well, i met with a group on Thursday that will be planning the next Veritas Forum in January of ’07 here at Hope. The theme is idolatry. They used G.K.Chesterton’s comparison of idolatry being like losing your address. If you can imagine walking to a destination from your home and then on the way back making small changes, compromises to the plan, so that where you end up is so far from you address that you have no idea how to get home.

We talked about the idols of nationalism, pluralism, the american dream, self-image, our own construction of god. We are a people living in a state of sin. Our sinful state is pervasive in our biology, psychology, governemnts, politics, society, media, and churches – everything.

Talking about idols made me realize how much our story is similar to the children of Israel. Of course, we are not under the same covenant, but the pattern is the same. God’s love always, his warnings, his commands, and then failure on Israel’s part, then God’s disappointment and then mercy.

I know this is not true for every account, but reading through any of the OT books will make you say, come ON! Don’t you get it! Do what God says and you’ll be fine! Interesting how it’s so easy to see when we are not the ones who stray.
I have just thinking about idols and idols in my life lately. Powerful stuff. I love going back to some Derek Webb lyrics, “Oh, Lord, I’m crooked deep down. Everyone is crooked deep down.”

hmmm…well, for some lighthearted news. it is an absolutely beautiful day here in MI! Sun, blue skies, and the faint smell of Spring in the air. I’m trying to figure out where my life will take me this summer and I’ve been looking for jobs around here, which should be interesting. One of my friends is going to hook me up with possibly a job at Captain Sundae’s – the local ice cream shoppe where Pres. Bush stopped on his way through town.

Well, I should get to some weekend homework. I have my eyes set on next Friday, the first day of SPRING BREAK!

So, I just sent an email to the head of the missions committee at my home church. I tried to say something about my ‘intentions for missions.’ I can’t get over how presumptious that sounds. By the end, I was writing, “The first thing you’ll probably say and I need to hear is pray. amen.”
I don’t know what it is about us, maybe just me, that has a hard time getting over the production aspect of prayer and getting to the relational. I know I wrote on here before about how I’ve been learning that we are relational people, made in the image of a Trinitarian God. So, why do we pray as though our God only half hears and what comes back from our petitions is merely the product of an exchange. Eww. It sounds so…. human.

But, we can’t have it both ways. We can’t insist that our God is big, mighty, and TRUTH, but also confine our prayers and expectations to an exchange. Because God doesn’t need anything we have. Only by his mercy are we even allowed into the scheme at all. I should by bursting with the knowledge that I can have this relationship. I should be dancing like David that I can play a part. But, I still choose to pray dutifully, without much expectation. Wait, let me re-phrase that, I still choose to pray (sometimes) out of duty.

I’m getting used to this honest exposure, but it’s not making it any easier.

Anyway, I’m about to go to our house bible study. We are using the Beth Moore study called Believing God. If you ever need a good, southern kick in the pants about your faith – a talk that’ll fire you up and get you running from your spiritual couch – Beth Moore uses Scripture to show that belief, true belief, in God is not past or future. She uses the words present-active-participle. Which is something like believing in the continually acting always going, building, and learning sense. It’s so HUGE – this belief. That kind of makes sense, beings that our God is HUGE and, although our belief can never match his HUGENESS, believing is an on-going action.

Well, I’ve got to get going.

how unfortunate that computers can’t communicate inflection or tone.
yeah, so I’m trying to get out of this deep groove where all i write about sounds silly and abstract, like i’m trying to philosophize. which is actually ironic, becuase there are only two, possibly three people that I know of that even know this blog exists… so my supposed soap box stands in front of a pretty slim crowd. yet, that little big guy inside me wants to write it as though the hordes of people are going to flock to my thick words and heavy reflections.
oh the woes of my brokenness.

the other day i read a phrase describing humans as ‘broken image bearers.’ i thought to myself, ‘now that sounds just pretty accurate of our condition.

i feel broken today. i just had a conversation with a friend about our community of friends. i was so torn – i’m still feeling it in my chest. i know, more than anything, that i contribute to our perpetual state of shallow.

ukk. i don’t like to talk about it because it makes me feel exposed. anyway, this conversation brought to the surface some hard, hard things. (isn’t it ironic that generally people are surface and shallow and when we finally reach down and get something of substance to pull up to our level of surfaceness it is worth talking about – it’s unusual… is there anyone that lives down there in the depths where the real thinking happens all the time? i imagine they would be pretty drained with all the issues people attach to sinkers, destined for the ocean floor.)

it is most constructive in this case to talk about my own failures – not because i want the attention (although I wouldn’t put it past me), but because of the whole remove the log out of your own eye before you examine the speck in your neighbors.

so – awhile back a friend confronted me about how my actions, words, little pieces of my lifestyle were hurtful to her. She sincerely felt judged, manipulated, and treated poorly. This conversation of course took hours because we are women, but nonetheless that was what was communicated. wow. i didn’t know what to say. ordinarily, and actually my mind automatically started doing this, i would bring up the defenses. i’ve gotten pretty good at framing myself as the victim, innocent, even in how I communicate my weaknesses.

i’ve always been able to say, ‘well, my struggles are on the inside.’ i think that frustrated my friends in high school, because they would say – WHERE DO YOU STRUGGLE? what sin is in your life that you battle? when i would say ‘inside’ it sounded like i dealt with less sin or something. that i had conquered the tangible sin and was just dealing with the not-so-horrible “inside” sin.

oh could we ever have been more wrong. this friend that was gracious enough to humiliate me made me realize that those ‘inside’ things i had been praying about, thinking about, even expressing in manipulated phrases – those things like pride, judgement, THAT SIN HURTS PEOPLE. it hurt my friend.

i just sat there completely shocked. no one in my life had ever done that to me before. i realized that i hadn’t let them. the minute i was in a conversation about sin and struggles i would manipulate it to show my struggles, but not be vulnerable enough to show that i needed to change. ouch. i can’t tell you how deep that pierced my soul.

God had softened my heart for that specific time so that I could just sit there and know that i deserved the humiliation, but my friend and God offered forgiveness. Praise the Lord. Yes, Praise the Lord.

anyway, so how this relates to my sighs now. .. my brokenness doesn’t take away God’s imprint – his handiwork in His creation. He takes great delight when His children really reflect him. I hurt for myself and for others that have a hard time reconciling the brokenness with the image bearing.

there’s so much more – but praise God. praise God for mercy. that is beautiful.