Brake.

I'm making plans to waste my life on You.
"Breaking Down," John Mark McMillan

The above is currently one of my favorite lyrics. I like to listen to that song as soon as I get up to start my blood pumping and my heart beating toward eternity. There's not enough dignity to keep me away from You.

Recently, however, there has been a change in morning routine, one than I agonize over and lament and abhor. It brings me such grief because I know the cause: Christmas.

Christmas is an incredible season, as illustrated by the fact that my mother sent me candied almonds by post. I am munching the nuts happily (or merrily, as the case may be) as I type this entry. Even better, advent and the observation of the Incarnation bring the person of Jesus to the forefront of countless minds. There's a spring to the steps of the mobs of shoppers; exiting the grocery store, one is followed by cries of, "Merry Christmas!"

Living in this culture--the internship, accountability, discipleship culture--adds another dynamic to the season: Christmas break. Christmas break in theFurnace is different from Christmas break in school. In school, break is a welcome respite from intellectual overload and the bearing of burdensome packs, a time to reflect and celebrate, to see loved ones and rejoice in the great Lover. In theFurnace, break can easily become the altar on which we sacrifice momentum and discipline to engage in revelry.

After a whirlwind of prayer meetings, hours in the prayer room, and weekly accountability meetings, we find ourselves suddenly--if temporarily--stranded to navigate the spiritual waters on our own. The people we are paying to hold us to our daily commitments are out of town drinking eggnog, and we are left to ourselves. Too often, we disappoint.

I experienced roughly a month of sleeplessness and illness that only just ended before break began. In the week since sesmester's end, I have been dogged by an instinct I rarely face: to sleep and sleep and sleep. I crash for hours as my body attempts to recover from the strain it has been through of late, and when I awake, I power through the tasks I need to accomplish, only to crash once again.

God times have been sparse.

It dawned on me today, "I am setting myself up to go to my first accountability of the year and say, in typical fashion, 'I didn't do well on break.'"

That is unacceptable. Am I not on break to remember the massive King who chose inexpressable humility that I might know Him? He is worth more than this.

Though my holidays are sure to include cups of cocoa, snow angels (if this bipolar city sees any precipitation), and the consumption of many more candied almonds, I am still on mission. The call still stands. "Draw near to God."

How will you stay steady through the break?

Psalm 143

A Psalm of David.


Hear my prayer, O LORD,
Give ear to my supplications!
Answer me in Your faithfulness, in Your righteousness!
And do not enter into judgment with Your servant,
For in Your sight no man living is righteous.
For the enemy has persecuted my soul;
He has crushed my life to the ground;
He has made me dwell in dark places, like those who have long been dead.
Therefore my spirit is overwhelmed within me;
My heart is appalled within me.
I remember the days of old;
I meditate on all Your doings;
I muse on the work of Your hands.
I stretch out my hands to You;
My soul longs for You, as a parched land. Selah.
Answer me quickly, O LORD, my spirit fails;
Do not hide Your face from me,
Or I will become like those who go down to the pit.
Let me hear Your lovingkindness in the morning;
For I trust in You;
Teach me the way in which I should walk;
For to You I lift up my soul.
Deliver me, O LORD, from my enemies;
I take refuge in You.
Teach me to do Your will,
For You are my God;
Let Your good Spirit lead me on level ground.
For the sake of Your name, O LORD, revive me
In Your righteousness bring my soul out of trouble.
And in Your lovingkindness, cut off my enemies
And destroy all those who afflict my soul,
For I am Your servant.

Deja Vu

Excerpt from a May 2008 journal entry:

"I went out from my native land with a searching heart, and I found God awaiting me there. He invited me to be released from gravity and dance among the stars, but I wanted to wrap Him up and take Him back home, where I was comfortable and the weights that held me down were all familiar."

Further up and further in!

Simple

I really enjoy God.

Is that a rather elementary statement to make? Perhaps.

He is just so delightful. It makes me so happy to see the way He is constantly interweaving the motions and conversations of life to communicate a larger point. It's great.

Everything that has been occurring in my sphere of late, all my paradigms that have been challenged, and every conversation I have held--the sum of my life is pointed toward the anxious need for maturity.

This begins in my day-to-day existence. I am experiencing what I can only articulate as a fundamental longing to be good. This "good" of which I speak is not simply a lack of outrageously wrong behaviour or thought. I want contribute to the rushing flow of time into which I am so often swept unaware. I want to be good.

This, for a time, concerned me. Is this desire basic self-interest? But no, He says. Goodness is one of My fruits. Kindness. Gentleness. Those are Mine.

And so I am slowly beginning to engage the messy process of straining forward as a person. I am learning to let the dead things and the rotten things be expelled from my flesh. It is not a pleasant process: For the sourness to be pushed out of me, it will necessarily be exposed both to myself and to those around me. I am wearied by the depth of my seemingly endless depravity. However, I perceive the life that is being breathed into my soul, though all I may feel in my body is the weightiness of my filth.

As these transformations and challenges are occuring at my foundations, I find that this movement is happening all around me. Tonight, I listened to my dear friends' exasperation at their own toleration of carnal things. I heard an urgency for abandonment in their words. This thing is living and dynamic.

I watched a friend's eyes fill with tears as she lamented the inactivity of the Church on behalf of the orphans in the world. "Our churches are filled with people who are perfectly capable of providing for a child," she said. "Why don't they? They go buy a new TV or computer instead. Why?"

These heart cries are not isolated. Together, they form the picture of the very activity of God. Romans 8:22 tells us that creation literally groans in waiting for the revelation of the Son of God. Revelation 19:7-8 exposes what will be necessary for this longing to be fulfilled: the Bride of Christ, His Church, must prepare Herself for His return. How will She do this? She must clothe herself in acts of righteousness, being found in linens spotless and bright.

This is the drive of the Spirit for the Church today. She must cease to be a child, gratifying her addiction to entertainment and her ties to materialism, and she must mature into responsibility for the world for which Christ longs to return.

Why, do you think, is the Church heralding the need to care for widows, orphans, and the poor? It is not because She is joining some social motion. No, the secular world is following the activity God is desperate to accomplish through His people. We are being driven to responsibility on this planet that we might be made a Bride ready for His coming.

What I realize is this: He is asking us to be simple people. People unconcerned with appearances and possessions, status and power, fame and prowess. People who don't particularly care about how they look or how they compare to the socially established standard. People who, instead, care deeply about caring for the well-being of the exploited. Who go without so that others may be provided for in the flesh and, having been sustained in physical life, may be presented with hope for eternity. Who are on mission at every moment, desperate to see the kingdom come on Earth as it is in heaven that the King might return. Basic, unpretentious, satisfied, simple people.

There that is.

This is the question I want to ask of every human being on the planet.

Well, one of them. Of course, I'd like to know their favourite thing about Jesus, and the story of what He has done in them, and lots of other glorious tales as well. But once all those things are settled, I am itching to ask one thing:

What are the five books you would recommend I read before I die? (And, why?)

So, do tell!


(An aside: As deeply as I appreciate your wittiness, let me clarify that I already have read and continue to read the Bible. It's as necessary as water. So, after the Bible, what are your top five literary pleasures?)

The Vagabond Song

Written early 2009. Chemineau thoughts.

I am a vagabond.
I belong to another place--a far country.
My soul is not tied to this rock.
My heart is free of cares in this world.
My life is bigger than the confines of the planet.
I am anti-gravity.

I go about in rags, wandering, destitue--looking for my home.
I am an alien. I am a stranger.
My eyes are constantly seeking, seeking the Great City.
I live in the Wait. I carry the Ache.

I am a whisper. I am a vapor. I am a phantom.
I am the breath of eternity. I ride upon the wind.
My heart is fixed on the journey.
I am pressing on toward Zion.

I am confident in the world unseen.
I rest assured in the reality of an invisible Kingdom.
My senses cannot confine me.

Write it across my brow: just passing through.
I freely admit, I do not belong here.
My longing is for another place.
My deepest affections are for another Master.
My aim is for another goal.

I am a traveler. Pilgrim. Vagabond.

----------------------------------------------

[Reprise]

I live in the Wait. I carry the Ache.

Looking...
Past the veil.
The beautiful unseen.
The glorious mystery.

Crying, "Come!"

Heart unfettered.
Anti-gravity.

Traveler.

Asking. Seeking. Knocking.

Desperate to behold.

Possessing no alternatives.
Willing one thing.

One great obsession:
Only Him.

Tour ramblings

theFurnace just spent a week on the road doing nights of prayer and worship across the country. I went with a group of thirty college students to tour the west coast. We started in Roswell, NM, travelled through Arizona and California, and ended in my home church in Ogden, UT. It was an incredible experience, and we saw God move in magnificent ways. Once I write my ramble about our free day on the ocean, I may post it here. In the meantime, here are a few other rambles tapped out in a fifteen-passenger van on the freeway...

On the Desert

The road through New Mexico and Arizona is beautiful. It reminds me very much of the drive through certain parts of Utah. Especially as the sun drops in the sky and the shadows grow longer, the light casts a sparse, romantic beauty on the desert as it lies on either side of the highway.

This more than anything explains the unique charm of this country: the desert doesn't flow as the coast and its ocean; neither does it grow in the way of the plains. It simply lies with its dusty greens and dirty yellows, serene and a bit predictable surrounding four lanes of asphalt, without presumption or extraneous aspirations. Even the rocky growths that are repeated again and again in the view from the car windows seem to roll in and out of the ground in which they are planted, unlike the boldly stated mountains or the sheer and sudden precipices that can be seen elsewhere.

Our movements have fallen in with the rhythm of this land. They are paced and recurring. We listen to songs that flow in and out of each other. There seems to be something natural and familiar to this place.

Perhaps the desert is a faint echo of some plainer existence to which we feel an indefinite drawing. It evokes a memory of a life that is content with strength and tenacity, not caring for embellishments or handiwork to display. The desert is a life without trophies on its shelf, a life that is more interested in lying in quiet expanse than momentarily leaping from the earth: one that is deep and interior and silent, one whose power lies mostly in the unseen.

On Happy Jack

Making a drive across Wyoming is one of the less enjoyable experiences of my life, and one that I have undertaken many times. The landscape from I-80 is barren and notably indecisive. Even in colour, the topography refuses to commit to any shade or hue and instead muddles about in a dreary grey. After several hours of such a view, my eyes grow weary of constantly gazing on dustiness and endless horizontal lines.

Then comes the glorious moment of the trek shortly outside of the city of Laramie. One rounds yet another grey corner and is suddenly greeted by bright reds and greens shouting cheery platitudes from either side of the winding road. Pines are stacked up above the grooved face of the rock like an evergreen ensemble marching through a wilderness. The sign for the nearest exit reads “Happy Jack Road.”

Cheers, friends.

Sacrifice

"We must invite the cross to do its deadly work within us."
A.W. Tozer, The Pursuit of God

Cold, hard stone--
Coagulating blood--
The dwelling place of death.
I grip the ledge
And hoist myself
Up to the top.
Crawling like an animal,
I lay myself before You:
On this altar,
Let me die.

Sophisticates

“Is not this the fast that I choose:
to loose the bonds of wickedness,
to undo the straps of the yoke,
to let the oppressed go free,
and to break every yoke?
Is it not to share your bread with the hungry
and bring the homeless poor into your house;
when you see the naked, to cover him,
and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?
Then shall your light break forth like the dawn,
and your healing shall spring up speedily;
your righteousness shall go before you;
the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard.
Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer;
you shall cry, and he will say, ‘Here I am.’
If you take away the yoke from your midst,
the pointing of the finger, and speaking wickedness,
if you pour yourself out for the hungry
and satisfy the desire of the afflicted,
then shall your light rise in the darkness
and your gloom be as the noonday.
And the Lord will guide you continually
and satisfy your desire in scorched places
and make your bones strong;
and you shall be like a watered garden,
like a spring of water,
whose waters do not fail.
And your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt;
you shall raise up the foundations of many generations;
you shall be called the repairer of the breach,
the restorer of streets to dwell in."
Isaiah 58:6-12

This morning, I drove to Panera Bread to meet an incredible woman of God for some coffee (or, to be true, tea) and conversation. I followed a steady line of cars into a shopping complex and watched people routinely pull into the parking lots of Panera and Starbucks, many of them inevitably here to order "their drinks" as they do every day before returning to their shiny cars and driving off to their careers.

I have a hard time with suburbia. There is such an air of presumed sophistication present here. And I am not referring to Briargate specifically. I am speaking more generally of an attitude that prevails in our society. Look at our nice vehicles: they are shiny and modern, and the payment we are obligated to make on it every month is well worth the status we associate with it. Look at our $4 coffees in recycled cardboard cups; our perfectly placed, chemically coloured hair; our laptops and SmartPhones. How sophisticated we are!

I am not condemning cars, coffee, or laptops (I am typing this on my year-old MacBook Pro). But I do feel that we tend to glorify and idolize our advancement, as if technology and the marketplace are the standards by which we measure the sophistication we value so highly. SUV+latte+iPhone=sophistication?

Hardly. What if we shifted our thinking to believe that the truly sophisticated thing is compassion? That our advancement is in the growth of our love? That the number of people we have genuinely helped is more important than the figure in our bank account?

Ultimately, who cares about the rest of the mess? Is eternity concerned with your social status or fashion or ability to acquire? There is nothing spectacular about buying and owning and storing. What is unique and beautiful is to give and aid and sacrifice. Eternity is looking for what Brennan Manning in the book The Furious Longing of God called "a community of prophets and professional lovers."

Please, be sophisticated. Be so advanced in love that it is a remarkable gift to a dying world. Cultivate such a rich compassion that souls are redeemed by the display of God's kindness you live before the hopeless. Develop a disregard for the trivialities and trappings.

Stuff

I just watched "The Story of Stuff."

I think I need to rethink the way I consume.

I've grown up around arguments against any redefinition of consumption my whole life. Such changes have always been associated with a radical leftist view that, in the context of my developmental years, was necessarily anti-God. If you're challenging the economic system and pushing for "zero carbon footprint" and "sustainability," you are a Godless liberal. So, essentially, the thinking went.

I am beginning to think differently.

Slowly, it is becoming clear how deeply rooted our western preoccupation with materials is even in the people of the Church. It really is an addiction, and it is disgusting. It's poison.

For example, I was having a discussion recently with some friends about people who move to America and don't learn our language. These friends are amazing and have beautiful hearts for God. But as we discussed whether or not immigrants should be required to learn English upon their entry to America, the heart of the matter was exposed: unrecognized materialism.

The question I posed was this: "If we view ourselves primarily not as Americans trying to function in an American, English-speaking society, but as citizens of heaven with a message of hope for people of every tribe, nation, and tongue, should we not attempt to learn their language first?"

(We discussed this at length and unpacked arguments for both sides. If you wish to engage this topic with me, I would love to talk about it.)

The discussion carried on for a substantial amount of time, and when we reached the end, the final example given by my dear friend was this: "I agree we should be reaching out to these people with the gospel. But when I am working at a grocery store, and someone comes in speaking Spanish, and I can't understand them, it keeps me from doing my job."

That was when I realized, Oh, my goodness. That's it. The problem is consumerism. We want people to know our language so we can keep the flow of the economy.

And this isn't just my friend, one person, who has some shocking mindset. That is the mindset I have heard all my life. It's not that she is a bad person possessing an unusual degree of selfishness. This is the way most of us are.

How did this get into our hearts? my heart?

Now I am seeing this consumer mentality everywhere. And I am seeing that is not an issue of right or left. In fact, I am seeing that left and right may just be two different words for "wrong."

I am reading Dallas Willard's The Divine Conspiracy, in which the author unpacks a substantial explanation of the "gospels" of both the right and left as unsound gospels focused on sin-management. Of the right, he says, "Being let off the divine hook replaces possession of a divine life 'from above.'" Alternatively: "This is the gospel of the current Christian left: Love comes out on top."
(I don't have time to explain these in full, but I highly suggest you read the book if you are interested in understanding both fatal flaws.)

What I have begun to see in the general mindset of the people of God I have known is a certain measure of identity which is found in possessions.

"The system of production is flawed," one says. "People are losing resources and living in poverty and we are polluting our surroundings and ourselves."

"That's all social gospel" is the response. And so our right to continue buying more than we need and wasting perfectly functional, if aesthetically obsolete, resources is protected because we are unaffected by any state of well-being outside of our own.

But my primary concern here is not even whatever level of natural resources we may or may not have consumed, or the effect that is having on local economies where our production occurs, or how full national landfills are or are not (though I think that each of these issues possesses a level of importance). My first concern is that it appears we have God further from the throne of our hearts than we might admit or even perceive. The issue is that where our treasure is our heart is as well.

In other words, why don't we care?

Do we dismiss movements for green living, sustainability, and fair trade because we have a just argument against the way these causes are conducted? Or is it because we draw a certain amount of our identity from how much, how big, how often?

If we were free from materialism, as we so often pray and profess to be, would it not be of great importance to us that workers receive fair pay and that the production of American goods across the globe does not negatively impact the people and environments involved in that production? And from what I can see, these things largely do not concern us as we sit in our right-leaning, evangelistic perch.

I am not attacking the American church or the people that compose her. How could I claim to love the Man and not also love His Bride?

What I am asking, mostly of myself, is this:
Why is it so important to me to purchase new clothing?
Why don't I cultivate more of my own food? Because I am unable? If so, why am I not careful to ensure the food I buy is produced in a manner that is not harmful to those actually doing the work?
Why do I replace things that I already have?

Or, to put it succinctly, do I live like He is my portion?

Questions that need to be answered.

One thing I have asked from the LORD, that I shall seek:
That I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life,
To behold the beauty of the LORD
And to meditate in His temple.
Ps. 27:4

Or have I?

David

If we go to coffee anytime soon, be prepared for a lot of David. "David said..." "I love that David recognized this..." "Well, it's the same as what David saw..."

A few weeks ago, I looked at the Psalms and was struck by the preoccupation this man had with God. Shepherd or king, warrior or poet--in every stage of life, he maintained an utter fascination with the Almighty. He wrote things such as: "O sons of men...how long will you love what is worthless and aim at deception?" [Ps. 4:2] Such unprecedented questions and statements of devotion. I began to ask God, What was it about You that so captivated this man?

When David was out in the fields tending sheep, what revelation did he receive that birthed such obsession? What did he see? What did he hear? With what was he so engrossed?

To uncover the answer to these questions, I've begun a bit of a detective hunt through the Psalms. I printed out all David's Songs (as this hunt has been dubbed in my mind), hole-punched them, and put them into a big white binder. High liter in one hand, pen in the other, I'm reading through them all to find the clues to David's revelation.

I am only roughly twenty psalms into the study, and I am already ruined by what I am discovering. Among other things, I am learning to see David as a man. I see him as a teenager out in a field, thinking about the stories of his forefathers. Reliving the Genesis 15 promise to Abraham that God would be his shield and great reward. Pondering the Exodus 33 prayer of Moses: "Show me your glory!" And I see his heart coming alive to the invitation of God. Thinking, "If there have been those that have encountered God, then it may be that men may still know God in this way. If this is true, I will be among those who know Him."

David dared to be swept up in the revelation of a beckoning God. All his words about satisfaction and righteousness were born of a heart so intent on knowing the Almighty face-to-face that no cost was considered a sacrifice. God was literally David's reward.

There is so much to say about all of this, but I have already written more than I anticipated. More to come on David, holiness, obsession...

The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in the field, which a man found and hid again; and from joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.
Matthew 13:44

Daylight

I love my God. Honestly, He does the most lovely things. Such as daylight revelations.

Technically, it was not a daylight revelation at eight in the morning, but regardless, God dropped a revelation as clear as crystal into my mind the moment I woke up this morning.

I've been wrestling with this whole missions concept for months, and it's all been coming to a head the last few weeks. I'd never considered overseas missions at all until this past spring, when God asked me to respond to an altar call for people who were to work overseas. It was news to me.

Even since then--and even since falling in love with Berlin in May--I've known that I'm not necessarily called to vocational missions work. Though I am serious about the idea of going to Europe at some point, I do not foresee traditional missions life in my future. If I were to go to Europe, it would almost certainly be to work in discipleship or leadership development at a local church. I would just see it as moving to another place to serve at a church. I can move to Oregon to work at a church. I can move to Sweden to work at a church. There are certainly linguistic and cultural differences, but at the foundations, the options seem parallel.

Add to this the fact that there are still certain American cities and regions weighing on my heart, and you come up with a lot of questions. In the meantime, I do not wish to abandon the thought of ministering overseas, so I continue to respond to altar calls. A fair amount of people come to the logical conclusion that I want to be a vocational missionary. I haven't felt compelled to correct them all--after all, in the end, it is my calling and not theirs.

This brings us to my awakening this morning. I've been wondering to God, "How does this work? I want to work with discipleship in ______. I want to work with youth in _______. And for this season, I want to stay where I am and minister where I am already serving. These are three completely separate regions, not to mention the less specific burdens I'm carrying. How do I know where I'm called?"

As clear as any revelation I have ever before received, He told me this morning, "'Where?' is the wrong question. I never called you to a place. I never called you to a city or a country. I called you to a generation."

Oh yes. I remember.

That makes perfect sense.

And it's beautiful. Thank You.

They are mobile like the wind, They belong to the nations. They need no passport. People write their addresses in pencil and wonder at their strange existence.
['The Vision,' Pete Greig]

Vision

"Where there is no vision, the people perish..."
Prov. 29:18

I hopped onto the BBC website this morning to see what the world is up to and came across this article.

Keir Starmer QC, the director of public prosecutions, was forced to publish the guidance after a long-running legal fight by Debbie Purdy, a multiple sclerosis sufferer from Bradford.

In July, Law Lords ruled she had the right to know under what circumstances her husband would be prosecuted if he helped her travel abroad to die.

I can't imagine the agony of Heaven at a woman so eager to end her life.

It is easy to delve into the politics of assisted suicide, but the fact is that the argument between sanctity of life and one's purported right to his own life is a messy one and one that is often too personal to be had objectively. I am not going to presume to defend one view or another. What I am wondering is, How heartbreaking must our hopelessness be to the Father?

How little revelation people must possess of God's unfailing, ravishing love to have so little hope for life. How muffled the message of grace and the call to discipleship must be that the ears of those who need to hear it most are deaf to it. How blind to the light of Christ the world is; without vision, the people are perishing. Death has so pervaded their souls that it is coming out from their inner man to destroy their very selves.

And I wonder if perhaps we as the Church are inclined to take the wrong action in response to such a culture of death. While we lobby in hearings and petition against the passing of laws--unquestionably with good intentions--are we failing to communicate the hope that might compel the individual to choose life for himself? It is undoubtedly valuable for us to fight for the principles we believe in, but are we so busy screeching over the principle that we neglect the person? Is our vocal opposition a convenient alternative to personal action?

I do not think for a second that any government ruling or law that allows for the destruction of precious life pleases God. But then again, I don't see Jesus overthrowing Rome to pass a law against adultery. I see Him stepping between the unfaithful woman and the self-righteous mob, empowering the one who is so lost with the grace and purpose to "go and sin no more."

Perhaps our responsibility is first to bring vision. Perhaps we are to walk alongside Jesus to the castaways and the uncertain and echo His call to "follow Me." Perhaps our primary concern is to be taking to the streets, walking into hospital rooms, and sitting down in shelters to speak weak words to frail people, desperate to see their hearts come alive. Perhaps I should be more concerned with carrying Christ than condemning sinners. No one without hope needs to be reminded of their hopelessness. They need to be given something for which they can hope.

But these are all thoughts and questions I ask of my own life. Where do I speak much and do little? Where do I hide (often self-righteously) behind principle and avoid the act of loving my neighbor? Where is the one whose behavior I easily condemn but whose heart I am reluctant to heal? God forgive me.

Wrestling

Now he arose that same night and took his two wives and his two maids and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. He took them and sent them across the stream. And he sent across whatever he had. Then Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him until daybreak.

When he saw that he had not prevailed against him, he touched the socket of his thigh; so the socket of Jacob's thigh was dislocated while he wrestled with him. Then he said, "Let me go, for the dawn is breaking." But he said, "I will not let you go unless you bless me."

So he said to him, "What is your name?" And he said, "Jacob."

He said, "Your name shall no longer be Jacob, but Israel; for you have striven with God and with men and have prevailed."

Then Jacob asked him and said, "Please tell me your name." But he said, "Why is it that you ask my name?" And he blessed him there.

So Jacob named the place ^d]">Peniel, for he said, "I have seen God face to face, yet my life has been preserved."

Now the sun rose upon him just as he crossed over Penuel, and he was limping on his thigh.

Gen. 32:22-31

In the womb he grasped his brother's heel;
as a man he struggled with God.
He struggled with the angel and overcame him;
he wept and begged for his favor.
He found him at Bethel
and talked with him there-
the LORD God Almighty,
the LORD is his name of renown!

Hosea 12:3-5

I try to picture Jacob on this night. Restless, anxious over the necessary encounter with his estranged brother the next day, he rises in the middle of the night to send his family across the river. He sends all he has with them. He lingers, alone. Helpless, hopeless. Praying to God for favour to be granted.

Then, as if the inescapable adversary of the next day was not enough, the divine itself makes an appearance on the scene. There was no blessing for Jacob as there was for his ancestor Abraham. There was no burning revelation as there would one day be for Moses. Jacob is crying out for peace, and God comes down to struggle against him.

He is a desperate man. He fights, he strives, he clings. Even when crippled by Heaven, he refuses to relinquish his hold apart from the blessing of God.

And he steps into the dawn of the new day broken, limping, blessed--having seen the face of God.

It's nighttime. Everything is across the river, and I am standing before an open sky, desperate, waiting. God has come. We are struggling against one another.

It's incredible how clearly I can see the love in His eyes as I strive. I am at once wrestling against Him and with Him. I see that as He struggles against me, He is not fighting me but rather everything that is not me inside of me. He fights the supplanter of my birth to reveal the favoured friend of my maturity.

It seems as if this would be a terrible condition in which to find oneself. But it's not. Better to be wrestling and beholding Him than to be sleeping by the river, motionless and empty.

Let's go at it.

Hunger

Week One of this semester of the Furnace is wrapping up today. Four prayer meetings later, I'm already in awe of what God's doing.

Admittedly, the beginning of a semester feels a little like a junior high dance. There's a lot of shuffling around by the wall, waiting for someone to ask us to dance. But that's where we begin--awkward but willing. Eventually, we warm up to the microphone, discover our vocal chords, and begin to be wrecked by Jesus.

The last few days, I have been consumed with the idea of hunger. It was destroying me a bit during prayer meeting last night, and I got to the point where I had to confess, "God, You are never anything less than constant in Your pursuit of me. I am the one who is halfhearted. I am the one who is inattentive. I am the one who is stingy with my affections. I am the one who isn't looking for You."

There have been several times in the last few weeks when I have been completely overwhelmed with an unsettling heaviness in my spirit. It is so profound that I have several times left whatever group of people I've found myself with and withdrawn to an empty room or coffee shop, aching. I can hardly explain it...this is a bit from a journal entry during one of those occurrences:

Daddy,
It's as if I've connected with some unnerving heartbreak--some terrible grieving of Your Spirit...There is no way to articulate this brewing storm in my soul. All my spirit can give are the moans of a dying man. Every word I speak seems foul if it is not of You. Every second I do not gaze on You, encounter You, or express what I know of You causes a disturbance deep inside...

How does one breathe under the weight of this Ache?

As crushing as this burden can become, I want to embrace it. I want to take up a real cross, one that causes splinters and chafes my shoulders, not the pretty, polished cross I seem to have so readily adopted. I want to want the fellowship of sharing in His sufferings.

I am so easily placated. My spirit is starving, and I numb myself against the pain because it is easier than seeking out the food I so desperately need. I see my inner man, and it is emaciated: sunken eyes, ribs showing, paper-thin skin. And I tell myself, "You're rich. You're full. You're satisfied." All the while, I am "wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked."

I want to feel the grief of God at my distance from Him. I want to hear His groaning at my lack of intimacy with Him. It will break me and ruin me, and I want it. I want to feel the hunger pangs. I want to be crippled by my need for Him.

Daddy, make me hunger. Make me incapable of functioning without You. I don't want these morsels I've been using to satisfy myself. Hunger is painful, but You are the reward. How can I deny You?


As the deer pants for streams of water,
so my soul pants for you, O God.
My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
When can I go and meet with God?

Psalm 42:1-2

If I never walk on water, if I never see the miracles
If I never hear Your voice so loud
Just knowing that You love me is enough to keep me here
Just hearing those words is enough is enough to satisfy
You do, You do, You satisfy
I couldn't leave even if I tried
I must have You, I must have You

"Let Me Love You More," Misty Edwards

Michelangelo

I've spent the better part of the last few days in the prayer closet/storage room across from our room in the WPC. I've been working off a table sandwiched between a mattress against one wall and a pile of to-be-sold-or-donated clothing against the other. The walls are slightly pink and the light is very yellow. But it's starting to grow on me.

God's been rearranging my understanding of pursuit lately. It's been subtle and in small increments, but I feel a shift in my spirit. Something is starting to realign that was disconnected before.

I can't recall how many times I've heard it said that "our life with God is a marathon, not a sprint," but I think it has been one of those statements I say "yeah" to out of habit--not unlike the automatic extension of my leg when the doctor hits my knee with his small triangular red hammer. I still get into achiever mode with God and try to perform every day. (Thanks, Daniel Webb, for helping me understand why I do this. Signature Themes explain so much.)

That's not to say I don't still wake up every morning to "aim for perfection" or "walk in a manner worthy of your calling." Rather, I think I'm gaining an awareness that I need to let the deep, inner things of reality in God be fleshed out without being concerned about external performance. I may be wired to start every day at zero, but God is telling a long, beautiful narrative. It's woven seamlessly and flows perfectly from day to night and back to day again. It's less a faucet I turn on in the morning and shut off in the evening, and more a thundering waterfall cascading endlessly onto my head.

I want to really understand God as a storyteller and an artist. A wise man I've known once told me the rather well-known story about Michelangelo. Reportedly, when asked how he made his statue of David, the sculptor is to have said, "It is easy. You just chip away the stone that doesn't look like David."

I see God that way. He labors so faithfully, chipping away at the block of marble day after day, knowing David is inside, patiently working to see him emerge. I come to him rough and unformed, and He sets right to removing every piece that is not me. To Him, I am at once a discovery and being discovered.

I have to laugh at how absurd it must be, then, for the block of marble to be proclaiming every morning, "I'm going to be a statue today!" No, silly. You're a masterpiece in the making. Let the making happen. Instead of striving to force the art out of yourself, strive to be completely submitted to the craftsman. That's your task.

I want to settle into the pages, embrace the part He's written for me, and live well from cover to cover. No page-jumping or chapter-hopping. Every character with purpose. Every word an encounter. True to every comma, pausing at every period, right in step with the rhythm of the prose.

I'm not a statement. I'm a story.

As I wait for You, maybe I'm made more faithful
-Brooke Fraser

Today

Reflections on The Pursuit of Man by A.W. Tozer, chapter one.


The thing that is most necessary in the development of authentic pursuit is that a man actually be looking for God now. To attempt to satisfy the longing after God with recognition of Him in the past or an awareness of Him in the future leaves the soul withering under the reality of this moment. The seeker smiles weakly at professions of the God who has been and the God who is to come, but he cracks beneath the weight of his need for a God who is.

The man whose heart is alive embraces God in both the past and the future, all the while asking, "Ever-Present One, where are You today?" Each day, he seeks a discovery of Christ in the aspect of every hour. His is the spirit quickened to be familiar with his God.


I’m sailing on a ship that’s bound for life
I wrestle with the wind against the tide
I leave it all behind to reach for more
I’m sailing on to where the water’s running sweet and bright
The sun is rising in the eastern sky
I leave it all behind to reach for more
I’m sailing on to Your golden shore

- Sailing on a Ship, Phil Wickham

Coffee Shop Thoughts...

[Live and Uncut]


“By dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit.”

Romans 7-8

That I might understand the tragedy of sin, the commandment was given to expose it, and my own sin put me to death. This is the master of my flesh, waging war against the righteous desires of my spirit and binding me up in depravity. There was no victory to be found in my being: it is rotten through and through.

My death could only be redeemed by the death of another. Christ took death upon Himself; He became my very sins and crucified them with His body. Now I am dead! I am the shell in which His Spirit dwells. I am the righteousness of Christ. This is my new master. I am one of those “who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit.” My mind and heart are set on the activity surrounding the throne of God. I desire what I find to be the desires of His heart.

Once, it was impossible for me to be found pleasing to God. When I died to the nature that bound me and took up the likeness of Christ, I was made alive to Him again. By Him I eliminate the activities of the flesh, and so I am found to be the beloved child of God.

No longer am I enslaved to sin and fear; I call to Him, “Daddy!” He says to me, “Dear one, I call you My own; you are among the chosen heirs to My kingdom . Persevere through the struggle of this world, and you will share in My glory.”

This is the internal war in which I wage battle. I groan, I ache for His return, for His right to be enacted on all the wrong of this age. I wake every morning longing for what I have never seen, and I fall asleep every night in tears, desperate for His appearing. When my words run dry, His Spirit inside me cries out, communicating on my behalf in my wordlessness.

Though I am broken and sorrowful, none can accuse me. No charge can be made against me, for He has ordained that I would be made like Him, chosen, made right, and endowed with His glory. And though I shoulder His cross every day—though I cry His tears and groan with His grief—I am secure in His love, and I can never be removed from Him. I wait and I ache, but I am not shaken. I am His.

Friends

Do you ever feel like God's better friends with someone else than He is with you?

I know that sounds sort of surface and a little silly, but I think it's an easy impression to get. I think it's one I carried a lot this year. I finally decided to be honest about it with Jesus. So I told him, "Jesus, I feel like You're a lot better friends with this person than you are with me. And I've spent a lot of time trying to get to know You."

And I think Jesus was up in Heaven chuckling at me, to be honest, because He handed down a very simple explanation that slightly exploded my cranium.

Here's the thing: if you and I are friends, I may or may not realize it unless you very blatantly say, "We are friends." I don't know why it is, but that is one of the very simple things I miss all the time. (I miss a lot of simple things. For example, I forget than I can turn right on red. Often. I can store a plethora of ridiculously complicated information and a myriad of philosophies, but the common sense incidentals sometimes go right over my head. It keeps me humble, I suppose.)

Anyway, I cannot even remember how many times someone has told me, "I consider you one of my very good friends," and I've silently said to myself, "Oh. Really?" It's not that I'm utterly surprised by someone I consider a complete stranger. It's just that I tend to live every moment for itself, and before I know it, I look back to find I've spent a lot of time with such-and-such a person and--voilà! We're brilliant friends, and I never really took note of it.

(Another aside: words containing special characters bother me. They require me to visit Wikipedia to copy and paste the letter with the correct accent, thus transforming a spontaneous word like "voilà" into a process.)

I digress. This pattern of unrecognized friendship is already prevalent and acknowledge in my social understanding. What Jesus had to say was this: "You're the same way with Me. We spend a lot of time together. We're friends! It just didn't click."

I love that.

I'd say more, but I have a Friend I want to spend some time with now.

I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends...
John 15:15

The Great Pursuit

I used to write a blog called "The Great Pursuit." It was a phrase I coined for my relationship with God, a reflection on the incomparable worth of a life spent in encounter with God. I went back and reread some of my old posts. At the end of the very first, I wrote:

"When nothing pollutes our devotion to God, and when none of our devotion is shared between God and 'something else,' we truly have a pure devotion to Christ. This is what I'm after. This is what I'm seeking to live, no matter the cost. To be, at my core, devoted to Christ. And to be truly devoted to Him, undeterred by anything or anyone else. That's the life worth living."

As I read these words, and the others I wrote so long ago, I feel a quiet grief in my spirit at something I have lost. It's far too easy to chide myself about living in the past--"on yesterday's manna," as it were--but the fact is that such ideas can became a convenient veil before something that has died inside. After an incredible sermon by Pastor Rick Bezet this morning at NLC, I was broken and challenged to be completely honest about my spiritual condition. God already knows where I am anyway, true? (Of course true.)

I think one of my greatest anxieties about entering a season of "staying in the tent"--outside of the financial concern--has been that I see how frail my devotion has become, and I'm frankly unsure that I can pursue God as He has asked me to this fall. I'm completely aware that God doesn't ask anything of me that He cannot work through me to accomplish, but when the fears of my heart surface, those are the words they speak. "What if you fail?"

I've begun reading through the Psalms, starting with 150 and working backward (I usually start at 1 and trail off at some point, so I know the beginning far better than I do the end). I've heard Ps. 150:6--"Let everything that has breath praise the Lord"--innumerable times, but something about it struck me anew, and a tiny paraphrase of the chapter came out:
God shows up, great and strong, beautiful in the place where His glory dwells.
Grab whatever you can find! Make some noise! Celebrate the majestic Almighty One!
As long as you draw breath, you are here to praise Him.
That's what your life is: breathing out, breathing in, giving Him praise.

I look at this old Desperation poster I once covered in verses that were burning in my heart, and I ache to be alive to the Word again. I crave this existence: breathe in, breathe out, praise. Clear away everything else and desire nothing else--just Jesus. Christ as my reward. Christ as my destination, my journey, and my companion.

There are things inside that must come alive again. The passion may be dim, but I set myself on this: I will not be satisfied in allowing it to fade. All I want is Christ in me, the hope of glory. Nothing else.

The Tent

I'm bound for Colorado again tomorrow morning, and with the returning comes the true beginning of my adventure this fall. After months of prayer and conversation, it's time to embrace the beautifully unknown months ahead.

Thus the LORD used to speak to Moses face to face, just as a man speaks to his friend When Moses returned to the camp, his servant Joshua, the son of Nun, a young man, would not depart from the tent.
Exodus 33:11

I first read this verse years ago, when I was a sophomore or junior in high school. The idea of what one translation refers to as "staying in the tent" intrigued me, but I didn't have any idea how to embrace it tangibly. I tucked the verse away into a corner of my mind.

I never really came back to it until this summer, when I began to think about where to apply for a job through the fall. Then, through subtle nudging and whispers, God asked me to return to this idea. He presented me with a crazy thought: What if you stayed in the tent? Don't take a job. Spend the time you would be working getting to know Me.

It's been quite a road wrestling emotionally and mentally with the idea. To enter a wild unknown with no sure provision, holding only my faith that God is true to His promise to supply for His children, is a daunting and frankly frightening notion. As the time is upon me now to make a final decision, I find myself again returning in prayer, asking God to reaffirm to me what I am to do.

But a revelation finally came as to why this is so vital. I could so easily postpone this endeavor, say I want to put it off until I am more financially prepared for such a season. But knowing how life pushes forward, very rarely making any allowances for its sojourners to return to an old opportunity, I recognize that it would be very unlikely I would ever approach this undertaking again. I see how easily I could walk away from this and never return, and I see too that I might loosen my grip on my pursuit of God if I do not contend for it now.

I finally saw this idea in a new light. Yes, it's scary to have no money and need to eat. It's scary to have no money and need to put gas in my car. It's scary to have no money for a million different reasons, but if you wrap them all up and hold up the combined fearfulness of all these different elements, it pales in comparison to the terrifying thought of surrendering intimacy with God. To live without pursuit, without relationship, is far more frightening than to live without money.

If you decide for God, living a life of God-worship, it follows that you don't fuss about what's on the table at mealtimes or whether the clothes in your closet are in fashion. There is far more to your life than the food you put in your stomach, more to your outer appearance than the clothes you hang on your body. Look at the birds, free and unfettered, not tied down to a job description, careless in the care of God. And you count far more to him than birds.

Has anyone by fussing in front of the mirror ever gotten taller by so much as an inch? All this time and money wasted on fashion—do you think it makes that much difference? Instead of looking at the fashions, walk out into the fields and look at the wildflowers. They never primp or shop, but have you ever seen color and design quite like it? The ten best-dressed men and women in the country look shabby alongside them.

If God gives such attention to the appearance of wildflowers—most of which are never even seen—don't you think he'll attend to you, take pride in you, do his best for you? What I'm trying to do here is to get you to relax, to not be so preoccupied with getting, so you can respond to God's giving. People who don't know God and the way he works fuss over these things, but you know both God and how he works. Steep your life in God-reality, God-initiative, God-provisions. Don't worry about missing out. You'll find all your everyday human concerns will be met.

Matt. 6:25-33 (The Message)