Tag: Christianity

this & that

It’s raining/snowing and the murky sky suits this Thursday.
I don’t mean that today is despairing, but I do mean that today seems like one of those days where weighty thoughts find a rightful place in the front of my brain. Maybe it’s the ushering in of the Lenten season or perhaps the strange, brown winter we’ve been ambling through… but today is full of weight and maybe you’d like to carry it with me.

Honduras never left my heart, but these past few weeks it’s been intense with two huge fires. You might have heard the news stories about the prison fire and the central market fire. The fire in the market was 5 minutes from where I lived a few short months ago. My sister in Christ tells me to pray for open doors so ministries can reach out during this time. My heart is heavy.

As I try to reflect in prayer during Lent, this blog post by Brett McCracken with Lenten Prayer requests is especially helpful. Oh, that my heart would be situated in a place where I can hear from the Lord.

Now that I’m living in the States again, this whole season feels different. There is something about a Catholic/Latin culture that surprised my spirit around this time. Apart from soccer, the religious traditions surrounding Easter always caused my heart to slow and consider the cost. This blog post by Russell Moore, “Always Mardi Gras, Never Easter” reminds me I must readjust my cultural lens to understand how to engage in conversations with Catholics/Protestants here.

I thought this article “Give up the Gimmicks, Youth Pastors” was an excellent read. I struggle seriously with all the games/programs/bells/whistles that make up our youth outreach programs in the US (and to Christian youth in general). I just don’t know what the best method is to effectively “speak their language” without sacrificing the content they are more than ready to receive.

I know I’ve certainly wrestled with “Why?” questions when it comes to God’s sovereignty. Just last night, I met up with some friends and before I could sit down they told me they were arguing about reincarnation. Before the conversation got too far, I found out the one guy’s mom was a Jehovah’s Witness and he knew his theology. At one point, he looked at me cynically and said, “Oh, sure. It’s about “sovereignty” isn’t it? Right. God is “sovereign” and that’s why it’s okay to say He created everything only to let it go to crap so that He could save it?” Whew! I tried to meet him where he was at and encourage his questions, but when I read this article from DesiringGod.org, “Why Did God Let Paul Become a Murderer?” I thought about all the answers that are foolish to those who don’t believe in the cross. I need serious grace and faith to believe God will give the words that make sense in the right time to the right people.

Well, folks, that’s a lot of reading. I’ll repeat the challenge from my last “this & that” post: How can my knowledge of God inform my obedience in a way that leads to actions full of love in reponse to these things?

Last night, I spoke with one of my dear friends who is still living and working in Honduras. She shared about a time recently when she was so full of sadness – days of heavy, unrelenting sadness because of the brokenness she sees. We agreed that sometimes – precious, painful sometimes – God responds to our prayers to, “break our hearts for what breaks Yours,” by allowing us a sliver of His pain. We couldn’t handle any more than that, but if we are fervently praying, we shouldn’t be surprised when our hearts start to swell inside our chests. We shouldn’t wish it away either. Those moments are precious – gifts to draw near to Him and grieve all the ways we’ve mangled his magnificent design. And then, to pray for His purpose to be realized through us – that every nation, tribe, tongue will hear the glorious news of the Gospel. The news that sets the crooked straight and the broken mended.

even with heavy hearts, in the power of the resurrected Savior, we can

let LOVE fly like cRaZy

Posted on by Caroline 1

this & that

It’s been awhile.

There are simply too many things to read. I’m hoping (in light of yesterday’s post) that whatever knowledge we add to our heads today means adding obedience to our hearts. How can we use knowledge to result in obedient actions full of love?

In light of religious turbulence in the UK (see this recent radio interview with leading atheist Richard Dawkins that making more than airwaves), I strongly urge you to read this article, “No secularism please, we’re British.”

Oh, Martin Luther. Do you know that Luther died on February 18, 1546? Maybe you need a little refresher about what this man contributed to our religious heritage. Read, “The Forgotten Influence of Martin Luther” from the Gospel Coalition blog.

Josh Garrels is an artist who is not afraid to do things differently. His most recent album is completely free to whoever wants it, because he said he has been overwhelmed by the blessings of his musical journey. Wow. He’s not a musical mess-around, either. What he makes is beautiful. Anyway, now Garrels is partnering with Mason Jar Music to make (what appears to be) a really incredible film.

Lastly, I wanted to mention (again) the film Tree of Life. The first time I watched it, I chewed on it for days but I missed SO much because I was scribbling notes on journal pages. The second time I watched it, tucked into an attic room with several beautiful folks, I couldn’t take my eyes off the screen. Put it on your list and sit through it, if nothing else then for the music and cinematography.

Challenge: Choose one thing on this list and then ask how learning can lead to obeying and  actions full of love. The whole idea of “this & that” is to keep informed, but cannot be just that. I realize there are blanks that need filling in, but this is the kind of thing we’re made for, right?

What does it mean that I now know England is wrestling with the religion of secularism, or that Martin Luther almost single-handedly changed the course of modern church history, or that Josh Garrels believes there is power when we invite others into our joy?

How can learning things in this life lead me to knowledge of God and produce acts of obedience full of love? I hope the answer is a treasure hidden in this day!

let LOVE fly like cRaZy

Posted on by Caroline 1

teach them to obey

“… and teach them to obey all that I have commanded you.”

As I sat soaking up the the last minutes of lecture in Perspectives today, I almost didn’t hear these words, “We don’t teach to learn, we teach to obey.” My mind rewound and replayed and something clicked.

I don’t think obsessive is too strong a word to describe the fascination the West has with education. We are greedy about our learning. I’m smack dab in the thick of things, too. I want more in my brain, sometimes just so I can come up with something in conversation to trump the thing someone else said. It’s ugly, really. If you’ve ever seen that clip from Portlandia, it’s something like this and I’m not a bit proud of it.

We want knowledge because there’s something elite about it, something powerful.

and this was never how God intended knowledge

It was not a bad thing for Adam and Eve to know things about the Lord, about the garden, about their place in it. In fact, It delighted God for humans to grow in understanding because it produced praise – the lifestyle kind – where their knowledge resulted in actions full of love. The more they knew of God, the more they wanted to know of Him and please Him. We all know that came to a bad end, but it’s important to remember that our pursuit of knowledge hasn’t always been bittersweet. It was once only beautiful.

“… and teach them to obey all that I commanded you.” These are Jesus’ well-known words from Matthew 28. He is not asking the disciples to go out and form institutions where they teach people to learn. Learning for the sake of learning is a lame movement. The only thing contagious about it is our own greed for more. Learning to obey means letting knowledge sink down deep where it won’t grow stale – where it turns into obedient actions full of love.

When we learn to obey, we know our Master in such a way that our greatest delight is to please Him. When we teach to obey we are teaching that following Christ means conforming to His image (not knowing about conforming to His image).

How dismal the Gospel would be if it was only about knowing. How glorious that, through our obedience, God sanctifies us. I don’t want to just learn the Gospel and I don’t want to teach others to just learn the Gospel.

I want to obey and teach others to obey, that God would be glorified and that our supreme delight would be in Him.

let LOVE fly like cRaZy

Posted on by Caroline 6

a rebuke past due

Last night, around the dinner table, we got into a pretty heated discussion (which is unfortunately my modus operandi). The topic is not as important to me as my conversation this morning with my cousin. I guess you could say it was one of those personal revelations – where the layers peeled back and the “real me” was exposed.

I’ve mentioned before my grappling with the meaning of a “gentle and quiet” spirit that Peter talks about in 1 Peter 3:3-4,

Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as elaborate hairstyles and the wearing of gold jewelry or fine clothes. Rather, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight.

I wrestle these words.

I want to justify my crazy personality, want to know that “who I am” is okay – even if I’m not the quiet girl praying in the corner. I do believe God sanctifies our personalities, but I’m just not sure how to balance my uniqueness with the ways God desires to transform me to His image.

Enter my cousin Vince.

This morning, I asked him about last night’s discussion. I knew the argument ruffled his feathers and I wanted to know what I could do better. I also, selfishly, wanted to know how to achieve that “quiet and gentle spirit” and still be, well, me.

In the course of our conversation, I realized a major character flaw that needs to be seriously refined by fire.

In a conversation/argument/debate, I often appear confident and decided in my view even if I’m not convinced of it myself.

Even writing it looks lame, but it’s true. I’m not sure who to blame – my brothers for their ruthless monopoly bullying or my sister for all those squabbles over borrowing clothes. In the end, I know it’s my own heart that is so stubborn. It’s my own pride that prevents me from saying, “I’m not really sure. What do you think?” It’s my selfishness that refuses to ask questions and instead offers, “Well, I think…” statements.

I love to process through ideas, philosophies, and theological dilemmas. I welcome questions because every assumption/belief must be challenged to reveal its roots. But, I’ve often made my mind up to be defensive before I am convinced of my own position. I don’t ask questions or consider another as better than myself (Philippians 2:3) on the debate floor. My main focus is to be heard and understood, not to hear and understand.

Oh, dear. This confession is getting ugly.

Over omelettes and coffee this morning, my heart looked sour and silly. Vince saw through my selfishness to ways it has blinded my own heart. He saw my veneer of pride and called me out.

This is a rebuke past due that makes me wonder how many relationships and conversations would have ended differently.

My own pride keeps me from conforming to my Creator, but I would probably argue to the death that it’s not so.

Oh, that I would throw off all that entangles so that I can truly

let LOVE fly like cRaZy

Posted on by Caroline 8

inconvenience

Today is pretty regular.

work job #1
go for a run against the wind so I don’t have to shower
work job #2
run errands
read/write/think

I’ve always packed my schedule airtight and then fought for space to dream between the scheduled lines. Today, on my between-works-run I started to think about all the things I pass over because it would inconvenience me (if I’m looking to add anything to my packed day, it better not be inconvenient).

I pounded the ground and wondered about my selfishness. Some of the most pressing needs of those around me will make my life most inconvenient. Those are also usually the most blessed encounters.

I hope I can train my brain to look for the inconvenient ways I can serve others and be willing to do those with a joyful heart. In the end, “inconvenient” is just another way I look to serve myself instead of others around me. I want to be like Timothy, who took a genuine interest in the welfare of others (Philippians 2:20).

My guess is that Timothy was inconvenienced like we wouldn’t believe. I want to be more like that.

Today is pretty regular.
How can I train my heart to look for ways to make it irregular by serving – even if it means inconvenience?

let LOVE fly like cRaZy

Posted on by Caroline 3

yet

If it doesn’t break your heart, it isn’t love.

I know – weird to bring up breaking hearts on a day like today, but I couldn’t resist. There are so many hearts flying around I couldn’t get the image out of my mind. Truly, this day is a beautiful one for too many reasons (see last year’s Sweet Dinner). I’ve kind of got a love affair with this celebration and I’m missing the ladies I’ve spent it with for the past three years. It’s a time when I remember how beautiful it is to be made in God’s image and that His image is relational. So beautiful!

It also means that today I’m reflecting a bit on how we’re a broken reflection of Christ. Our relationships aren’t the way they were designed to be.

And that’ll break your heart.
But, I love the bold statement in this song: I’ll sing until my heart caves in. And I will – even though there are oh-so-many reasons to lament the brokenness, God hasn’t let go of His purpose to pursue people with His love.

Oh that my heart would break for what breaks His!
And that He would sing songs on my heart to overwhelm the pain.

If it doesn’t break your heart, it isn’t love.

let LOVE fly like cRaZy

Posted on by Caroline 2

This is from the pen of someone I admire, Brett McCracken who blogs at http://www.stillsearching.wordpress.com. This kind of made me wish in a big way I was at that poetry reading. Read the rest here.

Brett's avatarThe Search

I was privileged this week to attend a poetry reading and lecture by poet Dana Gioia at Biola, and it was exquisite (I still look back on a 2008 poetry reading of Gioia’s at St. Mary’s in Oxford as one of the aesthetic highlights of my life).

Gioia shared several quite insightful thoughts about art, creation, and how we might become better artists/poets/writers. One of his observations particularly struck me. He said that one thing that most great writing, poetry and art share is a deep connection with and observation of place; that the best creators are usually the ones that are most connected to places and most attuned to the culture, people, customs and environs of the world around them, and particularly of the roots from which they’ve sprung.

Gioia lamented that when he observes people these days (mostly, but not exclusively, younger folks and “digital natives”), they seem place-less

View original post 1,062 more words

Posted on by Caroline 0

lost in translation

"Luke", mixed media on canvas (Makoto Fujimura)

As I sat listening to Nancy Pearcey, my pen wavered, scribbled, wavered, and surrendered. Her masterful articulation put my pen strokes to shame. I won’t try to summarize or capture her description of Francis Schaeffer‘s two story dichotomy in our society today. For that, I will wait to dive into the pages of Saving Leonardo: A Call to Resist the Secular Assault on Mind, Morals, and Meaning.

For now, I want to mention one thought: lost in translation.

When Pearcey was asked, “How can we bring this message to our culture today – what do we do practically to get this message out?” at the end of her seminar, she lamented a dreadful linguistic loss. She sighed, “Well, we talk about it.”

Sadly, it’s hard to find words and harder to find conversants. As we rush into “progress” and grow out of our too-small, sacred shoes, the Gospel gets lost in translation. As Makoto Fujimura, prominent NYC artist, describes it,

“We, today, have a language to celebrate waywardness, but we do not have a cultural language to bring people back home.”

Tonight, I watched the film 50/50 with some friends. I was struck by all the ways language broke down around the main character diagnosed with cancer.
His friend fails to communicate love as he follows the haphazard advice of a book.
His girlfriend can’t find words to describe her guilt.
His therapist can only speak textbook and theory.
His father speaks the language of forget and his mother, worry.
And he, the main character, tries hard to speak no language at all.

Today, we have all sorts of language to walk people out to the ledge, but (in all our progress) we struggle to give a living translation of the Gospel in a way that brings people to the only safe Refuge.

God designed us for relationship – a right relationship with Him and Creation. So far, we’ve used great word wizardry to narrate – even glorify – the ways these relationships are wrong. We flood the cinemas with the drama and doom of this language. We overwhelm bookshelves with this unsettling lexicon.

So where is the Gospel in the language of this culture?

let LOVE fly like cRaZy

Posted on by Caroline 1

upheld

L’abri Conference
Rochester, Minnesota
February 10-11

Today I’m surrounded by eager minds and running pens.

“Christ brought the universe into existence with His speech and only by His speech does it continue to be upheld.”

It was some version of this sentence that settled deep – especially that one word: upheld.

There is not one movement, material, musical note, or molecular formation that exists in this day without being upheld by Christ through His speech. His words – most powerful words – hold all things together. All things.

We fret over governments and institutions and the unraveling of societies, but we forget the One who is sovereign over all things, Whose word alone holds all things together.

Calvin writes, in his Institutes,

“While it becomes man seriously to employ his eyes in considering the works of God, since a place has been assigned him in this most glorious theater that he may be a spectator of them, his special duty is to give ear to the Word, that he may the better profit.”

I can only imagine the kind of “becoming” Calvin meant – perhaps that our taking an active role in marveling at the glory of Creation would send us on the most beautiful earthly course toward heaven. But it is this second phrase which captures me now, “…his special duty is to give ear to the Word, that he may the better profit.”

“In the beginning was the Word,” we read in John, “and the Word was with God and the Word was God.”

Let us respond to our special duty and so better profit – give ear to the Word, Christ Himself. By Him our very existence is upheld.

When Christ was tempted in the desert, how did He respond?
“It is written…”
Wasn’t he, in fact, saying, “I Am He.”

The very words that held the desert together as a backdrop for this dramatic scene were breathed out of Christ Himself – the Living Word. In Him all things hold together (Colossians 1:17). Miraculous.

And can it be that in Him we live and move and have our being (Acts 17:28)? Inside the Word, we live and move and have our being?

This is what it means to be human: to be in the Word, marveling at a universe hanging on the very words of its Creator.

let LOVE fly like cRaZy

Posted on by Caroline 0

tethered

I think sometimes my heart sings when my words are confused and silent. Sometimes those songs my heart sings are a welcome tether to a soul too-often floating on the breeze. I don’t love the idea of tethers, but with a heart prone to wander, I’m well aware of my need.

In the middle of Monday night, a wretched 24-hour flu monster attacked from underneath my bed. My body ached. My head pounded (partially due to caffeine withdrawal). My gut wrenched. Sick. Sick. Sick.

Tuesday was a blur.

Wednesday I prayed God would show strong in my weakness and He was my tether. I shared with some beautiful ladies about God’s design for us as women – something He had planned from the very beginning to showcase His glory. God is so gracious to let me see Him in these faces – to let me watch Him move in my near-nauseous state.
What a gift to be tethered.

And when my soul drifts away, He is my tether.

I hope these songs encourage you today, reminding you of your need for a tether.
Don’t fight it, friends.

Home by Ginny Owens
 
Pilgrim by Preson Philips
 
Washed by the Water by NEEDTOBREATHE
 

let LOVE fly like cRaZy

Posted on by Caroline 0