentioned but totally misguided ways of living out our faith to radical, transformational, and totally realistic means of living like Jesus in this crazy world.

You see, my intentions in building a river were noble, but I was totally missing the mark. The more effective way of engaging my neighbor would have just been to love her, pray for her, and then tell her about this Jesus who saved my soul. To be honest, I don't remember much about life as a 6 year old (other than my Seran Wrap river and a few of the fantastic plays that I put on for my family), so I can't tell you if I ever managed to actually talk about Jesus. But that would have been a good start.

Its an important thing to think about, you know; how we can engage the people in our lives over the truth of the gospel. Its important because its the purpose Jesus gave us when He left this world to sit at the right hand of His Father. Matthew 28:19 says:

Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you, and lo, I am with you always even to the end of the age.

This reminds me of scenes in dramatic movies when one of the main characters is dying and raises his or her head one last time to whisper their final words. . . Not that Jesus was dying - far from it! - but that these final words should carry the same power and punch in our lives because He chose them for a reason! He could have said something like this:

Go therefore and have lots of quiet times and bible studies, for the most important thing is to have knowledge, and if you can acquire fame and money while on this earth that would be fun too, and lo, I will be watching from afar, slightly bored, until the end.

I'm sorry. That does seem so wrong. . . but it proves a point, yes? Where have we lost our way and when did we forget the very clear purpose that God gave us? (There is not time or room to dig deeper, but I have to say right here that the coolest thing is that when you look at the overarching story of the bible, redeeming people to Himself has been God's foremost purpose since the fall! The means have changed, but the purpose remains the same. . . so cool.)

So, it is important that we understand how to make disciples; how to share the joy and beauty of our faith with those in our lives. And then, its important that we actually do it. My phony version of Matthew 28:19 sounds ridiculous, but if we are honest with ourselves isn't that the way we often live our lives? We read our bibles (which is good), try to listen in Sunday School (which is also good), and then go home and live for the same purposes that everyone else is living for (oh, not good). We know that Jesus promised to be in us and with us wherever we go, but we talk and act like he's some distant being watching Lifetime while we waste away our days and our opportunities.

I would not recommend building a river and spontaneously dunking people, but how else can you take Jesus' passionate calling and begin to make it a reality in your lives? Maybe by reaching out to people outside of your circle of friends. Maybe by talking about your faith over lunch. . . and not just the easy stuff, like Christiany political views, but the difficult and potentially awkward stuff, like your love for Jesus and how He has changed your life.

I know, that sounds intimidating and totally unrealistic for some of you. But I can promise you that when you choose to actually live out the purpose that Christ has called every believer to live, you will never regret it. And remember - He has promised His very self to be near to us and help us! What else could you need?

It is an awesome thing to receive the grace of God and the gift of eternal life through Christ. And it is abundantly more awesome to be a part of God's plan to extend that grace and eternal life to others.

How do I love Jesus more than Facebook?

Have you ever noticed how skilled Christians are at coming up with really smart sounding spiritual comments? I myself made an impressive one earlier today. I quoted a verse as my status on Facebook (Philippians 3:8) about discarding everything in this world as garbage compared to the worth of knowing Jesus, and then I boldly claimed this to be my daily goal for 2011. Now, I know that you are impressed already - but wait, it gets better. A friend made a funny comment about not discarding Facebook, and I came up with this doosy of a holier than thou remark: As long as I love Jesus more than Facebook I think we're good. Wow. Amazingly spiritual? Yes. The only problem that has been plaguing me since I wrote that is this:

Does anyone know what that actually means?

Seriously! I mean, it sounds good. I think its probably something most passionate Christians would agree with... but what does loving Jesus more than Facebook actually look like?

I believe that this is where we sometimes lose our way. We know the right things to say, but we never dig deeper to figure out what those things actually mean, or what they're supposed to look like in our lives. We find a verse that satisfies our spiritual appetites and then move on and live as usual.

My guess as to why we tend to do this is that we are afraid of what will be required of us if we actually apply God's truth to our lives. If I really love Jesus more than Facebook (or Target, or my kids, or money, and on and on), then how will my life have to change?

The verse I quoted from Philippians is a passionate cry of absolute surrender and total commitment to God and His purposes here on earth. It communicates a deep, heart felt belief that Jesus really is more meaningful and more important than anything we might try to find fulfillment in here.

I'm not going to build some comprehensive list for how to tell if your love for Christ outweighs your love for the things of this world (Facebook or otherwise). Far too often we try to boil these things down to a tidy list, and we end up with a legalistic and inadequate formula for walking with God.

If you read further on in Philippians, however, you'll come to some verses that might help to define the boundaries for a heart that loves the world more than Christ:

For I have told you often before, and I say it again with tears in my eyes, that there are many whose conduct shows they are really enemies of the cross of Christ. They are headed for destruction. Their god is their appetite, they brag about shameful things, and they think only about this life here on earth. Philippians 3:18-19

That's pretty intense, right? Truthfully, though, how often does that describe me? Or you? How often does our conduct show that the true state of our hearts is an obsession with things and people and an apathy towards our Savior and Maker?

I don't know what loving Jesus more than Facebook looks like exactly for you. I have some friends who honestly have quit it altogether because on some level it pulled their hearts and minds away from Christ. For others, it is great platform for communicating their love for God and sharing His love with others. I don't think it matters so much the conclusion you come to, only that you are honestly living out your faith from a heart that sincerely longs to honor Christ and serve Christ above all else.

So, how will I love Jesus more than Facebook?

I'm going to have to dig a little deeper, ponder a little more, and get back to you on that. . .

Here's to another new year; a chance to take God's word to the core of who we are and allow it to change us from the inside out. . .

What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ. Phil 3:8