My heart grows like a fire spreads when I set my mind on the blessing in loving Christ. This morning we read Paul’s prayer for those in Philippi,
And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God. (Philippians 1:9-11 ESV)
… that love may abound more and more. There is no cap on a love that is always increasing and no exhausting of gifts that come about as a result of that increasing love. We are so unbelievably blessed as we love and treasure our Savior. As we share in His suffering today and as we share in His holiness, so blessed are we.
So blessed.
So undeservedly and abundantly blessed in our loving of Christ.
If you ever want to get good and sad, do a search in your iTunes for the word “home.” I trimmed the playlist to 50, but that’s 3:30:06 worth of accompaniment for where I’m not.
And they are all singing, desperate and hopeful, about home.
I can’t really explain it, but these melodies rustle up a restlessness that says, “You’re nothome in this moment” and it doesn’t even matter where my feet are currently planted. I could be standing in the middle of my childhood home or lounging in one of 10 places I’ve called “home” since then and it wouldn’t matter. There’s something distinctly not home-y about life and there are reasons to be discontent about it.
Come on, join in with me.
Throw your discontent in my kettle and we’ll stir us up some comfort food.
I’m not where I thought I would be at 27…
I really wish I had the kind of friends who…
It seems like nobody really knows me around here…
My laundry does not have the “this definitely came from my house” smell…
I can manage to go from Monday – Friday completely anonymous, if I want…
If only I could get away and have some time to think…
I would feel at home if I was a “regular” at the coffee shop…
Home feels more like a tractor when I’m at an office desk and more like an office desk when I’m in a tractor…
I don’t know what makes where you are not home, but it’s a funny science – this discontent. I think I realized as my heart beat along with the rhythm of these tunes that I need to add home and here and there to the list of “things to hold loosely.”
When we are tempted into discontent about the place we find our two feet (for all the pages of reasons we rush to number), it’s okay to be honest. It’s okay to sing sad songs about home and speak our discontent into the unforgiving air.
But discontent will become our sin when we hold too tightly and hope too strongly for what we don’t have…. then discontent becomes a bitter root or a seed of jealousy. Our comfort in the most desperate, sojourning moments is that our always home is not attached to location or city or nation.
In those kind of moments – when I think about all the places I am not – I breathe deep and trust that God is.
If you need to speak your wandering, sojourning spirit into the unforgiving air today, here are some tunes. But, please, don’t hold too tightly or hope too strongly for what you don’t have.
Just do it.
No, seriously, just keep your heart young.
Today, I’m celebrating so many things:
Dia de Independencia with my Honduran family and friends,
Iowa State football (expected) victory
my Dad’s birthday
tailgating with friends and family
the changing colors of falling leaves
coffee
pumpkin cake with cream cheese frosting
bike rides
mo-peds
cardinal red and gold
And, I’m remembering all the ways Jesus encouraged the disciples to be like children – to blurt things out and come to Him messy, injured, and out of breath. Children are precocious little bugars, but they don’t mess around with pretense. And I think this is why they can delight in the wonderful, little things and be so transparent about their tantrums. They’ve got nothing to hide – and they’ll tell it like it really is.
This is a young heart. And I’d like to keep mine that way.
Remember when you graduated from high school and the world stretched out like an open road in front of your new-to-you, college-bound car? Remember that?
Somehow my car circled around and I’m staring at the same highway and when Brandi Carlile sings the chorus of “hard way home,” I belt it louder than is probably appropriate for my post-college age.
Now, Brandi and I disagree on a few things – some of them pretty major. But, I find a very steady solidarity in our choosing the “hard way home.” I’m stubborn. And sometimes my stubbornness gets me into sin, a lot of times I guess. I can look back at my tracks and, with Brandi, point to times I should have redirected my steps but pressed on for pride or fear or foolishness.
I don’t know how Brandi feels when she sings this song, but what I feel is gratitude. Oh, man! I’m such an obstinate and fickle girl. I don’t know why anyone would have patience with my antics, but the Lord is steady as an oak and faithful like the sun. Though the lost in me thinks faking my death would be an exciting escape (see the bridge), the found in me delights in knowing that I can never be hidden.
With my car facing that same, great highway, the “hard way home” isn’t a lonely trek when you are sitting in the passenger seat.
“We have seen the hope of Your healing
rising from our souls – Oh, is the feeling we are drawing close
Your light is shining through”
This morning, I am singing my heart into wakefulness. I am singing my soul into serenade to the One who gives me voice, the One who gives me notes, the One who gives me breath –
the One who wakened me.
What a glorious thing to be AWAKE in this life – to feel the wind gripped by Autumn and see the sky painted in shades of blue. What a glorious thing to be AWAKE and how desperate the call to wake the still sleeping.
Sometimes, it is best to step into the safest place. And sometimes the safe place breaks free from the dark of the night and splatters golden sun on your face.
I was a stranger the day He called my name but now He calls me friend. A wider, deeper, purer love I will never know. Only in the safe place of His love is laughter unleashed and only in this safe place are dancing feet freed.
Have you ever had a string of days where putting one foot in front of the other seems harder than it should seem? I mean, have you ever been frustrated at being frustrated?
I’m just wondering, I guess.
Here are some things that are taking my mind off my feet this week. I hope it pushes you to think harder or differently … and then I really hope that your knowledge grows feet. I mean, I hope your knowledge does something because otherwise it’s just about puffing up.
Do you know Al Mohler? Well, he’s kind of a big deal. Anyway, he wrote an article in The Atlantic recently about Helen Gurley Brown’s influence on the sexual revolution. It is an interesting piece that speaks to one of the most confused cultural categories (sexuality) of our generation.
Bryan McWhite writes in a post for the EFCA online magazine about the difference between simply knowing theology and doing theology and what it means for reaching young people today. This is exactly what I like to hear! We must be about living theology not about knowing it. He writes,
What I didn’t understand at first (and realize now that I am a recovering theologeek) is that the younger generations are intensely pragmatic. And contrary to what many in the church might assume, their pragmatism is in no way opposed to serious theological thought. Young people really do desire theological understanding. But they want theological inquiry to serve a purpose beyond simply knowing.
To this generation, studying theology merely for the sake of knowing is inextricably linked to arrogance. For them, the study of theology isn’t complete until it ends in praxis. They do not abide the last three chapters of Ephesians being severed from the first three. They want to understand how knowing culminates indoing.
This piece on contemporary art, “Absolutely-Too-Much” admits that contemporary art can be a hard thing to appreciate, but it remains something to be admired. I like how this article shifts to philosophical implications in contemporary art because, of course, they are connected.
“We all had new iphones but no one had no one to call…” Thats a line from the song, “Life’s for the Living” by Passenger. Sometimes, on those days when one foot drags as we put it in front of the other, we just have to remember that “life’s for the living. So live, or you’re better off dead.” Sometimes, it’s as simple as that.
I’m between jobs 1 and 2 and it’s shaking out to be a day of sifting. This Friday is being sifted until only the too-big pieces remain on top. And what is of most importance is becoming very, very clear.
It’s normally not so easy to see with an eternal kind of sight. There are coffees to buy and websites to navigate. There are attendance sheets to make and databases to conquer. There are hours to wile away and weekend plans to make. There is an errand to run and another book to add to the pile of those I should read. But, today there is sifting.
And after this Friday is shaken, the big pieces that remain have little to do with what I’ve gained or stored or clocked or typed. The big pieces are eternal things that I cannot manufacture – things that put all other things in beautiful, right perspective.
Today, I am praying that my life is about the main thing, that I don’t treasure my life more than the main thing, and that all other things will fall through my open hands so that I will cling to what remains. I am praying that I delight in Christ so much that I cannot imagine keeping this delight to myself. In my delight and revelry, in my worship and bust-at-the-seams joy, I am praying I live fully in the freedom His suffering allows so that He may be glorified as others hear the same call to freedom from my lips.
Because He is worthy to receive the reward of his suffering.
MUSINGS IN THE MIDST 