Old Friends

It is strange how people weave in and out of one's life. I always love seeing old friends. They help in putting life's puzzle pieces back together. They know me. We don't have to spend any time getting re-acquainted. We can just start from where we last left off without having to explain things.
The two friends I hung out with last night were my closest friends in high school. So it's like there was this connection, this eagerness to find out about eachother, and about where life has been taking us. It's been taking us in very different places, granted. But we look at life in a similar way nevertheless.
And that's kind of the beauty of it.

Don Miller

I must admit to something. It's annoying me that the emerging church is embracing Don Miller's book, Blue Like Jazz, so much. It's one of the best book I've read. But having everyone else and their mothers reading it and starting small groups around it kinda cheapens it. Oh well.
All this to say that I'm reading Don Miller's latest book. It's called Searching For God Knows What. I wouldn't say it's as well written as Blue Like Jazz. But Don Miller does it again. He hits the nail right on the head. He expresses something I've been trying to put into words for the last couple months. And he does it quiasi-perfectly (in my opinion).
The book is all about how we crave other people's love and approval. About we have this need to be validated by people. About how our identity needs to be spoken to us by someone outside ourself. It's about Genesis 3 and how we try to fill the relational emptiness caused by the Fall. It's about how Jesus was relational above anything else. It's pretty brilliant.
If you read my post entitled "Confessions", this all might ring a bell. It's crazy. I think Don Miller can read my thoughts. Or something.

If I could press a button and go back to the way it was in the Garden of
Eden, I would, because so many times I don't feel like I have any glory at all.
I feel like I am trying to get other people to say I am important and valued,
and even when they do, it feels as though their opinion isn't strong enough to
give me the feeling I need, the feeling that quit at the Fall.
- Don Miller, in "Searching For God Knows What".

All This Postmodern Stuff - Part II

You know what?
I don't want to be a postmodern before I am a Christian.
I don't want to have an academically acute understanding of my theology but fail to love my neighbour.
I don't want to spend my lifetime criticising Christians who haven't quite arrived at my super-intelligent level of cultural analysis.
I don't want to think I am non-judgemental, just because I've shifted from judging the poor and rifraffy to judging the rich and the evangelical.
I don't want to define myself by what I am not.
All I really want is to love Jesus.
I want to pray a lot.
I want to serve and not always have to be in the spotlight.
I want to have time and interest for people who are different.
I want to be part of an imperfect - yet seeking to be like Christ - Church community.
That's all.
I think that's pretty much what it means to be a disciple.

All this postmodern stuff is really frustrating me. Someone said "don't talk to Europeans about postmodernism. It's like telling fish about water". I agree. Spare me the pomo BS, I'm ok with trying to live out my faith in a culture that I pretty much understand already. I don't need candles and ancient liturgy to feel like I am being relevant.

My Worldview, according to Quizz Farm...

You scored as Cultural Creative. Cultural Creatives are probably the newest group to enter this realm. You are a modern thinker who tends to shy away from organized religion but still feels as if there is something greater than ourselves. You are very spiritual, even if you are not religious. Life has a meaning outside of the rational. Cultural Creative 88% Fundamentalist 69% Postmodernist 69% Romanticist 31% Idealist 31% Existentialist 6% Modernist 6% Materialist 0% created with QuizFarm.com

For My Current State Of Heart...

Have You Ever (by Shawn McDonald)
Have you ever wanted to be someone else
Have you ever wanted just to be someone
Have you ever wanted to reach your dreams
Have you ever wanted life to be more than it seems

I have tasted of a love so wide
That it stops all my time
I have tasted of a love so deep
That it blows my mind

Have you ever wanted to reach up and touch the sky
Have you ever wanted to pack it up and say good-bye
Have you ever wanted someone to care
Have you ever wanted someone to be there

He is sweet, He is sweet
What your looking for
Is my sweet, sweet Jesus
What You’re looking for
Is my sweet Lord

May I find You again, Jesus...

Unexplainable

The feeling's overwhelming.
It washes over me like poison
And these tears I cry
They should not be.
I don't like who I've become
And my trustless heart
Does not know where to seek its refuge.
I've heard it's in You,
But I can't seem to get there.
It's like I'm stuck here
In my own loneliness.
And all I seem to know how to do
Is to dig my own cisterns,
All the while knowing
It's not here
That I'll find any living water.

"Come, all you who are thirsty,
come to the waters; [...]
Why spend money on what is not bread,
and your labor on what does not satisfy? [...]
Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good,
and your soul will delight in the richest of fare.
Give ear and come to me;
hear me, that your soul may live."
-Isaiah 55:1-3

Sometimes, I get really scared of finding myself alone one day.

Tears

Friday night, I shed tears.
Sunday a couple weeks ago, I shed tears.
The first Sunday after I returned from Thailand, I shed tears.

On those three occasions, missionaries were sharing about their experinces, about their lives, about the situations in which they were working.
My heart broke at their words. At the injustices of this world. At my own comfortable state.
My heart broke as the ache to go grew stronger.
My heart broke because they spoke with such passion, and such conviction that change is possible.
My heart broke at the Jesus-filled lives of these people.

Does God guide us through our hearts? Are tender hearts an indication of Jesus' call to follow? What if God wanted me to go do humanitarian work in some obscure country of the world, instead of planting a church in Europe? What if?

Non-Christian Europeans don't make me cry. I know I should be broken over their state. But the truth is, I'm not. I'm much more concerned about 13 year-old girls being sold into prostituion than I am over an 18 year old teenager who's too rich and comfortable to really worry about God. The former will get me on my knees, pleading to her Creator. The latter will at best have me rely on my own gifts to perhaps hope to create a desire for God in him...

I don't know what to do with all this. Just some thoughts.

Confessions...

"Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ." - Galatians 1:10

I went on a walk tonight and sat by the lake for a while. Spring is most definitely in the air, and there is something about it that fills me with undefinable melancholy. It happens with every change in season. I start thinking about certain people, certain songs, and certain events that have had an impact on me during that particular season. Back to my walk, however. It was good to have a time of stillness. I've been running around too much lately. It was good, but it was also hard, because I felt really convicted. You see, I am a still very much a people-pleaser. Much more so than I am a God-pleaser. Peoples' approval is sadly very much what motivates me.
I live for my friends' approval. I want them to think I'm deep and spiritual and encouraging and passionate and smart. I want them to think I'm a great friend.
I live for my church community's approval. I want them to think I'm a good example, that I'm dedicated, that I'm brave for going off to Thailand on my own, that I'm a good worship leader.
I live for kids' approval - I want them to look up to me, I want them to think I'm cool, inspiring, fun, non-judgemental, interesting.
I live for my leaders' and mentors' approval - I want them to think I am smart, thoughtful, relevant, useful, good at ministry.
My words could fool a lot of people into thinking I'm all out for Jesus. But if you were to see my life, my actions, you wouldn't know I even KNOW God. I don't pray much. I treat people with a lot of arrogance. I have the worst of critical spirits. I seek to control people. I am incredibly selfish.
If I was in step with the Spirit - if I really lived in relationship with Jesus - wouldn't my life display things like peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control? Funny that most of those things are precisely what I lack.
Oh if only I were a GOD-pleaser... I so need to focus on my relationship with Christ. If I don't abide in Him, all of this is to no avail. None whatsoever... So help me, God! Help me to love YOU, and not just the idea of You. Help me to serve YOU, and not just Your people. Help me to seek YOU, not just the advice of Your saints...I just thought of the Shane Barnard song "Received". It reflects exactly how I feel tonight. So I'll leave you with the lyrics.

Received
You can only go so far until the bottom falls out.
All my singing, smiling. Pleasure finds me, i'm all right
Pretty melody dedicated to God.
To be called by one Almighty God and take it for granted.
Heard a rumor i guess, but i wanna know who told me
Told me serving You replaced me knowing You!

Can i be received?
Unclean oh Lord am I.
Find me in my shame
You are all I need
Please don't pass me by
I call upon Your name

You whispered to Your child today
But i haven't got a minute to listen
Your child is busy with the work of God and taking Him for granted
Got a lot to do today, kingdom work's the game I play
Lord, my serving You replaced me knowing You.

Dear God...

Dear God,
Will You please help me love?
Will You please help me encourage?
Will You help me tame my tongue?
Will You please help me shine?
There's just one thing I really want.
And that's to fall.
Deeper.
In love.
With You.
Break me.