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In The Meantime…

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(Been pretty quiet here. Just a lot to process. Still struggling to find words, but…}

I’ve been conflicted for some time now…years, probably. Over and over, talking to people and realising that their Jesus and mine isn’t the same…that their Jesus sounds like an absolute monster and I get why they would walk away. And then I wonder if I am just part of the problem…with my inconsistencies and fears, my not wanting to offend/hurt people, not wanting to be yet another voice in the chaos–claiming to be representing God. I just…dunno.

No one has been kinder to me than the Lord. No other love has so pursued me when I’ve run away, been so patient with and through my sin, so calmed me on days when I want to bang my head against a wall until it bursts, so listened to my fears, so let me be my weird self, called me out of darkness and despair…I don’t quite have words. I just know this song says so much of what I’ve been struggling with for years.

Also? Benjamin Hastings is a genius.

The Power of Weakness (Repost)

04 Wednesday Aug 2021

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I’ve been pretty quiet here. Just too much to process, I guess. When I thought about what to possibly say, I realised I had already said it…in 2012. Here goes:

What do you do when you get to the end of yourself? What will it take to get you there?

It’s funny how I’ll know something is true, but spend years denying it. I know I can’t be trusted. As much as I appear to have it together on some levels, there’s just something in me that tends towards my own destruction–gleefully.

Even knowing that I can’t be trusted to do something as simple as brush my teeth every night or take a shower every day (most days, though. Teehee), I still want to get things right. I want to be strong enough to resist the things I know I should stay away from. Why? Because I know I should stay away from them. I want to not do what I know is wrong. I want to be strong, but I’m not. I’m terribly, terribly weak.

Not only am I frail beyond my own comprehension, I also delight in things I ought not to. No matter how I try to deny it, no matter how I take refuge in the illusion of improvement, this is who I am.

But, this is good news–excellent, even. I can’t make myself different. There isn’t going to come a day when my desires will suddenly line up with military precision to the standards of morally acceptable conduct. There won’t be a day when I wake up loving God above all, and hating sin (general or specific) to the point of utter repulsion. It’s just not coming.

It doesn’t need to.

See, when I stopped trying to fix myself, and just embraced the reality that I am truly wicked, I had to fall on God’s mercy. All these things I ought not to do will never fade by human effort. Only God can change me. God, who loves me as I am, just wants me to look into His eyes and give myself to Him, wretch that I am. That is where the fullness of joy comes from…from seeing God and knowing He is Love…from facing the reality of my own brokenness and the incomparable greatness of the God who makes all things new.

So, what’s your story, your “struggle”? I won’t say it doesn’t matter, but it is not the hindrance you may think it is. God knew us in advance, and He chose us. He saw that we’d fail, saw that we’d watch pornography, have sex when we shouldn’t, have homosexual desires, have abortions, kill, rape, steal, hate, lie…saw that we’d willingly and gladly worship all but Him. He saw that, and He loved us…still loves us.

He saw us, and He chose us…He delights in us through Jesus, as we are.

Let’s just be honest with ourselves. We’re not gonna beat those things, and the sooner we face it, the better. God longs to bring us to Him, to transform us as we fix our eyes on Him. He is the goal, not acceptable behaviour. Let’s be honest with God. Let’s be honest with each other. We suck, and it’s okay.

I dare you. Open up to God. Open up to someone about your struggles, someone who will pray with and for you…someone who will love on you. See where it leads.

Perhaps the first step to freedom is facing the power of our own weakness.


Update
This song (sheer genius) is one of my recent obsessions:

A Crisis Of Faith (Part 2 of…?)

29 Tuesday Nov 2016

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One of my favourite people ever is agnostic. Strangely enough, he has done more for my faith than just about anyone else in my life. We have difficult discussions, perhaps made more challenging by the difference in our worldviews. As much as I wish he would return to a place of faith, I can’t deny the world needs more people like him–those capable of independent thought, not stemming from rebellion, but a genuine thirst for knowledge.

A common theme in our discussions is that he thinks my faith is…unshakeable? He once said he can’t picture me at a place of not believing God exists. For some reason, this has always baffled me, perhaps because belief in God’s existence does not imply it has any effect on one’s life. Perhaps because of the gulf that has always existed between my head and my heart.

I think, to him, it’s hard to perceive the love of a God whose existence you have much reason to question. For me, it’s hard to deny the existence of a God whose love you can’t escape, despite your best efforts. That’s probably the hardest thing to explain: that I’m not a Christian because I’m awesome and I just love this Jesus Guy so much, but because I honestly suck, and He hasn’t backed down from that.

In the face of relentless love, it would be intellectually dishonest of me to say God doesn’t exist, but what does an acknowledgement of His existence guarantee? Can’t I know He exists, but not give a hoot? Can’t I live as if He doesn’t exist, as if I’m sovereign, as if what He says doesn’t matter? I can. And I have. That is the story of my life and my faith journey. Almost 20 years in, I’m still a colossal wretch, but isn’t that the point? Isn’t that what the Cross shows us? That we are all far from awesome, but it’s not a deal-breaker? That we are tansformed, not by understanding we are wrong, but by understanding we are loved? That God, who is Love, is willing to walk with us…as we are?

That’s a hard concept for many people, especially Christians, to grasp. Maybe that’s why I don’t know how to talk to people about this Jesus I know…because He might not be the same one you have heard about. Maybe you’ve heard about a ‘God’ whose love you have to work for, who is put off by your failings and the very stench of your humanity, who dangles the idea of salvation like a carrot, but is really waiting for you to screw up enough for him to cut you off. But, that’s not my God. If He were like that, I would have been cut off years ago…because I’m not joking when I say I’m a sinner.

I’m definitely not a good person, and I probably break more of God’s laws than many people who don’t even believe in Him. I’m detached and callous, I have anger issues, and if the morality police decided to come after me? Life sentence. There is nothing about me that qualifies me to be a Christian, and I’d be an even bigger liar if I told you I could change. It is not in me to love God, or even to love people well. I care, but only as much as my built-in resistance allows. I’m about as far from perfect as you’re likely to find on this planet, and there’s nothing I can do about it.

I am a sinner. And that is why I need Jesus.

But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Romans 5:8 (NKJV)
New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson.

 

A Crisis Of Faith (Part 1 of…?)

30 Wednesday Mar 2016

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Eighteen years. That’s a long time to be anything, especially a Christian. For the better part of those eighteen years, I was in an environment that encouraged my faith, and made it possible for me to develop an identity that wasn’t rooted in meaningless religious exercise. I was never taught that my faith made me a better person than those who didn’t share it. As a result of that faith, I developed a worldview founded upon the indisputable value of each person, and tried to live accordingly, though not perfectly.

Over the past eighteen months, I have been caught in a struggle. I don’t consider myself to be what I call an obnoxious Christian, so I don’t believe in shoving my faith in people’s faces or down their throats. Some may see this as being ashamed of being a Christian, but I honestly don’t see what in mainstream (Western) Christianity merits such pride. More importantly, I could not see what in my own life was worth being proud of.

I have moved from a safe faith environment to one that doesn’t readily seem to offer any place for the faith that has moulded so much of who I am. Thankfully, I am surrounded by some of the most amazing people I have ever known, but that encouragement in matters of faith has been missing. Some of these people don’t even see God as worthy of the least significance. Does that make them bad people? Definitely not. But, it made me have to step back and view my faith through different eyes. This place has done more than challenge me–it has revealed the absence of a living faith.

I was (and, in many ways, still am) in possession of a faith that had yet to transcend my intellect and make its way into my heart. You see, I fully believe in all Jesus has done for me, but I had closed my heart to what He wants to do in me. I had woefully neglected to live out the very principles I claimed to hold dear. It took being away from the comforts of home for me to truly appreciate that my faith is worthless if it does not lead to a transformed heart. If I am not growing in my love towards people, if I deny others the same grace gladly extended to me, if I am not kind in the way I think about others, then how am I being Christian (like Christ)?

Now, I’m in a vulnerable spot–and vulnerability is not my strong suit. Surrounded by people who have accepted me, but appear to have little use for my Christ, all my inconsistencies are out in the open. To be honest, this is exactly what I needed…not a faith I can hide behind, but one that calls me to true love and openness.

It’s so ironic that it took being away from my Christian circle to reveal the deficiencies in my faith, but I’m grateful and humbled. Grace has found me in this place, and I trust it to lead me home.

 If the faith I claim to hold has not taken hold of me, it is less than genuine…and so am I.

Hypocrite?

19 Wednesday Mar 2014

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For some time now, I’ve been wondering what would happen if people dared to be honest. See, I like to think I’m honest, but I doubt I am. I see relatively clearly, and I tend to say it as I see it, but if my innate dishonesty hobbles my capacity for objective sight, what’s the point? 

I think I’m a hypocrite…most days, anyway. Can any other label be as fitting when I face a world I have no desire to even be in? When God’s name flows so easily in conversation, but there seems to be no place for Him in my heart? When I tell myself this will pass, because it has passed before? The fact is, each step of this tortuous dance is familiar, yet I will not end it. Because I’m a hypocrite.

There is much to be said for the comfort of a cyclic existence, even with the overhanging knowledge that there is an end, and a rather unpleasant one at that. Knowing better awaits us outside of our self-constructed prisons rarely serves as motivation to break free. If you’re me, motivation does not make a habit of presenting itself. I’d rather tell myself I need to change than actually take steps in that direction. Because I’m a hypocrite.

Enthralled witness to my own demise, the question of an exit strategy arises. As much as I possess an intellectual hold on grace, I’m not very good at facing it. Grace exposes the liar in me. It tells me I will fail, but empowers me not to. It reveals my intrinsic unlovableness, yet lavishes upon me a love so independent and ferocious, I instinctively flee from it. I refuse to take hold of the redemption I so readily remind others of. Because I’m a hypocrite.

Perhaps it is the admission of hypocrisy that leads to its end.

O Love that wilt not let me go,
I rest my weary soul in Thee;
I give Thee back the life I owe,
That in Thine ocean depths its flow
May richer, fuller be.

O Light that followest all my way,
I yield my flickering torch to Thee;
My heart restores its borrowed ray,
That in Thy sunshine’s blaze its day
May brighter, fairer be.

O Joy that seekest me through pain,
I cannot close my heart to Thee;
I trace the rainbow through the rain,
And feel the promise is not vain,
That morn shall tearless be.

O Cross that liftest up my head,
I dare not ask to fly from thee;
I lay in dust life’s glory dead,
And from the ground there blossoms red
Life that shall endless be.

– “O Love That Wilt Not Let Me Go” (George Matheson, 1882)

I Am A Liar.

17 Tuesday Sep 2013

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Roads paved with good intentions often lead to a predictable destination. That may very well be the story of the major portion of my life. Or, maybe I should get one of those life things before I attempt to determine its story.

Whatever the case, I am a liar. What other option is there, if any plans I make in the direction of change tend to be little more than passing acknowledgements of the need for a difference? Who else can I be when I make promises I know I can’t–and often, won’t–keep? When I’m content to see what needs to be done, but do nothing about it?

There are few poisons as potent as self-deceit. You see, it is all too easy to think that knowing something is wrong is a sufficiently significant step in the right direction. Some of us, present company topping the list, never take another step. How natural it is to sit and nurse the idea of disturbed equilibrium, weaving it into a grand quest (complete with the requisite slaying of dragons), only to have it stay there and become nothing but an overgrown obstacle. Welcome to my world.

I’ve had quite a few people tell me I know what’s wrong with everyone but me. Comforting as that notion may be to those holding it, it is so erroneous that it is almost laughable. Fear not, I know what’s wrong with me (or have a good enough grasp of the extent of my dysfunction)…I’m just not particularly inclined towards doing anything about it. What does that make me? Not just a liar, actually. It makes me full of–ehem, overflowing with excrement.

Usually, at this point, I’d launch into some lovely truths about God and the fullness of grace. For me, those are not the platitudes they can so easily double as. But, today, doing so would serve only to cement what is the point of this post.

I. Am. A. Liar. And that, my friend, is the truth.

Something More…

25 Tuesday Jun 2013

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It is no secret that, of all the things I’ve done with my life, living hasn’t been one of them. From time to time, the reality of my mortality works its way into my consciousness, and there’s that inescapable question of when (whether?) I will finally learn what it means to live. Finally decide to live.

Whereas I’ve missed out on so many things that were quite within reach, none of those things, or any combination thereof, had the power to shake me up by virtue of its absence. Usually, being unshakable is a good thing, but when you’re Lori? Not so much.

Discontent has somehow managed to provide the illusion of safety–as if I needed further proof of my insanity. Oh, to step out of that wretched yet beloved prison of my own carving. To taste even the tiniest morsel of the elusive entity we know as freedom.

To be more than a wounded soul most at home in its own poison.

To remember You.

And now, Lord, what wait I for? My hope is in Thee.

Psalm 39:3 (KJV)

Great

Image source

 

Solitaire?

08 Wednesday May 2013

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I’m the only one who can live my life.

That has got to be the scariest thing I’ve thought about in a long while. Whereas it’s indisputable that I’m, at heart, a loner, there’s phantom comfort in knowing that looking around does not yield a barren landscape. I’m so used to living on the fringes of my world (my sister would say the problem is that I have a world…:P) that I don’t often spend time in it. The price paid for that tends to be total disrepair.

Change is hard…and I have to change. As great and supportive as people are/can be, and as grateful as I am for the amazing people in my life, no one can do this for me. No one can hold my hand through the process of learning to breathe…not to the point that they can make me function in ways I refuse to. No one can make me get up one day and decide to do more than take fleeting glances at what it means to live. I want no one to.

I’ve never been that person who can’t be alone, who doesn’t know the value of silence, who finds the company of self to be petrifying. In the same breath, the alternative leaves me most out of my depth. This is who I am. Just a weirdo trying to glean lessons without having to be knocked senseless first. I’m no superhero. I’m not even a real person most days, but I’d like to think I’m learning what that looks like.

This is who I am…and I embrace that fully, remaining cognizant of the reality that I am not static. I will not always be this person, but if I don’t engage in the process, I may not like the person I become.

I’m the only one who can live my life. And, I will.

Thus says the Lord God to these bones: ‘Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. And I will lay sinews upon you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live, and you shall know that I am the Lord.’

Ezekiel 37:5, 6 (ESV)
The Holy Bible, English Standard Version Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers.

Sabotage

17 Wednesday Apr 2013

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Fear is one of those things I don’t process well. I just don’t have many active fears. I have huge categories of fears, and then they morph into…aversions. 😛 Weird as it sounds, I think I have an aversion to “good”. As soon as my life begins to look up, as soon as I begin to make smart choices, something in me retaliates by finding the quickest way to sabotage it.

I think this would be easier to handle if it were deliberate. It is so intrinsic and so entrenched in the essence of Lori that I very often don’t see it outside of the lens of retrospect. But, I see it now. I’ve seen it before. And, I can’t change it. Maybe that’s what I need to embrace. Left up to my own devices, all I can do is kill myself, succeed only in depriving my soul of one breath at a time.

And, you know, part of me says this shouldn’t be so. I mean, I’m smart enough (I reckon), I’ve known God long enough, I have enough amazing people in my life for this to not be who and what I revert to with such ease. I know God saw this–saw me–coming, and still chose me. Gladly. He didn’t choose me to remain as I am, though. He chose me to remain in Him. But, I don’t…won’t?

Maybe that’s it. Maybe it’s the same plight plaguing all of humanity — that innate core of rebellion against the Creator. Whatever the case, I can’t keep living as if God is a liar…as if the life He offers is somehow on a plane that ought not to impact and define my everyday life. I cannot persist in the distorted reality I call ‘grace’, for if grace were seen correctly, if grace were my reality, would it not spur me on to abundance of life? To obedience? My head gets grace, but my heart? Well, that story is perhaps best left untold.

So, why continue to kill saplings of anything good and beautiful in my life? Why act as if my worth is such that I’m most content within the confines of Suckville? Why, if I love myself as much as I’m convinced I do, won’t I give myself the best possible chance at life? Or, any chance, for that matter?

I can’t be alone in this…well, I hope not. Undoubtedly, I’m extreme, but there are elements of sabotage in each of us. How easily we tend towards our own destruction. Overcoming that tendency may lie outside of our reach, but there’s nothing to stop us from embracing it…and giving it to the Only One who can make us into what we were designed to be.

O Israel, you have destroyed yourself; but in Me is your help. I will be your king: where is any other that may save you…?

Hosea 13:9, 10 (KJV [paraphrased])

My Jorge, one of the best friends a Lori could ask for, gave me this song. (Fine, her name is Georgia…and how much I love her? No words…) Like, she’s all sunshine, rainbows, and pink rooms sometimes, and I kinda thought the song was along those lines, but it’s…sneaky. Maybe it’ll sneak up on you, too. 

Waiting for “The One”

23 Saturday Mar 2013

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You know, despite my sometimes realistic (fine, cynical) outlook, it seems the major part of me is still waiting for “the one”. Now, before some people fall off their chairs, let’s clear this up. We are by no means referring to this one person who is supposed to complete me (*ick*). Not only does no such person exist outside of the fertile ground of the imagination, that is too great a burden to place on anyone’s shoulders. But, we digress…

One of the promises I made in my last blog was that I’d stop lying to myself. Facing the truth is…more difficult than my vocabulary would permit me to express. It seems I’m still waiting for this one great thing that will change me…in ways that the combined efforts of the events of the past 27 years have been unable to.

(The above paragraphs were written on March 4. I’m not even sure why I didn’t finish.) This has been a better week than most, thanks to the sheer grace of God, which led to my admission that all I can do is fail. Like, I’m not sure whether other people have such limitations, but I. Rather. Suck. I mean, I’ll know I have things to do and, if I can’t be bothered, I won’t do them. I’ll know what I should do to improve my health, and just not do it. A fear of negative consequences has never been one of the driving forces of my life. If I’m honest, I’ll say I have no driving forces. See why I need Jesus? Teehee.

But, yes, this week has been good. I’ve been productive, disciplined, wise about my health, and I’ve even been nice to people. That, however, has evaporated, man. I’m just not capable of sustaining all that. I don’t have to–easily the best news ever. Yes, I’m still doing those things ±being-nice-to-people, but I constantly need the reminder that there is no great “one”. No one verse of Scripture that will so challenge my heart that I will turn from the wicked ways I’ve made my refuge…no one song that will so galvanise my soul that I will begin to care…no one teaching, camp, gathering, person, decision, act of the human will with sufficient potency to change the very me that is.

“The one” is both not coming and already here. Maybe “the one” isn’t an isolated act, but a series. Maybe it is not that epic moment, but those tiny moments that shape the fabric of humanity as gently and indelibly as water shapes rock. Maybe it is one day at a time, one moment at a time, one breath at a time, all fueled by grace.

Seems to me God has a plan. HE calls us. He calls us to Him; He says all we need to do is come. God doesn’t need an outline of how we’re proposing to be true to Him in the future. We don’t need to impress Him with our reliability–as if we could. Salvation is a gift, not a loan. We need only to accept His gift and live in, and by, His power to please Him. 

I know not where the future leads. Honestly, based on the mural presented by the past and present, I’d rather not know. What I know is I have today. We have today. We have joys and tears, strengths and failings, and all the other contrasts that make us human. And we have the One who saw us coming. The One who made us, knowing full well how much we would fail, how much we would need Him. And still made us, still loves us. Still delights in us.

We have the God who is Love, the only “One” worth waiting for.

O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be!
Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.

— “Come Thou Fount Of Every Blessing” (Robert Robinson, 1758)