one step enough for me

I'm in an interesting stage that most young adults will recognize: that strange borderland of "transition," a foot in two worlds, belonging to neither.

Let me explain. I have friends on Facebook posting about new couches for their homes, revealing pictures of their newborn children, announcing engagements, and moaning about midterm exams. But not the same friends on all four counts. I'm in that awkward stage of "Well I'm out of college but not really to the next part yet, but thank heavens I get to preview it from this cozy seat."

Just kidding. I could skip the preview, thanks.

Tomorrow I go in to speak with an advisor about a secondary education certification program. Basically, "Do you have what it takes to teach High School English?" I've been working through a lot of things and have come to a resounding conclusion:

I don't know what I want to do with my life.

Of course there are the "ultimate goals": seek, serve, and obey God, love people, live with boldness and courage.

But there are so many ways I could do that. I could

• Move to a south Asian country and teach English.
• Get a job as a marketing professional in a local business.
• Work part-time at a coffee shop and tutor international students.
• Get a masters in English and teach at a college.
• Get a masters in Library Science and become a librarian/archivist.
• Complete teaching cert and teach high-school English.
• Get into the publishing, journalism, or media world.

In short, there are about a billion different things I could do with the education and talents I already have. But the options are a little overwhelming, and I'm scared to move for fear I'll make the wrong choice.

This is my solution for the fear: Remember. Remember. Remember the signs. Recall the mighty deeds of the God Who Saves, of God With Us, never leaving, never sleeping, never failing. Remember how He brought the children of Israel out of Egypt, how He led them through the desert, gave victory to Joshua, direction to Daniel and Joseph, provision for David over and over again.

My God is a God who plots the path of kings. He is capable of handling mine.

But sometimes, you're 21 and driving down a road and suddenly you're not just driving, you're running away from all the responsibilities and expectations and hopes and dreams you thought you'd given up for lost (and maybe from God, too). And the future catches in your throat and chokes you and suddenly you're sobbing in highway traffic and praying "God, God, God, don't let me be for nothing!"

And then you remember that you're 21, that you still have a good 60 years on this planet to do something, to discover what it is you're here for, and in the meantime there is a bed for you to sleep in and a wonderful thing called parents to hug you and comfort you and make you cookies and dinner and tell you it's okay, that you're okay, that you're not a failure, that it's not for nothing.

But oh, to have dreams again! To know what it is I would do with my life, "time and money aside."

Lord, direct my thoughts and decisions, that I would always seek after you, and not after my own desires.

Here in the dark, I do not ask to see

The path ahead; one step enough for me

Lead on, lead on Kindly Light!

-Lead Kindly Light, Audrey Assad

Thoughts on Psalm 16

As I sit by an open window with coffee, letting the brisk October morning ruffle the pages of my Bible, I have never felt closer to being made of light.

I slept in today. The sleep that comes to a hard-working man is good and satisfying, and I have tasted of its goodness.

I open the book of Psalms and begin to read. First I am in Psalm 14 (because it is October 14th and I might as well because where else should I begin?) but after skimming through a few, Psalm 16 catches my eye.

"Oh my soul, you have said to the Lord,

You are my Lord,

My goodness is nothing apart from You." (v. 2)

"O Lord, You are the portion of my inheritance and my cup;

You maintain my lot.

The lines have fallen to me in pleasant places;

Yes, I have a good inheritance."

This concept of God as my (in all rights, "our," but for simplicity's sake, I shall simply say "my") portion and inheritance is repeated over and over again through Scripture.

"Through the Lord's mercies we are not consumed

Because His compassions fail not.

They are new every morning;

Great is Your faithfulness.

'The Lord is my portion,' says my soul

'Therefore I hope in him!'

-Lamentations 3:22-24

"You are my portion, O Lord;

I have said that I would keep your words."

-Psalm 119:57

"Whom have I in heaven but You?

And there is none upon the earth that I desire besides You.

My flesh and my heart fail;

But God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever."

Psalm 73:25-26

Other references: Psalm 16:5, 142:5

The question remains: what does this mean? The Hebrew word for portion is Cheleq, and is most often used to discuss one's ownership of land, possessions, or other belongings. The root word is Chalaq, an old Hebrew word meaning, essentially, "plunder" that warriors would receive after conquering a city, or goods that were apportioned to you.

What these verses seem to be saying, is that God is our plunder--God is the treasure we are apportioned. The incredible difference that comes when talking about God as our portion is that we fought in no battles, nor won any victories to deserve Him. Has the Psalmist chosen God? Perhaps. But he clearly understands that his portion, while taking form in the maker of the Universe, is not here on this earth. In other Psalms, David and other psalmists cry out against the wicked, who receive their portion here on this earth.

But our portion is in heaven. "Whom have I in heaven but You?" It is a forgoing of earthly desires for pleasures today, in order that we may eagerly await the coming of the One who is our inheritance.

And it is a good inheritance. The Lord promises us more than we deserve. We are told Psalm 23, that because "the Lord is our shepherd," we shall not want.

We shall not want. What does that even mean? Not want for money, or food, or clothes, or love, or hope, or joy, or peace? Not want, even for the things that we don't think we want. But sometimes He has to "make us" lie down in green pastures and "leads us" beside still waters, because we wouldn't choose it if He only let us run wild.

Interesting thoughts. A beautiful Psalm, and a great reminder that our portion is not on this earth, but is very much worth waiting for.

"Let the field be joyful, and all that is in  it.

Then all the trees of the woods will rejoice before the Lord.

For He is coming, for He is coming to judge the earth."

-Psalm 96:12-13

this is the first time you've been this old

"Sometimes you’re 23 and standing in the kitchen of your house making breakfast and brewing coffee and listening to music that for some reason is really getting to your heart. You’re just standing there thinking about going to work and picking up your dry cleaning. And also more exciting things like books you’re reading and trips you plan on taking and relationships that are springing into existence. Or fading from your memory, which is far less exciting. And suddenly you just don’t feel at home in your skin or in your house and you just want home but “Mom’s” probably wouldn’t feel like home anymore either. There used to be the comfort of a number in your phone and ears that listened everyday and arms that were never for anyone else, but just to calm you down when you started feeling trapped in a five-minute period where nostalgia is too much and thoughts of this person you are feel foreign. When you realize that you’ll never be this young again but this is the first time you’ve ever been this old. When you can’t remember how you got from sixteen to here and all the same feel like sixteen is just as much of a stranger to you now. The song is over. The coffee’s done. You’re going to breathe in and out. You’re going to be fine in about five minutes." 

-The Winter of the Air

---

This quote is still getting to me because even though I'm not 23, this is where I am. Albeit still at "Mom's" (which is still home and has ears that listen every day and arms that were never for anyone else, all of which do calm me down), but there's just something about all of it that makes me feel not at home in my skin, like I should be bursting into a rainbow-colored firework or diving underground to be replanted as a tree.

I spend a lot of time worrying about who I am, where I'm going, what I'm going to do with my life.

So many pieces of my life are a paradox: 

• I want to stay home with my family and watch them grow...but I want to see the world and travel, independent and free.
• I want to have this incredibly deep faith that can move mountains and truly seek after God...but I also want to have eyes open and not trust in things blindly. (Maybe not a paradox).
• I want to do what I love all the time and maybe become rich and famous...but I want to make next to nothing and give what's left away and help people with all that I am.

This crude matter can't be all those things at once. I have to know what to say and when, what fights to fight and when to run away.  And in those five minutes of nostalgia and panic, I see none of the good things, but only how far I have left to go--my faults and failures, my sins, my fears.

I am chained to my past with guilt and fear and a boundless lack of faith

so

how can you tell me that God's love is deeper and higher and greater and farther than my past?

Than my present?

Than my horrible, terrifying, heart-rendingly hopeless future?

Yet if I don't believe in His love, I have nothing left to cling to.

---

How is one supposed to rejoice in trials?

How can there be a point at which the light dawns and the darkness flees? When my faith becomes real and I have joy again in following the narrow way?

Father, give me faith. Help me to believe that You are greater than all the things that drag me down (even my fear, even my sin), and that one day, my faith will be made sight. 

As for me, I will see Your face in righteousness;

I shall be satisfied when I awake in Your likeness.

-Psalm 17:!5

fragments of frozen rain

"Under the endless rain of cosmic dust, the air is full of pollen, micro-diamonds, and jewels from other planets...people go about their lives surrounded by the unseeable." -Louie Schwartzberg

"The wind makes creatures of our trees." -Lullaby for a Stormy Night

"Histories of abolition, the civil rights movement, even environmentalism, don't begin with people who are powerful, realistic, or even normal. They begin with people who don't know better and who find the world they are born into intolerable. " -Jedidah Purdy

"Isn’t it funny the way some combinations of words can give you – apart from their meaning – a thrill like music?"-C.S. Lewis

"It wasn’t about reading the books – though God knows, the books I was reading at that time were more valuable to me than ever – but it was about being in the presence of books, of words, of the work I wanted so badly to do."-Dana Staves

"Sometimes you’re 23 and standing in the kitchen of your house making breakfast and brewing coffee and listening to music that for some reason is really getting to your heart. You’re just standing there thinking about going to work and picking up your dry cleaning. And also more exciting things like books you’re reading and trips you plan on taking and relationships that are springing into existence. Or fading from your memory, which is far less exciting. And suddenly you just don’t feel at home in your skin or in your house and you just want home but “Mom’s” probably wouldn’t feel like home anymore either. There used to be the comfort of a number in your phone and ears that listened everyday and arms that were never for anyone else, but just to calm you down when you started feeling trapped in a five-minute period where nostalgia is too much and thoughts of this person you are feel foreign. When you realize that you’ll never be this young again but this is the first time you’ve ever been this old. When you can’t remember how you got from sixteen to here and all the same feel like sixteen is just as much of a stranger to you now. The song is over. The coffee’s done. You’re going to breathe in and out. You’re going to be fine in about five minutes." -The Winter of the Air

"If it was an emotion, it was a totally emotionless one. It was hatred, implacable hatred. It was cold, not like ice is cold, but like a wall is cold. It was impersonal, not as a randomly flung fist in a crowd is impersonal, but like a computer-issued parking summons is impersonal. And it was deadly - again, not like a bullet or a knife is deadly, but like a brick wall across a motorway is deadly.” -Douglas Adams

before your face

The light penetrates my eyes, piercing
my face, stabbing deep into 
my heart, and suddenly
all the words I have ever spoken,
all the thoughts I have ever pondered, are there
trembling under your gaze.

I am ashamed. Woe is me, for even
standing in your presence--that alone is enough
to shake my heart and soul to the core
as your beauty and majesty surrounds me
overwhelms me
envelops me in its glory.

But
You see my thoughts, the futile workings
of my mind, plagued by sin and doubt.
You know my motives and my heart; there is
no secret I can keep
No nook or cranny too secret for you to uncover.

My heart is laid bare, and behold, it is barren.
My thoughts are nonsense, like the jawings of a
drunken two year old
My soul is a shattered cistern, unholy and broken
destroyed almost beyond saving
And I am undone.

Why did I doubt you?
Why did I lose hope?
Why could I not wait an hour and pray for my deliverance?

Why were my intentions misguided?
Why did I waste so much time?
Why did I not listen better to your prompting and study your Word?

Forgive me for my nonsense questions
For this babbling mouth, so lacking of wisdom.
Create in me a clean heart
and renew a right spirit within me.

“I know now, Lord, why you utter no answer. You are yourself the answer. Before your face questions die away. What other answer would suffice?” 

-C.S. Lewis

Compassion on the Cross

Something that struck me when listening to a version of the crucifixion was Jesus’ perspective through it all. I listened to a sermon by Pastor Larry Osbourne of North Coast Church yesterday wherein he talked about Jesus being fully human—he didn’t know everything that was going to happen, and even the power in him to heal came from the Holy Spirit (and it wasn’t always there). He wasn’t a “Clark Kent” Jesus—just faking that he was man. No. He was FULLY MAN. He emptied himself, gave up all his rights and superpowers and subjected himself to God’s will fully, a choice we see climaxed in the Garden of Gethsemane.

That’s a horse of a different kind. But the thing that struck me especially was that in the Garden, Jesus prays. We all know that. But he doesn’t just pray for himself—he prays for his disciples and all the Christians who are to follow (John 17). When he is being arrested and Peter gets hasty and hacks someone’s ear off, Jesus stops in his tracks (ignoring the fact that, y’know, they’re taking him away to be tried and killed and he’s just been betrayed by one of his friends) and heals the guy. As he leaves the house of Caiaphas where he had just been condemned and ridiculed before the council, the only thing on his mind is to look over at Peter, who has just denied knowing him.

The list goes on. Hanging on the cross he tells John to look after his mother (when he probably had a whole lot more on his mind—like, you know, the fact that he was slowly asphyxiating and bleeding out and hanging from a torture device made of wood). But my favorite—the thing that really made me kind of breathless—was the thief on the cross.

The crowd is ridiculing him. One of the thieves joins in, mocking him and telling him to save himself, but the other guy jumps in and professes a very surprising belief in Jesus. And does Jesus just nod, or even ignore the guy (whose salvation profession may or may not be to the heart sincere?).

No. In the middle of the agonizing pain, as his wrists and feet throb, as the thorns press into the back of his head, as his back screams from rubbing the raw, flogged skin against the rough wood—in the middle of having the sin of the entire world, both past, present, and future laid upon his shoulders, as Satan rubs his hands in delight, as the Father turns his face away and the sky begins to blacken, Jesus looks at that thief and loves him. Tells him that he is forgiven and will be with Him in paradise.

That blows me away. That in the middle of the biggest event in human history, the most important thing to Jesus was not looking dignified as he hung there. It wasn’t praying one more time for God’s will to change. It wasn’t even focusing on being the perfect sacrifice. His love was so great, and so personal, that in the midst of this incredibly important act that would be the crux of history, he spoke into the life of one person. One insignificant person—we don’t even know his name. And comforted him. And gave him the promise of life.

Obviously I’ve never been on a cross and will likely never find myself there, but when I am the busiest or most anxious or things are the most chaotic around me, do I stop and care about others first? Do I “consider others better than myself” and put their interests and needs before mine? It’s easy to do it when your belly is full, or on the road with them, or in the everyday grind of life. 

But on the cross. In the trial. Where is my focus?

O Lord, that you would make my heart love others as you loved them! That you would make me into a person who cares deeply and passionately with a selfless love that surpasses understanding.

He is jealous for me

Love's like a hurricane, and I am a tree

Bending beneath the weight of his love and mercy

-David Crowder Band

contemplating surrender

I am contemplating surrender and finding that it is not an easy task. It is simple enough to speak with your lips, "Lord, take my heart and let it be/ever only all for thee," to pray "Be my all-in-all; ruin my life, the plans that I've made. It is no longer I who live but Christ lives in me."

But how does one sacrifice? How does one eternally give up all claim to earthly possessions and feelings and anxieties and desires? Or rather the question should be "CAN one give up all those things?"

I know with my head that You want The Whole Tree, Lord, and not just this branch here and that limb there. You want to uproot ME. To break ME. To unform ME so that you may plant in MY place a thing that is GOOD and of YOU. And I long for that, Lord, with all that my sinful heart can long.

But must it be a daily surrender?

Must I take up my cross every day?

Must I die a thousand deaths-of-self, offer up my will again and again on Your altar in the hopes of one day being conformed to Your likeness?

Will I ever be whole?

"Father, I want to know Thee, but my coward heart fears to give up its toys. I cannot part with them without inward bleeding, and I do not try to hide from Thee the terror of the parting. I come trembling, but I do come. Please root from my heart all those things which I have cherished so long and which have become a very part of my living self, so that Thou mayest enter and dwell there without a rival. Then shalt Thou make the place of Thy feet glorious. Then shall my heart have no need of the sun to shine in it, for Thyself wilt be the light of it, and there shall be no night there. In Jesus' Name, Amen."

-A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God