Body by Jake or Body by God?

So today I stopped into my local Borders to find some new reading. I picked up three books from the fiction table and then wandered over to my favorite place in any big-box bookstore. The Christian Living/Religion/Christian Inspiration section. I paged through Jesus of Suburbia by Mike Erre before this title caught my eye: Body by God. I kid you not, it's the EXACT same cover as Body for Life (in case you don't know, it was a hit diet/exercise book circa 2003-2004. I only know because my roommate at the time bought it and it was always lying around. I think the big draw was something about 4-minute workouts.) Anyway, it's distinctive (ahem, rip-off) cover caught my attention, so I flipped over to the back and received this little gem:

"Your body is by God. God preprogrammed you to look great, have outrageous health and experience incredible happiness."

Seriously? Because I've actually read the Bible and I was immediately reminded of a couple of key verses from that important Book, such as:

He grew up before him like a tender shoot,
and like a root out of dry ground.
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. - Isaiah 53:2 (NIV)
(And that's the big J, JESUS we're talking about here, folks. Not just some hack like you or me. He was seriously not AT ALL good-looking, and definitely NOT preprogrammed to look great.)

"You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below." -Exodus 20:4 (NIV)

So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. -2 Corinthians 4:18 (NIV)

And although I know Jesus was resigned to going to the Cross for us, I don't think he would have gone so far as describing it as "incredible happiness."

Yeah, I was just pretty much floored. Because Mike Erre was right in his book, most people have apparently never actually read the Gospels...not only that, but I also enjoyed these other gems:

Stress Management - If you are stressed, it's hard to manage, but "Peace by God" is something you can experience by reprogramming the way you look at, and react to, the stress in your life.

(Last time I checked, I didn't see anything about "reprogramming" myself in that chapter about the peace that passes all understanding. I think it just said to pray and give God all my worries.)

Time Management - Double and even quadruple the amount of time you have in a week (it's a MIRACLE!!! Somebody call St. Thomas!) by learning how to "Schedule your life" (wow, did we really need air quotes for that? I think the term schedule your life is fairly ordinary these days) and how you can "Paint solid yellow lines around Time by God." (italics and bold sic)

Wow, I think God will really appreciate us painting those fierce yellow lines around "His" time. I don't know about you, but I drive over those yellow lines on the freeway on pretty much a weekly basis...oops, m-my bad.

You know I have been accused of being a mocker when it comes to cheesy Christian paraphernalia and cheesy Christian culture, and I am trying to love my brothers and sisters despite their penchant for stamping things with fishes, but some things are just screaming out to be mocked...

Tapping the Receiver

I picked up this book called Hot Tub Religion on Friday. Basically, J.I. Packer points out that we think we're hearing from God a lot, when in fact it seems we might actually be just hearing ourselves. I know this is a point of contention among people who believe God is alive today. It's interesting because I do believe God is available to us all the time. But I have gone through seasons of hearing nothing and seasons of feeling like He wouldn't stop talking. This week I was praying and then since I've been used to seeing instant answers for about the last 6 months, I thought since I didn't see them this week God must not be hearing me. It felt like somebody put a muffler on my roof, so to speak (assuming God is somewhere and that somewhere is up).

Today all day I focused on trying to hear from Him and I spent most of the day feeling like I was tapping the receiver of a telephone. God, are you there, are you there, are you there? Then this evening, after some waiting, I asked again and I felt a small voice answer back. "Dawn, I'm here." And I realized at that point that I don't really care that much if God answers my prayers for things as long as I can know He is there. As long as I don't lose that connection.

God always uses my name. I think that's special because a lot of life is about un-naming us. Assigning us statuses, positions, roles and worth based on human factors and losing bits of our individual identities and narratives in the process. It also relieves me because I have a deep fear of going crazy, schizophrenic to be exact, and I figure I'm not if what I hear is speaking in such a rational, tender way. Then I know it's God. But then again, how do I know for sure it's not just my own voice placating me? I think because I would never speak to myself using my own name (It sounds childish to me: "Dawn, go do the laundry now." Yeah, I would never say that.) And I also know it's not me because it is always simple and loving and almost all of the conversations I have with myself are highly complicated and extremely un-tender towards myself. I just recently began to realize this when I've been spending time alone and I find it very upsetting. I'd like to say I'm working on it, but part of it is my past and part is just my personality and I haven't really gotten to the work phase yet. But I hope that God will continue to break into my consciousness in a way that allows me to look at and understand the cruelty and confusion with which my mind handles my thoughts. Because it's bad.

And contrary to the relentless tenderness of my Savior.

This one thing I know for sure...

In the midst of swirling storms, this one thing I know for sure...

No one has ever fully understood the compelling pathos of Hamlet...AND...

Jesus, in a radical move that shook the world, was the kind of shepherd that left the 99 and went after the one...

Although I may never fully understand this...although much in my inclusive soul rebels against this...

when I am lost...when I am the one...

I love him. And I run back to His voice.

Bird by Bird

So I'm over it. I just am. I can't muster up any excitement about things right now. And somehow, I think God is using the counterintuitiveness of it all to teach me about life. I want my life to go in an upward slant, always climbing toward higher and higher peaks; I have made a life out of seeking God and pursuing knowledge of God and intimacy with Him.

BUT (that's a big but), sometimes life is circular. Sometimes it goes down one lane and that lane has a sign posted: Not a Through Street and I have to follow life back out that street and take a left to the next stop on the way.

I don't expect that. God is surprising me. But I'm thankful for it.

Today I drove to work and while I was driving this amazing calm came over me. I realized again how absolutely nothing can separate me from God's love. Nothing I do or don't do can change that He is enthralled me, as a mother is with her baby. I am the anxiety queen. I spend hours fretting over things I want to change. I spend nights awake (literally) over mistakes I might have made. My anxiety eats at my brain. I fixate on something I might have screwed up and I suck on it until all the flavor of life is gone. But even in the midst of this thorn in my side, God gives me momentary relief. This morning I saw the mountains. I saw the clouds. I got view. View so wide my eyes can't encompass it. And I remembered. I remembered Eden. Eden. The place I was made for. A safe place.

I've been looking for this quote since I read the book a couple of years ago.

It may be possible for each to think too much of his own potential glory hereafter; it is hardly possible for him to think too often or too deeply about that of his neighbour. The load, or weight, or burden of my neighbour’s glory should be laid daily on my back, a load so heavy that only humility can carry it, and the backs of the proud will be broken. It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilization—these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit— immortal horrors or everlasting splendours. –C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory

Glimpses of Glory

We are hurt; we are lonely; and we turn to music or words, and as compensation beyond all price we are given glimpses of the world on the other side of time and space. We all have glimpses of glory as children, and as we grow up we forget them, or are taught to think we made them up; they couldn't possibly have been real, because to most of us who are grown up, reality is like radium, and can be borne only in very small quantities. But we are meant to be real, and to see and recognize the real. We are all more than we know, and that wondrous reality, that wholeness, holiness, is there for all of us, not the qualified only.
Madeleine L'Engle, Walking on Water

the family of GOD

I need a family that loves God. If there was one thing I could rewind my life and ask God for before I was born into this world, I would have asked for a family that loved God. That's it. Because I don't have one. And everyday I wake up and I still don't have one. And that means that I think of my spiritual family really as my family, except most of them have these great families (even when they're not even Christian families, sometimes) that they go home to after church and forget about me. But I don't forget about them. I am constantly thinking about them and needing relationship with them. But that's just not realistic to them, even though it is to me. And in that place of wanting it to be realistic, I feel very needy. I don't want to be this needy, but I just am. I need people behind and before me who love God, who hear Him and talk to Him and talk to me about Him. It's necessary to me like breathing. When I don't have it, I start to drown. It's not just that my family doesn't love God, it's that they hate Him. They hate everything about Him and they hate hearing about Him and they hate talking about Him and they hate people who love Him and they hate people who love talking about Him.

Tonight at Rockharbor, God spoke loudly to me. As we sang in response to the message, I couldn't hear the instruments anymore. All I could hear was the sound of all the voices as one, singing to God. And God said so loudly to me, This is the music of heaven for you. When you feel like you are all alone in choosing me, listen to the armies of heaven singing in unison; you have chosen what is better. Listen to the people of the church singing all together. They all know me. They all love me. You won't be alone in heaven.

I have given up a lot to love Jesus. I always say if I had known how hard it would be, I never would have become a Christian. If I had known the trouble I would see, I would have picked another religion. The person of Jesus is dangerous. But I can't deny the truth. When someone asked me, Do you believe this? I said Yes. It just made sense. I can't deny the truth; to do so would be to deny my own existence, my own destiny.

the Face of Disillusionment

Recently I have noticed a pattern throughout my Christian life. I get involved in some sort of ministry. I am a mission-driven person, so from the mechanics and daily matters of group happenings I begin to seek out what the main purpose of the ministry is. This quest leads me to learn from many people within the group. I look and listen for the many different facets of what the group stands for, as interpreted through the eyes of the many group members. Through my questioning, I am ultimately led to the leader of the group. This person I am excited to know because I believe they can give me the purest and most distilled version of the mission. This person is usually excited to share their clearly defined mission with me and make me a disciple of it. I, too, am excited to be a disciple of it because I can see the very strategic purpose of it and how it meets a sorely ignored need within the kingdom community or even the larger world. I get on board with it and the mission of the group becomes part of my own life mission.

And then a terrible thing happens. Somewhere along their own timeline, the person I am following changes their mind. That person decides that either the mission I have bought into isn’t really the mission anymore or I am not good enough to be a part of it or they decide their calling is to go sell t-shirts on the beach in Cancun, because that’s where the real money is. And I am crushed. I am a student without a rabbi. I feel lost and disillusioned. I have all these thoughts like, “T-shirts in Mexico? How could this be? I thought we were going to change the world.”

I'm serious. This has happened 5 or 6 times since I decided to label myself Christian.

And I usually feel pretty sick to my stomach for a week or two because I feel stupid that I was that naïve to trust the person. I also feel sick because I don’t understand how when I felt so clear as to what and why we were doing this ministry, how could the person who created the ministry and defined the mission not believe in it anymore? And this scenario keeps playing itself out in my life. I don’t understand it. I wonder if my expectations are too high. I don’t know why they would be. I don’t have this glamorous life from which I might have learned that only amazing things will happen to me. But nonetheless I am disappointed. Mostly I just wish I could find a way to not start out even believing in the mission if I’m just going to be let down. I wish that leader person would just not even say we should reach for the stars. Because I’m a believer and when someone says that, I get out the star charts and start looking on the internet for those vices that lengthen your arms.

I’ve been thinking about this scenario a lot this week and how supposedly everything is a spiritual issue and God keeps teaching us the same lesson until we get it. But honestly, I don’t know what it is that I’m supposed to get from this. I just know it keeps happening and all I can come up with is that maybe I’m supposed to become much more skeptical than I am. But I’m already pretty skeptical and it feels like the next stage is pure cynicism. Is that what you want from me God? Or is it something else I’m supposed to learn? Please show me.

I had an amazing day with Jesus this Sunday and overall I have been just well centered and reveling in how God is wooing me. In the midst of what might have felt like a storm in a previous life, I have been the eye of the hurricane. Calm and breathing. It’s the biggest deal in the world how I have been handling life lately. Centered on God; relaxed and free. Not like my usual self at all. Not at all desperately seeking Him, but hearing clearly and responding to His love and all in all just living it up.

As I began to notice this pattern of disillusionment, I am not frustrated or irritated by it, but merely curious. God, what are you doing? And I feel confident He will tell me in time. This blog came about because I went to church this Sunday and it happened again. Mike talked about what would happen if we lived as though Jesus really was God, as though He really heals people and the Spirit really does move and change and transform. And I know that all that happens because I see it all the time at the River, but I got a little harrumphed about Mike bringing this up. Because the reality is that along the way someone leading the charge is going to decide to back down, to retreat and decide it’s easier to just do what we’ve always done. And so I wanted to yell out (not out of anger, just so I am heard):

“Just don’t even say it if you’re not going to follow through. It doesn’t hurt anyone to just keep your mouth shut and say we’re going to keep doing the things we’ve been doing and do them well and to the glory of God. There’s nothing wrong with that. Your mouth will line up with your actions that way and I won’t get on board and I’ll be fine. If you start planning a big outward push and then don’t actually do it, I’ll get disappointed and disillusioned one more time. And I’m tired of it. I don’t even want to be tempted to pray that the Spirit will break forth because it ain’t gonna happen. And that’s fine as long as you don’t start preaching about how you hope it will and you hope someone will step up and lead it. Cause I won’t. I’m not getting on board with any “new” things anymore. I’m done.”

It's interesting about the word disillusionment. It's dis-illusion-ment. I wonder what illusion I am drinking in that is ultimately allowing my disillusionment.

Who's afraid of the big bad wolf?

Ok, Satan, I see what you're up to. You think I can be scared by your little annoying ankle-twisting tactics, but I can't. I am also not stupid. When I twist my ankle once on a long walk, that's just fallenness. But when it happens five times in one day, I know it's you. And I'm NOT having it.

You are one lame weak animal if you think I'm scared of you. I'm not. I know when I'm making strides toward a free life and I know you're right there trying to mangle my steps. Good luck with that. You might make me stumble once, but I know where I'm going long-term. I know that I'll have trouble in this world. And I know it's not people I'm warring against. It's you.

You see, you forgot one little detail. Christ lives in me. Literally. Inside me. I have his power and his mercy. But all I got for you today is his power. So I'm wielding it and I'm shutting you DOWN!

I might be a little red riding hood, but no way am I afraid of the big bad wolf. As if.