Fight against my enemies

"Fight against those that fight against me.... Be a barrier against my pursuers." (psalm 35:1,3)

What are the things that fight against me? Let us not lose the comfort and power that is available to us in this scripture by relating the psalmist's prayer to the larger matters only. It touches on and includes the smallest, as well. The wave that sweeps over the great rock is the same that sweeps over the tiny shell on the shore. It is the littlest things of life, the minute, un-important-looking things that are most likely to shatter our peace. Because they are so small, it is most likely that we will fight them ourselves instead of looking up at once to our Strong God- our Barrier between us and them, as the pillar of cloud formed a barricade between the Egyptians and Israel (Exodus 14:20). Fight against them that fight against me...that is to say, against the little foolish feelings that want to keep us back from saying to the blessed will of God, "I am content to do whatever you say-fight against these pursuing feelings, O God!" THEN it will be true: "My soul will rejoice in the Lord and delight in His salvation. My whole being will exclaim, "Who is like you, o Lord? You rescue the poor from those too strong for them" (psalm 35:9-10). What joy our lives can be-when we continually prove His tenderness in the very little things. There is nothing too small for Him to help. He is indeed a Barrier between us and our pursuers. "How priceless is your unfailing love! Both high and low among men find refuge in the shadow of your wings!" (psalm 36:7). Edges of His Ways p.137

Seeking Men's praise

From my favorite author to you:

IF the praise of others elates me...
if the blame of others depresses me...
if I cannot rest when I am misunderstood, without defending myself...
if I love to be loved, more than to give love...
if I love to be served, more than serving...

then I know nothing of Calvary love.

~If Amy Carmichael

For the Idealists out there

"Woe to those who draw iniquity with cords of falsehood,
who draw sin as with cart ropes, who say: 'Let Him be quick,
let Him speed His work that we may see it;
let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw near,
and let it come, that we may know it!'
Woe to those who call evil good and good evil,
who put darkness for light and light for darkness,
who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!
Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, and shrewd in their own sight!
Woe to those who are heroes at drinking wine, and valiant men in mixing strong drink,
who acquit the guilty for a bribe, and deprive the innocent of his right!" Isaiah 5:18-23.

I love the fact that 2 verses earlier is says, "But the Lord of hosts is exalted in justice and the Holy God shows himself holy in righteousness." Clears up the doubt anyone might have had that the God who just said woe four times in a very earth-shaking consequence sort of way could possibly be unjust or unrighteous in His anger. He's still perfect, even in these deadly serious woes. These verses hit me in my pursuit through the Bible as they so clearly lay out what's not ok: Don't tell God to hurry up. He's got great timing, you hush. Don't ask God to see what He's doing, yet again He's in charge you hush. God doesn't owe you anything, especially a life-map so you know where you're going. You may not know His counsel or the next step until it comes, but it's ok and be ok with it.
The part that hit me the most starts in verse 20. How often do I call evil good? How often do I justify things I know are wrong? How often do I veer off the path ever so slightly and make it ok saying that my actions are still better than most? Better than others, as though that's the benchmark, as though doing the right thing is more about hitting close to the target as being good enough. If it's not absolutely right, it's WRONG. that hurts. It's true. Then the kicker in 21 with woe to those who are wise in their own eyes- woe to the people who think they're good at following all the other woes. Woe to the people who try to be good on their own without falling at the feet of Jesus everyday and admitting out inadequacy and allowing His strength to carry our weakness. That's it, that's all the Christian life is about. Weakness entrusting itself to a mighty one to be kept and used to illuminate the Lord of the Universe.

The woes are not meant to be binding and weighing. They're meant to free us from the human justification and lying we do to ourselves everyday. They're meant to raise us to a higher standard and so to start living from that view and not the world's platform. Unless we actually raise our eyes, we'll never see the Son rise and so be called to sit in that light eternally starting today.

Are the good kids happy?

If I ever write a book someday I think this might just be the title Are the Good Kids Happy? We who have grown up in a Christian home and chosen to follow Christ since the womb are the "good kids". You know who you are, the ones that in the world's eyes have never done anything wrong, who all the parents want their kids to be like, who always seem to make the responsible choice and never disobey. Yeah, WE are the good kids. Sure, we are few in number because we always have dropouts- the secret bad kids that you don't find out about until they have some party scandal and stay-at-home, Bible study mom absolutely falls apart and everyone in the church is praying for that sad family -OR- the kids who go ballistic in college and lose all sense of urgency.

So what is life about? Did we miss the boat and put far too much emphasis on our own happiness and cast aside the eternal mindset that God intended? Should we look less to the immediate pleasures this world is so fond of dealing us and press on to the ultimate goal to win the prize at the end of the race? Where is the race? What happened to the prize being all that you want and strive after in a race? Am I in the race?

Are the good kids happy? The kids that follow Christ and choose not to turn away when so many others have tread their trail and forged in the wrong direction. The kids that our adult culture applauds and recognizes as "mature", "grown-up" and a "great kid" to name a few. And let me be honest, we know those kids, typically nerdy with a social life that consists of either church activities or at the very least church friends that you spend all your time with doing scavenger hunts, playing board games and going on weekend church retreats. So are they happy? Where are the pioneers? Where are the zealous college students bursting to tell the "going out" crowd how ecstatic they are about Jesus? Are are we? I get so tired of hearing about the good kids (yes, I still am one..) and how responsible they are. Anyone can be responsible. Anyone can make good choices. Anyone can be a great kid. The hard thing is can someone do all those things while reaching out with both hands to the ones that aren't doing the good things and love them so deeply and joyously that your excitement and happiness for Jesus spill out on that person?

Can we? Can the good kids be happy? Can the good kids go out and have fun without being in a Christian bubble? Can Christians have fun by the world's standards or are we conforming too much to this world? If I were reading a book, this is what I would want to read about. Stuff that affects us right now, stuff that makes Christianity show its true colors before people sell their souls. We can't preach a message that isn't real, that Christianity is all fun and happiness living in Christ (in our world's standards) but we have to preach what is real, because only that is life-giving and fulfilling. So are the good kids really happy?

Capacity to Sin

Ok, so officially I have been wrestling with this question, or more of a line of thought, for 3 days now. Here it is: Was the life that Adam and Eve had in the garden pre-sin ultimately fulfilling and completely joy-giving, was it complete and without lack? Ok, hold your ponies before you answer. Here's a background. What did pre-sin life look like IN (not for, but they themselves look like) Adam and Eve? I can't picture it because I live in humaness, I have a great, I mean GREAT capacity to sin and mess things up. They didn't. They didn't struggle internally, they didn't fuss or fight, they didn't get mad. But they did think illogically one fateful day that marked time forever. So did they have the capacity all along to sin? How was sin never in the world and then a sneaky snake soon to be slithering comes along and brings temptation with it. Isn't contemplating temptation a sin, so didn't she really sin before she sinned the memorable one? Ok, you free-willers out there, I hear you. God loves them so much that he allowed them the choice to live life and they chose sin. So He built them fallible? They had to have had the capacity to sin in order to sin, right? so how was sin not always in the world if they were able to sin?

Stop. Let me retrace all of the questioning and potential slandering that I just did. I believe in an abundantly powerful, ultimately life-giving and joyous God. But what rubs me wrong is our theological tendency to get so high up that we don't think elementary-like (made that phrase up). My statement is this: "One who is full loathes honey, but to one who is hungry everything bitter is sweet." prov 27:7 (read my last entry). If we are full on God, like they should have been in the garden, why would you want more, how could you think there could be more? Stop looking at it in humaness with a sinful eye. Was it simply a curiousity, but isn't even that wrong and wrong was not in the world. Or here is another example: would you EVER cheat on your spouse or boyfriend/girlfriend? Why not?.. so how could you in your very sinful humaness not want to cheat on your other half and yet they wanted in their perfectness to cheat on God? They didn't think about it that way I am sure, but how did they think about it imperfectly if they were perfect?

I'll stop. I have much more to say but I dare not dig my hole deeper. These are just thoughts you see, less of questioning and just thoughts really. And just for clarifications sake- I believe in a God that's ok with me saying stuff like this, just so you know.

Those days

Have you ever had that day where you wish you could be someone else? I'm not talking about a specific someone else, like seeing a girl and thinking "I wish I was her". No, I'm talking about being tired of being you if I put it bluntly. It's not the ultimately tired of me, it's just today's day. It was a great day actually, I got a lot accomplished and still had time to do the things I wanted. I'm not sure what caused this sudden realization that I had tonight at The Cross. I'm selfish. I want all eyes on me but when they are I don't want it. I want everyone to adore me but when they do I don't want it. I want all the friends in the world but when I have them I want to be alone. I want to control things but when I do I don't like it. But you know what is the big picture of all of this? I'm not abiding in Christ, I'm abiding in Katie. I'm abiding for myself and the immediate pleasures of life. I'm sacrificing the eternal for the temporal. I have no answers to it, no real solutions. I just have a great realization that the way I live life is often wrong. It's wrong because if I'm looking out for my interests and advantages I have my eyes set on the wrong prize.

"One who is full loathes honey, but to one who is hungry everything bitter is sweet." Proverbs 27:7. I read that yesterday and it's so profound to me today. We should be full in Christ, we should be continually being fed and nurtured by Him because we trust our entire survival on Him. We should loath any sweet thing from a lesser source than Jesus. We should loath it because we don't need it, because it's unimportant. You know sweet things, like compliments, kindnesses, favors etc. The people giving them are not unimportant and they should be praised, but the acts themselves are unneeded to build your life. I think I build a lot of my life on those things, those shifting sand for a foundation things. The next part of the verse says "but to one who is hungry everything bitter is sweet". It's the same story, different verse. We may not be empty, at the end of our ropes, but most of us are not filled. So we take that even tiny unfilled space in us and we try to make something fill it. Even bitter things we convince ourselves are great, worth it and perfect for us. You know the bitter things, like the sweet things except the particular things that you know deep down aren't just right. The relationships that you force because you want to date someone, the things you say to people because you think it might elevate your status to them when you know deep down you shouldn't have said that (whether because it was a lie or because it was something bad about someone). Whatever the bitter things, the things that don't fill and aren't worth it if we can emotionally unattach ourselves to our lives and see it, those things seem sweet. We sell ourselves short. "We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased." C.S. Lewis

Hold on

I learn things so quickly in life, sometimes in such a mess of learning that the ideas get jumbled and I easily let them go. I suppose it would be more correct to say I hear concepts or I realize things often in life but I rarely actually apply them to life and let them change me. But, for now let me draw out all the thoughts in my head and try to make some sense.

"Let us Hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful." Hebrews 10:23. This promise was huge to me today. How often I have struggled recently to actually apply the truths I speak of. It's so easy to get into a conversation about what life should be like whether by talking about a more fulfilling life of things of wish I was doing or pretending that my life is spectacular and adding a few details to the easily monotonous, routinely ordinary life that I lead. Don't hear me complaining because of outside sources, it's my fault, but life just seems to be same-old same-old (if that's even how you spell that old saying..). But look at the verse "hold fast, hold unswervingly" as another translation has it to hope. The hope that God is so good and faithful to fulfill our joy, to "make it complete or overflowing". If we don't hold tight without letting to and believe and apply the hope, the faith, the ideas, the conversations, the inspirations that we have then we've got nothing to hold onto. We fall when we have nothing to hold on to to steady us. To have a hand grip is stability, it makes the rock beneath our feet that much easier to remain planted on. Ok, so what promise? Well, God promises so much in the Bible that it's awesome. The promise of 2 Chronicles 7:14, "If my people will humble themselves and pray and seek my face then I will turn to them and heal them." And the same is true about this promise that if you call on the name of Jesus you will be saved. Just like that and "If we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and purify us from ALL unrighteousness." Hear that key word purify? That's huge! I think I get hung up on being forgiven of my sins and being washed clean and I miss the end. I get so frusterated because I do bad things but I don't change after I see they were bad. I sin over and over, particularly with being lazy and selfish. but he says if we confess He will not only forgive but purify us from all unrighteousness PURIFY- that means purge, get rid of completely. That means if I truly take everything to God, even my frusteration about continuously sinning he will purify me and he who promises is faithful.

The middle of the Hebrews verse says hold on the the hope "unwaveringly". What would my life be like if everything I did was with confidence, with a surety that didn't need affirmation or acceptance? That no matter the outcome I acted the same way to people or situations? What would life be like if even when I didn't get the response from someone I was hoping I was unwavering and my love for them never faltered to be disappointment or irritation?

God teach me to hold your hope without wavering. Teach me to run this race with perseverance. Teach me to do your will and to live each day as if it were the best day of the year. Teach me how you love.