What do I Want?

I'm having a hard time lately understanding what I want... and if it's OK to want it.

If it's really not about me, and it's about God, then does it matter what I want? I think it does... I don't think God doesn't want me to want things, but I think He does want me to want the things He wants for me, because His ways are higher than mine and His plans no one can fathom.

I guess the trouble I'm having, then, is knowing whether or not something I want right now is something God wants. But how do I know? Should I just go after something, hoping that maybe it's what God has in mind, or do I sit around and wait for a "sign?" I've just felt so passive for much of my life and I'd like to be a little more active. I feel like if I pursue something that is a mistake then God will let me know one way or another.

I heard someone say something that has stood out to me: A person surrendered to God can never make a wrong decision.

I guess as long as I am surrendered to God, then no matter what choice I make it can't be wrong because it will be in His hands. Even if the decision doesn't turn out to be the "best," I believe God can use any situation and turn it into something better than we imagine.

Confession: Understanding the Real Thing

I’ve been reading Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller for the past couple weeks. There are a lot of really great anecdotes and thoughts in it. It’s not a book you only read, but experience. Don makes you feel like you’re his friend and he’s sharing his life with you so you can learn something from what he’s learned.

I’m a little jealous of Don, not only because he’s the kind of writer I’d like to be, but because of how he’s experienced God. It’s the kind of way I wish I’d experience God, and the way Don came to faith in God through a series of conversations and events is how I sometimes wish I’d have come to faith in God.

I accepted Christ when I was 5, so God is all I’ve ever known. Or rather, I guess there is this idea of God that I’ve only ever known. My experiences and conversations with people have in some ways changed that view. I’m learning new things about God that are making me see Him differently. Not in a bad way; I feel like I’m beginning to see God the way He’s always wanted me to see Him, as someone relevant and unconfined to this box my ideas have put Him in.

Donald Miller’s writing is refreshing. It’s convicting. His writing makes me wonder about what it really means to be a Christian and if I’m representing Christ well or just falling into stereotypical “Christianity.”

I’ve thought about not calling myself a “Christian” anymore because I feel that society associates Christianity with things that were never meant to be thought of as “Christian.” For example: “anti-gay,” “anti-democrat,” hypocritical, racist or judgmental.

A couple weeks ago a well-known syndicated columnist, Cal Thomas, spoke at my church in Omaha. He is a very strong Christian and talked about how Christians are viewed as “anti” things, but Cal said he’s not “against things”; he’s “for people.”

This made me wonder what effect Christianity would have on our culture if Christians stopped being against things and for people.

Donald Miller’s chapter entitled “Confession” is one of the most powerful chapters in Blue Like Jazz.

To set the scene, Don is attending Reed College, a college known for its wild students who drink, do drugs and a number of wild things. Don and a small number of other Christians on the campus wanted to “come out of the closet” and let everyone know there were a few Christians on a widely un-Christian campus. They thought a good time to do this was during Ren Fayre, a time when the whole campus is shut down so students can party.

Don pitched the idea of building a “Confession booth” in the middle of campus, but he wasn’t really serious. His friend Tony, however, thought it was a great idea, only instead of accepting confessions from students they would be the ones confessing.

Tony said: “We are going to confess to them. We are going to confess that, as followers of Jesus, we have not been very loving; we have been bitter, and for that we are sorry. We will apologize for the Crusades…for televangelists…for neglecting the poor and lonely, we will ask them to forgive us, and we will tell them that in our selfishness, we have misrepresented Jesus on this campus. We will tell people who come into the booth that Jesus loves them.”

I feel like “Christians” have had it wrong for so long: we’ve been trying to defend a faith that means many different things to many different people, and often, they aren’t good things. Why would I want to defend something that people associate with negative things? Christians have been missing the mark: we’ve been trying to “sell” Jesus and make people agree with us, but people are never going to agree with something that seems condescending and hypocritical.

Don says instead of talking about Christianity, he would rather talk about Jesus and how he came to believe that Jesus exists and that He likes him. Don would rather talk about the spirituality that goes along with a relationship with God.

Don said he’d been defending Christianity because he thought to admit any wrong was to discredit the whole religious system. It isn’t a system, however, it’s a people following Christ, and “the right thing to do, was to apologize for getting in the way of Jesus.”

I’m not good at defending Christianity, but I love talking about God. I love talking about His love for me and how He’s been an important part of my life. I like letting other people talk about their feelings and thoughts about God.

The reason I still call myself a Christian is because I hope, that in each interaction I have with individuals, I can in some way restore the right name of Christianity. I hope that when people think of me and how I’m a Christian, they will associate Christianity with something that is good and loving and for people.

If you’ve ever felt hurt or judged by someone claiming to be a Christian, I truly am sorry. I hope that you will not discredit the entire Christian faith because of it, but that you will take a closer look at Christian spirituality and who God is, not the God so-called Christians tell you He is.

The Secret Service studies real money to recognize counterfeit money. People need to study the real God to recognize who is a true follower and who is counterfeit. Christians are supposed to represent God, but we are human and we make mistakes and we don’t entirely know how to live the righteous life we’re called to live. If you want to know who God is, don’t study Christians; study the real thing.

I’ve said all I can say for now. You should pick up a copy of Blue Like Jazz for more of Donald Miller’s insights. But that’s all it is: insight. It shouldn’t take the place of reading God’s Word; it might help you see His Word a little more clearly, though.

Where the Love Lasts Forever

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InE9NAjULhI&feature=related

Your mercy found me,
Upon the broken road,
And lifted me beyond my failing,
Into Your glory,
My sin and shame dissolved,
And now forever Yours I’ll stand.

(Pre-Chorus)
In love never to end,
To call You more than Lord,
Glorious friend.

(Chorus)
So I throw my life upon all that You are,
‘Cause I know You gave it all for me,
And when all else fades,
My soul will dance with You,
Where the love lasts forever.

Your mercy found me,
Upon the broken road,
And lifted me beyond my failing,
Into Your glory,
My sin and shame dissolved,
And now forever Yours I’ll stand.


(Bridge)
And forever I will sing,
Lord forever I will sing,
Of how You gave Your life away,
Just to save me, Lord You saved me.

With You, where the love lasts forever.


It's so hard to imagine this kind of love: a love with no conditions, no expiration date. It's something I struggle to believe, that there can be a Love that never ends, but it's only hard to believe because in this life, in this world, love is a broken thing. People don't know what a love that lasts forever is like because all we're used to is falling out of love time and time again and being disappointed at how conditional our promises can be.

God I pray that You would make Your unconditional love real to me. My feeble, human mind can't understand it, but my heart yearns for it. Let Your love wash over me. I want to throw my life upon all that You are because I know You gave it all for me. You saved me just because You love me. Your love lasts forever. Thank You.

Making You My Everything

God in my living
There in my breathing
God in my waking
God in my sleeping

God in my resting
There in my working
God in my thinking
God in my speaking

Be my everything
Be my everything
Be my everything
Be my everything

God in my hoping
There in my dreaming
God in my watching
God in my waiting

God in my laughing
There in my weeping
God in my hurting
God in my healing

Christ in me
Christ in me
Christ in me the hope of glory
You are everything

Christ in me
Christ in me
Christ in me the hope of glory
Be my everything



This song speaks for itself: I want God to be a part of everything I do. I want Him to be everything. I especially want Him to be in my thinking and speaking. I think about a lot of things, but they don't always involve God. Although people can't know all my thoughts they can hear what I say, and what I say is often a reflection of what I think. I need to be focused on God so that when I speak, it will be evident to others where the words come from: a mind and a heart centered on Christ. This doesn't mean that every other word will involve God's name, it just means that I'll make sure my speech represents me well in the light of Christ.

It's not about me.

John 3:30 (New International Version)

30He must become greater; I must become less.

John 3:30 (The Message)

29-30"That's why my cup is running over. This is the assigned moment for him to move into the center, while I slip off to the sidelines.

Two Worlds

I feel as though I'm living in two worlds: there's the physical world that my mind sees- there are shiny cars with heated leather seats; there are nice clothes I want to buy so I "look good" even though I can get by just fine with the thirty t-shirts I own and five pairs of jeans; there's cool "stuff" I want to own, like a Mac computer, even though the PC I have works fine and does all that I need it to do; there's another pair of shoes I want to have just because they will "go with" this outfit better than the seven other pairs I already own; there are the "beautiful people" I want to be friends with and the "handsome" guys that I wouldn't mind dating.

Then there's the spiritual world, the one I can't see with my eyes, but I feel it with my heart. Sometimes my eyes sense this world, like when I look at a sunset, but it's not actually this world I see, rather, there's a sense I have inside me when I see the colors mixing in the sky with the clouds that alerts me to something far greater and more beautiful than what my feeble eyes behold. My mind thinks it has seen beauty, but I don't think it can really comprehend true beauty at all. Often when I look at a sunset, I feel as though God is right there in it. Or maybe it's just a glimpse of Him. But there's something there that stirs my heart. There's something there that reminds me that this world is not all there is.

I've seen a lot of t-shirts and bumpers stickers that say "In it not of it." The saying is a reminder to Christians that we are in this physical world that our minds see, but we are not of it: we were made for something more. As Jon Foreman sings in his song "This is Home" (sung at the end of the Prince Caspian movie, one of my favorites): I am "created for a world I've never known/this is home/now I'm finally where I belong, where I belong/yeah this is home."

I believe inside every person there is this sense that the world they live in is not the world they were created for. Why would a world full of pain and suffering be where we belong? What's the point to living out this life if this is all there is? That's why I believe there has to be more. The sense of hope I have- and I know I share it with a number of other people- is too strong for me to deny that there is nothing worth hoping for. My heart knows something that my mind can't see or comprehend: it knows that it was made for something great, something the mind has never known.

In John 15 Jesus says "you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world." I know that this isn't my home: I feel it all the time, and yet my mind is easily fooled into a state of comfort that makes it so easy to feel "at home" here. I fall into the trap of consumernism and buy into the things the world tells me I need. Sometimes my heart reminds me, though, of the meaningless of material possessions, and it's then that I try to refocus on what God has called me to.

1 John 2:15-17 is a great reminder to be aware of the things my flesh/mind desire: 15Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16For everything in the world—the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does—comes not from the Father but from the world. 17The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever.

2 Corinthians 5 is a great passage that reminds me of where my real dwelling is: the home that I was created for:

Our Heavenly Dwelling
1Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. 2Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, 3because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked. 4For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. 5Now it is God who has made us for this very purpose and has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.

6Therefore we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. 7We live by faith, not by sight. 8We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord. 9So we make it our goal to please him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it. 10For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive what is due him for the things done while in the body, whether good or bad.

I also really love The Message version of this passage:

2 Corinthians 5
1-5For instance, we know that when these bodies of ours are taken down like tents and folded away, they will be replaced by resurrection bodies in heaven—God-made, not handmade—and we'll never have to relocate our "tents" again. Sometimes we can hardly wait to move—and so we cry out in frustration. Compared to what's coming, living conditions around here seem like a stopover in an unfurnished shack, and we're tired of it! We've been given a glimpse of the real thing, our true home, our resurrection bodies! The Spirit of God whets our appetite by giving us a taste of what's ahead. He puts a little of heaven in our hearts so that we'll never settle for less. (emphasis added)

6-8That's why we live with such good cheer. You won't see us drooping our heads or dragging our feet! Cramped conditions here don't get us down. They only remind us of the spacious living conditions ahead. It's what we trust in but don't yet see that keeps us going. Do you suppose a few ruts in the road or rocks in the path are going to stop us? When the time comes, we'll be plenty ready to exchange exile for homecoming.

9-10But neither exile nor homecoming is the main thing. Cheerfully pleasing God is the main thing, and that's what we aim to do, regardless of our conditions. Sooner or later we'll all have to face God, regardless of our conditions. We will appear before Christ and take what's coming to us as a result of our actions, either good or bad.

11-14That keeps us vigilant, you can be sure. It's no light thing to know that we'll all one day stand in that place of Judgment. That's why we work urgently with everyone we meet to get them ready to face God. God alone knows how well we do this, but I hope you realize how much and deeply we care. We're not saying this to make ourselves look good to you. We just thought it would make you feel good, proud even, that we're on your side and not just nice to your face as so many people are. If I acted crazy, I did it for God; if I acted overly serious, I did it for you. Christ's love has moved me to such extremes. His love has the first and last word in everything we do.

God has put a sense of Him in our hearts, alerting our minds to the home He's prepared for us, the place where we truly belong. That's why I so often feel out of place in this world: it's because I am!

Romans 12, The Message version, is a great encouragement for me to try and take my mind and align it with my heart, renewing my mind so that I can be transformed to be a person who lives with an eternal mindset, remembering that although I am in this world, I am not of it:

Place Your Life Before God
1-2 So here's what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You'll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.

"Don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking."

My constant goal each day is to remember where my true home is, and to not allow myself to feel comfortable with the world I live in. Once I start feeling comfortable, it's then that I lose sight of the place where I belong. When I lose sight of that place, I lose sight of my purpose. When I lose sight of my purpose, then I lose sight of who I am, and I cannot forget who I am: I cannot forget that I am "fearfully and wonderfully made" (Psalm 139), that I am God's "poema"- His "masterpiece", and that I was created to do good works that God prepared for me to do (Ephesians 2:10) so that people might know God and that God may be glorified through me. When I forget who I am I fall into the trap of believing that I am nothing, and that is one of the greatest tragedies.


1 Peter 2:9
9But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.

Like trying to fit the ocean in a cup

Last summer I asked a friend of mine how things were with him and God. He just said "Good, I guess," but I knew there had to be something more. He continued on and said that college has really changed his perspective about God. What's interesting is that he goes to a Christian university: in his Christian school's effort to ground him in his faith, the university has actually had the opposite effect, making him question his faith and pushing him away from the idea of Christianity. My friend said he was trying to figure out God for himself instead of automatically accepting every little thing about God spoon-fed to him as something he can "chew on." I totally respect that: I think every person who follows God needs to do so as one seeking the Lord with all their heart for who He is and not for who their church/pastor/or any other kind of influence tells them He is. My friend made another comment that I also completely agree with: he said he doesn't think that people are supposed to understand God.

This summer while at camp, someone talked one night about God's holiness. Now God's holiness is a whole other topic that I could get into, but I'll just focus on this: God's holiness is a concept that's hard to grasp. Our speaker said that we study God's holiness to appreciate Him, not to fully understand Him--that is impossible to do.

We can't understand God. We never will, not in our feeble, humanly state of mind. We study God to appreciate Him for who He is. Many people, however, take the study of God too far and try to understand Him: they try to define God and fit Him in some sort of box that easily classifies Him. That's just impossible though! To steal some lyrics from an awesome song by Josh Wilson, "it's like trying to fit the ocean in a cup" when we try to define God by our own human terms.

When I commented to my friend that people try too hard to define God rather than just accept Him for who He is, my friend interjected "But who is He?" All I could reply with is "He's God!" God doesn't want us to ask too many questions about Him: He just wants us to "Be still, and know that [God] is God." (Psalm 46:10)

The problem, however, with being unable to understand God, is many people don't want to put their faith in something they can't understand. We live in a generation where science is a prevalent part of our culture. Scientists are constantly trying to explain away the universe and how it works. Although it's fascinating how they can figure certain things out, it starts to take the wonder of something away when they try to explain every little detail. Also, scientists aren't always right.

I think a lot of people shy away from the idea of putting their faith in God when they try to explain Him but can't. But faith isn't about being able to explain something; it's about "being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see" (Hebrews 11:1). Our culture has a difficult time having faith because so many of us want something tangible that we can trust in, because we know it's there.

Bottom line: Don't try to fit God in a box. Study Him to appreciate Him for who He is. He's God! He's far too big for us to define with our limited vocabulary. As much as we want to understand everything in the universe, we don't have to, and we can't. We just need to have some faith.

And now I would like to close with a song by Josh Wilson:


I tried to write a song, and keep it 3 minutes long
Get in, get out, nobody gets hurt
And I tried a thousand times to fit God between the lines
But I'm finding out that doesn't really work

[Chorus:]
I just don't have the words to say, cause words only get in my way
I must apologize, I have the hardest time
Finding something to define a God that I canýt define
And even if I could, it would take way too long
If all I've got's a 3 minute song

I've got a hundred metaphors, and if I had a million more
I could never ever seem to sum this up
Besides, how can some melody communicate eternity?
Itýs like trying to fit the ocean in a cup

How He Loves Us

This summer while working at a camp I was introduced to this song and the powerful story behind it: give this video a watch and you will see what I mean by "powerful":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Chx6s3qXKt4&feature=player_embedded


The story is such a powerful testimony to what it looks like to give your life away for the Lord, in both a literal and figurative sense. It really convicts me and makes me ask "Would I really give my life away for the Lord like that? Would I die for Him?" Psalm 63 is one of my favorite Psalms which says "because Your love is better than life my lips will glorify You." If I believe that God's love IS better than life itself, then dying for Christ should only be a natural decision.

I do believe that God's love is so much better than anything I know. The lyrics of this song depict the realization of that love:

Verse 1:
He is jealous for me,
Loves like a hurricane, I am a tree,
Bending beneath the weight of his wind and mercy.
When all of a sudden,
I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory,
And I realize just how beautiful You are,
And how great Your affections are for me.

Pre-Chorus:
And oh, how He loves us so,
Oh how He loves us,
How He loves us all

Chorus 1:
Yeah, He loves us,
Whoa! how He loves us,
Whoa! how He loves us,
Whoa! how He loves.
Yeah, He loves us,
Whoa! how He loves us,
Whoa! how He loves us,
Whoa! how He loves.

Verse 2:
We are His portion and He is our prize,
Drawn to redemption by the grace in His eyes,
If grace is an ocean, we’re all sinking.


So Heaven meets earth like a sloppy wet kiss,
And my heart turns violently inside of my chest,
I don’t have time to maintain these regrets,
When I think about, the way…

Chorus 2:
He loves us,
Whoa! how He loves us,
Whoa! how He loves us,
Oh how He loves.
Yeah, He loves us,
Whoa! how He loves us,
Whoa! how He loves us,
Whoa! how He loves.

Verse 3:
Well, I thought about You the day Stephen died,
And You met me between my breaking.
I know that I still love You, God, despite the agony.
...They want to tell me You're cruel,
But if Stephen could sing, he'd say it's not true, cause...

Chorus 3:
Cause He loves us,
Whoa! how He loves us.
Whoa! how He loves us.
Whoa! how He loves.
Yeah, He loves us,
Whoa! how He loves us,
Whoa! how He loves us,
Whoa! how He loves.

How He loves us indeed! It's the kind of love that really does make my heart turn "violently inside of my chest." To think that God would love me despite how unworthy I am and shower me with grace in spite of my flaws and imperfections, with His undeserved kindness, it just makes me sit back and think "Whoa! How He loves us."

While at camp, I saw this love around me everywhere: it was in the stars at 5 in the morning, in the breath of the horses I felt when I put my hand near their noses, in the smiles of the children that called out my name and pulled on me to play with them, in the sunrises and sunsets, in the comforting breezes that blew over us in the 100 degree weather, in the compassionate arms of my fellow staff members, in the powerful thunderstorm the first week of camp and in the rain that fell on me and the campers while we were out in the woods on a day where I had been praying for rain, both a literal rain to fall on the dry ground and a spiritual rain to wash over my thirsty soul.

This summer was a chance for me to give my life away to the Lord, serving Him with everything I have. I recognize that my body someday will die, and since I know that that is inevitable, what matters until then is that I die to myself every day so that Christ may live in me:

Galatians 2:20 (New International Version)
20I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

Romans 14:8 (New International Version)
8If we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord.

Philippians 1:20-22 (New International Version)
20I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. 21For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. 22If I am to go on living in the body, this will mean fruitful labor for me.

Oh how He loves us that He would die for us:

1 John 4:10 (New International Version)
10This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

Sometimes I get so caught up in thinking about how much I love God that I forget about just how He loves me.

Just wanted to remind you all of His awesome love for us! May we remember to live for Him because He loved us enough to die for us.

Here’s to our God: Whoa! How He loves us! <3