This blog is fittingly named because Sarah Tiedemann keeps bugging me about the infrequency of my blog lately, how I haven’t written in forever. So, here it is Sarah. It’s not that I haven’t wanted to write or had content about which TO write, but not having a computer at home and only writing when the mood hits means that the planets have to align just so in order for me to actual get one of these published.
Planets? Aligned.
So anyway, for a little while there, maybe a couple months, I really felt like if God was saying anything, I just couldn’t hear. I think this happens for a number of reasons, but this time I really just think it’s because I finished reading Genesis and then didn’t have any direction as to where to read next in the Bible. I find that when I just flip around and read where I feel like reading that night or do the where-your-finger-lands thing, what I get out of reading/studying is pretty reciprocal. When I focus on one or two books of the Bible, the same is true, and I get a more focused outcome.
However, in those months, the one thing that kept hitting me again and again is how cool it is that God is unchangeable. Now I know this is a pretty elementary Christian principal, but you know how it is when something old hits you afresh. I was just overwhelmed during this time of supposed dryness with the fact the Jesus sits enthroned in Heaven, forever being praised and adored by the elders, angels, and Heavenly beings, and that nothing I could do/say/believe/feel has any sway on that. Nothing I do wrong or say to misrepresent Him can diminish His glory and triumph in the slightest. I think so often Christians put so much pressure on themselves to be perfect, and in a way we should because we have the great Motivator pushing us to be holy and know God more; at the same time, though, we make our mistakes or decisions tantamount to God’s glorification, and that’s simply not reality. This was and has continued to be so comforting to me. I mess up a lot. It’s nice to have just this simple comfort. In my darkest moments, the saints are still crying “holy holy holy is the Lord God Almighty!!!” and laying down THEIR crowns. ::sigh::
Ok, so that’s that.
Next I’ll tell you all about what’s been happening in me recently, like over the past few weeks. Sometimes I’m so glad to have this blog because it lets me share things with the people I love most pretty easily. I guess strangers can read this, too, which is a little odd really, but I know for a fact that my best friends are “subscribers” or are getting the email sent to them. It allows me to not have to retell the story multiple times. In this case, I’m glad for this blog because it allows me to share what God’s been doing in me without broadcasting it to the world in pride of myself like I’d like to sometimes. Honestly, I’m so lame. Whenever God does something cool in me, my go-to response is to tell everyone, not necessarily so He gets the glory, but so I do. Just another example of confirming the Bible’s truth of my righteousness being as filthy rags. So on here I get to tell the people that won’t pat me on the back for being a good person or turning a corner. You’re the people that will glorify God for this and not me, who’ll pray for me in this new phase, who’ll maybe think “jeez Sam, finally. been a long time coming,” and I so value that.
A few weeks ago, maybe a month ago now, I was sitting in church listening to Pastor Gary preach about living a life of service when God says to me something like “Sam, you’ve been right. I HAVE wanted you to get alone with me and not get involved in church for the past several years. I’ve wanted you to be alone with me. That wasn’t a lie. But from this point on, if you don’t serve, it’s laziness.” This was both comforting and scary. Comforting because sometimes I’ve felt pretty crazy telling people I’m not “supposed” to serve in the church right now, “right now” being the past couple years. It kind of goes against what’s normally acceptable and expected from church goers. I’ve known it’s true, but I’ve also been aware that from the outside it probably comes across as an excuse. And this was scary because, well, I’m not sure I want to move on from this me-and-God bubble I’ve been in. It hasn’t been rapturous by any means. It has been that, but it’s also been hard and offensive and uncomfortable and painful. It’s not been a joy ride all along because God’s been pulling things out of me and shining light on places I wasn’t even aware were dark, but it’s been so… just, good. He’s inched closer and closer to the throne of my heart, while pushing the other things that were/are there aside.
Now He’s told me I have to emerge from this painful/beautiful cocoon, and frankly I don’t wanna!
But He knows how I work, that I need strong words, and He’s told me I either serve or am lazy. And laziness never got anyone more of Him.
So I’ve been praying about that and asking advice as to where I should get involved from leaders I trust and friends I trust.
In the meantime, Pastor goes on to teach about living generously and living a giving lifestyle. There’s no building or fundraising campaign, no thermometer sign on stage to enrage Matt Chandler (or me). He’s simply said he wants us to be free from the things that so easily bind us to this life, to things that don’t matter but seem to. And then the book my friends and I have been studying together had a chapter about the same thing: living generously.
Needless to say, I’ve been very convicted about this. (Sidenote: I hate that the word convicted gets such a bad rap. I feel very OldSouthCondemnationPreacher when I say it, and that’s dumb considering it’s one of the principal functions of the Holy Spirit.) And this feeling of sadness for my lack of generous lifestyle kept building with each thing I heard about it. I’ve never continually tithed. Ever since I’ve had a job I just give when I have enough to do so, and that’s not how it’s supposed to be. I mean, when have you or when have you known me to have money lying around with no purpose? But somehow in my head it’s never seemed like stealing from God or exhibiting a lack of faith or obedience. Instead, it’s seemed like something that, if I did tithe, would show more faith. So I ended up patting myself on the back for the few times I’d tithe rather than chastising myself for the far greater amount of times I didn’t. Then I’d comfort myself by thinking that it was okay that I didn’t give money because I was willing to give in other ways, of my time or possessions. But in the end, this was a lie, too, as I never made it a point to do so. I’m not sure if I thought people would just seek me out and ask me for my time and stuff or what, but the long and short of it is obviously that I didn’t care enough to give at all. And this has been going on since I started working in high school. No wonder my money’s always been out of whack. Granted, I may just always be one of those people who struggles with money management, but I don’t believe the tithing thing is separate either. The physical and spiritual are never completely separate for the Christ follower.
THEN I realized that my home, my actual physical house, is not in order. It’s always messy, and I don’t mean just cluttered or laundry-strewn. I mean disgusting. I literally won’t let people in because their perceptions of me would change. Close friends would be justified in abandoning me, it’s that bad. How can I live a life where my possessions aren’t my own if I can’t even let people come into my house unplanned?
In addition to all this, I’ve been realizing for about a year now how much of my life is strictly dictated by convenience. It’s a lot of why I became a vegetarian, because I realized I didn’t really like meat all THAT much. I only really ate it because there were pre-packaged sandwiches in the cafeteria at church, and it’s what I’d always known. I didn’t want to treat lightly something as important as nourishing myself. What I put into my body matters, and I didn’t want that to be determined by habit or upbringing or culture. So, because I don’t really regulate myself well and am instead an all or nothing person if I want to change anything, I stopped eating meat and haven’t for about 11 months now. It’s been really good.
Last week I realized the same thing is true about my television. About 80% of the time I watched it out of convenience. I’d come home from work and turn the tv on, because I’ve been doing that since I can remember, even in elementary school, until I figured out what I wanted to do that night. And if I didn’t find anything to do, I’d just keep watching, regardless of if I was actually interested in what was on the screen. And yes, I read a lot, but I’d read in addition to tv, not instead of. So really tv was costing me sleep, too.
So, as a result of all these things and realizations happening at the same time, as of Tuesday night, I’ve officially cleaned out my house. Not just cleaned, cleaned out.
I gave my bunk beds to a family at church who just adopted a little boy and needed them. I gave my tv to a local homeless/poor ministry, two ladies that basically moved into the ghetto in order to minister there and live a life that to me really defines what being “poured out on behalf of the poor” looks like. (This is a less drastic move than it might seem because Emily’s boyfriend Tony Tivos weekly the two shows that I watch routinely. Emily watches the same shows, and we generally try and watch them together. So it’s not like I won’t get to see the things I really want to see.) I gave away two trash bags of clothes (and still my clothes barely fit in my closet. How did I get this way?) and a box of random items collected from sorting through my drawers, storage, and under my bed to those same ladies. And my house is the cleanest it’s been since I moved in.
I’m sleeping on my couch for the time being, which is uncomfortable but to the same degree as my old futon/bed was. Also, this paring down of my furniture’s not as big a deal as it might be otherwise because when my sister Jesse moves out here in October, she’s agreed to bring me a bed from my mom’s house in TN and a couch from my parents’ house in KY. So at most I’ll be waiting a couple months for these things, and I’ll actually have nicer stuff than I did before.
With my house decorated more sparsely and everything cleaned out I feel like I can breathe deeper, like there’s more room for my thoughts and soul. Funny, that connection between the physical and the spiritual/mental/emotional.
This is all really just a gesture. I just want to show God that I’m serious about living the life I want to live, and HE wants me to live, now instead of someday. That I want to live sacrificially, with my time and money and resources. I have no clue how I’m going to tithe with all the payments I have coming up, but I’m praying for wisdom and understanding (the book of the Bible I’m reading now is Proverbs, sometimes accompanied by 1John). And even though I know He’s not a multiplication table God, giving me back what I put in like a coin machine, I do trust that He sees my heart, that He sees my actions for what they are: a heart cry of devotion to Him at any cost, of absolute not knowing how to be better but willingness anyway. I pray that He sees my spirit and is refreshed by what He sees (not that He gets tired).
And I pray that He’ll help me change “the way I’ve always been” regarding money, entertainment, food, comfort, relationships.
This has the potential to be far-reaching in more areas than I think I’d bargained for originally. Like for instance, I think when I was younger I thought that mismanaging money was ok because some day I’d get married and I’d let my husband manage our finances. I’d be fine with being given a budget. I know maybe that’s dumb to some of you guys (and it is silly), but really someone’s got to be in charge of money in a marriage; and knowing my poor money skills, I just figured it wouldn’t be me. But I have pretty high standards, I think, for what I want in a man. And I want to be the kind of woman a man like that would want. I don’t WANT him to have to swoop in and fix all these areas of my life. Marriage is hard enough and stretches and refines who you are enough without me bringing in things I could’ve changed in my singleness and just decided wasn’t necessary.
Also, now that I don’t have a tv, I don’t have that distraction. It allows me more free time at home to, say, cook and prepare meals for myself throughout the week instead of buying food and letting some of it go bad before I can get to it or spend extra money in the cafeteria at work.
I just don’t want to live my life like anything’s permanent other than Jesus. Like I said earlier, He’s enthroned regardless. All I can do is choose to join in His praise or join in the praise of myself, and all these modifications I’ve made/am trying to make are just working toward accomplishing the former.
Anyway, this entry has been long enough, although I could go on. The repercussions of this, I can already tell, will be far-reaching and difficult but really really good.
Pray for me if you think of it. This is new and challenging and uncomfortable but wonderful, and I know when anything big like this happens in someone’s life the enemy isn’t happy.
