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