Glass in My Feet

This month, I’m going to the Festival of Faith and Writing. Two years ago, it was amazing. The title of the final plenary session caught my attention–“If Only I Had Her Verbs! On Jealousy, Creativity, and a Generous God.” It was Rachel Held Evans, one of my favorites, and I so needed to hear what she had to say.

The title got me, because I had more than an inkling she was going to go there. There, to that place I knew would be raw and painful to the touch. Like the time I had to let my husband dig a piece of glass out of my foot while I cried and grasped the chair like it was a rope hanging off the Sears Tower. It had to come out so I could walk. But the process threatened my polite pastor’s vocabulary.

Jealousy.

The #livefreeThursday prompt for this week is “from back row to front row.” How do you feel going from one to the other, or wishing you were in one and not the other? And I do know the feeling.

Jealousy of other writers, other pastors, other professionals who are where I want to be. Saying what I want to say. With platforms that actually get them heard. And I am jealous.

Yes, it’s ugly and counterproductive and hard to admit. But it’s real. And I don’t think I’m alone.

Some time ago, I mentioned on my Facebook author page that I have one prayer practically every day: “More You, less me.” Short and to the all-too-mortifying point. I despise my own obsession with me. But I have a tough time getting over myself.

Is anyone with me here?

I echo John the Baptist so often in my personal moments of chastisement. “He must increase, and I must decrease.” God, that’s what I want. But I lack the mad skills to know exactly how that happens when the mind is an insistent thing clamoring for me to live inside its walls and telling me the internet reception is better there anyway.

It doesn’t matter if it’s the demon on one shoulder telling me I’m the best thing since CS Lewis and why don’y people recognize that or the demon on the other shoulder insisting I’m a huge fraud with no talent who should have gone to law school as planned because at least there putting on a show is acceptable business. I may have a small issue with imposter syndrome.)

Neither one, you might have noticed, is an angel. Both have the same goal—to get us to think about ourselves. Only ourselves. And to obsess over where those selves stand in the world of other selves. Above or below? We have to know.

I took to heart what she said, and I vowed to make it mine. “There is enough room out there for everyone. God is a generous God.” I know this to be true. I believe it with everything in me. I want to live it.

“There is enough room out there for everyone. God is a generous God.”

Then, with those best intentions evidently not-so-firmly in place, I open Facebook on Monday to hear all about my writer friends who are doing great things. And all those intentions sink in a sea of “That’s so not fair!/ Why is that not my life?/ Well goody for you little Miss Sunshine I hope you enjoy it while it lasts.”

I can be pretty rude in the grasp of jealousy.

Usually, I am content to be very happy for others’ success. I can want mine and love theirs. But some days, it feels like their comes at the expense of mine. That so smacks of older brother rivalry of his little prodigal bro. I don’t like being that brother.

Why is there such a disconnect between what we know to be true and what we feel to be true when our dreams are threatened? Why do we listen to those twin demons? Why does someone else have to be less than so I can be more? Why can’t we live like we believe “There is enough room out there for everyone because God is a generous God”?

I think the culprit, as usual, isn’t anther person. It’s fear. Fear that our dreams will not look like we want them to. That they won’t ever look like anything. Fear can cause some ugly, ugly stuff to come out of our hearts and into our thoughts.

It’s beautiful when everyone finishes together.

What do you do when fear makes you ugly? I’m pretty sure it’s not just me. I know it isn’t, since some of my favorite Brene Brown quotes talk about our scarcity fears, how we buy into the lie that there is not enough to go around. In order to ever succeed, we have to compete with one another, feeling the pressure to perform all the time. Fear makes me think that if you succeed, there won’t be enough room for me, too.

It’s a lie.

There is enough room out there for everyone. God is a generous God.

Together is the way to gain front row or back row or any row in between. A heart-deep belief that God makes room in the row for all of us, so my job isn’t to keep you from the front row; it’s to help you get there. Nor is it to worry that if you’re already there, there isn’t room for me at the popular table. There is. Enough is God’s specialty.

Less me. More you. God, every, every day. Until it’s true.

Running Afraid

I think my mother’s last words to me were, “Make sure they lay me out in my pink dress and headscarf.” Not really what I hope to focus on with my final utterance to my kids. (Especially since I already told them to cremate me and toss the ashes in Lake Superior. Maybe a swimsuit would be more appropriate. . .)

OK, this is Lake Michigan. Close enough.

Last words matter to us. But what about first words? Preachers and theologians have focused a lot on Jesus’ last words on the cross. But what about his first words after the cross? Might they matter as much as, if not more than, the last?

We’re at the end in our series on encounters with Jesus.

I have loved getting to know him better. Next week—something new! But this week, we finish with the beginning—the resurrection.

Early on Sunday morning, as the new day was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went out to visit the tomb. Suddenly there was a great earthquake! For an angel of the Lord came down from heaven, rolled aside the stone, and sat on it. Then the angel spoke to the women. “Don’t be afraid!” he said. “I know you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He isn’t here! He is risen from the dead, just as he said would happen. Come, see where his body was lying. And now, go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead, and he is going ahead of you to Galilee. You will see him there. Remember what I have told you.”

The women ran quickly from the tomb. They were very frightened but also filled with great joy, and they rushed to give the disciples the angel’s message. And as they went, Jesus met them and greeted them. And they ran to him, grasped his feet, and worshiped him. Then Jesus said to them, “Don’t be afraid! Go tell my brothers to leave for Galilee, and they will see me there.” (Matthew 28.1-10)

We have a Jesus who sees us first

An unsuspecting group of women go off, weeping, to a grave, and instead of a dead body in need of spices and rewrapping they get this. A decidedly NOT dead body. And what are the first words out of the resurrected Jesus’ mouth? “Don’t be afraid.” (Also, the first words the angel offers. Jesus prepped his people well.)

First of all, how like the Jesus we’ve been meeting is this? No big light show with angels doing a tap number about how great he is for what he’s done. No talk of what this all means in the big cosmic scheme. No focus on himself at all. His first words focus on—them. And how they must feel.

Because fyi, despite all our Easter happiness and joy today, seeing someone you watched die be not dead and chatting with you would be terrifying. I am giving these ladies a lot of props for standing there and not completely freaking out and running away screaming.

If you still want proof that Jesus is God, look at this. Any human would have made this moment All. About. Me. I would. You would. We would be ordering up the photoshoot with USA Today and signing autographs. Setting up an NPO. Offering our services to the political party of our choice.

But not Jesus. He looks at these faithful women, sees into their hearts, anticipates their need, and makes it about them.

Don’t be afraid.

Even in resurrection, he calls us to humility by his own example. The immense power of the resurrection is used not for personal gain or public display or political security but to teach us to look outward. Telling those who need to encounter the resurrected Lord—don’t be afraid. Come to the tomb, see for yourself, and don’t be afraid.

We have a Jesus who empowers us for a job

There is another reason we see the words, “Don’t be afraid.” The second time, it’s because he’s about to give these women a job. Go. Tell the guys. (Who, of course, did not roll out of bed to get here before you, awesome ladies.)

Jesus appreciates our worship and loves our study to know more of him. But he commands our feet to hit the floor. Go. This is not a tea and crumpets party I’m kicking off now. It’s a kingdom. It’s a movement. It’s an upside-down inside-out party where scared people act, hurting people heal, blind people see, and dead people live. There is room for absolutely everyone except for bystanders.

Go. Go how? Go the way Jesus tells his other disciples to go later—by feeding and loving his people well (John 21). Go be agents of the kingdom here and now. Spread the news, by words, deeds, and example, that there is a new world order and its hallmarks are peace and grace.

Can you see the beauty of the call? It’s so needed in a world whose hallmark lately seems to be arrogance, offense, and fear.

We have a Jesus who gives us a job to do and supplies the resurrection power to get it done. If only we refuse to be afraid. And if we don’t . . . there’s always this gem in there:

We have women who obeyed afraid

Look at this again. “The women ran quickly from the tomb. They were very frightened but also filled with great joy, and they rushed to give the disciples the angel’s message.” They were scared as heck—and they ran to obey anyway.

They obeyed before they had even seen Jesus himself.

They obeyed uncertain of their success. (Would those men believe anything they said?)

They obeyed without knowing the next step.

They obeyed scared.

Could that be what you need to hear this day after Easter? When all the joy and faith of Easter is still fresh in your heart? Before the elections, tragedies, or personal anxieties of the world return with their hope-suffocating tendencies? What is that thing God wants you to move forward on? Will you obey scared?

Jesus’ first post-death words, with all the options open to him, were “Don’t be afraid.” that’s a Jesus we can surely love.

Obey Scared

I think my mother’s last words to me were, “Make sure they lay me out in my pink dress and headscarf.” Not really what I hope to focus on with my final utterance to my kids. (Especially since I already told them to cremate me and toss the ashes in Lake Superior. I don’t have the slightest concern about what I’ll be wearing.)

Last words matter to us. But what about first words? Preachers and theologians have focused a lot on Jesus’ last words on the cross. But what about his first words after the cross? Might they matter as much as if not more than the last?

We’re at the end in our series on encounters with Jesus. I have loved getting to know him better. Next week—something new! But this week, we finish with the beginning—the resurrection.

Early on Sunday morning, as the new day was dawning, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went out to visit the tomb. Suddenly there was a great earthquake! For an angel of the Lord came down from heaven, rolled aside the stone, and sat on it. Then the angel spoke to the women. “Don’t be afraid!” he said. “I know you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He isn’t here! He is risen from the dead, just as he said would happen. Come, see where his body was lying. And now, go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead, and he is going ahead of you to Galilee. You will see him there. Remember what I have told you.”

The women ran quickly from the tomb. They were very frightened but also filled with great joy, and they rushed to give the disciples the angel’s message. And as they went, Jesus met them and greeted them. And they ran to him, grasped his feet, and worshiped him. Then Jesus said to them, “Don’t be afraid! Go tell my brothers to leave for Galilee, and they will see me there.” (Matthew 28.1-10)

We have a Jesus who sees us first

An unsuspecting group of women go off weeping to a grave, and instead of a dead body in need of spices and rewrapping they get this. A decidedly NOT dead body. And what are the first words out of the resurrected Jesus’ mouth? “Don’t be afraid.”

First of all, how like the Jesus we’ve been meeting is this? No clouds opening and sunbeam spotlight on him, with angels doing a tap number about how great he is for what he’s done. No talk of what this all means in the great cosmic scheme. No focus on himself at all. His first words focus on—the women. And how they must feel.

Because fyi, despite all our Easter happiness and joy today, seeing someone you watched die be not dead and chatting with you would be terrifying. I am giving these ladies a lot of props for standing there and not completely freaking out and running away screaming.

If you still want proof that Jesus is God, look at this. Any human would have made this moment All. About. Me. I would. You would. We would be ordering up the photoshoot with USA Today and signing autographs. Setting up an NPO. Offering our services to the political party of our choice.

But not Jesus. He looks at these faithful women, sees into their hearts, anticipates their need, and makes it about them.

Don’t be afraid.

Even in resurrection, he calls us to humility and looking outward by his own example. The immense power of the resurrection is used not for personal gain or public display or political security but to teach us to follow his example.

Telling those who need to encounter the resurrected Lord—don’t be afraid. Come to the tomb, see for yourself, and don’t be afraid.

We have a Jesus who empowers us for a job

There is another reason he says don’t be afraid. The second time, it’s because he’s about to give them a job. Go. Tell the guys. (Who, of course, did not roll out of bed to get here before you, awesome ladies.)

Jesus appreciates our worship and loves our study to know more of him. But he commands our feet hit the floor.

Go. This is not a tea and crumpets party I’m kicking off now. It’s a kingdom. It’s a movement. It’s an upside-down inside-out party where scared people act, hurting people heal, blind people see, and dead people live. There is room for absolutely everyone except for bystanders.

Go. Go how? Go the way Jesus tells his other disciples to go later—by feeding and loving his people well. (John 21) Go be agents of the kingdom here and now. Spread the news, by words, deeds, and example, that there is a new world order and its hallmarks are peace and grace.

Can you see the beauty of the call? It’s so needed in a world whose hallmarks lately seem to be arrogance, offense, and fear.

We have a Jesus who gives us a job to do and supplies the resurrection power to get it done. If only we refuse to be afraid. And if we don’t . . . there’s always this gem in there.

We have people who obeyed afraid

Look at this again. “The women ran quickly from the tomb. They were very frightened but also filled with great joy, and they rushed to give the disciples the angel’s message.” They were scared as heck—and they ran to obey anyway.

They obeyed before they had even seen Jesus himself.

They obeyed uncertain of their success. (Would those men believe anything they said?)

They obeyed without knowing the next step.

They obeyed scared.

Could that be what you need to hear this day after Easter? When all the joy and faith of Easter is still fresh in your heart? Before the elections, tragedies, or personal anxieties of the world return with their hope-suffocating tendencies? What is that thing God wants you to move forward on? Will you obey scared?

Jesus’ first post-death words, with all the options open to him, were “Don’t be afraid.” That’s a Jesus we can surely love.

The Circle Is Wide

I am on record as being a Christmasholic. I love everything about the season. (Except Santa Baby and fruitcake. Always that except.) But Good Friday and Easter . . . something there speaks to the deepest part of my soul. The happiness of Christmas is just that—happiness. The seriousness of Good Friday is a good somber. A cleansing interrogation in the mirror that leads to freedom.

And what freedom. The release of Easter is pure joy. Joy has a different quality than happiness. The tone is richer, the echo more long-lasting.

So during this Easter week we look for the last time at an encounter with Jesus.

As Jesus went with Jairus, he was surrounded by the crowds. A woman in the crowd had suffered for twelve years with constant bleeding, and she could find no cure. Coming up behind Jesus, she touched the fringe of his robe. Immediately, the bleeding stopped.

“Who touched me?” Jesus asked.

Everyone denied it, and Peter said, “Master, this whole crowd is pressing up against you.”

But Jesus said, “Someone deliberately touched me, for I felt healing power go out from me.” When the woman realized that she could not stay hidden, she began to tremble and fell to her knees in front of him. The whole crowd heard her explain why she had touched him and that she had been immediately healed. “Daughter,” he said to her, “your faith has made you well. Go in peace.” (Luke 8)

I am intrigued by this woman. She has suffered in shame for twelve years. Her medical problem is assumed to be a “feminine” one—which makes her doubly unacceptable in social situations. She probably had to hide her face in this crowd; otherwise, someone will recognize her, and the whole crowd will form a space around her, marking her by her uncleanness in a painful, public way.

Maybe you’ve been in a circle like that. Maybe as a child on the playground the others circled around you, keeping the distance of “other” and making fun of you for your clothes, your face, or your accent. Maybe as an adult you’ve felt the circle more than seen it. It forms around you if you’re divorced, or single, or another race. If you have “difficult” kids or not enough money for ladies night out.

The circle can be cruel.

This lady didn’t want a circle to form, so she crept up to Jesus, unseen, and touched the hem of his clothing. Look at this. Just. Look. At. This.

She believed she would be healed if she touched his clothes. While other people are standing in front of him, demanding his attention, calling for light shows and free bread and dances on water—this woman just wants to touch the outer fringes of Jesus. She knows this will be enough.

That is faith I would give a lot for.

And she is right. Jesus heals her, without even paying attention to her. A miracle healing occurs.

But then another miracle happens. This one she does not anticipate. This time Jesus knows full well where his power is going and what it’s doing. In fact, he’s deliberately making it happen. He insists she come out of hiding and be seen. While she had wanted, needed, to remain hidden in the crowd, Jesus calls her out of hiding. She has to tell everyone what has happened. The details. Which are very personal.

A second miracle occurs. She is not only healed of her sickness. She is healed of her shame. She is called out of the center of the circle and told she does not ever have to stand there again and listen to the mocking of the crowd. She never has to hear their judgments or see their side eyes or wonder if she will be let into the group. She is free of the shaming circle. She is healed all the way through.

G.K. Chesterton said that,

“Christianity . . . has a God who knew the way out of the grave.”

Good Friday is a real reminder that sin and shame are a part of life this side of the Garden. Easter is a joyful reminder that we can bury them with a mere touch of Jesus’ clothing. He has that much power.

The power of Easter is that if somehow today you’re standing in the middle of a circle, you don’t need to. Whatever shame you’ve carried, you can leave it there. Whatever worry you’ve wrestled over, whatever judgment someone has rained down on you, whatever fault you can’t seem to shake—touch his cloak, leave it in the circle, and walk away free. Don’t be afraid to step into the light and look at his face as he forgives you or heals you or blesses you–whichever you need.

Jesus greatest miracle isn’t the healing.

It’s the calling into the light. It’s the demand that people be seen and known, no matter who they are or what their circumstances have been. It’s their restoration as creations and images of God, restored by the power of a God who knew the way out of the grave.

The miracle of Easter is that we no longer have to be afraid of the light, because the circle is wide. Wide as his love.

Stories from the Underdog

Today, Kelly wants me to pick out my five favorite Bible stories for #FridayFive. Sure. Right after that, I’ll choose my favorite color, book, and kid. I love Scripture. I love Bible stories. They’re all good. (OK, maybe not all good. That one about Ananias and Sapphira, for instance, is a little troubling. And, well, the entire book of Judges.)

Just five. So in no apparent order, here they are.

The Tale of Cornelius

It’s complicated. Peter prays and has a persistent vision from God telling him to kill and eat a roof full of animals that Jewish people were not allowed by law to eat. Peter doesn’t get it. God, however, is more persistent than all of our self-justifications (which can be pretty persistent). He convinces Peter, who then discovers that the vision means he is to go to Cornelius’ house.

As Peter was puzzling over the vision, the Holy Spirit said to him, “Three men have come looking for you. Get up, go downstairs, and go with them without hesitation. Don’t worry, for I have sent them.”

So Peter went down and said, “I’m the man you are looking for. Why have you come?”

They said, “We were sent by Cornelius, a Roman officer. He is a devout and God-fearing man, well respected by all the Jews. A holy angel instructed him to summon you to his house so that he can hear your message.”

They arrived in Caesarea the following day. Cornelius was waiting for them and had called together his relatives and close friends. Peter told them, “You know it is against our laws for a Jewish man to enter a Gentile home like this or to associate with you. But God has shown me that I should no longer think of anyone as impure or unclean. So I came without objection as soon as I was sent for. Now tell me why you sent for me.” (Acts 10)

Cornelius and all his household hear about Jesus from a man who had believed they could not be accepted by God because of their birth heritage. God changed the heart of a man given to prejudice. As a result, one extended and extensive family received salvation.

I love stories of barriers being broken and walls coming down. I love when God moves people to love and serve other people whose skin color, beliefs, or language are not like their own. It gives me hope, in these scary times when hatred and prejudice seems to be the new american flag, that God can make reconciliation happen.

Speaking of Peter . . .

Jesus’ Post-resurrection visit with the disciples

Simon Peter said, “I’m going fishing.”

“We’ll come, too,” they all said. So they went out in the boat, but they caught nothing all night.

At dawn Jesus was standing on the beach, but the disciples couldn’t see who he was. He called out, “Fellows, have you caught any fish?”

“No,” they replied.

Then he said, “Throw out your net on the right-hand side of the boat, and you’ll get some!” So they did, and they couldn’t haul in the net because there were so many fish in it.

Then the disciple Jesus loved said to Peter, “It’s the Lord!” When Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he put on his tunic (for he had stripped for work), jumped into the water, and headed to shore (John 21)

First, Peter cannot wait for the boat to actually land. He jumps in, as he has characteristically jumped into most everything, before thinking. By the time he gets to shore, I am guessing he’s had time to remember that he and Jesus did not part on the best of terms. Would Jesus forgive him? Should he? I bet he swam a little slower toward the end there. I bet he considered turning around and going back to the boat. After all, he should help them with the catch, right? Fishing had been his idea.

And then, Jesus pulls impetuous, worried Peter aside and asks if he loves him. Three times. And gives him a job to do.

Peter gets a second chance. He gets to take his impetuous nature and redeem it for good. He is commissioned to use what he has for God, no matter what has gone before. Jesus simply does not care that Peter has failed often and completely. He knows that he’s also gotten it right, and that willingness makes up much for lack of perfection.

I am so grateful for this. For all my Peter-like moments,when zeal ha gotten the better of good judgment, I am reminded. God leaves our mistakes behind us. So maybe I should, too.

The Woman at the Well

Jesus meet a Samaritan woman and asks her to give him water from the well. She is a taboo person. Immoral. Foreign. Female. Off limits for noticing, let alone conversation and drinks.

The woman was surprised, for Jews refuse to have anything to do with Samaritans. She said to Jesus, “You are a Jew, and I am a Samaritan woman. Why are you asking me for a drink?” (John 4)

When she begins questioning him about theological details, he answers her, honestly and thoroughly. I don’t love this story merely because he spoke to a woman whom no one else would give notice. I love it because he listened to her and took her seriously. He didn’t talk down to her. He didn’t belittle her. He didn’t say, “This conversation is too much for your pretty little head to handle.” He engaged her mind and respected it. I appreciate that a lot in a Christian culture that so often does not do that for women.

Jesus is just plain awesome.

Gideon

Gideon was threshing wheat at the bottom of a winepress to hide the grain from the Midianites. The angel of the Lord appeared to him and said, “Mighty hero, the Lord is with you!”

“Sir,” Gideon replied, “if the Lord is with us, why has all this happened to us? The Lord has abandoned us and handed us over to the Midianites.”

Then the Lord turned to him and said, “Go with the strength you have, and rescue Israel from the Midianites. I am sending you!”

“But Lord,” Gideon replied, “how can I rescue Israel? My clan is the weakest in the whole tribe of Manasseh, and I am the least in my entire family!”

The Lord said to him, “I will be with you. And you will destroy the Midianites as if you were fighting against one man.” (Judges 6)

I so relate to Gideon. His belief in his own inferiority is so real. He probably spit his grape juice when he heard the words, “Mighty warrior.” Yeah, right. Have you not noticed, God, that I am at this moment hiding from bullies who want to hurt me? Go in the strength I have? That would be none, God. Nada. Zero.

And God doesn’t even listen to that negative junk. He says, “Yeah, I know. We’ve got this. Go.” Gideon does. Happy ending.

I so often feel like the strength I have is little and my position to do anything is the least in the entire family of God. Yet God never feels that way about me. He sends, I go, and he delivers. This is the start of a beautiful friendship.

The Lame Man by the Pool

A man who has been lame for 38 years (yes, you read that right) sits by this pool every day. It is believed that if you gt into the water, you can be healed. But he has never gotten into the water. He has just sat by it for 38 years. 38.

When Jesus saw him and knew he had been ill for a long time, he asked him, “Would you like to get well?”

“I can’t, sir,” the sick man said, “for I have no one to put me into the pool when the water bubbles up. Someone else always gets there ahead of me.”

Jesus told him, “Stand up, pick up your mat, and walk!”

This guy has never actually tried to get in the pool! He has all kinds of excuses for Jesus. The lack of effort to get well is most certainly not his fault. Jesus asks if he wants to get well—and I love that. He forces an answer the man has been afraid to make. Then, despite the excuses and errors, he heals him.

I’m seeing a pattern in these stories. Someone is out of the center of society, for one reason or another. Unaccepted and unwanted. Someone feels unable, unprepared, or unequipped to do what he or she is called to do. Fear is winning. The lies that tell us we are not enough are winning.

And God pronounces that, with Him, we are enough. We are healed. We are accepted. We are capable.

Then he smiles and says, — “Go.”

I love when God tells a story and it ends up to be a part of us, as well.

 

Check our Mrs. Disciple for more favorite Bible stories.

Waiting for Adventure

The adventure begins. Just reading that #LiveFreeThursday prompt made my eyes light up and my smile grow. I am all about adventure. (To understand this better, you’d have to read one of my previous #LiveFreeThursday posts.) I haven’t always been. Adventure once terrified me. I preferred my happy little home with two cars and three kids and one cat.

Maybe it was the advent of, at one point, 22 other pets that started the yearning for adventure. Maybe it was the mission trip to China. Maybe it was falling in love with JRR Tolkien and his courageous hobbits. Maybe it was God.

All I know is that somewhere while I was just doing normal life, adventure-craving crept in and made me discontent with the way things had always been. I wanted to hear from God that there was more.

And there was.

God has taken me on many adventures since then. But what comes to mind today when I read this prompt—the adventure begins—is not how to begin an adventure. It’s what to do when the adventure isn’t beginning—and you are waiting. And you don’t know how long the wait will be.

Right now, in fact, I am chafing to embark on another adventure. I can see the trail, and it beckons with all the certainty of a God-path before me. Problem is, I’m waiting. Though I have certainty that it is what God has for me, I have no certainty that it will happen. That sounds contradictory. It is what it is.

I’m like Frodo keeping the ring secret and safe, but unlike Frodo, I want the adventure to begin. I long to set foot on the long trail to, well, not Mordor. I believe God has pleasanter places in mind this time. I’m standing on the seashore, hungry to dive in to the surf and let it carry me wherever God moves the tide.

But I can’t.

The messy reality is that this decision is tied up in denominational boards and church boards and confusing choices, and I am waiting on others to see what I see.

I don’t like waiting.

I am hungry, I am impatient, and I am restless, knowing the road is at my feet and I cannot put on the hiking boots and follow it. This doesn’t seem right. Yet, God always does right. And I must reconcile these two truths while I wait.

What do you do when you want to begin an adventure, but God makes you wait?

What happens when you’re standing, toe to the line, listening for the starting pistol, but it’s taking too long?

How do you cope when your bags are packed, but the tickets are hung up in the home office somewhere and you don’t know when or if they’ll ever be delivered?

First, you completely submit to God. OK, first, you yell and bite back angry retorts and cry. A lot. You cry for days. I mean, if you’re anything like me.

Then, you submit to God.

I am a strategic planner. I love creating avenues to get from Point A to Point B, and I’m good at figuring out the best path. That also means I’m bad at giving up those perfectly planned out paths and letting God (and others) move in a different direction. This adventure I’m waiting for has my name all over it. I see endless plans that could unfold. But they are my plans, and His plan is taking a more circuitous route. He has another goal that I don’t yet see.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart;

    do not depend on your own understanding.

Seek his will in all you do,

    and he will show you which path to take. (Proverbs 3.5-6)

It’s not an adventure worth taking if it’s not His way and His timing. While my heart breaks and my hands ache to take on his new thing, I have to be still and know that though He may have put the adventure in my heart, he has His reasons for saying, “not yet.” My understanding is not to be depended on, no matter how strategic and certain.

Trust. That elusive decision that, when made, lands you on bedrock every time. Daily, as I feel the impatience rise, I choose to trust in the Lord with all my heart.

You realize it’s not all about you.

What’s the first thing we often do when God contradicts our plans? We ask Him what we’re supposed to learn from this. What lesson do you have for me, God? Where is the purpose? Because if I can find that and figure it out quickly, we can move on, right? The adventure can begin.

Wrong. You know what I’ve come to realize? Sometimes, it’s not about me. I know, shocker. But really, what if God’s plan is for someone else to learn something? What if the wait is so another person can hear from him? What if it has absolutely nothing to do with me, and I am in this holding pattern so his good purpose can be worked out for another soul? And I just get the headache privilege of being one of his conduits for helping another?

It doesn’t always have to be about me. His plans are so much larger. There is an entire story, and I’m a small part of it, really. As Samwise Gamgee says, when he comes to understand that stories look very different from the outside than the inside, “I wonder what kind of a tale we’ve fallen into?” The best part of an adventure sometimes is that we can’t see the whole tale unfolding while we’re in it. We have to do our part and let the greater story be about someone else. Ultimately, about Jesus.

You stay faithful where you are.

If God has me staying put for now, he wants me to keep doing the original assignment with a full heart and soul. No daydreaming about where Id like to be. No straying off on my own. No letting things here be half-done halfheartedly because my heart is attached to something that is not yet mine. Stay faithful in what He’s given me to do.

So, my dear brothers and sisters, be strong and immovable. Always work enthusiastically for the Lord, for you know that nothing you do for the Lord is ever useless. (1 Corinthians 15.58)

A faithful, sensible servant is one to whom the master can give the responsibility of managing his other household servants and feeding them. If the master returns and finds that the servant has done a good job, there will be a reward. I tell you the truth, the master will put that servant in charge of all he owns. (Matthew 24.45-47)

Though I want to begin a new adventure, for now, I will stay the course and be faithful where I am. There is as much courage in that as there is in striking out on a new road.

You keep your eyes open.

I’m still ready. I know change is in the air, because God has planted that in my heart. I don’t know when it will come. I believe I know where, but even that could be His surprise. My job is to stay alert to know when it is time. To make my plans, loosely but still prepared. To go with a ready heart and drawn up strategy for when he does say, “Let’s go.” To not settle in and get comfortable.

To work hard where I am yet plan for another place. To trust, to wait, to hold loosely, but to be ready. That’s what I’m doing while waiting for the adventure to unfold. I’v got my boots on. For now, they’re work boots, and that’s OK. Tomorrow, perhaps, they’ll be hiking boots.

And I can’t wait. But yet, I can.

A Slut in the Seminary

I am by no means technologically ignorant. The horizon of techo-idiocy, however, is somewhat visible from where I stand. This is to say, my relationship with technology is. . . . complicated. The more I know, the more I see how much there is to know.

I mean, I have good tutors at home.

But when I want to know something about buying tech, I go to one of two places: Fry’s, or the Apple Store. You know why? Because the salespeople there do not treat me like a techno idiot. They explain everything very well, using tech language, and then if I choose to say, “please put that in terms that do not sound like Congolese to me,” they will do so. What they have never done is take one look at me, think “middle-aged woman,” and condescend. We have intelligent conversations, and I purchase what I need.

I like that in a salesperson. I go back.

You know the opposite feeling. It happened the last time you went to the doctor and he said, “Well honey, it’s probably just stress.” Or the car mechanic said, “Huh. That sound doesn’t happen to me. Have you checked the oil?” Or you even said yourself, “I’m just a mom. What do I know about theology?”

There are still a lot of places where you and I, ladies, are treated dumb. Or worse, we play dumb, because that’s what we’ve learned to get by, and now we believe it.

Ever since I was the five-year-old who told Santa, “I don’t want a stupid little kid coloring book—I want to do dot-to-dot” most of my acquaintances have been well aware—I do not do condescension well. (I need to work on that. It does not usually precede my best shining-Jesus moments.)

That’s why I love today’s Jesus encounter—one of the last we’ll see in this series. He comes across a woman most people discount, ignore, or shun, and He SEES her. He acknowledges her. He takes her seriously. There is not a hint of condescension in any of Jesus’ encounters with women, and this is one of the best.

Eventually he (Jesus) came to the Samaritan village of Sychar. Jacob’s well was there; and Jesus, tired from the long walk, sat wearily beside the well about noontime. Soon a Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her,“Please give me a drink.” He was alone at the time because his disciples had gone into the village to buy some food.

The woman was surprised, for Jews refuse to have anything to do with Samaritans. She said to Jesus, “You are a Jew, and I am a Samaritan woman. Why are you asking me for a drink?”

Jesus replied, “If you only knew the gift God has for you and who you are speaking to, you would ask me, and I would give you living water.” (John 4.4-10)

For many, this is a familiar story. This woman, whom any Jewish man would steer clear of on account of a: she is a woman, b: she is a Samaritan (scary wrong-believing foreigner), and c: she is in an immoral relationship (we find later on), is the one Jesus strikes up a lunchtime convo with.

Odd enough.

They go on to discuss some weighty things—worship, the Messiah, comparative religion, and theological questions worthy of a grad student.

Still odder. No woman dared bring up such topics with a Rabbi. What was she thinking?

For most of my life, I have heard this discussion interpreted as the woman’s attempt to smokescreen Jesus from getting around to her questionable personal life and morals. But you know what I think? I think the interpreters have been a little afraid of actually wrangling with an intelligent woman. Malala isn’t the first person to realize that some people are intimidated by “a girl with a book.”

Somehow, between multiple husbands and the hardships of being an outcast and all that entails (things like having to go for water in the hottest part of the day because the other women don’t want you around the well), this woman has manged to study some theology in between making beds and fetching water and having dinner ready for whichever man was there. Somehow, the raging waves of her life have not completely drown out the curiosity of her soul. Somehow, despite all the hard edges of her life, this woman has been hungry. She has needed to know.

And Jesus does not look down on her attempts. Not for a second.

He engages her, takes her questions seriously, talks on the same level he does his with disciples, and gets to the heart of the matter.

So what does this have to do with you or me?

A lot.

When is the last time you felt unseen? Like the things you know you know, the things closest to your heart and burning within you, went unheard? Or worse, you got a virtual little pat on the head and a, “How sweet is that? Look how cute she is when she’s serious!”

Oh honey, put it away for a while until you’re older/smarter/less emotional and then, well, we’ll see.

Jesus doesn’t do that junk. Not to her. Not to me. Not to you.

No, remarkably, Jesus deals with the thing holding her back (her wrong relationships) and then sets her free to go tell the entire neighborhood what she’s learned. His disciples come back to find out he’s having a seminary session with the neighborhood slut, get a tad confused by that, and then watch Jesus turn her into a more dynamic evangelist than they’ve been in, like, ever.

Seriously, Jesus?

Seriously.

He takes her seriously. And beautiful things happen in her soul.

You’ve been told you can’t do something. I don’t know what it is, but you’ve been told you can’t do it. Because of your age, your gender, or your stage in life, you’ve been disqualified from something your heart told you was for you. You’ve asked your questions, and crickets. Or half-smiles. And somewhere along the line, you began to accept that, to believe you were, in fact, incapable of that thing. You began to say things like,

“I could never understand that.”

“I have to leave that to someone else.”

“I think that’s too hard for me.”

“I can’t do that and be a mom, too.”

“I’ll think about that later when I’m smarter/older/married/whatever.”

Jesus stands at the well and says to you: You are not stupid. You are not foolish. You have questions—I want to hear them. You have dreams–I want to see them. You have thoughts—I want you to set them free. Some people will shoot you down. Some will give you side eyes. I won’t. Ever.

Usually when we read this encounter, we focus on the amazing fact that Jesus talked to her at all. But what they talked about—how amazing is that? We rarely see that for what it is—Jesus taking us seriously, in all our flawed, frightened, messy hopes and dreams and doubts. And then making something incredible out of it.

Is this a Jesus we can love?

Five Easter Favs

This week’s #FridayFive theme is Easter. My favorite day of the year! Spring, and resurrection, and flowers springing from ground that looked desolate and far from life-giving mere days before. This is what the hope of Jesus is all about. Life coming where it did not appear it could. Dry bones springing to hope. I will never get tired of the joy of his day.

For today’s five, I’m giving you five of my favorite Easter quotes. I hope you love them as I do.

Jesus’ resurrection is the beginning of God’s new project not to snatch people away from earth to heaven but to colonize earth with the life of heaven. That, after all, is what the Lord’s Prayer is about. – NT Wright, Surprised by Hope

You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God; or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. ~C.S. Lewis

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There are times when I feel that he has withdrawn from me, and I have often given him cause, but Easter is always the answer to My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me! ~Madeleine L’Engle

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Lately I’ve been wondering if a little death and resurrection might be just what church needs right now, if maybe all this talk of waning numbers and shrinking influence means our empire-building days are over, and if maybe that’s a good thing.

Death is something empires worry about, not something gardeners worry about. It’s certainly not something resurrection people worry about.

G. K Chesterton put it this way: “Christendom has had a series of revolutions, and in each one of them Christianity has died. Christianity has died many times and risen again; for it had a God who knew the way out of the grave.” – Rachel Held Evans, Searching for Sunday

You see, the reason Jesus wasn’t the sort of King people have wanted in his own day is that he was the king, but they had become used to the ordinary, shabby, second-rate sort. They were looking for a builder to construct the home they thought they wanted, that he was the architect, coming with a new plan that would give them everything they needed, but with quite a new framework. They were looking for a singer to sing the song they had been humming for a long time, but he was the composer, bringing them a new song to which the old songs they knew would form, at best, the background music. – NT Wright, Simply Jesus

The Bible in 14 Words

My Jesus bubble. It’s a little cramped for him, I think.

Being challenged about something you take for granted is annoying. You know this is true. You get asked something like, “Why do you always have the same drink order at Starbucks?” or “Why do you love your spouse?” (two questions of an admittedly different scope), and you mumble something about “Because it is what it is, and I just do.” Maybe you add, under your breath of course, “And why do you have to be so annoying, especially before I’ve had that Starbucks caffeine boost?”

Breaking the Bubble

The #LiveFree Thursday prompt today is “Breaking out of my bubble,” and lately on the blog I’ve been pondering what it looks like to break free of the conceptions we labor under when it comes to Jesus and who he really is. Christians protect their Jesus bubble zealously. As if Jesus sits in heaven going “I can’t even” whenever someone slides slightly off the track of orthodoxy. Our orthodoxy, I should add, because it’s generally our Jesus we’re defending, not the real one.

Right alongside popping the bubble of “my Jesus,” though, is the bubble of “my gospel.” What is it? Really?

We assume we know. We’ve listened to Billy Graham. We got the bracelet with the colored beads. We know the Romans Road and can traverse it with the best of them. But think about this. What do you know? What would you say? If you had to answer like a junior high essay – in 100 words or fewer – what would you write? Cut away what you assume and take for granted and answer the question like you’ve never heard it.

Get out of the  bubble.

What. Is. The. Gospel?

It’s a question I’ve pondered since seminary days, when I told my theology professor I thought salvation had to be toward something good rather than simply away from something bad. Salvation from hell wasn’t enough; there had to be something we were striving to move into, and not just heaven.

He agreed. My fellow students looked at me funny. It wasn’t the first or last time. I didn’t know I was thinking outside of the box of orthodox evangelicalism. I had no box for reference—I hadn’t grown up in one like most of these guys had. I only knew they looked at me funny, which, if you know me, you know felt a little bit like a badge of honor.

What is the gospel? Really? We need to go back and ask that question from time to time. The Easter season, when we celebrate the power of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection is a perfect time to ask.

Ask the question again and again until we know we’ve left behind our assumptions and bubbles and easy three-step answers and are left naked with nothing but the Word of God and open ears.

What is the gospel? One hundred words or fewer? Dare we break out of the bubble we’ve made it to be?

I’m giving it a shot.

Broken things. Things we really love. Humans do that. A lot.

The Beginning. God created. Everything. He had a plan for perfect balance and a relationship with humans—His image-bearers. We messed it up by trying to be the image itself, not content with the grandness of image-bearing. We wanted to run the show. We forgot we didn’t create it and didn’t know how to run it. (Fyi—We still do this. Daily.)

God sent His image again—Jesus—perfect man and God in one piece. I don’t quite get how either. But he did. Jesus said “I know your lives are broken, and your relationships are broken, and your everything is pretty much broken because that first relationship that all good things come from is broken. I’ll fix it. You didn’t keep your agreement with your Creator, but I’ll keep it for you; I’ll die to keep it. Only I can fix the completely broken.

And when I come back (which is going to be sooner than you think, three days in fact, and it will blow away ALL your assumptions), I’ll start really shaking things up. I’ll start planning for and expecting that the Kingdom God meant to happen here will happen here. Now. And I’ll give you the power to help me make it happen, if you believe me. One more time, God will put his image on the earth. You.

In the end (or just the beginning), it will all come full circle, and you will return to the perfection I created, finally ready to live there, with me. The End.

OK, that was more than 100 words. Still, four paragraphs is not too bad, when you consider my theology book in school was about four inches wide. So 25 words or fewer? How about:

God created. We broke. God loved. He fixed. We love back—we help fix.

Fourteen words. Boom.

It’s not just an exercise in brevity. It’s an exercise in being able to explain to another person, coming from another mindset entirely, what is at the heart of what we believe.

There is no such thing as discipling someone away from hell. It’s like sending a person on a trip by telling them, “I don’t know where you’re going, but I know you’re going away from Chicago.” (Which, as I write this in winter, is kind of like hell. Really.) Who is going on that trip with no idea of an itinerary or a destination? Maybe the reason we’re having such a tough time making disciples is that we focus on what we’re directing them away from and have no real clue what we’re directing them toward.

The bubble has to burst, not simply because it’s easier to carry around a shorter story but because it’s a bubble already collapsing on itself with its wimpy walls and less-then-fulfilling contents. If the air inside the bubble is stale, it won’t float with hope; it will die. So the story of Jesus and us.

The gospel. The whole gospel. The one that shows us how Jesus lived and what he lived for as well as what he died for. The one that assures us that as he healed brokenness and brought purpose in his earthly life, so his resurrection life gives us that same directive.

It’s almost Easter. More and more, the people around us have no idea why we continue to celebrate it. They don’t even know what it means. The average Westerner cannot put together an Easter narrative other than one that involves eggs and giant bunnies. It’s a brave new world. What they desperately want, though, is a story that involves them not merely as sinners in need of salvation but as image-bearers given a purpose and a meaning. They crave a narrative of God that speaks of his desire to create newness more than his need for punishment.

So we must be people who are able to put together that narrative. A compelling one. A complete one.

Not an empty bubble.

Everywhere a Sign

It’s almost spring, so I know what that means. Soon, the birds will return, the rain will fall, and the roads will be closed due to construction. All of them.

The #FridayFive prompt at my friend Kelly’s this week is Five Obstacles. So I thought of road signs. What do they tell us? What do they keep us from? How do they instruct, protect, and frustrate us? Here are five signs we might find in the middle of our road.

Do Not Enter

When I was a kid, developers started construction on a subdivision across the street. “Do Not Enter” signs popped up all over. Accustomed to owning that particular field for our play, we ignored them. One day, riding my bike down a giant hill, I came to the bottom to find that the blacktop there had been jackhammered and strewn around. Unable to stop, I ended up similarly strewn, over my handlebars, scraped and bruised everywhere.

Some obstacles are for our own good. If God puts up a “Do Not Enter” sign, there is probably a reason. Ask Eve about this. She will tell you a story. I have a friend who wrote a book with her husband about the porn addiction that almost destroyed their family. It’s so tantalizing, so tempting to peer past that sign into forbidden territory. We won’t go far. Just a taste.

Until we find ourselves careening out of control down a hill with the bridge out ahead. We can save ourselves a lot of bruises and scrapes by wisely saying to ourselves, “I think I’ll go another way.” Keep Out. Do Not Enter. God knows what he’s doing here.

Stop

There are so many things to stop. If we want to start good things, chances are, we have to stop other things. Stop talking and start listening. Stop criticizing and start solving. Stop getting angry and start seeing another’s point of view. Stop being a victim and start owning your choices. Stop paying attention to every Facebook notification if I want to start accomplishing my writing goals.

Then there are things straight up out of Scripture, like: Stop grumbling and complaining (Philippians 2.14). Stop worrying. (Philippians 4.6) Stop fearing (2 Timothy 1.7). Ouch.

The list is extensive. Only we know which ones apply best to ourselves. (Although I have some dear people in my life who will point them out to me when I miss ignore them.) “Stop” is a good thing to heed if we want to start anything worthwhile.

Wrong Way

On our first date, my husband, who did not have a car at college, had borrowed a friend’s, and therefore didn’t really know the streets, got a ticket for turning into the wrong side of a boulevard. I sat in the passenger seat and laughed hysterically. Somehow, I still got a second date and a marriage proposal.

When driving, I would wholeheartedly suggest following the rule that says not to turn down a street when all the traffic is going the other way. However, I’m not so sure about this in life. Some of my best adventures have happened while going against the traffic. The pink sunset over Roman rooftops when we went into the exit of the closed Forum area. The view from the mountain over Neuschwanstein when everyone else was going down.The seminary degree with highest honors when someone told me, “Women can’t be pastors.”

For Christians especially, going against the flow can often mean you’re going the right way. (Not always—sometimes it just means you’re being a jerk.) Is the “Wrong Way” really the right way when we’re embracing justice, mercy, and love in the face of fear, self-preservation, and anger? Then keep going, friend. Popular opinion is not the best GPS.

Yield

Yield is the sign I suspect we hate most of all. An outright stop we can understand. We take turns. It’s all good. Bu yield? As in, let someone else go first when I could have the chance? Not a chance.

What might happen in this world if we all learned to yield just a bit?

Yield my rights. Yield my time. Yield my unforgiveness, worry, and offense. Yield my need to be first or be heard or be right. I cannot even fathom the peace of such a world. I think the only way to get it out of my imagination and into reality is for me to start it myself. It’s a one person at a time thing.

Today, let’s look for chances to yield. I guarantee we’ll find them.

Deer Crossing

I love taking pictures of odd “____ crossing” signs. I have alligator, duck, moose, armadillo, and bear crossing signs. But the one we see most often in the Midwest is for deer. Everyone around here knows, if you hit a deer, it will be bad for you, worse for the deer.

I think there’s something we can take away from that. Jesus reminds us,

“I tell you the truth, when you did it (showed kindness and provision) to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me! And I tell you the truth, when you refused to help the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were refusing to help me.” (Matthew 25.40, 45).

I see the deer as the least of these. The ones weaker, more vulnerable, and more frightened than I. It’s my job to watch for them and to ensure their safe passage. For both our sakes. When our world gets to be someplace where the care of the least of these is disregarded, it will be bad for the stronger ones as well.

“A nation’s greatness is measured by how it treats its weakest members.” – Mahatma Ghandi

So a person’s humanity.

Five signs, five obstacles in the road. How will we take them? What choices do we make when we see the signs?