Bricks and Straw

I'm trying to write a Theological Reflection Paper today, clearly its not going very well! Its been a while. These past few months have been busy for me, not a lot of free time.  But here we are now.  I hate small talk and introductions so I'm just going to jump in.

I've been irritated with God lately because sometimes it seems like there will never be healing and there will never be peace and there will never be rest.  And that sometimes the cost required for these seems and feels way too much.  And that sometimes we gain some healing and some freedom only to discover even more pain and more bondage that appears to go on for infinity.  So we've (God and I) been discussing this lately, mostly  its been me complaining about how I feel like I'm never going to be whole. So He told me to read Exodus.

So here is my recap of Exodus:

God's people are in bondage and under Egyptian slavery.  What do they do? They make bricks all day, not fun.  We're told that God hears Israel's complaining: "God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac and Jacob.  God saw the people of Israel and God knew." So God has a chat with Moses, and eventually convinces Him to talk with Pharaoh in order that the Israelites might be delivered.  Moses goes, Pharaoh says "no" and promptly increases the work load.  Now, the Israelites not only have to make bricks, they also have to go gather the straw. Worst!  Moses goes back to God and says "what are you doing?  "you have not delivered your people at all".  Anyone ever felt this way?  So God promises yet again to deliver His children.  When Moses goes to tell the people "they did not listen to Moses, because of their broken spirit and harsh slavery." These people are done with what appear to be empty promises.  But even when the people aren't listening God is still working, faithfully working.  Enter terrible plagues. At the end of the plagues the people are finally delivered.  It says that Israel was enslaved to Egypt for 430 years, whether literal or figurative...it's clearly a long time.

So they enter the wilderness via the Red Sea...pretty epic and unforgettable if you ask me.  But they start to complain: why did you bring us out of Egypt? Are you trying to kill us? We are hungry and thirsty?`  So God gives them mana each day..."only take what you need for the day" is what they are told.  What do they do? Save it.  Obviously.  The next morning they have stinky mana with maggots on it.  yum! And then after some gold turns into a cow in a fire, and some workaholics who just wanting to get there, arrive at the promise land...its been 4o years.  And again whether this is figurative or literal its a fair amount of time.

The point:
Please don't hear me wrong, I'm a full believer in healing, deliverance and freedom.  But I've been wondering lately if we put the emphasis on the feelings of freedom and deliverance rather than on living with God.  And that maybe we need to learn how to live in our brokenness.  That maybe we should be more concerned with how to live when we feel like we have to make the bricks AND get the straw, or how to wait patiently trusting that He knows when we should walk and when we should rest.  And that rather than avoiding, bypassing,and ignoring our brokenness and our incompleteness we need to learn to live here.  Not in such a way that we become complacent, but in such a way that we are honest about our situation, openly acknowledging our brokenness, our hurt and learning how to live with God in the wilderness. After all it was 430 years of slavery and then 40 years of wilderness life.
 

Mediocracy like the Chicken Pox

I'm about to move, and in some ways it shouldn't even be called a move cause I'm moving across the parking lot! Regardless, I've decided this is the perfect time in my life to through EVERYTHING! Thus I spent the afternoon sorting through mountains of school work that I've insisted on keeping for the past few years. Among the notes, exams, and papers was the hand written copy of notes from my Sr. Discernment.  (For those of you who don't know, the Sr. Discernment is that lovely time of life when a few hand chosen besties of yours, and a couple of professors sit down at a board table and discuss you, your life, your gifts, your strengths, your weakness etc.  Its both lengthy and exhausting, confusing while enlightening.) It was during this event in my life, which occurred on my Birthday--much to my great disgust, that one of my professors stated that I do not stand for mediocracy.

As I've reflected on this insight, yet again, I realize that its true.  Mediocracy really gets under my skin  and drives me bonkers.  I've been thinking about this subject in regards to our church today.  In my opinion mediocracy has flooded our ministries, our churches, our christian schools, our camps like a bad case of the chicken pox. (If you're feeling really angry with me...its okay, thats another thing that came up in my discernment....i can sometimes make some people very angry).

So having the endlessly questioning mind that I do, I've been reflecting on where mediocracy came from? And why has it flooded the western christian world? I'm not claiming to have it figured out...cause I don't.  But I do think that some of it stems from our (the current generation's) reaction to the "rigid legalism" of our not too distant relatives.  Yes I do believe we need to make room for grace, I deeply believe that, and am in desperate need of grace.  But sometimes I wonder if we (the current generation) use this as an all too easy excuse for our lack of self-control, our extreme laziness, and our massive fear of who we are, and who we are perceived to be.

Our actions show us what we love.  They show us our priorities, but most terrifyingly they show us our idols. Those things that we love more than we love God. On Sundays we promise that we will "surrender all", "cast down our idols", "trust implicitly", but by Sunday afternoon we are caked in so much fear, anxiety and desperation that we frantically snatch back from God what we just claimed to have given Him. How many of us would stand for a friendship like that. But the even scarier thing to me is, that if we can't even trust God, how on earth are we ever going to truly trust another human being....who messes up on a regular basis.  Relationships are all about love and trust.  Trust is the natural bi-product of love.  Therefore our lack of trust depicts to us our shocking supply of imperfect love, and our massive deficit of perfect love (God's love).

If we want to see mediocracy change in our churches, camps, schools, ministries.  The change first has to start in us. Just as with humans when we spend significant time with another we pick up their mannerisms, attributes and characteristics, so too it is with God.  If we want to learn how to trust, how to love, how to be loved, it all has to start with spending time with God. And I don't mean asking Him for things, I mean sitting down and telling Him what's on your heart, your mind, what is stressing you out, what is important to you. This is how love and trust work...sharing of yourself. And if you don't know who you are or what to share...ask Him. He will show you.

Sweet Father in Heaven,  May you draw us closer into you, bind our fear of coming to you that we may be healed.  Teach us how to love you, to trust you, to obey you.  Let it Be.

Paradoxes

I've decided to write this little blogette from my deck.  I have this nice comfy lazy-boy couch ,which I rescued from being sentenced to the eternal wrath of the dumpster.  This is where I do my best thinking.

At various times in my life I have been told that I am a paradox. Often I think what comes across paradoxical to others is completely complementary in my brain.  Its just how I function and how I do life. I'm okay with it not making complete sense at first glance.  At the end of this blog post I'm going to post a short music video that might appear, at first glance, to complete negate what I'm about to discuss, but for some reason in my mind they go completely hand in hand and I feel absolutely inclined to include it.  So here we go:

Lots of us struggle or have struggled with how to relate to God in prayer.  We know with our heads and our mouths that God is "not a vending machine", or a "bank machine".  We know that we need to do more than just read our Bible and pray, we know we need to have a "personal relationship" with God.  But we don't live it.  And sometimes I wonder if we don't live it because we find it hard to connect with God.

In our quest to connect with God we've become so blinded by our understanding that God is not human, that we stumble and fumble our way through awkward prayer times because God is not a man.  And yeah, that's true, God is not only human.  But I want to suggest today that we make prayer far more complicated than it needs to be because of the presupposition that God is not a man.

If there is one thing that has come clear to me in the last few years it is that God is desperately and relentlessly pursuing His babies because He wants to communicate with them.  He wants to communicate to them that He loves them, that He's safe, that He's got it.  He sent Jesus, and yes a big part of the reason was so that He could atone for our sin, (I'm not trying to down play that fact) but there's more.  You can't tell me God sent Jesus to the earth for only one reason, there's got to be more.  Maybe He became human so that He could relate with us, so that He could teach us how to relate to Him in human ways, ways that we could understand.

How many of us walk up to a stranger and ask them to be our best friend and to come live with us instantly? Or walk up to another stranger hand them all our problems and say, "If you fix this I'll hang out with you on sunday, but if you don't I'm not talking to you any more"?  We wouldn't do those things, we laugh and say its absurd.  Friendship takes time.  Well, maybe friendship with God takes time too.  Maybe you've been saying you live with God but you haven't even introduced yourself yet.  "Hi, I'm Jenny, my favorite colour is green and I've heard so many wonderful things about you and I can't wait to hang out!  What would you like me to call you?" I'm not saying things need to go down like this, what I am saying is that maybe its strange that we expect of ourselves, our friends, and God to go from strangers to besties in as long as it takes to say the sinners prayer.  Maybe we need to let it take sometime and not get frustrated with our awkward friendship with God recognizing its all part of the process. . Again, think of how awkward it is when you run into someone you hardly know, who you haven't seen for a few years or months, why would we expect it to not be awkward with God when we do the exact same thing with Him?

Whatever point you and God are at in your friendship, I want to encourage you to not limit your thinking of Him as being far away or non-human. He was crazy enough about you to become human, to teach you how to love Him, to be loved with Him, don't be afraid to explore a more human approach to your relationship with Him.  As we know with you human friendships, the more you spend time with someone you like you find all sorts of ways to hang out with them more and more, why can't this be true of our relationship with God as well?  Rather than trying to have a better relationship with Him, or a more focused prayer life, why not spend some time getting to know Him and letting Him get to know you?

Holy God, may you teach us how to connect with you, we want to know you and be known by you, not just know facts about you.  We love you,
Let it Be.

This music video is by a group called Gungor, I simply love ALL of their music. Enjoy.

So apparently I like to blog...

Recently there has been much discussion about prayer.  How to pray, frustrations with praying, lack of understanding or assurance in prayer. It got me thinking and praying and now, well now here we are.  This blog is devoted to the discussion of prayer.  Feel free to read or comment, but please keep in mind that I'm an undergrad student who is talking about her own experience, not someone trying to force 'one right way of praying' on you, the reader.  This is simply an exploration of a life or lifestyle of prayer.  For the purpose of this blog we will keep our conversation somewhat away from petition prayer (asking God for things) and intercessory prayer (asking God for things on behalf of people).  Yes, these are two huge categories of prayer, but lets be honest, this is the part of prayer that most of us practice.  This discussion is devoted to the other, less common forms of prayer, contemplation, listening, resting, breathing, to put it simply being with God. So to start us off I thought I would post some quotes that I've come to deeply appreciate:

"I am with you in all the love and terror and pity and pain and wonder that is your life.  I am with you. Are you willing to be with Me?" Richard Foster, Life with God.


"True whole prayer is nothing but love" St. Augustine.


"Prayer lives on fearless trust in God." James Houston, The transforming Power of Prayer


"You will trust God only as much as you love Him.  And you will love Him not because you have studied Him; you will love Him because you have touched Him--in response to His touch." Brennan Manning, The relentless tenderness of Jesus.


"Loving is the syntax of prayer.  To be effective pray-ers we need to be effective lovers." Richard Foster, Prayer.


May we stop striving today, striving to learn how to pray, to try to pray, and may we sit with God and let Him love us.  Lord Jesus, teach us to receive your love.  Let it Be