crazy

Matchbox Twenty sings a song called Unwell and every time I hear it, I reflect on my journey with Christ...because quite honestly, walking with Him is exactly like the line "I'm not crazy, I'm just a little unwell"...and I think I am crazy, by most worldly ideals, standards, and labels...and ruined for more of Jesus.

The more I walk with Jesus, the more my life does not make sense...and the more I think about "being someone or something" or what I "should be doing with my life" because I feel a loss of purpose, vision, and drive, becoming so overwhelmed with the "crazy" in my life...

And then God faithfully meets me.

Philippians 3:7-14 sums up my purpose...that I may know Him...that I may progressively become more deeply and intimately acquainted with Him, perceiving and recognizing and understanding the wonders of His person more strongly and clearly...in that same way come to know the power outflowing from His resurrection which it exerts over me as His disciple...and share His sufferings as to be continually transformed in spirit into His likeness even to His death, in hope that if possible I may attain to the spiritual and moral resurrection that lifts me out from among the dead.

My purpose is not to work, or be active, or essentially to find my identity in any "things"...rather, my purpose is to know Jesus. My purpose in today is to know and walk with Him by the power of His Spirit. It is to spend my time helping and serving others who may never love me back and never show gratitude for what I gave up. Further, it is not to control or figure anything out about all the unknowns and uncertainties in my life...it is simply to live in today with Him alone, still walking blindly by faith in what often feels like "risk" and "out of control," offering ALL of my trust...

Because that is all I have.

I am crazy and ruined for more of Jesus.

uncertainty

"Maybe faith has less to do with gaining knowledge and more to do with causing wonder"...

These words jumped off the page at me as I read them recently...we are about "defining" and getting wiser, thus theology is our definition of God as we "study" Him...but God was never meant to be "studied," much less defined, especially by finite beings. He was meant to actively live in and through our lives.

The world is about education and gaining knowledge so that we are more "successful," earn more money, move up the food chain...

Yet Jesus is the opposite, again contrary on all levels of this world and what the world has told us to be true. Thus, our walk with God - our faith - should only push us deeper into awe and wonder and worship of our Creator, giving worth to Him alone. Sometimes I think that "figuring" God out by gaining knowledge steers us away from worship rather than into the reverent presence of God. In His Word, God says that He is a "mystery"...and He really is, yet we are not okay with not "knowing"...we must drive to figure Him out. And maybe spiritual maturity results in less predictability, more unknowns, and having your life less "together"...ultimately, "out of control," in places we could never have planned or imagined, often times less than ideal.

Embrace relational uncertainty - it is called romance.
Embrace spiritual uncertainty - it is called mystery.
Embrace occupational uncertainty - it is called destiny.
Embrace emotional uncertainty - it is called joy.
Embrace intellectual uncertainty - it is called revelation.

Embracing uncertainty because it is freeing...these are all the "costs" - or maybe really gains - of following Jesus.

i am not skilled...

"To understand...what God has willed, what God has planned...I only know at His right hand, stands One who is my Savior" (opening lyrics to Aaron Shust My Savior My God).

I am thankful that God hovers over the chaos, the unknowns, seemingly random situations in my life...hovering ready to create order and beauty...

And I don't have to understand. I do not even possess the skills nor control to do so...God does not expect me to figure it out. I get to trust Him and joyfully watch it unfold.

Psalm 16:11, "You will show me the path of life; in Your presence is fullness of joy, at Your right hand there are pleasures forevermore."

There it is again...His right hand...

To be positioned at God's right hand is a place of honor...and there is Jesus...pleasures forevermore.

So here I sit, here I rest...completely frustrated, humbled, needy...yet in a place of honor and privilege...in my Savior's presence, fullness of joy...that is all I know, know by faith...the path of my life.

pure joy

What does this mean when it feels like so many things that bring me joy are taken...and though only temporary, they are still gone? Yet my joy is not dependent upon my circumstances. Joy is a pervasive sense of well-being...it is not dependent upon a specific object and pure joy does not waiver. Even more, it is the basic element of inner transformation into Christ-likeness and the outer life that flows from this change.

So what feels like joy stripped from me is actually joy being refined, manifested, multiplied...

Ah Jesus, You are bringing change...more like you...

Further, complete or full joy (what Jesus is talking about in John 15:11 when He says, "I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.") is my first line of defense against weakness, failure, disease of my mind and body. Thus, the "joy of the Lord is my strength." Pure joy is nothing the enemy can steal from me and it is certainly the path to not only recognize, but to also overcome his lies.

I am here at this moment, in uncertainty...my body is "diseased" and my bone is literally frail and bruised...yet my joy does not have to change...

Psalm 16:11 points to my source of joy..."You will show me the path of life; in Your presence is fullness of joy, at your right hand there are pleasures forevermore." This says nothing about joy in this world...it only comes by remaining in Him (John 15).

I am in this place now, like Paul speaks about in Acts 2:25-28 when he refers to David..."For He is at my right hand that I may not be shaken or overthrown or cast down from my secure and happy state"...this is an extremely bold statement speaking out of pure hope in His God..."therefore my heart rejoiced"...David rejoiced in seeing the Lord keep him in this place of joy rather than live by his physical, outward circumstances...

Take this heart there Jesus...

My same God empowers me to do the same...

"Moreover, my flesh also will dwell in hope...You have made known to me the ways of life; You will enrapture me, diffusing my soul with joy, with and in Your presence."

That is a verse I will stand on when my weakness, disability, "disease" try to bring me low...they cannot touch my heart and mind. Jesus has them already...I know this because His Word speaks this...Philippians 4:7, "And God's peace shall be mine, that tranquil state of soul assured of its salvation through Christ, and so fearing nothing from God and being content with its earthly lot of whatever sort that is, that peace which transcends all understanding shall garrison and mount guard over my heart and mind in Christ Jesus." What?!

Romans 15:13, "May the God of your hope so fill you with all joy and peace in believing through the experience of your faith that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound and be overflowing (bubbling over!) with hope." I can stand in the experiences of Your faithfulness to enable me to stand now, believing in hope that You are so good...

I have seen Your hand so graciously in this journey so far...and excited at the anticipation of how I will know and experience You in and through my life more...this is Your path for me right now, to experience more joy in Joy...You...and somehow, this is best.

independence

I have been thinking about what it really means to be "independent," especially in our culture where we are not only encouraged but pressured to be such. But I am realizing more and more that independence is such a Western culture mindset, one that ultimately functions on rejection. We don't "need" because it is considered "weak"...but really we don't "need" because it feels safer to not be rejected, or at least risk being rejected.

So this is how we learn to live, tend to function...out of our insecurity and woundedness...and then we reject people just like we have been. Instead of living within relationships, together, how we were designed to live through Jesus, we keep the vicious cycle going. Even more, we strive to "prove" because we have been rejected, which pushes us deeper into the lie that we don't need others and live even more alone - independent.

This life is contrary to Jesus. To be independent means "not subject to the control or influence of others (this would include God); not connected; self-supportive." This is really sad, to think that our world encourages, motivates, drives us, to be "successfully" independent. Truth is, it is all the rejection of God...and placing our self as god. It all makes sense.

Yet God is the only being who is perfectly independent.

great expectations?

Here is a thought to chew on, wrestle with, maybe even push back on...

"To the degree that you resort to expectations and responsibilities (upon others), to that degree you neither know God nor trust Him."

Here is what is stirring within me...and though articulating my heart and where it is at is often confusing, I hope my feeble words will do justice to what God is teaching me...

I do believe that the degree to which I live in expectations and responsibilities is the degree to which I believe God, or rather do not believe Him...ultimately expectation means "I expect to control my end result based upon my work." Expectation is about my control, thus not God's sovereignty in my life. And responsibility is my expectation, standards and judgment upon someone else, based upon my view of "good and evil" or "right and wrong" system.

All this goes back to my identity FULLY in Jesus...because if I not only knew but believed Him, Him in me, then I am free to love others and sacrificially serve them, right where they are at in their own life...whether they are "right" or "wrong" because that is irrelevant anyways in allowing Jesus to manifest His life in me. My expectations mean I am attempting to control them...but they are unique, just as their choices and relationship with Jesus is just that: between them and God alone. It is not mine, has nothing to do with me...and that is freeing.

Jesus alone is the change agent.

I want to know and trust Him so fully that my relationships are so rich...that I am able to enjoy the unique and diverse life of each individual that is either in my life or simply crosses it for a day...that I can engage other wounded, imperfect and broken people without judgment and "expectation" but only expectancy...to experience more of Jesus and walk freely in Him.

Here are the questions that I now wonder about...

How many of my relationships - family, friends, coworkers, etc. - function out of expectation...thus on rules, "supposed to's", meet my standards, essentially out of fear? How many would say they are freely loved, given grace at any time, and do not have to work to be received and loved? How many feel a subtle expectation and are driven by performance?

...because none of these are based upon the life of Jesus.

Bouncing back briefly to my last post about God's Spirit...how He moves us, "blows" us from one place to the next, all within His hand..

Walking and living in my identity in Jesus ONLY frees me up to be blown all over and having no clue at all to where I am going, what is next, yet living freely in joy in the moment. I am free from expectations. It frees me up to NOT have control, whatsoever...in the lives of others and in my own. Because my life is not my own anyways...

wind

I just read John 3:8, something I have read more times than I can remember...and like usual, God spoke to me in a whole new way through His word that brought such hope and life to my heart and spirit.

“The wind blows (breathes) where it wills; and though you hear its sound, yet you neither know where it comes from nor where it is going. SO IT IS WITH EVERYONE WHO IS BORN OF THE SPIRIT.”

I feel as if I am continually blown around by the Spirit…yet I am, when it is His breathing. What freedom this is though! “The Spirit breathes where it wills.” And I have the Spirit through Jesus…I can hear and know and follow Him. This is what it means to live by the Spirit! Adventure. I am free to enjoy this, free of expectations and the "shoulds" of this world. Just free to enjoy Jesus right now, in this very moment.

John Wesley says in his commentary, "The fact is plain, the manner of his (or her!) operations inexplicable."

Yes, my operations are inexplicable...to me, to those around me, yet not to God. And for right now, today, God's Spirit has blown me to Indiana, to Starbucks, with a burning passion to know Him more and be in the lives of others so they too would yearn for more of Him. And someday, I know that His Spirit will blow me somewhere else...