Ups and Downs November 30, 2009

I recently had the opportunity to have a conversation with a new, young friend who is struggling with questions of career, purpose, singleness–all questions I’ve asked over the last 10 years or so.  As we talked over quesadillas and salsa, I had the sense that this was one of those divinely appointed moments.  My friend was searching for answers, and I needed to be reminded of God’s faithfulness.  Although I didn’t have a lot of answers to her questions, I hope that I at least was able to convey a sense of God’s faithfulness and  provision through the searching and the questions in every season of life.

As is often  the case, when I got in the car to go  home and turned on my Ipod, this song by Kendall Payne was playing. (I like to call this phenomenon the soundtrack to my life).  This song seemed to capture the substance and shape of our conversation.

 

Ups and Downs

by Kendall Payne

All that I’ve found through the ups and downs
Is that I’d have it no other way
Life in the raw is both fragile and strong
It’s both lovely and ugly the same

Who can attest that when they’re at their best
Oh their worst is still crouching close behind
It’s coming to peace with the darkness in me
That allows the true light inside to shine

So let it go, for we are still far from home
Though you try and you try to escape
To live and to love will always be dangerous
But it’s better than playing it safe

We are composed of a symphony of notes
Every life is as music to His ears
I’ll play my melody be it haunting be it sweet
Unashamed of what anyone might hear

So when the load breaks your back and your will
You must still keep your heart in the game
To live and to love will always be dangerous
But it’s better than playing it safe

So let it go, when it don’t feel like home
When inside is your only escape
To live and to love will always be dangerous
But would you want it any other way?

The Grace of Darkness November 4, 2009

A couple weeks ago we had a guest speaker at church who gave a really honest sermon on pain and suffering and disappointment.  Instead of  a sugar sweet happy ending, this speaker said in effect, “Sometimes we do give our all to God in His service and sometimes life doesn’t turn out the way we plan.  But, I still know who God is and I still trust him.”  In the past when I’ve heard these sermons they tend to be the type that lays out all the pain and suffering and how God has delivered that person from the trials and tribulations of life and now everything is happy all the time.  I usually walk away from those types of sermons cynically asking, “Well, what if God didn’t heal you?” or “What if your marriage did in fact end in divorce?” Would you be praising God the same way you are now?  It was refreshing to hear someway honestly say, “Yeah, I’ve had questions and I’ve walked away from God, but by His grace, I’m still trusting Him today.”

Today, I happened to read an interview with Steven Curtis Chapman on the death of his daughter and how his family has healed after this tragedy.  I’ve never been a big Chapman fan, because he always seems to paint a rosy-colored picture of Christianity in his music.  This interview seemed to capture a more honest, and sometimes even darker, side of Chapman.  The events in life that shake our faith to the core always seem to require some wrestling with the deep and a perseverance to keep wrestling and keep holding on long after we’ve given up hope.

Two things struck me about Chapman’s struggle that seem to answer for me how we continue to live in the face of grief and deep disappointment.  One, Chapman over and over repeated Truth to himself.  When he couldn’t find the Truth in himself, he went to trusted mentors and counselors and said, Is this really true?  Can I really trust God?  In spite of doubt and questions, Chapman chose to believe what was True and Real.

But, more than that Chapman also came to realization that even asking the questions and recognizing when we are about to fall into those dark place of doubt is grace.

At the hospital at Vanderbilt, literally within an hour of knowing that my little girl was in heaven with Jesus, I found myself having to make a choice, when I would start to feel myself and everything in me being sucked into this place, this abyss. I would begin to say, “Blessed be the name of the Lord. You give. You take away. But, God, I trust you. I trust you. You are faithful. You are good. I trust you. I trust you.” And as I would say that, literally just choose to make that declaration in the midst of this, I would almost physically feel myself being pulled back from that place. And I’d start to breathe again.

But it wouldn’t be long before I would go, “But, God, what? How could this happen? How are we ever going to survive?” And it’s like here I go back into that black, dark place.

But there was a grace to even recognize that you were falling into that place.

Yes. That is the grace and the gift of God to be able, in that process, to make that choice. That’s the crazy theology of all that—to even be able to make that choice to say, “God, I trust you,” that is a gift of grace.

High School Friends June 17, 2009

On Monday nights since January, I’ve been hanging out with some new high school friends from Young Life.  Next week, I get the privilege of hangout out with about 18 of these new friends along with about 380 other high school students from all over at Sharp Top Cove camp.  I’m really looking forward to this opportunity to get to know the girls better that will be in my cabin.  Most of all, I’m excited about the opportunity to get to introduce my new high school friends to an old Friend.  Please pray for our week at camp that kids will get to know Christ and find him irresistible.  Pray also that as leaders we’ll be able to create space for teens to wrestle with who God is and what a relationship with him means for their lives.

Wrestling with Rest May 6, 2009

Food for thought from the Common Grounds blog:

I know that in my own life, this is why the Sabbath is beautiful and yet difficult—because it is really all about trust. It is a weekly reminder and test of where my faith rests. Too often that is a rude awakening. The Sabbath often opens up our hearts and shows us that with our lips we say we believe that God is sovereign—that he loves us, but our lives are often a constant, anxious struggle to secure our own destiny and identity. To cease from our labors is to concede that we are dependent, and to once again realize that much of our paranoia and anxiety is the direct result of the mistaken idea that we can secure our own future if we just work hard enough. Eugene Peterson says it well, “The Sabbath is about God interfering with all the things you think you need to get done, so that you can focus on what he has done.”

Songs in My Head April 28, 2009

I’ve been listening to Brooke Fraser recently.  She sings with Hillsong some and also on her own. God always uses music, both secular and worship, to minister to me and encourage me.  These lyrics from some of Fraser’s songs have been stuck in my head recently.

Shadowfeet

Walking, stumbling on these shadowfeet
toward home, a land that I’ve never seen
I am changing: less and less asleep
made of different stuff than when I began
and I have sensed it all along
fast approaching is the day

There’s distraction buzzing in my head
saying in the shadows it’s easier to stay
but I’ve heard rumors of true reality
whispers of a well-lit way

When the world has fallen out from under me
I’ll be found in you, still standing
Every fear and accusation under my feet
when time and space are through
I’ll be found in you

Faithful

When I can’t feel you, I have learned to reach out just the same
When I can’t hear you, I know you still hear everyword I pray
And I want you more than I want to live another day
And as I wait for you maybe I’m made more faithful

All the folly of the past, though I know it is undone
I still feel the guilty one, still trying to make it right
So I whisper soft your name, let it roll around my tounge,
knowing you’re the only one who knows me
You know me

Show me how I should live this
Show me where I should walk
I count this world as loss to me
You are all I want
You are all I want

Hosanna

Heal my heart and make it clean
Open up my eyes to the things unseen
Show me how to love like you have loved me

Break my heart from what breaks yours
Everything I am for your kingdoms cause
As I go from nothing to
Eternity