Tag: Christianity

desire like dynamite

I’m looking at my week today. I’m just sitting here on this side of Monday thinking – what stories will unfold before next Monday comes? How will I step into the miracles of grace God has authored this week? What will those joyful moments look like and when will I do battle in the moments of temptation? What treasures are waiting to be discovered in the most unlikely of places?

I’m still on this side of Monday, just barely, and I’m ushering it in with Sandra McCracken’s song, “Dynamite” because I guess I want to think on the weight of another regular week. Yes, life goes on – an unsteady rhythm in an unsteady and shifting world that somehow feels routine. Another 9 am start to another five day week that’s about to happen… and these lines are breaking in to shake me free of going through the Monday motions.

You may not be in a place to imagine anything this morning, and if that’s the case you might want to come back and read this later because McCracken paints a picture you are meant to see in your mind’s eye.

“The heart takes what it wants, like dynamite.”

Dynamite is not a gentle thing – not a pleasant or friendly thing. It is unforgiving and indiscriminate in its destruction. And this is the image McCracken uses to talk about the heart: dynamite. That’s ugly.

I don’t like to think about my heart like destruction – the kind that thunders and smokes and overwhelms. I don’t like to think about a lot of ugly things. On this side of Monday, I am thinking about how desire is lit like dynamite.

“Those who have ears, as the smoke it clears, will see things as they are
To bend the will, you first must change the heart.”

But I’m also thinking about the moments before destruction is guaranteed – those moments when the will can still be bent by a change of heart.

Where are those moments in my today?
When will my heart race to take what it wants this week?

Oh, I know there will be many times. My heart is fickle and fragile and forgetting. I want things I’ll never admit to wanting and this week will not be any different than last week.

But, maybe if I know my desire like dynamite, I will listen for a different sound.

“Will we choose the noise of our desire or the hope that makes no sound?”

Maybe, I will choose to say “Yes!” to all the promises God has given me in Christ – all the ways He has provided the power to bend the will of my flesh by the change of my heart. Destruction is not unavoidable. The noise of desire is not so deafening that the silent sound of hope cannot penetrate it. A hope that does not disappoint (Romans 5) is as brilliant and as sure as this morning’s sun.

In 2 Corinthians 1:20 we read, “All the promises of God find their ‘Yes!’ in Christ.”

The God of creation sees our desire like dynamite and yet still offers a hearty and infallible YES in the person of Christ, who secures every promise God has ever given. Within this profound security, we can say “Yes!” to those promises – to the hope that makes no sound.

We can walk out this week in a way that doesn’t leave destruction in our wake.

I am reading through Future Grace by John Piper and this particular post is inspired by his words in Chapter 7 as well as Sandra McCracken’s song. 

Posted on by Caroline 0

what if you didn’t open your gifts?

I know – it sounds crazy.
Who doesn’t open gifts?

I was sitting across from a new friend tonight and I wondered what would have happened if we hadn’t taken advantage of that awkward “turn and greet your neighbor” moment at church last Sunday. What if I didn’t turn around? What if she didn’t extend her hand and say more than, “I’m Sarah, nice to meet you” in that wonderfully Sunday morning way? What if she hadn’t asked for my phone number?

I can tell you exactly what would have happened: after an appropriate amount of time passed (shaking hands, nodding heads, exchanging hellos), I would have sat down content that I had “been social” at this new church and prepared myself for the sermon. And then we would have exchanged “nice to meet yous” as we bundled up and got out the door with minimal awkwardness or personal exposure.

Well, thankfully, things worked out differently.

Tonight, I met a kindred spirit and it was a gift I almost didn’t unwrap. I almost didn’t know the heart in the row behind me loved books and theology and the gospel. I know it sounds strange to be surprised to find such a heart in church.

But it is a gift, to be sure. I listened to her crazy story of God’s faithfulness and she listened to mine. We very quickly had an understanding – an openness that is only grown in the fields of faith.

My friend Alejandra tells me, “You just know… when someone is a believer, you can feel a connection like you are related.”

That’s what happened tonight and I almost didn’t open the gift. God is so gracious to patiently introduce us to His community – to invite us into relationships that reflect Him. In His grace He offers gifts – often many inside every moment – and our opening of these gifts glorifies Him because we revel in satisfaction at what we find.

let LOVE fly like cRaZy

and definitely take a few risks during that meet and greet time

Posted on by Caroline 2

a tree I’ll grow

I had a no-show today and it’s tearing me up.

How can you just not show up to see your little baby girl? What is more important?

I’m shaking off my judgments and getting a good helping of humanity today – the unfinished, raw, and unruly kind of humanity. We are all capable of this, we are.

Still, it’s tearing me up.

This is the love I wish all the children could crawl into – the kind that never leaves and always stays, the kind of love that is older and stronger than this breath of life, the kind of love that has roots deep like a tree.

I don’t know who this song is sung to, but I’m singing it today.

Sometimes melodies are just better than plain words.

 

Posted on by Caroline 2

sometimes I speed what should be slowed

I’ve been thinking lately about pace.

What speed is fitting as we pursue the Lord – is it always an all-out, relentless rush? Are we always breathless about getting to where God is leading?

I’ve been thinking about pace because I wonder if we sometimes speed what should be slowed. I wonder if we create some of the crazy that surrounds our spiritual sprints – like we’ve thrown into the air all the race markers and so haphazardly attempt to fix our eyes on Jesus while anxiously searching the way.

Maybe this isn’t making any sense to you (is it?), but I’ve sure noticed that God means for some things to be experienced slowly. Prayers are sometimes this way, and blessings. And suffering. Sometimes, it seems, we’d like to think we can control the outcome of the race we’re running, the “race marked out for us,” by more intensity. Or maybe it’s just me.

It is a beautiful thing to take slow steps of faith. Not timid steps, just slow and steady steps that say,

“I am not worried where my foot will fall. I am not anxious about getting somewhere sooner or later. I am at peace with the amount of grace God has given for this step. I do not doubt the Lord’s provision.”

It is a beautiful thing to take slow steps of faith and I’m learning this, slowly. Maybe it’s because slow steps allow my frenzied, distracted heart time to believe in the God who will sustain me.

Maybe my hurried, race pace is something I’ve thought up as a back-up plan if God’s doesn’t work. Maybe I need to be restful even while I’m determined to persevere as a runner in a race – believing that my finishing doesn’t depend on my performance as much as it depends on God’s grace.

“Be still, and know that I am God.
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth!” Psalm 46:10

“When I am afraid, I put my trust in you.” Psalm 56:3

“Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand.” Proverbs 19:21

“It is in vain that you rise early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil; for he gives sleep to his beloved.” Psalm 127:2

“Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.” Matthew 6:34

Today, I’ll try taking slower steps.

This song seems to be about the right pace.

let LOVE fly like CrAzY
Posted on by Caroline 4

a day, brilliant all on its own

The sun was brilliant today.

The wind sure fought hard, but the sun definitely stole this Saturday show. It came in through our front windows like we invited him in for morning coffee, like God knew we needed real warmth and not the manufactured kind.

Can a day ever just be brilliant all on its own?
Can it be beautiful without something specific making it so?
Can a day make you all kinds of emotional?

This day did.

So, I am singing the songs stored inside my heart and believing God is good for His promises. There’s a miracle making merry in my soul – a miracle on the other side of every believing step.

Step.
[He is faithful!]
Step.
[He is faithful!]
Step.
[He is faithful!]

When I believe the Lord is good for His promises, the boldness of my steps proclaim the greatness of One who keeps His word. And with each step, my heart wants more of His glory to be proclaimed – it’s a crazy exponential equation. Get more grace, believe more grace, proclaim more grace, all to the magnifying glory of the Lord.

let LOVE fly like cRaZy

 

Posted on by Caroline 0

like magic

Everyone warned me – these kids were going to go ballistic when they left their mom.

My heart melted a little bit when the little guy practically raced into my arms at daycare; it was like he knew where we were headed. We gathered up all the day’s things (and mercy! the day has so many papers and mittens and shoes and stray toys) and then we gathered sister and got into the car.

I had been told they didn’t do well in the car, especially little Mr. Man. But apparently the other folks didn’t know the secret. The little fusses almost immediately died down when we set out on the road and I cranked the tunes.

It was like magic.

I saw heads bopping and I think I heard a few notes floating around in the backseat, too. We got into a groove, those kiddos and me. I finger played my steering wheel like animal on the drum and that was a big hit. Sister shouted accounts of the day’s events while brother cooed and I multi-tasked my prayers for safety and peace and joy and the classic “help!” And we made it. We pulled up still friends with dry faces.

After the visit with mom, we gathered all the day’s things once again (how they can get multiplied and strewn about, I do not know) and I braced myself for the breakdown. I had been warned that it would get apocalyptic up in my car once they said goodbye. I got quiet and let the farewells fill all the space in the air. Mom loves these littles, of that I am sure.

They got belted in my backseat and there was a moment we just kind of teetered there on the cliff. Would we fall over that edge and spend the car ride in apocalypse freefall or would we fly instead?

The music accompanied our ascent and we sang all the way home.

It was like magic.

Why is this round trip car ride so significant? Does it deserve to be published into anonymity on the internet? I say yes and let me tell you why.

These little ones have had life ripped out from under them like a rug. Everything familiar and everything “home” is no longer true – it’s all turned upside down. Nothing is as it should be and no one makes sense when they try to explain it to their sweet little souls.

And then they get into my car and I get overwhelmed at the moments we share. What do I say? How do I pour out dump trucks of love when they are belted in the backseat and we only have 30 minutes? How do I become someone familiar?

I’ve never been so thankful for Christian radio in my life. We sing, I drum, they hum, and we all bop our heads to the sound of truth making melody.

The reality is I don’t know. I just don’t know how to make them believe they are precious and all this mix up isn’t their fault. I don’t know how to tell them that their little people world is turned upside down because some big people made bad choices. I don’t know how to make them understand there is a God who made them, loves them, and wants to be known by them.

And so we sing.
And I pray with broken heart that the truth sinks in: Jesus loves them and keeps every promise He makes.

let LOVE fly like cRaZy

…
Boys become kings, girls will be queens
Wrapped in Your majesty
When we love, when we love the least of these
Then they will be brave and free
Shout Your name in victory
When we love, when we love the least of these
When we love the least of these

…

Break our hearts once again
Help us to remember when
We were only children hoping for a friend
Won’t you look around
These are the lives that the world has forgotten
Waiting for doors of our hearts and our homes to open
…
If not us, who will be like Jesus
To the least of these
If not us tell me who will be like Jesus
Like Jesus to the least of these

**As part of my job, I regularly supervise interactions between children and parents with the hope that they can be reunified after the issues have been resolved.

Posted on by Caroline 6

protection & presence

The front room is now a grayish color and the dining room looks like a latte. There are crafted things hanging on the walls and thrifted lamps lighting the corners. We have too many pillows, but they are all too wonderful and quirky to store away somewhere. The furniture is nearly all free or craigslisted or thrifted or clearanced. There’s a bronze candlestick holder that our great Aunt used as a doorstop (and could easily double as a defense weapon) that sits on a trunk-turned-sidetable.

My sister mainly brings the inspiration for the decorating of our house and I make sure we’re stocked with cleaning supplies. We’re a funny team – living together for the first time since she left for college in 2001. After about one month, we’ve snuggled in to our new home. Well, our landlord tells us it was built in 1887, so it hasn’t been new in a very long time, but we are shrugging into it like you would a good, worn-in pair of shoes.

And it feels good.

This city has life and we’re pretty close to the downtown heartbeat. If you’re used to the suburbs, our neighborhood would definitely earn the title “sketch” (especially if you stop by at night). But, if you’re inner-city familiar, then you would know our street is pretty quiet by comparison.

In any case, someone said we should get a deadbolt. Our front door is about 50 feet from the sidewalk and the doorknob locks like a bedroom. My sister and I aren’t worried about it, but enough people are that we mentioned it to our landlord.

Protection is something people get a little bit desperate about, a lot of fearful about. We want walls – tall ones – between us and danger. We want schools far away from any threat. We want bad people to stay away from good people. We want there to be some sort of buffer – a moat, perhaps, to keep safe away from unsafe.

I don’t have children, biological ones, anyway. But I am a child and I saw the tension in my parents’ eyes when I said I was going to Honduras. I heard their voices waver even while they said they were trusting the Lord. I could see their raised eyebrows in my rearview mirror as I drove them around Tegucigalpa. “Where’s that moat?” They seemed to ask. When we moved to this part of Des Moines, my dad raised those same eyebrows.

This morning, I read from Zechariah in my devotions,

and said to him, “Run, say to that young man, ‘Jerusalem shall be inhabited as villages without walls, because of the multitude of people and livestock in it. And I will be to her a wall of fire all around, declares the LORD, and I will be the glory in her midst.’”(Zechariah 2:4-5 ESV)

The prophet said Jerusalem would grow out of her walls. She would increase in number so that the walls could no longer hold her. John Piper writes,

But walls are necessary! They are the security against lawless hordes and enemy armies. Villages are fragile, weak, vulnerable. Prosperity is nice, but what about protection?

To these questions, God lays out His promise, “I will be a wall of fire all around.” In the end, walls are still manmade and can be scaled and stormed by men. But a wall of fire – a divine wall of fire – is a force of protection that cannot be reckoned with. As the city expanded beyond its manmade protection into a weak and vulnerable state, God makes a promise to hover over the weak and vulnerable to offer miraculous preservation.

Piper continues to work through the passage,

And it gets better. Inside that fiery wall of protection he says, “And I will be the glory in her midst.” God is never content to give us the protection of his fire; he will give us pleasure of his presence.

I had to read this on replay this morning. God said, “I will be the glory in her midst.” God is not a cold, stone wall. He is not an inch thick defense plan. God is alive and God loves His people. The fire protects them in the most vulnerable and exposed situations and His presence comforts and pleases like nothing in this world.

Today, God is expanding His kingdom out into vulnerable, exposed, unguarded territory. We are not to fear.

Our Holy God is the best, surest protection and the most pleasing company.

let LOVE fly like cRaZy
Posted on by Caroline 4

being innocent

Last night, I tried to give an update in the form of a limerick. It didn’t pan out, so I’ll spare you, but I did realize that I must discover again what it means to be childlike.

My beautiful friends asked, “Do you find joy in what you do?” in the incredulous ways friends do when you’ve just thoroughly depressed them. I snapped out of the glazed-over “here’s-how-I-answer-questions-about-my-job” mode and realized I will not survive if I forget to be as innocent as a dove.

Being innocent is possible.

Evil is not a new thing. It has not developed with the introduction of new laws and the deterioration of others. Evil has been around since those two lovebirds had a forbidden meal in paradise. Jesus’s “sending out” was not to go into the world and build houses to hide inside, away from the evil. Wisdom like serpents doesn’t come from staying safe, incubated from the weary world outside our doors. Jesus admonishes his followers to be innocent as doves – to step into all the ugliness and evil and somehow stay innocent.

Jesus was well aware of how twisted and sinful the world was when he gave this directive.

“Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. (Matthew 10:16)

Being innocent is possible because Jesus is involved and he said so. That’s the bottomline. He would not command his followers to do something impossible – something He would not make possible in His power. I believe being innocent in this ugly, evil world is possible because God said so.

Being innocent is painful.

For a long time, I had the wrong view of innocence – a sheltered and unexposed upbringing fashioned it. Don’t get me wrong, I’m beyond thankful that I didn’t know many things of the world until recently (and still am pretty clueless). I am thankful for all the ways I was trained up by my parents in righteousness and pointed towards Truth. Where my view of innocence got tangled up was when I started equating my experience to innocence. This does not match up with the experience for which Jesus was preparing His disciples. They would see horrible things, hear horrible things, and experience horrible things. They were not to sit comfortably indoors, far from the evil raging outside. Jesus commanded them to walk towards the pain and even into the pain so they could speak words He would give them. I love that His recruiting schpeel is probably the least persuasive invitation you’ll ever read. “Come, you will be hated by all for my name’s sake.” There is no sugarcoating this gig. Jesus is clearly not out to win the crowds into his service.

Beware of men, for they will deliver you over to courts and flog you in their synagogues, and you will be dragged before governors and kings for my sake, to bear witness before them and the Gentiles. When they deliver you over, do not be anxious how you are to speak or what you are to say, for what you are to say will be given to you in that hour. For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you. Brother will deliver brother over to death, and the father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death, and you will be hated by all for my name’s sake. (Matthew 10:17-22)

Being innocent ends in reward.

But the one who endures to the end will be saved. When they persecute you in one town, flee to the next, for truly, I say to you, you will not have gone through all the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes.(Matthew 10:22-23 ESV)

Jesus sent them out, into the evil, and told them to be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. I often turn this over and over in search of something spelled out in letters that can slice a dividing line. When am I too much like a serpent and when am I too fearful and distant like a dove? How does one straddle two extremes perfectly as she walks out the kingdom directive to go?

Christ.

I mean that as simply and mysteriously as it sounds. Christ answers our questions of when and how by telling us to be both wise and innocent, an impossible thing. In this impossibility, we begin to understand He is also the reward. Only someone who is God could give an impossible directive. Christ enables the straddling of two extremes in a way that brings us to our knees in praise. This most powerful God calls us into the impossible at the same time that He invites us into His presence. How deep the Father’s love that He would enter such a twisted, evil world and invite us to be with Him – to share in His heart for the nations. How deep the Father’s love. This is our reward.

Christ is the way we walk out wisdom and fly out innocence. Christ is the reason I can laugh and jump and play like a child even while I am learning the evils of worldly wisdom.

let LOVE fly like cRaZy
Posted on by Caroline 3

I am a sinner, in the first person

Yesterday, I stood in a new church singing a song with all the old, redemptive swagger of a classic hymn. We rested on the chorus in repeat and I finally sang in the first person.

“I am a sinner, if it’s not one thing it’s another
caught up in words, tangled in lies
You are a Savior and you take brokenness aside
and make it beautiful, beautiful.”
(Brokenness Aside by All Sons & Daughters)

I am a sinner. 

Have you ever been challenged to make “I am …” statements? I often asked my students in Honduras to make a list of ways they could finish that sentence. We would then look through the list and talk about which of those statements were true, which were false, and which were within his/her power to change. All those conversations are nice and tidy when I’m on the counseling end, encouraging people to examine their inner being and ask God to reveal if there is any wrong thing.

As I stood there singing, “I am a sinner” in the first person, something broke. “Sinner” is not the first thing I’d like to have follow my “I am” statements. I’d like to have an impressive list before I make that admission. I always have a hard time thinking about specific ways I sin when I’m standing in church (so convenient, I know). But not yesterday. With every repeating chorus I thought of ways I’d made my heart ugly.

I am a sinner.

The pastor introduced the sermon series on generosity and we read from Luke 18 about the offerings of the Pharisee and the tax collector.

He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt: “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’ But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”
(Luke 18:9-14 ESV)

I work with the kind of stories that would tear your heart out – parents, children, families, neighbors capable of things we try not to know about. There’s a distance that threatens to creep in to my posture when I come before the Lord. There are so many things I haven’t done and would never do.

I pictured the posture of the tax collector at the temple and his first person proclamations struck me. Both the Pharisee and the tax collector prayed for favor. The Pharisee was grateful for what he was not. The tax collector was grateful for who God was. 

The tax collector prayed with a posture that honored the Lord, recognizing how great God would have to be to save him – a sinner.

It is this kind of posture that produces a generous heart – a desperate, first person statement that begs for mercy from the One who is merciful.

I am a sinner, but You are my Savior and you take brokenness aside and make it beautiful, beautiful.

let LOVE fly like cRaZy
Posted on by Caroline 2

joy lives next to loneliness

Sometimes more than other times I feel the weight of packed suitcases. It’s like a surprise that sweeps the hair straight up on my arms. I forget, I guess. Things get going – mornings and middays and meetings – and I forget, I guess, that home is not places.

Then the question drops like all kinds of innocence with friends at the dinner table, “So, how do you like living in Des Moines?”

There’s nothing special about the question, but it hits me like surprise and my hair stands straight up. It’s been a month and a half now, living in Des Moines and working as an in-home counselor, and the question is like paralysis. My mouth says the pleasantries, but my mind speeds by the years after college – Chicago, Austin, Tegucigalpa, Ames, and now Des Moines – and I realize I am still moving.

I get all kinds of emotional about the motion and I wonder if I’ll ever hang my hat or turn in my key or take off my shoes somewhere permanent. I wonder if I’ll ever stop moving. Now, I’m queasy.

My conscience pricks before self-pity sets in or some other such selfish device. Maybe this is the drama I create – maybe these thoughts are not even worth all the words. Having time to think about whether or not I like living in a certain city, whether or not I like working my new job, whether or not I like searching for a church… they are first world questions and I won’t pretend otherwise.

But it is not exactly a bad feeling I feel, this loneliness, and it is there getting stuck in my throat while I think up an answer to the question at the dinner table. I realize I may never get planted in a place of permanence on this side of heaven and it’s both a good and hard thought.

I suppose I am surprised to find joy lives so content next to this loneliness.
I suppose this is home.

And the mystery of this supposing can only lead me into praise.

let LOVE fly like cRaZy
Posted on by Caroline 3