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

What Someone Wrote About the Dawning of a New Year

I will take whatever you give me
I will learn to be satisfied
I will fight for every table scrap
Heaven's table has to offer

I will look beyond my desires
I will crack the twisted code
I will see why I crave perversion
All in Your unknown timing

I will not know when it happens
Until it is before me
I will always be surprised
I will move beyond my control

I will be misled by non-believers
I will be misled by believers
I will be misled by myself
I will not be led by deception forever

My Spirit will leave breadcrumbs
Leading me back to the truth
Blessings will come when they may
Tragedy will strike when it may

Most importantly
I will see all of this as a test
I will strengthen my will
I will because You said so

You promised me everything and nothing
A lifelong relationship
To ease the soul and break the heart
A mystery right in front of my face

I will learn to enjoy crying for others
I will learn to hate laughing at others
I will rip open my heart
Bleeding with desperate sensitivity

I will quiver at the sight of You
I will run towards my fear of You
Your words will carry me through this life
My understanding will matter less and less

I will see Your gifts to me
I will learn how they are for others
I will fall in love with passion
I will break up with apathy

Safety will come in the form of divine risk
Fear will lead to heartfelt courage
Sex will be a privilege not an obsession
Pleasure will be guided by God's Word

My thoughts will be expressed to God
My thoughts will not have the last say
God's thoughts will slowly creep to me
I will feel weird when God talks to me

I will rarely say God talks to me
I will be careful not to confuse Him with me
I will move on instinct and pray for correction
I will put my trust into His words

Forgiveness will not be a mystery
My heart will look beyond the rage
He will strangle my childish ways
I will not always need lengthy explanations

I will see things I hate about others
I will learn to love them regardless
I will forgive for the sake of my soul
I will move beyond even these words

I will pray that everyone will do so as well

-Charles Bridgers

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.

It's going to be the best Valentine's day ever because I'm dating Jesus!

Note: I've noticed that I start a lot of sentences with "So", "And" and "But". Therefore, I am working on editing that bad grammar out in honor of my past English teachers who turn over in their graves every time I do this. While I agree that those who are six feet under might like a turn now and then, I do not want to be responsible for a Thriller-like rise from the dead. If you catch me using these bad sentence starters in the future, please feel free to nag. Now back to your regularly scheduled programming...

It's going to be the best Valentine's day ever because I'm dating JESUS. Yup, it's true. I actually went on a date with Jesus today. Now if you've heard other people say this before and wanted to throw up, you're not alone. I have wanted to bash those people over the head with a foam Nerf bat. It's so freakin cheesy when they say it. But I have to admit, I did it. I purposefully focused this Saturday on clearing away all the little chores and stuff I had to do so that my whole Sunday would be free. I sabbathed all day and it was great. As I was walking at a park down on the Peninsula I saw all these couples being extra cozy and I thought about each one, "That girl's just sucking up cause she wants jewelry for Valentine's day." Cause seriously, what else could have been causing that level of PDA? As I was thinking about this, I realized that I don't have a date for Valentine's day, no great boyfriend and yet I am perfectly happy. Instead of spending time with a guy today, I spent time with Jesus and it felt awesome. All the things I did today are things I would do or have done on dates; watching a movie, getting coffee, taking a long walk, hanging out by the beach, lying on a blanket in the park. I realized they were just as good or even better than some dates I have been on because I did them with Jesus. He was more attentive than some dates have been, He listened much better, He talked to me in a more personal caring way and there was no risk of remorse about the time I spent with Him or what we did. How lovely it was. This might be borderline multiple personality disorder, but I started to look forward to Valentine's Day so much, I thought about letting Jesus buy me Valentine's flowers. Is that crazy? If it is, I must be, because it makes me really happy and hopeful thinking about it.

I feel truly happy because I realized I'm in a relationship that is ultimately satisfying and I never have to suck up to get presents. I love love. And I love a day that celebrates love. Happy early Valentine's Day!

Christian outsourcing - the sequel

And then he took it even farther. He said,

In that case, why don't we just outsource the entire Rockharbor staff? We can hire pastors in India for a fraction of the salary and have the sermons sent over on video feeds. They can email us their wise counsel and bible study curriculum. Come to think of it, why do I even need to sit in church for an hour every week at all? I can just pay someone else to sit there for me while I'm out having fun with friends. They can summarize the sermon in bullet points and give it to me.

Why not do that? Oh yeah. Because it's about ME. I have to experience God. I have to commit to Him. I have to know Jesus and share Him. I have to choose the better of two choices. I have to follow-through on my commitments. My character won't be developed if I wait for it to happen. I have to choose the experiences that will facilitate that growth. I am an adult and I have to take responsibility for myself and choose. And I don't get a second chance.

Life is not a dress rehearsal. There aren't any do-overs. Either I go, I serve and I develop my character now, or I don't. And either which way I choose, the clock is ticking. The minutes are passing and I only get 70 years on this earth. If I don't use them towards loving and serving God, I can't get them back.

Christian outsourcing

Dana decided that we should slow down and focus on character development and in order to focus on that, we are not going to continue our commitments to our neighborhood service projects and we are not going back to New Orleans in the spring.

So I sent up a test balloon. I asked a friend of mine who supported me for the New Orleans trips specifically what he thought about me not using the money to go there and instead sending the money directly to Celebration Church. I knew he wouldn't care about the money that much but he would give me an honest idea of how my supporters might respond to this change.

His response?

What is this - Christian outsourcing? You ask for money and then pass it along so someone else can go do the work? Maybe you could hire someone from a third-world country to go be Jesus for you? It's probably cheaper to send him anyway. If so, send the same guy twice because he'll get to develop his character.

I'm not making this up. He really said that.

Why should a Christian be a missionary?

Keith Green, a zealous musician who recruited for missions, says “Since America has only about 5% of the world’s population, then only about 5% of the believers would really be called to stay in this country as a witness (that's only about l out of 20) while the rest of us should go into the parts of the world where there are almost 0% believers. “Unfortunately, that is not the case. On the contrary, 95% of believers will stay within the United States. Are there needs in the United States? Without a doubt. It is impossible to walk around a college campus in America without seeing the need for more Christian laborers. But there’s one thing to remember, there will always be a need in America. Needs are everywhere. Maybe its time to stop focusing on the needs and instead focus on the greatest need - those with no gospel access.

“A tiny group of believers who have the gospel keep mumbling it over and over to themselves. Meanwhile, millions who have never heard it once fall into the flames of eternal hell without ever hearing the salvation story.” - K.P. Yohannan

“Some wish to live within the sound of a chapel bell, I want to run a rescue shop within a yard of hell.” - C.T. Studd