I am so blessed to be running again. One reason I'm thankful for that is that I've got that time where I am alone, and alone with God in a way that could never be duplicated throughout the rest of my day. For someone who is constantly moving (and perpetually running late), having some built-in time where I am really alone and able to focus is precious. For six months this has been gone, but now I've got this way to worship back, thank God!
During these moments I've had some dates and numbers in my mind:
- Thanksgiving 2009, first 5k, and where I caught this running bug..
- February 2010, 1st half marathon (~3:03)
- May 2010, 2nd half marathon (~2:47)
- September 2010, 3rd half marathon (~2:27) (and the last time I was allowed to run)
- November 9, 2010, heart surgery
- January 31, 2011, first day of running with the Surgeon's blessing!
(- January 10, 2011 'illegally' ran my first mile)
- April 3, 2011 Cherry Blossom 10 miler
- September 2011, half marathon
- October 2011 MARINE CORP MARATHON
It's been almost 20 weeks since heart surgery. I've been able to run about 50 miles during the month of February. I'll have run about 70 in March. I'm getting stronger and faster, and able to run farther every week. I'm just in awe of all of it. I can't stress enough what a gift it is to just be able to run again. I've said it before, it makes feel me invincible to have been through everything and yet still be able to run. I know it's not me who's invincible, but God who's given me the strength to do everything. "My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever" (Psalm 73:26).
As I keep running, I'm trying to keep in mind what all these heart surgery adventures have taught me. I think they're still teaching me.
Friday, March 25, 2011
Saturday, March 5, 2011
Worship Like This - part 1
In the last moments Jesus spent on earth with his disciples, he tells them this:
"'This is what is written: The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. I am going to send you what my Father has promised; but stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.'
When he had led them out to the vicinity of Bethany, he lifted up his hands and blessed them. While he was blessing them, he left them and was taken up into heaven. Then they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy. And they stayed continually at the temple, praising God." Luke 24:46-53
There is so much in this passage... and over the next several posts, I would like to really work through all of it. But to start, I want to focus on the worship.
Place yourself in the shoes of these disciples: you've been through great grief over the past three days. The person you've followed for three years has been brutally, senselessly crucified. And Friday, Saturday, Sunday, you were without hope. But then, Sunday he finally reveals himself to you - he is alive! "Did not the Christ have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?" (Luke 24:26) In these glorious moments reunited with your Savior he speaks to you, promising you power from on high, blessing you. And then he's taken back up into heaven.
THIS is the stage on which the disciples worshiped.
Each of us should worship as these disciples did on that night. Each of us should worship as if we've seen and touched the risen Christ. Each of us should worship as if we've seen him ascend into heaven ourselves. Just close your eyes and imagine this scene set in the end of Luke. It's breath-taking to place ourselves in the disciples shoes and imagine the raw power and glory they witnessed. How real Christ was to these people! Because this great joy that they had, it's ours too. The promises, the blessings they received, these are also ours. Jesus is just as present in our lives as he was in theirs.
"Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him," (Luke 24:31a). Have your eyes been opened to how Christ works in your life? Can you recognize Christ in your life? Is he real to you? When Christ becomes as real to you as he was to the disciples, you can begin to worship as the disciples did.
"'This is what is written: The Christ will suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things. I am going to send you what my Father has promised; but stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.'
When he had led them out to the vicinity of Bethany, he lifted up his hands and blessed them. While he was blessing them, he left them and was taken up into heaven. Then they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy. And they stayed continually at the temple, praising God." Luke 24:46-53
There is so much in this passage... and over the next several posts, I would like to really work through all of it. But to start, I want to focus on the worship.
Place yourself in the shoes of these disciples: you've been through great grief over the past three days. The person you've followed for three years has been brutally, senselessly crucified. And Friday, Saturday, Sunday, you were without hope. But then, Sunday he finally reveals himself to you - he is alive! "Did not the Christ have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?" (Luke 24:26) In these glorious moments reunited with your Savior he speaks to you, promising you power from on high, blessing you. And then he's taken back up into heaven.
THIS is the stage on which the disciples worshiped.
Each of us should worship as these disciples did on that night. Each of us should worship as if we've seen and touched the risen Christ. Each of us should worship as if we've seen him ascend into heaven ourselves. Just close your eyes and imagine this scene set in the end of Luke. It's breath-taking to place ourselves in the disciples shoes and imagine the raw power and glory they witnessed. How real Christ was to these people! Because this great joy that they had, it's ours too. The promises, the blessings they received, these are also ours. Jesus is just as present in our lives as he was in theirs.
"Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him," (Luke 24:31a). Have your eyes been opened to how Christ works in your life? Can you recognize Christ in your life? Is he real to you? When Christ becomes as real to you as he was to the disciples, you can begin to worship as the disciples did.
Friday, March 4, 2011
Vision Casting
What follows is part of an email from a church called Relevant that I follow in Tampa, Florida. Watching them grow over the years has been amazing - and recently they've taken a big step: moving from having Sunday services in the upstairs of a club to having their own building, their own church. It's a huge time of growth for them. The email below is the weekly update from their pastor, Paul Wirth. He wraps up so perfectly what we're trying to do now for Hopewell, so I'm shamelessly stealing:
"I hope that all of you have had a productive and enjoyable week. For me, this has been one of those weeks that I am sure I will look back on for years to come and say that was the week everything changed. This week me, Carl, and Jamie went away for a few days to pray and plan for the future of Relevant and all I can say is that God showed up in a huge way. We were just trying to get away to get our heads above water so to speak and by the time we were finished I felt like I was walking on water.
I believe that God has some huge things in store for each one of us and I believe that His plans include everyone of us. So I just want you to begin now praying this prayer: "God whatever it is that you are about to reveal to me, help me to have the faith to believe it and the determination to do it" I am going to begin to pray this prayer everyday in anticipation that as we seek God and believe Him for great things that He is going to reveal for each of us individually what it is that he has in store for us. And I would like for you to prayer for me that God would help me to clearly cast the vision that He has for us both corporately and individually."
Sunday, February 27, 2011
How do you accidentally run ten miles?
So, how exactly does one "accidentally" run ten miles?
Answers I've gotten today:
I've been meditating on Hebrews 12:1.. "Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles." The race that we are to, by faith, commit to and focus on, this is not an accident. In fact, it is extremely intentional.
Can you imagine someone running a marathon by accident? It just doesn't happen. These things require training, months, even years of maturing your body to the point of taking such punishment. You put in the hard, long work, to prepare yourself for the race. And then.. then you've actually got to show up to the race. You come geared up, mentally stoked, properly fed, proudly displaying that race number on your chest. Marathons require choice upon choice upon choice of dedicated intention to a goal. Not many people are crazy enough to sign up for a marathon, fewer train for it, a few drop out or don't finish. The proud, but physically humbled cross the finish line.
Some would argue that of all of God's creations, we are the ones that are most perfectly built for long-distance running. We are created by design to endure.
"Lord, you have assigned me my portion and my cup; you have made my lot secure." (Ps. 16:5)
So getting outside and remembering these things about running - it serves to remind me that we are in the Christian race and it is not by accident. Choosing to really serve God as He has intended us is a choice, and it is not a popular one or one that everybody really gets. God assigns each of us our portion, and our cups. I realize that I've been getting frustrated with the cup that I've been given and especially my portion. I have failed to remember that God uses trials big and even small to temper us into race-worthy champions.
"Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal." 2 Cor 4:16-18
Answers I've gotten today:
- Got lost
Ran 5 miles on purpose, only to realize you were 5 miles away from your car/house
Zombies and/or being chased with a knife
And my fave... "aren't you supposed to be taking it easy?"
I've been meditating on Hebrews 12:1.. "Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles." The race that we are to, by faith, commit to and focus on, this is not an accident. In fact, it is extremely intentional.
Can you imagine someone running a marathon by accident? It just doesn't happen. These things require training, months, even years of maturing your body to the point of taking such punishment. You put in the hard, long work, to prepare yourself for the race. And then.. then you've actually got to show up to the race. You come geared up, mentally stoked, properly fed, proudly displaying that race number on your chest. Marathons require choice upon choice upon choice of dedicated intention to a goal. Not many people are crazy enough to sign up for a marathon, fewer train for it, a few drop out or don't finish. The proud, but physically humbled cross the finish line.
Some would argue that of all of God's creations, we are the ones that are most perfectly built for long-distance running. We are created by design to endure.
"Lord, you have assigned me my portion and my cup; you have made my lot secure." (Ps. 16:5)
So getting outside and remembering these things about running - it serves to remind me that we are in the Christian race and it is not by accident. Choosing to really serve God as He has intended us is a choice, and it is not a popular one or one that everybody really gets. God assigns each of us our portion, and our cups. I realize that I've been getting frustrated with the cup that I've been given and especially my portion. I have failed to remember that God uses trials big and even small to temper us into race-worthy champions.
"Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal." 2 Cor 4:16-18
Friday, February 25, 2011
Fish on a Hook
I really wish I could say that I've been paying more attention to all that God's been saying to me this month. But I've found myself diving right back into the busyness that characterized me before surgery. I think I've finally realized how mindless much of my busyness is. I've found myself questioning why I'm doing things - what is my intention for involving myself in something else?
I hit my breaking point on the way to work yesterday. I've been getting less and less sleep, and had entirely too many scary things finally getting resolved this week on my plate. I was about to put on the playlist for the songs I'm supposed to be playing this weekend at church, and felt the Holy Spirit moving me to put on a sermon again. This month it's been really hard for me to have the energy to get to church, and I've been sorely missing being fed.
The message really hit home - it was Will Pavone at McLean Bible Church speaking on Hebrews 12:1. "Do you ever get weary in living the Christian life? Do you ever just feel worn out and weary? Many of the folks to whom the book of Hebrews was written, they were growing weary. As a matter of fact, they were exhausted; their fatigue was a fatigue of faith. You see they were tired of the struggles of living the Christian life every day." I'm not usually one to talk aloud to a podcast while I'm alone in my car.. but I found myself shouting at Will Pavone while I was stuck in 2 hours of traffic that morning.
Will continues onto Hebrews 12:1..
"Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us."
Therefore.. what's that there for? It refers to the preceding chapter 11, where it goes over the 'giants of faith' from the old testament. Each of their stories is begun by 'by faith', and serves as examples to us how we should be running our race. This by faith preface really is implied in each of the exhortations in 12:1. We must by faith throw off our weights that slow us down, by faith throw off our sins that throw us down, and by faith run our race with perseverance and fixed focus.
It was on the weights that I really started to breakdown. These weights become unhealthy hindrances and we focus on them instead of time with our Father. Immediately, I felt like I knew what my weights were. I was sitting in it. I was sitting in my stupid car, in stupid traffic, continuing to rack up miles, wasting my precious energy and time just to get to work. And why was I working? Just so I could pay for the car and the stupid traffic tickets! But how do I commute less? Live closer, but you can't afford that! It took me the whole day to begin to recover. On top of everything going on with my health, I can't even sleep, I'm broke, and I feel all this shame and guilt because I've got all these things I'm supposed to do, but don't have the energy or time or focus for. I busy myself almost mindlessly, often out of obligation but usually without intent. I felt so broken, and so weary.
I've come to the conclusion that living this Christian life is like a fish trying to swim upstream. We're already swimming against the current, but then there are hooks everywhere that we can't possibly avoid. As we swim these hooks bite in deeper. They pull us in separate directions, and we literally feel like we're going to be torn apart. We've already ceased to be able to swim against the current, and now it, along with hooks, pull us back and drags us down. We're struggling violently to get the hooks out and they only bite in harder. We can't possibly get the hooks out ourselves. Then comes God - or was He there all along? - and He holds us, grips us firmly. He's waiting for us to stop struggling in His grip. At some point we realize we're not only trying to throw off the hooks, but we're trying to throw off Him, because this struggling has made us weary. We are weary because we are trying to rely on our own power instead of completely by faith in God.
Only when we stop struggling, only when we completely submit to being held in His hands and not by our own power will we get sweet, sweet relief. It makes no sense to be still..if we stop struggling, it feels like we'll absolutely be pulled down, continue sinking. Unless you have faith that One stronger than yourself can take care of the hooks. He's waiting patiently, with you encircled in His hands and arms to stop struggling, to stop trying to fight alone and take care of things yourself. Only once you're finally still, finally submit to His will can he tenderly remove the hooks that have entrapped you. And the tender, strong hands of God are more than capable and very willing to mercifully, lovingly remove the hooks and perform what may be necessary surgery to cut them away.
Are we really willing to give ourselves over to the Hands of God to carry us? Hebrews 12 continues on: "Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart."
Do I really have the humility to put the Glory of God before my own pain and needs? I think I must find it. If I am to stop struggling against my hooks, my weights, against God's glory, love, and power itself, then I must do two things: admit that God's glory is beyond the scope of my wildest imagination and submit humbly to it.
I realize now that I've been praying for answers to my hooks. I prayed for whatever change was necessary to take them out, and yet when the change comes I still struggle against it. Again, finding myself unwilling to submit to His will and His power and His love. And yet, He's constantly reminding me of His hands around me, placing people in my life that continue to lift me up out of the waters and away from the hooks.
"Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal." 2 Corinthians 4:16-18
I hit my breaking point on the way to work yesterday. I've been getting less and less sleep, and had entirely too many scary things finally getting resolved this week on my plate. I was about to put on the playlist for the songs I'm supposed to be playing this weekend at church, and felt the Holy Spirit moving me to put on a sermon again. This month it's been really hard for me to have the energy to get to church, and I've been sorely missing being fed.
The message really hit home - it was Will Pavone at McLean Bible Church speaking on Hebrews 12:1. "Do you ever get weary in living the Christian life? Do you ever just feel worn out and weary? Many of the folks to whom the book of Hebrews was written, they were growing weary. As a matter of fact, they were exhausted; their fatigue was a fatigue of faith. You see they were tired of the struggles of living the Christian life every day." I'm not usually one to talk aloud to a podcast while I'm alone in my car.. but I found myself shouting at Will Pavone while I was stuck in 2 hours of traffic that morning.
Will continues onto Hebrews 12:1..
"Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us."
Therefore.. what's that there for? It refers to the preceding chapter 11, where it goes over the 'giants of faith' from the old testament. Each of their stories is begun by 'by faith', and serves as examples to us how we should be running our race. This by faith preface really is implied in each of the exhortations in 12:1. We must by faith throw off our weights that slow us down, by faith throw off our sins that throw us down, and by faith run our race with perseverance and fixed focus.
It was on the weights that I really started to breakdown. These weights become unhealthy hindrances and we focus on them instead of time with our Father. Immediately, I felt like I knew what my weights were. I was sitting in it. I was sitting in my stupid car, in stupid traffic, continuing to rack up miles, wasting my precious energy and time just to get to work. And why was I working? Just so I could pay for the car and the stupid traffic tickets! But how do I commute less? Live closer, but you can't afford that! It took me the whole day to begin to recover. On top of everything going on with my health, I can't even sleep, I'm broke, and I feel all this shame and guilt because I've got all these things I'm supposed to do, but don't have the energy or time or focus for. I busy myself almost mindlessly, often out of obligation but usually without intent. I felt so broken, and so weary.
I've come to the conclusion that living this Christian life is like a fish trying to swim upstream. We're already swimming against the current, but then there are hooks everywhere that we can't possibly avoid. As we swim these hooks bite in deeper. They pull us in separate directions, and we literally feel like we're going to be torn apart. We've already ceased to be able to swim against the current, and now it, along with hooks, pull us back and drags us down. We're struggling violently to get the hooks out and they only bite in harder. We can't possibly get the hooks out ourselves. Then comes God - or was He there all along? - and He holds us, grips us firmly. He's waiting for us to stop struggling in His grip. At some point we realize we're not only trying to throw off the hooks, but we're trying to throw off Him, because this struggling has made us weary. We are weary because we are trying to rely on our own power instead of completely by faith in God.
Only when we stop struggling, only when we completely submit to being held in His hands and not by our own power will we get sweet, sweet relief. It makes no sense to be still..if we stop struggling, it feels like we'll absolutely be pulled down, continue sinking. Unless you have faith that One stronger than yourself can take care of the hooks. He's waiting patiently, with you encircled in His hands and arms to stop struggling, to stop trying to fight alone and take care of things yourself. Only once you're finally still, finally submit to His will can he tenderly remove the hooks that have entrapped you. And the tender, strong hands of God are more than capable and very willing to mercifully, lovingly remove the hooks and perform what may be necessary surgery to cut them away.
Are we really willing to give ourselves over to the Hands of God to carry us? Hebrews 12 continues on: "Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart."
Do I really have the humility to put the Glory of God before my own pain and needs? I think I must find it. If I am to stop struggling against my hooks, my weights, against God's glory, love, and power itself, then I must do two things: admit that God's glory is beyond the scope of my wildest imagination and submit humbly to it.
I realize now that I've been praying for answers to my hooks. I prayed for whatever change was necessary to take them out, and yet when the change comes I still struggle against it. Again, finding myself unwilling to submit to His will and His power and His love. And yet, He's constantly reminding me of His hands around me, placing people in my life that continue to lift me up out of the waters and away from the hooks.
"Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal." 2 Corinthians 4:16-18
Friday, January 28, 2011
Forsaking Fathers
On vacation over the summer, I was powerfully struck by my last night on our cruise ship. My friend and I had spent the week with the handful of other single people our age on the boat, and two of them had very incredible stories of their past. Joe and Matt (not their real names) were recovering addicts, from some heavy drugs, drinking, sex. They were incredibly crude, and crass. While they had recovered from one addiction, they simply replaced it with another. They were still fascinating people to talk to - eventually I'll try to explain why my friend and I hung out with them all week.
As a recovering alcoholic, Matt had made a habit of buying all the underage teens on the boat drinks, while he indulged in TONS of coffee and cigarettes. The last night, the teens had circled around us, rowdy because most of them were at least tipsy. One 17-year-old was bragging to us and the gathering crowd how he had slept with 3 girls on that ship already, and his mission at college the next year was to sleep with every single girl on campus. He even demanded that my friend and I sleep with him. Obviously we refused, and this sparked an indignant outrage. He eventually left after trying very hard to pick a fight, and Joe made a comment that I don't think I'll ever forget. Joe asked me what kids like this made me feel.
"Frustrated, annoyed. I really wanted to smack some sense into the kid," I said.
Joe quietly responded, "Kids like this used to make me angry, or I'd pity them. But now, I can only feel compassion. You've got to think, if they're acting out in such dramatic ways as this, they've been hurt in deep, serious ways." And this came from Joe, who the entire rest of the trip had been heavily drinking and trying to sleep with various women himself.
With that perspective, I find it difficult to be angry at kids who lash out. They lash out because there is something deep, hurting desperately inside them. And the louder and more dramatically they cry out or abuse others, it only illuminates the depth of their own pain. We cry out, and try to fill this hole that exists in place of the loving relationships we are missing, even as we fervently deny that anything is missing. We are in control. We don't need anyone else, they'll just hurt us.
We have different ways we reject or accept love, essentially. For our different reasons, we have difficulty loving one another. Maybe we were abused, emotionally or physically. Maybe we lost someone important whom we loved and they loved us, and we've never recovered. We are all hurt people.
Each of us knows loneliness in our hearts. We've all felt that sense of abandonment, that we were missing the fellowship that made us whole. Even God knows this sense of loneliness - and remember we were created in His image. "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters." (Genesis 1:1-2) God was lonely, and He created us to have someone to love. He craved a relationship with us.
What about that sense of betrayal each of us have felt? When we are forsaken by those who should love us, especially people who should love us unconditionally? God knows how even this feels. "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?" (Matthew 27:46) "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit." Jesus died alone on the cross, without his Father, and completely innocent and undeserving of any of his abuse or unlove. Maybe part of Jesus' death on the cross was so that he would intimately know the depths of sorrow and hurt of a father who turned his back on him. Jesus was perfect in that he had no sin, but he was also perfect in that he didn't allow this forsaken-ness to stop him from being our Savior. In fact, it makes him a more compassionate and perfect savior because this hurt brings him even closer to us. Despite this brokenness he experienced, he is still capable of love. He IS love.
"Whoever does not love does no know God, because God is love." (1 John 4:8)
Like us, Jesus experienced what it was like to be unloved, left behind, and abused by a loved one. Jesus is perfect, there's no way he deserved any of it. And yet his Father left him forsaken. If the most innocent of us was forsaken by God Himself, then why do we still think if we are forsaken we must deserve it?
The truth is, we fail to realize that when we are hurt or forsaken by those that we love, it is not because we are unworthy of their love. Was Jesus unworthy of God's love?
If we are ever going to begin to heal, we must accept that we are worthy of love, even and especially with, our flaws. We don't have to be perfect to receive love. Jesus was perfect, and yet plenty of people hated him, had him crucified, and even his Father left him alone on the cross. Being perfect does not mean you are loved more.
If you can't accept that there is a God, friends, family, out there that love you unconditionally, you will never be able to give that love to anyone else, including God. You must accept a relationship with God.
This has been very hard for me. I constantly think I am unworthy and shouldn't receive His love. I close His love for me off because I think I don't really deserve it. "But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: while we were still sinners Christ died for us." (Romans 5:8) The only way me or anyone else will ever heal and stop trying to earn love that is impossible to earn is to let love in. God is love.
As a recovering alcoholic, Matt had made a habit of buying all the underage teens on the boat drinks, while he indulged in TONS of coffee and cigarettes. The last night, the teens had circled around us, rowdy because most of them were at least tipsy. One 17-year-old was bragging to us and the gathering crowd how he had slept with 3 girls on that ship already, and his mission at college the next year was to sleep with every single girl on campus. He even demanded that my friend and I sleep with him. Obviously we refused, and this sparked an indignant outrage. He eventually left after trying very hard to pick a fight, and Joe made a comment that I don't think I'll ever forget. Joe asked me what kids like this made me feel.
"Frustrated, annoyed. I really wanted to smack some sense into the kid," I said.
Joe quietly responded, "Kids like this used to make me angry, or I'd pity them. But now, I can only feel compassion. You've got to think, if they're acting out in such dramatic ways as this, they've been hurt in deep, serious ways." And this came from Joe, who the entire rest of the trip had been heavily drinking and trying to sleep with various women himself.
With that perspective, I find it difficult to be angry at kids who lash out. They lash out because there is something deep, hurting desperately inside them. And the louder and more dramatically they cry out or abuse others, it only illuminates the depth of their own pain. We cry out, and try to fill this hole that exists in place of the loving relationships we are missing, even as we fervently deny that anything is missing. We are in control. We don't need anyone else, they'll just hurt us.
We have different ways we reject or accept love, essentially. For our different reasons, we have difficulty loving one another. Maybe we were abused, emotionally or physically. Maybe we lost someone important whom we loved and they loved us, and we've never recovered. We are all hurt people.
Each of us knows loneliness in our hearts. We've all felt that sense of abandonment, that we were missing the fellowship that made us whole. Even God knows this sense of loneliness - and remember we were created in His image. "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters." (Genesis 1:1-2) God was lonely, and He created us to have someone to love. He craved a relationship with us.
What about that sense of betrayal each of us have felt? When we are forsaken by those who should love us, especially people who should love us unconditionally? God knows how even this feels. "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?" (Matthew 27:46) "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit." Jesus died alone on the cross, without his Father, and completely innocent and undeserving of any of his abuse or unlove. Maybe part of Jesus' death on the cross was so that he would intimately know the depths of sorrow and hurt of a father who turned his back on him. Jesus was perfect in that he had no sin, but he was also perfect in that he didn't allow this forsaken-ness to stop him from being our Savior. In fact, it makes him a more compassionate and perfect savior because this hurt brings him even closer to us. Despite this brokenness he experienced, he is still capable of love. He IS love.
"Whoever does not love does no know God, because God is love." (1 John 4:8)
Like us, Jesus experienced what it was like to be unloved, left behind, and abused by a loved one. Jesus is perfect, there's no way he deserved any of it. And yet his Father left him forsaken. If the most innocent of us was forsaken by God Himself, then why do we still think if we are forsaken we must deserve it?
The truth is, we fail to realize that when we are hurt or forsaken by those that we love, it is not because we are unworthy of their love. Was Jesus unworthy of God's love?
If we are ever going to begin to heal, we must accept that we are worthy of love, even and especially with, our flaws. We don't have to be perfect to receive love. Jesus was perfect, and yet plenty of people hated him, had him crucified, and even his Father left him alone on the cross. Being perfect does not mean you are loved more.
If you can't accept that there is a God, friends, family, out there that love you unconditionally, you will never be able to give that love to anyone else, including God. You must accept a relationship with God.
This has been very hard for me. I constantly think I am unworthy and shouldn't receive His love. I close His love for me off because I think I don't really deserve it. "But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: while we were still sinners Christ died for us." (Romans 5:8) The only way me or anyone else will ever heal and stop trying to earn love that is impossible to earn is to let love in. God is love.
Monday, January 17, 2011
Impatient patient
I'm beginning to understand why the word patience is basically the word patient. Patients really need patience.
I finally got to go to cardiac rehabilitation (can you already tell how impatient I was to get started??) and it sort of set my whole weekend up on a theme. I was told a couple things that morning. I was not allowed to run for another 2 weeks, and the little running I had been doing and justifying to myself could possibly have been putting my recovery in jeopardy. In fact, a lot of what I have been doing has been putting my recovery in jeopardy. I haven't been sleeping like I know I should. I have been trying to do everything and stretching myself entirely too thin, even for a person not recovering from heart surgery. I have been trying to do so much (work, jail ministry, small group, running, devotionals, recovery) that I haven't been able to do any of it properly. In fact, I may be doing more damage by doing all of these half-way then by not doing them at all. I've been lying to myself for weeks now, telling myself I am recovered. I am not.
As I was leaving cardiac rehab Friday morning, I caught myself praying for patience. The patience to wait to run and to sit through my recovery like I should be. Two things occurred to me as I wait at the stoplight praying for that. One, I have prayed this prayer before. And two, God was answering it already.
I should have known better. I know God doesn't just flip a switch, and all of a sudden I have patience. Yet that's exactly what I wanted. God provides me the opportunity to learn patience, and that he has certainly provided to me.
So I have spent this weekend trying to figure out how I learn patience. Of course, silly me, I sort of vainly hoped that I could learn patience in a single weekend. Can I hurry up and learn how to be patient already?! Ooooh silly me. I think it will take some time before I've got patience figured out entirely. And I'm not convinced I ever really will know everything there is to patience: I'm human and flawed and I want things now. I think it's in our nature to be impatient and it's something the devil plays to. (Hey Jesus, turn that stone to bread! "Man does not live on bread alone" Hey Jesus, I will give you the world right now! Just worship me first. "Worship the Lord your God and serve him only". Luke 4) The devil plays upon on our need for instant gratification. Jesus replies not only with the Word that is specifically applicable, but he is patient for God for those things which the devil tries to offer him.
So I've come to think that being patient is faith that God will deliver what you are waiting for. Closely linked to patience is perseverance, because sometimes God gives you a cup to drink before you have what He has promised you.
As I've been dwelling on how desperate I am to run again, I was thinking about the last half-marathon I completed. I can easily say it was the fastest, most comfortable race I've been in, and it was the only one I had a plan for. All the other races I've been in, I had an ad-hoc, shoot from the hip, how am I feeling today approach. And none of those races turned out as well for me as that last one that I had trained specifically for. I had a goal and a plan.
I'm thinking that patience is a lot like that too. We have the strength to be more patient when we know there is a goal and a plan to get there.
What if anyone could receive a medal for a finishing a race, even if you didn't race it? Would something like that even mean anything to you? You didn't have to do anything to earn it.
Part of what makes running and these races so special is that not everyone has the patience to endure them. And it does take a lot of patience to train for months and years and to persevere through the inevitable challenges. But the benefits far out weigh the challenges.
On today, MLKjr day, I've seen this quote flashed around: "Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase." I think patience is like staying on that step as long as you need to, and not attempting to skip over parts of the staircase. There is no shortcut to faith, or to those things we patiently await. So how do we focus on our goal and be patient while we work towards that? I think Paul lays out some of that for us:
I think it's also closely related to what follows in that chapter. I feel like athletes especially like to focus on 4:13, but I think God gives us not only physical strength, but the strength for patience and to be content despite our circumstances.
So we focus on what is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, what is excellent or praiseworthy. These are things for us to focus on instead of our circumstances, instead of what we are impatient for. We focus on these as we faithfully take things one step at a time. We focus on these as we follow a plan towards our goal, even and especially when our plan calls not for action, but for inaction.
I finally got to go to cardiac rehabilitation (can you already tell how impatient I was to get started??) and it sort of set my whole weekend up on a theme. I was told a couple things that morning. I was not allowed to run for another 2 weeks, and the little running I had been doing and justifying to myself could possibly have been putting my recovery in jeopardy. In fact, a lot of what I have been doing has been putting my recovery in jeopardy. I haven't been sleeping like I know I should. I have been trying to do everything and stretching myself entirely too thin, even for a person not recovering from heart surgery. I have been trying to do so much (work, jail ministry, small group, running, devotionals, recovery) that I haven't been able to do any of it properly. In fact, I may be doing more damage by doing all of these half-way then by not doing them at all. I've been lying to myself for weeks now, telling myself I am recovered. I am not.
As I was leaving cardiac rehab Friday morning, I caught myself praying for patience. The patience to wait to run and to sit through my recovery like I should be. Two things occurred to me as I wait at the stoplight praying for that. One, I have prayed this prayer before. And two, God was answering it already.
I should have known better. I know God doesn't just flip a switch, and all of a sudden I have patience. Yet that's exactly what I wanted. God provides me the opportunity to learn patience, and that he has certainly provided to me.
So I have spent this weekend trying to figure out how I learn patience. Of course, silly me, I sort of vainly hoped that I could learn patience in a single weekend. Can I hurry up and learn how to be patient already?! Ooooh silly me. I think it will take some time before I've got patience figured out entirely. And I'm not convinced I ever really will know everything there is to patience: I'm human and flawed and I want things now. I think it's in our nature to be impatient and it's something the devil plays to. (Hey Jesus, turn that stone to bread! "Man does not live on bread alone" Hey Jesus, I will give you the world right now! Just worship me first. "Worship the Lord your God and serve him only". Luke 4) The devil plays upon on our need for instant gratification. Jesus replies not only with the Word that is specifically applicable, but he is patient for God for those things which the devil tries to offer him.
So I've come to think that being patient is faith that God will deliver what you are waiting for. Closely linked to patience is perseverance, because sometimes God gives you a cup to drink before you have what He has promised you.
As I've been dwelling on how desperate I am to run again, I was thinking about the last half-marathon I completed. I can easily say it was the fastest, most comfortable race I've been in, and it was the only one I had a plan for. All the other races I've been in, I had an ad-hoc, shoot from the hip, how am I feeling today approach. And none of those races turned out as well for me as that last one that I had trained specifically for. I had a goal and a plan.
I'm thinking that patience is a lot like that too. We have the strength to be more patient when we know there is a goal and a plan to get there.
What if anyone could receive a medal for a finishing a race, even if you didn't race it? Would something like that even mean anything to you? You didn't have to do anything to earn it.
Part of what makes running and these races so special is that not everyone has the patience to endure them. And it does take a lot of patience to train for months and years and to persevere through the inevitable challenges. But the benefits far out weigh the challenges.
On today, MLKjr day, I've seen this quote flashed around: "Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase." I think patience is like staying on that step as long as you need to, and not attempting to skip over parts of the staircase. There is no shortcut to faith, or to those things we patiently await. So how do we focus on our goal and be patient while we work towards that? I think Paul lays out some of that for us:
"Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, - if anything is excellent or praiseworthy - think about such things." (Philippians 4:8)
As James says, "Every good and perfect gift is from above" (James 1:17)
I think it's also closely related to what follows in that chapter. I feel like athletes especially like to focus on 4:13, but I think God gives us not only physical strength, but the strength for patience and to be content despite our circumstances.
"I have learned the secret of being content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who gives me strength." (Philippians 4:11-13)
So we focus on what is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, what is excellent or praiseworthy. These are things for us to focus on instead of our circumstances, instead of what we are impatient for. We focus on these as we faithfully take things one step at a time. We focus on these as we follow a plan towards our goal, even and especially when our plan calls not for action, but for inaction.
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