Can You Hear Me Now?

I'm a teacher who works with small children. I would be rich if I had a nickel for all the times over the past twenty years that I have said, "Pay attention. Are you listening? What did I say? I just said that. Look at me. Turn your listening ears on. I don't want to have to say this again." And on, and on.

I've been a Christian longer than I have been a teacher. I would probably also be rich if I had a nickel for all the times that God has been speaking to me and I have missed it or ignored it or not recognized that it was Him doing the talking.

The past several months have been difficult ones for me. I left a church family of eighteen years in obedience to what I still believe was the direct leading of the Holy Spirit. In my economy, obedience in a hard thing should lead to big reward (again, like my students: "If we do a good job, do we get a Skittle?"). Instead, it has seemed to lead to silence. I have continued in the disciplines of the faith, reading my Bible and praying and attending church. I have felt disconnected and have believed that God was not speaking. The loneliness and silence have made me angry and hurt, which led to an attitude of cynicism and sarcasm concerning what God is doing.

Last Sunday was the first glimpse of God that I have noticed in a while. In the middle of the message, or the song, or. . . I don't even remember, it occurred to me that God has been quietly doing things in my life. I had been praying and praying for guidance in a particular situation, and while there was no thundering voice from heaven, circumstances aligned and I had my answer. My  moment of clarity:  God is moving even when I don't see it.

Wednesday I had another sighting. A dear friend called specifically to see how I was doing Unfortunately, in the way we perversely do when someone we love and trust starts poking around, I reacted with defensiveness and intellectual argument and a refusal to acknowledge the presence of God in anything at all right now, EVER. However, in the perverse way of the love of Jesus, she prayed over me and for me and I started to pay attention that the very act of a friend calling, caring, listening, praying, and loving was the Lord at work to draw me closer to Him.

I determined that I needed (when don't I?) more time to spend with God praying and working through some of this. I sat down on the couch this morning and picked up Charles Swindoll's book about Esther that I have been reading but not opened in weeks. The chapter was about the silence of God.

Okay. I'm starting to get it (today, anyhow). I've read the story about Elijah in 1 Kings 19:9-18, about how the Lord speaks to him not in a wind, an earthquake, or a fire; but in a whisper. I know that in my brain, but my heart still wants something loud--because then I know for sure that I'm doing what I should be. Yet often the Lord is moving through quiet circumstances and speaking in words we already know. I want to be connected to a church family again. I've found a church to try. Yet I have been dragging my heels about joining a small group. Do I need a telegram to know what to do? I want more depth with God. I found out about a women's Bible study that keeps coming back to my mind. Do I need angels singing?

Again and again, because I am as slow to listen and pay attention as my students (with less excuse, since most of them are only seven years old), God reminds me that faith is not based in burning bushes and talking donkeys, but in the ever-present knowledge of the love of Christ shown me on the cross. God's voice was not heard in the book of Esther, yet His purposes prevailed. His silence does not mean that He is idle in my life. I am praying for a heart that sees Him at work in the smallest of ways.

Whispers and Workings

Some seasons, all you can do is go through the motions. During this last dry spell, that's been my drill. Read my Bible because that's what I do while I eat breakfast. Pray because that's what I do after breakfast. Ask God to move. Do my day. Some days, like pretty much every one while I was in Scotland, the Bible-reading gets skipped a lot and the "serious" (as in, focused with my journal) praying gets all but abandoned. I know that my works avail me nothing, because I am saved by grace and grace alone (Ephesians 2:8-9). Yet I also know that I want to do what I know to do to position myself to hear God the best that I can. I've also learned, though, that God does what He wants in the time He chooses.

 As I have been waiting to hear from Him, I have also been diligently picking a verse to pretend to memorize for Beth Moore's 2013 memory verse challenge. The verses are chosen on the first and fifteenth of the month. When I went to the Living Proof Ministries Blog on July 16 (oops), I read the whole entry, which I don't always do. Here is part of what Beth posted that day (for the full entry, go here):

You may feel powerless right now, Sister, but, if you are in Christ, make no mistake: you are not. Get some backbone back in your prayer life if your spiritual spine has deteriorated. With reverence for His holiness and with the boldness He said we could bring to the Throne of Grace, read to God from His Word where He promised His people victory as they looked to Him alone…
…and where He promised to clothe us in power
…and where He said He’d make Himself conspicuous through our spiritual gifts and through supernatural works in His Name.
If you don’t know where those places are, go hunt them down. (But you could start in Romans 8, Luke 24, Acts 1, Acts 2, 1 Corinthians 12 and Hebrews 4.)
Tell Him you’re going to ask for it and ask for it and ask for it in His great Name and for His glory until He gives it to you and frees you from whatever this present powerlessness is. And then DO IT. Ask and ask and ask and tell Him you will do whatever it takes to cooperate and mean it! Throw your hands out to receive. And, then, when He gives it – and He will – don’t take credit for it. Appreciate it. Thank Him and thank Him for it. Know that it’s grace. Use it audaciously to bring Him attention.

Sister, you cannot fulfill your foreordained purpose without power. Go back after it but, whatever you do, don’t try to get it without Jesus coming with it. Power for power’s sake will blow you up. God-given unction isn’t meant to just come and go with periodic personal revival. We were meant to live powerful lives. Let’s get to them. If you’ve got an area of carnality that is quenching it, I promise you it’s not worth it. Believe me, I’ve been there. Repent, turn from it and get on with it. You’ve got a calling. And it takes divine power. (Beth Moore, LPM blog entry, July 15, 2013)

I actually didn't read it all that carefully then, but did print it out and put it out by my journal. Several days later, I sat down, read it, got out my Bible and read through those passages. I started to hear the whisper of the Holy Spirit revealing some things that called for repentance.

A day later, I suddenly become motivated in my church search. Planning to go to three churches over the weekend, I thought about going to one church on Saturday night but, oops, they were starting a series on marriage. Nix that. Picked a totally different one. Went. Heard a message about a passage of scripture that I have heard talks on before, about Saul, specifically regarding, yes, patience. In 1 Samuel 13: 8-14, we read about how Saul was commanded to wait for Samuel, the prophet, to come and make the sacrifice to the Lord so that the army could fight (and beat) the Philistines. As soon as Saul starts the sacrifice, Samuel shows up. It seems that Samuel has forgotten, is late, or won't be coming. Saul takes matters into his own hands (knowing it's forbidden for him to make the sacrifice) and as a result, God takes away Saul's kingdom.

I've been single a long time. I know the promises of God, just as Saul knew who should make the sacrifice. I know that I need to wait for God to bring me the husband he has for me, or bring me the peace to be single. But sometimes it seems that God has forgotten, is late, or isn't coming. Sometimes I want, like Saul, to take matters into my own hands and hurry up and pursue a relationship too quickly because. . . I'm TIRED OF WAITING.  I was reminded that the consequences for impatience (though now covered by Jesus' forgiveness and redemption) can be steep.

I went to two other churches today. Each one had messages that spoke directly to me. From hearing nothing for months, I am suddenly seeing God and truth everywhere. I've had Ann Voskamp's book One Thousand Gifts sitting in my bedroom for probably two years. Saturday I picked it up and read three chapters without stopping. God again, as I cried through the pages.

Did I do something that magically made God move? Nope. Do I deserve for Him to speak to me ever? Nope. Am I encouraged and reminded that, even when we see nothing, God is working in us, "both to will and to work for his good pleasure"(Phil 2:13)? YES.

Silence

Hello?? Are you still there?? Yeah, I know. . . I've been gone for quite a little while. . . When I started this blog, my aim was to write to share what God was showing me. Lately, I haven't been hearing from God. Which then leaves me without thoughts to ponder and words to write.

If you've been a Christian for any length of time, you've probably heard about "dry spells": When you are still doing what you do (reading the Bible, praying, going to church), but you feel disconnected from the Lord. I've been in a dry spell, I guess. I am reading my Bible (trying the chronological approach to reading through the Bible in a year. Not loving it). I am praying. More or less. Sometimes less than more, but praying. Going to church is a bit tricky, because I'm between churches right now for longer than I ever have been, with it being summer and traveling and simply not being in town to visit churches to see where I need to be. I have been going to churches when I can, but as a visitor.

I don't like feeling disconnected. I don't like feeling helpless. I know that God is still there. I know that it's usually me that has stepped away, or has something going on in my head or heart that's blocking the connection. But I haven't known what it was. My recourse: Just keep praying that God will show me what it is and keep doing what I know to do. Keep trusting. Keep walking.

There is an excerpt from C.S. Lewis' "The Screwtape Letters" that I always think about during those dry times:

Sooner or later, [God] withdraws, if not in fact, at least from [believer's] conscious experience, all those supports and incentives. He leaves the creature [that would be us] to stand up on its own legs--to carry out from the will alone duties which have lost all relish. It is during such trough periods, much more than during the peak periods, that it is growing into the sort of creature He wants it to be. Hence the prayers offered in the state of dryness are those which please Him best. . . He wants [believers] to learn to walk and must therefore take away His hands; and if only the will to walk is really there, He is pleased even with their stumbles. (The Screwtape Letters, p. 39)

I have learned that there is really nothing I can do to "fix" it, much as I would like to. I got some insight about a week ago, totally out of the blue. The thought came to me that I was angry at God. I was frustrated and mad (again) about being single and childless when I have desired my whole life to be married and a mom. It's not like God and I have not wrestled, argued, and cried about this before. We have. Numerous times. For me, part of peace with the Lord is sharing all my emotions with Him, bad ones included. He already knows what I'm thinking, and only by telling Him exactly what I am thinking and feeling can I clear the path to intimacy with Him. Which sounds great, except that it usually involves pain and tears, which are not my favorite way to spend an evening.

So, knowing what I now need to do: spend some time and go to that place and bring it to God, I finally sit myself down to do it. And I do. And, lo and behold, this time the whole spectre of singleness was NOT really the problem. Turns out I was mad about something else. Turns out I didn't appreciate being obedient in a hard area and feeling sure I was following the Lord's direction only to feel all alone and left out. So, we dealt with that. Which equaled me feeling a little bit better because at least I knew WHY I was feeling like I was.

I still don't feel very connected. At the end of that evening, the one thing I was reminded of was the basic truth about Jesus in my life:  I am not alone. Felt or not, He is with me always, as He promised in scripture: And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age. (Matthew 28:20)

I also had a song running through my head, "There You Are" by Carolyn Arends (whom you've probably never heard of, and I don't know if she has anything recent, but she is one of my favorites): 

 Carolyn Arends - There You Are

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And so I will keep walking. And trusting. And, eventually, the connection will return:

So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, not by sight. (2 Corinthians 5:6-7).

Painful Endings, New Beginnings

Today I spent my last Sunday worshiping the Lord as a member of the church that I have been at for over eighteen years. After finishing grad school and working a year in Wisconsin, I returned home to the St. Louis area. My first item of business was finding a church. It can be an exhausting process, and a little bit scary (Is this the part where they get out the snakes? Drink the Kool-Aid? Make me stand up all by myself and LOOK at me?). Once I found the church I have called home for almost two decades, I thanked God and breathed a sigh of relief.

This church has been what God used to challenge me, to protect me, to love me, to pursue me, and to grow me. I have made some of my best, best friends at this church. As a single woman, my church has helped me when things break around my house or when I just needed some company. I have seen newborns grow to adulthood, and, in recent years, said goodbye to friends at funerals. My faults have been found out, felt, and forgiven. I have seen the love of Christ transform lives. I have also seen the destruction of sin and lies. I have laughed, cried, prayed, and worshiped with some of the same people for a long, long time.

In my perfect world, I could just remain in that safe cocoon of friends and love and warmth forever. There are new babies to watch grow. There are new people to get to know. There are new songs to sing.

However, God's world, as He constantly reminds me, is not modeled after my design. As it says in Isaiah 55:8-9:

 For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
    neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. 
 For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
    so are my ways higher than your ways
    and my thoughts than your thoughts.

I recently began to feel unsettled and restless, and spent months trying to figure out why and pray through it. There wasn't anything wrong with where I was. I wasn't upset or mad at anyone or anything. Were there things I thought could be different? Yes. Have there always been things that I thought could be different? Yes. Will there always, no matter what church I am at, be things that I think could be different? Yes. But such is the way of church, and people, and life in general. No person/place/group of people is ever perfect. Could it be God calling me to something new? Surely not.

Something new would mean leaving something old. Something new would mean saying goodbye to good friends and people who love the Lord and who have loved me in spite of my failings. Something new would mean leaving by myself and seeking a new church. Something new would be scary. Something new would be sad. Something new was not in my plan.

Hebrews 12:1-2 says this:

 Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,  looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. . .

If I chose to ignore what I believed was God's leading to leave the familiar and safe for the scary and unknown, I would be allowing myself to be entangled in sin, in this case, the sin of fear and lack of trust that God would take care of me no matter where I was.  If I didn't follow His promptings, I would not be able to run the race that was set before me.

I don't know why God is moving me right now, and I don't know where He is moving me. I have been equipped by my years with my church, and strengthened by the love and care and truth I have received there. I have cried many, many tears. However, as one friend told me, "It would be sadder if you were with a church for that long and you didn't want to cry."

I am sad to say goodbye to my home of eighteen years. I will miss it very, very much. I am thankful for the blessing of the people I have known there. I am excited to see what God has in store. I am also grateful to know that the family of God is not limited to specific churches. Someday, in heaven, all of us who believe will be worshiping the Lord together in eternal fellowship, and none of us will be crying.

The Wonder of It All

I am reading through the Bible this year, and trying a new approach. Usually I have done the plan that has some Old Testament, a psalm or two, a proverb or two, and some New Testament every day. The end is rough (prophets and Revelation for a few weeks), but the rest of the time it's a good mix. This year I am doing it chronologically, so Old Testament only for months and months, and not even many psalms yet. A benefit I am seeing by hanging out in the Old Testament is that God is helping me to see how radical and strange and amazing Jesus was.

A few weeks ago, in Deuteronomy, I read these verses: 

 You shall have a place outside the camp, and you shall go out to it.  And you shall have a trowel with your tools, and when you sit down outside, you shall dig a hole with it and turn back and cover up your excrement.  Because the Lord your God walks in the midst of your camp, to deliver you and to give up your enemies before you, therefore your camp must be holy, so that he may not see anything indecent among you and turn away from you. (Deut. 23:12-14)

Because God was so holy, the people were commanded to cover up all of their bathroom activity so that the Lord would not "see anything indecent among you and turn away from you." Rule after rule after rule in Leviticus and Deuteronomy about how to do everything, and the consequences if you do it wrong, much of it hinging on the holiness of God. People back then, I would assume, were probably a lot less squeamish than we are about personal hygiene and dirt and blood and all that "ick" of human life that was much more front and center thousands of years ago. Yet, down to the bathroom, there were directions about how to act to honor God.

No wonder the Jews accused Jesus of blasphemy. Imagine your whole life's context/story of God being how you should be oh-so-careful to try and be holy for the Lord, and then comes a man telling you He IS God. The God whose eyes were shielded from a latrine is now walking among and living with everyday people. Jesus fully participated in all human activity. He was a baby. A kid. I work with young children. They, also , are not very squeamish about basic bodily functions. He was a teenager. A man. He spoke with, laughed with, touched unclean people all the time.

Reading the story from the modern vantage point, we don't get it--at least I don't. I have intellectually seen the divide, but am just now getting a teeny glimpse of how revolutionary Jesus was. He was a game-changer. He broke all of those "don't touch, don't look, don't listen" rules. The Pharisees and other religious leaders weren't just mad because Jesus threatened their power. They couldn't even comprehend Who He was, or that God would act in such a way.

I will never be able to fully grasp how radical and amazing the coming of Jesus was. What I desire is to understand more in my heart why God acted in such a crazy, upside-down way. The God whose prophets told people to hide the latrine left His throne to be one of us. Never will any of us comprehend how Jesus, "who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,  but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men." (Philippians 2:6-7) bound up His deity into flesh.  The God of the universe, who spoke it into existence and sustains the earth and all that is in it voluntarily came to earth as a man. 

Why? The most simple and most profound answer lies in that God loves us. We hear that so much, but understand it so little. He wanted to be with us. He wanted us to be able to be with Him forever. He became Emmanuel, God with us, so that we could be with Him. Even the disciples who knew Him best didn't really get it, not until after the resurrection. My prayer is that I, and you, and, really, everyone everywhere, will get, really, really GET that Jesus walking among us and dying on the cross for us all boils down to God's love for us and desire to be with us.

Dead Men Walkers

One thing I love about God is how He uses all of life to show us more about Him, including both popular shows about zombies and Christian concerts (one perhaps more surprising than the other). I was fortunate enough to get to go to the Chris Tomlin concert at the Scottrade Center in St. Louis Saturday night. The experience was great--8000 people all worshiping the Lord together. Near the end of the concert, Chris Tomlin remarked that sin doesn't make us more bad, it makes us dead.

I have probably heard that before. I know very well Romans 6:23: "For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord." Yet the way Tomlin worded it struck home. I am not a good person who sins and therefore is now a bad person. I am a person whose sin is killing me, and I can't do anything about it.

As those of you who know me in real life have noticed, and those of you who read the last blog post may remember, I am slightly obsessed with "The Walking Dead" right now. I have watched 15 episodes in the last two weeks. Basic plot, for the uninitiated: For an unknown reason (and if you find out later, don't tell me yet), people have become infected with something that turns them into zombies. If they are bitten or scratched or killed, they come back as "walkers"(also known in the zombie genre as the undead) whose only goal in life is to eat (and they eat people, if you were unclear). 

Across the zombie world, the theme is consistent that once you are a zombie, there is no hope. The goal of the surviving humans is to avoid contamination (and death) from the walkers. As I thought about the truth that sin makes me dead, it brought to mind the walkers. Part of what is terrifying about zombies is that they can contaminate us, and that once they do, our life is over. There is no cure. You are doomed to a shadow life of knowing only one thought: Hunger. The goal of survivors is to avoid contamination, because there is no way to escape once you have been bitten. To avoid contamination requires never-ending vigilance, because the zombies are relentless, and there are scores of them. You can kill them, but there are always more coming.

Think of how the shows/movies/graphic novels about zombies turn out if a cure is found. Think how desperately you would search for one if zombies were real and if you were infected. Imagine the gratitude you would have toward whomever found the cure. It would be miraculous. The whole plot would change. A happy ending would be possible.

I want to see and understand that Jesus loving me and offering me a cure for my sin changes the plot of my life. It gives me a happy ending. It relocates me from the camp of the walkers, destined only for death, to the camp of the survivors who will live forever. I no longer need to fear the infection of evil, and I can focus on something other than hunger. 

Walkers don't injure you. They doom you.  Sin doesn't make us bad. It kills us. Jesus doesn't make us good. He saves us.

Jesus vs. the Zombies

I've been reading another book lately,  "Sifted", by Rick Lawrence. I've also been reading Leviticus. And I've been watching (late to the party, as usual), the first two seasons of AMC's "The Walking Dead." In ways only the Lord can do, these three circumstances came together to show me something new about Jesus.

Leviticus is not my favorite book of the Bible. I doubt that Leviticus is anyone's favorite book of the Bible. Rules about food. Rules about worship. Rules about skin diseases and fabrics and dishes. It also lists the consequences of breaking the rules. Consequences like isolation and physical punishment and death. I don't much like thinking of God as the author of seemingly arbitrary rules with the punishment for breaking the rules being death. Like the stories in Numbers where many, many people die for complaining and refusing to believe God, these disconcerting parts of the Bible bother me.

The same week I'm reading Leviticus, I am reading in chapter four of "Sifted". The author, Rick Lawrence, reports that the adjective most commonly used to describe Jesus is "nice". He compares this to Mr. Rogers.  Mr. Rogers is nice--picture the opening scene, shoes in hand, cardigan being buttoned, soothing voice speaking. Nice. Lawrence then asks us to imagine walking through a bad neighborhood at night, alone, down a dark alley. Who do you want with you? Mr. Rogers? Equally, do you want Jesus? Do you imagine that He is strong enough, skilled enough, tough enough to help you?

Thanks to two snow days and a free Netflix trial, I began watching "The Walking Dead" last weekend. The world has been overrun by zombies, called "walkers" on the show. They are the undead, looking only for a meal, and we are it. There are many, many scenes of walkers chasing humans. When you are a human being chased by a walker, you want the strongest, most skilled, toughest zombie-hunter in the group (Daryl, okay, yes, in the woods alone with walkers, I want Daryl and his crossbow).

Crazy Levitical rules. Jesus as "Mr. Nice Guy." Darryl in the woods with walkers.

God is not nice. Jesus is not nice. Rick Lawrence goes so far as to use the word "brutal" about God. Satan and sin and evil are real in this world and real in my life, and more harmful and dangerous than any undead walkers. Jesus has authority and command. After Adam and Eve sin in the garden, the Lord says this to the serpent:

 And I will put enmity
    between you and the woman,
    and between your offspring and hers;
he will crush your head,
    and you will strike his heel. (Genesis 3:15, NIV)

In the movie  "The Passion of the Christ" we see Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane, prostrate on the ground, praying (Luke 22), appearing to be weak and helpless. However, even as the snake tries to prevail, Jesus rises and, with one decisive move, kills the snake (artistic interpretation of the Genesis passage).

Jesus came to crush the head of the serpent. He came to destroy the devil's work (1 John 3:8, NIV).
He came to free us from sin. He will dig deeper into our lives and hearts and souls than we ever would in order to make us fully His. He is not "nice". Yes, He loves us tenderly and deeply and mercifully, and His lovingkindnesses never cease. He will also stop at nothing to make us His.