before the throne of God above

This song has found it’s way onto so many playlists. One of the many wise mentors in my life used to encourage me to read Scripture and then ask, “What does this say about God?” Now, I’m passing along this advice to others in need of this same reminder. When we have a right view of God, we have a right view of ourselves in relation to Him. This song, to me, is a beautiful illustration of that relationship. Just beautiful.

Here are the lyrics to the hymn, Before the Throne of God Above, written in 1863:

Before the throne of God above
I have a strong and perfect plea.
A great high Priest whose Name is Love
Who ever lives and pleads for me.

My name is graven on His hands,
My name is written on His heart.
I know that while in Heaven He stands
No tongue can bid me thence depart.

When Satan tempts me to despair
And tells me of the guilt within,
Upward I look and see Him there
Who made an end of all my sin.

Because the sinless Savior died

My sinful soul is counted free.
For God the just is satisfied
To look on Him and pardon me.

Behold Him there the risen Lamb,
My perfect spotless righteousness,
The great unchangeable I AM,
The King of glory and of grace,

One in Himself I cannot die.
My soul is purchased by His blood,
My life is hid with Christ on high,
With Christ my Savior and my God!

I sing that middle part over and over and over again, “Because the sinless Savior died, My sinful soul is counted free. For God the just is satisfied, To look on Him and pardon me.”

Amazing.

Posted on November 3, 2011November 2, 2011 by Caroline 1

“Occupy Wall Street” ruffles my feathers

Occupy Wall Street is quite the buzz lately.

Social media is on cyber fire with it.
Talk radio either worships or attacks it.
Conservative news networks can’t figure it out.
Liberal news networks can’t see any flaws.

Prompted by this article, “Why I Don’t Protest” by Pete Wilson (Pastor of Cross Point Church in Nashville), I decided to join the milieu.

I guess what ruffles my feathers has something to do with the bottomline (another buzzword).

I’ll go ahead and make this personal. If I am passionate about something, I would hope it is something that has three qualities 1) truth 2) significance and 3) possibility.

Let me break it down.

1) Truth
I’m not going to protest a point that has been proven false. Neil Armstrong did walk on the moon, the Holocaust did unfortunately happen, and Al Gore did not create the internet. I like to think we can use the brains God gave us to decipher fact from fiction. There’s a lot that doesn’t get into the news headlines that might or might not be worthy of a protest (personal or otherwise) and that’s where 1 Thessalonians 5 comes in oh-so-handy.

Paul reminds his brothers and sisters of their secure salvation and identity as children of the light. He encourages them to live peacefully with one another, rejoice always, and pray continually. Then he says in verses 20-22, “Do not treat prophecies with contempt but test them all; hold on to what is good, reject every kind of evil.”

Not everything we hear is true.

I know, it sounds crazy. Paul wanted his brothers and sisters to be discerning about everything and holding firmly ONLY to what is good (This begs a more lengthy discussion for what we determine to be good). In Galatians 1, Paul cautioned the people against “other gospels” preached by angels or even himself. We must have a discerning filter, even with people we trust.

Only with a serious pursuit of the Lord (Creator and Living Word) can we have the type of discernment that will allow us to know what is good/evil and true/false. In the same way we can discern spiritual matters of the heart, we are able to discern matters of society.

From a simple study in household income demographics, one can conclude that people living in the United States are easily part of the 1 and not 99 percent.

2) Significance
You might say that the second naturally follows the first. If something is true, it is significant by default. Hm. Maybe some things that are true are not significant.

I am sitting on a sofa right now.

Is this truth significant?
(Please don’t answer that it implies such and such about who I am and where I come from… it happens to be raining in the Midwest right now, which means the tractors are in their sheds and we are praying against snow.)

There are certain truths that are significant because they reflect our relationship with our Creator and with others. God has been so good to give us His Word, by which we can grasp (Ephesians 5) His glorious and mysterious redemption story. Significance, I believe, starts there.

Then, we’ve got to take that beautiful gem called discernment into taxi cabs and general stores and news headlines to understand what God would call significant in our everyday lives. What would He say is worth our energy, time, and treasure?

Is the truth that some people in the world make a lot more money than other people in the world significant?
I would say it could be.

3) Possibility
That leads us to quality numero tres: possibility. It would seem pretty silly for me to protest the idea that everyone should sit on refrigerator boxes instead of furniture. Silly because it is not significant, but also because there is slim to none chance that I could ever recruit people to think furniture is a bad idea (apart from the hipster crowd who might jump on the trend wagon until they find something irresistible at a thrift store that would almost be evil to NOT sit on).

Here’s an example (to throw another hot-button issue in them mix): I’m not going to protest abortion clinics and I’ll tell you why (after I give you time to throw up your hands or furrow you brow or decide whether to read on…. done?).

I’m not saying I support the practice of abortion. What I am saying is that the presence of abortion clinics and women who use them reveals an issue deeper than any legislative reform could ever reach. It reveals an issue of the heart. It reveals the way we view the sanctity of human life.

David P. Gushee writes in his article “The Sanctity of Human Life,”

The belief that each and every human being has an inviolable dignity and immeasurable worth is one of the most precious legacies of biblical faith to the world.

It profoundly elevates the way human beings view and treat one another.

It restrains the darkest impulses that course within our fallen nature.

Every day for millennia it has both saved lives and enriched their quality.

Indeed, it provides the bedrock upon which the moral and legal codes of our culture and much of the world have been built.

He goes on to explain why the sanctity of life is worth protecting – apart from politics and debates. Gushee looks at the history of human dignity from the pages of the Old Testament. It is something oh-so-wonderful to be made in the image of God!

What I am getting at here is this: One does not fix a broken chair by getting a new chair (equally susceptible to breaking). The possibility for fixing the chair greatly increases by admitting the chair is broken and that there can be a solution.

The real Wall Street problem is not a few people with big money. The real Wall Street problem is people. The possibility for fixing the Wall Street problem greatly increases if we admit people are sinful. This is a heart issue.

And this, friends, is what ruffles my feathers. We spend a whole lot of time, energy, and perfectly good posterboard to protest … well, sin.

We may not recognize it, but what rumbles up inside of us when someone has what we want… that’s called coveting. A rich man can covet as easily as a poor man. A socialite can envy someone as easily as a nobody. A prosperous businessman can offer a bribe as easily as a shady used car salesman. A millionaire can misuse his money as easily as a beggar.

I’m into bottomlines. Here’s one that is true and significant:

we are of the 100%
we are all sinners

Where’s the possibility?

We can be saved by grace.
And, yes, I can get passionate about that.

UPDATE: Just in case you don’t catch the comments on this post, my friend Scot Hekman at Slow Sand posted this article from the Economist, “Leaderless, consensus-based participatory democracy and its discontents.”

Also check out my series called Occupy Life where I start to unpack some of the ways we choose to occupy every single day.
Occupy Life: Lunch Hour
Occupy Life: Ale
Occupy Life: Roland and Delaney

Posted on November 2, 2011December 1, 2011 by Caroline 5

this & that

This will be a day for this equation: music+words=happy Monday! Enjoy these links and pass them along, if your little hearts desires. But most of all and as always

let LOVE fly like cRaZy

even if you aren’t dressing up or filling candy bowls for festivities tonight, there are ALL kinds of opportunities and I know you know it.

Are you a fan of Jars of Clay? Please check this out!
If Jars of Clay isn’t your cup ‘o tea, you should definitely check out Neulore. I became familiar with this band and frontman Adam Agin through Brite Revolution, in its earlier days. You’ve GOT to check out this album right now! Here’s one of the songs:
Let’s see… something to read. Well, on a recent road trip with a very special high schooler, she asked me, “What’s this ‘Lamb of God’ stuff about? I mean I hear it a lot and it’s in songs and I’m just wondering is it a real lamb?” LOVED the question and LOVED the fact that we had several hours to sort it out. At the end, I said, “I know I’m getting worked up about this, but it’s only the beginning – there are SO many ways the Bible speaks that we gloss over! There are all sorts of prophecies in the OT that are later fulfilled in the NT that are simply MARVELOUS. Here is a great list from Peter Cockrell’s blog (he actually got it from Dane Ortlund if you want to re-trace the internet steps). CHECK IT OUT!
Have you ever heard of International Justice Mission? Well, you should hear about them. Here is an interview from Qideas, “An Apologetic for Justice.” That’s a good place to start.
And Can it Be? Truth, friends.
I think I’ve already posted this once, but I ALWAYS need the reminder. What is God sovereign over? A few countries? The weather? My family? Friends? Jobs? The beginning? The end? Evil? Good? Check out this post by Justin Taylor.

Okay, that’s it for now. Enjoy!

Posted on October 31, 2011 by Caroline 0

we could be…

We could be reveling
forever in the love You bring
and we could be wasted on
You and not count it loss

Like fools in love
we’re bound to make a scene

Our hearts bleed for you, whoa

What beautiful way to usher in a Monday (fyi – John Mark McMillan comes out with a new album tomorrow).

Especially after such a blessed weekend, I love this.

Like fools in love, we’re bound to make scene. Isn’t that the truth.

Do your days feel like this? Like you can’t HELP but make a scene? If we are reveling in the love of Christ – wasting everything else and not counting a loss, then our lives will speak (maybe even shout) like crazy that there is something greater!

We might be the people that get pointed at or the people that get ignored, but the bottom line is that the scene bound to happen is for an audience of One.

The Lord welcomes His sons and daughters into worship, where our hearts bleed for the Creator of the Universe. I’m so thankful that God also knows, as we endeavor to worship with our very lives, that there are bound to be scenes.

Our love can look near foolish, but if anyone deserves a scene it is certainly our Lord and Savior!

How could you be reveling today in His love?

let LOVE fly like cRaZy!

Posted on October 31, 2011October 31, 2011 by Caroline 0

fighting temptations

I’m probably on my way to Colorado by the time you read this – kind of last minute. I’m off to see some family and spend some beautiful time with one of my past Honduran students. If I was writing with my true excitement, it’d be in all caps, but because people usually read those in a scream, I’ll refrain.

Last week, I posted this link to a blog by Dane Ortlund in my this & that post. During a conversation I had tonight about Christian perfection and sanctification and temptation, I read it again.

It’s still amazing.

I love that we find this little Clive Staples gem tucked away in correspondence he was writing to a friend who had some questions about evil. Oh! If my correspondence were only half as significant!

So, if you missed it, here it is (I just took this straight from Ortlund’s blog, so go check it out his stuff!):

On September 12, 1933, 35-year-old Clive Staples Lewis wrote a letter to his dear friend Arthur Greeves. The letter is located in the Wade Center at Wheaton College–just down the street from where I am typing right now.

Greeves had written to Lewis asking about the degree to which we can speak, if at all, of God understanding evil in any kind of experiential way–as Greeves had put it, ‘sharing’ in our evil actions.

Lewis begins with an analogy (all emphases original)–

Supposing you are taking a dog on a lead past a post. You know what happens. . . . He tries to go the wrong side and gets his head looped round the post. You see that he can’t do it, and therefore pull him back. You pull him back because you want to enable him to go forward. He wants exactly the same thing–namely to go forward: for that very reason he resists your pull back, or, if he is an obedient dog, yields to it reluctantly as a matter of duty which seems to him to be quite in opposition to his own will: tho’ in factit is only by yielding to you that he will ever succeed in getting where he wants.

Now if the dog were a theologian he would regard his own will as a sin to which he was tempted, and therefore an evil: and he might go on to ask whether you understand and ‘contained’ his evil. If he did you could only reply ‘My dear dog, if by your will you mean what you really want to do, namely, to get forward along this road, I not only understand this desire butshare it. Forward is exactly where I want you to go. If by your will, on the other hand, you mean your will to pull against the collar and try to force yourself in a direction which is no use–why I understand it of course: but just because I understand it (and the whole situation, which you don’tunderstand) I cannot possibly share it. In fact the more I sympathise with your real wish–that is, the wish to get on–the less can I sympathise (in the sense of ‘share’ or ‘agree with’) your resistance to the collar: for I see that this is actually rendering the attainment of your real wish impossible.’

Lewis then goes back to the original question to bring his analogy home:

I don’t know if you will agree at once that this is a parallel to the situation between God and man: but I will work it out on the assumption that you do. Let us go back to the original question–whether and, if so in what sense God contains, say, my evil will–or ‘understands’ it. The answer is God not only understands but shares the desire which is at the root of all my evil–the desire for complete and ecstatic happiness. He made me for no other purpose than to enjoy it. But He knows, and I do not, how it can be really and permanently attained. He knows that most of my personal attempts to reach it are actually putting it further and further out of my reach. With these therefore He cannot sympathise or ‘agree.’

Lewis then relates his point to how we think about past sins, and then how we think about future sins (temptation).

I may always feel looking back on any past sin that in the very heart of my evil passion there was something that God approves and wants me to feel not less but more. Take a sin of Lust. The overwhelming thirst for rapture was good and even divine: it has not got to be unsaid (so to speak) and recanted. But it will never be quenched as I tried to quench it. If I refrain–if I submit to the collar and come round the right side of the lamp-post–God will be guiding me as quickly as He can to where I shall get what I really wanted all the time. It will not be very like what I now think I want: but it will be more like it than some suppose. In any case it will be the real thing, but a consolation prize or substitute. If I had it I should not need to fight against sensuality as something impure: rather I should spontaneously turn away from it as something cold, abstract, and artificial. This, I think, is how the doctrine applies to past sins.

On the other hand, when we are thinking of a sin in the future, i.e. when we are tempted, we must remember that just because God wants for us what we really want and knows the only way to get it, therefore He must, in a sense, be quite ruthless towards sin. He is not like a human authority who can be begged off or caught in an indulgent mood. The more He loves you the more determined He must be to pull you back from your way which leads nowhere into His way which leads where you want to go. Hence MacDonald’s words ‘The all-punishing, all-pardoning Father.’ You may go the wrong way again, and again He may forgive you: as the dog’s master may extricate the dog after he has tied the whole leash around the lamp-post. But there is no hope in the end of getting where you want to go except by going God’s way. . . .

And in a final, powerful, delightful reminder–

I think one may be quite rid of the old haunting suspicion–it raises its head in every temptation–that there is something else than God–some other country into which He forbids us to trespass–some kind of delight which He ‘doesn’t appreciate’ or just chooses to forbid, but which would be real delight if only we were allowed to get it. The thing just isn’t there. Whatever we desire is either what God is trying to give us as quickly as He can, or else a false picture of what He is trying to give us–a false picture which would not attract us for a moment if we saw the real thing.

–Walter Hooper, ed., The Collected Letters of C. S. Lewis, Volume 2: Books, Broadcasts, and the War, 1931-1949 (Cambridge University Press, 2004), 122-24

Posted on October 28, 2011October 27, 2011 by Caroline 2

a la orden: iowa

Okay, let me give you the skinny:

a la orden (in spanish) means at your service

In some Spanish speaking countries, you’ll hear it as much as you hear “Hola,” which was the case when I lived in Honduras for the past three years. Bus drivers, taxistas, people in cafés and people on the streets – they all say “a la orden” for one reason or another. But it wasn’t the common-ness of the word that got me hooked, it was a few particular instances.

I noticed, when I hung out with my high school girls, they would ALWAYS compliment each other on the clothes they wore. The girl wearing the complimented clothes would nearly always respond with, “a la orden.” After a little investigation, I found that this translated to, “Oh, thanks! If you want to wear it – it’s yours anytime! Just ask!”

This was their way of saying thanks for the compliment:
Girl 1 compliments Girl 2 on her blouse
Girl 2 recognizes the compliment and then makes the blouse available to Girl 1
Girl 1 could then ask to borrow the blouse if the need came up

Pretty simple.

So, I started wondering what would happen if we did the same with our spiritual gifts AND the material things we own. I wrote about it here and here and here. What would happen if we offered the things about our lives that draw out compliments? Because, generally, the things we are complimented on are things we get pretty excited about. A shirt, a car, an art project, guitar playing skills, hanging out with kids… you can fill in the blank with a possession or talent that has sent some compliments your way.

THEN, you take that compliment and turn it around to say:

a la orden

Yep. You make that gift, talent, or possession available to whoever recognized it was good in you.

There is nothing good in me (I know that for certain), save Christ. So, whatever is good about what I do, think, say, or have is only good because of Christ in me and I can’t be selfish about Him.

This is the a la orden philosophy that I realize is not anything new or revolutionary (my friend and I found GOBS of a la orden examples in the Old Testament). But, it was something that put flesh on the bones of “put others ahead of yourself” and has kept me accountable to keep at it.

In Honduras, my friends and I kind of went crazy. We made “a la orden” a verb and a noun. We would have a la orden parties, a la orden discussions, a la orden clothes (if you so much as mentioned you liked it). We carried food and toys and clothes in my car to a la orden to the kids at stoplights. We tried to remind each other of the things we needed to make available to others – that we shouldn’t and couldn’t hoard the good things God has given us.

Now, I’m taking this sweet Spanish phrase to the great plains of the Midwest.

It’s been interesting, but I guess it means helping with wedding plans, talking beside a campfire in the middle of the night, babysitting, meeting for coffee, calling my Honduran students who are now in college, talking on skype, driving to Colorado to encourage a sister who is struggling, functioning as a taxi for church events and a shuttle service for a mission conference. It means farming (and providing some un-farmer-like comedic relief) and writing and jumping like popcorn during game time at AWANA. It means letting a future missionary take me out for coffee and answering all her questions about “how to get there” with “Trust in the Lord, my dear.”

It means a lot of things I never thought it would, but it always means thinking less of me and more of others. If I’m holding on to something to tightly, it might be something I should try to give up – like time and physical treasures.

I’m excited to find out there are OH-SO-MANY ways a la orden lives on here. I do miss doing a la orden lifestyle with my community in Honduras, but I figure we’d better spread the love around and what better place than Iowa?

Here are some of my favorite a la orden buddies.

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Here is a beautiful tune for your Tuesday! Enjoy!

Posted on October 25, 2011October 25, 2011 by Caroline 3

what if grass was pink?

I recently watched Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (one of my absolute faves) and remembered why it is so magical. “Fantasmagorical” is exactly RIGHT!

It also got me thinking about G.K. Chesterton (I like to call him GK or Gilbert) because I finished Orthodoxy not too long ago and it’s been on my mind ever since. In the book, he essentially debunks the current philosophies contrary to Christianity, but he takes a very charming and unorthodox route – by way of his own story.

I am the absolute worst summarize-r, so I am just going to give you a few nuggets (as my friend Becca would say). Chesterton compares the tales of the childhood nursery with the mature practicality we are expected to grow into as we age. This world (we are taught) is a place where pigs can’t fly, pumpkins are never carriages, and grass is the color green. These things are true because they just are and we must believe them because not believing them would not make them any less true. I agree with Chesterton when he says this mature practicality is unbelievably boring and I simply refuse to grow into it.

Sure, the grass is green.
Sure, the fact that it is green is explainable by pages of science and double-checked research.

But where is the magic of the nursery rhyme? Of the beanstalk that reaches the sky?

Magic has no place in reality, you say (followed by “you poor, ignorant fool” under your breath).

This is where I like GK so much. Here he explains we can indeed be certain of some things, by way of reason, but that does not lead us to believe all things in the same way.

There are certain sequences or developments (cases of one thing following another), which are, in the true sense of the word, reasonable. They are, in the true sense of the word, necessary. Such are mathematical and merely logical sequences. We in fairyland (who are the most reasonable of all creatures) admit that reason and that necessity. For instance, if the Ugly Sisters are older than Cinderella, it is (in an iron and awful sense) NECESSARY that Cinderella is younger than the Ugly Sisters. There is no getting out of it. Haeckel may talk as much fatalism about that fact as he pleases: it really must be. If Jack is the son of a miller, a miller is the father of Jack. Cold reason decrees it from her awful throne: and we in fairyland submit. If the three brothers all ride horses, there are six animals and eighteen legs involved: that is true rationalism, and fairyland is full of it.
But as I put my head over the hedge of the elves and began to take notice of the natural world, I observed an extraordinary thing. I observed that learned men in spectacles were talking of the actual things that happened—dawn and death and so on—as if THEY were rational and inevitable. They talked as if the fact that trees bear fruit were just as NECESSARY as the fact that two and one trees make three. But it is not. There is an enormous difference by the test of fairyland; which is the test of the imagination. You cannot IMAGINE two and one not making three. But you can easily imagine trees not growing fruit; you can imagine them growing golden candlesticks or tigers hanging on by the tail.

Chesterton was observing that people were taking this “reason” and applying it to all things in the natural world as if they were “rational and inevitable.” How dreadful – that everything would have a perfectly good explanation! GK goes on to explain how imagination helps us marvel at all the pieces that don’t fit together – everything is not here by some rational calculation. The grass is green, but it could have been PINK or blue for that matter. Things (material and otherwise) are as they are, but it could have turned out in a zillion different ways. Who are we to say that when we cut a tree it has to fall? God could have chosen to make it float or melt or disappear.

I love this comparison to Crusoe that Chesterton uses to bring back some of the wonder we should feel at every thing revealed in Creation.

But I really felt (the fancy may seem foolish) as if all the order and number of things were the romantic remnant of Crusoe’s ship. That there are two sexes and one sun, was like the fact that there were two guns and one axe. It was poignantly urgent that none should be lost; but somehow, it was rather fun that none could be added. The trees and the planets seemed like things saved from the wreck: and when I saw the Matterhorn I was glad that it had not been overlooked in the confusion. I felt economical about the stars as if they were sapphires (they are called so in Milton’s Eden): I hoarded the hills. For the universe is a single jewel, and while it is a natural cant to talk of a jewel as peerless and priceless, of this jewel it is literally true. This cosmos is indeed without peer and without price: for there cannot be another one.

This might be too much for your Sunday afternoon. I get it.

But, if your imagination is rusty enough that you can’t picture purple grass, I’d challenge you to a duel. I would say you can bring your reason and I’ll bring my imagination and we’ll see who is standing at the end of a little tussle. Or maybe I should say, we’ll see who is smiling.

I don’t know… it’s just these things I’m thinking about on a Sunday afternoon. I’m loving the grass not because it had to be green, but because it could be so many other colors.

What are your thoughts, friend? What color can you imagine the grass in your yard today?

If you wonder what all this GK stuff is about, check out Orthodoxy online!

Oh, and don’t forget to

let LOVE fly like cRaZy

(postscript: if this makes no sense at all, you should check out this illustration I wrote to help fill in the blank spaces… people have told me pink grass makes MUCH more sense after the illustration!)

Posted on October 23, 2011March 29, 2014 by Caroline 6

Tuesday Links

What will become of the library? This article by author and social change expert Seth Godin helps us navigate the evolving landscape of information systems. It’s not as “doomsday” as I thought… actually there is much hope for the library, if we understand and value the unique need it fills.

As long as we’re talking about books, check out this survey Tim Challies posted on his blog. The results are more than surprising… and worth a look. Here’s a sneak peek:

This article from the Gospel Coalition, “Making All Things New (Not all New Things)” by Pastor Tullian is such an encouragement. I can never be reminded of this too often.

I love this article, “The Sorting Table,” from the Curator about the grape harvest in Australia, even though sadness hangs over it like a blanket. It reminds me of my reflection about time inevitable march forward.

This article, “God of the Impossible,” from the Gospel Coalition is finally an example of what I’ve been trying to explain. Everyone takes in theology everyday. Maybe we don’t call it that and maybe we do, but the point is: we choose to expose our minds to certain beliefs, which in turn form a foundation on which to believe or filter everything else. There is no “throw away” knowledge. Every action has a reaction and every thought triggers another thought. The author, David Schrock, was persuaded by the first theologian who found a place on his night stand. For some people, the first theologian is Kierkegaard, others Donald Miller, and still others Martin Lloyd-Jones. What I love about this article is the beautiful reminder that theology is the study of God and we must remember that He is sovereign. I firmly believe that what we decide to think about, read, believe, discuss influences our theology… but I also believe God is sovereign and working in the midst of our human decisions. I praise God for that!

So, there’s a guy predicting the world will end on Saturday. This is Cal Thomas’s response in World Magazine.

Here is a great video from John Piper on Jesus’ strategy in Samaria. Piper says this story is in the Bible to encourage us in our pluralistic society.

This is the video that sparked my reflection on Kyrie Eleison yesterday – a promo for Fernando Ortega‘s new album. Beautiful.

I also LOVE this video from Alan Hirsch about how Christians are risk averse. We are too comfortable and it is hurting the Church.

Lastly, the film “Tree of Life” debuted this morning at the Cannes Festival and here’s what people are saying, via The Search blog. This makes me even MORE excited to see this film! I have to admit, because of Brett McCracken‘s slight obsession, I am intrigued by Terrence Malick as a director and as a person.

Okay, that’s enough linkage for now.

Have a GREAT Tuesday – let LOVE fly like cRaZy!

Posted on May 17, 2011May 17, 2011 by Caroline 1

Kyrie Eleison

In Greek, the phrase means, “Lord, have mercy.”

What catches my breath in my throat is how beautiful the phrase sounds. I remember singing it in high school for Honor Choir or All State auditions, I’m not sure which. I am sure I was drawn in by the mystery of its beauty and its tragedy … but not understanding why.

Today, the mystery wound itself around my heart’s cry for my students. As I sat at the mechanic shop (praise the Lord my severely overheated car only needed a simple little tube that cost 2 dozen eggs and some change!) reading Think by John Piper, I thought about how we are called to be both like children (Matthew 18:3), but not children at all (1 Corinthians 14:20).

I can think of many times I’ve been accused of being excessively childish and an almost equally amount of times I’ve been accused of being too serious. And, um, the accusations are often true. The pros and cons of this see-saw are something only the Lord can measure out. But, I’m not going to give up that easy.

I love that the God of all the universe suggests we become like children… completely dependent for every need and completely abandoned to all kinds of joy; completely honest about doubts and completely transparent about fear. We need Him just as desperately for joy as we do for our bread and I think He delights equally to give them.

I love that when Zaccheus heard Jesus was coming to town, he lost all sense of shame or fear and scurried right on up that Sycamore tree. And oh how I love Jesus when he gives Zaccheus (see this sermon by George Whitefield) the invitation to come down … and to please host him (Jesus) at his house for a celebration! Zaccheus abandoned all pride and position just to glimpse the Man with the power to give him a place in eternity.

Can you believe it? God didn’t move Zaccheus to walk stoically up an aisle at an altar call and calmly confess by repeating a mechanical prayer. God moved in Zaccheus and the little guy couldn’t reach for the branches fast enough. He desperately wanted to see Jesus and nothing else mattered. Only a child would act like that. And I love that Jesus loved it.

On the other/same hand (I refuse to think these things are actually separate), Paul cautions the church in Corinth to not be children “in your thinking.” We are to be infants in regard to evil, but mature in our thinking. It is much easier to do the opposite – mature about evil and infants in our thinking. We are not called to be infants about everything… just evil. The act of thinking will bring us into maturity, just like a child who learns to walk or start mumbling phrases. Those lessons require thinking. Sometimes we get so concerned about being “relevant” that we start to be mature about the evil in the world. I can’t say I know what it means to be innocent of evil (Romans 16:19) and wise about what is good, but I think it has a lot to do with Philippians 4:8, “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”

As we actively think on these things, in the pursuit of Scripture and its application in our lives, the evil things of our dark world becomes less appealing, while the wisdom about living in the darkness makes our light shine like a million suns.

It’s getting late and I should wrap this up.

Basically, when my heart cries out Kyrie Eleison today, I am saying, “Lord, have mercy on me when I am mature about evil and innocent about good. And, Lord have mercy on my students as they choose what to think on, be wise about, and be innocent of. Oh, Lord please have mercy!”

What better place to learn about this desperate plea than through music… through the beautiful voice of a child. Here’s a young English boy singing Kyrie recorded live in Dublin with a full choir and orchestra. Also this article from the Gospel Coalition, “Ordinary Evil and the Factory that Made Corpses” has provoked some thoughts on what it is to be innocent of evil, or completely mixed up in it.

let LOVE fly like cRaZy

Posted on May 16, 2011May 16, 2011 by Caroline 0

MUSINGS IN THE MIDST

a study in good work, neighbor love, and kingdom come