Audience

from Searching for God Knows What by Donald Miller

"And then it all came together. It all became so obvious, it was actually frightening. Moses was explaining all of humanity, right there in Genesis chapter 3, and because people were always reading it looking for the formula, they never saw it.

"Here is what I think Moses was saying: Man is wired so he gets his glory (his security, his understanding of value, his feeling of purpose, his feeling of rightness with his Maker, his security for eternity) from God, and this relationship is so strong, and God's love is so pure, that Adam and Eve felt no insecurity at all, so much so that they walked around naked and didn't even realize they were naked. But when that relationship was broken, they knew it instantly. All of their glory, the glory that came from God, was gone. It wouldn't be unlike being in love and having somebody love you and then all of a sudden that person is gone, like a kid lost in the store. All of the insecurity rises the instant you realize you are alone. No insecurity was felt when the person who loved you was around, but in his absence, it instantly comes tot he surface. in this way, Adam and Eve were naked and weren't ashamed when God was around, but the second the relationship was broken, they realized it and were ashamed. And that is just the beginning.

"If man was wired so that something outside himself told him who he was, and if God's presence was giving him a feeling of fulfillment, then when that relationship was broken, man would be pining for other people to tell him that he was good, right, okay with the world, and eternally secure. As I wrote earlier, we all compare ourselves to others, and none of our emotions - like jealousy and envy and lust - could exist unless man was wired so that somebody else told him who he was, and that somebody else was gone."

...

"A child learns early there is a fashionable and an unfashionable in the world, an ugly and a pretty, a valued and an unvalued. Where this system comes from, God only knows, but it is rarely questioned, and though completely illogical and agreed upon by everyone as evil, it remains in play, commanding our emotions as something that comes naturally, as though a radioactive kind of tragedy happened, screwing up our souls. Adulterated or policed, the system can grow to something more civilized, but no less dominant as a drive of nature. In youth the system is obvious. If you want to learn the operating system to which humans are subjected, step into a classroom of preteen students and listen to the dialogue. You will hear the constant measurements, the talk about family wealth, whose father drives what car, who lives in what neighborhood, or who is dating whom.

"Here is how it feels: From the first day of school the conversation is the same as it would be if hundreds of students were told to stand in line ranging from best to worst, coolest to most uncool, each presenting their case for value, each presenting an offense to the cases of others, alliances being formed as caricatures of reality television (or vice versa).

"And here is what is terrible: There will be a sort of punishment being dealt to those at the end of the line, each person dealing out castigation as a way of dissociation from the geeks, driven by the fear that associating with somebody at the end of the line might cost them position, as if the two might be averaged, landing each of them in the space between. And so, in this way, students are constantly looking to associate themselves with those higher in line, and dissociate from those of low position. Great lengths will be taken to associate with those at the front of the line. Students will kiss up, drop names, lie about friendships  and so on. Many will hate the most popular and yet subject themselves to their approval s though they were small gods. But the great crime, the great tragedy, is not in the attempts to associate but rather the efforts to dissociate. If a person feels his space in the hierarchy is threatened, that he might lose position, the vehemence he feels toward the lesser person is nearly malevolent."

...

"It must have been wonderful to spend time with Christ, with Somebody who liked you, loved you, believed in you, and sought a closeness foreign to skin-bound man. A person would feel significant in His presence. After all, those who knew Christ personally went on to accomplish amazing feats, proving unwavering devotion. It must have been thrilling to look into the eyes of God and have Him look back and communicate that human beings, down to the individual, are of immense worth and beauty and worthy of intimacy with each other and the Godhead. Such an understanding fueled a lifetime of joy and emotional health among the disciples that neither crowds of people jeering insults  nor prison, nor torture, nor exclusion could undo. They were faithful to the end, even to their own deaths.

"I recently read an interview in which the Nobel Prize-winning novelist Toni Morrison was asked why she had become a great writer, what books she had read, what method she had used to structure her practice. She laughed and said, 'Oh, no, that is not why I am a great writer. I am a great writer because when I was a little girl and walked into a room where my father was sitting, his eyes would light up. That is why I am a great writer. That is why. There isn't any other reason.'"

...

"I would imagine, then, that the repentance we are called to is about choosing one audience over another."

The Gift of Love

Though I may speak with bravest fire,
And have the gift to all inspire,
And have not love, my words are vain,
As sounding brass, and hopeless gain.

Though I may give all I possess,
And striving so my love profess,
But not be given by love within,
The profit soon turns strangely thin.

Come, Spirit, come, our hearts control,
Our spirits long to be made whole.
Let inward love guide every deed;
By this we worship, and are freed.

- Hal Hopson, inspired by 1 Corinthians 13

If you've never heard it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QITeybpH0U8
or here if you like those awesome deep old-school church voices: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5s_dlh4vtOU

The Hard Places

from the book Kisses from Katie by Katie Davis, p. 252


"I have learned along my journey that if I really want to follow Jesus, I will go to the hard places. Being a Christ follower means being acquainted with sorrow. We must know sorrow to be able to fully appreciate joy. Joy costs pain, but the pain is worth it. After all, the murder had to take place before the resurrection.

I'll be honest: The hard places can seem unbearable. It's dark and it's scary, and even though I know God said He will never leave or forsake me, sometimes it's so dark that I just can't see Him. But then the most incredible thing happens: God take me by the hand and walks me straight out of the hard place and into the beauty on the other side. He whispers to me to be thankful, that even this will be for His good.

It takes a while sometimes, coming out of the dark place. Sometimes God and I come out into a desert and he has to carry me through that too. Sometimes I slip a lot on the way out and He has to keep coming back to get me. Always, on the other side is something beautiful, because He has used the hard places to increase my sense of urgency and to align my desires with His. I realize that it was there that He was closest to me, even in the times when I didn't see Him. I realize that the hard places are good because it is there that I gained more wisdom, and though with wisdom comes sorrow, on the other side of sorrow is joy. And a funny thing happens when I realize this: I want to go to the hard place again. Again and again and again.

So we go. This is where our family is today and where I hope to stay - loving, because He first loved us. Going into the hard places, entering into the sorrow because He entered for us first and because by His grace, redemption and beauty are on the other side."

the deep, strong, blessed restlessness

But even though errors are numerous, truths are still only one, and there is only one who is “the Way and the Life,” only one guidance that indeed leads a person through life to life. Thousands upon thousands carry a name by which it is indicated that they have chosen this guidance, that they belong to the Lord Jesus Christ, after whom they call themselves Christians, that they are his bond-servants, whether they be masters or servants, slaves or freeborn, men or women. Christians they call themselves and they also call themselves by other names, and all of them designate the relation to this one guidance. They call themselves believers and thereby signify that they are pilgrims, strangers and aliens in the world. Indeed, a staff in the hand does not identify a pilgrim as definitely as calling oneself a believer publicly testifies that one is on a journey, because faith simply means: What I am seeking is not here, and for that very reason I believe it. Faith expressly signifies the deep, strong, blessed restlessness that drives the believer so that he cannot settle down at rest in this world, and therefore the person who has settled down completely at rest has also ceased to be a believer, because a believer cannot sit still as one sits with a pilgrim's staff in one's hand – a believer travels forward. 

Soren Kierkegaard

Why go, and not just give?

David Platt answers a question in his book Radical that I've been confronted with as well in the past. I thought I would share his response with you all.

I remember when I was first preparing to go to Sudan, a nation impoverished by civil war. The trip was going to cost me around three thousand dollars. It wasn't easy to travel into Sudan since they were still at war, and we would have to charter a plane and spend a few extra days to make that happen. I remember one dear lady in the church coming up to me and asking, "Why don't you just send the three thousand dollars to the people in Sudan? Wouldn't that be a better use of money than your spending a week and a half with them? Think of how far that money could go."


I wrestled with that question. Was I wasting these funds in order to go when I could simply give the money instead? Should I even be going? I continued wrestling with that question until I got to Sudan. There I had a conversation with Andrew that shed some light on the question.


Andrew was sharing with me about his life in Sudan over the last twenty years. He had known war since he was born, and he described facets of the suffering and persecution his people had been through. He told me about the various groups, most of them secular or government organizations, who had brought supplies to them during that time, and he expressed thanks for the generosity of so many people.


But then he looked at me and asked, "Even in light of all these things that people have given us, do you want to know how you can tell who a true brother is?"


I leaned forward and asked, "How?"


He responded, "A true brother comes to be with you in your time of need." Then he looked me in the eye and said, "David, you are a true brother. Thank you for coming to be with us."


Tears welled up in my eyes as the reality of the gospel hit home with me in an entirely new way. I was immediately reminded that when God chose to bring salvation to you and me, he did not send gold or silver, cash or check. He sent himself - the Son. I was convicted for even considering that I should give money instead of actually coming to Sudan..... Was I really so shallow as to think that my money is the answer to the needs in the world?"




Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that giving money isn't a wonderful thing. It's beautiful when we sacrifice so that others may have food or shelter or medical care. But going somewhere puts a face on the people to whom you're giving. They are no longer an object of your charity; they are your brothers and sisters. Your dear friends. The same things that hurt them hurt you, and you cry with them instead of just for them.

I remember well when my friend Kevin came back from Rwanda. He worked with a humanitarian organization and grew a deep, deep love for the Rwandan people. It wasn't just that he went, it was what he did when he came back. He talked to all of his friends constantly about how wonderful the Rwandan people are, how kind, how hospitable, how hopeful in the face of heartbreak and past suffering. Because he went, many people, including me, now feel a connection with Rwanda, though we have never been there. We can put faces to the country, and we feel like we have a genuine connection with its people. So not only does going to another country make you a brother or sister to the people there, it stirs a deep love in others when you come back.

Money alone is not the solution. Giving money is just one part of giving our love...and our love - that force that says, "You are my brother, and I hurt and hope with you" - is what really has the power to heal broken nations and broken people.

The Vision

So this guy comes up to me and says "what's the vision? What's the big idea?" I open my mouth and words come out like this… The vision?

The vision is JESUS – obsessively, dangerously, undeniably Jesus.

The vision is an army of young people.

You see bones? I see an army. And they are FREE from materialism.

They laugh at 9-5 little prisons. They could eat caviar on Monday and crusts on Tuesday. They wouldn't even notice. They know the meaning of the Matrix, the way the west was won. They are mobile like the wind, they belong to the nations. They need no passport.. People write their addresses in pencil and wonder at their strange existence. They are free yet they are slaves of the hurting and dirty and dying. What is the vision ? The vision is holiness that hurts the eyes. It makes children laugh and adults angry. It gave up the game of minimum integrity long ago to reach for the stars. It scorns the good and strains for the best. It is dangerously pure.

Light flickers from every secret motive, every private conversation. It loves people away from their suicide leaps, their Satan games. This is an army that will lay down its life for the cause. A million times a day its soldiers choose to lose that they might one day win the great 'Well done' of faithful sons and daughters.

Such heroes are as radical on Monday morning as Sunday night. They don't need fame from names. Instead they grin quietly upwards and hear the crowds chanting again and again: "COME ON!"
And this is the sound of the underground
The whisper of history in the making
Foundations shaking
Revolutionaries dreaming once again
Mystery is scheming in whispers
Conspiracy is breathing… This is the sound of the underground

And the army is discipl(in)ed.

Young people who beat their bodies into submission.

Every soldier would take a bullet for his comrade at arms. The tattoo on their back boasts "for me to live is Christ and to die is gain".

Sacrifice fuels the fire of victory in their upward eyes. Winners. Martyrs. Who can stop them? Can hormones hold them back? Can failure succeed? Can fear scare them or death kill them?


And the generation prays


like a dying man with groans beyond talking, with warrior cries, sulphuric tears and with great barrel loads of laughter! Waiting. Watching: 24 – 7 – 365.

Whatever it takes they will give: Breaking the rules. Shaking mediocrity from its cosy little hide. Laying down their rights and their precious little wrongs, laughing at labels, fasting essentials. The advertisers cannot mould them. Hollywood cannot hold them. Peer-pressure is powerless to shake their resolve at late night parties before the cockerel cries.

They are incredibly cool, dangerously attractive


inside.


On the outside? They hardly care. They wear clothes like costumes to communicate and celebrate but never to hide. Would they surrender their image or their popularity? They would lay down their very lives - swap seats with the man on death row - guilty as hell. A throne for an electric chair.

With blood and sweat and many tears, with sleepless nights and fruitless days,
they pray as if it all depends on God and live as if it all depends on them.

Their DNA chooses JESUS. (He breathes out, they breathe in.) Their subconscious sings. They had a blood transfusion with Jesus. Their words make demons scream in shopping centres. Don't you hear them coming? Herald the weirdo's! Summon the losers and the freaks. Here come the frightened and forgotten with fire in their eyes. They walk tall and trees applaud, skyscrapers bow, mountains are dwarfed by these children of another dimension. Their prayers summon the hounds of heaven and invoke the ancient dream of Eden.

And this vision will be. It will come to pass; it will come easily; it will come soon. How do I know? Because this is the longing of creation itself, the groaning of the Spirit, the very dream of God. My tomorrow is his today. My distant hope is his 3D. And my feeble, whispered, faithless prayer invokes a thunderous, resounding, bone-shaking great 'Amen!' from countless angels, from hero's of the faith, from Christ himself. And he is the original dreamer, the ultimate winner.

Guaranteed.

 
-- 24-7prayer.com

A Date with Jesus

From Jackie Kendall's Blog/Newsletter (so I did not write this but have definitely had moments like hers of complete revelation and intimacy with Jesus!):

Have you ever been on a date with Jesus? Several years ago, I realized that I had a totally free Friday night (all my family was out of town). I asked myself, "What are you going to do with your free Friday night?" And as soon as I asked myself that question, my heart's reply was, "I can go on a date with Jesus!" So I went to Singer Island and spend the evening sitting on a balcony (8 floors up); waiting for the full moon to rise and enjoying a date with Jesus. 

I brought along my Bible and journal and my prayer roll-a-deck. Just as I began to pray through some of the many prayer requests, I paused to look at the ocean and suddenly I see a RAINBOW. Now a rainbow is not unique when it has rained but it hadn't rained. As I was looking at the Rainbow, I started to cry because I had just begun my date with Jesus and He blessed me with a rainbow before the Full Moon had come up! I started to think about what a rainbow represents and I just cried thinking of the many promises that God has made and KEPT. I decided to look up all the references in the Bible in relation to the rainbow and I discovered three men (Noah, Ezekiel and John) who saw three different rainbows but they were all faced something in common-hard circumstances. 

As I thought about the rainbows that Ezekiel and John saw, I realized that their view was of heavenly status. The rainbow that we can so casually look at is a reflection of a heavenly proto-type not just a scientific wonder! I will never see a rainbow again without considering "heaven's rainbow of glory about the Holy One."  

I began to think about experiencing the beauty of a rainbow without having to go through a storm. Then I realized that we can be rainbows of hope in people's lives even when they aren't facing a storm. Then when their storm arrives; they will start looking for the rainbow of promise for their heart. 

As I raised my hands to just praise the Lord for the rainbow insight, suddenly I spotted the full moon. As I was staring at the full moon, I thought about how far men went to visit the moon and to place an American Flag on it. As I pondered the effort, focus, commitment, passion, finances, and sacrifices to land on the moon, my heart began to grieve that men could pay such a HUGE PRICE TO TOUCH THE MOON but they are rarely willing to expend such passion to touch the Heart of the ONE WHO MADE THE MOON.

"When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the Moon and the stars which you have set in place, WHAT IS MAN THAT YOU ARE MINDFUL OF HIM" (Ps. 8:3) 

As I drove back home from my date with Jesus, I opened my "full moon" roof (sun roof) and was worshipping full throttle! When I raised my right hand through the roof in praise, I started to grin thinking that at that moment "my raised hand touched the heart of the One Who gave me a rainbow while I was waiting for a full moon."

Christmas in the Room

I can't stop listening to this song. It's by a guy named Sufjan Stevens. These words aren't enough though; you really should listen to it. :)

No travel plans, no shopping malls
No candy canes or Santa Claus
For as the day of rest draws near,
It's just the two of us this year.

No silver bells or mistletoe
We'll kiss and watch our TV shows.

I'll come to you
I'll sing to you
Like it's Christmas in the room.

I'll dance with you
I'll laugh with you
'Til it's Christmas in the room.

No traffic jams, no ice and storm
For in the house, the fire is warm
No Christmas tree, no great parade
It's just an ordinary day.

No parties planned, no place to go.
It's just the two of us alone.
and in the house, we see a light
that comes from what we feel inside.

I'll come to you
I'll sing to you
Like it's Christmas in the room.

I'll dance with you, I'll laugh with you
'Til it's Christmas in the room, 'til it's Christmas in the room.

Oh, I can see the day when we'll die,
But I don't care to think of silence.
For now, I hear you laughing -
the greatest joy is like the sunrise.

No gifts to give; they're all right here,
inside our hearts the glorious cheer
And in the house we see a light
that comes from what we know inside.

I'll come to you
I'll sing to you
Like it's Christmas in the room.

I'll dance with you, I'll laugh with you
'Til it's Christmas in the room.

I'll come to you

I'll sing to you

Like it's Christmas in the room.

Like it's Christmas in the room.

It means a lot to me that Jesus was born among animals. No fanfare, decorations, or even visitors until the shepherds came...for a while, it was just Joseph, the exhausted Mary, and their newborn baby. And perhaps a sheep, a donkey, and a cow. One scene among many in which God honors the low and humble. 

So, to have "Christmas in the room" means, in one word, intimacy. That's what I love about this song - creating "Christmas" means creating deep, deep connection. What was Christmas, after all, but God being intimate with us? He longs for oneness - first between Him and us, then between us and each other. That's why the Nativity is so popular. It draws us in because it is a perfect picture of intimacy. 

I wonder what was going through the heads of those new teenage parents. They didn't have much. All they had was each other and the promises God had given them. And yet that moment they shared, humble as it was, has been recreated millions of times by artists and sculptors...because we "rich" people long for what they had more than anything. Oneness with God and with each other.

Beth Moore: The Hairbrush

My grandmother sent this story to me in an email and I just had to share it. If you would rather watch the video of Beth telling this story herself, it's embedded below. Otherwise, scroll down and read the story. :)

    April 20, 2005, at the Airport in Knoxville , waiting to board the plane, I had the Bible on my lap and was very intent upon what I was doing. I'd had a marvelous morning with the Lord. I say this because I want to tell you it is a scary thing to have the Spirit of God really working in you.

    You could end up doing some things you never would have done otherwise. Life in the Spirit can be dangerous for a thousand reasons, not the least of which is your ego.

    I tried to keep from staring, but he was such a strange sight. Humped over in a wheelchair, he was skin and bones, dressed in clothes that obviously fit when he was at least twenty pounds heavier. His knees protruded from his trousers, and his shoulders looked like the coat hanger was still in his shirt.. His hands looked like tangled masses of veins and bones.

    The strangest part of him was his hair and nails. Stringy, gray hair hung well over his shoulders and down part of his back. His fingernails were long, clean but strangely out of place on an old man.

I looked down at my Bible as fast as I could, discomfort burning my face. As I tried to imagine what his story might have been, I found myself wondering if I'd just had a Howard Hughes sighting. Then, I remembered that he was dead. So this man in the airport.. An impersonator maybe? Was a camera on us somewhere? There I sat; trying to concentrate on the Word to keep from being concerned about a thin slice of humanity served up on a wheelchair only a few seats from me. All the while, my heart was growing more and more overwhelmed with a feeling for him.

Let's admit it. Curiosity is a heap more comfortable than true concern, and suddenly I was awash with aching emotion for this bizarre-looking old man..

I had walked with God long enough to see the handwriting on the wall. I've learned that when I begin to feel what God feels, something so contrary to my natural feelings, something dramatic is bound to happen. And it may be embarrassing.

I immediately began to resist because I could feel God working on my spirit and I started arguing with God in my mind. 'Oh, no, God, please, no.' I looked up at the ceiling as if I could stare straight through it into heaven and said, 'Don't make me witness to this man. Not right here and now. Please. I'll do anything. Put me on the same plane, but don't make me get up here and witness to this man in front of this gawking audience. Please, Lord!'

There I sat in the blue vinyl chair begging His Highness, 'Please don't make me witness to this man. Not now. I'll do it on the plane.' Then I heard it...'I don't want you to witness to him. I want you to brush his hair.'

The words were so clear, my heart leapt into my throat, and my thoughts spun like a top. Do I witness to the man or brush his hair? No-brainer. I looked straight back up at the ceiling and said, 'God, as I live and breathe, I want you to know I am ready to witness to this man. I'm on this Lord. I'm your girl! You've never seen a woman witness to a man faster in your life. What difference does it make if his hair is a mess if he is not redeemed? I am going to witness to this man.'

Again, as clearly as I've ever heard an audible word, God seemed to write this statement across the wall of my mind. 'That is not what I said, Beth. I don't want you to witness to him. I want you to go brush his hair.'

I looked up at God and quipped, 'I don't have a hairbrush. It's in my suitcase on the plane. How am I supposed to brush his hair without a hairbrush?

God was so insistent that I almost involuntarily began to walk toward him as these thoughts came to me from God's word: 'I will thoroughly furnish you unto all good works.' (2 Timothy 3:17)

I stumbled over to the wheelchair thinking I could use one myself. Even as I retell this story, my pulse quickens and I feel those same butterflies. I knelt down in front of the man and asked as demurely as possible, 'Sir, may I have the pleasure of brushing your hair?'

He looked back at me and said, 'What did you say?'

'May I have the pleasure of brushing your hair?'

To which he responded in volume ten, 'Little lady, if you expect me to hear you, you're going to have to talk louder than that.'

At this point, I took a deep breath and blurted out, 'SIR, MAY I HAVE THE PLEASURE OF BRUSHING YOUR HAIR? At which point every eye in the place darted right at me. I was the only thing in the room looking more peculiar than old Mr. Long Locks. Face crimson and forehead breaking out in a sweat, I watched him look up at me with absolute shock on his face, and say, 'If you really want to.'

Are you kidding? Of course I didn't want to. But God didn't seem interested in my personal preference right about then. He pressed on my heart until I could utter the words, 'Yes, sir, I would be pleased. But I have one little problem. I don't have a hairbrush.'

'I have one in my bag,' he responded.

I went around to the back of that wheelchair, and I got on my hands and knees and unzipped the stranger's old carry-on, hardly believing what I was doing. I stood up and started brushing the old man's hair. It was perfectly clean, but it was tangled and matted I don't do many things well, but must admit I've had notable experience untangling knotted hair mothering two little girls. Like I'd done with either Amanda or Melissa in such a condition, I began brushing at the very bottom of the strands, remembering to take my time not to pull. A miraculous thing happened to me as I started brushing that old man's hair. Everybody else in the room disappeared. There was no one alive for those moments except that old man and me. I brushed and I brushed and I brushed until every tangle was out of that hair I know this sounds so strange, but I've never felt that kind of love for another soul in my entire life. I believe with all my heart, I - for that few minutes - felt a portion of the very love of God. That He had overtaken my heart for a little while like someone renting a room and making Himself at home for a short while.

The emotions were so strong and so pure that I knew they had to be God's. His hair was finally as soft and smooth as an infant's.

I slipped the brush back in the bag and went around the chair to face him. I got back down on my knees, put my hands on his knee and said, 'Sir, do you know my Jesus?'

He said, 'Yes, I do'

Well, that figures, I thought.

He explained, 'I've known Him since I married my bride. She wouldn't marry me until I got to know the Savior.' He said, 'You see, the problem is, I haven't seen my bride in months. I've had open-heart surgery, and she's been too ill to come see me. I was sitting here thinking to myself, what a mess I must be for my bride..'

Only God knows how often He allows us to be part of a divine moment when we're completely unaware of the significance.This, on the other hand, was one of those rare encounters when I knew God had intervened in details only He could have known. It was a God moment, and I'll never forget it.

Our time came to board, and we were not on the same plane. I was deeply ashamed of how I'd acted earlier and would have been so proud to have accompanied him on that aircraft.

I still had a few minutes, and as I gathered my things to board, the airline hostess returned from the corridor, tears streaming down her cheeks. She said, "That old man's sitting on the plane, sobbing.

Why did you do that? What made you do that?"

I said, 'Do you know Jesus? He can be the bossiest thing!'

And we got to share.

I learned something about God that day. He knows if you're exhausted, you're hungry, you're serving in the wrong place or it is time to move on but you feel too responsible to budge. He knows if you're hurting or feeling rejected. He knows if you're sick or drowning under a wave of temptation. Or He knows if you just need your hair brushed. He sees you as an individual. Tell Him your need!

I got on my own flight, sobs choking my throat, wondering how many opportunities just like that one had I missed along the way... all because I didn't want people to think I was strange.

God didn't send me to that old man. He sent that old man to me.

Jackie Kendall: "How to Forgive the Guy Who is Just Not That Into You"

Cleaning out my email inbox and finding all these awesome old newsletters she sent...thought I would share this one too. Good stuff.

How To Forgive the Guy Who is Just Not That Into You

The new comedy He's Just Not That Into You, reminded me of the painful reality of how many women have been hurt by what I call "bozo" guys. I asked a single gal the other day what she thought of the movie, and she said, "Good but painful." She went on to say, "It was painful to watch women who just don't get it." I have been on the war path for years trying to warn single gals about their pursuit of "bozo" guys. Now I realize that I need to teach singles how to forgive the bozo guy who just broke her heart, to forgive the guy who is "just not that into her"-who used up her attention, time and body and then tossed her like a paper cup. This is my new passion with singles.

How do so many wonderful single gals end up hurt by the guy who is just not that into her? The main reason she gets hurt is she breaks the 11th commandment: "Defraud Not Thyself." Countless women actually lead themselves on through the fantasy that this guy who just chatted so charmingly with them for an hour may actually be interested in pursuing a relationship with them. Consider how often women are angry about a particular guy leading their girlfriend on in a dating relationship. Girls and women alike are angered when a guy defrauds a girl by leading her on-often the result of a guy's agenda to merely play at love to get sex.

Yet how often do single woman get angry with their girlfriends who helped feed her own fantasy about "Mr. Right?" Defrauding oneself is such a masochistic crime against a woman's own heart. To defraud one-self is self harm! When a gal meets a wonderful guy, her immediate response needs to be prayer and not text messaging a friend about the "Mr. Right" she thinks she has just met.

Being offended is inevitable as long as you occupy a place on planet earth-but staying offended is a choice.

After realizing the time and energy you have put into a guy who is "just not that into you," you are likely going to be very disappointed. Inevitably, disappointment is followed by anger or depression. Because you know it is not healthy to stay angry, you will actually give yourself a "gift" when you consider forgiving this guy. The gift is your freedom.

Why forgive the guy who is just not that into you? When I don't forgive I become a prisoner to the resentment of being defrauded by him. One needs to forgive this guy for doing what he does best-being human. People assume that "time heals all wounds," but that is actually not true. Without the freeing choice of forgiving that guy, time simply moves the pain below the surface where it will ferment and poison your heart.

The gift of forgiving allows you to let go of hurt and move on with hope, because when you have hope, you are no one's prisoner! Don't be the gal who is held hostage to yesterday as she refuses to let go of unwanted hurt and move on to a new chapter. It's in that forgiving chapter that you have the prospect of a happy ending-the freedom to hope and love again.


This Hope Alert will be archived at www.jackiekendall.blogspot.com.

Serving God in Less-than-Ideal Circumstances

I subscribe to Jackie Kendall's newsletter, "Hope Alert." This one really stuck out to me. If you want to subscribe to her, click here: http://www.jackiekendall.com/

What Did Abigail, Obadiah and King Asa Have in Common?

A.O.A.

What did a wife, palace staffer and a king of Judah have in common? What is the common thread between A.O.A.? Here is a brief glimpse of each one-see if you spot the "holy commonality."

Abigail: wife of a very foolish rich man Nabal. Living with a difficult man became f context of instruction in good judgment for Abigail.

"Thank God for your good sense (good judgment)! Bless you for keeping me from murder and from carrying out vengeance with my own hands." (I Sam. 25:33)

Good sense in this passage spoken by David to Abigail refers to: good judgment developed through experience. Difficult marriage was not wasted on Abigail-she grew in discretion and wisdom-and blessed King David through her good judgment.

Obadiah: his name in Hebrew means: servant of Yahweh-worshiper of Yahweh. Now here is a servant of Yahweh whose job was the head staff member in the palace of evil twin rulers-Ahab & Jezebel.

"Ahab had summoned Obadiah who was in charge of his palace. Obadiah was fully devoted to the LORD - hiding 100 prophets from Jezebel who was trying to slaughter the LORD's servants."(I Kings 18:3,4)

Serving under two evil rulers did not keep Obadiah from being fully devoted to the LORD and even risking his life to protect Yahweh's prophets.

Asa (King of Judah): Asa used good judgment when he inherited the throne of Judah, he did not follow in the footsteps of his evil father but chose to follow his ancestor King David-doing what was right in the eyes of the LORD. King Asa not only rid the land of Judah of idols, he also deposed his own grandmother because she had made a heinous Asherah pole.

"He also removed his grandmother Maacah from being queen mother because she had made an obscene image of Asherah." (I Kings 15:13)

Did Abigail, Obadiah or Asa let their difficult situation keep them from doing what is right in the eyes of the LORD?

Abigail difficult marriage

Obadiah difficult work context

Asa difficult family heritage

Abigail, Obadiah and Asa made good choices even though the context of their lives was not always conducive to their devotion to the LORD. A.O. A. J. Can I add your initial to this list? I just added mine. By God's grace I have not allowed a difficult context to determine whether or not I would obey the LORD.

P.S. I am already praying for my granddaughter Emma that she will grow to be so devoted to the LORD that she would even "depose grandma Kendall" if I ever began to treasure anything or anyone more than Yahweh!

Love to you all,
His wildwoman, Jackie

On Heaven and Materialism

From "Transposition" by C.S. Lewis, in the book "The Weight of Glory."

Let us construct a fable. Let us picture a woman thrown into a dungeon. There she bears and rears a son. He grows up seeing nothing but the dungeon walls, the straw on the floor, and a little patch of the sky seen through the grating, which is too high up to show anything except sky. This unfortunate woman was an artist, and when they imprisoned her she managed to bring with her a drawing pad and a box of pencils. As she never loses the hope of deliverance, she is constantly teaching her son about that outer world which he has never seen.

She does it very largely by drawing him pictures. With her pencil she attempts to show him what fields, rivers, mountains, cities, and waves on a beach are like. He is a dutiful boy and he does his best to believe her when she tells him that that outer world is far more interesting and glorious than anything in the dungeon. At times he succeeds. On the whole he gets on tolerably well until, one day, he says something that gives his mother pause. For a minute or two they are at cross-purposes. Finally it dawns on her that he has, all these years, lived under a misconception.

"But," she gasps, "you didn't think that the real world was full of lines drawn in lead pencil?"

"What?" says the boy. "No pencil marks there?" And instantly his whole notion of the outer world becomes a blank. For the lines, by which alone he was imagining it, have now been denied of it. He has no idea of that which will exclude and dispense with the lines, that of which the lines were merely a transposition - the waving treetops, the light dancing on the weir, the coloured three-dimensional realities which are not enclosed in lines but define their own shapes at every moment with a delicacy and multiplicity which no drawing could ever achieve.

The child will get the idea that the real world is somehow less visible than his mother's pictures. In reality it lacks lines because it is incomparably more visible.

So with us. "We know not what we shall be" (1 John 3:2); but we may be sure we shall be more, not less, than we were on earth. Our natural experiences (sensory, emotional, imaginative) are only like the drawing, like pencilled lines on flat paper.

....

You will have noticed that most dogs cannot understand pointing. You point to a bit of food on the floor; the dog, instead of looking at the floor, sniffs at your finger. A finger is a finger to him, and that is all. His world is all fact and no meaning. And in a period when factual realism is dominant we shall find people deliberately inducing upon themselves this doglike mind. A man who has experienced love from within will deliberately go about to inspect it analytically from outside and regard the results of this analysis as truer than his experience.

As long as this deliberate refusal to understand things from above, even where such understanding is possible, continues, it is idle to talk of any final victory over materialism. The critique of every experience from below, the voluntary ignoring of meaning and concentration on fact, will always have the same plausibility. There will always be evidence, and every month fresh evidence, to show that religion is only psychological, justice only self-protection, politics only economics, love only lust, and thought itself only cerebral biochemistry.

/End C.S. Lewis, begin Becky

I'm thinking that while we should avoid a purely hedonistic view of heaven, at the same time there is no shame in picturing it as a place of great earthly pleasures. Not that they will exist there in the same sense that they exist here, but that we must associate heaven with our greatest joy. We can't deprive ourselves of picturing any pleasure in heaven simply because we can't now imagine the form it will take. We can't now imagine the incredible relationship we will have with the King, so we must take our best experiences with earthly relationships and with the Holy Spirit and combine them into a promising shadow of what will be. So the view of heaven provided for us in the Bible, a place of feasting and riches, is not an elementary one, but a way of relating for us the joy we are to obtain. And here is where God is once again so wonderful - on one hand, He tells us things we can't possibly understand and can only speculate on until we die, reminding us of His mystery and highness, but on the other hand He speaks of some of our purest, simplest pleasures being present there - aesthetic beauty and good food.

I truly love summer.

So I picked out some favorite summery poems.

Summer Sun by Robert Louis Stevenson

Great is the sun, and wide he goes
Through empty heaven with repose;
And in the blue and glowing days
More thick than rain he showers his rays.

Though closer still the blinds we pull
To keep the shady parlour cool,
Yet he will find a chink or two
To slip his golden fingers through.

The dusty attic spider-clad
He, through the keyhole, maketh glad;
And through the broken edge of tiles
Into the laddered hay-loft smiles.

Meantime his golden face around
He bares to all the garden ground,
And sheds a warm and glittering look
Among the ivy's inmost nook.

Above the hills, along the blue,
Round the bright air with footing true,
To please the child, to paint the rose,
The gardener of the World, he goes.


Sonnet XVIII: Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? by William Shakespeare

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate.
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer's lease hath all too short a date.
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;
Nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st:
So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.


Exhortation: Summer 1919 by Claude McKay

Through the pregnant universe rumbles life's terrific thunder,
And Earth's bowels quake with terror; strange and terrible storms break,
Lightning-torches flame the heavens, kindling souls of men, thereunder:
Africa! long ages sleeping, O my motherland, awake!

In the East the clouds glow crimson with the new dawn that is breaking,
And its golden glory fills the western skies.
O my brothers and my sisters, wake! arise!
For the new birth rends the old earth and the very dead are waking,
Ghosts are turned flesh, throwing off the grave's disguise,
And the foolish, even children, are made wise;
For the big earth groans in travail for the strong, new world in making--
O my brothers, dreaming for dim centuries,
Wake from sleeping; to the East turn, turn your eyes!

Oh the night is sweet for sleeping, but the shining day's for working;
Sons of the seductive night, for your children's children's sake,
From the deep primeval forests where the crouching leopard's lurking,
Lift your heavy-lidded eyes, Ethiopia! awake!

In the East the clouds glow crimson with the new dawn that is breaking,
And its golden glory fills the western skies.
O my brothers and my sisters, wake! arise!
For the new birth rends the old earth and the very dead are waking,
Ghosts have turned flesh, throwing off the grave's disguise,
And the foolish, even children, are made wise;
For the big earth groans in travail for the strong, new world in making--
O my brothers, dreaming for long centuries,
Wake from sleeping; to the East turn, turn your eyes!


Summer Morn in New Hampshire by Claude McKay

All yesterday it poured, and all night long
I could not sleep; the rain unceasing beat
Upon the shingled roof like a weird song,
Upon the grass like running children's feet.
And down the mountains by the dark cloud kissed,
Like a strange shape in filmy veiling dressed,
Slid slowly, silently, the wraith-like mist,
And nestled soft against the earth's wet breast.

But lo, there was a miracle at dawn!
The still air stirred at touch of the faint breeze,
The sun a sheet of gold bequeathed the lawn,
The songsters twittered in the rustling trees.
And all things were transfigured in the day,
But me whom radiant beauty could not move;
For you, more wonderful, were far away,
And I was blind with hunger for your love.


The Summer Day by Mary Oliver

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean--
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down--
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
With your one wild and precious life?


Little Summer Poem Touching The Subject Of Faith by Mary Oliver

Every summer
I listen and look
under the sun's brass and even
into the moonlight, but I can't hear

anything, I can't see anything --
not the pale roots digging down, nor the green
stalks muscling up,
nor the leaves
deepening their damp pleats,

nor the tassels making,
nor the shucks, nor the cobs.
And still,
every day,

the leafy fields
grow taller and thicker --
green gowns lofting up in the night,
showered with silk.

And so, every summer,
I fail as a witness, seeing nothing --
I am deaf too
to the tick of the leaves,

the tapping of downwardness from the banyan feet --
all of it
happening
beyond any seeable proof, or hearable hum.

And, therefore, let the immeasurable come.
Let the unknowable touch the buckle of my spine.
Let the wind turn in the trees,
and the mystery hidden in the dirt

swing through the air.
How could I look at anything in this world
and tremble, and grip my hands over my heart?
What should I fear?

One morning
in the leafy green ocean
the honeycomb of the corn's beautiful body
is sure to be there.


Birches by Robert Frost

When I see birches bend to left and right
Across the lines of straighter darker trees,
I like to think some boy's been swinging them.
But swinging doesn't bend them down to stay.
Ice-storms do that. Often you must have seen them
Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning
After a rain. They click upon themselves
As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored
As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.
Soon the sun's warmth makes them shed crystal shells
Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust--
Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away
You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.
They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load,
And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed
So low for long, they never right themselves:
You may see their trunks arching in the woods
Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground
Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair
Before them over their heads to dry in the sun.
But I was going to say when Truth broke in
With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm
(Now am I free to be poetical?)
I should prefer to have some boy bend them
As he went out and in to fetch the cows--
Some boy too far from town to learn baseball,
Whose only play was what he found himself,
Summer or winter, and could play alone.
One by one he subdued his father's trees
By riding them down over and over again
Until he took the stiffness out of them,
And not one but hung limp, not one was left
For him to conquer. He learned all there was
To learn about not launching out too soon
And so not carrying the tree away
Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise
To the top branches, climbing carefully
With the same pains you use to fill a cup
Up to the brim, and even above the brim.
Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish,
Kicking his way down through the air to the ground.
So was I once myself a swinger of birches.
And so I dream of going back to be.
It's when I'm weary of considerations,
And life is too much like a pathless wood
Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs
Broken across it, and one eye is weeping
From a twig's having lashed across it open.
I'd like to get away from earth awhile
And then come back to it and begin over.
May no fate willfully misunderstand me
And half grant what I wish and snatch me away
Not to return. Earth's the right place for love:
I don't know where it's likely to go better.
I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree,
And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk
Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,
But dipped its top and set me down again.
That would be good both going and coming back.
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.


Tryin' On Clothes by Shel Silverstein

I tried on the farmer's hat,
Didn't fit...
A little too small -- just a bit
Too floppy.
Couldn't get used to it,
Took it off.
Tried on the dancer's shoes,
A little too loose.
Not the kind you could use
For walkin'.
Didn't feel right in 'em,
Kicked 'em off.
I tried on the summer sun,
Felt good.
Nice and warm -- knew it would.
Tried the grass beneath bare feet,
Felt neat.
Finally, finally felt well dressed,

Nature's clothes fit me best.

My Portion

I read The Taming of the Shrew this week. It was really funny, probably one of my favorite Shakespeare plays. Alongside it, I read chapter 8 of this “companion to Shakespeare” guide to help us understand the times better. 

“The bride’s family promised to give to the married couple a dowry made up of property, valuables (silver and jewelry, for example), and cash. This was also called the bride’s portion…”

Portion. I’ve heard this word before (I mean, other than in the context of a meal). I thought of a line in “Amazing Grace” - The Lord has promised good to me; His Word my hope secures. He will my shield and portion be as long as life endures.

If Christ is my portion…if Christ is my portion…that means everything. The church does not deserve to be the bride of Christ. Not one bit. Has there ever been a more uneven match? Has any husband (even the husband of a “shrew”) ever had such work cut out for him? Of purification, of reconciliation, of unfailing love towards a continually adulterous bride? 

In the Renaissance, a portion was a promise. It secured a husband for the bride (her primary goal in life) and ensured that the young couple would survive as they began their lives together. But once there was a bride that was so unsuited for her would-be husband, so far beneath him, that no dowry her family could possibly give would appease her fiance’s Father. However, as unattainable as this perfect husband was, he was the bride’s only hope. Without him her life would be meaningless. Without him she was nothing.

What if, instead of rejecting the bride, telling her there was no hope, that she would never have this husband, the fiance's Father allowed the marriage? Of course, before doing so, he set up plenty of ground rules to make her a better match for his Son and to save her from herself. You would think the bride, in her thankfulness, would be the best wife possible, with a constant heart and a thankful soul. But it was quite the opposite; the son did everything he could for his bride, serving her though he was infinitely above her, coming to her rescue when enemies threatened her, listening to her though he was infinitely wiser, and treasuring her as a jewel though she was far uglier than he. She, on the other hand, desired another man – charming but insincere, deceitful and selfish, alluring and dangerous, who seduced her but said she could not have him until she murdered her husband. 

So she killed her only hope.

After her hope was dead, she ran into her new lover’s arms, only to be repulsed, beaten and laughed at. He left her completely alone in despair. Of course, now and then he would come back, promising that this time he would be faithful, that this time she would find the hope and joy anew that she had killed…but she would always be left alone, scorned, in a frightening and solitary darkness. 

But the Father…the Father, though it would have been just to avenge his son, though it would have been completely fair to leave the bride to die in her hopelessness with her deceitful lover, had pity. He saw this shamed creature, saw what she could be, not the ugly thing she was, and offered her a new identity if she would only leave her unconstant lover behind. Once again, she needed no portion – only to acknowledge the sacrifice the Son had made for her and exchange her ways for his ways. And so, upon her acceptance, the Father took her to a new place, gave her a new name, gave her a new face. He made the ugly beautiful. He made the old new. He gave her the most complete love she had ever known – an eternal security and yet also an eternal adventure. And best of all, she learned that her husband had never and could never die, though he was no longer physically with her. He would forever live on to battle her deceitful enemy, who had wooed her and thrown her away, and worse, who had mocked and attacked him and his Father, until that enemy was no more. And, once recreated, once she had abandoned her old self, she was fit to join him in that battle for Good, to war against all things untrue. And fit to share in the victory when He triumphed.

Nothing less than a perfect Life was a sufficient dowry for this woman. Nothing less than complete recreation could make her see the truth and stop believing lies. And yet the Father, who is in the business of creation, gave it all willingly, for he forever gives life to the dead and calls things that are not as though they were.  

Unveiled Faces

From The Four Loves:

"To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket--safe, dark, motionless, airless--it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside of Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from the perturbations of love is Hell."


Some days, I look at my life with its "hobbies and little luxuries," its meaningless laughter and diversions, its imitations of love, and see an environment hostile to reality...the fragile creation of a person trying desperately to pretend ownership of my own life. It's on those days that I realize the surest path to hell is not to do evil things, but to never awaken to reality...which is why, in some ways, I'm far more worried about my rich, "good people" American friends than starving children overseas or people who have done terrible things. What do a starving child, a murderer, and a victim of the sex trade have in common? They all know there is such a thing as evil and that we by ourselves are too weak to conquer it.

A distracted environment is far more hostile to the Truth than an evil one.

It's on these days when I realize the current trappings of my life mean nothing, nor are they what I rejoice in. But what I love - that matters. And what I love is Jesus Christ, because He is the only thing that is real in a world full of unrealities, diversions, and deceit. And even when life is dark, I see His Love everywhere! In His Word, in books, in conversations, in people's eyes, in animals, in growing green things. The Creator can be seen in all of His creations, and with the new eyes He has given me, I can see beauty where before I could only see ugliness.

"To love at all is to be vulnerable." My life's goal is to have a vulnerable heart before Christ. To allow Him to hurt me so I can change for the better, to clean me up when I'm dirty and pick me up when I've fallen. To allow Him to bless me when I don't deserve it, love me when I hate others, and lead me when I want to walk in the other direction.

You can't know the Truth if you refuse to be vulnerable, nor can you know Love.


From 2 Corinthians:

And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.

My dream is for reality...not the ugly reality of this world that will pass away, but the truth of my everlasting God who will one day destroy everything that has caused pain, anger, jealousy, or hatred. That is how I try to live every day, seeking reality. I won't always write things as heavy as this, but it's important that you know why I do everything I do. Why I want to know you for who you are. Why I want us to stop pretending. Why I want you to know this Mediator between God and Man, Jesus Christ.

So that one day, we can all stand with unveiled faces before Him, finally free...and fully loved.