He Chooses.
Your love is pure, Your love is precious
Your love is all I need
Your love surrounds me, Your love astounds me
Your love is everything
I run to You when my heart is weak
I cling to You, You're all I seek
It's my heart's desire to be close to You
Here in Your arms I'll find my strength
Everything I want, everything I hope in
Everything my heart cries out for
You're everything I want, everything I hope in
You're everything my heart cries out for
I know I've touched on this subject before, I even shared this same song not all that long ago.
But still, in this moment, I am completely astounded by the sheer insanity of it all. Because that's what it is, isn't it?
That we would dare to believe such a thing, that we would even dare to consider the possibility...who do we really think we are?!
That a God, as so unfathomably powerful that He could create the universe with a mere breath and in the space of the same moment make it to have never even existed with less than a thought, a God so unimaginably huge exists in and through that same universe and still far beyond its greatest reaches, a God who is not bound by any law of space or time, but in fact created those very concepts, a God who rules and reigns wholly and totally and does so everlasting, who is everything that good and pure and lovely, a God who is in fact Love, that a God like that would Love...
Us.
A people who are called the epitome of Creation and yet have never failed to destroy it, who in fact brought destruction upon that Creation with our initial and continual rebellion against the very One who chose us, chose to Love us so irrationally and recklessly, a people who shift more easily than the wind, on our knees singing praises like the one above with one breath and cursing His very being with our actions, or worse coasting as though the raging Love being lavished on us does not in fact have the power to radically alter our every second with it's boundless power as we claim to believe. And I am as guilty of this as anyone. I've been called arrogant, cocky, a fool, and a fake. And perhaps I am, all this and more. I never fail to continue to fail and disappoint the incredible God who saved me, who in His great love and mercy picked me up out of the mud and continues to do so despite my foolishness. I admit to this and I am ashamed. And yet my God loves me still.
And yet He loves us still. Knowing all of this, before He even began to form Creation, He chose us.
It's even more than just being His favorites. It's like even if we were the only being to ever be, He could not possibly love and lavish us any more. Now that's insanity.
And yet it is what we believe.
It makes no sense...
And yet it makes perfect sense.
Because that's what Love is.
A choice. A choice He gave us and a choice He makes every day, where instead of wiping us off of the face of the earth, He continues to lavish us. Instead of turning His back on us, instead of forgetting about us as we so continually turn away from Him and, fail to remember Him, He chooses to choose us, to plead with us to understand that His grace truly is sufficient and His power is made perfect in weakness as it says in 2 Corinithians 12:9.
Now that is hope.
So what will we choose?
Will we dare to believe it?
We are daily, even in every moment, given a choice. A choice to love God and to love those around us. A choice to recognize that we have indeed been chosen, and a choice in how to respond to that reality. And it is our response to that choice that will ultimately define us. I would very much encourage you not to overlook the implications of these things.
So what will we choose?
Dive Deep.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Shattered ("Through" Part II)
Another of the Christians with us in our discussion at the Veritas Forum had before used the illustration of how we are a lot like children standing next to a hot stove, and God, our loving Father, telling us not to touch the stove, but still we continue to reach out, our hands drawing closer and closer. And then we get burned. Just as He said. And I discovered this to be a perfect analogy for this situation as well. The reality is we all sin, we all have rebelled against God. And even though our God disciplines us, tries to teach us, when we go to touch that burner, it is hot, and it will burn us. So was the burning itself God punishing us? Or merely the consequence of our own foolishness?
The punishment the Israelites endured because of their rebellion against God was something they had been warned about by God Himself. Even with the reality of the world beyond our own being so much more in that day, the knowledge of God and what He had done for them so much more vivid, time and time again they refused to listen, and time and time again they found themselves burned and blistering. Just try skimming through Judges and you'll see how insane it was. A nation of bipolars. And so they time and time again had to deal with the consequences of that disobedience. Even today, we are forced to deal with the consequences of the rebellion of Adam and all that has happened since, a curse passed down through the generations. A curse that continually ravages our world.
Is it fair that we should be forced to live with the consequences, punishments, and pains caused by the sins of others, even those who came far before we did? Maybe, maybe not.
But is it fair that others should have to deal with the consequences of our own sins?
Everything we do has a consequence, in both this world and the next, so before before we point the finger and lay the blame perhaps we should take a moment to remember this. For those of us who have embraced the Love of Jesus we have hope and security in what lies ahead, but still in this world of sin, of darkness, loneliness, heartache, suffering, death, and depravity, the consequences of our sin are still very much real.
And so we find ourselves back in the tunnel.
The tunnels of everyday life are a simple yet harsh reality of that life. But they aren't there because of some sadistic madman who spun the world into motion and then left us to try and fend for ourselves. And like I said before I don't pretend to have all the answers to the "why" questions in all this, but I have seen one thing: our God loves us.
And because of that Love, in which there is boundless hope, comfort, joy, and power, we can make it through. Not just around.
We want His best. But that's the thing about the best...
We're going to have to make it through.
And so we can.
Through.
Sometimes we need do need to be disciplined...
Though this may not always be the case.
So why does our God give us these things that become our tunnels? And why would He ever lead us through these tunnels? At least the ones we don't trap ourselves in...
Because maybe sometimes, just maybe, it takes a little blunt force trauma to see what's behind the mask. The man, the woman, the child, the hopeless wreck who wants nothing more but to see and show the reckless abandon of the love of our God, to be the one we feel inside wishing to burst forth and show the world what has happened to us, what we have truly become, not what circumstances or people or anything else have us currently portrayed to be, trying to be, acting, where it all feels so temporal, fake even, not the man or woman our awesome God has transformed us into and is continuing to shape and form with His miraculous love. To just want to be that, to be real, for everyone to see the passion that has enraptured our every everything, every fiber of our being, all we are, our heart and soul, just wishing to burst forth, like the rushing of the floods of heaven being poured out on His earth, on His people.
God please shatter this wretched, cursed mask.
Because maybe it's what's behind the shattered mask that we need, need to see, need others to see.
Need to really be.
It's when the mask is shattered that the ravishing blessings God has lavished on us, those things that instead became our tunnel, can be seen for what they really are, without the warping of the fall. When the mask is shattered that we can see through the utter darkness of the tunnels of life.
We can finally see. And we can have hope.
Even when life is just being life.
From what I've seen in my meager 19 years, and especially the past four years of the life my faith (the day of the Forum was my spiritual birthday by the way woohoo! and really everything that happened was an awesome present but anyways...), one of the most beautiful and brilliant things I've noticed is that no matter how hard evil tries, no matter how much sin and chaos and confusion and suffering has a hold on the life of a person, the Love of God is still so much more powerful, and when released for even one second can utterly transform the perversion into astounding beauty. How much moreso than in those times when everything is crashing down is there a potential to see the power of the Love of God? How much moreso do we notice the brilliance of the light shining through the crack than when surrounded by darkness? Not that the light is dependent on the darkness, far from it, but we in our imperfect, finicky foolishness that is often never fully satisfied with the brilliance we have been given sometimes forget that which isn't put right in front of our faces in the day to day drag, even though it really is right in front of our faces. So how about that mask?
Maybe we just need to be shattered.
My God, my Father, please show me, show them, what is behind the shattered mask.
Dive Deep.
(As a final note, I know that this topic of discussion is way too big for me to cover as a solo act, and I haven't even said as much as I would have liked even though I covered a wide spectrum of ideas and vantage points, but still with the length it already is if you're reading this I consider that probably a miracle in itself, though I tried to break it up into two parts. But if you have any thoughts, ideas, or questions please feel free to comment, to ask. I would thoroughly enjoy diving deep with you.)
The punishment the Israelites endured because of their rebellion against God was something they had been warned about by God Himself. Even with the reality of the world beyond our own being so much more in that day, the knowledge of God and what He had done for them so much more vivid, time and time again they refused to listen, and time and time again they found themselves burned and blistering. Just try skimming through Judges and you'll see how insane it was. A nation of bipolars. And so they time and time again had to deal with the consequences of that disobedience. Even today, we are forced to deal with the consequences of the rebellion of Adam and all that has happened since, a curse passed down through the generations. A curse that continually ravages our world.
Is it fair that we should be forced to live with the consequences, punishments, and pains caused by the sins of others, even those who came far before we did? Maybe, maybe not.
But is it fair that others should have to deal with the consequences of our own sins?
Everything we do has a consequence, in both this world and the next, so before before we point the finger and lay the blame perhaps we should take a moment to remember this. For those of us who have embraced the Love of Jesus we have hope and security in what lies ahead, but still in this world of sin, of darkness, loneliness, heartache, suffering, death, and depravity, the consequences of our sin are still very much real.
And so we find ourselves back in the tunnel.
The tunnels of everyday life are a simple yet harsh reality of that life. But they aren't there because of some sadistic madman who spun the world into motion and then left us to try and fend for ourselves. And like I said before I don't pretend to have all the answers to the "why" questions in all this, but I have seen one thing: our God loves us.
And because of that Love, in which there is boundless hope, comfort, joy, and power, we can make it through. Not just around.
We want His best. But that's the thing about the best...
We're going to have to make it through.
And so we can.
Through.
Sometimes we need do need to be disciplined...
"And you have forgotten that word of encouragement that addresses you as sons:
'My son, do not make light of the Lord's discipline,
and do not lose heart when he rebukes you,
because the Lord disciplines those he loves,
and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son.'
Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father? If you are not disciplined (and everyone undergoes discipline), then you are illegitimate children and not true sons. Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of our spirits and live! Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. 'Make level paths for your feet,' so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed."
~Hebrews 12:5-13
'My son, do not make light of the Lord's discipline,
and do not lose heart when he rebukes you,
because the Lord disciplines those he loves,
and he punishes everyone he accepts as a son.'
Endure hardship as discipline; God is treating you as sons. For what son is not disciplined by his father? If you are not disciplined (and everyone undergoes discipline), then you are illegitimate children and not true sons. Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of our spirits and live! Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees. 'Make level paths for your feet,' so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed."
~Hebrews 12:5-13
Though this may not always be the case.
So why does our God give us these things that become our tunnels? And why would He ever lead us through these tunnels? At least the ones we don't trap ourselves in...
Because maybe sometimes, just maybe, it takes a little blunt force trauma to see what's behind the mask. The man, the woman, the child, the hopeless wreck who wants nothing more but to see and show the reckless abandon of the love of our God, to be the one we feel inside wishing to burst forth and show the world what has happened to us, what we have truly become, not what circumstances or people or anything else have us currently portrayed to be, trying to be, acting, where it all feels so temporal, fake even, not the man or woman our awesome God has transformed us into and is continuing to shape and form with His miraculous love. To just want to be that, to be real, for everyone to see the passion that has enraptured our every everything, every fiber of our being, all we are, our heart and soul, just wishing to burst forth, like the rushing of the floods of heaven being poured out on His earth, on His people.
God please shatter this wretched, cursed mask.
Because maybe it's what's behind the shattered mask that we need, need to see, need others to see.
Need to really be.
It's when the mask is shattered that the ravishing blessings God has lavished on us, those things that instead became our tunnel, can be seen for what they really are, without the warping of the fall. When the mask is shattered that we can see through the utter darkness of the tunnels of life.
We can finally see. And we can have hope.
Even when life is just being life.
From what I've seen in my meager 19 years, and especially the past four years of the life my faith (the day of the Forum was my spiritual birthday by the way woohoo! and really everything that happened was an awesome present but anyways...), one of the most beautiful and brilliant things I've noticed is that no matter how hard evil tries, no matter how much sin and chaos and confusion and suffering has a hold on the life of a person, the Love of God is still so much more powerful, and when released for even one second can utterly transform the perversion into astounding beauty. How much moreso than in those times when everything is crashing down is there a potential to see the power of the Love of God? How much moreso do we notice the brilliance of the light shining through the crack than when surrounded by darkness? Not that the light is dependent on the darkness, far from it, but we in our imperfect, finicky foolishness that is often never fully satisfied with the brilliance we have been given sometimes forget that which isn't put right in front of our faces in the day to day drag, even though it really is right in front of our faces. So how about that mask?
Maybe we just need to be shattered.
My God, my Father, please show me, show them, what is behind the shattered mask.
Dive Deep.
(As a final note, I know that this topic of discussion is way too big for me to cover as a solo act, and I haven't even said as much as I would have liked even though I covered a wide spectrum of ideas and vantage points, but still with the length it already is if you're reading this I consider that probably a miracle in itself, though I tried to break it up into two parts. But if you have any thoughts, ideas, or questions please feel free to comment, to ask. I would thoroughly enjoy diving deep with you.)
Tunnel ("Through" Part I)
I realize it's been a little while since I last wrote, and apparently there has been a bit of a backup of thoughts over that time. Either that or God has seriously astounded me in the last few days with some heavy stuff. Probably both. Definitely the second one. So please bear with me through this though it may turn out to be a little lengthy...
The story I had been sharing several weeks ago began to be written early in my junior year of high school, in a time where I just beginning to understand the relationship I now relish in. I didn't have any idea really what it was I was writing as I sat in my old youth room that evening and quickly scribbled out a small section and incredibly rough draft of what has now become that story, especially that it would become what it is, but after a couple of years of additional parts and bits of editing here and there, there it is. Over the years I have often found myself looking back through it from time to time. And it never fails to continually astound me that all of that...that's us. That tunnel, that whole thing, that's us through and through.
An obvious meaning of the tunnel is natural human depravity, while we are trapped inside our sin with seemingly no way out. That is, until Jesus took a giant sledgehammer and shattered that tunnel by and in His love for us. But the tunnel has a very much more personal meaning as well.
We all go through our own personal Hell on Earth. We all have our tunnel, a tunnel that does not truly exist but still torments us day in and day out sometimes to the point of utter desperation. A place we loathe but simply cannot seem to escape. Escape the anguish, the bitterness, the solitude, the rage, the helplessness, the hopelessness, the darkness...
We just can't get out.
This tunnel can be any number of things: relationships, identity, even our very humanity. And very rarely is it exactly the same for two people because we each have different minds, different ways of thinking. Different torments. Mine is pretty much as close to literally all in my head as you can get. My tunnel is my mind itself. Call me your classic overthinker, and so often it is so easy for me to retreat into the dark recesses, making it just that much harder to pull myself back out when I truly wish to. For years now I've been wrestling with it, and still I can't seem to completely rid myself of the darkness of this tunnel that does not exist. But this isn't Sean 101 so moving on with my point....
The ironic thing about all of this though, is that so often God is the very one who in His magnificent Love chose to bless us with the very thing that becomes our tunnel, like for me a mind that enjoys going into overdrive way too much. For many people it's an extraordinary desire to love, and especially to be loved, even to the point of extreme measures. I would encourage you to contemplate and try to define what your particular tunnel is if you haven't already. You'll be surprised what kind of light it can shed. But when you think about it, the fact that it is the things God blesses us with the most that we view as our deepest curse makes all the sense in the world, for what is sin at it's most basic level but a denial of the things of God, and what do we find in sin, what is darkness really, but a twisted and perverse imitation of the brilliance of the things of God?
Like I said, we all have our own tunnel. But still, there is that crack. And what hope there is in that.
But even on a slightly simpler, day to day basis, how often do we seem to encounter tunnel after tunnel after tunnel. And being only as human as we are, we can only take so much before we ourselves start to crack, to break. And we beg, plead, pray for God to somehow steer us around them before we really even have to deal with them. Because the tunnel...well it's not a exactly a fun place to be. Definitely not filled with the joy and peace and love we were promised when Jesus tore down the tunnel and washed away the anguish, the bitterness, the solitude, the rage, the helplessness, the hopelessness, the darkness by His incredible sacrifice.
Or is it?
See that's the thing, with the hope we have. We can actually make it through the tunnel...not just slyly sidestep around it.
"Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil, for You are with me..." Psalm 23:4
This past week we had the first Veritas forum at Western Kentucky University, and though I thoroughly enjoyed listening to one of the world's more prominent quantum chemists it was the conversations afterward that really shook me. I eventually found myself conversing that evening about the Love of God, of all things, and eventually the conversation come to a point where one of the people we were talking to made a comment about how God wasn't always Love, couldn't have been, because how could all of that wrath and anger be part of a loving God?
Now this is a question that has been pondered and discussed for centuries, and me with my measly 19 years of life experience could never hope to have discovered the absolute answer to this question. It also reminded me of the question that always seems to come up: Why do bad things happen to good people? How can there be so much suffering in a world that a God who loves, who is Love, rules and reigns over?
The first thing I thought of was the example of the Father, the reason we call Him Father and part of the reason why He is referred to as our Father. Any parent will attest that when a child misbehaves, when they disobey, rebel, whatever, discipline is needed. Not because they love to reprimand their child, but simply because they love their child.
But then another comment was made about how some parents are less severe with discipline, while God seems to be almost cruel, abusive was the word used. How could a loving God kill hundreds, thousands of people. This got me thinking, and I really wish that they had waited a few more minutes to kick us out because I never really got to think through and answer this question. At the moment I mentioned how well the penalty of sin is death, eternal death of course. And I've heard it said before that when those people died it was because the wages of sin is death as it says in Romans, and that because of their unrepentant hearts it would have been their fate anyways, which of course is something only God can know. And maybe that's true. But maybe there is more to it than that...
The story I had been sharing several weeks ago began to be written early in my junior year of high school, in a time where I just beginning to understand the relationship I now relish in. I didn't have any idea really what it was I was writing as I sat in my old youth room that evening and quickly scribbled out a small section and incredibly rough draft of what has now become that story, especially that it would become what it is, but after a couple of years of additional parts and bits of editing here and there, there it is. Over the years I have often found myself looking back through it from time to time. And it never fails to continually astound me that all of that...that's us. That tunnel, that whole thing, that's us through and through.
An obvious meaning of the tunnel is natural human depravity, while we are trapped inside our sin with seemingly no way out. That is, until Jesus took a giant sledgehammer and shattered that tunnel by and in His love for us. But the tunnel has a very much more personal meaning as well.
We all go through our own personal Hell on Earth. We all have our tunnel, a tunnel that does not truly exist but still torments us day in and day out sometimes to the point of utter desperation. A place we loathe but simply cannot seem to escape. Escape the anguish, the bitterness, the solitude, the rage, the helplessness, the hopelessness, the darkness...
We just can't get out.
This tunnel can be any number of things: relationships, identity, even our very humanity. And very rarely is it exactly the same for two people because we each have different minds, different ways of thinking. Different torments. Mine is pretty much as close to literally all in my head as you can get. My tunnel is my mind itself. Call me your classic overthinker, and so often it is so easy for me to retreat into the dark recesses, making it just that much harder to pull myself back out when I truly wish to. For years now I've been wrestling with it, and still I can't seem to completely rid myself of the darkness of this tunnel that does not exist. But this isn't Sean 101 so moving on with my point....
The ironic thing about all of this though, is that so often God is the very one who in His magnificent Love chose to bless us with the very thing that becomes our tunnel, like for me a mind that enjoys going into overdrive way too much. For many people it's an extraordinary desire to love, and especially to be loved, even to the point of extreme measures. I would encourage you to contemplate and try to define what your particular tunnel is if you haven't already. You'll be surprised what kind of light it can shed. But when you think about it, the fact that it is the things God blesses us with the most that we view as our deepest curse makes all the sense in the world, for what is sin at it's most basic level but a denial of the things of God, and what do we find in sin, what is darkness really, but a twisted and perverse imitation of the brilliance of the things of God?
Like I said, we all have our own tunnel. But still, there is that crack. And what hope there is in that.
But even on a slightly simpler, day to day basis, how often do we seem to encounter tunnel after tunnel after tunnel. And being only as human as we are, we can only take so much before we ourselves start to crack, to break. And we beg, plead, pray for God to somehow steer us around them before we really even have to deal with them. Because the tunnel...well it's not a exactly a fun place to be. Definitely not filled with the joy and peace and love we were promised when Jesus tore down the tunnel and washed away the anguish, the bitterness, the solitude, the rage, the helplessness, the hopelessness, the darkness by His incredible sacrifice.
Or is it?
See that's the thing, with the hope we have. We can actually make it through the tunnel...not just slyly sidestep around it.
"Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil, for You are with me..." Psalm 23:4
This past week we had the first Veritas forum at Western Kentucky University, and though I thoroughly enjoyed listening to one of the world's more prominent quantum chemists it was the conversations afterward that really shook me. I eventually found myself conversing that evening about the Love of God, of all things, and eventually the conversation come to a point where one of the people we were talking to made a comment about how God wasn't always Love, couldn't have been, because how could all of that wrath and anger be part of a loving God?
Now this is a question that has been pondered and discussed for centuries, and me with my measly 19 years of life experience could never hope to have discovered the absolute answer to this question. It also reminded me of the question that always seems to come up: Why do bad things happen to good people? How can there be so much suffering in a world that a God who loves, who is Love, rules and reigns over?
The first thing I thought of was the example of the Father, the reason we call Him Father and part of the reason why He is referred to as our Father. Any parent will attest that when a child misbehaves, when they disobey, rebel, whatever, discipline is needed. Not because they love to reprimand their child, but simply because they love their child.
But then another comment was made about how some parents are less severe with discipline, while God seems to be almost cruel, abusive was the word used. How could a loving God kill hundreds, thousands of people. This got me thinking, and I really wish that they had waited a few more minutes to kick us out because I never really got to think through and answer this question. At the moment I mentioned how well the penalty of sin is death, eternal death of course. And I've heard it said before that when those people died it was because the wages of sin is death as it says in Romans, and that because of their unrepentant hearts it would have been their fate anyways, which of course is something only God can know. And maybe that's true. But maybe there is more to it than that...
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