Category: Faith

Anything can happen when you’re in the air for 15 hours. In this world, you never know what awaits you as the plane lands and you’re back on solid ground. What happens while you’re in the air assaults you on televisions in the airport and social media stories as you power your phone on and see what you missed.

Last month, I landed back in the United States to news of a terrorist attack in Paris. Over the course of the next several days, there was a shift. A shift towards language of anti-immigration and fear of the other. Fear, hate, caution and uncertainty filled the air and came out of the mouths of people worldwide.

The masses cried, “It is not as it should be.”

The Church agrees: it is not as it should be. But, it has not been that for a long time.

The following Monday evening, my roommates and I watched the news from the couch, desperate to learn more about what’s going on. We’re three twenty-somethings who have been able to live with a distance between us and some of the events that have happened globally in the past decade. We follow the big stories and share our opinions, but terrorism and immigration aren’t usually conversation topics at our house. In the midst of an election season and events that have hit close to home, we’ve reach a point where the distance we’ve been privileged feels too far. We want to know more.

But as I’ve leaned into everything around me – immigration debates, fear of “the other”, rise in terrorism, and general uncertainty – I’ve been left with more questions, not the answers I so desperately desire.

And maybe, just maybe that’s what God wants of me right now; not to have established, rehearsed positions, but the courage to begin asking the right questions.

What does compassion demand of me?

What am I afraid of? Who am I afraid of?

Where is my hope? What are the implications of that?

What biases do I have? How do those biases affect my behavior?

What are my motivations? Anger? Fear?

These are the important questions that confirm and challenge convictions. As easy as it would be to ignore the gentle tugs on my heart by the Holy Spirit moving me to go deeper, I’ve learned that when I wrestle with the hard questions the growth comes. Truth moves from my head to my heart and settles itself in there, shaping me. My human instincts want to keep a distance from that which challenges my current worldview and mindset, because I feel secure sometimes on the margins of what’s going on globally.

But when I wander closer, when I dare to ask the hard questions, I’m painfully reminded of the evil within my own heart. And that’s where God wants me to sit — staring right at the cross in awe of its brutality and grace. I was an enemy of God, and yet now, I call myself a daughter of the Most High because of Christ. It is in that posture, humbled at the foot of the cross where I want to lean in further. Maybe, just maybe, it’s not answers and positions on issues that God wants me to craft, but instead a posture He wants to lead me to; a posture that reminds me of my rightful place in this story. It’s not as it should be, but one day, hopefully soon, He will return to make it right. 

 

May God bless us with discomfort at easy answers, half-truths, and superficial relationships – so that we may live deep within our hearts. May God bless us with anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people – so that we may work for justice, freedom, and peace. May God bless us with tears to shed for those who suffer pain, rejection, hunger, and war – so that we may reach out our hand to comfort them and to turn their pain into joy. And may God bless us with enough foolishness to believe that we can make a difference in the world – so that we can do what others claim cannot be done, to bring justice and kindness to all our children and the poor. Amen.

-Franciscan Benediction

Moving into Indianapolis and settling into Apartment 2A was the first adult decision I made for myself.

Most of college ending and the summer that followed are blurry in my mind, but the moments I do remember are so vivid. Victoria and I sat in the parking lot of River Crossing waiting for our scheduled apartment tour for almost twenty minutes. While we sat in the car, we chatted about the little stuff – when she was going to get a spray tan for her 24th birthday, what I had recently purchased at J.Crew, and we also talked about the big stuff. We were both dealing with some confusion towards God and splintered hearts, and it felt so good to be able to hear someone say, “I know what you’re going through, and it’s going to get better.” As we walked through the vacant three bedroom apartment, trying not to seem too excited, we dreamed of the events we could hold at our apartment and the new and old relationships that the space could foster. We decided that this was the place for us.

In the two years since we moved in, painted accent walls, hosted too many parties to count, studied the book of James, danced in the kitchen, cried on the couches, and tried on clothes in my closet, I’m moving out. I’m leaving the place where I started to build my life. I’m leaving part of myself in that space, in the sweet and painful memories, but taking so much more of myself into this new season, and into a new home.

There will be new kitchen dance parties, new traditions to create, new memories to make, new friends to care for and a new (shorter!) commute to and from work. There will be new parts of myself I am able to discover and new rhythms to establish.

I know all these things, and yet I’m mourning Apartment 2A. In may ways, it was the line I drew in the sand and said there’s no turning back now. It’s been a defining season mixed with decisions I made and others made for me culminating one big decision – to step into adulthood here in Indianapolis trusting God to mold me into the woman He wanted me to be. It was here that I held out my shaking hands before the Lord and said, “Here’s my life, every messy piece of it, use it for Your glory.”

It was here that I learned that surrender isn’t always done with arms held confidently in the air, but it does mean that there’s no going back. To how things used to be or who you used to be.

I had a doctor’s appointment earlier this month. I was unsure what the outcome was going to be. I found a lump in my armpit that scared me. Should I be worried? Should I be afraid? The uncertainty was exactly that – uncertain. I was feeling all the feels.

I texted a friend and she said, “It’s probably not a big deal, but our hope is not in that.”

Those few words have taken root in my mind. I can’t seem to stop thinking about them. Even after the doctors appointment, the conclusion being that it’s no big deal, I have been evaluating where my hope is, and what exactly that means. What is hope? Why does it matter? How are hope and faith related?

It ended up being a swollen lymph node that has since gone away, but in the days after uncovering it, I prayed for an ingrown hair, it to just disappear, or for it to be exactly what it was – a swollen lymph node. Yes, I prayed for an ingrown hair… Who does that? Me, apparently.

In the process of praying, and in the week between finding the lump and the doctor’s appointment, I was able to take my feelings and fears to God. My mindset shifted from praying for the least scary scenario, to asking God for peace and no fear, no matter the result. I do know that on this side of good news, it’s easy to say that I trusted God’s provision.

Praying for an ingrown hair versus praying for God’s will in the situation – hmmm, let’s see which one makes more sense. In this particular situation, it helped to think of the worst possible scenario. You can imagine where my mind went. And yet, all I could think of was God’s love and care for me. Even the worst possible scenario would not have surprised God. He already had it under control.

John’s words in 1 John 4:16 and 18 brought me peace. “We know and rely on the love God has for us… There is no fear in love; but perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.”

God knows only how to love me. Not the fluffy, only gives me what I want kind of love, but sees the full picture, wants the best for me, in it until the end kind of love. The kind of love that does not punish, but sanctifies. When I fix my eyes on the love of God, even the uncertain situations cause me to trust, not to fear. This is love that I can know and rely upon. This is love I can hope in. This is love I can trust.

Fear stands in opposition to love rooted in the confidence of God’s character. God is good. He is holy. He is love. The love of God does not depend on me. It does not change. It does not punish. This is love worth building my life on. The more I place my hope and trust in God, the less room there is for fear in my mind or my heart.

If my hope is truly in Christ, then everything changes. When hope is in Christ, prayers for comfort turn into prayers for intimacy. When hope is in Christ, dreams of security turn into dreams of wild obedience. If my hope is in Christ, and I know and rely upon the love of God, fear of the uncertain and unknown dissipates. Hope in Christ does not disappoint.

This past Monday, I had the chance to cheer the Duke Blue Devils to their NCAA Basketball National Championship! I’m a sucker for sports stories, and as I watched on Monday evening, I could not take my eyes off of freshman player, Grayson Allen, who came off the bench to score sixteen points. He hustles like I’ve never seen a player before.

Even when earlier in the season, things were not meeting his expectations, he refused to let the bench breed bitterness.

For more thoughts on the game, follow me over to Ministry from a Millennial.

“Did you not hear what I just told you?” This conversation happened quite frequently at my house growing up. My mom to my dad, my mom to my sister, me to my mom, my sister to me. There were five of us under one roof, so this conversation could occur between any permutation of us. This issue is rarely ever about hearing, all five of us have perfectly normal hearing capabilities. My eavesdropping dropping skills may mean that my hearing is even above normal, but that says more about being nosy that my ears.

These conversations were not about hearing, they were about listening.We can hear everything, but if we are not listening, it is all moot.

I hear a lot of things throughout the day. My co-worker who shares an office with me tells me about her previous evening at home with her kids, my roommates fill me in on their days, my boss pops into my office to remind me of a task, a prospective adoptive parent shares a story over the phone, pop up ads on Facebook try to convince me to buy something, my Pandora station is interrupted for advertisements, the NPR news anchor updates me on what I missed overnight, and it goes on and on and on. My ears hear all this information. But often times, I am not listening. Not listening to the details of a story, a product or a problem. There is so much to hear and yet I listen to and am able to process so little.

In one of Jesus’ frequent metaphors, He is the shepherd and His followers are the sheep. He says, “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me” (John 10:27). Often, I look at the lives of those I consider brave; friends taking bold steps of faith, going out into the unknown because of a call of the Lord. I wonder how they can go somewhere scary and unfamiliar. And yet, I understand. When You hear God’s voice, you listen and you obey.

There is intimacy in the way Jesus cares for His followers, but also trust in the way His followers go where He leads. It is more than just hearing a story. Obedience requires listening. Listening requires trust. The trust is rooted in knowing and being known.

I am a chronic verbal processor. I famously verbal vomit all over my friends, usually during a phone call. I feel known when a friend will ask me a follow-up question, even if we switched topics quickly, since I tend to do that throughout a monologue. I realize then that they are not simply hearing the words come out of my mouth, but they are truly listening. As they listen to me, and I listen back, our trust in each other grows and know each other increasingly better.

Shepherds lead their sheep and their sheep trust them. Just as friendship builds through two way communication, so does my relationship with the Lord. I can only go where I am led and I can only be led when I am listening. The first step to obedience is to listen.