Day 7: Not Just Good vs. Bad

We were both sitting on the floor, me in tears, him in stunned silence. He never saw the end coming, and I saw no way around it. 

We dated last summer. I'll call him Jake for the sake of this one-sided conversation. Jake was a breath of fresh air and blew through my life like a cool summer breeze. He was the first man in my life ever to ask me out point blank after having just met me. I was stunned. It was disarming, almost disorienting, his boldness. On our first date, he unknowingly picked one of my favorite places to eat, showed up twenty minutes early, and he asked good questions. He was racking up points left and right. I was still feeling bewildered about the fact that a man had looked my way or even knew I existed. It had been a bit of a dating drought prior to him, so I was suffering from the whiplash of his sudden and eager presence in my life. 

We had some hurdles to cross - well, really, I had some hurdles to cross related to his past - but we had some good, long hard conversations about all of that before we decided to move forward with dating. 

Dating him was great. It was easy. It was effortless. It was fun. It was exciting. It was all the things that come with the start of a new relationship. 

And he treated me like gold. I have no doubt that man would have walked through fire for me, even after the short time we knew each other. We often joked, though, how he was a freight train hurtling a hundred miles an hour down the tracks while I was still sitting back at the station with my feet propped up, wondering which way to go. He said I checked every box on his list of things he wanted in a wife, and he was convinced I was everything he had ever prayed for in a woman, while I wasn't convinced of anything. All I knew was that I was willing to give this thing a shot and trust that God would make the way clear. But I was holding loosely to all of it. I desperately prayed for wisdom in those days and weeks surrounding that time (and still do regularly). I had latched onto Proverbs 2:11 just prior to Jake's appearance in my life, and it's a verse that carried me through, "Discretion will protect you, and understanding will guard you." I deeply desired to have both discretion and understanding, to be able to discern the when's and how's and what's of this relationship and to do it in accordance with God's will. 

So, we dated. Until we didn't.

Probably not even a full fourteen days into dating, I suddenly felt like I hit a brick wall emotionally. Overwhelming doubt and hesitation rose up within me. I couldn't shake the lack of peace that had taken over. I couldn't define it. I couldn't put my finger on it. There were no red flags about his character, his past, his present, nothing. So much about us seemed to line up. But there was still something making me pause, something undeniable. I began to wonder if I was crazy, asking God if this was just the swirling of my emotions or if this was something from the Holy Spirit, a certain kind of restraining that was beginning to hold me back from confidently moving forward. I got to the point where I knew I couldn't allow the relationship to continue, not in good conscience anyway. Yes, it would have been easy to just play along. The boy was so over the moon about me, so why not just ride this wave and enjoy it and take advantage of the feelings he had for me? For one, I'm not that kind of person, and two, I knew that he was in so deep emotionally, even this early on, that there's no way I could have allowed his emotions to grow even more for me. It wouldn't have been fair - or right. 

I thought long and hard, still desperately praying for that discernment, still wondering if I was crazy. Here was a perfectly good man who loved Jesus and was crazy about me. Why can't you just.make.this.work, Courtney? But it didn't matter from what I angle I came from, I was getting a very clear, albeit unexplainable, impression from the Holy Spirit that this relationship had to end.

So, I broke the boy's heart and ended things.   

"Why, Courtney?" he pled with me, tears in his eyes.

With tears in my own eyes, I told him I didn't have an answer to that question, at least not one that was going to make him feel better or make that moment less painful.

But I also told him that I didn't need to know why in order to be obedient to God. I didn't need this tangible, black-and-white, reasonable and rational list of explanations from God about why this relationship should or should not continue in order for me to still follow him. The Holy Spirit was revealing to me that we were not to continue dating - that was reason enough for me. I didn't need any further evidence. I've been in this thing with Jesus for too long and I've followed him down too many roads that didn't make sense before. This wasn't the first time God had asked me to do something that didn't humanly add up. I'm sure it won't be the last, and I'm not about to start demanding he make sense to me now in order for me to continue to be faithful.

In the wake of the break-up, I kept coming back to one central lesson:

Discernment is not merely distinguishing between good and bad, right versus wrong, truth versus error. Sometimes discernment is also about distinguishing between what is good and what is right, what is good and what is best.

Sometimes what is good and what is best is separated only by a hair's breadth, but that hair's breadth still matters. As I kept praying for wisdom in the wake of the break-up, I was led to 1 Chronicles 17. David is now on the throne, Saul long since dead. David is standing in the palace one night and he says to Nathan the prophet, “Here I am, living in a house of cedar, while the ark of the covenant of the Lord is under a tent” (verse 1). David desires to build a temple for God and Nathan tells him to do as he wishes, for God is with him. 

But then that night, the word of God comes to Nathan, telling him to tell David that it's not for David to build God a temple. That dream will be for his son, Solomon, but not for David. 

The day eventually comes when Solomon does, in fact, build the temple, placing the ark of the covenant in it. At the dedication of the temple in 1 Kings 8, he says the following, looking back on his father's life:

My father David had it in his heart to build a temple for the Name of the Lord, the God of Israel. But the Lord said to my father David, ‘You did well to have it in your heart to build a temple for my Name. Nevertheless, you are not the one to build the temple, but your son, your own flesh and blood—he is the one who will build the temple for my Name.’

You did well, David, to have it in your heart this desire to build God a temple. 

Nevertheless, you're not the one. 

David's desire was good. But it wasn't right, it ultimately wasn't what God had in store, even though it made perfect sense to David, even though there was nothing saying otherwise that he shouldn't do it.

A hair's breadth between what is good and what is right.

Jake, you do well to desire marriage. You have it in your heart to pour out all that love you have stored up in that golden heart of yours. That is a good thing. But for reasons known only to God, it is not the right thing that it is with me. Yes, you treated me like a queen. Yes, on paper, everything we had - or dreamed of having - made perfect sense. And if any of my friends came along and asked if they could date you, I'd give my blessing. You're a good man, and what we had was good. 

Nevertheless, it wasn't right, and I'm not the one.

I trust that God in his infinite wisdom knows the reasons why that hair's breadth between what was good and what was right existed in our relationship. 

And that's enough for me. 

Day 6: Thoughts on Death and Dying

I signed my will today.

#Adulting.

It's an interesting process, this thing of deciding the parameters about how you wish to die (at least the parameters you may have some negligible control over), what happens to your possessions when you die, and what happens to your body when you die. Who will be my executor? Who do I trust to handle my finances? Who do I want the house to go to? Do I care how or where I'm buried? Do I want to donate my organs, and if so, which ones and for what purposes? Do I even need a living will? What's the difference between that and a DNR? Do I want to leave anything to charitable organizations I'm fond of or not? Do I have any specific instructions about how my funeral is to be handled?

It took me nearly four months to complete the paperwork from the time I first contacted my attorney until I signed off on everything today. I wanted time to think and process the implications of some of these decisions (and I also just put it on the back burner for awhile amid a busy work season). I could never know the contingencies of every choice, of course, but I could make some reasonable, prudent decisions along the way and I wanted to do my homework. Signing off on everything today didn't feel like some sort of monumental emotional moment - it was just something practical that needed to be dealt with.

But how often do we actually think about death? And I don't mean in a suicidal kind of way, I just mean it in a very matter-fact sort of way. How often do we think through our own mortality? And how often do we think through what we want to be true of our lives when we reach the end of it, whenever that end may be?

When I was a senior in college, I wrote my own obituary. I still have it. I've often had it tucked inside the cover of my Bible over the years. It wasn't an exercise in morbidity, I can assure you, and I wasn't depressed. It was an exercise done with clear eyes and a sound mind, mostly precipitated by the end of my college career and wondering what I was leaving behind me. If you have a living will, why not have a living obituary? (It was maybe also sparked by a scene from the movie Serendipity, to be honest.) I spoke not of worldly things I wanted to accomplish. I spoke instead of the kind of person I wanted to be, of what I wanted my life and my character to be marked by. But ultimately, I spoke of how I wanted Jesus to be my one magnificent obsession.

What struck me as I wrote that obituary nearly fifteen years ago was that I was writing based on the assumption that I would have decades of life ahead of me. But then the thought occurred to me - what if tomorrow, or next week, or next year, is the end? What if I don't have stretches of time to cultivate all these things I want to be true of my life? Would this obituary be true of me now? Am I seeking to move toward this kind of character today, rather than thinking that I'll somehow mysteriously arrive there at the end of my life?

When I read that obituary now, it brings tears to my eyes in a sad sort of way. They feel like words that were far too easily throw down on paper, where they existed merely in a theoretical or hypothetical state. Because to read these words today just makes me feel like a fraud of a Christian, and if I'm not careful, it's easy for me to descend into some sort of existential crisis. What do I know of following Jesus? What do I know of what it looks like to really love him? What do I know of loving God more than anything else? What do I know of passion, selflessness, humility and obedience? What do I know of multiplying the kingdom of God? What do I know of God's purpose for me in my own generation? These were all things I wrote about all those years ago, things I envisioned for my life, what I wanted to be true of my life when I reached the end of it, whether that was in one year, five years, or five decades. But there are moments when it's easy to give way to the notion that I'm not measuring up to this self-imposed benchmark I set all those years ago.

So, what am I to do? Drown in the abyss of perceived failures and all the ways my present-day self is letting down my college-aged self? 

No. No, instead I take up the words of the apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:10:

But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect.

His grace to me has not been without effect. The only living obituary that will ultimately matter is the one God writes. May he not merely make me into the kind of person I wrote about with my own words in my own obituary, but rather the kind of person of which he can say, "Well done, good and faithful servant." That's an obituary worth aiming for.   

Day 5: What The Pandemic Didn't Kill

Disclaimer: I know for some people this pandemic has been nothing short of traumatic. I have friends who have watched loved ones die agonizing deaths. I do not wish to diminish the weight of that grief and all the chaos this pandemic has wrought. The following is intended to be a light-hearted take - please read it as such.

The death toll for COVID is staggering. The economic fallout is massive. The way we live our lives has fundamentally shifted. COVID has killed a lot of people and it has killed a lot of events, customs, and rituals, some temporarily, some still have never rebounded. Sporting events. Concerts. Cookouts. Vacations. School. Restaurants. Hotels. Family gatherings. There isn't a corner of our world where death, in some way, shape, or form, has not touched it.

Except for one very unlikely place, much to my everlasting dismay. 

And that, my friends, is the "passing of the peace," also known as the "turn and greet your neighbor" moment at church.

For those of you unfamiliar with church settings, this is the point in a church service, usually fairly early on, when a person stands on stage, all cheery and bright and probably an extrovert, and instructs the congregation to pause and take a moment to say hi to your neighbor, give 'em a high five, give 'em a hug, wave, whatever. So, then everybody turns around and pretends to have a meaningful interaction while every introvert in the room wants to hit the 'abort' button.

I am like the Holy Spirit in Romans 8:26 with my "wordless groans" every time this moment rolls around in a church service. I may be wordless, but I quite literally groan nearly every single Sunday. Sometimes I have to make a pact with myself to stop groaning about it because even I get tired of hearing myself complain about my perpetual disdain for the tradition. Words truly cannot express how much I despise this moment. My friends certainly know how much I hate this moment, and even if you're not my friend but are sitting in my vicinity on a Sunday morning, you're probably going to know it soon enough. 

Why? Why do churches insist on this moment? I do not understand. It's painful. It's awkward. It's weird. It's forced. It's artificial. It's dreadful. 

It's annoying as hell. 

It's bad enough if you're introverted, but if you're introverted and new to the church?

Feel free to rapture your people, Jesus, and save me from this moment.

As Scot McKnight wrote in the foreword of Adam S. McHugh's book Introverts in the Church, "Who, for instance, designed the 'Pass the Peace' moment in the church tradition? Surely not an introvert."

Exactly.

What's even more bothersome at times is that no matter where I go in the world, the same thing happens. I can be in a church with a mud floor in the middle of nowhere Kenya, or in a cathedral in a bustling city in Russia, and what happens? Yep, those loathsome, dreaded words come pouring out of the leader's mouth, "Why don't we all turn and greet our neighbors? Tell 'em how glad you are to see them today!"

For the love of Pete. 

COVID, you killed so many things. How did you manage to not bring a swift end to this tradition? I had such high hopes that this pandemic would wipe out this little moment in our church gatherings. But noooo, it's still alive and well.  

Dear Lord, I beg of you, may the passing of the peace rest in peace. And soon. 

Day 4: I (Almost) Bought a Zoo

I recently bought a house. My grandmother's house, specifically, which was my great-grandfather's before her. It came complete with a family of groundhogs, innumerable squirrels, a regular "committee" meeting of turkey vultures in a tree in my backyard, a stray mouse or two who made their way into my bedroom (who have since been evicted), and I swear a long-tailed weasel (who did not make it into my bedroom, thankfully). My dad thinks I've lost my mind, but I would bet money it was a weasel. I'm crazy, but not completely crazy. It was a weasel.

The original house, circa I don't know when. 
It has since had a complete second story
added on.

This house is nothing fancy. But it's mine. And it was my father's. And my grandmother's. And my great-grandfather's. My oldest brother and his girls lived here at various points in time, too, which also means a total of five generations of my family have lived in this house since my great-grandfather built it in 1949. It's never going to make the cover of Architectural Digest, but this nearly 75-year old, 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom house has brought me to tears on more than one occasion. 

I never had dreams of being a homeowner. It wasn't something I felt particularly strong about and so I spent years renting. I didn't want the burden of a mortgage and the responsibility of maintaining a home. I bounced around from one apartment to the next, living in various parts of the city. I loved each of those spaces for very different reasons. The first apartment I ever rented was a whopping 350 sq. ft. My parents thought I was one step above living in a shoebox. After that one, I had a slight detour back to my parents' basement, but then ended up in a 1,200 sq. ft. condo. I felt like I was living in a mansion. What does one do with 1,200 sq. ft. of space?! Coming from the tiny 350 sq. ft. studio, I had basically no furniture, so it took me awhile to slowly buy up a table, chairs, couch, etc. In between the condo and my next apartment, I briefly looked at buying a home, the first time I had ever warmed up to the idea, but the process was incredibly stressful and nothing seemed right. I threw in the towel after two months of searching and decided to rent again. In my last apartment I could hear my neighbor's conversations through the walls verbatim. I felt like I had to take a vow of silence to live there because I didn't want anybody to hear my own conversations. 

That's finally what pushed me over the edge.

The opportunity to move into my grandmother's house first came about because she had significant health needs and was in assisted living. My father had always said he wouldn't ever sell it so long as she was alive. They asked if I wanted to rent it so that the house didn't sit empty. My apartment lease was ending and I reluctantly agreed to rent the house. Reluctantly because the location of it was in the complete opposite direction of where most of my life occurred - farther from work, farther from church, farther from the gym, farther from where several friends lived. 

But for the first time ever in my life, I wasn't going to be sharing walls with another human being.

Sign.me.up. 

I moved in about a year ago and two weeks later my grandmother passed. So, now the question became - did I want to buy the house? I clearly remember telling my parents a year prior, when the topic first came up of me renting, that I wouldn't ever be interested in buying the house. 

As they say, never say never.

Once I moved in and had a chance to get settled, I had time to warm up to the notion of owning a home. And quite frankly, the thought of moving again (I had moved four out of the previous five years) and possibly sharing walls with people again was so horrifying that my days of not wanting to own a home were rapidly vanishing into the distance. 

So, I bought the house. And it's menagerie of resident animals.

I've lost count of the number of times I've been on the verge of tears, reflecting on God's faithfulness in the timing of it all. How many years had I wandered from one apartment to the next, never ready to settle down? And when I was finally ready to consider buying a home, how many houses had I looked it, none of them seeming like they were the right fit for me? I was finally sick of carting my life around in boxes, feeling like I could never quite fully claim a space. 

But now - now the timing was right. The circumstances were right. The financing was right. All of it, came together at just the right time in my life.

And I am ever so grateful for these four walls. 

That are shared with no one else. 

"Observe the commands of the LORD your God, walking in his ways and revering him. For the LORD your God is bringing you into a good land...When you have eaten and are satisfied, praise the LORD your God for the good land he has given you. Be careful that you do not forget the LORD your God, failing to observe his commands, his laws and his decrees that I am giving you this day. Otherwise, when you eat and are satisfied, when you build fine houses and settle down...then your heart will become proud and you will forget the LORD your God...You may say to yourself, 'My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.' But remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives..." (Deuteronomy 8:6-7, 10-12, 14, 17-18).

Day 3: Winner of the Friendship Lottery

Me and my childhood best friend

When it comes to friends, I've won the lottery. I could easily tick off name after name after name of the men and women in my life who are just straight up exceptional human beings. They come from various stages of my life, from childhood to college to adulthood. They are married, married with kids, single, divorced. Some love Jesus, some are on the fence about Jesus, and some are just straight up suspicious of him. They are thoughtful, hilarious, serious, smart, introverted, extroverted, dedicated, sacrificial, giving, and everything else in between.

There's Sandra, the unlikeliest of friends. She is proof that God has a sense of humor because she and I would probably never have chosen to be friends on our own. There's Ruth who is truly the most thoughtful person I know and has the memory of an elephant. I think I'm decent about remembering the details of people's lives, but she puts me to shame. There's Matt who is just an easy companion. Conversations come effortlessly with him. There's Kristen who is probably one of my funniest friends. Her storytelling coupled with her southern accent is pure gold. There's Laura. That girl was my saving grace in a really crazy season of life. There's Emily, my kindred spirit in so many ways, someone who can go deep intellectually and spiritually in a way that is so life-giving. And Derek, I'm not sure where I'd be without him. He's more of anchor than he'll probably ever know. 

I could go on and on, but that's just a glimpse. Sometimes I get overwhelmed when I think about the line-up of friends that I have because they are just so.freaking.amazing. Truly stunning people and I'm so honored to be their friend.

At the risk of stating the obvious, though, those friendships haven't happened by accident. If there is anything I have learned - and thankfully I learned this when I was young - friendships require effort and intentionality. I know I'm stating the obvious and I know that's no different than any other relationship, but it's easy to think that friendships are going to somehow be held together through passive means or happenstance. We get so busy and self-absorbed with our own lives as we get older - we get married, we have kids, our careers take over. And then we wonder what happened to so and so, realizing that people who were once confidants are now merely acquaintances simply because we just stopped trying to connect.

I inadvertently visited almost every friend I have living out of state this past year (and I certainly have plenty of friends in state that I visited also!). I drove down last February to South Carolina to see a friend of mine that I met through Bible Study Fellowship. I made the trek out to Missouri to visit college friends, making multiple stops in Illinois and Indiana along the way to catch an assortment of people I hadn't seen in awhile. I drove down to North Carolina to visit another college friend, stopped briefly in Winston-Salem on the way back to visit a friend I met during a post-college summer job, and then stopped again overnight in Virginia to stay with a former boss of mine from my grad school days. I drove out to DC to take my niece to an internship and reconnected with a sorority sister I hadn't seen in nine years. I flew out to San Diego here just in December to visit friends from church who recently moved out there.

Me and Hannah on the beach at Coronado Island

I don't say all that to pat myself on the back, but to say that I learned a long time ago that you have to show up in your friendships again and again and again. Because guess what? It's easy to make excuse after excuse, and it's easy to just stop trying. You have to decide at some point that people matter and that it's time to make them a priority, even if that is a select one or two friends. Now, I realize that I am single. And because of that, it affords me a lot of flexibility to just pick up and go. I don't have a husband and children to corral and coordinate. My job has great benefits that allow me time off when I want. So, yes, I'm aware of the caveats of my situation. 

But maintaining friendships doesn't always mean getting on a plane or driving 1,000 miles. Sometimes, yes, it may mean that, but more often than not, maintaining friendships means sending a text message and being curious about your friends' lives. It means asking questions. It means checking in. It means sending the occasional card. It means clearing your calendar, reaching out and asking if they want to get together for dinner. It means you keep showing up. Because as Bob Goff pointed out in his book Love Does, love is both sacrificial and present. 

So who do you need to text? Who do you need to call? Who do you need to get on a plane to go see, if the situation allows? Grand gestures are not required in order to maintain grand friendships, but grand friendships do require deliberate and sustained effort, effort that communicates "You matter to me." 

Day 2: Why I Still Say No to Social Media

One of the great ironies in my life is that, despite not having any personal social media accounts, I am the social media coordinator as part of my job. Also oddly enough, I volunteered myself for the task because, quite frankly, I thought I could do a better job than the person who was doing it at the time. That was three years ago. 

Once upon a time, though, I did have a personal social media account or two. Facebook for awhile, then Instagram. LinkedIn was in the mix for a brief period, too. 

Facebook was the first to go back sometime around January 2011. LinkedIn followed suit later that year. I opened an Instagram account in 2012 when I finally got a smartphone and was living in Kenya; posting pictures was an easy way to keep the family informed. I deleted it sometime after I got back to the States, but reopened it again in 2014 and then deleted it for good in 2015. For the work-related content, I use a co-worker's login info, so even though I need to manage social media pages for my job, I still don't use personal accounts to do so.

I don't miss any of them. In the twelve years since I first deleted my accounts, there's never been a moment when I have wavered and regretted shutting everything down. Not once. I'm honestly not sure what circumstances or amount of money would ever convince me to open personal accounts ever again. 

When I first started deleting accounts it was essentially because I could see the writing on the wall - me and social media just weren't going to mix from an emotional and mental health standpoint. I spent way too much time wondering if anybody liked my posts, commented, or followed me. It was unhealthy and I could see what it was doing to my self-esteem and self-worth. I was becoming obsessed with checking notifications, and the good Lord gave me enough sense and self-awareness to see that it just wasn't going to end well for me if I stuck around. It is the same reason I likely won't ever do online dating. If someone told me I had to choose between online dating or being single for the rest of my life, I'd tell 'em I would gladly go to my grave single without question. Burial plot for one? Yes, please.

So, goodbye social media. To this day, I still believe it is one of the smartest things I have ever done in my life. 

I recently revisited the reasons why I kissed social media goodbye when I read the book Stolen Focus by Johann Hari. I highly recommend it. I rarely buy books anymore, but instead make use of the public library (more to come this month on my love of libraries). But this one - this one was so good that once I finished it, I went and bought my own copy because I wanted to re-read it and mark it up. There were so many insights and aha! moments about how my own brain and my attention have been hijacked by technology and the environment in which we live. It was profound to me what he wrote about and it affirmed my inclinations to avoid social media. (I also read Jaron Lanier's book Ten Reasons to Delete Your Social Media Accounts Right Now, which is a little bit more of a rant, but he provides some interesting points to consider nonetheless. The Social Dilemma is also worth a watch.)

Hari interviewed James Williams, a former Google strategist, and one day Williams "addressed an audience of hundreds of leading tech designers and asked them a simple question: 'How many of you want to live in the world you are designing?' There was silence in the room. People looked around them. Nobody put up their hand" (123).

Yeah, I don't particularly want to live in the world they're designing either. I'm not here to say that social media is the devil, but I think it's getting harder and harder to argue in favor of its benefits over the harm it's doing. 

So, if you ever ask me if we can be friends on Facebook, the answer is no, the same as it was over twelve years ago. 

But real-life friend requests are definitely still acceptable.

Day 1: Challies' Challenge

If you've followed this blog for a period of time, you probably have noticed that my writing has been - how shall I put it? - woefully infrequent in recent years. The line of demarcation was somewhere between 2017 and 2018. Late 2017 was when I had my epic mental health crisis, so I don't know if that's what flipped the switch or what, but I just have not been motivated to write as much in recent years. That's not to say that I haven't had a long list of things to write about rolling around in my head, though. I've had a note in my phone for years now of article titles, one-liners, random sentences and such, things I would mull over and think I should write about - and then just didn't. I think in some ways I just got lazy. I stopped putting forth the effort to create or do the hard work of thinking and crafting a story. Writing started to feel like a chore, something that I should do out of some sort of weird misplaced obligation. Obviously, no one is holding a gun to my head and insisting I write, but some part of me knows deep down it's what I need to be doing. 

After I had mustered up the energy to submit a piece to Gospel-Centered Discipleship this past September, it led me down a rabbit trail to a Tim Challies* article called "Six Reasons For You to Consider Writing." I read it once, thought it had some good insights, and then moved on. But then for some reason, I came back to it again later, reading it more slowly the second time around.

And then this single line nearly jumped up and bit me: "Try to write something every day for a week or a month and just see what happens."

Write every day? For a month? Something in me sparked when I read that line. Like a match had been struck and finally that fire of motivation I had been lacking the last five years had been lit. It was the first time I had felt energized about the prospect of writing in such a long time. I think I had forgotten what that felt like.

So, here's my goal for the month of January**:

I'm going to write every day. 

If I manage to do that (but let's manage expectations here, people), I will have written more in one month than I have in the last five years combined. The pieces won't be polished. They won't necessarily be all connected, coherent or cohesive. But that's not the point. The point is for me to exercise some discipline and finally give words to all the things that have rolled around in my head for years. It's a way of battling my own apathy and complacency. 

So, Tim Challies, challenge accepted. 

Wish me luck.

*Not that Tim Challies is ever going to read this blog, but I owe him a personal thank you. After we released my article on GCD, Tim got a hold of it and then shared it via his social media and his daily email newsletter. That share landed me #1 on this list. I might have mildly freaked out both when I first got notice that Tim shared my article, but also when I found out about The List. Tears may or may not have been involved. So, Tim, thanks for reading my work and thinking it was good enough to share with the masses. I'm still a little dumbfounded that anybody noticed it.

**I might regret this.

New Article at GCD

It's been a good long while since I have submitted material for publication, but I finally mustered up the motivation and energy to submit a piece to Gospel-Centered Discipleship, a site I have published with in the past.  

You can read the full article over at gcdiscipleship.com. May it be an encouragement in your study of God's word.

I Know Less Than Ever

The shadows of evening were growing long outside the window. I was curled up on the couch, my arm draped along the back of it, talking with some friends from church. I don't even remember what the topic of conversation was, but I do remember making this statement, feeling the conviction deep in my bones:

I know less about God than I ever have before in my life. 

But how can that be so? I have spent my entire life filling a church pew nearly every Sunday morning, no matter if there was a dirt floor beneath my feet in Guatemala or pristine chandeliers hanging above my head here in America. My parents drilled it into us as kids - if it's Sunday, your backside had better be warming the pew of a church somewhere. 

Over the years, I accumulated more and more knowledge, learning the Bible verses, stories and doctrines. I went to church camp for years, literally singing Kumbaya around a campfire and feeling the warm fuzzies of it all. (I even won 'Camper of the Year' in 1998.) I went overseas on short-term mission trips on multiple occasions, bouncing between Guatemala, Kenya, Russia, New Caledonia. I can't tell you the number of Bible studies I've completed over the years, pages and pages of notes stacking up, taking up space in my filing cabinet and computer hard drive. I've read various commentaries, debated doctrines, been to conferences, read countless theology books, led small groups, facilitated women's times, and taught in the children's ministry. Heck, I've even published articles about God, writing as if I might actually know what I'm talking about.

I am like the apostle Paul (although simultaneously very aware I am nothing like Paul on countless levels) as he rattles off his resume in Philippians 3:4-6:

If someone else thinks they have reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for righteousness based on the law, faultless (NIV).

And yet, despite the spiritual resume, the stockpiles of knowledge and the passing of time, still I'm convinced I know less about God than when I first came to know him decades ago.

What really lies at the heart of that statement is not merely an intellectual recognition of how much literal knowledge I possesses (or don't) about God - but rather a recognition rooted in marvel and wonder, a sheer sense of disbelief. Like David in Psalm 8:3-4, I ask with a hint of mystification in my thoughts and in my prayers to God,

When I consider your heavens, 

the work of your fingers,

the moon and the stars,

which you have set in place,

what is man that you are mindful of him, 

the son of man that you care for him?

C.S. Lewis writes in his famed children's series, The Chronicles of Narnia, of four siblings - Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy - who discover an enchanted and mysterious land through the doors of a seemingly common wardrobe. Through this wardrobe, the children are magically transported to the land of Narnia and encounter the schemes of the White Witch, an evil sorceress who has placed the land under a spell. Along with Aslan the lion, a good (but not tame!) and powerful king, the children wage war in order to restore peace to Narnia, which they achieve. The children eventually return from the wardrobe and back to their ordinary lives, but there does come a day in the fourth book, Prince Caspian, when they journey back to Narnia. 

It is here that Lucy, the youngest of the siblings, searches for Aslan. She discovers him in the wood, rushing to him:

And the next thing she knew was that she was kissing him and putting her arms as far round his neck as she could and burying her face in the beautiful rich silkiness of his mane.

"Aslan, Aslan. Dear Aslan," sobbed Lucy. "At last."

The great beast rolled over on his side so that Lucy fell, half sitting and half lying between his front paws. He bent forward and just touched her nose with his tongue. His warm breath came all round her. She gazed up into the large wise face.

"Welcome, child," he said.

"Aslan," said Lucy, "you're bigger."

"That is because you are older, little one," answered he.

"Not because you are?"

"I am not. But every year you grow, you will find me bigger."

Like Lucy, I am older and I am finding God bigger.

This is how I can say I know less about God than ever. 

He hasn't changed one iota, not in my lifetime and not in all the lifetimes before me. He has not literally grown bigger, just like Aslan had not grown bigger. But just as Lucy's view of Aslan had changed, my view of God has changed. 

The passing of time has sharpened my awareness of my limitations, my shortcomings, my sinful tendencies, and I've discovered that maybe - just maybe - I don't know it all after all. Likewise, the passing of time has sharpened my awareness of the vastness, the greatness, the magnitude of the God who does know it all.

Age has a way of humbling us and teaching us that God is far bigger than we dared to dream, and we as humans are infinitely smaller than our egos are willing to admit. I see who I am - and who I am not - with greater clarity relative to who he is. 

It is this realization that humbles me, that leaves me feeling mystified and positively stumped that God should ever bend down to make himself known to me. I read his Word and I think, "How is that I'm still learning things afresh, things I've read dozens of times before, but as if I've never read them before?" I pray and think, "How is it that he still bothers to listen to me, still chooses to bestow his grace upon me?"

It's because I am growing and I am finding him bigger. 

When I get to heaven, I want to wrap my arms as far round God's neck as I can, gaze into his large wise face and say, "You're bigger." 

And then spend all eternity finding out just how big he really is. 

"For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known" (1 Corinthians 13:12).

"What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord..." (Phillipians 3:8).

Sit, Stay Awhile

My grandfather was a notoriously slow eater. I mean slow. Meals were not merely a physical necessity to him, a functional means of putting food into his body for sustenance, but rather more about everything else surrounding the occasion. Conversations. Stories. People. Relationships. Community. 

For the better part of a decade, my grandparents were fixtures at the local Amish restaurant every morning for breakfast. Typically the only day they didn't go was on Sundays and that was only because they didn't have a say in the matter. The place was closed. The creed of the US Postal Service really was the creed of my grandparents: "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds."  They were relationship couriers hell-bent on making their appointed rounds, just perhaps minus the swift part.

My grandfather would sit at that table like a king conducting the affairs of his court and all the courtiers that came with it. He was never in a hurry. He rarely had anywhere else to be and the coffee and conversation were always in steady supply. He and my grandmother would talk for hours upon hours upon hours. They came for breakfast but they might as well have stayed for lunch, maybe even dinner, too. And they didn't know a stranger. If a couple or a family were sitting a table or two away, minding their own business, inevitably, my grandfather would somehow draw them into a conversation. Strangers became friends who were welcomed into the affairs of the royal court. 

My grandfather was well-versed in the art of lingering. 

He knew what it meant to sit and stay awhile.

I, on the other hand, eat most of my meals standing at the kitchen counter.

Granted, I live alone and there's no one else around to share a meal with so I usually just stand or stay in motion, cleaning up the kitchen or doing more food prep in between bites. Always in motion, always moving.

I am not well-versed in the art of lingering like my grandfather was. 

And neither were the ancient Israelites.

As we move toward Passover in a few weeks, there is a part of the Old Testament exodus story we can easily gloss over and miss the depth of its meaning if we are not careful. We must linger here, just as I need to learn to linger over meals.

When we pick up the story of the Israelites in Exodus 12, they are still in slavery in Egypt, but their deliverance is drawing near. Nine of the ten plagues have been unleashed. The final plague - the death of every firstborn in Egypt, from man to livestock - is about to bring low the heart of Pharaoh himself. In preparation, the Lord issues a command to the people: prepare the Passover feast. Slaughter the lamb, put the blood on the doorframes, make the bread without yeast. 

And then the Lord gives this seemingly insignificant but very important command:

"This is how you are to eat it: with your cloak tucked into your belt, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. Eat it in haste..." (Exodus 12:11).

When you are about to run for your very life, you have no time to linger over your meal. You make-ready to make haste because time will be your enemy if you don't. Now is not the time to linger, to pull up a chair, make new friends and chew the fat, figuratively speaking. Now is the time you eat in haste. 

When the final plague of death was delivered, Pharaoh would give the order to release all of the Israelites from slavery. And once that command came, there wouldn't be a moment to waste. So God made it clear to his people the stance with which they were to eat the Passover meal, to be like runners crouched at the starting blocks waiting for the gun to go off and the race to begin.  

You eat in haste when you are outrunning your captor.

You eat in haste when you are scrambling to set foot in the Promised Land.

You eat in haste when you are living on the brink of death.

For those who live apart from Christ, this is how you spiritually eat. Constantly on the run, nerves on edge, one eye on your plate, one eye on the door, shoveling spoonfuls in your mouth, eating in haste. And it's not just how you eat now, it's how you will eat for all eternity should you continue to choose to stand as an enemy of the cross of Christ. There will be no lingering over meals in hell because you will be perpetually starved of all things good and right and true. Hell does not come equipped with a kitchen table. 

For those who belong to Christ, however, the day will come when we sit down to eat another feast and God will not give us the same command he gave his people in Exodus 12.  The command he gave then is not how he intends his people to eat all their meals for all their days. It was for a specific purpose at a specific time under specific circumstances.

No, at the end of time, at the wedding feast of the Lamb, God will invite his people to linger. He will invite us to pull up a chair and stay awhile, to get comfortable, to take off our shoes and set aside our staff. He will invite us to become well-acquainted with the art of lingering. 

And he will invite us to eat slowly. 

You are no longer outrunning your captor. 

He has been vanquished.

You are no longer scrambling to set foot in the Promised Land. 

You are already in it. 

You are no longer living on the brink of death.

You have life everlasting.    

So, sit, stay awhile. 

You no longer have to eat in haste at the Lord's table.

"Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb!” (Revelation 19:9).