Tag: Christianity

when He said, “walk with me”

The walls of my heart were near bursting in the middle of the evening service last night. If ever there was a sermon that hit the home I’m coming from as much as the home I’m headed to, it was this sermon.

The passage came from Matthew 9, when Jesus called Matthew to be a part of his motley crew. Jesus was just passing by Matthew’s shameful tax stand when he simply said, “Follow me.”

It was an invitation and a command and a whole bundle of things all rolled into one. Matthew didn’t have the luxury of reading over Jesus’ words to examine their meaning. He had only the moments flashing in front of his money-dirtied table to decide what to do. This man in front of him looked him in the eye and he didn’t just say “Follow me.”

He did, but Jesus said something else, too.

The invitation is much more than a cold command to walk behind a dictator. The invitation is nothing like that. The Greek word, akoloutheó, means not just to follow but to “accompany, attend” or literally, “to go the same way with.”

I squirmed in my pew when my pastor explained, “Jesus wasn’t just saying, ‘Walk with me.’ He was also saying, ‘I want to walk with you.'”

The invitation to follow Jesus is an invitation to accompany Him on the kingdom mission of heaven.

This invitation to follow Him means that He wants to walk in the same direction as me – that He is pleased to be going the same way. It is His perfect sovereignty that guides and directs our steps on the path, but He is not embarrassed to be seen at my side. He knows about my lopsided steps – about my clumsy, Amelia Bedelia ways. He knows that I’ve got baggage and that I get distracted.

He knows ALL these things and still He is pleased to invite me to walk with Him. And inside that invitation I know He wants to walk with me.

And do you know the first thing Matthew did as he walked alongside Jesus? He threw a party. He invited all the vagabonds and wanderers and outcasts and unlikely party guests to his house for the feast of all feasts and Jesus was at the center.

And there they walked together – Jesus and Matthew – hosting a beautiful gathering where more people could view the result of Matthew’s unlikely invitation to be a follower.

I’m still giddy with all this. Vito went on to preach a “party culture” into his congregation – a message of accountability that Christians should be hosting the craziest parties. Christians should be inviting the rich and poor and awkward and smooth into their homes to break bread and drink wine and give thanks to the Lord because we have been invited to accompany Him along the way.

We should be doing what Matthew did when Jesus called him to walk along the same path. This kind of thing is in my bones. I want to invite my car dealership/drug dealing neighbors and the owners of the cutest pizza place on Rogers Street and my co-workers and the young runner couple that lives on 2nd floor… I want to invite them all over for a party in honor of the Lord who has invited me to follow Him!

I know, I know – all my dear, safe Iowan friends are worried. I won’t go doing anything crazy until Patrick gets back in town and can make sure my ideas aren’t too dangerous. For now, I’ll just be giddy with the idea that Jesus called me to walk with Him, which means He is pleased to walk with me.

It’s good to be giddy about such things.

Posted on by Caroline 0

coming home in a stranger’s clothes

Being a little less like Amelia just isn’t in the cards for me, I don’t think. Definitely not if I come home wearing a stranger’s clothes, which is what happened last night.

I left my apartment freshly dressed in (what I thought was) light rain attire and quickly learned that my 10 block walk to the church community group would be a very wet adventure.

After about block #2, I realized my shoes were squishing. After block #5, I ducked into an open apartment building doorway and had a one-way conversation with a nice man waiting for the rain to pass. I explained my options: forge on and arrive at a stranger’s house looking like a wet dog or return to my apartment looking like a wet dog without failing a first impression. He seemed to have no opinion either way, so of course I forged ahead, leaving him to laugh in the doorway.

Every bit of me was soaked, from my hooded head to my size six feet. My hair was matted down and my pants had turned a deeper green color. When I got to the house, I apologized instead of introduced myself because I knew I looked frightful. Before I knew it, I was changed into a nice woman’s clothes and munching on vegan chocolate blueberry biscotti on her sofa and listening to her tell their NYC relocation story.

My clothes never did dry, so I wore the nice woman’s clothes back home and made myself a saucepan of hot water (no teapot yet) and some ginseng green tea while I spread out the rain shower I had soaked up in my garments.

Oh, I am ever so grateful for Christian community – where no one is really a stranger and a dry change of clothes is only one knock away! It’s Christian community that keeps Amelia’s like myself clothed and safe. I suppose it takes many invisible miracles to keep my clumsy feet from slipping in this city and for that I am very grateful.

I’ll return the clothes soon and have another reason to knock on that door on Sterling Street. We won’t be strangers anymore (I mean, how can we after sharing closets?) and that has just added three more names to my very slim NYC rolodex.

Now, about getting that wisdom, maybe one can come by it on a round about path. Maybe “getting” wisdom can look like meeting strangers and rain walking and couch conversations, too.

Posted on by Caroline 0

get wisdom

When I read it in Proverbs 4, it sounds like something I should add to the grocery list – like it’s one of those things I can just pick up on the way home from work and in between stops on my hour-long commute.

The beginning of wisdom is this: Get wisdom, and whatever you get, get insight. Prize her highly, and she will exalt you; she will honor you if you embrace her. She will place on your head a graceful garland; she will bestow on you a beautiful crown.” (Proverbs 4:7-9, ESV)

The beginning of wisdom is to get wisdom. Hm.

It’s a rough and tumble struggle when it comes to ironing out the practicalities of Proverbs. But this past Sunday and in recent conversations, the Lord has been so good to remind my heart why practicalities are as much a good gift as wooey-wooey, spiritual moments.

Practical is not a word I would use to describe myself. Two days ago there was a Blueberry Crisp cooling on my kitchen counter while various “extra” and “oops” leftover ingredients cooled in the fridge. I have taken a different train route to work every day and have a different very impractical story about each journey. While still in the process of moving in, baking ingredients are among the highest on my priority list and (though I stop often at the corner store) I rarely come home with more than a few items.

I am not naturally very practical, but I made peace with that a long time ago.

So, when Tim Keller said the new sermon series was on wisdom from the book of Proverbs, my ears perked up. Though a very impractical person about many ordinary things, I desperately want to be practically wise about the most important things. And God’s directive is very clear: get wisdom. God says to go get wisdom – actively and certainly. Get wisdom.

Okay, Lord. You have commanded this and I will obey, but how? Part of believing God for His promises is believing that He will never ask anything of me that is impossible. I do believe I can grow in wisdom. I believe that He will show me how and that He will make me able.

The possibility of His promises depends on His faithfulness because I cannot do anything He asks without His help.

Now, back to last Sunday in those plush, uncomfortable theatre seats at the Salvation Army downtown. As we read through Proverbs 1 and Keller started to outline the importance of wisdom and what it means to acquire it, this little gem rolled out:

You get wisdom through paradoxical fear and the foolishness of grace.

The paradoxical fear is reference to Proverbs 9:10 (fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom) and the foolishness of grace references 1 Corinthians 1:18 (the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing). How do you get wisdom? By a righteous and reverent fear of the Lord and through the unbelievable work of Christ on the cross. Keller gave an analogy that is helpful here. He described the fear one might have if he were holding a very valuable, very rare and very breakable vase. He does not fear the vase – that it will harm him – but, instead he fears that he will drop the vase because he values it so much.

This is where we start when we determine to “get wisdom” – the fear of the Lord. And how do we have a right fear of the Lord? The foolishness of the cross. This, more than anything else, speaks a spiritual language of value. The beauty of this language is that it translates into the practicalities of everyday questions and doubts.

I better get to “getting” … maybe along the way I’ll gain some knowledge that will make my life less like Amelia Bedelia.

Well, maybe not. But there is grace for Amelia too.
 

Posted on by Caroline 1

I can’t help myself

I’ll confess the things I’m afraid of, even if it takes a little convincing and arm-twisting out of a host of self-sufficient habits.

I can’t help myself, and that’s the honest truth.

This is week two of a new job and day five in a new apartment and week three of a new life in the city where my love lives. I can be pretty confident about my inability to help myself – decidedly confident in that one, unsettling thing.

My roommate and I are kind-of, officially “moved in” to our beautiful, spacious, street-facing 3rd floor apartment, but we’re still trying to cure it of the empty echo. We’ve moved furniture in and out (thanks to a lot of Patrick’s sweat and muscle), raced to the houses of strangers with listings on Craigslist, and scavenged for gems on the sidewalk. We’ve navigated (and failed) the subways and the streets and the sidewalks in our neighborhood and beyond. We’ve made friends with the hardware store, the flower store, the fruit stand, and our very nice neighbors across the street who (we suspect) have a car dealership that fronts for a drug operation.

This is not the easiest thing I’ve ever done, which is probably why I’m so aware that I can do absolutely nothing to help myself. This is not the easiest thing I’ve ever done, but I am overwhelmed with the way God makes hard things beautiful and rough things lovely.

And this is so beautiful and so lovely – even so much so that I forget I’m inside a whirlwind of transition. Somehow, in the madness of moving across the country, God orchestrated events so that I would live two avenues from Patrick. Somehow, in the hazy hurricane of details, God arranged for Tamara and I to be the kind of roommates who hope to make our NYC apartment a home. Somehow, in the slew of job applications I electronically threw toward the East months ago, God remembered my love for laughter and passion for service.

The only reasonable “somehow” of all this beautiful mess, is that the Lord is sovereign. He is not surprised by anything and He loves to give good gifts to His children. Not easy gifts (not all the time anyway), but it is good gifts He loves to give.

This move is a good gift in the superlative sense.

His provision of peace always surpasses my fear, always. This move is a good gift, but not because it is easy. It is good because God is good and He never changes.

I am believing more today than yesterday in God’s mercy and grace and peace. I think this might be part of His good gift – that I am pressing in to who He is and needing Him (desperately) to be who He claims to be. And even though He continues to prove Himself faithful, my hope does not come from history. My hope comes from His promises that today and tomorrow and this weekend, He will continue to be faithful to give grace.

I can’t help myself and this is my hope: He is my help. I lift my eyes to the hills and my empty hands to the sky, because nothing I can do or see or say can help myself.

I lift up my eyes to the hills.
From where does my help come?
My help comes from the Lord,
who made heaven and earth.

He will not let your foot be moved;
he who keeps you will not slumber.
Behold, he who keeps Israel
will neither slumber nor sleep.

The Lord is your keeper;
the Lord is your shade on your right hand.
The sun shall not strike you by day,
nor the moon by night.

The Lord will keep you from all evil;
he will keep your life.
The Lord will keep
your going out and your coming in
from this time forth and forevermore. (Psalm 121, ESV)

He is my help and He can only be faithful.
Posted on by Caroline 2

If I was still in 8th grade…

If I was still in 8th grade, I would probably write a song about this emotion. I would probably scribble this excitement into stanzas and practice at the piano. I would write about this infinite hope holding my hand like Hercules and putting ground beneath each forward step. I would write about treasure and blessing and the joy bursting out like a thousand piñatas.

I would write about these lessons I’m learning and I would not be ashamed to sing out my young, cheesy optimism. Several weeks ago I came across a huge stack of diaries, dating back to age 13 and documenting almost every year since.

As I read some of the pages, I rolled my eyes at the drama and blushed at the honesty. When I started writing, I used pencil because I thought I may have to go back and edit it for future publication. I also included chapters (again to save time in the editing process).

It all sounds so goofy now, but there is at least one thing I do not want to lose from my 8th grade self.

Hope.

Not just the melodramatic and flaky hope for a diary to be published or a song to be picked up by Point of Grace (because I sent them a song and gave permission for them to use it on their next album), but the kind of steady hope that is fueling my days. This hope is as concrete as the jungle where I now live, but it is indestructible.

This hope in the future grace of the Lord means I have certain hope for good things in this world and certain hope for eternity. This is a different language than hoping for rain or a job or a good report from the doctor. This hope, rooted in the work of Christ, is secure. I am hoping in something that will come to pass.

This is why I have joy like confetti and footsteps like dancin and days like diamonds – because God is in the heavens doing whatever He pleases, and He was pleased to call me child.

Today is my second day of work as a middle school success counselor in a rougher part of Brooklyn. A certain hope is exactly the kind – the only kind – of hope that can make this a joyful pursuit.

Posted on by Caroline 2

when you’re in an earthquake, sing

God provides.

Sometimes, He provides less than what we ask because He wants to give more than what we think.

That’s what happened tonight, anyway. My new roommate and I plodded our way to the 5 pm service, weary of apartment hunting and feeling like the persistent widow at the Lord’s door. “Please, Lord, provide!” We thought we were asking for His provision of an apartment today. We thought that was the only way His provision would happen.

And He did provide, but we’re still without an apartment. Instead He gave us Himself. We sat and drank in the words of the sermon from Psalm 77 and then we broke bread and drank the wine of communion.

He provided Himself and we got filled up.

He provides always, because He is a Provider. It is not in His nature to do anything else. Today His provision was Himself – which is not technically an apartment – but is more than abundant to meet our needs.

This is the firm foundation I can sing upon when there is an earthquake underfoot.

Posted on by Caroline 1

joy falls like confetti

“The Gospel changes what I fundamentally boast in – it changes the whole basis for my identity. Nothing in the whole world has any power over me – I am free at last to enjoy the world, for I do not need the world. I feel neither inferior to anyone nor superior to anyone, and I am being made all over into someone and something entirely new.” Tim Keller

I probably could not have chosen a better book of the Bible to study leading up to my New York move. Galatians is freedom’s anthem and I’m loving it’s accompaniment to my new Brooklyn steps.

Freedom.

Nothing like couch-hopping to remind you of all the reasons you don’t have to boast. And in this beautiful in-between place before I find an apartment, I feel crazy freedom to enjoy my new “home.” Because the world does not have power over me – to make me less secure or less approved or less stable or less free.

The world cannot make me less free.

Even in the most in-between of places and most uncertain of phases, freedom means joy. The sun streaming in the window this morning, the breeze sweeping through Hawthorne Street, the full Saturday stretching out it’s weekend arms – in everything joy falls like confetti. This is a freedom the world cannot steal, a freedom hidden so deep and kept so safe because God has claimed the sacred space.

I am free to enjoy the world because I do not need the world. It’s really a very fabulous thing – because need means dependence. If my freedom depends on the world, I’m like a runner in a race without a finish line. I’m desperate to get to a place where I can be free of all the running, but the end never comes – the distance looms ahead of me and always increases.

But I do not need the world for freedom or fulfillment. Because Christ already crossed the finish line for me, I am free to enjoy the race. I can run with abandon and determination and the kind of joy that makes me giggle. I can run without worry or fear. Because I know Christ is for me, my footsteps are light and my eyes are open. This is my freedom in Christ – to enjoy the world because I don’t need the world.

I am being made over into something and someone entirely new and I am not in charge of that process. I’m just running with my eyes fixed like flint on the One who granted the grace for me to run at all. As I run, I will boast in Him.

And it is for freedom that we are set free.
Posted on by Caroline 1

the least likely place to feel worldly secure

Where, would you imagine, is the last place in the world you could feel secure?

A fashion trade show in Las Vegas, teeming with the fashion conscious, industry hungry, ladder climbers, perhaps?

This is a very legitimate “least likely place in the world” if you find security by way of comparison. There are beautiful people everywhere. Literally, we’ve spent the last 3 days looking across the aisle at American Apparel models parading around in front of their 8 foot poster likenesses in all their ‘made in the USA’ glory.

If you go down the hall or up the stairs to the big times, it’s even crazier – where the largest global market week for contemporary fashion earns its title.

Everybody’s got a limit and I think I just hit mine like a brick wall. I’m not a fashion conscious, industry ladder climber and I can still feel like 15 years old around people who are.

But, guess what? Sitting right smack dab in the middle of the least likely place to feel worldly secure (with my TJ Maxxed top and my thrifted jeans and my plump petite size), I’m the same amount of self-confident.

I’ve done a lot of people watching these last couple days. I’m sure people have done a lot of watching me too, but I didn’t really notice. There is a point, in the wee hours of 6 am, where I shrug at the mirror and say, “It’s not going to get any better than this” without too much fight. But often, in all my watching of fashion comings and goings this week, I would start to smile a little bit (hopefully underneath my facial expression, but I can’t promise that).

I would smile because even if I always feel 15 around people who are supremely fashionable, it doesn’t bother me. I don’t feel less accepted or less approved or less loved.

Isn’t that magical?

Worth is not negotiable. Approval is not a trend. Acceptance is not a fad – not for this girl, anyway.

I already have the approval of the most important audience and I did absolutely nothing to gain it. Not a single thing. It’ll shock me every time, but maybe this week more than others because it feels like people try so hard to gain worth and approval and acceptance.

I smile because this day is full of reasons to rejoice and worrying about what I eat or drink or wear or buy is a big distraction to that joy.

Tomorrow, I’ll get off the plane in Brooklyn and call it home for my weary, vagabond feet. I’ll figure out the trains and maybe someday soon stop living out of a carry-on suitcase. I’ll find a local deli and make friends with the neighbors. I’ll people watch on the corner and join the massive morning commute. I’ll put one foot in front of the other and every footstep will take me in the direction of something new. I will shake off the distractions of “all other things” and smile because of the first and best thing.

I can’t think of a better/worse place from which to set sail, because I’m not really leaving from anywhere and that can really confuse an identity. But, not this girl. Well, that’s what I’ll keep preaching to myself.

I am approved, accepted, and loved because God approves, accepts and loves.

He is gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. He is steadfast and certain. He is kind and patient, tender and just. He is my rock and fortress. This is my Lord who gives me identity, wherever my nomad feet roam and whatever my little hands do.

This is my Lord and my security.

Posted on by Caroline 0

how to give the best advice

I was one of those high school students that teachers pulled aside and said, “You’re a natural leader…” The next sentence would usually be an invitation to partner with that teacher in some sort of classroom takeover.

I don’t know what it was they saw in me – whether it was my fearlessness in front of my peers or my willingness to participate in any sort of takeover plot. What I do know is that it planted a seed that grew into a grown-up me thinking I always have words to say (and that those words are worth listening to).

I ended up pursuing a career (and I use that term loosely to describe the general direction my professional life has gone) that is all about connecting to people. I graduated with degrees in psychology and communication and my joke has been, “Basically, I got a degree in figuring people out and then talking to them.” Every single job I’ve had – from printing shop to administrative assistant to guidance counselor to paint crew to service coordinator – has been about relationships. The most important moments (professional and personal) have always happened in conversations.

Somewhere along the way, I realized that all those times my teachers and family members and friends said, “You’re really one of those ‘natural’ leaders” kind of got under my skin and convinced me I had something to say and that people should listen.

That’s what born leaders do, right? Lead people.

Yes. But it’s both more and less. The secular world has its way of preaching its own religious message and this business of leadership is a popular sermon. There is a tendency, when people come to me for advice, to speak from my own pulpit – to guide and direct and advise from my own experiences and knowledge.

Along the bumpy and unconventional “career path” I’ve been walking, I have learned something very important about leadership and advice and relationships. It really boils down to one very simple thing.

Give me Jesus.

This is the sermon Paul preached to himself in Corinthians and Galatians and it summed up his life and ministry. He even later cautioned his listeners to filter out any worldly advice that might sneak in to sabotage the original message of the Gospel.

“And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.” (1 Corinthians 2:1-5, ESV)

Paul was intensely aware of His need of the Gospel – his dependence on God’s grace shaped the way he spoke and listened and preached and led. His leadership did not look like more of his words or his knowledge or his expertise. His leadership looked like more Jesus. Because the more he filled his life with Jesus, the more it became the only thing he could give to others.

Give them Jesus.

Maybe there are natural born leaders – people who have the characteristics and personality to be presidents and prime ministers. But the longer I live, the more I’m convinced that the best leadership comes from people who are most concerned with following Jesus.

When we feel like we are failing as leaders or as communicators or advisors, we don’t need to work to be better at those things. We need to ask the Lord, “Give me more Jesus, so that I can give them more Jesus.”

I read this little nugget from Tim Keller in my devotional this morning. I like to think about my heart being melted by His love and that love overflowing to others. That’s the kind of leader I want to be.

“If we find ourselves unloving, the solution is not to seek to love better or more; it is to look at Christ, who gives us an unlosable, unshakable acceptance from the Father, and as we dwell on our hope, we will find our hearts melted by His love, and overflowing with His love to others.” Tim Keller in “Galatians for You”

Posted on by Caroline 1

lemme give you some advice

I know, you didn’t ask for it – but it’s comin’ atcha anyway. You don’t have to take my advice, but I don’t know why you wouldn’t.

Don’t ever (no matter how confident you feel or how cool you look), EVER point your rollerblades down the hill in the middle of the Iowa State campus by the MU. Seriously – don’t do it. You might end up with matching 5 inch abrasions on either thigh, a twisted knee, a banged up elbow, and a severely bruised pride. Yes, that happened.

Apparently, I won’t hit my humility quotient this month for quitting my job and moving across the country without a job or an apartment. Everybody needs a good spill every once in a while, even if just to remember that walking a normal straight line without a limp is a precious thing that should be appreciated. The wipeout was unfortunately epic and witnessed by several innocent bystanders. Don’t worry – I jumped up quick and bladed off so they didn’t feel awkward about leaving a struggling, crashed blader spread out on the pavement.

But, let’s get serious (because all my advice isn’t rollerblade-related).

I had dinner with my Uncle Tom tonight because I’m crashing at his house again – this time for just a couple weeks. It was home for a year, so living here again feels like putting on a favorite pair of jeans. Right now my favorite pair of jeans is literally soaking under an ice pack, so I’ve got time to process some of the wheels spinning circles in my mind.

We talked about belief tonight over drinks and guacamole and pizza and lettuce wraps – about what kind of belief pushes out fear and worry and anxiety and shame. Because we’re all believing something, Tom said, but we’re not all believing the right thing. And it’s true.

Only the right belief can displace all the ugly monsters wrestling for space in our hearts. Only the right belief is comfort when you realize all those catchy phrases your fifth grade teacher told you about “shooting for the stars” sound way easier inside the imagination station.

Only the right belief about who God is will give us the right belief about the power of our circumstances.

I’ve had my share of breakdowns. I am familiar with the questions that pound like downpours. I know the rhythm of a panicked heartbeat.

But there is hope in the middle and not just on the other end of all these wrestling wars for my peace. It’s never about getting over a phase or through a season or on top of the details. It’s never about any of that because it’s always about having the right belief about who God is in the middle of it all.

He is Protector.
He is Provider.
He is Comforter.
He is Healer.
He is Peace.
He is Joy.

And He is not these things only when my life makes sense – He never changes. If I believe He is who He says He is, then my belief makes room for joy where ugly monsters once wrestled for my peace. By His grace, I believe He is Protector enough, Provider enough, Comforter enough, Healer enough, Peace enough, and Joy enough.

He is SO ENOUGH that in this uncertain slice of August, the joy is bursting out my rollerblade seams and climbing into my borrowed bed.

He is that good. And He never changes.

I believe, I believe, I believe.

And my right belief about God is jettisoning my doubts as I pick up more trust in the One who overwhelms me with joy.

Posted on by Caroline 2