I'm in the Lord's Army...

Cory and I and all our spiritual family who comprise City Light Church have been  studying and discussing in recent weeks some misconceptions about who God is, what love is (which is really one and the same since God is Love), and what it is he really wants from us.  During one of our recent discussions, we made mention of the passage in 1 Corinthians 13 that tells us love is not self-seeking.  That translates into God is not self-seeking, which I don’t think I’d ever have said I doubted.  Of course he’s not!  He’s God, and therefore, he’s good and perfect and kind and so on and so forth.  Sometimes, though, when you get inside and underneath what your words are confessing as belief, you can see what it is your heart really holds on to.

I’ve often thought of the church in military terms.  We’re the “army of God.”  We turn to him for “marching orders.”  I even diligently taught my sons all the words, complete with motions, to the song “I’m in the Lord’s Army” when they were little.  The problem is, when I think in those terms, a de-personalization occurs.  I’m just one in the ranks; just a part of the corps.  The whole becomes more important than the individuals who form the whole.  And while I might not notice on a conscious level, I begin to view God as one who is interested in me because of the contribution I can make to his cause.  I’ve long held to the belief that God would use me as a part of his great plan.  In fact, I’ve prayed that:  “God, I just want to be used by you.”  Sounds spiritual enough… but transfer that into any other relationship.  “Cory, I just want you to use me.  I don’t care whether or not you value me or my individuality in any way other than how it furthers your desires and plans.”  I would have no desire to be in such a selfish relationship.  Yet I’ve seen God as one who would “use” me for his purposes, his plans, his agenda.  That sounds self-seeking to me- but we’re told love isn’t so.  So either we’ve been lied to about what love is and is not- or we’ve been guilty of viewing God in light of how we’ve believed love to be.

In the book The Misunderstood God and the Lies Religion Tells About Him, the author makes this statement:  “God does have a purpose, but that purpose is not for us to be servants… His purpose is for us to be his sons and daughters, and out of those relationships, we become the message.”  This says to me that God doesn’t need me- he wants me!  Not because of what I can do for him, but because he chose to make me his child and one upon whom he can lavish his love.

I love this journey of becoming!!!

Clutter

I was sick over the weekend, and my house reflected it!  (In all honesty, the sickness I had was, in terms of ailments, not too bad; I didn’t feel all that poorly.  Nonetheless, sick is sick, and so I took full advantage of lying around and doing not a thing!)  My house being in a state of chaos wouldn’t be that big of a deal.  It was more just a matter of straightening and de-cluttering.  However, my husband has a monthly meeting with a group of his friends in our home, and of course it came on the heels of my being under the weather, so I felt a little more stress than normal in my housecleaning.  I voiced my concern about having the get-together in our home this month because, after all, there might still be lingering germs, and for the sake of these fine gentlemen, perhaps meeting elsewhere should be considered.  He didn’t buy it, though; he saw right through my ruse.  (In my defense, I really do like Cory’s friends, and I really don’t want them to get sick!)  “Honey,” Cory said to me, “stop stressing over the house.  It’s practically spotless already!”

Spotless!!  Spotless?!  How could he say such a thing with a straight face?!  Spotless- ha!  I found myself wanting to point out to him every crumb, speck, and smudge.  And then it was as if my “spiritual application alarm” went off, and I could sense the Holy Spirit peeling back the layer of what was happening on the surface so I could see what was a bit deeper.  Cory was looking at our home the way God looks at my heart.  Jesus already paid the price for my sins- all I’ve ever committed, as well as all I’ll commit in the future- and because of my friendship with him, that’s all God sees when he looks at me.  He’s not naïve; it’s not as though I pull the wool over his eyes when I blow it and he thinks I’m perfect.  But just because I live within the constraints of the present doesn’t negate the fact that when Christ died, it was once and for all.  It’s a done deal.  I’m made right with God.  Like I tell my kids, when God looks at me now, it’s through his “Jesus Lenses.”  Instead of my sin, he sees a heart that’s pure, and it’s the apple of his eye.  Just as I was viewing my home at the time, it’s easy for me to view my heart in a different light than God does.  I see all the things that are out of place; wrong; messed up… and they stress me out; and I point them out to God time and time over.  And his response is, “What are you talking about?  It’s spotless!  It’s a thing of beauty!  And it delights me to no end!”  I sure do love that God of mine! :)

Masterpiece

“Masterpiece”

Frustration welling up inside

was loosing tears that would not hide

behind a stoic, masquerading face.

The page was marred, the smudges glared

as though defiant  heads they rared

at my attempts the failures to erase.

“What can be done?” my heart did cry,

for nothing more to do knew I.

The brokenness in my gift would not mend.

An off’ring did I long to bring,

my life– a story he could sing!

But this, I feared, would cause his heart to rend.

With heavy heart and tear-stained cheeks

I gave the gift; I could not speak.

Afraid was I that he would not approve.

“What’s this?” he asked with tender tone.

“Just what I want!  I’ve always known

with this most precious gift what I will do.”

He took it in his loving hands

and held me close, then bid me stand

So that my off’ring I could fully see.

And only as a Master can,

he formed and fashioned every strand,

And I beheld my life– a Masterpiece!

~L. Walker, 2009

Gilded Cage

Painstakingly I formed and fused a gilded cage of golden hues

To house my bruised and battle weary heart,

Gingerly placed it deep inside, locked away that it might hide

In tiers of defense I had deemed as art.

With grand resolve and steadfast eye, stood guard, I did, should any guise

Of menace spear the bastion of my charge.

But as I heedfully stood my ground, it struck me the melodic sound

Once chorused by my heart was now a dirge.

Frantically I looked high and low, certain an unsuspected foe

Did infiltrate this stronghold great and strong.

“’Tis not a foe,” my heart did cry, “so near at hand that bids me die.

A deathtrap has this cage been all along.”

“My motive- love!”  was my protest, “to keep you safe, ensconce you, lest

You suffer from an anguish unforeseen.”

“But should I ne’er embrace such pain, to know love’s touch, I then should feign,

Emancipation bowed to ‘could have been’.

The time has come to let me go, to set me free that I might know

The touch that transforms heart wounds into scars.”

I understood.  The risk was great.  In jeopardy was my heart’s fate.

And I let go… Thus fell away the bars.

-L. Walker - 2007

Bug Guts

I’ve been pondering crushed ladybugs lately.  Odd, I know.  And not my normal fodder for my thought life.  Nonetheless, I’ve been seeing images in my mind’s eye of a tiny little hand holding a gross gob of bug guts that had moments earlier been a ladybug.  My then three-year-old son had thrust his hand into my face to show me.

            “Wook, Mommy!  It’s my wadybug!”

            “Ew!  What happened to it?” I asked as I hurriedly searched my purse for baby wipes and hand sanitizer.

            “I cwushed it,” he said.

            “Logan, why did you crush the ladybug?” I asked him, scanning my memory banks for any information that would indicate that early stages of psychosis included crushing bugs.  One look into those big, brown puppy-dog eyes, though, allayed any hint of fear.  They were full of emotion- a mixture of concern, sadness, and resolution.

            “I had to, Mommy,” he said.  “My wadybug twied to fwy away.”

            This memory surfaced recently as I was contemplating the relationships in my own life.  One in particular had my stomach in knots.  Actually, it wasn’t as much the relationship that had me concerned as much as it was what I perceived as potential pain and loss.  I feared for my friend, or so I thought, and I was determined to do what I could to save her.

            For many years, I’ve described myself as passionate about relationships, specifically those heart-level friendships wherein you get to know the very essence of the other person and allow yourself to be known in like manner.  I’d experienced the benefit of it for myself, to be sure, and when you experience something that inspires growth and healing, you want everyone to get what you got.  One of the things I realized as I read Scripture was that friendship is sometimes messy; it’s not always roses and sunshine.  Sometimes there’s tension.  Disagreements arise; no one’s perfect, so we all mess up from time to time; and, especially if you’re a woman, hormones can wreak all kinds of havoc!  But I saw that God expected true friends to weather these storms and, when necessary, to wound as only a friend can when the goal is healing, for wounds of a friend are better than kisses from an enemy.

            I was contemplating all of this the other day when I was considering my thoughts, feelings, and actions concerning my friend.  I somewhat self-righteously determined that it would be a lot easier if I had remained oblivious to the less fun aspects of friendship, for because of it, my lot in life was now to experience martyrdom (not my conscious thought at the time, but the attitude was certainly present).  However, it was okay, because this is sometimes what loving your friend looks like.  Hadn’t I learned that years ago?  Yet still I didn’t enjoy feeling like my friends were angry with me, and I couldn’t begin to count the times I thought and re-thought and second-guessed whether the things I had done and said, while done and said with a sincere belief that I was walking in truth and doing what I had prayerfully determined to be best, were somehow wrong.  The stomach knots simply grew tighter.

Suddenly, I had a moment of revelation.  Many times the Holy Spirit reveals things to me gradually and over time, but this was no less than a “light bulb” moment in which I saw something quite vividly and instantaneously.  Loving your friends!  Loving your friends… Loving… There came a subtle albeit very powerful shift in my perspective and in my understanding.  When love is the motivator for what you do and say, it changes everything.  For one thing, love covers a multitude of sins; so even if and when we miss a beat in our efforts to spur our friends on, it’s really okay because the underlying motive is love.  But it occurred to me that I wasn’t really loving my friend.  I was somewhat  treating her like Logan’s ladybug.  I was afraid of losing her; I didn’t want her to fly away, so I felt the need to close my hand over her more tightly.  If love isn’t self-seeking, and love does what’s in the very best interest of another regardless of the cost to self, while I truly love my friend as unconditionally as a person can love, what I was demonstrating was the antithesis of love.  I was more concerned about how a perceived loss would affect me than I was with what my friend truly needed.

I was struck by the irony of what I’ve been doing.  I took an experience and a revelation- that God created us for relationship and heart-level connection with our brothers and sisters in Christ- and essentially turned it into a law.  I took note of everything the Bible teaches about relating to one another as co-heirs of Christ, and I made every effort to “be good” in this area.  I turned loving people into a means of maintaining right standing with God.  That sounds so utterly ridiculous, but as one who has struggled with legalism and perfectionism for the vast majority of her life, that’s an area in which I don’t always see the forest for the trees, so to speak.

While this revelation wasn’t what I would call exactly fun, it was, on another hand, incredible.  I’m always amazed by how gently the Holy Spirit corrects and leads.  He wasn’t at all harsh, nor was he disappointed in me.  In fact, because God is love, then it’s his very nature to want to show me areas in which I’m not walking in the freedom Christ brought me.  It’s his desire to free me to completely love so I can be free to be loved completely.

So to my friends:  My motives have been sincere, but sometimes I’ve been sincerely wrong.  And that’s okay; I tend to forget that I, too, have the freedom to learn from my mistakes and my misunderstandings and that I’m just as deserving of having grace and mercy shown me as those to whom I endeavor to show the same.  God is so good, and his love so unfailing.  He’s showing me that in much fuller measure; just when I think I’ve grasped what unconditional love is, he causes me to zoom out and see a bigger picture of it.  I pray this for each of you- and not because of how it might benefit me. J  I pray this because I know how dear to God’s heart you are, and how dear you are to mine as well, and as much as I desire for you to know more fully the passion of God for you, he desires it all the more.

Opposition

“Any movement toward freedom and life, any movement toward God or others, will be opposed.  Marriage, friendship, beauty, rest- the thief wants it all.” ~John Eldredge, Waking the Dead

I had one of the most beautiful, wonderful, spiritual experiences of my life recently.  I was praying for some people I knew who were struggling with various issues.  While the issues varied, I had the sense that they all had something similar at the core- that they stemmed from false perceptions of how God wanted to relate to them.  I was overwhelmed by the thought of how often God is indicted because of a lack of understanding or a level of spiritual immaturity on our parts.  In that moment, I had a transcendent experience- a moment of clarity when I was tuned in to the frequency of the Spirit in such a way that I got it!  Something that I’d been professing belief in for quite some time actually clicked somewhere in my heart, and I really got it.  In a moment that in some ways defies explanation or description, I caught a glimpse of my Father’s heart as I hadn’t before, and I loved him more fully than ever before in my life.  And I wanted to defend him!  Not that I thought he needed me to come to his defense… I can only liken it to how I might feel if someone were upset with my husband about something he’d done or said if they didn’t know him well and understand that his intentions and motives were pure and right.  I would want to correct their misinterpretation of his actions and reveal his character to them; I would want them to see in him the man I know him to be.  I cried out, “God!  I want people to know who you are!  I want them to love you the way I do!  I want them to know your love the way I’ve known it and am knowing it!”  And I realized:  I was living out that which I had been claiming to believe.  My desire to reach out to others was, in that moment, a natural outflow of my love relationship with God.  It wasn’t based on a sense of obligation or legalism.  It was incredibly exciting to me.  This was a milemarker in my journey with God.  But then…

Thoughts.  Impressions.  Fear.  Ideas that obviously weren’t coming from God.  “Who do you think you are?  Do you think you’re oh-so-spiritual now?  Pride!”  And then insane feelings of insecurity.  “Well, you’d better love God that much, because you know so-and-so?  She’s on the verge of deciding she really can’t stand you after all.  You’re going to be alone… left behind… insignificant…”  It would seem I should have learned by now; nevertheless, I tend to underestimate the enemy’s determination to hold me back and bring me down.  I underestimate my potential; and I underestimate the power and effectiveness of a friend of God coming alive and living from the heart.  When we embrace our liberation, we encourage others to do likewise.  So we become a threat.

“So, it becomes the devil’s business to keep the Christian’s spirit imprisoned.  He knows that the believing and justified Christian has been raised up out of the grave of his sins and trespasses.  From that point on, Satan works that much harder to keep us bound and gagged, actually imprisoned in our own grave clothes.  He knows that if we continue in this kind of bondage… we are not much better off than when we were spiritually dead.”  ~A.W. Tozer

So I pray for more of that spiritual acuity.  Vision beyond what my eyes can behold.  Awareness of the things that go on in the spiritual realm, because that’s where the battle is taking place.  I pray that for those I know personally, and I pray that for those I haven’t yet met.  Because I know my Father’s great passion for them.  He sets our feet in a wide open space, and there is freedom to roam and explore and find those treasures he’s put in our paths to find.  Life is so much more than following the rules; becoming a “good” or “better” Christian… It’s about living life to the full.  It’s about becoming!

No More "Hearing"

I recently made a rather bold, somewhat surprising, perhaps even controversial decision regarding my relationship with God.  I decided that I will cease trying to “hear” him.  I can see where such a proclamation might cause jaws to drop.  It seems as though that would be counterproductive to my developing a deeper intimacy with Christ.  After all, in any relationship, communication is key.  It would never even occur to me that I stop trying to “hear” my husband.  I understand that’s a sure recipe for marital disharmony!  But my relationship with God is far different than my relationship with any human being.  Because God is spirit, he has none of the limitations of frail humanity, and therefore, his communication isn’t confined to verbalization.  When I focus on “hearing” God, whether I think I’m doing so or not, I limit the manner in which I relate to him.  And it seems to me that relating with God is the ultimate goal.  He loves me.  He desires relationship with me.  So of course he’s communicating with me.  Yet how often have I been guilty of uttering the words, “God just isn’t talking to me lately!”  I believe that as we grow and mature, it’s God’s intention to expand our horizons by allowing us to experience greater levels of his spirit communing with ours.

I believe God can and does use anything and everything to communicate his love and revelations of himself, but I think there are two very overlooked means by which he does so.  One of those is through the desires and passions of our hearts.  I think we’re often lulled into believing that our hearts are thoroughly wicked, and therefore any desire we have has to be crucified for the sake of being a good Christian.  However, the Bible says that when we’re in Christ, we’re a new creation, and it also says that he places within our redeemed hearts desires and passions in line with who it is we’re created to be.  It’s not all that difficult to distinguish between the desires of the heart and the desires of the flesh.  Ironically, it’s sometimes easier to grant the desires of our flesh than it is the desires of our hearts.  What if we gave ourselves permission to act upon our godly passions?  Or to stop doing some things that we’re not passionate about?

Another manner by which God communicates is our imaginations.  I was reluctant to accept that when I first thought about it.  There is a lot of New Age teaching with regard to imagining and opening the mind and such, and  I wanted no part of that.  Neither do I now.  However, it occurred to me that God created the imagination.  He does all he does purposely.  So what was the purpose of the imagination?  The Greek word for “imagine” is the same word for “meditate.”  When I discovered that, it suddenly made sense to me that the imagination is a faculty of the mind- that place where the enemy has no problem sowing lies and negativity.

Philippians 4:8 says, “Summing it all up, friends, I'd say you'll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious—the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse.”  I’ve been guilty of treating this passage of Scripture as nothing more than a good suggestion.  After all, it takes effort to train my mind to travel in a different direction than it’s used to going.  But what if giving my imagination over to the Holy Spirit and meditating on him would exponentially open the eyes of my heart and my understanding to those secrets he wishes to reveal to me?

Things to ponder…