Unusual and Uncomfortable Grace

So...I texted many of you about this and asked for prayer, but a few days ago I got in a wreck which the police have told me was my fault so I won't bother describing all of the details about. Thankfully no one was hurt and my car wasn't messed up too badly and the lady's truck doesn't have a scratch on it as far as I could tell. From the moment that I got into the accident I had a really supernatural peace and joy about everything. It all happened so fast but the first words that came out of my mouth were "Are you ok?....Ma'am....please calm down. Ma'am....it's ok...it's ok they are just cars....are you ok? It's ok....don't worry about it." Later, as I was standing on the side of the road looking my car over to see the damage, I actually laughed out loud to myself as I thought of the verse "Christ in you the hope of glory...." and I realized...my hope is not in my ca,r or my job, or my education, or my money, or my home, or my food even, but only in the Lord. Now if I were to be honest with everyone...which I will be....the first thoughts that came to my mind after I realized what had happened were not nearly as holy as the words that come out of my mouth first, my first thought was...."Man....I just got done fixing this thing....this sucks..." But still in the middle of that hard situation that was frustrating and surreal God met me with Joy and Hope and Peace and I can honestly say that since it has happened I have thanked God through out the day that it took place and more importantly that He is real and He loves me and He alone is my hope, and I don't have to trust in the "uncertainty of riches". Now....why did this happen....

Well, later that night I texted my friend from work to ask for a ride the next day and as I explained what happened, he texted me just simply "The devil....that punk..." and I laughed to myself and thought "The devil....no God did this." Now don't freak out I'm not going down the road of God's sovereignty in all things, but I can confidently say that I believe that God allowed...maybe even caused me to wreck my car. Why though is the real question? Well...just the day prior to the wreck I wrote this in my journal....

"I have realized now that I have grown comfortable where I am at, and though I would never say it out loud, I can confidently say that I demonstrate through how I have been living that I don't believe that I have much more growing to do. I live as though I have arrived, no longer straining towards what lies ahead, but rather growing complacent; I say I want more of God, but I don't live as though that were true. I'm not hungry. I'm not in need. I'm not desperate. I have enough and so I'm content...but all that I have doesn't satisfy because I simply have more things and not more of the Lord. 'Woe to you who are rich, and full, and happy, and comfortable, and loved, and accepted....for you have received your consolation.' A wife, kids, a home, a car and a job...is this my consolation for not having more of the Lord? Do I want to live with my hope in what I have now, or do I want to live with my hope in the Lord and what's to come, in the promise that one day all things will be made new, and one day I will be rich, and one day I will be full....that my 'reward is great in heaven', but what if it is already great now? Often I live in such a way as to protect my comfort...warning and cautioning myself from be too extravagant or faithful and obedient to the word of God, saying 'Don't give too much, don't put yourself out there too much to the point where you may get hurt...don't serve or love to well....don't take too lowly of a position. Look out for you. Save some for yourself.' I often live for myself rather than 'he who for my sake died and was raised'. do I really believe that He alone is worthy of my time and affections, plans and dreams, and my money and future? Or have I settled too much into the land of my sojourning that I no longer live here as a stranger? My money seems to be an easy and practical way of choosing God over myself. By giving it up, I am demonstrating that He is more worthy than my comfort and security; that I would 'rather suffer disgrace and hardship for the sake of Christ than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a short while'. Ultimately, this comes down to a love of self. I want to provide for myself. I want to love and worship me. I want to comfort me, but that was made for the Lord. He wants to love and cherish and provide for me. To serve me. He is Lord. He is worthy...am I living as though that is true? Am I living as though the Lord really is reward and treasure...my hope? It is not that we are to seek out poverty for the sake of holiness of blessedness or sanctification, but rather that poverty ought to be a natural manifestation and result of true kingdom living...true biblical living of 'being generous and ready to share' (1 Tim. 6:17-19). And it isn't that I have to go somewhere extravagant to do this...but I can do it here and now where I am. And it seems that my money is the way through which God is leading me to begin honoring him and living as though He alone is my treasure. Giving now is a real and practical way to put my money where my mouth is and not only say that I'm all in but show it. The Lord is what I want....but I keep convincing myself to to settle and to be satisfied with less, trying to keep making the less work or stretch out to be enough or to satisfy which it will never do....only the Lord will satisfy, but I keep trying to protect myself and my comfort warning myself away from the extreme...or rather the reasonable...of giving and loving till it hurts. I need to not hold back. I need to not worry about myself. I need to stop trying to provide for myself. I need to give sacrificially and extravagantly for the Lord's sake and for the sake of those whom He loves, trusting that there will always be enough to go around. 'There is always enough.' Always."

So maybe now you see why I laughed after the wreck. God, in His mercy and grace, brought push to shove for me so that when it really counted I could choose Him over self, and His comfort over my comfort. God provided me the opportunity to show that He is more worthy than my comfort, more glorious than what the world values, and more faithful than the uncertainty of riches. He is better. He is worth it.

"Blessed are the poor for theirs is the kingdom of God....Often we read the Beatitudes out of context, we turn them into conditional statements. 'If I want God's blessing, then I better seek after persecution or petition tragedy.' But that's missing the point. These blessings aren't necessarily mandates, but rather natural manifestations of kingdom living." - The Kingdom Experiment

Longing for what is Best.

For the last few months I have been wrestling with a number of desires and longings of my heart, some good and some bad, that I have been having to give to the Lord for a while now and it has gotten to the point where it is draining and arduous to do so.

Recently I was reading the book Passion and Purity by Elisabeth Elliott which I would highly recommend to anyone (I have read it 4 times now.) and I came to quote from her journal where she wrote...

"My heart was saying, 'Lord, remove this longing or give me that for which I long.', but the Lord was answering me, 'I must teach you to long for what is better.' "

In that chapter she talked about Deuteronomy 8 which is a passage that talks about how the Lord humbled the Israelites in the wilderness by causing them to be hungry and then feeding them with the Manna from heaven. Elisabeth talks about how we as God children are not meant to live on natural earthly bread but rather the supernatural bread from heaven and so our earthly desires just will not do. The Israelites were not longing for bread, they wanted the food they had enjoyed in Egypt...meat...vegetables...etc. and likewise I often do not long for the the bread that came down from Heaven, Jesus (John 6), at least not when it comes down to my natural desires, I don't want to learn the discipline of bringing my natural desires for community and relationship and love and acceptance and adventure under the Lordship of Christ, I want him to give me the things I long for or take away the longing, not to give me himself, His broken body and blood, and say "Peace, child, this is enough."

"Be careful to follow every command I am giving you today, so that you may live and increase and may enter and possess the land the LORD promised on oath to your ancestors. Remember how the LORD your God led you all the way in the wilderness these forty years, to humble and test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands. He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your ancestors had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD. Your clothes did not wear out and your feet did not swell during these forty years. Know then in your heart that as a man disciplines his son, so the LORD your God disciplines you."  ~ Deuteronomy 8:1-5

 The desire of God's heart behind giving the commands that He does to the Israelites is for their greater joy, and that it may go well with them and they may prosper in the land that he was giving them and so that it would go well with them in the end, (8:16). This shows me that the Lord recognizes that it isn't easy and that he feels my pain and longing and is able to sympathize with me as a faithful high priest, but it also shows me that he is after my greatest joy in the things that he allows into my life and by the things that he commands, that means this longing and aching is for my good...even if I just want it to go away so I can stop caring so much, but he made to care deeply.

Really when it comes down to it God is demonstrating his great love and mercy towards me by not giving me the things that I long for most, because in not giving them to me I am getting him in exchange. For God to deprive me of every thing that I long for that is only a shadow of the substance of Christ in order to give me more of himself or to enlarge my heart to receive more of him by being in need and being shown that His grace is sufficient for me in my weakness, that is truly Love, that is truly mercy. Like a father depriving his son of what he wants to give him what he needs. I wish I better understood and believed that.

I long to be like Mary who chose what was best by sitting at the Lord's feet and desiring him rather than running about and being worried and upset about much when only one thing was needed...to choose what is best by choosing the Body and Blood of Christ over her security and comfort and future which is what she did when she emptied the alabaster jar over him, which many scholars agree was probably a wedding dowry to help secure her a husband and with a husband rights and a future. Tearing off a piece of the bread during communion and dipping it into the wine holds so much more meaning now as I recognize that I am tearing off a piece of his flesh that was torn for me to bring me to God and to give me access to the Father, a piece of my daily bread and the word of God that I am supposed to live on torn from the body his son, as He says "Take and eat. I am the bread of life come down from heaven to be given for the sins of the world that if you eat of my flesh and drink my blood you will never hunger or thirst again. Just keep coming back for more. this is what you were made for. Natural food will never suffice. Come to the waters you who are thirsty. Come."

 “Come, all you who are thirsty,
   come to the waters;
and you who have no money,
   come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
   without money and without cost.
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 you will delight in the richest of fare.
Give ear and come to me;
   listen, that you may live." ~ Isaiah 55:1-3

"Being built up in Love."

So I just got back from OneThing recently and I have to say that it seems like each time I go to IHOP, I fall just a little bit more in love with the body of believers there and the ministry and most importantly Jesus. I think I recall Drew describing the people at OneThing as totally "bonkers for Jesus" and I think that is a very accurate statement.there were so many things that had a significant impact on me that I don't think I really have the time or energy to really explain it all of expand on it just yet because I am still processing a lot of it, but I would highly recommend that if you can you should try to check out the teachings from this year's conference.

I'll share just one little tidbit that really struck me. Allen Hood talked about the necessity of growing your heart along with your mind and said that if you are only growing your mind that you will be puffed up in knowledge rather than built up in love and wisdom. I feel like that is somewhere that I have been for a while now. I have felt as though my mind were growing exponentially quicker than my heart was and so I have all kinds of knowledge and facts and good things to share from commentaries and sermons but I have been lacking in the things that truly matter and truly endure such as love, faith, and hope. Knowledge is passing away but faith, hope, and love remain, and the greatest of these is love. He talked about the dire need of going deep into the word while also cultivating a lifestyle of prayer and fasting and worship. It is amazing to me how easy it is to quickly become unbalanced as a believer and how quickly we (or really I) can miss the point and begin chasing after something that was so far from what God was really after. I have a lot more to say about this but I think I'll save it for after i have processed it all more.