Tag Archive - belief

Discomfort, Tears, Anger & Foolishness

March 9, 2011 in Faith, Prayer with 3 Comments

This is a Franciscan blessing I came across quite awhile back that has always stuck with me. I was reflecting on it the other day, thinking about the upcoming season of lent, which begins today.  Then I saw my friend Nicole post it, along with this video, and I knew I wanted to share it here, too.

May God bless you with discomfort. Discomfort at easy answers, half truths, and superficial relationships, so that you may live deep within your heart. Amen
May God bless you with anger. Anger at injustice, oppression and exploitation of people, so that you may work for justice, freedom and peace. Amen
May God bless you with tears. Tears to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation and war, so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and turn their pain into joy. Amen
May God bless you with foolishness. Enough foolishness to believe that you can make a difference in this world, so that you can do what others claim cannot be done. Amen
And the blessing of God, who creates, redeems and sanctifies, be upon you and all you love and pray for this day, and forever more. Amen

It’s not a popular prayer, but one that I believe echoes the heart of God in a way that seems to be disturbingly and increasingly absent in today’s Christian culture.

I pray that God would interrupt our stream of prayers asking for things and invade them with the sufficiency of grace.

I pray that God would bless me today and every day with just enough discomfort, tears, anger and foolishness to keep my heart tuned to His, and to inspire those around me to pursue the same.

What is your prayer today?

 

A Year And Some Change

February 28, 2011 in Blogging, Encouragement, My Story with 16 Comments

Today is my birthday. Well, not MY birthday, but my blog’s birthday, rather. Today, An Idol Heart is one year old!

I started this blog one year ago today. When I decided to start An Idol Heart it was because my world had turned upside down and I wanted to start telling the story, even while it was unresolved.

This time a year ago, I had just walked away from my career of 8 years, I was unemployed, I was two months in to being at a new church and was a little over a month in to diving head first into a community group I had joined. I was struggling with how to let go of the things I had allowed my life to be defined by and I was falling apart.

On why I decided to name this blog An Idol Heart, I had recently come to understand that my heart was indeed “an idol factory that mass produces idols.”  That was, at once, a very sobering yet dizzying realization, and one that still reverberates with me today.  A couple months earlier I had finished reading Timothy Keller’s “Counterfeit Gods”, a book that, to put it simply, completely undid me.

Going back now to read what I wrote as my first post a year ago was a pretty emotional experience. At that time, I was so afraid. The false bottom I had built in my heart was falling out and I felt like I had nothing to work with… but words.  I had no idea what the next day, let alone the next year would look like.

One year later, my story looks very different. I am now working in ministry on staff at Cross Point Church in Nashville, the church I had just come to when all this unraveling began to happen. The ministry I’ve received at Cross Point over the past year has done so much to heal my heart and teach me who I am.  Now, I lead ministry teams there and get to help others. The community group I had just come to in hopes of finding new friends when my world was turning upside down has been immeasurably instrumental in how God has reshaped my life this past year. I now co-lead that group of around 150 people and get to regularly share my story of how God rescued me from the pursuit of myself, challenging others to embrace uncertainly, get out of their comfort zones and be intentional about how they invest in this “stretch between” season of their life.

More than anything though, I am learning more each day how my identity does not rest in where my check comes from, but rather where my help comes from and the finished work of Christ on the cross.

I still don’t know what tomorrow will look like and I’m learning to live by faith daily, but looking back over the past year, I know what it was about. God was after my heart. He wanted to rewire it and “make it again into another vessel”.

This past Friday night, Timothy Keller, whose ministry has been such a key part of my story, was in Nashville on a tour for his new book, “King’s Cross”.  I went to hear him speak and also had the opportunity to personally thank him for his ministry and how God has used it to wreck and rebuild me.

He made a statement that I haven’t been able to shake since I heard it. Singularly giving perspective to much of the last year of my life, He said,

“Sometimes, the delays of Jesus are because of details and information that we don’t yet have access to. Ultimately, God gives you what you would have prayed for if you knew everything He knew.”

And there it is.

Many are the plans in a man’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails. (Proverbs 19:21)

One year ago, my prayers were very different. I’m so thankful that God heard my prayers but still gave me what I would have asked for, had I only known. Not getting what I thought I wanted is the best thing that could have happened to me.

What life perspective have you seen while looking back over the things you have been through?

 

Waiting Well

August 27, 2010 in Faith with 16 Comments

Someone recently asked me, “what are you waiting for?”

My response: “that’s a loaded question.”

After I thought about it for a few seconds, I answered that I was waiting on “what’s next”, then admitted I just gave a very loaded answer in response to a very loaded question.

The truth is though, we’re all waiting on something. A birthday, finding our spouse, a holiday, graduation, first day of a new job, retirement, a career change, being in a relationship, a move, etc.

Some of you are waiting on something and you know when it’s coming. The baby is due November 18.  You’ll make your last student loan payment March 5, 2011. You’re leaving for the vacation you’re saved up for on October 5.  Some of you know. But some of you don’t. Some of you are waiting on something that there is no date attached to. Finding your spouse? Yeah, not so much. The tests finally coming back negative? Sure wish you knew. The day when your heart stops hurting from unexpected loss? Where do you put THAT on the calendar?

As for me, yes, I am waiting on “what’s next.” But while paydays, holidays and friend’s weddings are marked on my calendar, “what’s next” is nowhere to be found.

Hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently. – Romans 8:24-25

I believe there is something very healthy about waiting and wrestling with an unrealized hope… something that is consistently just beyond our reach… something that keeps wonder alive in our heart… something that interjects intrigue into the most mundane of moments. While there is definitely a powerful life element to waiting without knowing, the truth is it can often be frustrating.

We spend so much time asking God “why”… “why don’t I have it”, “why hasn’t this changed”,”why am I still here”, “why don’t you fix it???”

Walking by faith and living with the questions is completely counter-intuitive to a culture that has every other answer they could ever want just one Google search away… every answer but THIS one… the one that won’t let you sleep at night.

I’ve come to believe that a significant part of prying the grip of frustration from around a heart in wait is learning to ask a different question.  If we could only begin to shift the focus from asking “why” of God to asking “how” of our own heart, we could begin to understand and unlock the power of waiting well.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with asking “why”. I just think it is often a fruitless, cyclical pursuit of answers that are not always ours for the having and doesn’t change the origin of the frustration. On the other hand, learning to square off with our own heart and continually evaluate “how” we are waiting could very well be a catalyst to heart change and deliverance from our own entitlement to know “why”.

Asking “why” probably won’t change the situation, but asking “how” will likely change ME.

A big part of waiting well is understanding the redemptive nature and character of God and realizing that He never wastes a season of your life. There is value and perspective to be extracted and juiced from every moment, if we will commit to the pursuit of it. Too often, we pass up the opportunity to find the life to be had in each moment and season we’re given and settle for worry, fear and complaining.

How do you wait?

Do you hope or complain?
Do you engage or isolate?
Are you thankful or bitter?
Is your heart expectant or jaded?
Does your heart trust or is it suspicious?

I often wish I were better at waiting well.  Some days I’ve got a better grip on it than others, but in my “waiting for what’s next” I don’t think I’ve waited too well this past week. Yet I continue to hold the feet of my heart to the flames and move toward, knowing that how I wait is more important than why I am waiting.

What are you waiting for? Do you wait well?

 

Stretch

August 16, 2010 in Community, Faith, Service with 11 Comments

In the fall of 2009, after reading Richard Stearns’ “The Hole In Our Gospel”, my friends Wes Howard and Ben Turner felt compelled to gather a group of 20/30-somethings together around the idea of being intentionally missional and living out the Gospel by actively serving the needs of others. That group started with 3 people last fall and currently stands at just over 140 who are regular/semi-regular attenders. I’ve skipped a lot of details for the sake of brevity, but suffice it to say something very unique has been happening in what we have affectionately called our “not so small” community group at Cross Point Church here in Nashville.  Essentially, people keep coming and keep getting connected.

The mission statement the group adopted earlier this year is:

“We are imperfect people, living inside our design, building enduring relationships with each other,actively serving the needs of others, and committing to grow deeper in love and faith with Christ.”

Within those 140+ people, there are 8 small groups that are made up of folks in their early-20′s to mid-30′s looking for an opportunity to connect and serve and to experience community in a whole new way. It is nothing short of amazing. This particular model is quite the anomaly as far as “small groups” go and was NOT by design, but very much just “happened” somewhere along the last several months.

For the past 7-8 months, our group has been officially called the “young professionals”, a somewhat nebulous name that wasn’t very clear as to exactly who we are as a group.  Several weeks ago, Wes, Ben and I began talking about the idea of giving the group an actual name that would help to define its actual identity and point to who we were. We landed on the name “Stretch”.  Here’s why…

A few of the definitions of the word ‘stretch’ are:

make great demands on the capacity or resources of
cause to make maximum use of talents or abilities
straighten or extend one’s body or a part of one’s body to it’s full length

The cool thing is, those things are happening within our group in a variety of ways, and it’s incredible to see.

Here’s what Stretch means to us as a group:

It speaks to our age group being very much in the “stretch” between life phases.
It points to the opportunity for your life be stretched and changed through service and community like never before.
It speaks to the growth that happens in the space between moving FROM one thing, TO another.
It says our group is not just the cool Sunday night hang, but something that will deepen your life and put new demands on your capacity for community, faith and service.
It speaks to creating capacity for your life in the “space between”

So last night marked a milestone and the beginning of a new chapter for our “not so small” community group as we officially renamed the group “Stretch”, cast the vision for what it meant, unveiled our new logo and showed this video we put together to communicate the concept even more.

It is such an honor to do life and serve next to Wes and Ben in co-leading this incredible group of people. God has done amazing things through us and every single bit of it has been in spite of us and not because of any of us, but because He has a greater purpose and agenda than any of us could accomplish on our own.  The folks in the group are incredible and are so hungry to build deep community and be the hands and feet of Christ.

In his message yesterday, Pete Wilson talked about how the Gospel challenges us to be not just recipients of grace, but agents of grace, and that the Gospel does not call for reflection, but rather action.  I was so excited to hear him say those things yesterday because they are so essential to the core of our DNA as “Stretch”, and should also be to the core DNA of the heart of everyone who calls themselves a follower of Christ.

I will be talking more about Stretch in the coming weeks and months, but I wanted to take a moment to share this with you all here on my blog. I hope the “Stretch” concept resonates with you and challenges you to consider ways in your own life that you could stretch and create capacity for God to work in new and greater ways in your life. You’ll never be the same.

How does the Stretch concept apply to your life right now?

 

The Space Between

August 10, 2010 in Faith with 15 Comments

For some reason, I’ve been having the worst time trying to get my thoughts out as words on my screen lately. It seems like every time I set aside some time to write, I hit all kinds of walls. Not sure what that’s about, but it’s kind of frustrating. So this morning, I didn’t try to write. Instead, I read.

After a conversation with a friend about life, transition and fear last night, I woke up this morning praying for them and reading the account in Matthew 14 where Jesus called Peter to step out of the boat and walk on water.

On one hand the story starts in verse 22 when Jesus told the disciples to go get in the boat and go “to the other side.” However, greater context would reveal that this happened immediately after one of Jesus’ greatest miracles, where he fed the multitudes with just 2 fish and 5 loaves of bread. Right after Jesus’ boys witnessed and experienced this amazing display of His power and provision, He told them to go somewhere else. It’s important for me to understand that they didn’t just witness this happen, but I’m sure they got them a fish sandwich, too. Yes they saw, but they also ate.  Part of what He did hit their eyes, part of it hit their belly. Part of it encouraged them, part of it nourished them. Then Jesus said, “go”, while He went somewhere else.

In verse 22 He tells them to go, but by verse 24 we find the disciples in the boat “a long way from the land, beaten by the waves.” Yeah, in the span of 2 verses. Verse 23 tells us that after Jesus dismissed the crowds, He went to pray in the mountains, alone. But what it DOESN’T tell us is the progression from the disciples first stepping in the boat to “a long way from the land.” Next thing we know, it’s all “beaten by the waves!”

With how my mind works and processes context and story, I can’t help but wonder: what happened in the middle?  When did the water first start to get choppy? Did they think, “sho’ do wish we could go back and have another fish sandwich!”? What was their response as the storm escalated? Did they wonder where Jesus was?  Did they think He had left them? Did they feel abandoned?  Sure, they had just seen Jesus, and were sure they would see Him again, but where was He right now… in the middle?

Of course we all know the part of the story where Jesus finally did appear and called for Peter to step out of the boat and come to him, which would mean walking on water. I’ve heard a lot of people talk about how Peter was so brave for stepping out of the boat while all those other jokers sat there, and how the boat represents a place of comfort and that Peter was the only one willing to risk his comfort to pursue Jesus in that moment. I think there’s some validity to some of that, but let’s be honest here… there was a freaking storm happening! The boat was ANYTHING but comfortable.

I’m more inclined to see the shore as the place of comfort in this story. Sure, there was a vital lesson in faith and trust learned in the midst of the storm, but I wonder if we miss understanding that Peter could have never walked on stormy waters while still on the shore. The boat brought him to a moment and positioned him to experience a greater level of trust in Jesus. He had no clue what would happen next, only that he heard and saw Jesus.  I have come to understand how God works and shapes our heart in the space between… the space between miracles… the space between shores… the space between life seasons… the space between answers… the space between what you know and where you’ll go.

I have experienced this first hand many times in my life.

In those “space between” moments, I have often been afraid, but I have never been unchanged.

As I have previously observed about transitions, they are often uncertain and exhausting, breathless and exhilarating all at the same time.  I believe the fear that we often fight is actually meant to be fuel for our faith.  The space between may find you reaching and wondering, hoping and grasping, but it will never leave you the same.

What have you learned in the “space between” times in your life?

 
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