2016: Year in Review

I rather like this little tradition of reflecting on the previous year.  This is only the third year I've done it, and I realize probably no one else cares about the seemingly mundane play-by-play of my life for the last year.  But it's proven to be a good exercise for me, to dredge up my journals and flip back through the pages and see all that God has been up to in the last 365 days.  I think these are important exercises, these ponderings of God's faithfulness.  It keeps us rooted, helps remind us of how God orchestrates so many details of our lives, in ways we never expected.

Life comes in seasons and I think 2016 was a season marked by calibration, hitting pause on some aspects of my life and my involvement at my local church, while still moving forward in other areas.

With that, I present to you my 2016, month-by-month, based on entries from my journals:

January: Over Christmas break last year, I decided to finally sit down and start writing a Bible study a couple of friends had been pestering me about.  I had been toiling with the idea for awhile but just kept putting it off.  I wrote I don't know how many lessons over the break and continued into January.  I jotted down in my journal, "It's been awhile since my heart has burned quite like this over a message or a concept.  I'm not sure what God is up to but I sense that the material he is taking me through will lead to something."  I think it led mainly to growth and change for me, as I don't know that the completed study will ever see the light of day again.  But whether it goes anywhere or not doesn't matter - I needed to be obedient to write.  I also started plotting a return trip to Jackson with my friend, Kristen.

February: Whisperings of "Teach my Word" came to me at the IF: Gathering, a nudge, a prompt I kept hearing from the Holy Spirit.  I wasn't sure what to do about it.  I felt like the men on the road to Emmaus, my heart burning with me as I read the Bible.

March: I was still working on the Bible study I had started over Christmas break.  It was exposing a lot of insecurities and doubts.  I desperately wanted to abandon it, but felt compelled to forge ahead.

April: I watched the documentary Unbranded (it really is quite spectacular and I highly recommend it) and my dreams of Jackson rose to the surface all over again.  I had at this point already booked a return flight and was eager to be there already.

May: I wrestled with involvement and commitment to my local church.  It's a long story, but I eventually stepped down from every volunteer role I was involved with, including leading a women's small group and working in the nursery.  I felt restless and out of sorts and uncertain about so many things there and I really didn't know what all of those feelings meant.  Nothing bad was happening, just the church was growing and changing, and I struggled to grow and change with it.

June: My doctor put me on a "wellness plan" as one friend called it, as opposed to a diet.  I was having some chronic health issues and he wanted to sleuth out some things.  It's the healthiest I've ever eaten in my entire life.  I loved it but it was a lot of work.  My dad also went on a diet and has lost something like 70 pounds since then.  I'm so proud of him.  I'm a little less proud of myself because the first day my diet ended, I basically binged on everything I hadn't eaten in a month.  (I happened to buy a t-shirt yesterday at JC Penney's that maybe represents my philosophy on food: "Wish me luck in the Olympics.  Just kidding, I'm on my fifth cupcake.)

Meanwhile at church, I'm still wrestling.  I wrote in my journal on June 26: "I think really at the end of the day I need to a) get an attitude adjustment and b) get over myself."  Story of my life.

July: "I feel so out of sorts with all the changes at work and church, and I just feel disjointed and disoriented.  I don't feel rooted."  At work, we were hiring about 20 new staff and there were some cultural shifts occurring, in a parallel vein to some degree of how my local church was changing.  Just a lot of growth and changes, and I realized I don't embrace change as well as I thought I did.

August: Nothing much must have happened because I didn't bother to write anything.

September: Ah, sweet Jackson.  I flew back to Jackson Hole for two weeks. I bummed around one week with my dear friend Kristen and then spent the second week by myself.  There is truly no place on Planet Earth I love more (except maybe my current location) than this corner of Wyoming.  I always pack a book or two while traveling and while I had already read this one once, I re-read the book I Don't Wait Anymore by Grace Thornton.  Necessary and encouraging.  I highly recommend it.

October: I celebrated my birthday, and as it always seems with the occasional birthday, my life suddenly felt very small and safe.  I realized I was holding on to so many fears.  I kept thinking about the quote from the movie You've Got Mail, "Sometimes I wonder about my life. I lead a small life. Valuable, but small. And sometimes I wonder, do I do it because I like it, or because I haven't been brave? So much of what I see reminds me of something I read in a book, when shouldn't it be the other way around?"

November: Well, the obvious happened.  Donald Trump became POTUS. I don't normally comment on external events in my journals, but I felt the need to document this event in history.  I also attended one of Beth Moore's Living Proof Live events and I heard the same words whispered over me that I heard back in February at the IF: Gathering: Teach my Word. Oh, and I went to the Big Game. 

December: I actually registered late in November, but I signed up to go to a conference in Houston, hosted by Beth Moore.  This is not her usual Living Proof event, but will focus instead on women in their 20s and 30s who feel called to teach, write or speak.  After all that had been happening this year in light of what the Holy Spirit had been prompting in me, I felt strongly about going.  The event sold out in less than 5 minutes, but I got a ticket.  A prerequisite for the conference is to complete her Entrusted study, which I started with my friend Alex.  It's been really good so far and I'm eager to plow through the rest of it and then head to Houston.

So what will 2017 hold?  Time will tell.  Give me about another 367 days and you'll find out in my 2017 year-in-review.

Cheers.  

Out of Darkness: Christmas Remix

I originally wrote this blog post in August of 2010.  I was living in Kenya at the time, a small corner of the "Dark Continent," and the concept of darkness was inescapable.  I was pondering this idea anew here at Christmas, so the post below is one part archive, and one part fresh words...

From the time I moved into my office during grad school, I had a map of the world hanging on the wall. But it wasn't your usual map, plotting out roads and towns and landmarks and topography. It was a map of the world at night, a composite image of satellite photos taken over the course of time. I've always had a fascination with maps ever since I was a child, but this one in particular has always captivated me. Maybe because I wondered what it meant for all those lights to be on at night - it meant people were working and living and doing, right?

But what of those places that had few, if any, little yellow dots indicating that electrical currents were flowing freely? Was life happening for them? Were they not able to work or were they merely working under the cover of darkness?

For some time now, I've been haunted by a particular concept in Scripture. It seems I can't escape it and my thoughts often turn to it when I'm studying. I first stumbled across the idea while doing one of Beth Moore's studies. From there it has spawned a hundred different thoughts and caused me to trace the concept across the pages of God's Word, but I'm always left asking the same question: What is the connection between work and darkness?

If you look in Leviticus 16:29-30, it says, "This is to be lasting ordinance for you: On the tenth day of the seventh month you must deny yourselves and not do any work - because on this day atonement will be made for you, to cleanse you." But connect the dots with me over to Luke 23:44 where it says, "It was now about the sixth hour, and darkness came over the whole land until the ninth hour, for the sun stopped shining. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two."

You see, when the sun stopped shining, the Father and the Son went to work. Atonement was being made for the people under the cover of darkness. It's pitch black outside and now no one can work. The only person working was the Son.

And from Genesis to Revelation, from the first page of the Bible to the very last, I think this concept holds true. Now, I'm no Hebrew or Greek scholar, so I'm sure there is a lot to the language that I would need to really dig into to confirm this, but even without such academic understanding, it's still saying the same thing: God goes to work when it's darkest. Out of the darkness, God called forth the light when he formed the earth (Genesis 1:1-5). Out of the darkness, God caused a deep sleep to come over Adam and God went to work forming woman (Genesis 2:21-22). Out of the darkness, God brought a darkness over Abram and made a covenant with him (Genesis 15:12-21).

And of out darkness, he sent a baby boy to burst forth into glorious light.  A baby born under the cover of shadows.  There were no night lights, no flood lights, no street lamps, no flash lights, no headlights, no mega-watt spotlights shining down.  Only a star high in the heavens.  

And darkness. 

While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and [Mary] gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them.  And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night (Luke 2:6-8).

At night.  

Out of darkness, God brings forth light.  

Years later, when darkness reigned yet again, God sent his one and only Son to die on the cross, making the ultimate atonement for his people.

Jesus was born under cover of darkness and he would die under cover of darkness.

But it will be out of the darkness when God says,  "I have no more need for you, night and darkness and shadows and blackness, no more need for you because I have completed the work I set out to do.  So let there be light."  Revelation 22:4-5 says, "They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light." There will come a day when there will no longer be a need for darkness because the work of atonement will be finished.

I know I didn't see the worst of the worst in Africa, but I saw enough to know it was just on the other side. And I wondered sometimes if God was working there. I looked into the faces of the people, and looked into their eyes, and I wondered what hope they had. I looked out over the land where all I saw was desperation and despair at times and I wondered how God was working in the face of it all. I wondered if any work was being done on the Dark Continent.

But then I remembered that map of the world at night. If I looked at the world based only on strength of light, Africa might as well not exist. It's nothing but darkness except for a few small corners of it. And as I pondered that map, I remembered God is a God who does his best work under the cover of darkness. He's out to redeem his people - the orphans, the widows, the sick, the hungry, the poor. Am I saying His work is being done exclusively in Africa and not elsewhere? Of course not. God cannot be so confined and I cannot be so foolish to believe that it is only in darkness that he works.

But whether darkness or light, I know God is working there - and here - and everywhere else in between. It is worth noting that He is not the God of darkness - but he is the God who takes the darkness into something beautiful and bright.  James 1:17 says, "Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows."  He does not change like the shifting shadows, but he sure does use those shadows to his glory, the Father of heavenly lights.

"Into marvelous light I'm running, out of darkness..."

Out of darkness, God sent a baby boy, the Light of the World.  Into the arms of Marvelous Light may we run this Christmas.  

"For God, who said, 'Let light shine out of darkness,' made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.' " - 2 Corinthians 4:6

Five Questions We Must Wrestle With

If you search for the question mark symbol in any Bible software, you will discover several things:

1) There are roughly 2,540 questions found in the Bible (at least in the King James Version, which is what I searched), with 1,710 in the Old Testament and 830 in the New Testament. 

2) The book of Job has the most questions, coming in with a whopping 230 questions. Luke, John and Matthew follow suit behind Job with 145, 144, and 143 questions, respectively. 

3) Of the 66 books in the Bible, only 5 ask no questions: 2 Timothy, Titus, 2 John, 3 John, and Jude.

Over twenty-five hundred questions.

That seems like an awful lot of questions to me.

Maybe because I do not consider myself a naturally curious person, nor am I a good question-asker. I remember once in college, mentioning to a friend of mine, “Why does it always seem we spend a lot of our time and conversations talking about me?” His response? “Because you never bother to ask any questions about me.” Zing. It’s just not my instinct to ask a lot of questions. Probably because a vast majority of the time I just don’t simply care enough, which I hate admitting. And if I’m really honest, I’m too self-absorbed at times to really want to open my eyes to the lives of others. I also hate admitting to that as well. I've had to learn to develop the skill over time of asking good questions, of being intentional and mindful in conversations with others, making a point to prompt and pursue. There is a certain art form to the skill, and more often than not, my abilities are woefully lacking. That’s why people who are curious, ever asking questions and wanting to know more, astound me. And not just asking any ol’ lame series of questions, but asking thoughtful and meaningful questions. I envy that talent.

It’s also why sometimes Jesus flat out does not make sense to me.

For a guy who supposedly knows it all, he asks a lot of questions.

Consider the gospel of John, for instance.

In that book there are 144 questions, roughly 51 of which Jesus himself asks, which means he is asking nearly 35% of the questions in the book.

Why? Why does the God who knows all things, sees all things, and understands all things, bother with asking questions? Doesn't that strike you odd? He certainly doesn't need to know the answers for himself. Asking the questions in no way increases his knowledge – he already knows everything there is to know. Asking the questions in no way changes his understanding or enhances his perspective – he already knows the answers long before we ever utter them.

So why does the God of the universe bother ever inquiring anything of anyone?

Because sometimes questions are far less about the one asking them and far more about the ones answering them.

There are a lot of questions we must answer in this life, although the specifics on which questions we answer will vary from person to person. We could dissect a lot of the questions Jesus asks in the Bible, but I believe there are 5 integral questions Jesus asks directly to his audience in the gospel of John, and by extension, five questions he asks of us as his followers:

1) “Do you want to get well?” (John 5:6)

2) “If I am telling the truth, why don’t you believe me?” (John 8:46)

3) “Will you really lay down your life for me?” (John 13:38)

4) “Don’t you know me, ever after I have been among you for such a long time?” (John 14:9)

5) “Is this your own idea or did others talk to you about me?” (John 18:34)

And when I say we must be willing to answer these 5 questions I really mean I must be willing to answer these questions.  I ask them of myself long before I ever ask them of others.

Let’s take the first one – “Do you want to get well?” In this particular instance, Jesus is asking it of a man who had been facing a disability of some sort for 38 years. Uh, Jesus, don’t you think a man who has been disabled for 38 years would like to be well? What kind of question is that? But Jesus knows this man – and knows us – and he knows that sometimes when we are sick for so long, we often decide it’s just easier to keep on living that way rather than doing the hard work of healing.

 And I think Jesus is ultimately not asking this man if he wants to be physically well, although that is part of it, he’s asking if the man wants to be mentally, emotionally and spiritually well. Sometimes it’s not our bodies that need healing, but our minds and hearts. When we live in certain sins, certain fears, certain hurts for so long, we decide they are just easier to live with than to live without them. We wear them like a security blanket, more terrified of being whole and healthy than we are of being whatever sickness and debilitation we might have presently, physical or otherwise.

To the second question – “If I am telling the truth, why don’t you believe me?” If Jesus is telling the truth, why don’t we believe him? In not believing him, then we hold that the converse is true: he is a liar. He’s either one or the other – he’s either telling the truth and we must believe him, or he’s lying and we should walk away from him. But we believe him to be telling the truth, right? At least we pay lip service to believing him anyway. Our lives and our actions so often say otherwise. We must deal with this root of unbelief that so many of us harbor. Hold up. I probably shouldn't speak for anyone else; I must deal with this root of unbelief that I harbor. Because if I really, truly think he is telling the truth, then I must oust all other options contrary to believing him.

To the third question – “Will you really lay down your life for me?” Perhaps this one is toughest to answer, the one we least want to answer. Will we really lay down our lives for him, to sacrifice all that we have and all that we are to follow him? This is the question I am most likely to avoid because the answer is the one I most want to skip over. It’s the question that leaves us the most uncomfortable, I think especially for North American Christians. For the most part, we have no concept of what it means to literally lay down our lives for the sake of Jesus and the gospel, at least relative to the rest of the world. Oh, we have this hazy vague notion of it and we think we know what it means, but we think fasting from Starbucks for a month is the same as laying down our lives for Jesus. We must be willing to confront this question head on – even if the answer scares us.

To the fourth question – “Don’t you know me, even after I have been among you for such a long time?” Some of us have followed Jesus for quite some time. And yet we still find ourselves plagued with doubts and worries, living in bondage to our fears and insecurities. It’s a question of insult – we are insulting his very nature when we doubt him and shake our fists at him, demanding he behave. Don’t we know who he is, even after he has been with us for so long and shown himself faithful time and again? Don’t we know how far he has carried us, through each and every season of our lives? Don’t we know that the God who commands the waves to cease and the rains to dry up is still the one who is very aware of our every heartbeat, our every care, and our every concern? How do we not know all of that by now? What fools we are! How quickly we forget! He has been with us for such a long time and has never given us reason to doubt him, yet we who have been with him for such a long time have such a short memory.

And to the last question – “Is this your own idea or did others talk to you about me?” Have you sought out Jesus for yourself, or are you hoping to get a second-hand helping of him? Are you hoping through some form of osmosis that you pick up some idea of Jesus through your pastor or your Bible study leader or some podcast? There are a lot of people saying a lot of things about Jesus, but are you coming up with your own ideas about Jesus? Are you exploring the Word for yourself? Not that our pastors and Bible study leaders and podcasts and whatever other materials out there are bad, but neither are they to be the ultimate, and neither are we to be dependent on them for our spiritual nourishment and the formation of our theology. You want to know Jesus? Then go to the source Himself.

Uncomfortable questions, aren't they? At least they are for me. I’d really prefer to gloss over most of them. But Jesus doesn't ask these questions for his benefit – he asks them for our benefit. And that means we have to be willing to wrestle with them, to deal with all of the doubt and unbelief they may or may not reveal. We have to allow these questions to reveal who we really are. For we are just like the man beside the pool, sick in our depravity for decades on end, claiming that we have done everything we can to get to the healing waters, claiming there is no one there to help us. It is only when we look up and find the Healing Waters standing right there before us, asking us, “Do you want to get well?” that we find out just how bad we want to answer that question with “Yes, I want to get well."