For Your Edification

Lately, I've been really struck by something in particular. Actually, let me back up: I've been struck with a metric butt ton of things, which is kind of overwhelming -- you get hoarse after saying "Aha!" enough times. Most of the things I'm realizing concern who I am, which is something that I always thought I was pretty in tune with. Not only am I intensely girly and in touch with my thoughts and feelings on just about everything at any given time, but I'm also a heavy thinker, and have always spend a lot of time pondering, processing, and internalizing things. I'm like a creepy computer with small hands. (Why is that relevant? First thing that popped into my head.) But lately the Lord has shown me how wrong I am about that. I do not know me, not really. It's kind of a slap in the face when I keep considering what I think I'm good at and what things I like, and living off those perceptions, when the God that designed me and has my hairs counted, and can see my heart, is there saying, "I know you! I have plans for you! They're better than yours because I know you better than anyone!"

So I've spent some time this semester playing get-to-know-you games with myself. The Holy Spirit has really dug around and unearthed things about me that I am ready to face, both gifts and flaws, to reveal me exactly as I am. It's incredible to me that from the eternal godly perspective, I am wiped clean and considered perfect because of Christ, but God loves me so much that He cares about changing me to be more like Him right now, in this temporal life on earth. I'm noticing the pet peeves I've always had and never acknowledged for what they are, so I can be ready to forgive people when they irritate me. I get to see the way my mind dwells on certain things, worrying constantly, or imagining things differently from what they are, so I can take captive of my thoughts from wandering in order to stay grounded here and appreciate what I have. I could go on forever, and this isn't really what I was going to write about, but it's just incredible to really know myself more like the Lord does. I know that this process will really be important when I have to make life decisions, so I encourage you right now to pray that God will introduce you to yourself, the real you! He will take you step by step to clean out dirty closets inside, not dumping your every failure and vice on you at once because He knows we can't handle that, and it'll all be for His glory when we can put sins and flaws behind us one by one to become stronger in Christ!

Whew. Anyways, all that leads to my new understanding of the power of human interaction. It's really incredible how much we just interact with others every day, whether by walking by them, making eye contact, talking to them (from cashiers to best friends), hugging them, laughing with them, Facebook chatting with them, emailing them... every single day. And as I imagine the scope of how much we really spend time just dealing with people, the possibilities for God's glorification are just enormous. How much of a difference can a smile make to someone who is on the edge of hell in their life? What could a kind gesture do to a stranger? How beautiful could words of hope be to someone you've known for years? It's just crazy to think about how people in our lives aren't just extras in a movie about us -- they are thinking, feeling, experiencing, and not any less than you or me. We're really all very alike.

I could talk about this too for hours and hours. In fact, this isn't even what I was going to talk about either, haha. Another context! Don't you love it?

The very specific thing that I am considering at this moment is how carefully we must tread in when we relate with people. We do it so automatically, reacting more than responding, and don't take the time to measure our words or search our hearts.

"Everyone lies to their neighbor; they flatter with their lips but harbor deception in their hearts. May the LORD silence all flattering lips and every boastful tongue— those who say, 'By our tongues we will prevail; our own lips will defend us—who is lord over us?'” Psalm 12:2-4

Yes, this talks about everyone, even the holiest of holy Christian people. I don't think we realize how all-encompassing deception and flattery really are, how deeply they go. Pretending to care about other people when we don't really feel like listening to them, laying on kindness in order to be liked or obtain something (yep, going out of your ordinary way for attractive guys counts!), and many other things that are second nature to us are really deception. The lie is that we profess to be different from the inside out, loving neighbors as ourselves and giving without expectation of receiving anything in return, and yet on the inside our attitude doesn't match many times. This scripture even points out that the issue is really in our hearts, that we still have deeply rooted desires to gain attention and admiration from some people and not to be bothered by people that we don't think are so important. Our level of politeness, or how genuinely engaged we are in what people are saying, often correlates more with getting something out of our interactions with people.

Speech has a gigantic impact on people's lives, and we must approach it with respect. We are not masters of our tongues; they sometimes speak directly from a selfish corner of the heart without giving our spiritual self a chance to intervene and stop it. I think believers really need to step back and truly consider what is edifying, and what is not, period. What words build up others and bring glory to the Lord?

For example, I'm kind of over people who jokingly get on your case about something that isn't your fault. This has always really made me mad -- I think I just have a sensitivity to it that other people might not -- but I really can't stand it. I know that friends are kidding when they say things (oftentimes over and over again) like, "Gosh, Lara! Why did you make me come here? This is the worst thing ever!" when something goes wrong completely apart from my control. I take it personally! It's not funny at all and it gets on my nerves. I'm not a scapegoat! This is a way that other people have no idea that they are pushing me to frustration and the desire to back away from them. And that's really the thing -- we don't mean to do stuff like this, but it's because we don't often take a moment to consider if even our sense of humor is edifying. Even if a joke is slightly at someone's expense, you'd better know that person well! (Proverbs 26:18-19 is a scripture that a lot of my friends throw around about sarcasm, use it well.)

Just observations we make aloud can tear down rather than build up. A lot of people, usually clueless guys, have told me I look tired! In the early afternoon, on days where I am perfectly well-groomed and have had my coffee and am just going about my business. I get it! I have genetic circles under my eyes! Why in the world do you need to tell me that?

I don't mean to sound like a big complainer, I'm just giving personal examples of ways where I am definitely thin-skinned, which is a problem where I am quicker to accuse than forgive, but where I am not built up by people's interactions with me. Everyone has a million they could probably think of right now, both things that hurt their feelings or things that they know they do that probably bring others grief and frustration.

What's the prescription, then?

"So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whatever you want. [...] the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control." Galatians 5:16-23

Ask the Holy Spirit to fill you and reveal to you ways that you must take control of your words and not let them speak on their own on your behalf. When He fills us with His presence, we have these fruits of the Spirit, all of which will aid that deep heart issue that causes the most hurt in our relationships and interactions. If there is genuine love within you, then good will pour out naturally in what you say!

In a practical sense, really take care to think before speaking, asking the Spirit to join you in your conversations and indicate to you how you can be a builder, encourager, and deliverer of good news, pointing to Christ with every sentence. Truly elevate others' desire to be listened to and cared for above your desire to zone out. Don't let the desire to impress people rule you, but the belief that the Lord sees what others don't and rejoices over you letting Him pour His love through you like a water fountain.

The Kingdom of God is nearing, and we can give little pieces of heaven to others in what we say.

Love Comes at a Cost

You know what one of the coolest things in the world is? Coming to appreciate things that are real, and are hard. Most of us tend to react with sheer anger, sorrow, and incredulity when things don't go exactly according to plan, or very smoothly, or even right in the very slightest of ways. But it comes as no surprise to us really when we look at life on a spectrum, as a whole, and realize how it is dotted with things that are not easy to face, or pleasant to undergo at all. We weren't promised perfect circumstances that would only facilitate happiness and comfort for all our days. But, oh, the character that is built under the hottest flames is of the firmest iron resolve. Seeing things that are difficult as blessings, or even just opportunities to become a better person, is a radical way to see ourselves the way God does, if we are trusting in Him: becoming more like Him with every passing day, the blessed gift of the Father who loves us. Godly character and a new heart are gifts worth enduring great tribulation for in the end.

"Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. [...] Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial because, having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him." James 1:2-4, 12

This weekend really exemplifies this in a lot of ways for me. I learned a lot about what it means to love other people in ways that I am not always accustomed to, or ways I usually run from because it's such a daunting lesson to learn. One of these ways is by spending a weekend going to and from Atlanta, Georgia, in one car with the same group of people. I'll preempt myself by saying that this weekend was GREAT! It was an incredible chance to learn more about what it would be like to go full-time with a certain international campus ministry, and just get to know other people who are considering the same thing. The five of us from USF who went together had a lot of fun (at least, I did) driving up there, joking around, getting to know each other better.

But it wasn't like we didn't probably get a little on the edge from time to time. Everyone gets hungry. Everyone gets tired. Everyone at some point has to go to the bathroom (the worst of the three so far!). Everyone misinterprets a joke, or something said by someone else. Everyone has certain pet peeves that other people could never anticipate having to take care to avoid. Oh, life! That's just how it works! But it is so cool to me to see these sort of "social experiments" play out for the good of God; yes, just smashing up a bunch of people to be stuck together for three straight days more or less is a recipe for seemingly imminent disaster.

Yet, it wasn't like that at all. I know for me, in moments where I was so exhausted, ready to break away for a minute, and become even a little tempted to snap because of my discomfort, I could almost literally hear a voice in my head going, this is why you need God. I am such a frail human being. I can be the most gracious and loving person on earth on my own until you take away my dinner, my quiet, my comfortable seat, my jacket when the air is blasting cold, and other things that are not in and of themselves very great or formidable at all. Those tiny things make me so unloving and ungracious very quickly, unless I am abiding in God's love, where the Holy Spirit prompts me in moments where it's tempting to go crazy at everyone to continue to demonstrate love the way He does. (1 Corinthians 13 -- read that thing now, even if you have it memorized.) It is Jesus that changes my heart not to serve my selfish will anymore, whether that will be to get my frustration taken out on someone else or walk around their feelings just so they won't hurt me. My will is to please the Savior, mirroring His character, and not compromising that perfect beauty of the Spirit with my awful quickness to self-pity and self-focus.

The world may not see this, perhaps because they don't know true Christians or perhaps because they ignore the ones they do know, but believers in Jesus have such incredible community played out over and over for them to see. If five of us have Christ in common as Lord and Savior, things that could even be huge frustrations are dwindled to nothing, forgiven, and forgotten. We can still be friends even when someone messes up (oftentimes me, unfortunately) -- and not just friends, but good friends, ones that won't remember in a week that anything bad happened at all. We can meet each other and within a couple of days be deep and dear friends. This blew the minds of my Bosnian friends. They did not understand how Americans who knew each other for a week could be so close, caring deeply for one another to shoulder each other's burdens and struggles, as well as rejoice and laugh without reservation.

Brothers and sisters in Christ also come together in remarkable ways they were never directly taught to do, for the benefit of those who are in need. Today was the funeral and burial of one of the younger brother of a beautiful sister in Christ I've known for a couple of years. I've not been to a funeral since I was four, and I barely knew what happened even then. I wouldn't know what to expect or do in and of myself. When we arrived there, several other friends had driven from Tampa to Orlando just for this hour-long service. Both people who were incredibly close to her and people who were more or less acquaintances had tears in their eyes for her loss, feeling the pain as if it were theirs to feel, maybe never even having set eyes on her brother for themselves. She had a circle of people who loved her pray for her heart earnestly, with great compassion and desperation for supernatural healing. Men were not above weeping for her and beside her. I'd say hundreds of believers have prayed for her and her family since the tragedy last week, and continue to do so, and the results are palpable.

I never thought I'd see the sister of a man who passed too young laugh with her friends at his burial, after the tears, remembering the good times she had with him and what a light he was to the world. (Watch this video.) But we were able to spend time with her enjoying life, celebrating who he was and the footprints he's left in the hearts of people who knew him. What a blessing to see even one smile at this time, let alone many! Such a tragic accident has the potential to ruin the life of a loved one left behind, reducing them to endless depression, forcing them to wonder if life's worth living in such a miserable place as this. How great the hope is that there's a God who heads a family as the loving Father, adopting many sons and daughters, who with infinite love in their hearts come to one another's aid, praying urgently and extending a hand to squeeze in the hard moments.

This is real.

The church is not a building; it's not some made-up group of people that has been lost over time. It's here today. There are people so in love with Jesus that they will willingly lay down their lives, needs, and desires for the sake of others. I count myself too blessed to know even a taste of what this means.

I'm honored to be a tiny organ in this functioning body, and having the chance to be refined in my ability to love others no matter what is precious. Whether it's learning to love someone when you're not comfortable or necessarily happy, or learning to love someone who has suffered more than you can know, I hope to seize these God-given moments to be taught and corrected into a clearer image of Christ when they arrive. You can never know when your ability to love will be put to the test.

"Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends." John 15:13

Whether that is literally laying our lives down, or laying down our "lives" as we live them day-to-day according to our needs and purposes, it's of immense importance to love others to the point that we spare nothing to see them closer to knowing and loving God.

I Would Die For You

I'm going to go dangerously close to being hip, emergent, or something weird, at least in my opinion. I am going to back everything I think about with scripture. Don't encourage anyone to make a bible study out of this guy's body of work.

Okay, it's not that big of a deal, but I'm just saying I had a kind of weird realization earlier.

The Lord has often spoken to me through song lyrics on the radio. Maybe not directly like, "Hey! Lara! I put this on Wild 94.1, which you OBVIOUSLY shouldn't be listening to anyways, just so you would learn something right now! Enjoy." Probably, it's more like, things happen to be playing, and something inside me will take truth out of it. Because most musicians describe very spiritual, intimate, human things that are meant to be fulfilled by and defined by God, but just missing the crucial factor that brings all their hopes and dreams to life.

The reason this stuck out to me in particular was that it was on two times in a row, on two stations. I didn't just want to listen to it again, but I infinitely prefer this song to that annoying Rihanna and Drake one ("Just my type" and "na na na na" do not rhyme!) and to even three seconds of Mike Posner (Did it occur to you that she just might really be cooler than you!?).

Stinkin' Bruno Mars' "Grenade" was on repeat in Tampa tonight.

I hate how catchy he is. His songs are so over the top dramatic that I kind of get annoyed, but they will hook themselves into my brain for the rest of the day. Either way, I was really thinking hard about his lyrics:

Gave you all I had and you tossed it in the trash

You tossed it in the trash, you did

To give me all your love is all I ever asked

'Cause what you don't understand is

I'd catch a grenade for ya

Throw my hand on a blade for ya

I'd jump in front of a train for ya

You know I'd do anything for ya

I would go through all this pain

Take a bullet straight through my brain

Yes, I would die for you, baby

But you won't do the same

My first question was, why do you love someone so much who doesn't reciprocate? Bruno Mars is all in when it comes to girls. But at first, I was kind of wryly thinking how no one really feels that way, do they? Who in the world would catch a grenade for someone who doesn't really love them back?

"And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross!" Philippians 2:8

"Jesus said, 'Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.' [...] The people stood watching, and the rulers even sneered at him. They said, 'He saved others; let him save himself if he is God’s Messiah, the Chosen One.'" Luke 23:34-35

Taking a moment to consider the gravity Paul holds in the verse from Philippians is important to me now. He doesn't just say that Jesus was obedient to death. He adds an emphasis: death on a cross. Jesus was flogged, stabbed, forced to carry a heavy wooden cross, and was nailed to it, with a thorn of crowns on his head. With every breath, the nails tore harder on his bleeding hands and feet, the only things holding his weak body up. No one would give him water to drink. This form of death was pure torture, and took so long. I've never seen the movie The Passion of the Christ, but I want to; it's sometimes easy to make light of, or simply forget, how Jesus did suffer, and he suffered more than we can imagine. The sin of the world was on him that day, put to death with him in great agony.

And he turned the other cheek.

He forgave those who beat him, hung him on the cross, mocked him, and made the decision to put him there. He knew it was the plan, and willingly did his Father's will in order to make reconciliation for us possible through his blood.

And blood it was; this isn't too symbolic. He literally poured out blood, the life force within him that carried everything through his body every miraculous minute, just like us.

He knew what they were doing, but they did not. They had no idea that they were killing a beautiful Savior King, one who would return in wrath for those who did not put their faith in his power and follow him, loving others more than themselves and spreading good news of peace and hope.

As stupid as "Grenade" seemed to me at first, it's very true that Jesus Christ loves us, despite what terrible lovers we are in return. We cheat on him with other gods, with ourselves, turning inward to become our own deities to serve and love. We ignore him, and don't spend time with him. We are ashamed to talk about him. We come to him just when we need help or have been forsaken by our usual ways of dealing with things, when we've been betrayed by lesser gods.

But he didn't just take a bullet to the brain to die for us -- he went a painful way, one that horrified people of the time to endure, one that made Paul exclaim that he was obedient to not just death, but death on a cross! No, Jesus loves us even more than we dare to imagine.

Would we do the same? Likely not. But Jesus asks our lives of us, not that we go and kill ourselves, but that we die to our own desires, for those only lead to destruction. We will never be satisfied with anything, and will die in excess or in prison to addictions and lies. But when we carry our crosses to the hill and put ourselves there as we are, sinful and selfish, we are resurrected with him in glory! We are new creations, with new hearts, and all our old ways have been killed and redeemed for good.

And that, my friends, is how a noob pop star can teach you the gospel. But, I reiterate, I am not planning on squeezing God messages out of radio hits for a living -- sketchy territory, mostly because I'd look like such a wannabe, haha. (And I don't know that there's hope for Lil' Wayne yet, except maybe the part about open bibles in that "What Is Love?" remake.) I just wanted to share how something I was pretty cynical about became something I can appreciate in a different way.

Maybe sometime I'll dive into "Just the Way You Are" if we really want to go nuts about my boy Bruno, but that's a story for a less sleepy and more optimistic Lara. :)

Seasons

Not often does a bible verse ring so eerily, exactly appropriate for a specific moment in my life as right now.

"Rejoice with those who rejoice; weep with those who weep." Romans 12:15

I'm sorry for how apathetic or even slightly spiteful my heart has been toward those I know who are recently engaged. You have every reason to be thrilled and overjoyed, and I will rejoice with you.

And, my dear friend, I'm so sorry for what has happened to you today. My heart is sunken and my stomach feels heavy inside of me. I can't even begin to imagine the horrible pain of losing a little brother, and I will not pretend to understand or say that I know the best way to just feel better. I love you, and I'm praying for you so hard right now. I will weep with you.

Dig Deeper

How often do we see lemons and nasty fruit in our lives and keep trying to pluck them all and throw them away when they will just keep growing back? All of our behaviors, addictions, reactions, thought processes, and the like grow from somewhere much deeper.

"Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it." Proverbs 4:23

Roots and vines grow out of this heart, and the crappy things growing that we see, recognize as bad, and attack are only going to keep returning until we hack away at the vines, roots, ultimately until we reach the heart. But we can't change the place where the water flows, the seeds will be planted, and grow from. We don't have that power, or the will to do so, for that matter, even if the capability was in our grasp.

"I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh." Ezekiel 36:26

I see it in myself. I will dabble in what seem to be all kinds and types of things that I either know are bad or detrimental, or just can't seem to help but do, and then step back and wonder how I could have so many problems. I watch myself run around to different false idols, false hopes, false promises and giving up when each one doesn't deliver fast. But in my maturing in Christ, He has revealed to me how many of them are related. I deal with the same lie that has taken root inside of me by doing different things at different times, either throughout my ordinary week or through whole seasons of my life.

Look at the things that disappoint you, that you know won't satisfy, that are destroying you slowly. Don't some of them really manifest the same thing? My pride compels me to do several crappy things, by comparing myself or judging others or talking too much, but they all stem from the same lie: I'm more valuable than others.

This is something the Lord is breaking me over today. He's showing me just how deeply my sin, my troubles go within me, but how much hope there is even for the darkest and most terrible things about who I am. In Christ, before His eyes, I am nothing but a pure, clear well of water, with vines full of good, healthy things. And He is working on me to look more like that in the eyes of people, too.

Sea Change

A lot of people have a hard time believing me when I tell them that I was really not that great of a person back in high school and before. I mean, if they are measuring me against someone like Lindsay Lohan or the cast of Jersey Shore for crazy unruliness, or a serial killer for my moral compass, then perhaps, relatively speaking, this would be accurate. I didn't really get into very much trouble and made good grades, so it's not like I wasn't good in a very standout way.

But they never knew my heart! I held onto offenses committed against me forever, even though I might have said all was forgiven. I used my words to cut people to pieces, oftentimes directly to their face but mostly behind their back. To me, slander was a form of (very poor) comedy or my crooked sense of justice, not cruelty in the most basic sense. I judged people, snubbed people, mocked people, and also relied far too greatly on people. I clung to their impressions of me if they mattered to me in the slightest, often not because I thought they were right or that they knew me well, but because I wanted to be what they wanted me to be. I signed a contract with the world that I would serve its purposes in how I conducted myself in both thought and deed, and even if this wasn't the most flagrant evil in the world, it was evil enough to contribute to the huge problem in America that no one can ignore.

From birth, I would have told you I was a Christian if you asked. I believed in the person of Jesus according to what the bible said, in regard to his sonship to God and coming to earth to save us. I went to church and youth group functions out of my own motivation; no one even made me go. In the eyes of most people, this constitutes what Christians are and what they do: they identify themselves as such and go to church to fulfill their duties.

There was a crucial component missing in my life until I was eighteen, though. I did not have any intention of changing from my own selfish ways. While I avoided the most "major" of sins (which, for whatever reason, tend to be murder, smoking, and drinking according to Christians) throughout teenagerhood, I never devoted thought to how damaging gossip, judgment, bitterness, and other issues were. I was a hypocrite! People outside the church all over this country complain most that Christians are fake, saying one thing and doing another, that that was most certainly me! I had no desire to stand apart from what most people do, probably because I was thirsty for most people's approval. I probably would have agreed I needed divine forgiveness but probably would not have thought of more than a tiny fraction of the reasons why I needed it.

But if there is one thing in this world that does what it says, the words of scripture acted as a sword to pierce my soul and expose it for what it was. I am reminded of a verse that so many people take misguided comfort in when it has the potential to be dangerous:

"[...] The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart." 1 Samuel 16:7

If anyone is at all discontent with the length of his nose or the shape of his body, then he might read this and be joyful that if all else fails, God sees through such a terrible imperfection to see his heart. Yet I am convinced that even if one were a Quasimodo in appearance, the heart within would be infinitely more dark, twisted, self-centered, and wrong than even the outer self. I find it far scarier that the Lord, in his omniscience, sees every horrible thing buried inside of me. It'd be far easier to please him if all he cared about was that I put on a dab of makeup instead.

I never dared to consider my wickedness until I was an adult, when his word revealed to me the depth of this wrong. But, despite the immense brokenness that ensued, there came a great hope, the very fundamental truth of the gospel itself!

"If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness." 1 John 1:9

"But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." Romans 5:8

"I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh." Ezekiel 36:26

Is this why hundreds of people pack into a building singing praise to someone unseen every Sunday all around the world? Yes!

And can I affirm that this is true in my own life? Beyond a shadow of a doubt, by the grace of God, yes.

I am not the same person. I am far from perfect in what I think and do today, but I assure you that I have seen and experienced this change in ways that I couldn't have made myself do. It's very hard to force yourself to want to stop being so unkind, thoughtless, and selfish. If I could name specific things, I'd take a while to come to the end of the list of ways my heart is changed, and would probably come off as pretty self-righteous.

But I will say this: I literally cringed at the thought of going abroad to be a "missionary" before I really encountered Christ. Telling other people about him seemed really stupid, and just did not fit into my idea of something I would find important or enjoyable. And here I stand today, having done such a thing for half my summer in 2010, and hoping to return one day. There are passions stirred within me that were dormant and dead before.

Countless books on the existence of God and the truth of Christ exist, and none can scientifically or philosophically conclude anything. But if any proof really exist in the world, I'm willing to share the testimony of who I am today. I am no longer the same.

Your Wonderful Works

This'll probably be pretty short, I just got excited about what I just read and wanted to tell the world what a theologian I am.

Hah, just kidding. I mean, about the theologian part. I will not be speaking at Passion 2012. However, I just have to tell you that there is something very right about reading the bible for yourself. It is the only complete written authority on itself. Everyone else is a commentator. There are very, very good commentators that God has gifted to teach others through the way they understand and communicate the ideas of scripture to others. These good commentators don't have to be other authors; both Tim Keller and some homeless guy are great commentators on the word of God. They do it through writing, words, actions, reactions, everything communicable to others. But there are also some really bad commentators, ones who claim to understand the truth when they really distort it, by taking it out of context, twisting it, or plainly misinterpreting the original Hebrew/Aramaic/Greek. They could write books about how doing enough good things will get you money (yes, Joel O'Steen, I'm looking at you) or they could hold mean signs at your school or at someone's funeral. All I'm saying is the only reliable way to know the bible is to read the bible itself. That way, you can balance out the commentary and discern how much of it you should trust and absorb, and how much you should not.

Sidetracked: party of one!

Anyways, I was reading Psalm 106 this fine evening, just because it was what I flipped open to at random. (This is a really fun way to find stuff, in my opinion. Most of the time that's what I tend to do. Ezekiel 27 was a trip, haha.) This is a really great, long psalm about God's faithfulness to his not-so-faithful people. The verses that stuck out to me from the very beginning were these:

"Yet he saved them for his name's sake, to make his mighty power known. He rebuked the Red Sea, and it dried up; he led them through the depths as through a desert." Psalm 106:8-9

This idea is kind of cool if you go backwards through these two verses. God dried up the Red Sea so his people could walk through it as if it were a plain sandy desert. He basically trumped the natural order of things that he himself set in place to do it. I mean, God created the laws of physics that say that seas don't just evaporate at random, and determined that that sea would go right there. He instated logical natural order where actions have reactions and that sequences of things would be as they are to us. Therefore, God basically said, "I am going to defy my own created laws of the way things will be in order to save my people."

And why did he do it? The verse before says it: for his name's sake, to make his mighty power known. He made his power known by saying that his people matter and that he loves them. His goodness, faithfulness, love, and propensity to rescue his beloved people though they do mighty stupid things are what he wants to make known about himself.

"I hear your cries of distress, and I'm here to save you from your hunger and thirst. I know there's a huge sea before you that seems to block your freedom, but I will make it dry, just for you. Why? Because I love you, and when others see what I've done for you, they will know that I am good and that I am mighty to save."

At least, that's how I think this passage plays out. (I might be one of those bad commentators, haha.) No, it's not an excerpt from The Message. But I think the bible strongly supports this very small but very, very, very powerful idea: God is good, and he wants everyone to know he's good. Don't we do the same when we think we've done something good? The thing is that he is the best, and is infinitely and unstoppably good, and knows there is nothing better, so he'd be lying not to say that, and he loves us enough to want to share with us the best thing that exists.

He turns seas into deserts, and deserts into seas, according to his love. (Yeah, 107:35 is like opposites! The Israelites and people in general are so wishy-washy.) Instead of ignoring us or throwing us scraps when we are in despair, he can pull miracles, they just don't always happen as we might imagine them.

I hope you place your hope in a God who isn't bound by the laws he made because he's so crazy loving.

Felix Dies Nativitatis

You can say all kinds of annoying things about Jesus being born in the summertime, Winter Solstice being the origin of the holiday, trees and decorations starting out with paganism... it's really not a big deal.

But I am honored and thrilled to celebrate the birth of the Messiah of the world this time of year!

"And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But the angel said to them, 'Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.'

Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, 'Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.'” -- Luke 2:-14

I'm going to rob the guy who wrote part of the lesson we have been doing in my church class, as well as my pastor. And by rob, I mean talk about what they did.

Anyways, it's just really crazy that shepherds of all people were the first to be informed by angels on the night of Jesus' birth. Shepherds literally lived with their sheep, spending all their time with them out in the deserts and fields, probably having no real family. They were smelly and probably socially outcast. They were never clean enough to go into the temples themselves in Israel. In sum, they were kind of bumpkin homeless people who lived with animals full-time. For the King of Kings being born, most people did not expect shepherds to be among the first to know, and first to worship him. It seems a little weird that someone else wouldn't be told before them to go and see. It really shows how Christ was not for the rich, the famous, or the powerful, or even the "normal" or the hygienic and acceptable. He is for desert herdsmen. And to them would the proclamation of his birth be delivered first.

At the same time, it's not so crazy. Shepherds' lives are devoted to the protection and care of their sheep. They guide them to food and water, and know how many there are and what they sound like and look like. They set up sorts of fences or boundaries with whatever they can find in order to hold in the sheep, and they lay down at the opening of the pen to protect them personally from harm. They are gentle, and the sheep follow their familiar and trustworthy voices -- shepherds in Israel don't need sheepdogs to chase and bite at the sheep like shepherds in other places do.

"He tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young." -- Isaiah 40:11

“‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for out of you will come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel.’" -- Matthew 2:6

“Very truly I tell you Pharisees, anyone who does not enter the sheep pen by the gate, but climbs in by some other way, is a thief and a robber. The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. [...] I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. [...] I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me — just as the Father knows me and I know the Father — and I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd." -- John 10:1-16

Find comfort in the sheep pen of the Lord where Christ himself enters by the gate and lies there for us, because he wills our security and lack of fear out of abundant love.

Happy Christmas to you, peace on earth, and goodwill to all!

"The LORD is my shepherd, I lack nothing.
He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,
he refreshes my soul.
He guides me along the right paths
for his name’s sake.
Even though I walk
through the darkest valley,
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
Surely your goodness and love will follow me
all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the LORD
forever." -- Psalm 23

Smell The Roses

It took a phone call to step back and let something that had been nagging me in the back of my mind to come forward and confront me once and for all.

I was chatting with a friend about all kinds of things, jumping all over a variety of topics, but something in particular stuck. We were talking about differences between cultures, and how straight-laced and linear the Western mind tends to be, and he complained something along these lines: "It's like we look at a bird and wonder, 'What kind is that? What's its name?' and begin to categorize everything about it, while other people in the world just look and go, 'Hey that's a bird! Cool!'"

The additional thought that provoked me occurred about a week later in conversing with my pastor, who talked about a history class he took in college that focused on the Eastern hemisphere, and was taught by a Chinese man. He mentioned how frustrating it was sometimes to listen in class, where American students are used to going from the beginning of a topic to the end, and this professor didn't really do that; rather, he might go in one direction, come back, go somewhere else, and come back again, over and over again. His mind thought more cyclically than ours tend to do. It makes note-taking in our traditional fashion a bit messy. My pastor remarked that he couldn't tell you much about the actual content of the class, but he learned a huge lesson in ways of thinking: our minds just work things out differently, not one culture's method necessarily being better than another.

Having been raised in the U.S., looking at things from a standardized test point of view, I totally see how my mind is very much the analytical Western type, taking things apart and laying them out in a logical row, going from beginning to end -- very much the scientific method as we know it. I get frustrated when I can't dissect something to the point of comprehending it, or when I can't put something into a category or box that fits what I can understand. This kind of thinking pervades just about everything, from schoolwork to relationships. I aim to "get" stuff. And when I don't "get" it, I go kind of nuts.

I am one of those people who wrecks a masterpiece symphony in my head by thinking, "Wow, this song on the radio straight up stole this chord progression." I look at a beautiful picture of a lake and think, "Where is that? What animals are in this picture?" My brain doesn't take a break. If I spend a morning sitting on my porch drinking coffee, thoughts inevitably come that scold me for being lazy and taking so long to start getting ready for school, or doing some homework or chores. This isn't a conscious thing most of the time, but simply a worldview: we are supposed to figure things out, be productive, and be efficient. If we don't, we're wasting time and potential. I'm willing to bet that a great proportion of Americans have these values pretty deeply rooted in their psyches.

We apply this linear and restless way of thinking in our spiritual lives, too. It's easier to follow rules than participate in a relationship. It's easier to make a list of good works to do than to rest in grace and joy. It's easier to judge than it is to forgive or talk things through. It's easier to avoid messing up than it is to wholeheartedly pursue good instead. We try to box God into what our little human brains can comprehend, assuming that what He is or what He can do is in accordance with the standards we arbitrarily put on Him by our own understanding. We worry about upsetting Him, which either leads to outright rebellion in ways that we know aren't right or by perishing with despair that we are disappointments who can't do anything right. We busy ourselves with tasks and chores for Him, or to please whomever we choose, rather than bask in truth and let that free us from worry.

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” -- Matthew 11:28-30

The point wasn't to burden us with rules or chores. The point wasn't to wear us out. The point wasn't to enslave us to the task of grasping God fully, completely, and perfectly. The point wasn't to fall beneath heavy weights of guilt, shame, and fear.

The point was to give us rest.

"Is anyone among you in trouble? Let them pray. Is anyone happy? Let them sing songs of praise." -- James 5:13

These aren't hard instructions on how to live. They just require us to be still from our busy lives, which we tend to bring on ourselves a great deal of the time as middle class Americans. (If you're not one of these, then you are free from the generalizing part but should still think about it!)

If I'm happy in the morning drinking coffee on my porch, praise God for coffee, for my porch, for the fragrant morning air, and for the time to spend enjoying it!

It is a practice for me now simply to sit and enjoy something. It's not really easy, as I have been well-trained in busying myself with things to do so that I don't look lazy, and not necessarily because I really have the desire or need to. If I am exhausted and lay down, I try to stop punishing myself for wanting a nap by thinking endlessly and trying to imagine all the things I should be doing instead. If I am listening to a piece of music, I want to let the melodies soak into me and enjoy their beauty rather than think too hard about what makes them so lovely. And I might not ever understand God in His entirety -- in fact, I know I won't, because that is impossible for the human mind -- but I can certainly absorb what I know about Him from the inspired words that others who saw Him fulfill promises have written, and I can enjoy who He is, which is a list of words that is infinite and goes beyond what humans can utter.

So, I recommend taking a break from the daily routine. School is (hopefully) not the be-all end-all. Work (hopefully) won't be the treasure you take with you out of your life. Reputation (hopefully) will take a backseat in how you live your life. Rather, I say savor the taste of your favorite fruit, marveling at its natural beauty and sweetness. Get swept away by a song or piece that really captivates your spirit. Allow yourself to get lost in the feeling of a cool autumn wind or a warm, heavy spring breeze. Even stop and admire the thing you like best about yourself, be it your crazy big eyes (yep, that's me!) or your ability to put down exactly what you're feeling on a piece of paper with a paintbrush (unfortunately, not me at all, haha). Yes, all these things were wonderfully made, yourself included, and when we're happy, we are to give praise for these things!

This more holistic way of looking at our lives is hard to adopt, but sure makes it easier to experience the light burden that Christ lays on us when we follow Him, instead of choking under the ones we put on ourselves. Things don't have to be packaged in a way that make them more understandable, effective, useful, portable, or form-fitting to our "McDonald's" culture that tells us to keep going fast, keep mass-producing for cheap, and take out what isn't absolutely necessary to churn out more and more so that we can avoid stopping. In fact, if you are in Christ, you aren't really supposed to care a lot about what seems appropriate to the people in your society (Romans 12:2).

Organizing, dissecting, grasping, explaining, and streamlining our lives to be most efficient and nonstop are not necessary.

Simply pray, and give praise.

We've No Less Days

My, oh my, I haven't written here in quite a while. I never felt like I had anything especially poignant or important to say really -- this semester has kept me quite on my toes. Oftentimes last year, when I really kept writing here, I was just having strings and series of light bulbs going off! It was really a dynamic time at the beginning of 2010; something new would just click for the first time, as if I had been trying to jam a puzzle piece into its place over and over until the Lord gently turned it the right way and it all made sense.

The journey of learning and growing that I've had so far since returning from Sarajevo, living at home the rest of the summer, going back to Tampa for school, and living yet another eighth of my college career (WHAT?!) to its conclusion, has been a trip of a very different nature. I've sat down to rack my brain about what has happened over the past week, over and over again, unable to pick out exactly what is going on. No one day really stands out. Crazy things have happened for sure -- as a college student, you can't avoid it -- but I couldn't pinpoint things that really stood out, or made the week memorable on their own.

This sounds pretty depressing, really. It's like the semester flew by and I saw it go from my desk, or bed, or table at the Marshall Center. It has disappeared so quickly but crawled at the same time. There were plenty of times where I stopped and asked myself, what am I doing? Where am I going? What's the point?

I sit in this desk twice a week by the same people.
I lounge around this chair in the MC at this time almost every day.
I come home and make dinner in this kitchen just about every night.
I procrastinate on the same little reports, labs, papers, and they never seem to let up or change.

Why, then, do I finally feel the propensity to write anything again? What stands out to me all of a sudden?

These past few months have been an enormous arc of a revelation for me, and it is unlike anything I have experienced in my life.

I stand here looking back over the routine, the same heartbreaks that arise from time to time that have appeared my whole life, the ways I am different and the ways I am the same, and I understand the very tip of the iceberg that is what life is really like.

When I really started following Christ, of course I imagined that He would magically make life easier. I envisioned that His help for me was not to empower me in a way I could never do myself to face obstacles in the world, but rather to remove these obstacles completely from my path so I could skip along through fields of flowers without a care in the world. I completely neglected the tales of Christian martyrs throughout history, or people I know who endure such hardship despite their faith, and naively anticipated that He would never let things disappoint or frustrate me by giving me the perfect life where I would want for nothing.

Yet, as anyone with half a brain can attest, this has not been played out. I have hit some of my lowest points after I began to walk with God. Things still go wrong, or don't turn out as I had hoped. People still hurt me. I still screw things up for myself, can't control my tongue, forget things that were important, think before I act, and just plain be mean and selfish. God hasn't taken away struggles, trials, or temptations for me to act in a way that does not honor Him at all.

In my bitterness over how life is not automatically easier just because I have a relationship with God, I found myself thinking about the future. This way that life keeps turning out differently from what we expect or want, it's not going to change. Any plans I've made for myself are really up in the air; I do not have the personal power to control everything. Dreams are likely going to be crushed sometimes. Tragedy is going to strike. There will be beautiful moments, but there will be sad, difficult ones, too. It's something we know but are consistently surprised by for some reason.

It must be because I forget the nature of the world we live in. It is not complete, and it is not right. Things are broken all around us. We as people were never meant to feel alone and unloved, or without a purpose. We were never meant to be afraid of strangers, or even worse, family or friends. We were never meant to starve, thirst, shiver in the cold. We were never meant to be enslaved, manipulated, used, abused. We were never meant to feel guilty or ashamed, whether because of our own doing or because of something out of our hands. We were never meant to inflict suffering on others in favor of our wants and desires. We were never meant to suffer at the hands of someone else's selfishness, either. It all feels wrong because it is wrong.

"Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
your kingdom come,
your will be done,
on earth as it is in heaven." -- Matthew 6:9-10

"He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” -- Luke 4:16-21


The Lord will have His will done on earth as it is in heaven, which is the definition of perfection. It is God's abiding place. We have no hope of entering it in our imperfection without transcendental help from God Himself. And how is He accomplishing it? Christ came to give us this hope to know perfection, and abide with the one God of all dimensions, universes, and creation, where no sadness, sorrow, or pain can exist. He is pure magnificence, glory, and majesty. He is light. The good news is that He offers us the only way to experience this, through knowing Him.

This hope, however, is in something that is not so readily known in our lives on earth. We can taste the eternal glory and wonder of God, and this is His desire for us, but as long as we are alive in this world, darkness will always be in conflict with the light. This place is not perfect, and therefore perfection must wait for the next. Thus, truly, life is a task of endurance. We can be happy often times to be sure, and without God, for that matter. But happiness fades, and ultimately, not every desire of ours will be satisfied on this side of heaven.

What a bittersweet reality to bite into. And that is where I am right now. When I was continually screaming at God, asking why, why, why did He let things be like this, I was forgetting that He alone completes us -- but even that will not happen right now. We are becoming more complete, and there will be a time when we can stand before Him and He will wipe every tear away before eternal rejoicing.

But this life is not yet that time. We will face pain until that day. We will be rejected and rebuffed, see our loved ones pass away, witness horrors on TV or with our very eyes, read old journal entries and cry at our past hopes that have yet to be met. There are many seasons in life, but they all will leave us panting and thirsty for perfect hope and joy without the slightest twinge of sadness or regret in our eyes.

Yet, what a hope lies there in the end. The God we have read about, prayed to, and had the infinitely tiniest glimpses of will bring us to Him forever, in the closest intimacy one can imagine. The God who guided us through the trials and tribulations, showing us the way to face them without giving in to the despairing ways of the world, encouraging us through His saints all along the way, will be fully revealed to His children. Whether or not everything that happened on earth makes sense to us or not, it won't even matter, because we will never have to fear or worry again. It will have all dissolved in the absolute radiance of His glory.

If there is even a chance that this is the truth, then I am sold. I'll throw my life away on just "following rules" by what other people see of me. Whether or not I'm really missing anything by obeying the Lord and not following my selfish desires for instant gratification and nullification of pain, it will be more than worth it in the end.

It is for me and for all believers, then, to wait patiently for that complete satisfaction, no matter how we think God is failing us in this life. He cares for us and is near to us in our heartaches, but ultimately is working out His plan in our lives in ways that we could never understand in the thicket of the storm, while He abides above the clouds. Despite the ways that I have struggled to see Him move in my life these past few months, I now already have the blessing of seeing how He has been there in my disappointment. The gift we have on earth through the Lord's glad provision is not the destruction of whatever threatens our joy, but drinking from the true wellspring of joy to taste what is yet to be ours.

I don't know what life holds for me. I struggle wondering if twenty years from now, I will be unmarried, childless, somehow far from my friends and family, wondering what I did or how awful I was to be so lonely and unloved. Even if this were my fate, and it were even true that everyone in the world did not love me and left me to myself, it would not contradict the truth that God loves me and will change all of that one day. I would do best to tarry forth through suffering with my eyes set on the only hope that there is: Jesus Christ. Because... I cannot do justice to the joy that will be. The blink of an eye that a lifetime is on earth is so incomparable to eternity that the moment I can bow before my Father and sing to Him forever, even the worst injustice and agony that could befall me in life would be forgotten.

No crushed dream of mine would amount to the fulfillment of the best dream, which I will no longer see only asleep, but as my every moment forever and ever.

I realize this all sounds like my family died in a fire or something. In comparison with billions of people in this world, I have so much to be thankful for -- and I am. But, no matter who you are, life will be disappointing unless anchored in Christ, and even then its complete abundance awaits us until we leave the cesspool that is our sinful world. Praise the Lord that he does not grade our pain on a curve, but is near to us in our sorrow no matter its origin. I know better than I have before how vital it is to know God and cling to Him no matter what, to know and become the fragrance of life in a dying world in order to breathe it for eternity. I can't stress that enough. He is the only hope. No matter where I'm living, I am living in the arms of God.

If you are wondering why, calling out to God, or simply sitting in apathy, consider His urging to know Him. There is no other joy for us. I cannot believe I have the privilege of resting in assurance that God will finish me and deliver me to the promised land, and in the midst of anything, that hope will be my bread, water, shield, and resting place.

I want to leave you with Psalm 34, because it truly brings me to my knees in worship:

"I will extol the LORD at all times;
his praise will always be on my lips.
I will glory in the LORD;
let the afflicted hear and rejoice.
Glorify the LORD with me;
let us exalt his name together.

I sought the LORD, and he answered me;
he delivered me from all my fears.
Those who look to him are radiant;
their faces are never covered with shame.
This poor man called, and the LORD heard him;
he saved him out of all his troubles.
The angel of the LORD encamps around those who fear him,
and he delivers them.

Taste and see that the LORD is good;
blessed is the one who takes refuge in him.
Fear the LORD, you his holy people,
for those who fear him lack nothing.
The lions may grow weak and hungry,
but those who seek the LORD lack no good thing.
Come, my children, listen to me;
I will teach you the fear of the LORD.
Whoever of you loves life
and desires to see many good days,
keep your tongue from evil
and your lips from telling lies.
Turn from evil and do good;
seek peace and pursue it.

The eyes of the LORD are on the righteous,
and his ears are attentive to their cry;
but the face of the LORD is against those who do evil,
to blot out their name from the earth.

The righteous cry out, and the LORD hears them;
he delivers them from all their troubles.
The LORD is close to the brokenhearted
and saves those who are crushed in spirit.

The righteous person may have many troubles,
but the LORD delivers him from them all;
he protects all his bones,
not one of them will be broken.

Evil will slay the wicked;
the foes of the righteous will be condemned.
The LORD will rescue his servants;
no one who takes refuge in him will be condemned."

Let's Hear It for Sarajevo!

Zdravo! Ja sam u Sarajevo! (Hello! I'm in Sarajevo!)

No duh. But... even after about 2.5 weeks, I still don't quite believe it sometimes. It's weird that I'm used to seeing these picturesque mountains around me, or not being able to read signs (except the important ones, like Pekara. This is vital. No one else can give you chocolate croissants!)

Now is not the time for an extensive update by any means, but I just thought I'd punch in a few words:

I am healthy.
I am happy.
I am learning a lot of things about God, a lot of things about people, and a lot of things about myself -- and I am learning the most about prayer, which affects all three of these things.
Sarajevo is beautiful.
The people are far friendlier than I had imagined and also very funny; I'm glad my dry sense of humor is reciprocated. :)
I apparently do a pretty good job of blending in. I just need some bangs and nicer shoes!

I don't have much time to communicate to the outside world (aka beyond this apartment, haha) but be assured of a bombardment of information upon my return home. I can't believe that after this week I'll be halfway done with my stay here. :( I'm choosing not to think about it! I love it here so much!

Pray for me and keep your eye on Sarajevo, and immediately plan a visit. I will personally escort you around. It's my favorite place I've been as of yet, and I've seen London and Paris, y'all. You just keep that in mind.

Anyways, let me know if anything absurd happens in the U.S. while I'm gone, because I'm so out of loop. The only TV I've watched was Eurovision (look it up, Americans). Ciao!

Ye of Little Faith

The days until I begin my journey to Sarajevo are dwindling to none. I can still barely believe this is happening. The reality of living in Eastern Europe for 7 weeks is simply too incomprehensible for me, never having done anything of the sort in my life. The longest I've been outside the U.S. is a week, and the UK and France are both relatively familiar, Western places.

However, I'd be lying if I didn't say that the incomprehensibility at times flares into panic. I have so many questions that I can't answer. What will the days be like? Will Bosnians even like me, or want to be my friend? Will I have the courage to talk with them about deep matters and be open about myself, what I believe, and how it has changed me? (I can hardly do that at home with people I've been friends with for years!)

I am having a hard time sleeping tonight as I consider just how crazy this is, and how unprepared I really feel. The real problem, though, is that I keep assuming that I must actively be the one preparing and acting out of my own power. I figured this out as I was reading the cover of a book I just got, and it listed another book this author wrote, called If You Want to Walk on Water, You've Got to Get Out of the Boat. (It's by John Ortberg, by the way.)

I hope you're ready for a whole story this time!

"Immediately Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowd. After he had dismissed them, he went up on a mountainside by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone, but the boat was already a considerable distance from land, buffeted by the waves because the wind was against it. During the fourth watch of the night Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake. When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. "It's a ghost," they said, and cried out in fear.But Jesus immediately said to them: "Take courage! It is I. Don't be afraid." "Lord, if it's you," Peter replied, "tell me to come to you on the water." "Come," he said. Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, "Lord, save me!" Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. "You of little faith," he said, "why did you doubt?"And when they climbed into the boat, the wind died down. Then those who were in the boat worshiped him, saying, "Truly you are the Son of God."' Matthew 14:22-32

Peter took a leap of faith, yes? If he didn't at all believe Jesus could keep him from sinking, he wouldn't have stepped out of a boat to the water in the first place. Would you? There was wind and there were waves. It's easy to ignore how hard it must have been for people in the bible to do the things they did since God was so manifest in their days, but I mean, even after meeting Jesus and seeing him perform miracles (such as feeding thousands, as earlier in this chapter), it'd be hard to just leap out of a boat during a storm and expect to walk on the water.

As Peter saw himself doing the unthinkable, he probably became afraid of how irrational it was to walk on water, and how the very laws of physics that govern all of creation are being suspended. The seemingly little thread that was keeping him from sinking became all too real to him, and he began to sink. Jesus didn't have to let him sink when he doubted, but the point was made: he is trustworthy. When we doubt him, we are bound to suffer and fail. He doesn't entrust wishy-washy people with great tasks that result in great feats of God. But believing the Lord in times of risk, when we leave our comfort zones (as Baptists looooove to put it), gives us the chance to learn to trust him, and we are rewarded with great faith when we see the results of this moment of surrender: I could never do this alone, but with you, I can.

"I can do everything through him who gives me strength." Philippians 4:13

This is Sunday School 101, but, as Martin Luther rightly taught, the Christian life is characterized by continuing repentance and faith; we must examine ourselves constantly, as we are still human beings and are still governed by whims, doubt, worry, and selfishness. And we may remember things in our minds but forget that they are true, and live with that assurance to compel us to greater things.

Little kids at church know the story of Peter walking on water. But do grown-ups at church live like this is true?

I don't want to wait until I'm 40, warming a pew, content with my little life and all my financial security and square middle class family matters, to find out. Throw this woman out of the frying pan and into the fire.While it is up to me to pray, read, and learn before I undertake anything for the kingdom of God, it is not up to me to be ready and to produce these vast results. I am not a savior, and I am not a creator of wisdom to impart unto others. Therefore, doing what I can and leaving the rest up to God is all that matters.

I am only responsible for taking my foot off the deck and touching it to the water.

Please

I'm warning you now, this may simply devolve into a rant, but I think it's a constructive one. Is there such a thing? Whatevsies.

You know what I can't stand? People who take themselves too seriously. Real talk. You know you have a problem with this when:

- Conflating ordinary situations to be dramatic attacks directed at you

- Updating your blog/journal/Bookface/whatever with your philosophical or poetic musings more than twice a day

- Name dropping your coolest friends (or even acquaintances that you wish were your friends) and trying not to sound like you're doing it on purpose

- Asking why on earth all these things happen to you when you bring it upon yourself and probably enjoy it

Guess what, everyone? Life is not a movie!

We see our lives like movies. I am the protagonist, the good guy that people should root for. People who do things to get in my way are part of the conflict, which every movie needs. It's all about either overcoming that conflict so I can have a happy ending or losing to that conflict and dying like a tragic hero. We are so absorbed by our fanciful notions that we're the center of this story.

The real conflict enters when we notice that other people don't seem to be watching the same movie I am. As the leading lady, it pisses me off when others don't do what I want them to, or -- the very worst thing of all -- don't notice. Did they forget that I'm the last to bow? Let me remind them by talking about myself, all my backstory, what makes me the lovable, winsome character that I am. I might feign interest in what you're saying, but as soon as I have my in to jump into the limelight in one way or another, you bet I'll be right there.

If someone likes me and I do not like them back, you'll know. It's a pretty big deal.

If I have so much work to do that I just can't function today, I will sigh until you ask me about it.

Think it sounds dramatic? I do this stuff all the time. Much less than I used to, but from time to time, I can't help it. Neither can you.

Did you realize today that you still have to sit on the toilet? You get food stuck in your teeth sometimes? You forget to shave your legs when you go to the beach?

When will people stop trying to pretend to be above all that stuff!?

Sometimes, the most refreshing person to be around is one that most people can't stand, but they are real. They do what they want to because they like it. They say what they feel and think because that's -- gasp! -- what they feel and think. No one to impress. Or they might not even say much at all because they realize that they haven't got anything vital to bring to your attention.

"What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun." Ecclesiastes 1:9

Here's a radical proposition: let genuineness and humility go hand-in-hand in front of us everywhere we go. Start being true friends with people, going below the surface, and talking about things that matter without letting things that blow away in the wind bog us down. Stop forming little cliques of people that make us feel better about ourselves and make an effort to get to know people out of your comfort zone, because they are not extras in your movie -- they're real people. Quit thinking we are the next Steve Martin or Cormac McCarthy when we write or joke around, because for heaven's sakes, all of us still bleed when you cut us.

We're all people, and we're just people! Get a grip!

Haha, I don't know where on earth I am going with all this. You catch my drift? This really makes me mad, especially because I know I do it too. Call me out anytime.

If we can both get our rose-colored glasses off, we'd notice the real world is not too ugly of a place.

Don't Panic

Humbling could be tripping and falling in front of a bunch of people.

Humbling could be tripping and falling in front of a bunch of people and your pants falling down.

Or it could be losing your wallet. (I know you wish that the above scenario happened to me, but it didn't, and frankly, I would prefer falling and losing my pants to losing this.)

Note to self: don't run around outside at night trying to play a trick on someone!

It's easy to think how cool and collected you are until you lose the very thing that has all your credit cards, your driver's license, a coupon for almond milk, and fifty dollars in it. It's worldly stuff, man, I can't take it with me when I die.

But I wish I had it right now!

I keep telling myself: the world doesn't end when you lose that stuff. All things are worked out for my good. It could be there now (and I have the most beautiful friend ever checking for me right now! I love her SO much!), or tomorrow morning, or at Andros, or maybe someone found it and will Facebook me. It's all good.

And you know what? I really feel like it is. I might not tomorrow morning, but right now, I'm okay. People's houses get burned down or bombed every day and they get on with their lives.

It's all worldly stuff anyway, man.

One Tear in the Driving Rain

I've not had a week quite like this before.

It's been so hard. There is one plate in front of me full of reading, study guides, books, notes, and all kinds of academic delights. There is another with my friends, coffee, car rides, and laughter. Given the choice, I think you know which I would rather go with, haha.

The problem is that there is a clock on the table, too. A week. You, Lara, have a week, more or less, to take care of each of these things. You'll be sorry if you have anything left on either one by the time the clock hits zero.

On the one hand, having so much to do is good for my mind. It's giving me concrete things to deal with, day by day, just trying to finish the next thing. Figuring out what must happen in the next hour is usually where my mind goes.

When I have a moment to myself, though, things immediately get a lot more frantic. You will be on a plane to Sarajevo in two weeks. You are going to a country that no one you know has ever visited. They speak a language they don't teach at your school. They eat food you can't pronounce.

They've seen things you couldn't begin to imagine in your wildest dreams.

This fact did not sink in for quite a while. Even this weekend I wrote a twelve page paper on the genocide in Bosnia that happened about fifteen years ago. I know all about what happened, from Slobodan Milošević to Srebrenica to Dayton. It was easy to remain pretty detached and scholastic about it, until all of a sudden, my mind reverted back to something I had read in the book Love Thy Neighbor by Peter Maass.

He was a journalist in Bosnia-Herzegovina during the war, and he remembered meeting an old woman walking home. He stopped her and asked her some questions, which she hesitated to answer and tried to avoid. He saw some slices of bread in her bag, and asked her if she had enough to eat (since the Serbs had strangulated the food supplies going into Muslim towns), and she broke down, telling him she wished the Americans would just bomb them and put them out of their misery. It was better than getting food aid sent from the UN.

She'd rather be dead than suffer what they were enduring.

Earlier, just as I was telling my friend about how I wasn't sure yet what I had gotten myself into, my tears involuntarily welled with tears. "How can I talk to someone who has seen what they have seen? I have no idea how they feel. What can I tell them?" I started to choke.

My heart was finally broken for Bosnia.

It's true, I don't know what I'm getting myself into. I haven't endured anything that they have. I live a life that is far too comfortable in the U.S., having experienced so much freedom and safety, as well as an absence of hatred for who I am. How could I have so much? How can others not? How is that fair?

I actually left writing this to take a shower because I didn't know where I was going with my thoughts, and in my head popped this fact:

"Jesus wept." John 11:35

Joke all you want about this being the shortest verse in the bible, there is so much hidden in these two words that I hadn't unpacked before. Jesus is fully man and fully God. He never erred from the path set before him to endure the cross and redeem mankind so that God and his people could be reunited once more, in full intimacy and fellowship. He was perfectly blameless before the Father's eyes.

And when his friend passed away, he cried.

He knew he had the power to bring him back from the dead. He even planned on doing so. He waited to do it so that people would have no question when they saw Lazarus get out of the tomb that it was nothing short of a miracle. He had the key to eternal life and had healed hundreds before. But he still wept.

It's not hard to become too bogged down by the idea of who God is: triune, sovereign, infinite, and intimate. How could a God so big care about someone so small? We imagine this enormous distance between ourselves and his heavenly throne, as if he is sitting there and we are slowly crawling on our hands and knees up endless steps toward where he resides. (I kind of think of those creepy steps in Aladdin where the lamp is.) He doesn't care about us. He can bide his time waiting for what he knows will happen -- because he's God -- and wait for us to figure out how foolish we are in the grand scheme of what he has made so.

This God, and his Savior, are not far away, though. Jesus wept. His heart broke. He cares about us. He laments the things in this world that are anything short of the glory he knows in heaven.

He weeps with those who have seen most atrocious things.

He weeps with me when I weep for them.

Anyone who loved humankind enough to endure excruciating death for it surely weeps when it weeps itself.

"The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit." Psalm 34:18

The kicker: he has the power to undo the terrible things that make us cry. He brought back the dead man he had previously mourned himself. He healed men who could not walk for decades. He drove demons out of children who frothed at the mouth and hurt themselves. He cured those who simply reached out to touch the hem of his robe.

And he rose from the dead, after being crucified and locked into a tomb with a stone rolled before the door, three days after he was killed.

Hey, guys, this is good news!

He is here to save us because he loves us. He doesn't just see a bunch of ants and watch them drown in puddles and shake his head, or see one devour another and stand unfeeling. He loves us. He loves us enough to give us free will, that we can choose whether or not to love him back, and it breaks his heart to see us turn away.

The ramifications of this are too big for a college student on a laptop at 1:30 in the morning. They shake the foundations of the earth. When I stop to think about everything that it means for Jesus to weep, I could leap off my chair and dance around the room.

It has so changed me, against my will, as I discover more and more about Jesus, that I have nothing to lose by telling others of the deep wellsprings of gladness within my heart. It's not pushing or persuading or preaching. It's just telling another person what has happened to me, and what I know, and it all points back to him.

I am moved to love Christ because he wept for me in my death, my sin, and then brought me forth from my grave to have life in abundance with him.

Cross-Post! I Win

Would you like to read some of the things I think about that are a little (or a lot) less preachy and a little more like what I usually talk about in real life, face-to-face conversations with people who I consider to be my relatively good friends?

Maybe not if I speak in sentences that long.

But in case that was not enough to deter you: www.lamaisondelara.blogspot.com

Today I was thinking in international photography terms. Have a good one!

Will the Real Men Stand Up?

Today, something happened that seems to happen a lot.

I was talking to a friend who met another friend of mine by total coincidence not too many days before, which I thought was pretty cool. I asked what she thought of him. "He was so friendly and nice!" she answered emphatically. "...does he have a girlfriend?"

I couldn't help but chuckle a little. "Get in line."

I am not blaming her at all; my mind reverts to that exact same curiosity whenever I happen to meet a friendly and nice guy. (Like, genuinely friendly and nice. You can tell.) How is it that some guys are magnetic like that, immediately earning the approval and admiration of most of the girls they meet?

(I'm kind of talking campus ministry atmosphere, but this probably happens everywhere.)

It's really sad, but so many girls are starving for polite, respectful attention. Someone who has no romantic motives -- simply trying to get to know you better -- can easily win the hearts of a dozen or so girls just because they listen for a second and make her feel welcome and interesting.

A myriad of crap can come out of this. Girls can start "peeing on" guys, or marking them territorially, becoming upset or jealous whenever another girl moves in on "her" property, even though the guy never made any agreement of exclusivity. Girls can start trying to initiate something that isn't there with such an oblivious friendly guy, only to be let down with the "let's just be friends" card. And on the other side of the coin, other guys can get frustrated by how their friends seem to be drowning in female admiration without really trying, while they are going out of their way to try and win over just one to no avail.

I'm not out to blame anybody; there's enough man-hate going around in this world. I can't tell you how frustrating it is to hear girls ranting at the lunch table about how guys are no good and can't do anything right, and lie all the time, and only think about one thing. I'm blessed to have some very solid brothers in Christ who are nothing of the sort. These, in fact, are the guys that really have more female attention than they know what to do with -- if they notice it to begin with.

The funny thing is, there are just a lot of little things that guys could learn to do that would have a huge impact on how they are seen by the kinds of girls they want to be with, if they want to get serious. It's probably not the approach to get a one or two time thing with a girl, but it just about hurts my heart to see so many fellas who want something real and just aren't doing it 100% right. And so, dear readers, might I share with you some of the things that make a difference to me, as a young woman in college who is not so interested in just some bunky ol' scrub?

I mean, I very well may not be the kind of girl for you and therefore give you permission to disregard the following information, but I am willing to bet a lot of girls might agree on these things. I'm coming from the point of view of a Christ-following girl who would eventually consider a Christ-following guy. I also ask that you not tell me I'm not your kind of girl because it may hurt my feelings for a few seconds. I make a comeback, though.

So, without further ado, I give you...

Lara's Man Advice for Men Who Want to Be Real Men

1. Ask a girl questions about herself. It may be tempting even to think that she might want to hear all about all the great things you do and think, and prove what a nice or interesting guy you are that way, but please ask her questions about herself. If she's a keeper, she will do the same to you.

2. Show you are paying attention to the answers. Eye contact (but not staring like a maniac!) goes a long way. Nod and smile. The indifferent rebel man really isn't that cute. A lot of mature girls are really talented at making someone feel like they are being listened to and cared about, so sometimes it's a ball in the man's court to do the same thing.

3. Keep some reasonable personal space boundaries until you have a mutual understanding with a girl that something is going on. A hug is not poisonous. A pat on the shoulder won't kill anyone. I might sound crazy, but please hear me out on this one: you can't undo getting too touchy-feely with someone. If you aren't dating a girl, please, for the love of God, don't make her feel like you can't keep your hands to yourself, even if it's innocent. It's unfair to put her in a position where she may feel like you are overstepping your place as a plain friend and bears the burden if telling you to back off.

4. For that matter, just make sure things are mutual before you go nuts. I'm serious. Don't let yourself fall under the delusion that things are "understood" unless they are literally "understood." Think of how to break down the word understand: to stand under. You are standing under the same thing, the same belief, the same umbrella. If you haven't talked about it aloud, you just might be standing under two very different umbrellas -- fix it!

5. "No" generally means "no." So a lot of girls impishly swoon over Noah in The Notebook because he didn't give up on Allie, and basically kept harassing her into falling in love with him. In real life, though, I know that I personally would not be so thrilled. I wouldn't say "no" unless I meant it, because it's unpleasant enough to have to say it in the first place. So if your invitation is unfortunately declined, I politely ask you to let it well enough alone for the time being. Take a lesson from Mr. Darcy: Elizabeth rejected him, he simply sent a letter to express the areas in which he felt she was mistaken about him, and after some time had passed, told her that he still cared for her, but that if her feelings were unchanged, he would never bother her again. Word. Look how it turned out!

6. Don't be socially defensive. I kind of want to publish a paper in a psychological journal just because I coined this phrase all by myself. Basically, being socially defensive is shifting the burden onto the girl to tell it like it is. If you continuously ask her to do something one-on-one without explicitly stating your intentions, you are putting her in a place where if she says no, she can be accused of sounding rude for assuming so much about one innocent trip to Steak 'n' Shake; if she says yes, she can be accused of leading you on by going on a whole date to Steak 'n' Shake. Don't say self-deprecating things ("I get it, you're just too busy to hang out with me!" "I bet you just have tons of other guys to do stuff with!") to pressure her into having to make you feel better about yourself, and then get mad when you find out that she really is too busy and has a guy to do stuff with already!

7. Instead, be a gentleman and let yourself take the fall. A real relationship involves sacrifice. There really is no more revealing an action than how well a guy can put himself at risk of hearing what he doesn't want to, opening himself to outright rejection. But truthfully, the kind of rejection involved here will hurt a lot less than rejection after a guy fails to be vulnerable, making the object of his "pursuit" feel so much pressure that she snaps to get the point across. I have yet to meet a girl who really enjoys turning an honest, earnest guy down. For the record: it makes me feel like I am literally about to throw up, and makes me sink with dread. If you really care about someone, make it easier for her to express herself truthfully and she may just find it easier to take you seriously.

8. Intentionally hanging out one-on-one oftentimes smells a lot like something more than just friends. I won't make any blanket statements. But in general, either one person or the other is bound to get confused if you hang out alone on purpose. You know how annoyed you get when other people ask you what's going on or wink at you? It's because they think it smells an awful lot like dating, too. You make the same assumptions about other people. Running into someone at Starbucks is one thing; it'd be awkward and kind of dumb to avoid them just because no one else is there keeping you company. But think long and hard -- and be sure you have a real "understanding" -- if you really want to do something as just the two of you. It doesn't have to be a marriage proposal. Just call it what it is!

9. Therefore, the best way to get to know someone better before even trying to move on to the coffee date is finding yourselves in a group of good friends. One of the things that stands out to me first about someone is how he interacts with guy friends in front of girl friends, and vice versa. If he is telling obnoxious jokes or taking cracks at girls (rating their appearance, making jokes about them, etc.), I'm just about shut down. But if he's having good conversation and laughing about things with lots of people, it's pretty clear that he's a nice guy who cares about others. Paying a girl real attention in a group also makes it a little less of a shock if you try to get to know her better later over food, just the two of you.

10. Treat others the way you would want to be treated. There is no exact recipe for life. But if you go by a good, general guideline, things will usually turn out pretty well. If you want to earn the trust of other people, see things from their point of view, and do what you can to put them at ease and just make things more convenient and comfortable for them. If you are inviting someone to do something, find out what she likes and have a plan in place already when you ask, and do it in a way where she really does feel like she has a choice. Is that so hard? If you already tell the world that you are living your life to serve God and serve others, then double-check that you're really doing it! Nobody is perfect, but the help of the Holy Spirit collides with the desire and motivation to change, transforming even persecutor, murderer Saul of Tarsus into the apostle Paul. (See Romans 8:5, 1 Timothy 1:15-16.)

Whew.

Perhaps one day I will formulate the counterpart advice I would give to my fellow sisters in Christ, but for now, this alone will have to suffice.

Consider it one woman's view. These are all things that I have seen that have impacted me enough to remember them all as written, the first ten thoughts that come to mind when I think about what it is that makes some guys so lovable to girls, and what it is that some guys probably need to stop and think about.

I don't know who to attribute so much of the thirst women have for a guy who lets them have a thread of genuine, caring attention; there are billions of things to blame. Rather, I hope that we can all see reality for what it is, and form a plan of reaction.

The principle for all to consider is, what can I do to be a part of bringing redemption to this broken world in how I live my life?

EDIT: Oh man, I just thought of something so important that I forgot to put in, so I am breaking the nice and clean "10 Rules" to make a #11:

11. Don't inundate someone with only serious/relationship-oriented conversation. This is something quite a few Christian guys might suffer from at times -- and lots of girls, for that matter -- but I am sticking it to the audience of this list for now. Listen, there's nothing wrong with just talking about things like movies, books, current events, whatever. I would save the confessions of past error until after you have both agreed to make things exclusive; it's kind of overwhelming. Even after you are in a real, defined relationship with someone, you don't always have to talk about your relationship, how far you have come with one another, theories on love, etc. (And if you aren't in a relationship... hoo boy. Take it easy. Way easy.) This just about terrifies the other person half to death. The love of your life should be your best friend, and best friends tend to keep it light-hearted! Don't ruin something fun by diving needlessly into something serious. The times to talk about those are patently obvious and once you really know someone, you'll figure out when they appear.

The end. For now.