Even as I am fully known.

For those who don't know, I am on summer break. It's my last official summer break before graduating college and entering the "real world" (Didn't people say that began after high school? Or is it marriage? Or parenthood?). This being the case I decided not to work this summer. For the most part I've been enjoying it. But there are those days that move a little too slowly.

I almost did one of those surveys in a note on facebook. You guys remember those from myspace days, right? Instead of doing one of those surveys I pondered why they are so addictive. In all practical terms, there should be nothing entertaining about them. It's not like a puzzle or a mind-challenge. We already know all the answers because it's about us.

Sure it could be "just passing time", but we could be facebook stalking any number of fascinating friends we've forgotten about, or chatting on facebook chat, or even hitting refresh over and over to see new statuses to comment on. On my boredest days, I'll admit to having done all three.

But the surveys hold their own particular allure. I think we like the surveys not because the questions will surprise us, but because we hope our answers will surprise and intrigue someone else. Anyone else. Or if you happen to have a crush on someone, perhaps a specific someone else.

It's the idea of being known fully. In social psychology we talked about how we make judgements of others and briefly talked about our awareness of others judging us in the same ways. We know that the majority of people around us have a one-dimensional understanding of who we are. I think we disclose things about ourselves in attempt to break that one-dimensional image.

I was homeschooled up until high school. That first year and a half was spent relearning the art of conversation. I didn't know how to have a casual conversation, so I avoided conversation altogether. But I also had so many thoughts and ideas that I didn't have the words to express or that weren't appropriate for casual high school conversation. When I decided to get my nose pierced, there were two reasons. One: I loved the way they looked. Two: To show people they don't know me. To do something that their one-dimensional representations of me were incapable of doing in hopes that they would want to deepen their understanding of me by getting to know me.

It's ironic really, because as much as we want to be known, we cling to anonymity. Even now the idea of sharing this blog with people I know is causing some hesitancy. But ultimately what I think drives a lot of our minds as social entities is the idea of being known fully and knowing someone else fully.

In the life of faith we learn to share this sort of existence with God. At times I'm really bitter about that. God already knows me fully and I won't be able to fully know Him in this lifetime. Sometimes that's exciting. Sometimes it's scary. Other times it's just annoying.

I found wisdom in a quote somewhere that said "Know God, know yourself". I don't know the intent of the original speaker and what he/she was trying to imply. But when I read it, I fell in love with this idea: We cannot know ourselves fully until we know who God is in Himself, in this world and in us. I think there's a vice versa dynamic there, but that's another topic for another time.

In 1 Corinthians 13, Paul talks about spiritual gifts. Spiritual gifts are given individually and specifically to each one of us. To deny the reality of a gift one has been given is to deny an essential part of the whole self. But these gifts are here to know God as fully as we can know Him on this earth. Paul says, "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."

James backs this up by saying, "Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like."

The word (in both the sense of scripture and of the wholeness of Jesus) shows us ourselves. When we know the word, when we know Jesus, we learn how to see ourselves accurately. To act in a way that denies God and denies us of our true selves is to forget what we look like, to forget our identity.

My mind is constantly blown by the fact that Jesus is God. Not just God's son, but God. It blows me away. So many times have I been like Philip in John 14 and prayed, "Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us." And Jesus' answer still holds shock value for me. He replied, "Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work."

I love that knowing Jesus means knowing God and knowing myself, because "On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them."

In the time I have now, in the present, I desire to know God as fully as I can and to know myself as fully as I can. The more those things are happening, I think the more we'll desire to know others as fully as we can too. That's when the Body works as a whole. Lord, hasten that day!

Then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

Man vs. Wild (the philosophical question)

For the past three years I have made my home in Chicago. It started with an inner-city mission program (www.missionyear.org) and it has continued with school. I have learned so many things about God's heart for the oppressed and I have gained a passion for social justice. I have learned many lessons that I honestly don't yet know how to integrate into my life and faith. But after three years in Chicago and with one year remaining before I graduate, man... I can't wait to get out of the city.

I like Chicago mostly because of its people. I don't like it because of the stereotypical Chicago-y things. I detest downtown because of everything it stands for in the face of poverty and suffering. It reminds me of many flaws that our country has in terms of our lust for wealth and independence rather than our passion for justice and interdependence. It sickens me. I like going downtown because I can be anonymous. But anonymity is nothing worth striving for since it doesn't exist in the Kingdom of God.

Several months ago I realized how much I had been daydreaming about leaving the Chi. I don't believe God expressly desires me to stay, so I took gladly took that as permission to fantasize about doing some neo-monastic trek in the wilderness as I silently seek God through viewing His creation and dwelling on His heart. This idea has always appealed to me. Simplicity, quiet, nature, and separation from the worldly ways that ensnare me.

One day I was griping to God about my itch to leave. Not in [much] frustration, but more in a broken, I-feel-like-my-organs-are-all-compressed-together-as-I-fervently-pray sorta way. I told Him something to this effect, "Jesus, you know how I connect to you through nature. You yourself gave lessons from nature. I want to look at the birds of the air and the flowers of the field and learn from them!"

I felt oh-so-Biblical using Matthew 6 against Jesus. How could He deny me that? That was dang good! Until He reminded me of this: "Are you [plural/humankind] not much more valuable than they?" I was so convicted. Even moreso when He probed with the following question, "Why do you not see me in and among the people I've created in my image?"

All of the ideal naturey images I pictured had this feature in common: solitude. Yes, I believe there are seasons for solitude, but that is as God determines, and that night I felt so clearly that my place for this season is in Chicago and that when I feel drained and when I feel like I'm in a "concrete prison" (as I so emphatically described Chicago to my class one day), I need to not wistfully think of where I would choose to be placed, like among nature. I need to realize that people are made in God's image and that being in a city is the ideal place to learn the weight of that, especially since God has deemed it good for me to be there right now. So convicting, but it gives me the push I need to continue through this last year in Chicago.

Just a few weeks ago now I had another, seemingly contradictory revelation. I was driving to my grandparents' house (4 hour drive) and talking to God. I love long drives and I love praying aloud. As I did, I was again dwelling on this drive towards nature that I feel so very often. Why do I feel God so strongly in nature and why does my faith and desire for God feel so draining and cloudy in humanity?

I thought about the verse in Romans that talks about how all of creation groans expectantly awaiting the return of Christ, the fulfillment of all things (my paraphrase). It hit me so hard. I feel God in nature more because the yearning for the return of God, for the fulfillment of the Kingdom, a new heavens and a new earth, is unrestrained, unhindered, and unapologetic.

Humankind does groan. We see etchings of it on the faces of those around us. Creases in the forehead that ask, "When?" in quiet exasperation. Increasing murder and crime rates reflect the restlessness in humanity. We can see evidences. But they are hidden. They are restrained, hindered, and apologetic. I feel at home in nature because among nature I can cry out for God, and I can tangibly feel, not necessarily His presence always, but invariably I can feel the depth of my yearning and need for Him.

Nature doesn't try to silence it. Humanity covers it up with noise and busyness. Why do people care about advancing the social ladder and collecting wealth? We all know these things don't follow us in the grave. Why do we strive so hard? Because it distracts us from the yearning we feel. It creates noise that disguises our groans. We are so afraid of it.

If we embraced that yearning as though everything depending on our recognition of our need for God, I am certain this world would be different. At least the Church would be. Maybe we'd face more persecution, maybe our Church membership would dwindle, maybe it would skyrocket. All I know is that the Church, we as individuals and as a Body need to have a mindset that recognizes the absolute, unshakeable truth of the future fulfillment of all things and the dependency that creates in us on earth (in terms of dependency on God and interdependency with one another).

I'm going to end this by quoting some scripture that focuses on how our anticipation of the fulfillment of the promises is supposed to affect our lives. I'm tempted to write what implications I believe they hold for us. But I encourage you guys to pray over these scriptures and ask God not just for the general implications (which is what I would write about), but also about the implications they hold for your specific life.

Hebrews 13:14 "For here we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for the city that is to come."

Hebrews 11:16 "Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them."

Hebrews 9:28 "So Christ was sacrificed once to take away the sins of many; and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him" (Question: is "waiting" in this sense active or passive and how so?)

Titus 2:11-14 "For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people. It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, while we wait for the blessed hope—the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good."

2 Corinthians 5:1-10 (look it up yourselves - it's longer)

Philippians 3:20 "But our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ"

Galatians 5:5 "For through the Spirit we eagerly await by faith the righteousness for which we hope."

1 Corinthians 1:7 "Therefore you do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed."

Nothing Left to Lose.

Note: I wrote this two and a half months ago and never published it. Now it's time.

In efforts to avoid all the autotuned, techno-beat pop/hip-hop/rock (when has it ever been okay for all three genres to sound so much alike?!) music that's playing these days, I've set my car radio to Wave 102.1. It's been nice to hear songs that remind me of Saturday mornings as a kid, or of the Sundays after church when I'd come home to find Dad out in the garage working with the table saw and his latest piece of woodwork while listening to classic rock.

Usually as soon as a song plays on a radio station that I'm unfamiliar with, I immediately skim the stations until I find a song I know. Autotune has killed that for me. I've given up. Quick aside: I have been disappointed and sometimes pleasantly surprised by how many of my generation's songs have point-blank copied or overwritten music that existed decades earlier.

On this one particular day though, I was listening to the radio and was struck by the depth of a line in a song I'd never heard before. It said, "Freedom's another word for 'nothing left to lose'." Wow. This rang so true to me.

I think as Americans we have a tendency to equate freedom with the pursuit of happiness. We are free to have, free to do. This usually means we actually have a lot to lose. Freedom occurs when we are firmly established, when we have the means to choose our own courses. The people with the most freedom are thought of as those who are rich. Who wants to be a millionaire? That "freedom" we pursue is one where we have everything to lose and we put everything on the line.

Freedom in the Bible seems to be depicted in similar manner to the way it was described in the song. When we have nothing left to lose.

In Matthew 8 we find a man who desired to follow Jesus but first wanted to bury his dad who had died. Jesus responded by saying, "Follow me and let the dead bury their own dead." Earlier in the chapter he speaks of how he has no place to lay his head. In Luke 10, he sends out disciples telling them not to bring a bag or even sandals.

Just when you think the weight of this can't increase, Jesus does it again in Luke 14, "Those of you who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciples."

I have heard many lessons on the rich, young ruler who asks Jesus what he must do to gain eternal life. For those who know the story, you know that Jesus tells him to sell all he has and give his money to the poor. You also know that after the saddened man leaves Jesus says, "Truly I tell you, it is hard for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God."

I have heard some say that we really should sell the things we have or give it away. Often these voices are guilt-ridden, as if they feel they must earn God's favor. I have heard some say that really we can have whatever material things we desire, we just have to be willing to give them up if God asks us to. Often these are the ones who have so many goods that they don't have the time or ability to hear God.

What if it's not about that? What if the question isn't about what we do or don't own? What if it is really about freedom? Freedom defined in a countercultural way.

When we lose all we have to God, we gain a freedom that transforms us. When we lose things to God, we learn Jesus' love and that it frees us from the guilt and the burden of trying to appease an angry God and from the burden of attempting to earn his favor. When we lose things to God, we learn more about what things actually matter and we learn how our materials own us and we desire to be freed more from them to learn more of God and to bring about His way of life here on Earth.

In Philippians 3:7 Paul says, "I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things."

Being Drawn into God's Will (pun intended)

In high school I took an art class. I've always wanted to draw people. Capture the essence of who a person is with just the right countours and just the right shading. Unfortunately, drawing people is not my strong suit. At least not people that actually exist yet. I tried to draw a replica of my favorite picture of me and my dad, and, well... I looked like a gnome and he resembled a mutant biological child of Jack Nicholson and Frank Sutton. Oops.

I have, however, found my place in drawing landscapes. A year ago I drew a picture of one of my two favorite places in the whole world. I was so amazed at my abilities to draw. It's not stunning or anything, but it's pretty dang good, especially given that I hadn't drawn anything since Freshman year of high school.

This summer I began another drawing project. Same place, entirely different perspective. This perspective is so difficult for me. I can't quite understand the angles and the way they connect. You never know how complicated these things are until you are challenged to represent them on paper. Sometimes I just stare at the landscape, confused at how what I am seeing is possible in reality.

I sat for two hours today trying to capture the wooden boardwalk. The angles on my paper are all wrong. The gazebo also made quite an optical illusion. On one side it looks correct, as if it could really exist. On the other side, it collapses into itself making a sort of optical illusion.

Sometimes as I've worked on this (and other pieces of artwork or crafts) I've been tempted to scrap it. It won't look the way it's supposed to look, so why keep going?

You know what I realized today? If people wanted artwork to look just like the thing it's representing, they would take a photograph. The appeal of a drawing is the fact that it's made by a creator's hands and that it has it's very real, very human flaws.

Man, this has been a really freeing thought for me with my mind as of late. I'm so confused with life. I keep looking towards these different versions of what my life could be and I don't know which one is right or if God has a "best life" for me that I shouldn't deviate from or if I have freedom to choose, or if certain lives would bring more glory to God than others (given that the constant is that I love God and love people among all circumstances).

I've forgotten that there is freedom in Christ and truly I've felt like I'm in a prison and that all these questions are leading me from a crappy prison to an unbearable solitary confinement. But today as I spent two hours adding finer details to a picture that kinda sorta represents the real thing, I had a bit of rest.


My life is a representation of Christ's. I am not Jesus and I was not created for my uniqueness and individuality to be stripped away so that Jesus could be superimposed onto a blank slate. I've been created with my peculiarities (and plenty of them, trust me) for the purpose of being *like* Jesus so that my life may point to Jesus.

The fact is, when I look at reality I can't see it all at once. I see sharp angles and smooth curves and sometimes I am baffled by the heck the two come together to form a structure. I don't see the way the pieces of my life fit together. Maybe in my life as I move forward I put a line where it doesn't exist, or I confuse the lines so that part of a building collapses inward on itself. But truly, if I am supposed to be Jesus Himself, God would have gone about this creative process differently.

In making me unique and allowing me to have (often conflicting) passions, and allowing me to take my own steps and make my own choices, my life won't be identical. But whatever shape my life takes, it will bring glory to God.

Man, this picture is rough. In terms of what it's supposed to look like, I mean, I can basically see it. Especially looking at them juxtaposed. But it's taken its own shape and it is beautiful. And it still points to me, its creator. Just as my life, whatever shape it takes, points to my Creator in a beautiful way.

God, thank you for the freedom we take for granted. Help us not to be so afraid that we're going to mess up what is supposed to be. So long as we are the paper under your hands, we'll be fine. Help us not to freeze in fear and trade freedom for a prison that we falsely believe is glorifying to you. Thank you for crafting our lives so beautifully and using the smears, smudges, and jutting angles to make a whole that is beautiful and pleasing to you and is what the world needs to see. In Jesus' name, Amen.

Darkness and Disorientation

I've been having trouble sleeping in my smallish town here in Florida. I'm on summer break and I'm so unused to the quiet and the darkness. For the past few years I've been at school in Chicago. This past year I lived down a main road that constantly ushered along blaring-sirened emergency vehicles, city buses that shook my bedroom as they thundered by, and a good deal of cars with obnoxiously loud bass systems. Even with the blinds closed, city lights streamed in through the window so that I could read a book with my lights off at 3 AM.

In Smallish-town, Florida I've been leaving the muted TV on so that I can have a light to fall asleep to again. The darkness has begun to really freak me out. This past winter break, a good friend of mine decided to monopolize on that and pull a prank. I have a bathroom connected to my room. This one particular night I was getting ready for bed: brushing teeth, washing face, the usual. So as not to disturb my other friend who was sleeping in my room, I turned out the bathroom light before opening the door. Going immediately from such light to such darkness, I couldn't see a thing.

My prankster friend was standing in front of me making a horrendous, terrifying face and I didn't see her at all. I took a few steps forward before realizing I needed to turn the light back on. When I did I was in for quite a shock! I'll never live that one down!

Even more recently I had a bizarre experience with darkness. I was staying at a hotel this summer. It was the blackest and darkest I had ever seen a room before. At some point in the night I woke up in a crazy state of disorientation. I had no idea where I was. I delusionally thought that I was at the edge of a cliff that dropped off into spikes (like in the Mario videogames) and that if I moved I would fall off into some abyss. It was the weirdest/creepiest feeling I think I have ever had.

Darkness itself is so strange. It's near, yet far and tangible, yet empty. It settles on you, settles around you. In a dark room, you can hold your hand right in front of your face but the darkness is closer. It envelopes you. Paradoxically, darkness gives the illusion of being endless and far-off. In that hotel room, I would not have been able to guess where the room started or stopped. Shoot, if you asked me I would have fumbled around with my words muttering something about an abyss!

When we are surrounded by darkness, we are blind not only to the good (think: the lack of spikes and abysses), but also to the bad (the spikes and abysses). In my room in FL with all the lights off, I can't find my way to my bed, my haven. On the same token, I would not recognize a dear prank-pulling friend or even a murderer lurking just before me.


In my journey of faith I've experienced similar feelings. It's clear that in places of spiritual darkness it is difficult and sometimes seemingly impossible to see God. But what I realize now is that it also becomes more difficult to see darkness itself. When in a place of darkness we often become blind to the things that are not of God. In the darkness, dark things don't stand out as being particularly dark. Temptation, misery, complacency, and discontent could be right in front of our faces and we could easily walk right into them, especially if we choose to walk by sight rather than by faith. Why is it easier for us to walk by sight when we can't see and easier to walk by faith when we can? If that's the case, I think we are walking by sight in the light and by foolish "trial and error" in the darkness (neither faith nor sight).

This has also reminded me how deceptive the darkness is. Sometimes it feels closer to me than I feel to me. Sometimes it seems less tangible, as if it were a void that has always secretly been there. It can look endless, just as my hotel room did, though in fact the room itself was no different at 3 AM as it would have been at 3 PM. It distorts our vision but doesn't change the physical essence of what's around us, the truth. Praise God that even being in darkness doesn't change the reality or the truth.

What orients us in darkness is faith. This is not to say that faith will always lift the darkness or make it easier for us to see. Usually it means that we become aware of the fact that it's okay that we don't see. Faith is not a tool to make our lives easier. Faith is an often difficult choice in the face of what we do (or do not) see.

God, thank you for teaching us faith. Help us to know what it means to have faith in places of darkness and light. Help us not to see faith as our tool in times of need, but as the very mode we operate in and under through all aspects of our daily lives. Our own sight is short, be it in darkness or in light. Help us to each truly recognize that and the depth of the implications that has for each of us in our lives. Thank you for your patience with us. God, we want to know the depth of our need for total dependency on you. Make that real to us. Amen.