Leaning

Around and around and around we go, where we stop, nobody knows. There are times I feel like I will never cease to go around the same mountain. My legs knocked out from under me in the same place. The arrow always hits the same chink in my armor. Ecclesiastes talks about seasons, but Fall and Winter feel interminable. My weaknesses are always the same; insecurity, need for affirmation, fear of failure, fear of not being accepted. Fear of not being loved.

Some days are worse than others. I’m trying to teach myself to respond in the moment to each thought and feeling. Take each one to the Holy Spirit, asking for insight. I go to sleep asking for Him to speak into my purpose and identity. Because that’s where the buck stops. Where each question leads. Who am I? What am I? Where am I?

Each weakness is like a hole in my soul made by a melon-baller…or scooped out by the teeth of a piranha. By the way, did you know that vampire bats don’t actually suck blood? They scoop out a shallow well on their prey, often a cow, and lap up the blood. Yumm. Sorry, I chased a rabbit there. Odd thing about the Holy Spirit though. When I go to Him about my hurt, He doesn’t put another bandaid on it. He lifts away the dressings, and wiggles into each little hole, and then starts speaking to me about Himself. And about me. Who is Jesus going to become for me here, that He could not be in any other capacity? What am I going to discover about His character in this place of weakness?

My favorite verse in Song of Solomon is 8:5. ‘Who is this coming out of the wilderness, leaning on her Beloved?’ The Spirit is the One that leads us into the wilderness, not the Enemy. He’s not there to embarrass us; He’s there to reveal our need for Him. The only reason the Enemy offered food to Jesus was because Jesus was hungry. He was weak. He had to lean on the Spirit. There is something very precious in pursuing Him into the weakness. The Lord gave Jacob a new name to go along with his new limp. I don’t think we are supposed to pursue Him to find a fix. I think we are to pursue Him to get a new name.

A name is a world. A name holds promise. A name prophesies over our future;

Rev elation 2:17 'He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, to him I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, and a new name written on the stone which no one knows but he who receives it.'

What is He saying to you in your weakness? Who does He want to be in this place that He could not be in any other place? I’m ready to be lead into the wilderness. I’m ready to hear that name.

The List

When I was in college just about every girl I knew had the list. You know, THE LIST? Every single list had stipulations for each girl’s dream man. Tall, dark hair, blonde, blue eyes, brown, funny, smart…usually the list didn’t stipulate that the man have money since we were going to a bible college. But each girl was thinking it. The one caveat that was thrown in haphazardly was that he would be passionate about God. We all wanted that, but some knew the importance of it more than others.

I only had one item on my list. I just wanted the man I married to have a great dad. I wanted him to know how to be a father. So I married that guy. He had a great dad, and he is and is becoming an amazing father to our three kids. He’s given me glimpses into what our Father is really like.

Now I’m on the other side of my list; my marriage takes work, we still aren’t great at communication, and I still need to be told I’m pretty. ;) But we have hope; we really love each other. And in spite of how tough it is sometimes, we know that love means intentionality. Covenant.

Lately I feel like I’ve run headlong into a wall of grief. Grieving women. Some of them, like me, started off with the answer to their list. A man that loved God…and as far as they can tell, that love is a phenomenon of the past. For most women that are running hard after God, to be one flesh with someone that does not is heartbreaking. It is crazy easy to honor and respect a man that is seeking intimacy with Jesus…and it is crazy hard to honor and respect a man who isn’t.

This is just a perspective of mine, but I believe that the sin of the man in the Garden was the ‘step up’ sin. Adam failed to step up and lead. He failed to remind Eve of what the Lord had told them about the Tree. Instead, he sat on his ass and let Eve ‘step up’. Instead of taking his family into a place of maturity, he sat back and did nothing because it was easier.

I’m pointing out Adam’s weakness because I want to emphasize his gifted purpose. Yes, the man is the head. But the head of what? Paul says he’s the head of the family like Jesus is the Head of the Church. What does that look like? When Paul say the man is to love his wife like Christ loves the Church, what does that mean? If it means just to die for her, that’s easy. Is there more? I like how Bill Johnson describes the marital unit, “The husband is to set the example for sacrifice, and the wife provides the atmosphere of love and nurturing”. Set the example for sacrifice? That’s a different form of leadership. Actually, I thought that was the female form of leadership.

Women are good at sacrifice. We have this resilient strength that just keeps on giving. But we aren’t the ones that are called to die, just like the Church isn’t asked to die for her Bridegroom. We are called to be loved, and to love in return. To give out of love.

The two things that make walking in our design that much harder is the combination of the Curse and the strategy of the Enemy. Hard work with little return knocks a man’s legs out from under him, while Satan’s strategy is to circumvent God’s design entirely. He learns to believe that sacrifice is ugly, and hard work is fruitless and purposeless. And he believes the lie that if he truly sacrifices himself, he will lose himself. Why lose himself to a woman? Or to God? Vulnerability only earns pain.

So what happens when you’re married to someone who doesn’t want to grow with God, or with you? We women have a decision to make. And the thing that makes it that much harder is tied into our Curse. We can step over the man and lead, or we can sacrifice. Each choice plays directly into the plan of the Enemy.  Both of those roles are for the man; headship and sacrifice. Not that the woman shouldn’t sacrifice, since we are all called to sacrifice in the faith, but that men should go first. Once we step in to the man’s gift, we circumvent our own. We can’t lead or sacrifice and create the culture of love that pushes our family towards Jesus. We really can’t do it all. So what are we supposed to do?

Since I’m still in the process of being a wife, I’m still trying to puzzle this one out. I think it starts with looking at Jesus, since He is the most beautiful picture of sacrifice and passion. When I am struggling along day after day, and yearning for the perfect husband…the one that captures me with a glance, that prioritizes God and then me, that would rather give more of himself than give to himself.  When I’m overwhelmed with feeling like I have to do it all and that my husband doesn’t see, I look at Jesus. He fills me up and I don’t have to lead or sacrifice. I can just love Him and then love my husband. I keep seeing this picture of me reaching up to Jesus, while my husband embraces me around my waist. (Song of Solomon 2:6) With God, all things are possible. I don’t have to do it. He will do it.

After His Heart

This morning a random comment from facebook prompted me to start thinking about sin. Sin keeps us from God. By defining God’s principles on behavior, the Law shows us what sin is. Once we have been exposed to the Law, we can see how far we are from God. Then hopefully, we meet Jesus.

Jesus is the fulfillment of the Law. That doesn’t mean that He’s the last law, or the final law. It means that He is the answer to the Law. There is no possible way that we could come up to God’s standards, so Jesus did for us. His death was the sacrifice that satisfied the void between us and God. When the Holy Spirit opens our eyes to the enormity of our sin, and the lost relationship with God, He reveals Jesus as the One Who Heals. Jesus heals the gap. He fills the void. Jesus, who was fully human and fully divine, died to give us life.

Okay, so here we are on the other side of the Cross. Salvation is the realization of His death and resurrection in us. Now we are on the way to maturity…so what of sin? We aren’t sinners anymore, we are children. We don’t have a sin nature because it was crucified and buried. Our spirits are dead to sin and alive in Him. So does sin matter? Does it affect us? Are we holy?

We are holy because Jesus is holy. When God looks at us, He sees Jesus. However, there is a holiness that is ever perfecting itself by the direction of the Holy Spirit. We are to be perfect as He (Jesus) is perfect. Although we don’t have a sin nature since we are a new creation, we have a sin ‘habit’. Our thoughts and emotions have to learn what He thinks and feels. After all, we’ve been separated from God. How are we to know what He’s like? How are we to know how to behave? We could look at the Law, but the Law is incomplete and shallow. Jesus brought God’s kingdom rules to earth when He said, “If you look at a woman and think about having sex with her, you’ve committed adultery.” And “If you hate your brother you’ve murdered him”. Undoubtedly Jesus is angling for our hearts.

Our hearts are where it begins and ends. The entire reason God created time and space, earth and air, flora and fauna. To set the stage for relationship. What He enjoys with His Son and the Holy Spirit He wants to share with us. This is why the Fall was such a big deal. This is why Jesus’ death was such a big deal. Because His heart was on the line. The only reason He hates sin is because it hurts us. It keeps us from Him.

So sin is still detrimental. In the sense that it harms the relationship. We remember the Cross and the blood and His sacrifice, but the path to and through love is not about the hoops you jump through to get there. The path to love, to our hearts and to God’s heart, is desire. I don’t want to sin because I love Him. I don’t want to hurt my husband or my children because I LOVE them.  I don’t want to do the things that keep me from hearing His heartbeat, of knowing His voice. I’m after His heart. 

Sleepless and Worthy

I will not sit down. Yes I am. No I’m not. Yes. No. Yes!! Argh.  A year after my son was born and I’m still having trouble getting through my day. I’ve become so sick of hearing the ‘I’m tired’ mantra in my head, better reasons starting popping up. I have no discipline. I am lazy. Which leads to…I am dirty, worthless, shameful. What’s wrong with me?

A friend mentioned recently that she’d gotten a bad night’s sleep and that she was tired. My immediate thought was, ‘Oh, it’s not normal to be tired all the time? What do non-tired days feel like?’ The concept of sleep deprivation had never occurred to me. That sounded too much like an excuse. But, I realized that my son has been up every hour or two hours a night and after failing at training him to sleep, I had accepted it. Hence, sleep deprivation. That sounded too easy though. A practical reason for being tired? Didn’t there have to be some character flaw I was missing?

I think it’s easier to accept that I’m loved and worthy when everything around me is perfect. How can I sit down and talk to the Lord when there is a mess around me? Doesn’t that infer that I have priorities out of order? I’ve entertained the notion that until I find the key to prompt my son to sleep through the night that I might allow myself some grace and just work on the most important things in my life: my relationships, homeschooling, music and writing. That thought scared me. What about when I did start getting more sleep? What if I still couldn’t manage to keep everything tidy and clean? I really should work on my discipline now.

Some light broke through last week while listening to Graham Cooke in ‘Pastoring People Prophetically’. He makes the point that we are Past/Present while God is Present/Future.  When the Holy Spirit talks to me, He is interested in talking about how He sees me in the future. What is He dreaming for me? What gifts does He want to start developing in me now? How is He going to engage with me now in order to affect how I impact the world in the future?  If all I am concerned about is my dirty dishes, or that I need to sweep, and less about how I engage with my daughter or how I pursue my relationship with Him…how is that worthwhile? Twenty years down the road I don’t want to look back at my life and remember keeping house. I don’t want to deal with teenagers that didn’t have me pour into their lives when they needed it. More importantly, I don’t want to waste time worrying when I can be sitting at His feet.

His words about me are amazing. My thoughts and Satan’s lies just fall away. He says I’m beautiful and worthy. He says that my gifts are wonderful now, but they pale in comparison to what they will become. He’s the authority on the matter since He’s the one that gave them to me. ;) My words have the power to heal and to lay waste. My song has the ability to reveal Him. The notes I play can bring in His presence. He enjoys me. (and I’m funny ;))

Sleep deprivation endures for a moment, but an encounter with Him is forever. 

Strength of the Strong

When Ryan Hurst’s character Gerry Bertier shouts, “I am too strong!” in ‘Remember the Titans’, my thoughts stutter beyond the intended plot. Gerry was amping himself up for the game; he was the star quarterback and much of the morale and impetus for a game win hinged on him. Instead of following this line of reasoning, my mind picks up its’ all too familiar habit of self analyzing, or as my mother would term it: navel-gazing.

I am too strong. Or rather, until recent years, I have been too strong. Since I do understand some of the fundamentals of the human soul, I am certain I am still too strong in other aspects of my life.

My mother says that I was born with a cigar hanging out of my mouth. Not literally of course, although that would be amazingly funny. Evidently I already knew the intricacies of life to such an extent that the everyday ruminations of my peers were cumbersome; hence I found it necessary to correct and guide my elders into higher realms of thought. Yes, I am quite positive I thought in that vocabulary when I was four.

Not only was I intellectually tough and yearned for a challenge, I was physically strong as well. The constant oppression and abuse in my home life pushed me to entrench myself with strength of character and will. You would think I must have been a difficult child, but I was obedient and conscientious. I had a fear of God and of my parents from an early age. However, if you presented me with a direction that I could see logical flaws in, I felt duty bound to argue the point until the cows came home.

I have long desired God’s hand and presence in my life. My education has had a strong theological thread throughout, and anything I was taught I found necessary to research and examine for myself. I tried to come to conclusions without basing anything on emotion; instead, I chose to believe. It was a mental discipline, not an emotional flight of fancy.

While this may sound fundamentally sound to some, for me my strength was my weakness. I expended so much effort basing my faith in my mind; I excluded anything my emotions could have offered. The greatest tragedy was that I skipped my spirit to understand God with my mind.

The Holy Spirit wants to commune intimately with our spirit. That ‘God breathed’ part of us. Can He speak to our minds and emotions? Absolutely, but only in a fragmented sense. Both our intellect and emotions are affected by our past, our circumstances, our personality, our education. Sometimes it is difficult to hear the voice of God clearly through all the mess. Unless we have been unraveled, that is; broken by God’s hand.

The past few years my circumstances have served to dismantle my strength brick by brick. It has taken a remarkable amount of trial to unhinge me. That is not pride speaking, rather, aggravation. Mistakes compounded by setbacks compounded by gosh darn bad luck. Or was it? God usually knows what He’s doing. Normally I would have just set my jaw and pushed through it. These past two years finally pushed me over the edge. I could barely wash my own hair, let alone keep my kids’ faces clean. The disciplines that were ingrained had been obliterated along with my ability to keep a poker face amidst pain. I could no longer do anything by my own strength.  I have had to relearn self discipline, except this time I have had to hold onto someone’s hand every step of the way.

I find now that when someone calls me strong I feel a rush of humility. They don’t know how much I grasp in the dark for His hand. His strength is a gift; mine can be an encumbrance. It can be my undoing.

When I served in the military there was a passage in Psalms that I quoted to myself when we had training exercises that were particularly challenging:

Psalms 18:29-35 NAS

29 For by You I can run upon a troop; and by my God I can leap over a wall.

30. as for God, His way is blameless; the word of the LORD is tried; He is a shield to all who take refuge in Him.

31. For who is God, but the LORD? And who is a rock, except our God,

32. The God who girds me with strength And makes my way blameless ?

33. He makes my feet like hinds' feet, And sets me upon my high places.

34. He trains my hands for battle, So that my arms can bend a bow of bronze.

35. You have also given me the shield of Your salvation, And Your right hand upholds me; And Your gentleness makes me great.

Did you notice that David is depending on God for everything? God is his source for righteousness, purity, strength and courage. David knew that the gifts that he was born with originated from God and the only way that he could achieve or attain anything was through God.

Samson was a bastion of strength. He was consecrated to God and meant to be a picture of purity and righteousness. He fell, of course, but his last moments were epic. He had been captured, placed in chains and blinded. When he repented and asked God for his strength back, he pushed down the supporting pillars of the building in which were three thousand Philistines. It toppled, crushing all within. In his weakness, God used him.

I always want to stay in my place of weakness. Every moment grasping for God’s hand. Always seeking to hear His voice. Somehow I think He’s got a better grip on things than I do.