The "Holidays" Aka the Christmas STory,

So because it is near Christmas I suppose I should write something on how I feel about the holidays.

I lived with the Spirit of Christmas for my first two years in college. My appropriate response to my roommate who watch elf at least once a week starting right after Halloween was to be the nastiest Grinch on the floor. I actually was nick named the Grinch for two years and it still comes up time and again.

However, I enjoy the holidays, I guess I shouldn't call them the holidays because I have never cared to be politically correct.

So I have always enjoyed Christmas but I have never really understood it.

Now I know that I am not stupid but I guess I have never grasped in my own life the impact of the Christmas story.

It's kind of like communion, which I just recently got a real taste of.

You do it, because every one else is doing it and it's written in the Bible but you don't really know why you are doing it.

Then you learn why but you still have that misunderstanding, almost like that well I should do this even though I don't understand why it's such a big deal, but everyone else is making it such a big deal so I might as well too...right?

That is how I feel about Christmas.

It's originally about Christ.

I guess.

But it doesn't seem to matter because I have not been able to grasp it in my own life.

I guess I just don't get it.

And you can use words to explain it and so can I. But words only go so far, and experience only goes so far, and prayer only goes so far, and scripture only goes so far.

It's the fact that I need to collide with the Christmas story to understand it and to start living it out.

Why faith is dirty.

I was talking to a guy that works at my college about women preachers, simply because he was asking about what I wanted to do after I graduated and we ended up on women who are preaching today.

He had brought up Joyce Meyer and Beth Moore and we were discussing the difference in generations.

I think that these amazing teachers and preachers have an audience of middle aged women whom have had children and whom have been married. Which is great because they need Jesus too and they need to be discipled as well.

But I don't connect with either of these women. Maybe it's because I am a pessimist or maybe it's because I am a cynic. I don't really know.

So while I was communicating that this is a generational thing this guy wanted me to give an example so I told him this.

To them God is good so God sent his son to die for us.

To us Jesus came and saved us and it's because God is good.

To them hope is there and seen and felt.

To us hope is a distant thing that we need to collide with.

To them the church is made up of 'good' Christians.

To us the church is made up of people who are a mess and who are trying to live.

To them faith is a soft compacted manageable thing.

To us faith is dirty and beautiful and untamed.

And that is where I ended. Faith is a gift that has been given to man to use and mold and learn. God doesn't give us gifts to just look at and play with once in a while. They are meant to be used and molded and communicated.

Faith isn't logical. It isn't easily explained. It allows people to follow the Holy Spirit and it shows the world what the biggest difference is between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of men.

I mean you can look at any character in the Bible that is used by God and see that the culture around this individual thought they were out of their mind. Abraham was going to sacrifice his human son, Noah built a big boat, Moses wanted to lead millions of people from oppression, Jonah ended up in a fish, Mary was given the opportunity to mother the Savior of our fallen existence, these men and women were all considered crazies by there culture, because of their faith.

It's funny because we so crave for a revolution. We long for something to change, so we help the poor and we love people, and we think that if we take our social justice and but it on a white banner that we will change the world.

How we are so easily deceived.

We have missed the faith part. The trusting part.

We need to fall to our knees and surrender. Because our logic won't save us from the dirty faith that is commanded to be harnessed in any person who calls themselves a Christ follower.

This dirty, beautiful, faith is the need that the church so longs for. The ability to follow the Holy Spirit without hesitation.

Big words are not the proof of spiritual maturity.

The faith to be obedient is.

Taking it all out.

So I very short and yet pointed question asked to me today by a friend.

"Do you love God just because of his Majesty?"

I asked the person to expound and he asked me the same question in a different way, "Do you love God because he has done all this stuff for you through Jesus or do you just love God?"

My immediate response was "I love God because I don't know how to love him without all that other stuff. I don't know why I should love him if Christ isn't involved."

My friend's response got me thinking, "Well God gave you life, you should love him just for that."

So I started thinking about that statement, and I came to the realization that if I were to love God because he gave me my existence it still would be a conditional kind of love. I would love God simply because he gave me something. So in essence I have a hard time wrapping my mind around the reality of loving God without it being reactionary. I cannot love God on my own because I simply don't know how to love without loving through reaction which is where the post I just recently blogged about gets hairy because if you are supposed to love in a unconditional manner than the reaction of your life is not supposed to deter that kind of love.

I am not allowed to love in a reactionary way however, I seem to be trapped in reactionary loving. I love because.

But then I start to look at my newly founded relationship with Waylon. I am in love with Waylon and I don't know why. I guess you could say, we are compatible, or I love him because, but then I have those days where I just love him and there is no reason and there is no reaction but because it's just the reality of my life. Then I think whether I would love him even if he did not love me back and I come to the conclusion that I would. If Waylon decided to leave me tomorrow I would still love him. Because the love I have for him is not a worldly love. If my love for Waylon was worldly it would be very easy to stop loving him because a worldly love is flawed and corrupt and isn't truly love. But because this love comes from God I can love him in a deeper sense.

Or I take my niece for another example. There is no way that my niece has done anything for my love. I mean she just was born four years ago and walked into my life and the love just blossomed. There is a love there that I don't understand and only comes from God. It's a love that leaves me speechless at times and allows me to realize that I am very very small in a very big story.

So maybe the love that is embedded in my life is not just reactionary but is just slowly being portrayed through different people. I can love God without it being a reaction because I am commanded to do so, but I feel like it goes much farther than that. It is not just a commandment but it is a planted thing. And when the love I have for God and for myself and for other people is watered and put out in the sun and nurtured the love grows and it's grows like a vine grows on a house. There is no stopping it and it tangles around everything and in everything and through everything.

So the question still remains; Can I love God solely and individually without any help?

And my answer is no. I can not love God first because He loved us first. It was His hand that reached out to us and I can grasp this love and unfold it as I encounter the different aspects of who He is through different experiences, scripture, prayer, and relationships.

Loving You Back

So yesterday I came to a short realization that is going to lead to a long resolution. God doesn't call people to love you back.

I was thinking about the greatest commandment, "Love the Lord with all your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment, the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself" Matthew 22:37-39

The Light Bulb came and I realized that I should stop expecting people to love me back.

Now, most of you out there reading this will find this to be quite unbelievable but let me explain to you why I have come to this conclusion.

Christ commands us to live three things out through this passage. He first commands us to love the Lord our God with everything. Not just with two or three parts of our lives but with every part of our life.

Second he calls us to love ourselves. Now this is generally overlooked because most of the time people immediately go to love your neighbor because it is the first part of the next commandment however, one cannot love their neighbor without first loving themselves. And one cannot love themselves without first loving God with everything they are. So in essence one who does not know God does not know how to love.

So if you didn't catch it before let me show you again in a list form;

1. Love God with everything.
2. Love ourselves.
3. Love our neighbor.

Well that's all fine and dandy but what should I do when I don't feel loved back? When I don't feel like I should be loved back? How should I react and treat the people around me who marginalize my ideas and my lifestyle?

God did not call us to love in a reactionary way.

It's interesting that we, as a consumerist society become so entrapped with being loved. We long so deeply for someone to understand us. We long so deeply to be whole and the only way this is to happen is through someone to make us whole.

However, this is not the case in concern with the life that Christ commands of us. He commands us to love the Lord with everything, Love ourselves with the Lord's love and love our neighbor.

No where in there does it say: Love others to make them whole, Love others so they will love you back, Love others so you may be whole.

The reason I have used this conditional love is because I have grown up in a culture of condition. 'I will give you this, if you give me that. I will love you if you do this for me. I will cherish you only if you help me out. But watch out because when I have a bad day, you will not be loved. When you don't do things that make me happy my love is not for you.'

So many times I have tried to earn this love from other people. I have tried to be good enough, or smart enough, or funny enough, or savvy enough, or culturally acceptable enough for the people that I so crave love from to love me.

But I don't have to be any of those things anymore. I can just be me. I am good just the way that I am. And I didn't find this out on my own but I let someone in who has the ability to tell me that I am good enough and that I can not earn grace but that it's a gift.

So I will strive to do what I have tattooed on my arm.

Love Recklessly. Another layer has unfolded in the revelation of what God's love truly is.

Sermon on the Mount

"Now when he saw the crowd he went up on a mountianside and sat down. The disciples came to him and he began to teach them saying;

Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven.

Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.

Blessed are the meek for they will inherit the earth.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for rightesousness, for they will be filled.

Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.

Blessed are those who are persecuted becuase of rightesousness for theirs is the kingdom of Heaven.

Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you because of me. For great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you."

Matthew 5:1-12

I am required to memorize Matthew 5-7 for a class. Now I started off thinking that I would just be able to get away with memorizing it and not letting it memorize me. haha. That is not seeming to happen though. I can't help but meditate on what I am memorizing. It seems to be something I am breathing in now throughout the day.

So I am going to go devotionally through the book of Matthew. I am probably going to blog about it since that's what I do. I hope you enjoy it. If you don't well then don't come to my blog for a while because that is what I will probably focusing on for a while.

Something Misunderstood.

This morning I got overwhelmed with the reality that I feel like the church is faltering.

I am reading a book and I just got this overwhelming feeling that it's all hopeless. Now I write this while knowing who Christ is. I write this while having collided with Christ on countless accounts.

He is the truth.

But there are days where my sin gets the best of me. Where I feel like I am swallowed up in my transgressions and in the hopelessness of this world. It's kind of like quick sand. I feel like I am reaching out to something that I can't really reach and my lungs are filling with sand.

On these days my soul aches and the darkness of the spiritual realm becomes overbearing. I don't want to get out of bed. I don't want to interact in community. I don't want to live. I want to be what I feel. I want to let the darkness erode my being along with my soul. The hardest part of this process is the people that I am surrounded with. I try to communicate what I am going through and laughter precedes it because I am being over dramatic or unrealistic. When I get laughed at I pull back fast and I walk away and feel misunderstood. Sometimes the deepness of the spiritual warfare cannot be explained but needs to just be, and hopefully you will get through it. This spiritual warfare should be addressed communally but when your community finds you fantastical either because they are afraid of having these conversations or they simply just do not believe you, it's hard to be transparent.

I want to stick my head in the sand like an ostrich and let the world pass me by, but I know that I need to sit up and put my feet on the ground. I need to go through the day even when the day seems to allude my senses. I can no longer become lost in the opinions of what the Christians and the non Christians all push and pull around on their bandwagons.

So I will grapple for the truth as I sit here and combat the spiritual darkness that pierces every pore of my body.

It's one life that defeated the darkness and that life is the life that I find my identity and dive into.

Hey, I got engaged.

I have seen and heard about so many churches and how they have been slowly dying. These churches were at one point in history the thriving, communal place to be, but for some reason the old is really getting old and the newly birthed churches are blowing up. I sit back, in a town of ten thousand with at least five different denominational churches and realize even now that these churches are not reaching a good portion of the demographic. If it’s like this in Lincoln where one of the best Bible College’s remains what is like in other small towns where the strong presence of a bible college is missing? So I must come to some conclusion for the declension in the life of the church. I could easily say it’s the culture’s fault, but when has that excuse ever worked? I know I need to look deeper and the reality that I keep coming back to is that the church does not know how to dance.

I have always loved to dance with a partner, because it makes things so much more interesting. Everyone dances differently and so you get a different kind of dance with every single person. You could be dancing the same dance with two different people and it will leave you in a different state of being. The most interesting thing that I have noticed about a dance is that someone needs to lead. Without a leader the dance does not seem to go anywhere and body parts seem to flay in destructive ways. Heads bump into each other, arms flay and legs get twisted. Someone inevitably gets hurt and both of the embarrassed dancers walk off the dance floor, not only licking their physical wounds but also licking their wounded pride. But, when there is leader present the dance becomes a beautiful wonder. There is a movement that the audience can not deny and it sweeps both the dancers and the spectators.

The church has lost its vigor to dance. It has lost it's want to partner with the Holy Spirit and follow the Holy Spirit around in a erotic and sensual dance that will leave the church intimately reformed.

Missing the Holy Moment

I recently just went to a Switchfoot concert. The last time I went to one of their concerts was when I was a junior in high school in Chicago. The funny thing is that I have a specific memory from that concert.

I went with a couple of student community leaders from our student group and a couple other high schoolers. I remember that Nick and I were sitting on a bench at 11 o 'clock at night and we were talking about colleges. I still was wavering from the Bible College realm to the University realm. Journalism or Ministry? Nick told me that he thought I would grow more efficiently at a Bible College with a Christian roommate than with a roommate that came back to the room drunk.

Weird how that conversation stuck in my mind. It seemed to be a necessary Holy Moment, even though I didn't realize it.

Well I went to this Switchfoot concert with Waylon and his youth group. It was fun because the concert floor wasn't packed so you didn't feel like you were being suffocated by people. We heard Ruth, Reliant K and then Switchfoot came on stage.

There seemed to be a weight to there music that didn't seem to be found in the other bands. So we were watching them and thoroughly enjoying them and the singer started singing a song and started moving through the audience. He ended up about ten feet away from us and it was amazing how people gravitated to him and tried to touch him. It was a weird reality.

So the lead singer was having this moment in the audience and most of the audience was captivated by this moment. They understood the weight in the air and the mass behind the message. But, there were those who didn't get it, and didn't care much for the message. They were loud and obnoxious and extremely distracting.

It wasn't just that they were distracting it was that they were distracting the community from the Holy moment presented. From the Holy message that was trying to be relayed.

How many times do we miss the Holy Moment because we are not looking for it, or because we like hearing our own voices more than anything?

Does the church ever get to lost in it's own 'mission' and 'vision' that it misses the holy moment?

The Beauty of Sacrafice Cont'd.

So, I was preaching at a local church near Lincoln and the topic that we were trying to hit was; What does sacrifice look like in your daily life?

There was a question-answer part of the sermon at the very end, and the question above was given to me. I actually received most of my questions a couple days beforehand so I could think about how I would respond in the moment.

While thinking about sacrifice, the first thought was children. So many times parents sacrifice everything for their children. They bank everything on their children's future because they want to see and give them the best.

God is kind of like that. He sacrificed everything so that we might have life, and have it to the fullest.

While this sacrifice actuality is looked upon negatively at first, when one looks deeper into this idea there is something much greater.

There is Beauty. This great beauty is the after effect of this sacrifice. This beauty emulates the life that is given after the death has been taken.

And this beauty cannot be tamed. Just like the life that is given cannot be tamed. It can be self-disciplined to obey it's master, but if the master has sacrificed everything for it's servant than the beauty of it cannot be denied. The loyalty of the servant cannot be deterred or hidden. The servant who fully grasps this beauty and this life will do anything and everything for it, including sacrificing anything and everything for it.

We can try to look at this life in a purely logical way but logic cannot analyze and determine beauty. It cannot take beauty and tame it. It cannot tell beauty where to go and what to do because there is too much overflow. True beauty cannot be tapped.

This is where I turn when I see despair and desolation around me. When I watch the news and all I hear about is more school shootings and sexual abuse. When I see sin encroaching in every relationship that I am in.

I go back to the sacrifice that was made and the life that was birthed and the beauty that was and is clearly showcased and overflowing.

Because there truly is beauty to sacrifice.

There is beauty in sacrafice.

More on this later.

On my own terms

So I went to a random class yesterday and heard this really smart, soon to be professor, teach.

And he kept using this phrase that I caught onto.

"On my own terms"

He was referring to Christ and was discussing the reactions of the many people in the Old and the New Testament in concern to this phrase.

I have always realized this and even lived it out myself but sometimes you hear something old for the first time again. When I look into the New Testament and see all of Christ's interactions with people it's amazing how many times people come to Christ with "their own terms."

And how many times do I come to Christ "on my own terms" hoping that what I imagine will come true. What I fantasize and romanticize might be the truth when in all actuality I'm totally off mark.

I wonder if we come to Jesus on our own terms as the church?

I wish none of this had happened... So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us. -J.R.R. Tolkein

Jews and socialism

A freshmen just asked me if I hated Jews...

huh?

also I believe that our country is heading towards the slippery slope of socialism, this I concur from the fact that I think Hilary Clinton will get the presidency because there is a governmental conspiracy.

The government is unfortunately not for the people anymore.

Sorry to break the news I'm sure I'm not the first, but if i disappear you all know why.

Deterioration

Do you ever feel like you are slowly deteriorating? I mean your insides. On the outside you look normal, but the insides are being slowly chipped away. Most of us don't really know why that is, so we try to use a natural medication for a supernatural epidemic.

However, I don't really think it works out, because there will always be that one moment when we will be left with ourselves. There will be an eventual moment when everything is torn away and we are left with what we have and want we sadly do not have.

This is why movies like Garden State, Elizabethtown, The Last Kiss, and The eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind are so stinking popular because, they are clips of that slight moment. This moment seems to strip us of our doing and forces us to reckon with ourselves.

This reality strips us naked and leaves us out to freeze in the cold of loneliness and desperation. This cold ripples our skin and strips the marrow from our bones. It melts our fleshy surface, and leaves us with our soul to dry up in the wind.

While we are caught up in this moment we have a decision to make. Now I could be very limited and tell you that you only have two choices, but that would be very sardonic of my own existence. So I cannot give you only two choices but I must realize that you do have to make a choice because repetition is not truly possible, and the ascetic cannot be lived out.

Alas, we are called to make a slight decision to determine how we are going to react to our 'real' selves if they even exist, outside ourselves.

A Dream

So, I had yet another dream. This is not unfamiliar in the life of one Alison Higgins, but this specific dream was more like a parable than a weird dream.

Let me paint a picture for you of what I saw.

The setting was a street. There was nothing around except for two lawn chairs on the opposites sides of the streets. One was white and orange and one was lime green and white. The street was in a dessert and there were mountains in the distance.

And a man walked up in a blue button down shirt. He was older and if you looked closely you would see that he had been weathered by the storms of life. However, if you looked closely at his eyes you would see the laugh lines around his eyes. He sat down in the lime green chair.

Then along came a young man. This man was wearing a pink athletic shirt. There wasn't many things defined in this young man. All I know is that he was big. Not fat but big.

He sat down in the orange and white chair.

There was a short exchange between the both of them.

"I really like your shirt," the young man said to the old man.

"Well, that's interesting. I would be willing to lend it to you."

Then suddenly the young man and the old man both took their shirts off and switched.

They put on the other's shirts and walked away. Leaving the two chairs and the sun setting in the distance.

Something to say and someone to say it to.

I have really nothing to say. I am actually dry as a bone. I have written something about the game scrabble and defined more categories as a good modernist should but it doesn't seem to be worth any thing.

There has been a strange shift in my reality lately and I have a hard time dealing with it. I have found someone who wants to love and serve me selflessly. I have found someone who truly means the world to me and I have never been accustomed to that. I have always been the lone ranger, or the bitter romantic who knew that she was never going to have the "happy ever after" simply because she never had the "once upon a time" I look back on my life and have come to a realization.

As most of you know I used to scorn romantic relationships. I had no fervor for the romantic and I considered it a waste of time. But I secretly struggled with it, because I felt like it was never going to happen. It was a weird sword fight of wanting something holy and rejecting the whole idea. I guess I figured the goodness that I was looking for was never going to happen so I shoved it away and covered it up with the logic of faith and the reason of love. The problem with my sealed solution is that it logically and reasonably couldn't function.

I actually remember hearing a couple on campus use an analogy for relationships. They said that if you and the person next to you are running toward the Lord together you know you are supposed to be together. I walked away and I came up with my own analogy. I figured if you are running toward the Lord and the other person is running toward the Lord and the three of you collide that is when you know, and I have carried that around with me for three years.

I didn't want something mediocre. I didn't want something to pass the time. I had no desire of getting into a relationship and getting married and settling down and being the quaint house wife that cooks dinner. I am not a cook in the first place and I certainly am not quaint by any means. So I figured I would chuck the whole thing out the window and become content with being single and living a life that was determined on following God. I came to that point three months ago. I was determined to go to school and follow the Holy Spirit around like a love sick puppy dog.

And I did, the problem is that He led me into a relationship that I was apparently fully ready for but was certainly not prepared for. And so I found myself in a place with a man named Waylon Lawrence whom I had known briefly the year before but had not passed much time with. The thing about Waylon is that he was content with God too. He wasn't looking for anything out of the ordinary and then we seemed to stumble into each other and fall into God's ultimate power, which suits us because we are both fully clumsy individuals.

Waylon has become the love of my life. I would try to explain it but it would seem superfluous and silly. I would sound like a child using words that I can't grasp nor fully understand. And so I will just say that he is my beloved and that I would proclaim it to anyone, anywhere, and at any time of the day.

And the best part is that I haven't stopped following the Holy Spirit. Now I just get to do it in an even better way because Waylon catches things that I don't, and sees things that I can't see. Lucas posted a comment that if you want to do great things for God remain single and if you want to know God get married and have a family.

Well I am saying I am going to do great things for God with Waylon because God is great and his greatness will shine through.

Like I said, not much to say simply because what I am going through I can not fully explain using words. They just don't seem to matter or make any sense at this point. Maybe I will get my words back some day I will be able to explain it but I'm not banking on it.

Cling to the Living.

If you know me well you know that I would never tell you that I have been fully saved. I never had that moment where I "turned my life around" I would even go as far to say that I don't think that a person can be fully saved. I would however, say that I am constantly being converted.

God is constantly giving me chances to follow and I am hesitantly getting better at obeying his requests. I came to a point this last summer when I realized that everyday I get up and the only thing that is keeping me alive is Christ. I figured when I came to that conclusion I should start living that way.

Well I am a consistent frequenter of postsecret.com and I saw this postcard this week. I have been doing some major reflecting in the last two days and when I saw this it reminded me of my past life. I don't want to say my old life because each day I am being given a chance for my present life to win out and my past life to be what it should be, the past. So I saw this postcard and started thinking about the past. My great grandma started this whole dying thing off when I was in seventh grade and it didn't end until my Senior year of high school. I had seven people die in the time frame of five years. And this is the first time that I have publicly written it out. I don't like talking about death. Every time I bring someone home my mom will talk about high school and how hard it was for me and I get really emotional and avoid the conversation.

My friend Nick knows this about me. I don't like being in a very high strung emotional environment. Even if it is a celebration. I have a really hard time controlling my emotions and so the best thing is to turn them off and to let them go. I am getting better at it thanks to a God send but it's still really hard for me. I am so used to pulling away and separating myself from really emotional situations. That way I don't hurt anyone and I don't get hurt in the process.

That is the state that I have been living at and in the past that post card would ring very true in my life. I clung to the living but I do remember telling people that death and I where bed mates. While I clung to the living I did it out of selfish manipulation and self protection.

God has opened my eyes quite a bit in the last three years and has healed a lot of those wounds. I am still very sensitive when it comes to death and pain but I have come to the conclusion that God is my everything. I am learning that life tastes different when God is your everything, and while it's very hard sometimes, this life is so good.

Morning Conversation

"You have so many strikes against you...pretty much only by the grace of God are you going to get into Heaven"- Rob

"That's what I'm banking on"-Me.

I am the way the truth and the life.-Jesus

I am reading G.K. Chesterton write down. We have started conversing about his book Orthodoxy quite a bit and he hits on a lot of stuff that I have been thinking through in concern to theology and philosophy.

"Spiritual doctrines do not actually limit the mind as do materialistic denials. Even if I believe in immorality I need not to think about it. In the first case the road is open and I can go as far as I like; in the second the road is shut. But the case is even stronger, and the parallel with madness is yet more strange. For it was our case against the exhaustive and logical theory of the lunatic that, right or wrong, it gradually destroyed his humanity."

For whoever wants to save his life will lost it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it.-Jesus

So lets talk about this life idea. I have life. I come out breathing and screaming and in essence living. But what is the life that Jesus is talking about? I know that we walk around dead when we are sinners, but how are we walking around in death. In my mind death is the end of a living organism. Which means nothing will be walking around if it is dead. But then I think about Hell or what we view of Hell as the western church. If we are dead in hell then we are not living.

I guess I need to redefine death and redefine life for this paradox to truly make sense.

I love him.

Church, Cake, and Conceptual Lenses.

So I got the opportunity to go to the church Waylon is interning at this last weekend. The situation was a huge shock for me. The whole weekend was a huge shock for me in general. I did have some incredible cake though...mmm...so good.

Church wasn't bad but there seemed to be something missing. I couldn't really put my finger on it. I haven't had much time to reflect on it but I wanted to write some ideas down. Dr. Zorn was preaching from Luke and was talking about how Jesus went into his home synagogue and read scripture. He then told the people sitting there that he was the answer to this prophesied message. Jesus then rolled up the scroll of scripture and sat down. Haha, like in classic form he brought people in and then allowed them to react. I was sitting there in church and I realized that if Jesus came into the place where I was at and read scripture and told us that he was the fulfillment of it the whole church would slander him and probably kick him out. I actually imagined it happening when Dr. Zorn was preaching.

Which actually is a lesson that I have been learning for a couple of weeks. Last week in my Greek class we were translating Mark 8. It's the instance when Jesus asks his disciples who do they say he is. Peter speaks up and tells him that he is the Christ, the son of the living God. But that's not where the conversation ends. A little after this holy moment Jesus starts speaking of his suffering and how he will have to die under the teachers of the law. Peter of course rebukes Jesus. He tells Jesus that this just can not be.

I was sitting in Chapel yesterday and the only thing I didn't like about the preacher was that he termed the disciples the da-sciples. He actually used this text that I translated last week. This preacher publicly scorned the way that Peter reacted to Jesus.

I sat there and got really frustrated because Peter wasn't stupid. Peter just had a different presupposition of what the Messiah was supposed to look like. Peter's conceptual lens clashed with Jesus conceptual lens. Peter's worldview clashed against Jesus' worldview. It had nothing to do with the Peter's intellect.

Peter was reflecting his culture onto Jesus. How many times do we as a church clash against Jesus and his true mission? How many times as a church do we fall short of who we are called to be?

The scariest question is; How many times as a church do we reject Jesus?

I was reading Jeremiah 31 this morning. I noticed that in verse 33 that the Lord says, "I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts."

I wonder what is rampant in my mind and what is written on my heart.

This is the question of the week; What is written on your heart?

I Stand by the Door, Samuel Moor Shoemaker

I stand by the door.
I neither go too far in, nor stay too far out,
The door is the most important door in the world--
It is the door through which men walk when they find God.
There's no use my going way inside, and staying there,
When so many are still outside and they, as much as I,
Crave to know where the door is.
And all that so many ever find
Is only the wall where a door ought to be.
With outstretched, groping hands.
Feeling for a door, knowing there must be a door,
Yet they never find it...
So I stand by the door.

The most tremendous thing in the world
Is for men to find that door- the door to God.
The most important thing any man can do
Is to take hold of one of those blind, groping hands,
And put it on the latch- the latch that only clicks
And opens to the man's own touch.

Men die outside that door, as starving beggers die
On cold nights in cruel cities in the dead of winter-
Die for want of what is within their grasp.
They live, on the other side of it-live because they have not found it,

Nothing else matters compared to helping them find it,
And open it, and walk in, and find him...
So I stand by the door.
Go in, great saints, go all the way in-
Go way down into the cavernous cellars,
And way up into the spacious attics-
It is a vast, roomy house, this house where God is.
Go into the deepest of hidden casements,
Of withdrawal, of silence, of sainthood.
Some must inhabit thsoe inner rooms,
And know the depth and heights of God,
And call outside to the rest of us how wonderful it is.
Sometimes I take a deeper look in,
Sometimes venture in a little farther;
But my place seems closer to the opening...
So I stand by the door.

There is another reason why I stand there.
Some people get part way there and become afraid
Lest God and the zeal of his house devour them;
For God is so very great, and asks all of us
And these people feel a cosmic claustrophobia,
And want to get out. "Let me out" they cry.
And the people way inside only terrify them more
Somebody must be by the door to tell them that they are spoiled
For the old life, they have seen too much:
Once they taste God, and nothing but God will do any more.
Somebody must be watching for the frightened
Who seek to sneak out just where they came in,
To tell them how much better it is inside.

The people too far in do not see how near these are
To leaving-preoccupied with the wonder of it all.
Somebody must watch for those who have entered the door,
But would like to run away. So for them, too,
I stand by the door.

I admire the people who go in.
But I wish they would not forget how it was
Before they got in. Then they would be able to help
The people who have not yet even found the door,
Or the people who want ot run away again from God.
You can go in too deeply, and stay in too long,
And forget the people outside the door.
As for me, I shall take my old accustomed place,
Near enough to God to hear him, and know he is there,
But not so far from men as not to hear them,
And remember they are there, too.
Where? Outside the door-

Thousands of them, millions of them.
But-more important for me-
One of them, two of them, ten of them,
Whose hands I am intended to put on the latch.
So I shall stand by the door and wait
For those who seek it.
"I had rather be a door keeper..."
So I stand by the door.

"I Stand by the door" by Samuel Moor Shoemaker

The Question I have is this: Are we called to stand by the door or knock on it?

So my roommate told me that I needed to meet with the Lord today. Partly because I havn't actually sat down and entered into his world through the Bible in a week or so, and I was saying that out loud and so my roommate said, "You sit right down and you meet with the Lord."

So I sat in my 47 year old blue chair and I got my Bible out and my devotional book, and I delved into world that is constantly surprising to me. I read Psalm 103 this morning and something caught my eye. In verse 9 of that Psalm it says that "He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever."

I thought about this and I realized that they used an absolute word here. Always. But it was being denoted. The author said he does not always. Which means he is not as consitent as we think. And then I read the second part of the verse and it said "nor will he harbor his anger forever," and I realized that someone who has anger has a choice on what he is going to do with his anger.

God can choose what he wants because He is not absolute.

Oh, my head hurts.

I also read some awesome Samuel Shoemaker which I will blog about later.

I'm Anti-somethin'

For such a long time I have lived in Absolutes. I have had a couple of bad experiences with relationships and have chalked them all off. For three years I have been completely turned off to the idea of dating and marriage. I guess I came on campus and suddenly dating and marriage were status quo. It was like their was no longer a holy union. It had been torn apart by the mediocrity of our culture.

And I didn't want any part of this mediocre culture. I have never been one to settle for something that wasn't Awe inspiring. I didn't want to get into a relationship with someone who didn't understand my kingdom purpose. Heck, I didn't want to get into a relationship with any of my peers because no one really understood me. I weirded them out. Not only were they turned off but I started being turned off by this whole realm of flowers and candy and cheesiness. To the point where at the beginning of this semester I had completely given up on the whole thing.

I was talking to a professor on campus and I was telling him this reality of singleness in my own life and he just smiled at me. He said "okay, let's see how this semester unfolds for you." I was so frustrated with him because I just wanted to be left alone. I wanted to sink in my education and I wanted to be left alone. I was content with me and God. I was content with what my life was going to look like single. I didn't want anyone to come and mess it up.

But God knows me better than I know myself. He actually cares for me more than I care for myself. And he put someone in my life that just wouldn't seem to leave me alone. (more on this later maybe)

So, today, I was sitting in the car and I was talking to my roommate and she asked me this, "So alison, do you feel kind of like an ass for doing what you said you would never do?"

And I told her no, I said "I guess I hate bad relationships, and by bad relationships I mean unhealthy ones. I hate anything that is not kingdom focused. I hate relationships that are all about selfish realities. I guess I have to say that I am kind of an absolutist and so if I have a couple of bad experiences than I just chuck the whole thing out the window. I hate being an absolutist too. "

So while I have always been Anti most things I guess its okay to give in once in a while. Otherwise life wouldn't be as spontaneous as it is.

This post didn't make any sense, at least probably not to you...haha.

Keep Your Eyes Open.

I remember when I was a kid I was asked if I had to give up one of my five senses what would it be. I thought about it for quite a while and I told everyone that I would rather lose my sense to hear than lose my sense to see.

Even though I told everyone that I wouldn't want to lose my eyesight I have never really been good at keeping my eyes open. It's easier to keep my eyes open because I tend to fear what I might actually see. Plus if I only open them once in a while I don't have to admit to what I see or how I feel about it.

Well I learned my lesson on Saturday.

I went on my first motorcycle ride. I have always been pretty open to new stuff but I have to admit I was pretty nervous. I got up on the back of Waylon's bike and I rode all the way to Assumption with my eyes closed. I couldn't see anything so I really didn't know what was going on. I was just feeling a lot of wind, and praying that Waylon and I wouldn't die.

When we got to assumption Waylon asked me if I had my eyes open I had to admit that I didn't. Well we had a good time hanging with his family and then we got back on the bike. But this time I was more prepared. I wore Waylon's goggles. I might put the picture up some time but it's slightly humiliating.

I kept my eyes open the whole time and saw some pretty awesome stuff.

1. We got to see/ride into the sunset which was beautiful.
2. We got to see a store that had the sign "Church furniture for Sale" Which is just plain funny.
3. We ended up going down a really beautiful road that was surrounded by trees. (which is a big deal since we were in the country)

While sometimes you see some rough stuff when we keep our eyes open I realized that you miss out on all the good stuff to.

Monumental Days.

It was one of those monumental days. Ya know, those days in which wars start and end, heroes get elected and shot down. One of those days where someone finally sits down when everyone else seems to be standing up.

Well yesterday was one of those days, and I seemed to miss it.

I don't know what I am supposed to do now. Simply because I cannot live in my premonumental life anymore. If I try to live in that kind of life in this new time and culture I will surely die.

I could try functioning in this postmonumental life with my premonumental life but I don't know if I could actually continue living. If my life will not be allowed to function then I will soon die in such a lonely place.

If I don't make the conscious decision to shift my life in accordance to that monumental time and culture I will not only die but I will deter and make my brothers and sisters around me sin.

If I am not willing to make the conscious decision to adapt to this new culture and it's realities than I will be left in the dust.

My heart aches for I know that I have missed it. I know that my living tissue must be torn apart and sewn back together to understand what, and where the Kingdom of God is.

I have not been called to change for there is a difference between change and the changed day. Change for changes sake is a waste of time. Ministry for ministries sake is a waste of time. Experience for experiences sake is a waste of time. Mistakes for mistakes sake are a waste of time.

For I am not called to walk around this world and meander about. I am not called just to breath and function. I am not called to just eat, sleep, and experience pleasure. I am called to be transformed.

I can only be transformed by the creator of the great monumental day. I cannot do it on my own. I cannot transform my life in accordance to the time and space, only the Spirit can.

I will make the conscious decision not to get in the way of being transformed.

I'm not a feminist. I am just a realist.

Making a Concious Decision.

Last night I made a decision that I will probably regret in the future.

I have made the decision to become a vulnerable person.

I guess it sounds silly but I think it will be good for me. I so often forget that Christ can be seen in mankind, because I have such a negative and disappointing viewpoint of humanity. Partly because I see all of us as fallen and partly because I secretly have no hope for anything man does.

It sounds weird because I am in love with the church, but I have such a hard time with the people. I guess I have been put in a 'leadership' position so many times that I have gotten so used to keeping things to myself. I view man as an enemy in the mission of the church. But, people are not the enemy, sin is.

I also fail to realize that the Holy Spirit has no desire in a leader who is not willing to be taught. So last night I said out loud that that if I am going to be vulnerable with people it needs to be a conscious decision on my part.

I am putting myself out there for the world to spit on, and throw things at.

But I know that I am not on my own, and that everything I am trying to represent revolves around Christ himself. So, I think this is a good step in the right direction.

Wow, A bit over dramatic?

So I must give in. I was being slightly over dramatic last week when I broke up with you all. I apologize and have come to the silly conclusion that I cannot not stop blogging.

Oh well, what are we to do.

I have been redeemed and will hopefully never give up on you again.

I'm glad the majority either hasn't read my last two posts or just know me well enough to know that I was being silly.

Either way, I'm back.

No, Seriously...

Dear Readers,


This is it. I have thought about this for the last couple of months, and I think we just need to stop.



It's not you it's me. Well it is you. It's both of us.



No, seriously. I need to take a sabbatical from public writing. And here are the reasons why.



1. I am publishing a lot of stuff on my blog, which is good, but some of the stuff I am publishing needs to be written about somewhere else before it is presented to the public.



2. I can't live without my blog. Well I actually can't live without writing. I think this might be turning into a bad habit. I know some of you enjoy reading my stuff, but I think I need a break.



3. I'm tired of being so transparent. haha. I know that sounds selfish but you need to realize that a lot of the stuff that I am writing are private and personal thoughts, and most of the thoughts that I publish are not full thoughts. They are pieces of something much bigger.



4. I'm also tired of being scrutinized. I know that if I am going to be a writer I am going to have to get used to being criticized, but now is not that time. I don't think I can take one more person telling me my stuff is cliche, or boring, or badly written. If I continue to write I will just get so frustrated that my discipline and my attitude will down spiral.



So, I'm ending it. I appreciate the fact that you have been reading for a while and those who have commented thanks.



But don't worry it will only be a six to nine month thing. I am blogging somewhere else so I will still be in practice. Please don't try and find me. It will be better for both of us if we just let it go.



Shhh...please don't say anything else.


It's hard for me to.



Sincerely,



your devoted and yet tired author.

I quit....again.

Dear Readers,

I have come to the short realization that I don't actually agree with the post that I have just previously written. I then came to a greater realization that I don't actually agree with a lot that I have written on my blog, so I apologize. I guess I don't really know what I am apologizing for. I seem to be doing a lot of that latley.

I think that I am just trying to feel my life out. I don't think it has anything to do with immaturity, I think it's just the fact that I am a Junior in College.

Which means that I need to starting making some big deicsions sooner than later. Those decisions don't really scare me because I know that I have been offered some pretty Awesome opportunities when I graduate college. I guess my only concern is my huge desire to follow Jesus. I really want to be wise about how I live. I don't really like making mistakes because I equate mistakes with sin and I loathe sin.

I guess it's weird when all your close friends are/have gotten married and started having kids. Puts a lot of things in perspective.

I guess I'm tired of listening to what other people think I should do. I want to live my own life and I appreciate the concern but I would appreciate it even more if you just let me make the mistakes that I hate to make.

I know I'm not the best writer, I know I'm not the best preacher, I know I'm not the best at really anything. So just let me follow Jesus. Maybe He will create me to be good at something. Maybe He will let me follow him around for a while and learn from him.

Yes, it's been one of those days.

Yes I'm quitting again.

Sincerely,

your lost, frustrated, and mediocre author.

What do you want to do with your life? I want to be poor.

"Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven," Matthew 5:3

I have just recently been in the Beatitudes this morning. I really enjoy them even though I don't understand why Jesus said what he said. However, last spring I attended a concert and the singer was talking about being poor.

Now I must be quite honest; I am not poor. I have never been poor and by the looks of the way my life is turning out I will never be poor. I state this simply to share with you a part of who I am. Growing up being poor was a negative thing. It was not looked upon as something you strive for.

"If you are poor you should work hard to become rich. You should be ashamed of the way you live and you should be ashamed of who you are. You must not have a good work ethic if poverty is a constant companion of yours."

This is the message that I was given growing up. This is the kind of culture that I have always been a part of. Poverty is a negative thing. Being poor is a negative thing. If you are poor you must have done something wrong or you must just be lazy.

Then I graduated high school and I moved to central Illinois. Even living in this culture I have come to the short realization that I have been blessed with a wealth that many people don't have. I have also been caught up in the theological debate that wealthy people can't be Christians. If this is true than I am up a creek without a paddle.

So I have once again stumbled into this paradox of Jesus. This singer that I mentioned earlier had something to say about this verse that I had never grasped before. She was speaking of a country she had visited that was covered in poverty. And she had read this Beatitude and discovered that she is called to be poor.

Christians of all kind are called to give up everything so that they may crave and hunger the only thing they need; Christ. To be spiritually poor so that I am constantly in need to Christ. I am constantly thinking about when I can get more Christ. So I must now choose my poverty, so that I may choose my desire to be with Christ.

I think that when we give everything, in this effort to be like Christ, we are left with only one reality ; we are here to be poor.

If this were Faith, Robert Luis Stevenson

God, if this were enough,
That I see things bare to the buff
And up to the buttocks in mire;
That I ask nor hope nor hire,
Nut in the husk,
Nor dawn beyond the dusk,
Nor life beyond death:
God, if this were faith?

Having felt thy wind in my face
Spit sorrow and disgrace,
Having seen thine evil doom
In Golgotha and Khartoum,
And the brutes, the work of thine hands,
Fill with injustice lands
And stain with blood the sea:
If still in my veins the glee
Of the black night and the sun
And the lost battle, run:

If, an adept,
The iniquitous lists I sill accept
With joy, and joy to endure and be withstood,
And still to battle and perish for a dream of good:
God, if that were enough?

If to feel, in the ink of the slough,
And the sink of the mire,
Veins of glory and fire
Run through and transpierce and transpire,
And a secret purpose of glory in every part,
And the answering glory of battle fill my heart;
To thrill with the joy of girded men
To go on for ever and fail and go on again,
And be mauled to the earth and arise,
And contend for the shade of a word and a thing not seen with the eyes:

With the half of a broken hope for a pillow at night
That somehow the right is the right
And the smooth shall bloom from the rough:
Lord, if that were enough?

In a theater, it happened that a fire started offstage. The clown came out to tell the audience. They thought it was a joke and applauded. He told them again, and they became still more hilarious. This is the way, I suppose, that the world will be destroyed----amid the universal hilarity of wits and wags who think it is all a joke.-A (I love me some Kierkegaard.)

There once was a road. This road was not a grandious road, but it had seen it's days of wonder. This road had been trampled on by many different kind of people. Majestic souls and sorrowful beings.

One day a women came to stand upon this road. She was beautiful beyond comparison. She had long dark hair and fair skin. Her eyes would peirce your soul if she looked into you face and her lips where cherry blossom red. She held to her close a flask of water which she was supposed to use in later events.

She stood at the very edge of the road waiting for something. She was surpassed by many men and women who were doing there daily activities. Carrying water, delivering mail, having light conversations. No one addressed her and she addressed no one. In her heart she knew what she was waiting for. Someone told her of a very magnificant prince. She was told to go and wait for this man whom she was called to meet. She was told that the man that was this prince would ask for a drink.

She had imagined this man to be tall in stature and blessed in purple clothe. Someone worth spending time with. Many men walked by and she looked at all of them, none seemed to fit her image.

This beautiful woman stood there for days waiting for her prince. She looked into every man's eyes and even got to the point of giving her water away. She so desperatly wanted to be loved that she couldn't wait any longer.

"When will this man come and save me?" She thought this idea every day and so longed to be rescued from the turmoil of this road.

Months went by and she stood there when suddenly a man rode on a horse.

"Ma'm may I have some water?" This women was so excited that she reached for the flask that she had once held so close. She hurridly gave it to the man and he put it up to his lips, but nothing came out.

She had wasted her water on men of less importance. The man on the horse looked at her in disgust and threw the flask at her feet, he rode off without speaking a word.

She sat there and wept. She was in such disgrace. Suddenly another man came along.

"Daughter why must you weep so?" He asked, inquring about her disgraceful state.

"Wouldn't you like some of my water?"

Never Give all the Heart

Never give all the heart for love
will hardly seem worth thinking of
To passionate women if it seem
Certian and they never dream
That it fades out from kiss to kiss;
For everything that lovely is
But a breif dreamy, kind delight.
O never give the heart outright,
For they, for all smooth lips can say
Have given their hearts up to the play.
And who could play it well enough
If deaf and dumb and blind with love?
He that made this knows all the cost,
For he gave all his heart and lost.

W.B. Yeats

Speelin Erors.

So I have been approached by a couple of different people, and have been told that I need to clean up my grammar.

From this point on I am going to really work on it so don't expect anything less!

Keep my on my toes, if I am slacking let me know. I won't be offended, at least not all of the time.

God has given me the opportunity to mentor a couple of different young women who live on my floor. I love spending time with these women and really investing in their lives. Yesterday, one of these women took me to her home town to meet her family. All the way she told me stories of each building we passed.

"That's the hospital where my mom used to work at and where I was born, and where my dad died."

"My aunt lives down that road,"

"This is the restaurant that my family and I always eat at when we are in town,"

"This is the yard where my dad, my uncles, and my cousins used play whiffle ball,"

"This is where I went to church my whole life,"

All these places, and memories have made this young women who she is.

We started in the cemetery where half of her family is buried, including her father. We then moved onto the first street that she got her fist accident on, and the first house she lived in. We then went to her grandparent's house and I saw all of the embarrassing pictures that you have to take when you are younger. All and all we had a great time and some great conversation.

It was a great experience and you cannot truly understand where someone comes from unless you put yourself in their shoes at one point. Atticus Finch could grasp this idea. I wonder why it's so hard for us to grasp?

Stop believing in the Church?

I went into a pet store last weekend with my friend Cindy. She was there to buy some fish and I was there to look at puppies. It's always dangerous for me to go into a pet store because I fall in love with these little guys. They are so adorable!

Anyways I wanted to play with a beagle and I was told by the fish man to go wait by the wall of encased dogs for someone to come and help me. I was standing there for a least ten minutes and was purposley making eye contact with the PetLand people. I'm sure they thought that I was a weirdo as I intentionally tried getting their attention. I even asked someone to help and he rushed by and said, "Yea one second..." Five minutes later I was standing at the same spot eyeing people down.

All I wanted to was be apart of the culture. I was searching for someone to help me out but everyone was just to busy. They were all caught up in their own situations. Now ovbiously this was a place of business and they were busy at the time so I am sure if I waited around long enough I would have been helped but I didn't have time. I have my own life I can't just wait thirty minutes for these people to help me.

I have reflected on that situation and I have realized that as pastors, small group leaders, coaches we tend to live in this busyness. Someone will try to get our attention by leaving us intentional clues but we are so busy meeting needs, or thinking about the next weekend that we miss them. A lot of people that I grew up were interested in Jesus but weren't really into the church because no one had time for anyone else. I even notice this here at Bible College. I have tried to invest and encourage multiple people and when they are done with me they try to cut me out of their life. They have used me for what they want and they are done with me. I am just a hassle that asks to many questions. The problem is that I am so stubborn that I will hold on for dear life I have to.

There are so many people that want to be connected to Jesus, but they feel like the church is asking them to be Christians before they come on Sunday. People want to be apart of the culture of the church the problem is that the culture of the church is either twenty years behind or is to obsessed with the latest fads to realize that they are missing people.

We need to stop expecting people to walk through the doors of the church and we need to start bringing Jesus EVERYWHERE we go. We need to stop thinking of church as a Sunday morning, Wednesday night event and we need to go and bring church to people.

What would happen if we didn't meet every Sunday and only met once a month for public worship? What would happen if on those Sundays that we didn't meet, we were connecting with people who would never walk into any kind of church? What would happen if we actually lived our lives hidden in Christ and actually trusted Him to change things. What would happen if we stopped spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on marketing and used that money to help families in the community and to invest it in a more effective way of doing ministry? What would happen if we weren't so concerned with bringing people into the church building because the discipline of disciplining was so ingrained in us that the church building was just ineffective?

This summer I was told I was to idealistic about the church. I was told by two people that I loved the church to much. Maybe I am to idealistic about it. Maybe I should just give up on it. I mean it's not being very effective as it is. I see the church as being so obssessed with itself. The small town churches are only concerened with their own communities and the big churches are obssessed with the other big churches that are doing "cool" stuff. I mean what are we really accomplishing in America? People are coming here to be missionaries! Has the church lost the fervor of Christ in such a way?

Or maybe I should believe in the church? My friend Nick blogged about when you believe in someone you invest everything you have in that person. You do it in such a way that you replace yourself. What if I believed in the church so much that I committed my life to believing in it. To believing in the people that make it up?

I wonder what would happen if we believed in the church?

A Cry for Mercy, Henri J.M. Nouwen

"O Lord Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, have mercy on me, a sinner. I am impressed by my own spiritual insights. I probably know more about prayer, meditation, and contemplation than most Christians do. I have read many books about the Christian life, and have even written a few myself. Still, as impressed as I am, I am more impressed by the enormous abyss between my insights and my life.

It seems as if I am standing on one side of a huge canyon and see how I should grow toward you, live in your presence and serve you, but cannot reach the other side of the canyon where you are. I can speak and write, and preach, and argue about the beauty and goodness of the life I see on the other side, but how, O LORD, can I get there? Sometimes I even have the painful feeling that the clearer the vision, the more aware I am of the depth of the canyon.

Am I doomed to die on the wrong side of the abyss? Am I destined to excite others to reach the promise land while remaining unable to enter there myself? Sometimes I feel imprisoned by my own insights and "spiritual competence." You alone, Lord, can reach out to me and save me. You alone.

I can only keep trying to be faithful, even though I feel faithless most of the time. What else can I do but keep praying to you, even when I feel dark; keep writing about you, even when I feel numb; to keep speaking in your name, even when I feel alone. Come, Lord Jesus, come. Have mercy on me, a sinner. Amen"

I read this morning and I felt like he was speaking out of my heart. I just wanted to share it with the rest of you.

I'm tired of writing.

I quit.

The Pursuit of God by A.W. Tozer and the Reality that I am a Hypocrit.

"Self can live unrebuked at the very altar. It can watch the bleeding Vitim die and not be in the least affected by what it sees. It can fight for the faith of the reformers and preach eloquently the creed of salvation by grace and gain strength by its efforts. To tell the truth, it seems actually to feed upon orthodoxy and is more at home in a Bible conference that in a tavern. Our very state of longing after God may afford it an excellent condition under which to thrive and grow." pg. 43

"Let us remember that when we talk of the rendering of the veil we are speaking in a figure, and the thought of it is poetical, almost pleasant, but in actuality there is nothing pleasant about it. In human experience that veil is made of living spiritual tissue; it is composed of the sentient, quivering stuff of which our whole beings consist, and to touch it is to touch us where we feel pain. To tear it away is to injure us, to hurt us and make us bleed. To say otherwise is to make the cross no cross and death no death at all. It is never fun to die. To rip through the dear and tender stuff of which life is made can never be anything but deeply painful. Yet that is what the cross did to Jesus and it is what the cross would do to every man to set him free." pg. 44

The first time I read these words I was 15 years old. I was sitting in one of our church conference rooms on the floor and I broke down. I realized that my life was consistently about me. Everything I did, I did for my own gratification. I was selfish and I had a three inch thick veil that was covering my heart. The short realization that I came to do on that day has impacted my life ever since.

But I still come to this reality that I am marked by sin. My nature is sinful and corrupts everything I do. I am completely flawed. The only reason that I am 'good' is because God is good and his love allows me to be good. Without Christ and without the cross I am worthless.

I truly feel the concept of Romans who discusses the idea of so desperately wanting to be good but can never be good enough. I so desperately want to be purely involved in God but my sinful nature wants to be better than God. My sinful nature wants to be 'good' enough to be loved by God. My brain knows that I have been given the free gift of grace. My heart knows that I certainly don't deserve this free gift and so I work. I try to be the best, the smartest, and the hardest working. I am so constantly falling short of the Glory of God because I can never be good enough. I am good because God loves me.

The first time my veil was absolutely ripped out of my being was when I was fifteen years old. And every day I have to ask God to do it again. My sinful nature wants but my created nature that has been blessed by God just is.

Brennan Manning coined the term, "God loves me as I am, not as I should be."

God loves me and so I am good.

God loves me and so I can preach and teach.

God loves me and so I can serve.

God loves me and so then I can love and be loved.

God loves me enough to let me die.

However, I am still a self-contradictory being waiting to be fully redeemed.

"Thus I chose Jesus as my heaven, though at that time I saw him only in pain. I was satisfied by no heaven but Jesus, who will be my bliss when I am there. And it has always been a comfort to me that I chose Jesus for my heaven in all this time of suffering and sorrow. And that has been a lesson to me, that I should do so for evermore, choosing him alone for my heaven in good and bad times." Revelations of Dinice Love-Julian of Norwich.

I read this idea in words before I actually read it from Julian. I was reading my friend Nick's sermon for junior high camp and he had this idea.

I will decide now, while I am in this moment, who I will cling to when I am famished and lost. I will decide now, while I am in this moment, who I will cling to when I have no hope. I will decide now, while I am in this moment, how I will treat other people when I am immersed in sorrow and shame.

Do not ask me to lead or to preach or to teach without my Christ. I cling to the cross that he hung on as a testament to the death I must die everyday and I yearn to live a new life with Him. I have been lost in time and space seeking a new fad to wear when I have been called to be clothed in "compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience..."Colossians 3:12

I get so lost in the violence of my heart that it verbalizes itself as fire from my mouth. I so long for Jesus. I so long for His touch, His voice and His presence.

I have decided that He is my Heaven. That I will see Him in the good and in the bad. My eyes will not be adverted to the falsities around me but to the truth that is captured in the eyes of my Saviour.

The decision has been made. The death has been taken. The life has been gifted, and I have stood in the place where I am marked and will not be shaken. By earth, by air, or by sea my allegiance lies with the King of the World.

What's a picture worth?

So I have heard that a picture is worth a thousand words. I have always wondered if that is true. Jamie Cullum seems to think so. He wrote and sung a song called photograph. It's a great song but is it a true reality? For the past three weeks my roommate and I have been constructing a wall length collage. It started with our dream for what our room could look like last semester and has evolved into a grand art piece. People come into our room to look at all the pictures. They seem entrapped by the sight of different aspects of life captured in a moment.

When I look up at these photo's I see something caught in action. A life caught by light. That's what a picture is. Look at some of the wall that I posted and tell me what you see. This is as far as we have gotten. Tell us what you think. I don't think there is a wrong answer to this one.

Dear readers,

I want to apologize for my lack of posting in the last week. I have had the flu and now I have a cold and I have been detained to do mundane things like sleeping.

I hopefully will have some thoughts sooner than later.

Thanks for keeping up with me.

Sincerely,
the author.

Learnings

Small group is not just a group of people getting together to read scripture, pray or have awkward conversation, but a small group is the ability to enjoy the creation that God orchestrated in human time. The created beings that were first created by God and then inducted into the death of sin.

For a long time I so desperately wanted to be apart of a small group where every personality matched and flowed spiritually together. The reality is that God created human personality and breathes life into people differently. I will probably never be in a small group where our souls match simply because it would become a comfortable place where discipleship would be stagnant and Christ would become a lost icon. An icon that becomes the cross which hangs lonely and desolate in a musty sanctuary.

The question than becomes what we are going to do with the reality of sinful separateness. When we become intimate with God, when we come near to God He comes near to us. When we enter into the love of God and become hidden in Christ by the guidance of the Holy Spirit we learn to love the person that God created. We learn how to love the person that God willed us to individually be. A person that was created, before sin stabbed us with a poisonous knife. Before this poison that runs through out veins and seeps into our heart was introduced into our life.

When we become complete in the true life we learn how to live life. When we learn how to live life we become lovers of those who are around us. This creates not only the ability, but the command to love the people who might not know what this life is all about. This life also commands us to love the people who might have experienced the life but who might not know how to live this life truly out.

When we realize that God enjoys who we are, where we are, then we can truly enjoy the people who are in our small groups, in our families, in our schools, in our lives. We can enjoy them where they are and how God has created them to be.

If we refuse to do this, to accept the love that God has given us, to accept that God not only loves us but likes us, enjoys us. If we cannot realize this then we do not understand the sacrifice of the life that we enjoy now that was brought upon the cross. We ultimately say no to Jesus, his life, his death, and his Resurrection.

And that is when the cross becomes the lonely icon that hangs in the sanctuary that traps the moderate and mundane 'Christian' reality.

Preaching;a lost reality.

Preaching is an interesting animal. I am reading this book for class called The Heart of a Great Pastor. I'm in the first chapter and the author lists seven resources that every church/congregation needs. His fourth resource is Every Church Needs Biblical Preaching. The author goes on to describe that "one anointed person speaking a fresh word from God amid the people of God-is one of the Father's favorite ways of communicating His will to believers"

Now I am bias of course because I am a preaching major. But I am not bias enough to believe that statement. I do not believe that God has a favorite way of communicating his will to His believers, simply because the people who He created are wired differently. They hear Him differently. It's like having three children. Every child hears and communicates differently because they were all made different.

The author continues to describe this idea of preaching that solidifies the reality of the modern preacher. The preacher who preaches behind a pulpit on Sunday mornings and then becomes a mongrel at home, or who cheats on his wife. A preacher who is made to look like a star and not a human. Someone who is above the cut when in reality they are rotting internally.

You can edify the truth on the weekends all you want but true preaching starts when you step off the stage and into your community.

When you live your life day in and day out.

Preaching becomes not just what you say but how you say it. Not just what you think but how you think. Not just how you act towards scripture but how you interact with scripture through humanity.

A preacher is someone who uses words and stories to demonstrate the reality of God.

Preachers are not special. They are not the only ones gifted in the congregation. They are apart of the body and they are sinners as well.

Sinners that need to be affirmed by a community. Sinners that need to be forgiven and given grace.

Preachers have a gift that has been given by the Holy Spirit. Don't make that out to be a celebrity situation. Don't take a preacher and make him the star of the show because in all reality he is just and extra. She is an important extra, to God of course, but she is not the main character. She is not even a supporting character.

So the next time you get caught up on who said this or who believes that, like I do, realize that the only one who matters is Christ. If you get lost in the details you have missed the point.

I apologize ahead of time for the crappy posting.

I live in a world of constant transitions right now, simply because I am a college student. I have transitioned back into the world of school after a great summer up north.

3 things I'm looking forward to:
1. Preaching in November.
2. Rooming with my closest friend at school.
3. Making funny Bible College jokes that no one can understand unless you are a Bible College Student.

3 Things I'm not looking forward to:
1. Convocation.
2. Small town life/church.
3. Making funny Bible College jokes that no one can understand unless you are a Bible College Student.

All is well in Lincoln IL. I have already frequented the 24 hour Walmart and the newly established Culver's and I am ready to begin the school year. I have my notebooks and my pens and I just went to get going.

Most years I have a specific feeling about. My freshman year I knew was going to be a fresh start. My sophomore year I knew would be extremely transitional and pretty hard. This year will be the year of mistakes. That is how I feel.

Well until next time...This portion of the Alison Higgins life has been brought to you by Starbucks Frappuccino Coffee Drink. Don't be awake without it.

How are you to know?

So I have always loved quotes. You know the things famous or brilliant people say that are written down just to be inspiring. I have always loved reading different quotes from different people.

What I do on a daily basis is I hop from facebook page to facebook page just to read the quotes section. I actually was doing it one day and I saw that someone I knew and loved actually quoted me, like in a serious way. I thought this to be funny because I know that I'm not truly quotable.

However, most of the time these famous and brilliant people are talking about doing things, like following your heart or starting a revolution. Don't waste time, live your life, don't do the things you don't want to do.

This is what came to my mind. If you don't go through hard times, if you don't become marginalized, if you don't work the terrible jobs, if you don't understand hardship, if you don't read the great minds of history, if you don't know what's truly going on in your world, how in the world are you supposed to do anything great? How are you supposed to be something great or start a revolution if all you do is sit around and laugh, and get drunk, and 'live' life?

The reality is that the people who we often quote, Martin Luther King Jr., Mother Theresa, or John F. Kennedy all went through hardship. They all were in stressful situations with stressful people. They all dealt with death and destruction. They saw something though, something different. They saw hope, and this hope is something that we seem to miss.

We see our world in shambles and we pick up a shovel and plant a tree, or a twenty dollar bill and go to the gap store and by a red shirt. We are to busy living our lives to actually make any impact on the world. And we want to be revolutionaries?

Revolutionaries were smart, they were people who understood their world and saw something missing, hence the revolution. And by their world I mean their immediate world.

I was talking to a friend in the car yesterday and I told her I didn't want to change the world, I just wanted to live my life. She replied "But that's how you'll change the world, by living your life."

I realized that I can't change the world unless I start loving the people around me and helping them live their life. I must become aware of my world to know how to change it. I must be aware of my community to see what needs to be changed.

How else am I to become anything or impact anyone?

What happens when our true selves truly come out.

When the liar is unmasked.

When the fake is made true.

When the selfish loses.

When the religious leader has to admit that he is wrong.

The fear is that we will be discovered but what happens when we become so self aware of ourselves that we become honest ourselves.

I'm tired of writing these thoughts out.

So I am bowing out for a period of time. The curtain is closing for now but I'm sure the production will reopen and when it does it will be better and more polished.

Good night and Good luck.