God's Puzzle: Part 4

Last summer was a lot like a roller coaster. I had many high points and more lessons – but I also had some deep lows and griefs, mostly from my main job. I don’t talk about particulars because I feel that would be gossiping. Suffice it to say I am no longer under any illusion that parenting is an easy job. I did post about it on a general level here.

The big picture theme for my summer was that my home church services were alive in a way I had never experienced before. I actually felt that they were profitable – that I wasn’t just going through the motions to be there. Now, that is not to say that they weren’t good before. I think the change was more in me than it was in the church. But I was thankful for the new me who appreciated church at a deeper level than before. I posted about some of the church services here and here.

Also, while the spring semester’s lessons had focused around the fact that I am loved and accepted by God, the summer focused on what that means on a very practical level. Over and over again all summer, I heard the question in my head: “Do you trust Me?” No matter how bad I thought things might be, no matter how hard it was, that question was the center. And God never failed me. That doesn’t mean I didn’t fail, but God was always there for me when I was willing to turn to Him. At the beginning of August, I wrote a post about it that also started hinting at what the theme of the fall semester would be. Another post expanded more on the theme.

But as part of the summer, God had another reminder planned about His love. The college group at my church went through Tim Keller’s Prodigal God video series. We also spent a relaxing weekend with our leaders at a lake house. While there were still struggles even there, God led me to read 1 John 4 focusing on love. There’s so much in that chapter about God’s love for us – I would encourage you to read it if you’re ever discouraged…or even if you’re not. It’s a convicting reminder that we are called to love as we have been loved, and that we do not need to fear anything because “perfect love casts out fear.”

My summer ended with an emotional rollicking kaboom – and although I was somewhat excited to come back to college and see all my friends I was already starting to dread what will happen after I graduate. After all, I was half way done! Which is why this semester's lessons have been so perfect.

God's Puzzle: Part 3

Back on February 6, a girlfriend’s brother had been killed when a gun he was cleaning went off. On April 12, a family friend’s husband had been found dead at his parking garage. He was, I think, in his early 30’s. Both of these deaths were somewhat shocking to me. I wasn’t especially close to either man, but it still weighed on me. Then, on April 18, I heard that another girlfriend’s boyfriend had been killed in a private plane crash. They had both graduated from the Air Force Academy the past May and were hoping to get married soon.

It really hit me hard. There had only been one other time in my life where I had known someone about my age who had died – and that was someone I didn’t know very well. Now, all of a sudden, three young men in the prime of their lives had been suddenly snatched away. After a long Tuesday night, Wednesday morning was a down time. “I just felt so tired & weighed down & overwhelmed,” I wrote in my journal the next day. A trip to the prayer room for a good cry ended in God’s peace flowing in and covering over my fear and sadness.

On May 10 I blogged again about that day and also about the rest of the spring semester. Twice, on April 21 & 30, I had been flooded with joy and a more real sense of God's love than I had ever felt. As I remember writing somewhere, "I was blessed by the Holy Spirit, without even consciously asking for Him."

God's Puzzle: Part 2

About a week later, the next event came, again, from my Student Leadership class. I had just gone through a couple of crazy homework weeks, evidently. I was getting use to working as News Editor for the campus newspaper (which involves working in the office for 7-9 hours every Tuesday night), so that was a big adjustment. Anyhow, I had failed to do any of the reading for the Wednesday afternoon class – which was, ironically enough, about the dangers of over-committing ourselves. And so, to put that into practice, I proceeded to skip the small group time of the class and instead go out to the 100 stairs—one of my best retreat places on campus—and think, pray, journal, etc.

God had already rescued me from a bit of my own craziness and volunteering to stretch myself too far. I had applied to be an RA and to be the HSP secretary, but by God’s grace I thankfully received neither position. Most of my journal entry that day (March 9) was praying that I would focus on God and on what was truly important rather than all the stuff I thought I could do to make the world a better place. The lesson was simple and clear: “Be Still & Know.”

Spring Break came and went, much too fast for my liking. But even in that, there was a lesson, which I blogged about. It was one of the rough patches that have still come up even in this Spring of my relationship with God. To use something more recent to explain it – last week I read through papers on C.S. Lewis’ Screwtape Letters as part of my work study TA job. One of the temptations many students referred to was what Lewis had Screwtape label the “Law of Undulation” – that our lives are full of peaks and troughs. It is in the troughs, Screwtape wrote, that humans can learn the most and that the most danger to a demon’s plan can occur.

So yes - I have still had rough times since January. But now there is a deep underlying peace and certainty of God's love and involvement in my life that I didn't feel as much before. I especially came to realize that the next month when the full weight of a series of tragedies hit me.

God's Puzzle: Part 1

{Checkout the prologue from last night if you haven't seen it :) }

It started, oddly enough, with homework for a class. I took the Student Leadership class, and we read a book by Henri Nouwen entitled “In the Name of Jesus.” I wrote in my journal about it on Jan. 23 – and although it caused me to end up crying again this time the tears were not tears of frustration that God didn’t seem to be meeting me where I was. Instead, this time the tears were more of repentance for my sin that was blocking me from the good God had in store for me. I was finally beginning to gain a more correct perspective. It is never a question of if God loves me. He does! “Only He is capable of loving me despite my failings,” I wrote. “Not even I can do that. Only He is capable of keeping me out of my deep, self-made rut.”

Two days later, Jill Briscoe came to speak in chapel for Spiritual Renewal Week. She talked about people losing their spiritual edge. As I had been standing there singing (I think before she talked…but I’m not positive), the thought had come to my mind – “What I do is not a question of earning God’s love. I don’t need to earn it. He already loves me, no matter what. Salvation really is a gift – I really can’t earn it. Anything I do for Him is a gift of love.” That reminder/realization was the beginning of my personal revival. Yes, of course I knew that in my head before that moment. But I hadn’t been living it out.

From there, everything kind of started happening at once. There’s no way I can compile a record here of everything I feel God has taught me in the months since then. Early on, when I was first intending to write this post, I wanted to call it “God doesn’t work in a vacuum.” On a frequent basis throughout last spring, I would have what I’ve come to call “Lessons of the Day” (LotD) that usually get put onto my Twitter account (Esther0925). Although it seems odd now looking back that such a drastic change would happen so quickly, I kept thinking of things that applied to what I was going through and that I believe have been promptings of the Holy Spirit. I kind of feel as though I’m walking a thin line here, because I don’t believe I have received some sort of “special revelation.” At the same time, I think God has been teaching me and I want to share what I have learned with others in the hope that God may use it in their lives as well.

The only bad thing about my Twitter LotD’s is that when I look back at them I frequently have no context. But on Feb. 24 I tweeted: “Lord, teach me how to love You. First and foremost, You alone. My life will never truly work out until You are at the center.” That weekend was the women’s retreat that I talked about a bit earlier. It was the next big step in the process. The subject was authenticity. I’m not going to write much about it here because it was an intensely personal and reflective time that, frankly, I’m not willing to be vulnerable enough with the world wide web to put here. Suffice it to say I filled up 8.5 pages with notes in my chapel notebook and another 8.5 pages of reflection in my journal. Again, I closed with a prayer that September’s rereading showed had been answered. “I pray that You would continue to quicken my awareness of You….Refresh me with Your presence each moment, I pray.” And as the days and weeks continued, He did.

God's Puzzle: Prologue

I’ve been meaning to do this post for at least six months. This is going to be a {hopefully} brief post {imagine that red text is crossed out – brief...who was I kidding!} simply tracing what God has been teaching me over the past year – because it’s been an amazing time of growth for me.

First, a bit of background. This isn’t easy for me to admit – but I’d have to say that during most of high school and the first year and a half of college my spiritual life was, for the most part, stagnant. I had plenty of head knowledge about God, but I felt an almost complete lack of any real relationship with Him. And I desperately wanted that relationship. There were plenty of times I would shut myself into my room and cry at nights because I didn’t feel God and I wanted to so badly. It never made any sense to me. God wants a relationship with me, right??? Then why don’t I seem to have one if He wants it and I want it? I don’t have the answer to that question – but this post is going to focus on the growth I have had since then to a time when I have felt that relationship in a more real and tangible way than ever before. Yes, I know feelings aren’t everything. But I am human and feelings are part of the equation.

This next part is a bit out of place, but it will help explain things. In February of last year, one of the JBU professors spoke at the campus women’s retreat. She talked about knowing God in three ways: Intellectually, Experientially, and Affectively (Emotionally). As I wrote in my journal reflecting on that, “I’ve known about God intellectually all my life, in a growing sense. I would say that I started to know Him experientially when we went to China. I saw and experienced how He provided for us in the years afterward, and there were things like the NO, LA {New Orleans, Louisiana} trip too. I’d say I really started knowing God affectively once I came to JBU and especially this semester. Things like chapel and The Furnace and then everything this semester has shown me a side of God I hadn’t really thought about or connected with before.”

So anyway, in September 2010 I wrote my first post on this blog after a year of silence. It’s like the prologue to everything that has happened since. Let me just say here that it has been so important for me personally to write about what God is doing in my life. It can be so encouraging to go back and look through what I was thinking and feeling and see how God has been faithful in answering my heart’s cry – even when I felt at the time as though He wasn’t listening.

I didn’t blog or really journal much again until December. When I finally did journal, it was an entry full of the frustration I expressed in my “background” paragraph above. My sophomore fall was a tough semester – not because of difficult school work, but because of apathy…about everything. I ended with a plea to God that He would “grant me the ability to rest & trust in You and to STOP trying to live it out on my own.” When I reread that in September, it struck me that God answered that cry the next semester – Spring 2011, the semester that has honestly changed my spiritual life.

[Please note – all of this was written late night/early morning of Nov. 16/17. I’m just breaking it up into sections and posting it during the next week or so, so that maybe people won’t feel as overwhelmed by it….

The title comes from the fact that it seems each lesson and event has been a puzzle piece that has fit perfectly into the bigger picture of what God has been doing in my life.]

"Next Time"

“Next time when I go through high school, I’ll take advantage of that opportunity.”

“Next time I’m a college freshman, I’ll lay a better groundwork of study habits.”

One problem with those thoughts – there’s not going to be a next time. As a new 21-year-old, I’ve passed that phase of life…and I won’t be going through it again. Nevertheless, the number of times I think to myself “next time around, I’ll get it right,” is rather amusing. I keep remembering after I’ve thought it that my high school/childhood days are over – there is no going back to do it again.

No, I don’t think those thoughts because I believe in some sort of re-incarnation. It’s just that I have this idea in the back of my head that I’ll get another chance at life…that I’ll be able to change how I’ve lived. But life doesn’t work that way.

The thought popped into my head today. As I reflected on this silly tendency, I realized that if nothing else it’s a great reminder of the importance of stewardship. It’s true – we only get once opportunity to live our lives. Once a minute is gone, it’s gone. We’ll never get back that hour, week, month. Every moment is a precious commodity that doesn’t come with a second chance.

I struggle with the practical application of this concept sometimes. There are times I want to kick back and doing something mindless for recreation – watch a show from my favorite TV series, play a little computer game, read a fictional book for fun. But at other times I can’t help but question the wisdom of doing that – that’s two hours I wasted on something with no eternal value whatsoever…and the time slipped away so fast.

I don’t believe we always have to do something that’s considered “spiritual” like read the Bible, sing worship songs, or pray. But it’s also important to remember that we can never get back those moments we spend on more trivial matters. Once they are used, they’re gone – forever.

But there is an available next time…“Next time I have a free evening, I’ll choose to call a friend instead of staring at my computer screen.” “Next time I have 30 minutes between meetings I’ll get ahead on my homework so I don’t have to freak out as much.” Those are the moments we still have control over – let’s choose to use them wisely.

True Freedom: Becoming a Slave

“The only way to ever find true freedom is becoming Christ’s slave.”

“Scripture doesn’t offer us a choice of freedom – only a choice of who our master is.”

The chapel speaker spoke in a gentle tone, often making fun of or downplaying himself. But his message was strong and went right to my soul. For three days earlier this month, Michael Card taught during Spiritual Emphasis Week at my school, John Brown University. His topic was slavery and how we are called to be the slaves of Christ.

In our American culture, we like our freedom and independence. We’re like the Jews of Jesus’ time – we don’t want to be told we’re slaves (John 8:31-36). But as Mr. Card pointed out, we are all in bondage to something, whether we like it or not. In our natural state as humans, we are born as slaves to our flesh and sin. The only way to become free from our human bondage is to instead submit ourselves to slavery under Christ.

Christ has given us an example of what the Christian life is to look like. He came to earth not as a king, but as a slave. He consistently demonstrated this in His time on earth. We are told to follow in His example (Phil. 2:5-11).

The apostle Paul recognized this. In his letters, he constantly uses slave language about himself and when writing about salvation. For example, Mr. Card said, the word for justification has its roots in being bought or redeemed at the slave market (if I remember right).

Submitting ourselves to slavery in Christ brings us into true freedom:

-- from Impurity

-- from the Law

-- from Fear

-- from Seeking Human Approval

--from Judging Others

--from Quarreling

“We are called to give up our choices and live in submission to our Master!” Mr. Card said.

I desire that freedom – I’m tired of trying to have my life all figured out…tired of trying to fit the mold of what people expect of me…tired of trying to be in control. But that doesn’t mean the process of submission is easy.

The hardest part about surrendering and living in submission to my Master Christ is that He doesn't stand over me like a physical slave master, with a whip in His hand to punish any disobedience or straying. Instead, the call to submission is a gentle voice:

“Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” (Matt. 11:28-30)

It’s about getting my priorities straight and fixing my eyes on the goal. It’s about choosing one vision and staying focused. It’s about submission.

After a summer of being brought back over and over to the concept of trust, it’s as though I’m being called to the next step: total surrender. I am not called to change the world. I am not called to greatness. I am called to serve, following in the footsteps of my Master, the servant of all.

Some other quotes from Mr. Card’s talks:

“All self-revelation I find in the Scripture is centered in Christ. He defines me.”

“If your calling doesn’t look like foot washing, it’s not your calling!”

“Saul was ready to kill for his religious convictions, but not ready to die for them…when the religious leader fell to the ground, he came to his senses as a slave.”

“When Jesus knew He was about to be exalted by the Father, He chose to serve His disciples. That’s not a normal human reaction!”

“After His resurrection, Jesus should have been waiting on a throne to receive the disciples’ worship and adoration. Instead, He made breakfast for them.”

Some of Michael Card’s songs:

“A Better Freedom”

“The Basin and the Towel”

“God’s Own Fool”