A Deeper Desire

People talk about God not letting us have the things we want sometimes because they aren't part of His will for us or because He wants us to grow closer to Him. Usually they're talking about boyfriends, husbands, jobs, or money... things like that. 

I'm in the fortunate and strange situation of wanting none of the typical things people are looking for when they're yearning for the next thing. God has given me all the things people typically pray for without much thought or effort or waiting on my part. Why? Who knows? I feel guilty writing this knowing others are waiting for so much, but I write it out of gratitude and amazement, not boasting, that God gave me Jason, seemingly out of the blue, brought me to Shafer Middle School where I was offered a job by one of the world's best principals on the spot the Monday after graduation, and has blessed Jason and me with an easy and comfortable lifestyle, easily provided with everything we need. There is so little need to worry in our lives. I have a dream husband, and we as a couple have the dream life and dream marriage. Seriously, it's sickening. It's that good. We're not even pining for or worrying about children yet. We don't even have that burden of so many young couples. We are perfectly happy where we are with what we have.

So why have I been so wretchedly dissatisfied and miserable? Why am I always complaining about my job and my busyness? Why am I often so grumpy and ungrateful (always in my mind if not always out loud) about so much of my life? 

I wrote recently in August (what? it was that long ago?) about the rush of my miserable life Speed and how disgusting it is that I have the nerve to be unhappy with my life when I have so many wonderful things.

I have called it a "lack of perspective" and ingratitude, and I have berated myself, and I suppose many people would say that what I have needed to do all this time is to count my blessings. That, of course, is true, but I think I am realizing something even deeper than the need to count blessings...

This may sound radical or it may sound so normal one would wonder why I would bother typing it-- I'm having a hard time telling the difference these days-- but what I'm realizing is that I have been so unsatisfied because none of the "blessings" I have is God. Counting the blessings and looking for the positives has not helped because, honestly, all the positives are mere idols at best anyway. To look at a school day and try to find the good that was in it, for me, is just further idol worship of myself, my craft, and the way I measure my success and my value as a person.

And what I'm realizing is that God has been trying this whole time to get my attention, making me unsatisfied with all the unworthy lovers in my life that this world praises rather than calls out for the demons they are. If I were feeling the way I want to feel about school, my job, my importance in the classroom, I would be missing out on this message God has been putting together slowly but surely in my life... that none of the things I have been looking for to reassure me of my value will ever do it. I have thought for so long that I am just broken, the wrong personality for teaching or maybe for anything involving other humans because I am so jaded and so dissatisfied, so unable to see the good along with the bad, so unwilling to look at the bright side. But now, oddly, miraculously, I am praising God, my Father, for keeping those ooey-gooey good feelings away because I know myself, know that if I had been feeling fulfilled all this time it would have not been in Him but in me and my kids and my belief in books and education and a system that is just a human system and nothing like God... 

People talk about turning away from drink and drug and sex and swearing for God. How many talk about turning away from trying to be a good teacher or from wanting to live life right? 

That's what I've needed to do all along, and I am so filled with joy right now, seeing a little bit more of God unveiled knowing that He is holding me saying, "Daughter, I Am all that is good. I Am all that is worthy. You are only worthy because I love you. That is it. You could never be more or less worthy for anything You ever accomplish or don't." 

And I sit here, filled with joy. Joy! Joy? What is this feeling and where has it been?

And the answer is not just that I had a good day at school or that my students suddenly blossomed so much that I got to see the fruit of my labor but that I am crucifying again the belief that I can ever even bear fruit.

Lord, YOU are the vine, and I am the branch. 

Again with these feelings that are either radical or maybe fundamental and commonplace-- I cannot tell because they're sparkling so with so much joy and new light-- There is such joy in looking at Jesus and knowing that He is the only good. So much joy in realizing that it is right not to be happy and fulfilled even in a wonderful marriage, even with wonderful friends and family, even with a wonderful job, not because they are not good gifts from God for which I should be thankful (because they certainly are! All good things come from above!) but because they are only shadowy glimpses of the good that God is, hollow and pale in comparison. So much gratitude in a God who would whisper to me, "There is room for more desire in you because you were made to desire something so amazing and beyond your comprehension-- ME."

I am not fully satisfied-- may I never be!-- because the fall of man has separated me from the only good, has put distance and distraction between me and the only value, the only love, the only light. Jesus has covered the sins that would have separated me forever, and the Holy Spirit has given me birth into a part of Jesus's bride now.

Oh, but now we see only dimly as in a mirror! Now is only the reflection.

What joy! What joy in seeing more of Jesus now, what joy in knowing even a life as good as mine is is only a tiny taste, and even, if it were gone, it would not matter. Only Jesus. I think He is starting to teach me what that means...

And my heart is so full of love for Him, and I just pray that it grows and grows!

He is jealous for me 
(even when the things I love above and in addition to Him are good things, like kids and school, when that love is human obsession and not the Love that comes from Him)

He is jealous for me
(and wooing me back to His heart so beautifully)

He is jealous for me
Loves like a hurricane,
I am a tree
Bending beneath the weight
Of His wind and mercy.

Oh, how He loves us
Oh
Oh, How He loves us
How He loves us
Oh

We are His portion, 
And He is our prize--
Drawn to redemption 
By the grace in His eyes.

If His grace is an ocean,
We're all sinking!
Heaven meets earth 
Like an unforseen kiss,
And my heart beats violently
Inside of my chest--


And I realize just how 
Beautiful You are and 
How great Your affections are for me.


Oh how He loves us.

(David Crowder Band)

It's a Hosea kind of love. A death-defying kind of love. So supernatural, so undeserved, so awe-inspiring.

"Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow."
James 1:17

Oh, how He loves. Hallelujah!

More Liturgy: You Have the Words of Eternal Life

This is from a children's CD, but it is the exact tune of the liturgy sung before the reading of the Gospel passage every Sunday in the Lutheran church where I grew up.

Alleluia, Lord to Whom Shall We Go? (track 5)

I still freak out a little inside every time I read words from liturgy in Scripture. Originally, every discovery was a surprise. As a kid, I didn't realize how much of what I had memorized from my wooden pew was actually straight from Scripture. As I grew up, each time I found the words I could already sing and recite within the Bible, they would take on more meaning, and I would feel all the layers of the words peeling back and unfolding with new meanings when I would sing them each Sunday, now knowing the Scriptural context too. Even now, seeing them in Scripture thrills my heart, like they're a gift God has planted in me from all those years ago, and like the gift is being reopened and renewed each time the words are read, heard, sung, or said again.

I wrote in my journal during a sermon on John 6 (where the words for this moment of liturgy originate) at Grace Community three weeks ago, "We sang [John 6:68] in liturgy during Scripture reading almost every Sunday of my childhood, and it still gives me goosebumps now. I don't know what it is about it. I think it's the humility of it. 'What else can I do? Who else could answer my need?' ONLY YOU, JESUS. ONLY YOU."

Now, rereading John 6 again (yes, I mean to be redundant), I am looking closely at why Peter uttered these words, "Lord to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life."

Jesus had just asked, "You do not want to leave too, do you?" 

Why were people leaving? People were leaving because Jesus had just called out the crowds for drawing near to Him just because they had eaten of the miraculous loaves and were looking for more food. "Do not work for food that spoils," He said, "but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you." Then He went on to say ludicrous things like the work we must do to do what God requires is just "to believe in the one He has sent" and that we are supposed to eat Jesus's body as bread and drink His blood. I can just imagine everyone getting really weirded out and starting to try to slip away unnoticed as He kept saying it over and over and over.

"I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty."
That sounds comforting enough, but He didn't stop there.
"I am the bread that came down from Heaven."
That's hard to believe when everyone listening knows good and well He's the son of Joseph and Mary.
"No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day." 
Um, what? The Father has to draw us? Who says we even need to come to Jesus anyway? Are we not sons of Abraham?!
"I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world."
Wait, what?
"I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you."
Okay, this is creepy. Maybe we're misunderstanding something, but, no, He keeps saying it!
"Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I in him. Just as the living Father sent me and I live because of the Father, so the one who feeds on me will live because of me."
Now He brings up manna again, which was all everyone was asking for anyway-- Give us bread, Jesus! Like Moses did!
"Your forefathers ate manna and died, but he who feeds on this bread will live forever."

I don't know how much of the crowd remained after this, but here's what the disciples had to say:

"THIS IS A HARD TEACHING. WHO CAN ACCEPT IT?"

And Jesus's response? Point blank, matter of fact, no sugar coating or breaking it down into easier pieces:

"Does this offend you? What if you see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before! The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life. Yet there are some of you who do not believe. This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless the Father has enabled him."

Here, Scripture says "From this time many of His disciples turned back and no longer followed Him."

"Many of His disciples turned back and no longer followed Him."

But what was Peter's reply? Good ol' Peter!

"LORD TO WHOM SHALL WE GO? YOU HAVE THE WORDS OF ETERNAL LIFE. WE BELIEVE AND KNOW THAT YOU ARE THE HOLY ONE OF GOD."

I'm not sure I actually get all of this eating flesh and drinking blood stuff. I mean, I know how years of theological study have broken it down into some formula I could spout. But I don't really know that I know what Jesus was talking about. I agree with the disciples that it is a hard teaching!

But I also agree whole-heartedly (Praise God, because if this passage means what I think it does, this could not be without God's choosing it!) with Peter. I believe and know that Jesus is the Holy One of God.

I can turn to no other.

There is no other.

He is bread. Life. God. All.

Jesus is and has the words of eternal life.

Confession and Repentance

Today's Sunday school lesson was about repentance, and all I could think of for the first several minutes of class was the Brief Order for Confession and Forgiveness and the prayers I prayed in my Lutheran congregation for all of my formative years.

If you don't get liturgical services, I understand. If you can name all the pitfalls and point to the fact that liturgy is a part of the structure and hierarchy of institutional churches and not part of the model of the New Testament Church, believe me, I get it, too.

But I will always thank God for the way He continues to whisper to me in the words of the liturgy I learned as a child, fell in love with as a teen and baby Christian, and love to this day as an adult.

If it doesn't strike your heart or seems a little weird, I guess that's to be expected, but my heart burns just rereading this. Maybe it's sentiment or homesicknesses, but I think much of it is because of the simple truth of it:

(I've copied and pasted this from a worship order using the LBW and enlarged, italicized, and underline the passages that echo most in my heart.)

Stand

Brief Order for Confession and Forgiveness
The minister leads the congregation in the invocation. The sign of the cross may be made by all in remembrance of their Baptism.
P: In the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
C: Amen
P: Almighty God, to whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid: Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love you and worthily magnify your holy name, through Jesus Christ our Lord.
C: Amen
P: If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. But if we confess our sins, God who is faithful and just will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Kneel Silence for reflection and self-examination.
P: Most merciful God,
C: We confess that we are in bondage to sin and cannot free ourselves. We have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done and by what we have left undone. We have not loved you with our whole heart; we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. For the sake of your Son, Jesus Christ, have mercy on us. Forgive us, renew us, and lead us, so that we may delight in your will and walk in your ways, to the glory of your holy name. Amen
The minister stands and addresses the congregation.
P: Almighty God, in his mercy, has given his Son to die for us and, for his sake, forgives us all our sins. As a called and ordained minister of the Church of Christ, and by his authority, I therefore declare to you the entire forgiveness of all your sins,
in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

C: Amen 

I chose this Bible from Goodwill mostly for the scrap bookmarks inside it.

This is totally printed on the kind of preprinted with a picture bulletins we had at Salem as a kid, and the handwriting on the notes are in the cursive writing of a person who grew up decades ago like our grandmothers and the sweet ladies at church. So much beautiful nostalgia of a simple country church and a liturgical tradition.

This one is almost a straight paraphrase of the Brief Order of Confession and Forgiveness from the Lutheran Book of Worship, which I was just reciting to myself this morning during our Sunday school lesson about repentance.

Meandering and Looking for the Word of God

If I ever do write a book, I imagine it will not be the great American novel I hoped for or even a novel at all... probably more of a Blue Like Jazz type of autobiographical meandering, musings on topics far and wide that always come back to God. I don't know if I have anything inside me quite to the level of Donald Miller's reflections, but I think his format is the closest to how my heart works.

Because I am all about the meandering. I've written here before about loving to get lost and my need for meandering before. I even used that word, meander. (Revisit that post here.)

So here's my meandering for today...

I went to Parkway for Sunday school class and second service today with Rachel, ended up at lunch with my brother- and sister-in-law by accident (at least to us), then wandered around Barnes and Noble with Rachel continuing the thinking and talking, looking for books, looking for meaning, and then I went on my own to Walmart and then to every store with dollar in the name between Walmart and my house (There are three.) looking for some inexpensive paperback copies of the Bible. I ended up finding some, finally, where else but Goodwill, where, as I stood at the checkout with four copies of the Bible in my hand, I saw one of my students from Shafer and spoke to her and her grandmother. Then I left Goodwill, full of wondering, wondering if God had a reason to time our meeting there, wondering if she saw all the Bibles in my hand (None looked much like Bibles from the spines.), wondering if there was something more I should have said than what I did, wondering what, if anything, seeing this sweet girl "by chance" in the Hendersonville Goodwill has to do with my continuing questions about whether or not I should be devoting my days and energy endlessly to teaching...

I am so grateful that I do not have to go to work tomorrow because it allowed for a day of wandering and wondering, a day of lengthy conversations and soul-baring, a day of walking around with my eyes, heart, and hands open, looking for whatever God might put in my path that could point me toward His answers for all the current questions of this life. The answers are coming-- I feel them rumbling-- in friendships growing deeper, in lives overlapping a little more all the time.  About 13 months ago, I wandered through the same Barnes and Noble and left with a copy of Revise Us Again by Frank Viola, not knowing if Jason would ever even crack the cover, much less how much it would be an instrument of igniting so much change in our lives, at least in our thoughts and conversations; the actual, tangible changes to our lives are still coming, but coming, nonetheless, I'm certain, and who knows what treasures God has stored up in the books that left in my hands today or in the pages of the musty Bibles I brought home tonight. Who knows but Him the answer to this "To teach or not to teach" conundrum plaguing my mind, but I have faith tonight in those answers and rejoice in the friendships and relationships He is so faithfully building.

And, now, in search of the Word of God in a way much more complete than my search for Bibles this evening... my search for the living Word, Christ.

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." 
-John 1:1

A Complement to "Anchor"

This is another NoiseTrade find, and it reminds me of the heart in "Anchor," a NoiseTrade find that is the song of my soul this year and maybe for a long, long time:

Jesus Is My Only Anchor


Home
Robbie Seay Band

Don't wanna live for the rich
Don't wanna live for me
A rich man who's come here to confess my sin

Don't wanna live for the politics
Politics of man
For the hope we seek is never found in the politicians

I wanna live for the King
I wanna live for the King 
(2x)

Don't wanna live in the past
Don't wanna live in shame
For everything I was You exchanged for grace

Don't wanna live for an ideology
Oh I want to know You not just know about a God who saves

I wanna live for the King
I wanna live for the King 
(2x)

Singing whoa
And whoa
Come and make my heart Your home
Yeah

Oh the cross echoes in my heart
The suffering of God
You have made a way for me

Oh the grace
Death has been undone
Love has overcome
My heart overflows to sing

I wanna live for the King
I wanna live for the King
(4x)

Singing whoa
and whoa
Come and make my heart Your home

More Dolly: Jesus and Gravity

Jesus and Gravity

Dolly Parton

I'm to the point where it don't add up

I can't say I've come this far

With my guitar on pure dumb luck

That's not to say, I know it all

'Cause every time I get too high up

On my horse I fall

'Cause I've got something lifting me up

Something holding me down

Something to give me wings

And keep my feet on the ground

I've got all I need, Jesus & gravity

But I'm as bad as anyone

Takin' all these blessings in my life

For granted one by one

When I start to think and it's all me

Well, something comes along

And knocks me right back on my knees and

I've got something lifting me up

Something holding me down

Something to give me wings

And keep my feet on the ground

I've got all I need, Jesus & gravity

He's my friend, He's my light

He's my wings, He's my flight

I've got something lifting me up

Something holding me down

Something to give me wings

And keep my feet on the ground

I've got all I'm gonna need

I've got Jesus, I got Jesus

I've got something lifting me up

Something holding me down

Something to give me wings

And keep my feet on the ground

I've got all I'll ever need

'Cause I've got Jesus & gravity

I've got something lifting me up

Something holding me down

Something to give me wings

And keep my feet on the ground

I've got all I need

'Cause I've got Jesus & gravity

Jesus, I got Jesus, I've got Jesus

He's my only friend

He lifts me up, He give me wings

He gives me hope

And He gives me strength

And that's all I'll ever need

As long as He keeps lifting me

He is my light, He is my guide

He is my wings, He is my flight

Lift me, I've got Jesus

I've got Jesus and that's all I need

Read more: DOLLY PARTON - JESUS & GRAVITY LYRICS 

http://www.metrolyrics.com/jesus-gravity-lyrics-dolly-parton.html

2013 Book 1 (I'm getting a head start.)

Dream More by Dolly Parton

I think Dolly just wrote my New Year's Resolution:

I've thought about this a lot, and I think that having lots of energy is mostly about having happiness in your life. And to me, happiness is your commitment to appreciating all that is good in life, big and small. It's pretty easy to be happy when everything's going great. But life's not like that. It's like one of my favorite old sayings goes, 'If you want the rainbow, you have to put up with the rain.'

To Me, If You're a Happy Person, You: 

• Love what you do. 

•  Like yourself.

• Enjoy other people: their company, their ideas, their personalities.

• Keep a good spiritual grip on things. 

•  Always pray for understanding and acceptance.

Of course, I don't know if these account for your happiness, but they certainly account for mine. And it's been my experience that happiness begets happiness. You have to work hard at being happy, just like you have to work hard at being miserable. I wake up every day expecting all to be good and right. And if it's not, I set my mind to making it so by the end of the day.

Dream More: Celebrate the Dreamer in You by the one and only Dolly Parton

She aptly begins quoting one of her recent songs after this passage, one that I have a quotation from painted on a canvas in my classroom, one that I need to live each day. Once just someone I loved because my Mamaw did, once just someone I thought of when I thought of a popular East Tennessee theme park, Dolly has become and will always be one of the smartest philosophers I ever care to follow.

Just watch and listen and see why: