We Can Be Free

I was asked to write an article for a column in a local newspaper. Despite the fact that I have never read this column and actually never even heard of the newspaper until a few weeks ago, I said yes. A chance to get some of my words published--sure, yep, sign me up for that. I *think* that this column represents views held by the Church which are shared in a way that the average non-Christian could read it and be provoked or encouraged by it. But honestly, I'm not really sure.

For those of you who don't live in this area (and you absolutely will not find this column anywhere online), I've decided to share with you what I think I will probably be submitting to them. Enjoy!

Have you ever heard someone say, 'I don't want to be free?' No. Because people don't say that. We all want to be free, to live without constraint, without limitations, without hindrance and without fear. We want to be free to love and hope and dream and to do that which makes us feel alive inside. And not just for a moment, but for a lifetime. Good news: that is what Jesus came to give us. 

In His own words, He came to set the captives free. But who are the captives? The captive is anyone bound, dominated, or controlled by something--a person, an institution, a situation, a substance, a habit. 

But when we accept His sacrifice, what He did for us on the cross, we can begin to be truly free.

The truth is that God wants us to be free, and that with Him, we can be. We can be free from all those things that hold us back and we can move forward into the things that bring us real life. We can be free to do good out of love for God and others. We can be free to breathe deeply, to dream extravagantly, to pursue those desires that God has put within us. We can be free to experience a greater degree of peace and joy and hope and wonder. We can be free to boldly and courageously chase our destiny. We can be free to live a life of meaning, purpose and fulfillment. In Him, we can be free to fully live.

We Don't Get It

Wow. Tozer could be harsh sometimes! But that doesn't mean he wasn't right, because he was.

I think one of the most frustrating things to me is when Christians either don't pray and ask God what He wants or actually hear God and know what He's saying but refuse to obey.

I'm a big fan of asking God what He wants and hearing His will for my life. I want everything that He has for me and I know He will lead me perfectly. I believe He is an excellent leader (despite my moments of doubt) and I trust Him with my life. So it bothers me when other Christians don't live this way.

Just as a side-note, I've realized (especially lately) that there are very few things that bother me and that I am passionate about, but this is one, so I am giving myself permission to be frustrated by it and to share my thoughts with you, remembering what Paul Scanlon says, that 'Your complaint is your call,' which means I have to do something about my frustration. And so I write.

I had a Spanish friend who told me once of a Spanish saying that goes: 'Mas vale malo conocido que bueno por conocer,' which roughly translates to something like 'Better known evil than an unknown good,' or even 'What you know/have that's bad is better than what you could have that's good.' (I'm sure it's vastly more eloquent in Spanish.) At the time he told me about it I thought it was completely ridiculous. Why in the world would someone choose to keep the bad that they have rather than trade it for what has the possibility of being better? But as I've thought about this particular conversation, I realized, we do this all the time.

How often do we settle for less than God's best? How often do we choose to stay where we are, in the boring and fruitless but familiar (pit?) rather than follow His leading into the unknown and potentially beautiful and miraculous?

And why?? Why do we do this?

I think it's because we don't know God's heart.

We don't know that everything He does, He does out of love for us. We don't understand that He is Abba Father, that He is Daddy, and He is overwhelmed by us and totally in love with us. We don't understand that He is passionate about us and desires our good and our prosperity in Him. We don't actually get the fact that He is always with us and He will never leave us, that we don't have to walk this path alone and that He will provide everything we need along the way. We don't have a clue that everything in the universe He not only made but also owns and that He is happy to share it with us if we ask. We don't realize that He is the Giver of good gifts and that He wants to bless us and show us His incredible favour, doing more for us than we could possibly ask for or imagine. We just don't get it.

So, as frustrated as I've been, really, I'm also sorry. I'm sorry for those among us (myself included sometimes, I admit), who don't grasp the concept that Daddy is absolutely committed to our good and completely devoted to walking with us, providing for us, caring for us, loving us, and helping us become more like Jesus every moment of every day until we see Him face to face. And that makes me sorry that we don't do what He says. Because what He says is essentially, 'Come with Me.' This is an invitation to adventure, where our lives here on earth reflect the beauty and the glory and the majesty of who God is, which as a reality, is more fascinating and exhilarating and magnificent than anything we, in ourselves, could ever hope to imagine. That is what Ephesians 3:20 is all about. That is the life that God has for us. And that is the life that we miss out on when we don't 'do what He says.'

What He's Doing

Have you ever found yourself in the place of saying, 'God, do whatever You want; just DO something?' Perhaps you've experienced a season where you were in a situation you couldn't find your way out of. Maybe there was no way out. Maybe, despite the hours and days and weeks you spent turning the problem over and over and over in your mind, you could never find the solution. Maybe there was no solution. And so you prayed, 'God, do whatever You want; just DO something!' Perhaps at that point you didn't even care what the outcome was, what the 'solution' was, as long as the situation changed, as long as you weren't stuck where you had been for so long, in that tension, in that place of not knowing, in that pressure, in that room of no resolution.

I've been there. And I've been reflecting about being there and about how I asked God to just DO whatever He wanted to do, one way or the other. I had an opinion about which way I wanted the situation to go, but the situation was way beyond my control and I could not make what I wanted to happen, happen.

I thought about it a lot though, too much probably. It pained me that the result I wanted, the one that I thought God spoke to me, didn't seem to be coming. Ever. No matter how long I waited. So I thought, disastrously, 'How can I change my situation?' I wanted out, not caring that the thing I really wanted was on the other side of the waiting, not caring that I knew I would be forfeiting something I really wanted and the thing I believed God wanted to give me. So I thought about how I could essentially sabotage my situation.

Fortunately before I did that a very dear friend said clearly, 'DON'T!' which was what I needed to hear. So I didn't. But in the situation, I was so desperate for change that I came to the point where I didn't care what happened. I knew I would look back and regret my decision, but in the moment, the pressure and the pain were so real and so intense, I didn't really care what the outcome would be, as long as I wasn't stuck in that place. But, because of her one word, I chose not to act but to let God DO what He wanted to do.

I realized not long after that, that as I kept asking Him to DO what He wanted to do, He already was. Because what He really wanted to DO was the work He was doing in my heart in the midst of the waiting, with the help of the pressure and the pain. He was using the lack of resolution and the lack of progress and the lack of light at the end of the tunnel to work on my character, to work on my heart, to work on the depths of the inside of me, and to work on my relationship with Him. He was working. He was DO-ing. I just couldn't see it.

So often that is His way. I think the majority of what He DOES for us, we are not able to see. But there's part of me that thinks He delights in giving us glimpses of the things He is doing that we cannot see, because He likes encouraging us along the road and He likes it when we get excited about what He's doing for us. So in the process, when we cannot see, when we don't know what is going on, when we don't know what He's doing or even IF He's doing anything (which of course He always is), perhaps what we should ask Him is just to give us a glimpse, a hint, a peak at the great things He has in store for us. I think that's fair to ask, seeing as we are His Bride, His partner, His Beloved and His desire is that we would join with Him in what He's doing. I believe He wants to share these things with us, probably more than we even know, but perhaps only if we're really willing to ask, to seek, to knock, and to search them out.

It is the glory of God to hide a matter; to search out a matter is the glory of kings. ~Proverbs 25:2

Thanks K

So, in a discussion with my Pais mentor, we were talking about writing, as it's one of my callings and goals in life and she helped me realize that I write out of a sense of tension. My word for it was 'frustration,' but I like hers better because it's slightly more positive. But it's true; when I write a lot, whether it's on here or in my journal, you can bet it's because there's tension, aka I'm frustrated. Usually there's tension because someone is frustrating me. And usually that someone is a specific someone.

This person (who we'll call K just to keep things simple) frustrates me more than anyone else in the entire world. K baffles me. K thinks nothing like me. K doesn't live life like I live it or how I think it should be lived. K causes tension in my life. Not between us, but between me and God.

That's because God uses K to show me more of who I am in relation to Him. God uses K to reveal to me that the things that K does that frustrate me, I also do (#conviction). God uses K to cause me to think about what I believe and why. God uses K to help me realize how I want to live my life before Him (and am currently failing) and how I want to relate to Him (so much better than I actually do). God uses K to bring me closer to Him.

I've thought about this before, but not to this extent until right now, so you're getting entirely fresh thoughts (that really just confirm what I thought before). As much as K frustrates me, K has been a massive gift to me and I'm thankful K is part of my life, even though it's rarely easy. K gives me something to think about, something to wrestle with, something to talk (sometimes complain) to God about. And when I do, I come out with greater understanding of who God is. That's huge. 

And out of all that comes the stuff I get to write, the material for the present posts and the future international best-selling books! :)

I'm going to admit right here (please someone remind me later when I forget) that I'm grateful for the tension and thankful for the frustrations and I will forever choose to see K as a gift that God has used to show me more about who He is and to give me stuff worth thinking about and stuff worth writing about. So really what I guess I want to say is, thanks K. I owe you a lot.