Inextricable.

I hung out with a friend of mine last week who decided recently, after 15+ years of going to church, professing to be a Christian, that he's really an atheist. According to him, he'd been questioning the Christian faith for a while but finally gained enough perspective (and guts really) to declare this huge switch out loud and to the masses. We went to a free documentary showing at the Fine Arts Center a few blocks from my house. It was "Bringing Down a Dictator", which chroniced the nonviolent overthrow of Serbian Socialist party leader Slobodan Milosevic by a revolutionary group started in the nation's colleges called Otpor. They started with little money or backing in numbers and ended up radically changing the nation. It's crazy, and it was just anti-establishment enough that my friend Kevin would want to go. Plus, not many of my friends like to go to those type things with me.



So anyway, hanging out with him's gotten me thinking: How could someone just walk away from our Jesus?



I mean, to be fair, faith has always been one of my spiritual gifts. It's right up there with mercy and exhortation. So maybe i'm just not wired to understand his choice. Maybe it's not fair for me to pose this question without giving him a chance to respond. But, it's by blog. So there.



There are moments for me, fleeting, almost-not-there moments, when the thought enters my mind "what if this is all for nothing? what if this God i serve is actually fake and i will have spent my whole life not only having served and studied and worshiped a made up deity, but i'll have encouraged others in that lie also? I will have quite literally WASTED my time here." But like i said, those moments are so fleeting for me, for a number of super not-scientific reasons.



So many people try and prove the existence of God with facts and studies and research. Maybe i should be that way. I'm sure my faith would appeal to a broader circle of people that way, the intelligentista perhaps. But i'm just not about that. Figures and proofs have never made much sense to me, even while limping my way to an A in Calculus!



The thing that keeps me believing, that makes it impossible for me to separate myself from the belief in Jehovah, King of the Jews and Gentiles and me, is how i FEEL Him so acutely:

Singing songs to Him fills my heart like no other singing. No other song type, no matter the well-written lyrics or beautiful harmony, can move me to tears and change me quite like "Oh the Wonderful Cross" or a number of old and new worship songs. You don't see me crying over Miley Cyrus songs (although i'll defend her stuff as catchy and fun til the day i die).

Then there's the tangible distance sometimes. I can tell when i've let my sin or apathy separate us even a little, and i'm just NOT okay with it! It makes my spirit scramble. It makes my heart ache with longing for Him, just to be back as close as i can be to His heart, His side. I've never felt that sense of need before, desperation and excitement, losing my breath in that momentary realization that i need Him so badly. I've not experienced that kind of panic in any other relationship, not in a romantic relationship, not in a fight with a best friend or family member, and i've not experienced that sense of relief and completeness when I'm near Him again, not in a lover's bed or a beautiful, peaceful day, or a family reunion.

I could no more separate myself from Him now than i could willingly give up my brain or my heart and expect my body to keep functioning. I couldn't walk away from Him without forfeiting the only source of happiness i know. He's inextricably tied to my existence, my identity, my breath and heartbeat, my life and joy and sun.

I'm so thankful for this gift of faith. So that even in my doubtful moments, Love crowds out fear.

Right Standing

So my old youth pastor, Dina always defined righteousness as "right standing with the Lord". I never paid too much attention to the cliches Dina threw out, if i'm being honest. One, because she threw out A LOT of cliches, and two, because though i know she loves me, i've never really been convinced that she likes me. I actually think she doesn't like me very much. Regardless, the definition she gave of righteousness always stuck with me.

Last night, after watching Dancing with the Stars (i know, i'm ashamed. but i was also very bored) i turned off my living room light without realizing i didn't have any other lights on in the house. I don't like to have more than one light on at a time in the house. It just seems pointless, but i normally will turn my bedroom lamp on before turning out the other light or something like that, just so i can see. My floor's never very tidy, and there are tripping hazards! But last night i turned the light off and just sat back down in my big brown chair in the living room. i sat there as my eyes adjusted, and a feeling of peace washed over me.

What i realized then was that the peace wasn't washing over me from the outside. It had come from me, from inside, like some kind of reverse osmosis, making my little apartment, making my world just feel GOOD.

I used to be scared of the dark. Maybe that's lame, but growing up i would run through my house at night because i always just felt creepy. I would do dumb things like hide under my covers because i'd get scared all of a sudden, and i'm not talking about when i was little either. I remember doing this well into my teens. Then when i moved to Florida and lived with my dad i remember it being so odd that i wasn't scared at night when the lights were off. When i moved into the houses with the girls that feeling of creepiness and being on edge would come back at night sometimes but not always. I don't think these things are just coincidence. I know they're not. Lot's of things, dark things, spiritual things, i believe made their home in the house i grew up in. I realized it then, but i lacked the courage to demand they leave. My dad's house in Florida was a house dedicated to serving the Lord, to making Him known and loving Him better each day. Then when i moved in with the girls, i think we allowed, i allowed, a lot of things there that shouldn't be. But we were waivering between heartfelt worship and blatant disobedience. Thus, the occasional scared-of-the-dark-ness. I'm a jumpy person naturally, i think, with an imagination sometimes too big for my own good. But these things i'm not imagining.

So anyway, last night was just really cool. It was the first time i'd sat in my house with the lights off and just FELT what was there. I think reading auras is dumb. I'm just not very tolerant of all that new agey crap. It's just meant to imitate what God's been saying all along, luring people to Hell with something that's Gospel-esque. But i believe in the Spirit in me and my own spirit that looks like God, and last night i realized it's in right standing.

For the first time in a long time i'm taking note that i'm in right standing with nearly everything in my life. It's a process, obviously, and this is not a boast in myself by any means. God's brought me to this point of right standing by the blood of Jesus and ONLY by the blood, that which i can never repay and will always need. Right this moment, i'm in right standing with God (although i have lukewarm tendencies and pesky habits that come back and have to be continually re-addressed). With myself. With friends and family. With my past (still working on letting it stay in the past sometimes). With my body (don't drink soda hardly at all anymore and am loving being a vegetarian. i feed it what's good, and i'm rewarded by feeling good. Even with my hair (i've decided it can do what it wants, and i love it still).

I'm so fallen and wretched, but in that, i'm FREE. I'm holy and righteous, and i can walk in that and believe it because God's Word is true! I don't understand it, because the majority of the time i don't FEEL holy. Somehow i'm being made holy and holy at the same time. I'm wicked but made in the image of our just and perfect Creator. His Spirit, one entity of the triune God, dwells in my chest. How can i deny this Perfection making His way in my life?! I won't call what God's made holy unholy, and i won't label myself poor when i'm oh so rich.

I don't understand it, but it's true. And last night He let the scales drop from my blurry eyes for just a minute. Praise Him, for there is no other to be praised!