Plans

A typical conversation with someone I have not seen in awhile:

-- Wow, you're graduating this year! Remind me what your major is?
--English.
-- Oh good! You're gonna be a teacher!
-- I don't know. I'm not going for my teaching degree.
-- Journalism?
-- No. Creative Writing.
-- Oh! Good for you! Way to do something you love!
-- (nods)
--What are you gonna do when you graduate?
--I have no idea.
-- You still have time! It's OK!


I walk away and hang my head down for awhile. Sometimes in these conversations, I expose my secret- I want to do ministry. But that doesn't mean I know what ministry and I do not know how long after graduation I'll start pursuing it. My parents have imprinted the idea in me that I need to get a "real world" job after I graduate to at least establish a living before I go into the depths of pastoral poverty.

Different options I'm considering after graduation:

-go to seminary (although I have to pay for it myself and I've been told that it's good to do ministry a couple years before).
- get a teaching certificate and try to sub at schools (maybe go for one of those teach abroad programs)
-get an entry-level editor job(yipee.)
-join the PeaceCorps
-pursue a writing career (chuckles)
-jump right into missions work and the insanity that is fundraising (maybe Africa Inland Missions, IV staff, IV link, etc)
-not find any work or oppurtunities and end up working at a bookstore or other place of retail or restaurant in Manassas hell until something comes my way

I really need to be in prayer. I really need to trust completely in God. Depend on Him.

That sounds nice and flowery, but it's hard. That is vulnerably placing myself, not in my will, but in the will of someone else. It is releasing control of my life.

Romans 12:1-2 has long been one of my favorite scriptures, but only recently has it come into new light.

Therfore, I urge you brothers and sisters, in view of God's mercy, to offer up your bodies as living sacrifices- holy and pleasing to God- this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the patterns of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is- his good, pleasing, and perfect will.

Dependence on God's will= giving yourself up as a living sacrifice.

That doesn't sound too pretty, does it? It means enduring the pain and frustration that comes. It means humbling yourself and putting others first.

Giving up our lives and our plans to God is worship.

I never thought of that. But it is. It's glorifying God.

Worship is not just singing praise to God. It's being a living sacrifice.
It doesn't conform to what the world says.

The world tells me to succeed and make lots of money.
The world tells me I should do things for the good of myself before the good of the people ( And very little for God). They say it's nice that I'm a do-gooder. Good for you!
The world tells me I should always have a plan set ahead of me, and follow that plan.
The world tells me that I have control of my life, and that I have the oppurtunity to invent myself and who I want to be.
The world tells me that my work is who I am.


But that's not what I believe in, praise the Lord. By God's good grace, he's shown me that I do not want the things of the world. He has given me identity in Him.

Rather than conforming to the world's standards, my mind continually needs to be renewed. But it's not an easy process. Being a Christian is not easy. When God transforms us, he refines us, like fire to silver. It hurts.

But there's a promise- in my spiritual act of worship God will show me his will for my life. I might have to test and question different choices and get them approved. It's not always a burning bush, or a neon arrow sign(like I long for). Sometimes it's making a hypothesis and testing it out. But by submitting myself over to God, I can trust him to carry out the procedure and bring me to what conclusion he would have me be at.

Everyone and their aunt quotes Jeremiah 29:11, for hope in God's plans (the carriers of the prosperity gospel spill it out in almost every one of their sermons.) But we don't often read the context around it. First of all, Jeremiah is one of the most depressing books of the Bible. Jeremiah is sent out by God as a "doomsday" prophet. Believe me, he wasn't very popular. He was a pretty lonely guy, all he had was God and his scribe. He had some pretty scary revelations about the fate of the Hebrew people in his time. And in all of that, it is written:

"This is what the LORD says: "When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my gracious promise to bring you back to this place. For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you," declares the LORD, "and will bring you back from captivity."
-Jeremiah 29:10-14

Thank God we are taken out of captivity by faith in Jesus Christ! Bwana asifiwe! But it's no doubt that we struggle through this, and in our fleshly bodies, still long to be released from our chains. I can take hope that Jeremiah did actually believe this when he wrote it down. I try to picture his reaction when God revealed this to him. "Uhhh...Are you sure God? Really??"

But he gives us a promise that Jeremiah, "the weeping prophet," put full trust in. And it's happening. All we have to do is open our eyes.

Good Vibrations and Christ-inspired Creativity

Tonight, I am going to a HearHope benefit that is being held in response to the genocide in Darfur, to raise awareness and funds.

I am very excited about all the musicians who will be there. But I gotta be honest; I am kind of partial to Josh Garrels. He's performed at my school a few times and I have been there for each show. His lyrics are profound and prophetic and his beats get you hoppin, or in the state of ultimate chill out mode. I like to listen to him when I'm bike riding, doing chores, or smoking my new Kenyan pipe.

On his website, he wrote something that very much moves me as a Christian who embraces the arts and change in the world. And I thought I'd share it with whoever is reading:

About an month ago, my wife and I rented a documentary that we'de been hoping to see for quite some time. We closed the blinds on a Saturday afternnoon and sat down to watch "Favela Rising". The film documents the transformation of one of the most violent slums in Rio de Janeiro, through the use of music and art. Amidst murder, drug wars, and corrupt politics, a group rises up within the war torn ghetto, and they begin to fight for the restoration of their families and neighborhood using the non-vioent weaponry of rhythm, dance, and prophetic poetry. Eventually this fire sparks a movement that in turn affects other neighborhoods, cities, slowly rippling out to the world. Whenever I find examples of the arts being used as a tool of restoration, social justice, prophecy, and liberation, something resounds deep in my spirit. In a culture where the arts are largely used for entertainment or to fuel an arrogant pride in ones aesthetic sophistication, there's something refreshing and hopeful about the possibility of art being used to bring true change. What if there is a dimension to creativity that is powerful beyond our assumptions? We forget, or refuse to believe, in stories such as that of King Jehoshaphat, who sent musicians out in front of his army in the day of battle praising God with with drums and with their voices. When they came upon their enemy (who were much more numerous than they were), the wicked men had already slayed themselves in a spirit of confusion (2nd Chronicles 20). I believe that this generation is hungry for meaning, and is attracted to an authentic process as the basis for judging the final product. As this relates to the arts, I believe more and more people are growing tired of expensive media fluff, and are realizing that the satisfaction it brings is short lived, tiring, and ultimately unhealthy (kind of like fast food). We want fresh food, with no hormones, pesticides, or preservatives! Back to the source. We want art that comes from the deep, natural part of humanity, which will in turn nourish the souls of mankind, making men strong, vibrant, and able to step up into their God given identity. As I step towards a lifestyle of making music full time, I do not presume to lay hold of this vision, or power of creativity all at once. In many ways I feel like I'm slowly making my way through the maze of this matrix, leaving flags posted here and their to remind me of where I've been. Becasue this particular pattern is all we've known, stepping out of the pattern and into a new one, is a long process in an of itself. I've had to recognize how often I have no idea what the next step is, I'm tempted to turn back, but just then the next step will be revealed by some divine, timely revelation. And I move forward with what I've been shown. And this applies to much more than the creative process....

Seeking the Lord

I really don't study scripture too much. Lately, I've been discontent with how I've been flying through scripture. I don't take too much time to stop and reflect on it. Isaiah 55 is one of those passages which I love, but I always speed through it. There's so much there. As a response, I started to study it today.

The verse that struck a cord in me to dive further in:

Seek the Lord while he may be found,
call on him while he is near.
(Isaiah 55:6)

It seems to be very simple. But lately, I've been thinking more about seeking the Lord in everything I do. And I realized that I don't really know what it means. So I did something so simple, anyone with literacy can do it: I looked up the cross references. WOW! go me! I mean, no not really, but the beginnings of list that resulted from it, I do want to look back on it, and go further into depth. But right now, all I have is a list.

seeking the Lord: what does it mean?

-obey his commands (Isaiah 55:2-3) what does he command of us? Love God, Love people. (Matthew 22:37-39)
- Call upon him. Come and pray to him, with expectation that he will listen(Jer 29:12-14). This means we come boldly before him with our prayers and petition, putting our complete trust in him. (Ephesians 3:11-12)
-Tremble before him, remembering that he gives and takes our blessings away (Hos 3:5).
-seek no one else. cast down our idols (amos 5:4-5).
- Hate evil. Love Good. Maintain justice (Amos 5:14-15).
- Do not forsake his name (2 Chronicles 15:2).
-Find refuge in him as your Protector (Psalms 18:2, 32:6-7, 34 and possibly half of the Psalms)
-Reach out for Him. Live and move and have your being in your identity as his offspring (Acts 17:27-28)
- Do not recieve God's grace in vain. Find your salvation in him because now is the time. (2 Cor 6:12)
- Boast gladly in your weakness for His grace is sufficient for you (2 Cor 12:9). Know thay his ways and thoughts are better than your own (Isaiah 55:8-9).

There's so much more to be added. Leave a comment for any addendums to the list!
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The Long Fight

On the phone with my brother, Mark, the other day, I talked about how hard it was to adjust to home. He pointed out to me that I wasn't home. I was in la la land- a transition period from being in Kenya to being back in Newport News for school. I am only here at my Manassas "home" with my family just a few weeks.

I felt what he said was true, on a much larger scale than he meant. This life in itself is la la land. It's just a transition period between birth and eternal life with Jesus up in heaven. Then, I will be home.

I suffer a long road in discontentment until then. I shuffle around my house, wandering around, looking for the things I feel like doing. When I feel like it, I go to Jesus. When I feel like it, I listen to music. It's a whatever thing.

I'm positive that this is dangerous. Feelings are not legit.

We live in a time where we're controlled by our inclinations (could this be indulging our sinful nature?). We are an emotionally-driven people. That's what gets us into so much trouble. That's why we grow quickly infatuated with people, get married, and after years of our "feelings" not being satisfied, we get divorced. Because we lost that loving feeling.

We are all about feelings. Feelings of love and of hate. Could these feelings be deceptive?

Absolutely.

This past year, I've had trouble engaging in corporate worship. I'd go to InterVarsity large group, and because I didn't feel like worshipping, I felt that my actions toward the Lord wouldn't be sincere and I'd be a hypocrite just for being there, singing.

But Eugene Peterson disagrees and in his book, A Long Obedience In the Same Direction, he addresses this:

God made us, redeems us, provides for us. The natural, honest, healthy, logical response to that is to praise God. When we praise we are functioning at the center, we are in touch with the basic, core reality of our being.
But very often we don't feel like it, and so we say, "It would be dishonest for me to go to a place of worship and praise God when I don't feel like it. I would be a hypocrite." The psalm (Psalm 122) says, "I don't care if you feel like it: as was decreed, "give thanks to the name of God."
I have put great emphasis on the fact that Christians worship because they want to, not because they are forced to. But I have never said that we worship because we feel like it. Feelings are great liars. If Christians worshiped only when they felt like it, there would be precious little worship. Feelings are important in many areas but completely unreliable in matters of faith. Paul Scherer is laconic: "The Bible wastes very little time on the way we feel."

When I read this, I wanted to throw my book across the room, not because I was offended, but because it hit a nerve. Everything that I had thought about having sincere feelings for the Lord was suddenly challenged. Worship is not a feeling, as Peterson remarks, it is first an act that develops feelings for God.

In the shell of my house, as I'm lazily toiling through my day (oxymoron?), I need to act on my faith. God's grace is sufficient to save. But we are saved by grace through faith. I often don't feel like doing anything. So, I need to fight for it. I hate the things I do, but it Christ who does work within us. Bwana Asifiwe!

We may easily lose control and let our feelings take us captive. My anger siezes me, and keeps me in a place where the devil can have a foothold. But the Lord is our portion and he is mighty to save. He is so much bigger than our feelings of anger- asante sana Yesu!

When my heart was grieved
and my spirit embittered,
I was senseless and ignorant.
I was a brute beast before you.
Yet I am always with you.
You hold me with your right hand.
You guide me with your counsel
and afterward, you will take me
into your glory.
Whom have I in heaven but you?
And earth has nothing I desire beside you.
My flesh and heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart,
and my portion, forever.
(Psalm 73)