Haven't i done enough?

God’s been revealing to me recently the difference between His definition of forgiveness and ours.  I mean, really they’re as different as night and day.  Who in their right mind, with working retinas, can’t acknowledge the difference between the two? 

 

Well, my eyes work fine, barring the glasses I occasionally have to wear to a movie or to see street signs better in a new place.  It’s my heart, small and insipid, that has trouble seeing sometimes.  But God is merciful. 

 

He’s been showing me anew that when I think I’ve done enough, I haven’t.  Granted, there are times when what He wants from you is restraint.  He speaks waiting into our hearts, and in those situations, it’s always the action that seems easier.

 

But generally when God asks me to do something, to make a move, to extend grace on His behalf, I often end up asking myself (because I dare not ask the God of the heavens), preceded by a huff or a sigh, “haven’t I done enough?”  The simple answer is no.

 

There’s no such thing, in the Kingdom of Jesus, as far enough. 

 

We pray to be like Jesus.  We pray to be poured out on His behalf and to be made holy.  The ones who think they’re prepared pray for patience and humility, all the while quaking in their spirits, knowing God acts.  We pray “less of me, more of You”, but we’re unwilling to live this way.  I’M unwilling to live this way, to dies in this way.

 

When a “friend” repeatedly calls me a liar, calls me a fraud and a Pharisee, I ask God, feeling martyred and bowed low “Father, it’d be so much less painful to not be her friend.  Am I allowed to sever ties?”  And then, having essentially been told heck no by the Father, in future writings I decide to call her friend, in quotations.

 

Or with my step-dad, each time he angers me again, I feel the injustices piling on top of the old ones I thought I’d laid down and forgiven.

 

Or  (and this is the one I just realized last night) what about RC?  Those of you who know who him and know our history, you can try to understand.  But the truth is, you can’t really understand it.  I’m not sure why my dealings with him, roughly 5 years ago now, affected me so much.  I mean, I know why they affected me then; I’m just unsure why they affect me so much still.  Let’s just say that my relationship with him changed me, shut some things down and caused some glitches, mind/body/spirit.  Looking at our relationship and time together from an outside point of view, as much as I can at least, I’m not innocent.  “It takes two to tango”.  But looking outward and back from inside MY body & mind & heart, it feels like his intent all along was to ruin me on purpose, like His sole purpose in dating me was to create gaping chasms between me and my loved ones, to make me dislike myself, my thoughts, my body, my very soul, to ostracize me from Jehovah, the only Love I’d ever known. 

 

I’ve prayed numerous times over the past 5 years that God would help me forgive RC.  I’ve prayed that he’d be changed, that he could know the love of God, that I can let go of my anger.  But I haven’t prayed enough, and I haven’t really wanted to forgive him enough.  Honestly, I feel just as justified hating him as God is justified in hating Satan.  I know that’s harsh, but writing’s where I’m honest.  The reason I want his salvation is not because I want mercy for him.  On the contrary, I hope that once he comes back to the Lord he’ll really feel the weight of what he did to me, that he’ll be crushed by that weight, that he’ll seek me out and apologize, and I’ll graciously bestow forgiveness upon him.  I’ve been calling hypocrisy justice.

 

I’ve not allowed myself to realize that any infraction, any sin, is not against me, but the Lord.  I’ve refused to see myself as anything but victim or abused.  All this time I’ve viewed myself as the Israelites instead of Pharaoh, a disciple instead of Pilot, myself as Gomer & God as Hosea instead of RC as Gomer, myself as her client, God still, always, blindingly Hosea.

 

So here it is:  I HAVEN’T done enough. 

 

Forgiveness can’t be passive.  It’s active to the highest degree.

 

Jesus forsook Heaven and wholeness in order to travel the universe, take on palpable, bruisable, porous skin and die.  In one concise sentence it almost sounds simple, but remember that along the way He was mocked and starved and was surrounded by friends who betrayed Him constantly when all He was used to was the company of the Lord Most High, ever radiating love and justice.  He was silent in the face of criticism and spit, knowing behind His teeth that He was trying to save us all. 

 

The way I love people, the way I forgive, it’s not enough.  It’s never enough.  Because if I ask to be poured out, if I ask to know my Savior, His crucifixion and His resurrection, this is critical.  Forgiveness cannot be partial, but I must “rend the heavens and come down”.  I must dive to the depths of my pain, though I’d rather leave it where it lies.  I must flesh out what it means to die on behalf of another, and not just to die where I stand, but to travel long distances, live a life of service, and die a painful, mocking death in order to free my “friend”, my step father, to free RC.

 

I have to want their freedom more than my own, and I don’t.  So again I pray my shallow, weak, child prayer:  God, I want to want this.  Change me, for I cannot change myself.  Give me the strength and humility and eyes to see the truth of a sinful world, that we all go around hurting and maiming each other and crushing Your heart.  My wounds are here; they’re not justified, but they are real.  I want them to become hills on which I can stand, flowers to grace my neck, the very words of life to save me.  Let there be no distance I won’t travel to love people because You never stop pursuing me, even when I’m wallowing in the depths of my own darkness, when I’m bowing before the altars of other gods, You reach for me still.  Expose me to make me whole.  My attempts at healing myself have failed.  My attempts at loving have been half-hearted, shadows of who You are.  I want to be better.  I need You to do it, for I am utterly inept.  You are Most High.  You are Abba and High Priest and Lover.  You are righteous and holy and pure, and I want to gaze on You until I’m changed.  Teach me forgiveness.  Teach me love.  Make it real not only to my head but to the depths of my being.  Thank You, Jesus, for Your example.  Amen.

The will to walk

My heart’s been on overload lately, and since my bipolar, over-active, under-active brain is hardwired to kick into action anytime my heart is disturbed, my brain’s been going nuts, too.  God’s been showing me so much about myself, good and bad, things He’s been doing that I’ve yet to take proper notice of and show thankfulness for, and things He wants to change in me that until now have hidden in the sulking recesses of my soul. 

 

I foresee this entry being a rundown, meandering-style, of the different things God’s been doing.  It’ll also be a general answer to the ever-popular “what’s new?” question.  Here goes.

 

A few weeks back, I went to my CrazyLove book study.  It’s supposed to happen biweekly, but two of the ladies involved have children who are one year old or younger.  So the schedule has to be fluid.  Anyway, I was going on and on about how when I feel distance between myself and God, when I know there needs to be a coming back of sorts, I seldom FEEL deep, throbbing sadness.  The picture I have in my mind of repentance looks like weeping and snotting all over yourself until you’ve cried it out and the weight is lifted.  That’s not really how it is for me most of the time.  It’s more “God, I’m so sorry I’m such a jerk.  Can you please just forget about this block of time and love me anyway?”  And I know He does, but the thing I kept going over and over with the girls that night was that I can’t make my heart feel what my head knew:  that the moment I ask and mean it, the forgiveness is done.  I wanted so bad to FEEL brokenness.  I think maybe we’ve been trained as passionate Jesus-followers that everything has to be an emotional experience.  Let’s face it, we’re an emotional generation (e.g. the divorce rate, how many  careers the average American will have over their lifetime, even the crazy amount of different shades of hairdye).  I won’t deny it in myself.  I mean, for goodness sake, my horoscope sign says my mood changes like the phases of the moon, and regardless of my skepticism of the stars determining your destiny, I can’t deny the moon thing. 

 

So the problem I was having was not knowing that God forgives me but feeling a more poignant sorrow over my sin. 

 

What it comes down to is trying to earn forgiveness.  See, I know in my head that grace is free.  Trying to earn it reminds me of that scene in Liar Liar where Jim Carey’s trying his hardest to say out loud that the blue pen in his hand is red.  All he ever gets out is “the pen is rrrrrrroyal blue!”  It’s the same with grace.  No matter how broken you are, no matter the tears or the wailing or the amount of fed-up-ness you feel with yourself, none of that makes you any less depraved.  I’d gotten it in my head that by me feeling and showing some display of emotion it either makes Him more ready to forgive me or makes me less indebted to Him because I want it so bad.  What a load of poppycock.  I think a parent or lover giving you a gift would much rather see you take the gift, thank them genuinely, and make use of it in the future than take the gift in some melodramatic display of emotion and then forget about it the next day.  Now if they take the gift, sob and thank you repeatedly and THEN make use of and cherish the gift, that’s another story, but still.

 

Moving on.

 

One of my friends is doing something that displays so acutely the love of Jesus, and I get to be a part of it.  Wow.  Her mom was killed in a car accident when she was 6.  A young man, 19 at the time, lost control of his vehicle or fell asleep (they’re not sure) and ran across the interstate and hit their vehicle head on.  He also killed two other people in the process, parents of several children.  Well, this man, Michael, apparently tried to contact her father a few years back and was basically met with “how dare you call my house.  I never want to hear your voice again.”  I don’t look at her dad in a bad way for this.  We’ve all got unforgiveness issues.  He must’ve just really loved his wife.  Anyway, she heard about this a while back, thought about contacting Michael to offer him some sort of forgiveness, and just didn’t, whether it was busyness or just a lack of urgency, who knows.  But this past weekend, the sense of urgency to contact Michael was reignited in her.  We stayed up praying and talking about this for hours into the night, and it was wonderful.  Not only was the sense of Christ’s presence and love tangible, but the sense of solidarity between the four people gathered was incredible.  We were all being allowed to be a part of seeing Christ’s empathy and grace be offered in a real-life way.  Now that she’s contacted this young man (although now he’s almost 40, I can’t help but think of him as he was when the wreck happened) and his mother in trying to track him down, we’ll be going up to Thornton, CO tomorrow so she can meet with him. Michael told her he’d thought of that wreck probably 23 out of 24 hours of everyday.  He’s become not a person struggling with guilt, but guilt itself.  That seems to be his only identity, and all she wants to do is offer him freedom, tell him he has nothing to feel guilty of, let him live, assure him that she’s been ok all these years and that God’s hand has never left her, even in the moment of that car crash 20 years ago.  How beautiful.  How massive of a thing and how small. 

 

Oh that we would live this way each moment, so willing to offer redemption.

 

Another friend of mine is struggling with depression.  It kind of runs in her family, but it’s only taken control of her just recently.  Let me just try and preface this by telling you that this girl is NOT an open book.  She hides things and bottles them up.  So when she told me and a few friends about the depression, it was a big deal.  Just saying it out loud and letting people know her weakness, that was an answer to prayer right there.  But she did more than that.  this week, when the tension in her head/heart reached a peak, she called people.  She didn’t call me, and I’m kind of glad.  Though I would’ve listened and prayed for her, I have little experience with depression, and although I try, I find it difficult to understand.  But the girls she called called me, and the next night we met to pray and share our hearts and command the forces of darkness out of her life through the blood of our conquering Savior.  She broke down.  She weeped.  I believe she was freed.  And I was allowed to be a part of it. 

 

I’m so blessed.

 

That’s another thing:  for so long I’ve told myself and other people that my best friends are elsewhere, Florida, Alaska, Jamaica.  And that’s still true.  There are people who live in those places that know my soul sometimes more than I’m comfortable with!  They take my intelligent thoughts and heartfelt revelations and know how to balance them with my rash judgments and inconsistencies, and it’s really just so comfortable and good.  I think maybe it’s Agape.  But I’m realizing that because those people I miss so much are scattered abroad, I’ve been so negligent and unthankful for the relationships God’s growing here.  It’s going to take time, more time than I’m used to because my Florida friends were formed in a pressure-cooker type environment of love and loss and sin and redemption and hilarity and worship.  But nevertheless, I HAVE soul friends here.  I HAVE people here whose lives are intertwining with mine in a chaotic and beautiful score of music.  These relationships could never negate the old (and continuing) friendships I have, but my goodness, what kind of self-centered friend bigot doesn’t take note of people whose hearts she’s being allowed to share?!  The Lord is ever blessing me with friends who surround me with love, the kind of love that corrects you when you’re overreacting and lets you cry when your heart is flooded and provides a wide space for you to roam free.  I’ll be grateful from now on, Father.  I’ll see better.

 

And last but definitely not least:  my parents are moving again, most likely cross country.  I followed them from Florida to Colorado for a few reasons.  It wasn’t so much because I couldn’t live without them near, although having them close would be my preference, but because I was ready for a change.  I wanted to prove to God that I was serious when I repented by jump starting my life with a crazy change.  And it’s been grand.  He’s done so much in me… I’m not quite sure if I’d recognize the me from a few years ago or want to hang out with her.  I’d probably just shake my head and make the tsk tsk sound more often than not.

 

Anyway, let me go back a few days.  On Sunday I went to my friend Sarah’s church.  The pastor was talking about exile, for what reasons it happened in the Bible.  The one that stuck with me was the example he gave of exile for holiness’ sake.  In Hosea 3, I think it was, God told the Israelites something like “I’ll send you into the wilderness without temple or sacrifice, without ephod or terebinth”.  Basically God was taking from them all the things He’d once given them that were purposed to point the Israelites toward Himself.  They were supposed to be tools but had become gods in themselves.  So He was stripping them of all other gods in order to bring them consecration to Himself and holiness.  The pastor said “would you be so bold as to ask for that kind of holiness?”  THAT is the question that stuck with me.

 

I went home that night and prayed.  I prayed more honestly than I’m used to praying, praying what’s actually in my heart rather than what I think I SHOULD want.  I told the Lord “God, I DON’T want that kind of holiness.  I don’t want exile or loneliness or even discomfort.  But I know I want You.  I want to want holiness that badly, and I hope that’s enough for You right now because it’s all I’ve got.”

 

Two days later I find out my family will be gone within months.

 

What a merciful God.

 

 

How i've been feeling God sees me

I know that's a kind of confusing name for a blog post. however, as i've not been feeling clear-minded that much lately, i decided to leave it as a fair respresentation.

i went to a young adults small group last night. it belongs to my friend Sarah's church, not mine. but the young adults group at my church is a lot more young than adult, and i don't want surfacey relationships. i just don't value them. maybe that's wrong. whatever.

the very first thing the teacher said at this group last night was "i have two questions for you: 1) how do you view God? 2) How do you think God views you?

the first i would answer as loving, powerful, incredibly invested in our lives, holy

the second, and this is the one that surprised me, i answered "He loves me always, but i think maybe He's exhausted with loving me."

i hadn't ever thought that so clearly and quickly before. i couldn't ever put my finger on it. but it surprised me that i came to that concise answer so quickly. the fact of the matter is, I'M exhausted with my flesh. it's not that i'm making huge mistakes or rebelling. it's that sometimes all i can see are my mistakes and the times when i'm unfaithful. why is my first response upon disappointment frustration with God? why do i always doubt FIRST and then gather faith later? He's proven His reliability and unfathomable love a million times over, and yet i run to other lovers.

i have a hard time just coming back and not wanting to earn my salvation (not in a broad sense, but in the day to day comings back to Jesus). i want to PROVE to Him that He didn't forgive me in vain, that i'll be better next time. and sometimes that's true, but mostly i still mess up in the same ways as before. Therefore, i exhaust myself.

i can't allow myself to project my own fed-up-ness onto Him. are we not as far apart in character as the sun and moon? He makes me holy, but in myself i'm anything but.

i was able to identify, by way of the speaker's lesson, this problem of mine as a lie. i'd thought of it as my own flawed thinking, not an attack of the enemy. it's so much easier to fight an external enemy once you know who it is.

a woman prayed over me "Sam, God wants me to tell you you're beautiful. He finds you beautiful even in your darkness."

maybe that's not an epiphany to you; i know i've heard at least a hundred times that i'm God's prize. But it hit me hard at this point, when all i feel so often is the weight of my darkness and my tremendous undeserving in His radiance.

also... i read recently the quote "God expects you to fail far more than you expect yourself to fail." how freeing. i expect myself to get better and to progress and to never do it again. God's not so naive.

Jehovah the Patient

“At the foot of the Cross

I can trade these ashes in for beauty

and wear forgiveness like a crown.

Coming to kiss the feet of Mercy,

I lay every burden down”

-At the Foot of the Cross, Kathryn Scott

 

Lately I’ve been king of an emotional ping pong ball, feeling tossed back and forth by life, springing in seconds from one side of the table: gratitude, worship, and joy, to the other: confusion, forlorn apathy, and acute awareness of my own depravity and self-centered-ness.  The strangest moments have been the ones where I feel all these things at once, and it’s not like my emotions are torn.  It’s more like I’ve been feeling each emotion 100% and therefore have been emotionally stretched, operating at over-capacity.  It’s caused me to just blank out sometimes, spending whole evenings at home just being away from people.  Instead of reading, I’ve been turning on the tv more, because it’s mindless.  And mindlessness is what I want, if only to relieve the crazed goings on in my head!

 

Here’s the long and short of it:  (and sorry Emily and Kaycee if you’re reading a lot of this again)

 

I still don’t have a car.  It looks like my answer has been found, though.  Emily’s sister is selling me her car, a 96 Corolla, for $600.  And I’m so happy about it… now.  but last week was, well… last week was just a bitch!  I had two different cars fall out from under me.  two days in a row my mechanic, Jim, and I drove nearly to denver and then past denver to go look at cars.  The first one, I found out half way there that the guy had sold it and didn’t have the courtesy to call me before I left even though I left repeated messages asking him to please do so.  the second day, jim and I drove to Thornton, CO, about an hour and a half away, to look at what appeared to be and was described to me as a great deal, a Civic.  Yeah, not so.  basically some kid thought he’d made it into something out of the Fast & the Furious.  It was just ridiculous and ridiculously crappy, tons of problems, not the least of which was a dash board that had been completely switched out, making the low miles he’d advertised a complete lie.  I wanted to smash his stupid, wanna be thug head on his car’s crappy, tied-down hood!  Alas, I did not.  we just drove back. 

 

I didn’t get a job I applied for.  Not only did I not get the job, but they emailed me like 5 minutes after I sent in the application saying they were pursuing other applicants.  Can you even look at an application in 5 minutes?  Am I THAT obviously inept?!  This was no normal job.  This was the one I thought would allow me to go back to school finally.  So the rejection was a lot further reaching than just not getting a job, at least in my mind and heart.

 

Emily’s dating now.  Tony’s a great guy.  I like him more all the time, and she seems really happy and really wise about this whole thing.  Emily’s a lot of things:  deep, funny, ambitious, lazy, goofy, spontaneous, smart.  But in talking to her about Tony, she sounded wise almost, like she could see the situation from the outside, something I just don’t think happens often for any of us.  [Sorry Em… you’re pretty brilliant sometimes, but wise is a different adjective than I’m used to using for your brilliance!]  Anyway, my go-to/hey-I’m-bored-wanna-do-something friend is now busier than ever, and her priorities have shifted.  We still hang out often.  It’s just that for what is beginning to seem like a perpetually single person, it sometimes seems like “another one bites the dust” and subsequently “but I wanna bite the dust, too!” 

 

In this situation, been there, done that.  it only gets slightly easier.  Wanting to be known is a longing that just doesn’t subside.

 

My dad is interviewing in Georgia and Kentucky for jobs.  His job may or may not be in danger.  For those of you who were around during their move from florida to Colorado, in the time before I decided to move with them, I was NOT a pretty picture.  I think most of you didn’t get to see it.  my boyfriend at the time got to see the full psychotic episodes.  there were times I was sobbing so hard he couldn’t discern what I was even saying or crying about.  It would come out of nowhere and stay for days, the aching in me without them.  Even the THOUGHT of that possibly happening again has been enough to send me into panic if I allow myself to think about it.

 

The earthquake in Haiti.

 

A new crush.

 

Emotional overload.

 

And in all this, God’s been revealing Himself, or rather the lack of His qualities in me.  I mean, I know this is a process, and I know that my good works will never outweigh my bad, for even my righteousness is as filthy rags (which by the way, the literal meaning of that is “menstrual garments”… shudder).

 

Any one of these things by itself would’ve been pretty mundane, a blip.  But all together, I started thinking that this world is cruel and deserves bitterness and anger as a response.  But, believing wholly that God is not surprised or reactionary, by saying “this world is cruel”, really I’m saying God is cruel.  The God who slain His perfect Son to make me whole, cruel? 

 

WHO DO I THINK I AM?!

 

So then there’s the reckoning, coming back to Him with bowed head and tear-brimmed spirit, knowing more fully I’m not worthy, and He is not worthy of my doubt or frustration.  Knowing that what I’ve given Him in the past week falls infinitely short of what I want to give Him, that’s been humbling beyond what I know how to handle.

 

You guys know me.  I want to MAKE it better.  I always want to earn it, and I put walls between myself and the Lord until I feel I’ve earned His presence in my life again. 

 

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

 

Anyway… He’s getting me through it.  the simple truth of the matter is that He won’t leave me.  He’s so persistent in loving me and not moving from my reach.  He’s patient.  I need His patience more than I need His love, I think, for without His long-suffering, I’d never even make it to the Love-accepting part. 

 

But, needless to say, last week was cuh-razy in my head.  I’m so glad no one but me and Jehovah dwell there.  I wouldn’t wish that psychobabble on anyone!