Monday
Jan252010
Sunday
Jan242010
Repost: Formerly Known
January 24, 2010 The following was first posted on April 16, 2007. I am re-posting this - one of my favorite and popular posts, for Kelly's invitation to repost a favorite blog from our archives.
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I am the girl formerly known as as a "normal Christian."
You may know me as a violinist, as a teacher, as a sister, daughter, wife, and friend. You may have noticed that I don't attend a church building anymore and worried about me, maybe thinking that I have really fallen off the deep end theologically. Maybe you haven't talked to me in a long time because you are convinced of this. Maybe you've thought I'm turning away from God, or away from the Bible, or at least away from the Body of Christ. The truth is...
I'm a girl who deeply desires God. I believe I'm his image-bearer, though I'm still learning what that means. There are many like me, many who for years fit inside status quo Christianity. Many who, like me, find that the old boxes no longer contain the expansive life that Christ has filled us with. Many who have quietly and sometimes not-so-quietly found new ways to live out our lives as Christ followers.
I am the girl who, as a child, would wake up her parents late at night to confess some little act or thought that I perceived to be sinful - because I couldn't sleep, my conscience was keeping me awake. I am the girl who couldn't lie because it made me sick to my stomach. Don't get me wrong, I don't think these things reflect my "godliness from a young age", but rather my tender conscience combined with the overwhelming fear that I had, even as a child, of being "wrong."
I am the girl who read her first theology book when she was 13. I ate it up. By the time I was 18, I felt like I knew it all. I had systematic theology "down." I began to study philosophy in high school. I could use words like "pelagian" and "gnostic heresy" and "synchronistic" and "dialectic" intelligently in conversation. I read everything that existed by Piper, Packer, and Bridges. Then, being that it wasn't enough to read "about" the works of people like John Owen, I went back and read the originals, like "Mortification of Sin."
I am the girl formerly known as a normal Christian. I read my Bible daily and highlighted, underlined, and wrote notes in the margin. I led my first Bible study when I was 16. I am the girl who attended not one church during my high school years, but two. I was the faithful church attendee every Sunday, and then a faithful youth group member at a different church - always showing up early to Bible studies and Sunday evening events.
I am the girl who was promised the world by church leaders and famous authors, if only I would read my Bible and pray every day and submit myself to Christ. If I listened closely to the voices of "authority" in Christendom, I'd hear messages about how to secure God's blessing - how to avoid being hurt in romantic relationships - how to live a victorious or successful or wealthy life. When suffering was talked about, no one ever mentioned how dark it could be, how sometimes it felt as if God had left you all alone. Somehow even suffering was victorious, if you could be cheerful and stoic through it.
I am the girl whose world was shattered when a tale of unrequited love broke my heart, shattered my reputation, and for a while convinced me that God was holding out on me. Then I discovered that what I'd been taught was wrong. God wasn't a vending machine...I couldn't do the right thing and guarantee his response. God was wild, but good. He didn't always do what you'd expect, but he always did what was best.
I am the girl formerly known as a normal Christian...who came to see that much of Christendom in the modern era was about control. We couldn't control God, but we tried, by writing up our ideas about him and then freeze-drying them, shrink-wrapping them, and having them nailed down forever. "Sola Scriptura" became, instead of the liberating mantra of the Reformation, a way to climb into a box where we could close the lid and say that everyone on the outside "just didn't get it."
I am the girl who sat in a pastor's office with two pastors and a very hurting girl and watched as they "shoulded" on her, loading her down with burdens too heavy to carry. What was it that Jesus said about not breaking a bruised reed? It began to seem to me that the opposite was true of church leaders dealing with women who had been victimized by domestic violence and emotional assault.
I am the girl who slowly but surely moved away from being an attendee at a church and being to realize that the passion God had given me for his church wasn't about buildings, or programs, or budgets, or attendance. It was about his people - his body - his bride, the people he died to save.
I am the girl formerly known as a normal Christian who sacrificed her reputation as "one of the mature ones" - one of the ones you'd WANT in leadership, leading Bible studies, "ministering" - to instead become a person solely dependent on Christ....not pastors, not elders, not authors, not caregroup leaders. It's not that I think pastors, elders, authors, or caregroup leaders are bad people...many of them truly love God and are serving him as best they know how. It's just that I no longer accept that any of them are in a position to mediate my relationship with God, or are given any authority by him in my life. There are those that I respect and look to for an example, for guidance, for advice - like my parents, or Paul Morgan, or others who have walked with God longer than I and have much to offer me. But these people are not my authority, nor are they a mediator between God and me. They are friends, they are the community of Christ with me on the journey...but I do not bow to them.
Indeed, I do not bow to anyone except my Lord. I do not bow to church history, though there are many people that have come before, and I am grateful for their writings, their example, their bravery. I do not bow to any organized expression of church, though they have done much good, I have come to see that there are other ways and sometimes better ways of being a living expression of the Body of Christ.
I am the girl formerly known as a normal Christian. I'm not normal anymore, I certainly don't stick with the status quo, I don't have much reverence for sacred cows, and I'm not afraid to disagree with the majority. But I haven't stopped loving the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and I'm passionate about loving his body - the church. I might not agree with you about how best to do that, but I haven't forsaken fellowship. I meet with the body of Christ in my home and the homes of others, in coffee shops, across fried rice at Thai restuarants, participating in redemptive conversations and living, loving, crying, and praying together. This, I believe, is Church - and it is something I will love and serve until my dying day.
You may disagree with me and you may think that what I'm saying is wrong...but all I ask is this...
Did Christ call us to be normal Christians? Or normal anything, for that matter? Or did he open up the possibility for so much more than getting along with Pharisees and not upsetting the status quo? As I recall, he wasn't afraid to cause a ruckus in the temple of his day. Wherever you are and wherever you serve - whether inside traditional church or outside - don't settle for normal. He has given us so much more than that.
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For other parts in this series, see the following:
The People Formerly Known As the Congregation - Bill
Formerly Known - Underlying Issues - Grace
The Community Coming To Be Known As Missional - Jamie
The People Formerly Known As Your Pastor - John
The Exodus Church - Greg
The Women Who Have Been Known As the Pastor's Wife - Lyn
Monday
Jan182010
do I really believe in God?
January 18, 2010 Ten years ago, at the ripe old age of 19, I experienced a crisis of faith. The God I thought I knew turned out to be a fake. One plus one did not equal two. I was angry, disillusioned, full of doubt.
Damn you, God I said out loud.
For the first time, I, the good little Christian homeschooley girl, considered chucking God out the window. What if it wasn't real? It certainly didn't seem real. The promises didn't add up. What I'd been told...didn't add up.
It was during my time of faith-less-ness that I discovered what true faith is.
It was when my faith was destroyed that I first experienced true faith in God.
It was when I wondered if God was a "cosmic sadist" as C.S. Lewis pointed out - or wondered whether he existed at all - that I met him for the first time.
But I didn't find God in the Bible. I didn't find God in the church. In fact, I didn't find God period.
God found me.
I'd studied apologetics. I could hold my own in a debate about the existence of God with any atheist. But it took both the pain that caused me to question my beliefs and a real, living encounter with the living Christ for me to find something other than head knowledge.
Some stuff has been going on recently in my personal life, stuff I can't blog about. Stuff that has made me ask,
do I really believe in God?
Do I believe that God is active in this world - that he is more than a story in a book?
Do I believe that God cares more for my loved ones than I do?
Do I believe that God is powerful to act and to pursue relationship with his children?
Do I believe that God will come for me, for us, for all of us - again and again, in our time of deepest need?
I am confronted once again with my lack of faith-less-ness.
And in it, I find the true meaning of faith.
C.S. Lewis, in his memoir A Grief Observed, describes that merely "saying" you have faith is not enough. He likened it to saying you believe a rope could hold your weight - saying that it's not until you are hanging by that rope over a precipice that you have faith.
It is when the rubber meets the road, when we must answer the question am I living in such a way that I need God to show up, or am I living as a practical atheist - as if he won't?
I believe most Christians are practical atheists. We'd like God to intervene, we'd like him to show up, but we've stopped believing he will. So we think it's up to us to take care of whatever it is that needs taking care of. We live without truly letting ourselves feel the depth of our need for him.
Because to need him to show up takes faith. Faith that he's more than a religion, more than a pie in the sky, more than a promise of eternal life. Faith that he's a person who loves us.
It's easier to quote the Westminster Confession than to actually believe in God.
I am a person with a lot of doubts. On a good day, I figure the likelihood that God exists is about 70/30. I think the last time I ever felt 100% certain was before that day ten years ago when I told God to piss off. But that certainty wasn't faith. It was the naive dogma of an ignorant child who'd never experienced pain.
My faith doesn't come with certainty. I guess that's what makes it faith. But during times like these, when I'm faced again with the questions and the pain that life brings, I remember the words I left unsaid during that dark night of the soul - if there is a God, he will come for me.
He did. And he will again.
tagged doubt, faith in God, my life, ponderings, things that make my heart hurt
doubt, faith in God, my life, ponderings, things that make my heart hurt Monday
Jan112010
being known
January 11, 2010 There’s a very popular book out there called “The Five Love Languages” - positing that every person has a different way they feel and express love - a different “language” if you will. These languages are described as physical touch, words of affirmation, quality time, giving, or service.
I’ve always thought this idea made a lot of sense. Some people will clean your house for you, but never tell you that they care about you - to them, cleaning your house IS telling you that they love you. Other people will buy you extravagant gifts, as their way of telling you how important you are to them. It’s important, when loving someone, to be aware of how they need to “hear” love - otherwise, no matter how much we love them, if we’re loving them using our love language and not theirs, they may not feel loved at all.
So I get it. I even agree with it. But recently I’ve been thinking that it’s sort of reductionistic. If your love language is giving, I’ll search out the perfect gift for you and feel that I have loved you well. If your love language is quality time, I’ll carve out a niche of time just for you, and again, feel that I have loved you well. And it goes on and on.
While I think these “languages” are important, I don’t know if any one of them - or even all of them - can really let a person know deeply how loved they are. They can become an “action” to “do” - tell my wife how beautiful she is // take my daughter out to dinner // buy flowers for my girlfriend // spend the day helping my friend move.
And the sad fact of the matter is, you can do all the right things with precious little love in your heart.
Or, you may really love the person, and yet all that doing still feels hollow.
In thinking about this, I realized that more than anything else, I want to be known. I think this is part of being made in the image of God - the desire for deep, indwelling intimacy goes far beyond touch or gifts or words or service or time. And for deep, indwelling intimacy, there must be deep knowledge.
A friend asked me once, “What is intimacy?” I thought of all the common definitions - deeply knowing another person was the one that immediately sprang to mind. Yet even that misses something.
I think maybe intimacy begins with a deep knowledge of yourself - and then offering that deep knowledge to another person. When that person offers back their own deep knowledge of themself, you have a dance - perichoresis - intimacy.
In dancing together, this kind of intimate knowing deepens - now you know yourself deeply, but you also know this other person just as deeply. And in the dance, the knowing always deepens. When you’re in a truly intimate relationship, you’re not just discovering more about the other person. You’re discovering yourself.
I knew I was falling in love with Mike when I realized that I could be more myself around him than anyone else I knew. I could be more myself when I was around him than even when I was alone.
Too often, I think, we settle for less than intimacy - not just in our marriages, but in our family relationships, in our friendships. We settle for “acts” of love - the five love languages - without ever acknowledging our deeper, more essential desire to be known.
To let ourselves be known is to let our guard down - to be vulnerable.
Helping someone clean their house doesn’t require vulnerability.
Hugging someone doesn’t require vulnerability.
Spending “quality time” with a friend can be great fun - but doesn’t require vulnerability.
Buying a gift for someone doesn’t require vulnerability.
Affirming someone doesn’t require vulnerability.
To be vulnerable with another - a spouse, a friend, a relative - requires that we walk into our fear. Our fear of being known - what if they don’t like what they see? Our fear of deeply knowing this other person - what if I don’t like what I find?
And yet, when this deep knowing is not a part of the relationship, we feel dissatisfied. Empty, somehow. Let down, even though we “know” this person loves me and I love them.
What does knowing love look like?
Like I said earlier, I think it begins with knowing one’s self deeply. At some level, introspection and even brutal honesty are part of the path towards intimacy. You cannot offer to another what you don’t even know is there.
Relationally, well - I’ll describe what it would look like to me. Love, to me, is someone who will read a book that's important to me - not because they'll like it // agree with it //identify with it, but because they want to know me better and try to see what I see. It's someone who will take the time to understand the complexity of my health situation and, even though it doesn't apply to them at all, learn a little bit about thyroid/adrenal/pituitary issues - so that they understand what I'm dealing with on a daily basis. Love is asking me questions, figuring out "what makes me tick". It's someone watching a movie with me that impacted me or made me cry - even if it's not their cup of tea. I feel most loved when someone reads my blog, enjoys my pictures, knows what my daily schedule looks like, asks me what I'm thinking about....when the details of my life are known.
Love doesn’t necessarily understand, or validate. It doesn’t necessarily share a belief system or a worldview.
Love - knowing love - wants to know. Wants to know everything, even the things it doesn’t understand or agree with, because more than anything that kind of love wants to know you - the deep you, the real you, the you that you might not even know is there all the time.
Knowing love invites you to dance.
It invites indwelling knowledge of each other.
It is the way we live from the image of God within us, the way we incarnate Christ to one another.
Why?
Because he wants to dance with us. He wants to know us. Every detail of our life matters to him. He loves every nook and cranny of who we are.
And he invites us to know him in the same way.
"Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent" John 17:3
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You can read the other entries in this series here:
Tuesday
Jan052010
a love poem
January 5, 2010 i wish we could see people
really see people, in their hearts
i wish we could see the glory there
if only we didn't feel the need to fence, control, manipulate
if only we didn't feel the need to tell people who they should be
maybe then
maybe he wouldn't have traded in true love for a counterfeit, just to prove he wasn't controlled by her worst fear
maybe she wouldn't feel like she had to dance on a stage, lonely and alone in front of all those eyes
maybe he wouldn't have fought so hard to grasp the sand sliding through his fingertips
maybe she would have followed her dreams, rather than just trying to get away
what is it
that makes it so hard to love
to see what's really there, and love it?
why are we so easily put off
by the mess
as if
we are not also
a mess.
why are we so easily offended
when people don't live up to our expectations
is it the reminder
that we don't live up to our own expectations?
why is it so hard to give grace to failure
is it because then we would have to admit our own failure?
why is it so hard to see myself in another
is it because we have no compassion for our self?
i wish we could see people
really see people, in their hearts
i wish we could see the glory there.