When You Don't Know What to Do

There is a paralyzing fear that grips the temples of its captive and pounds in every step in every direction. It is a paralyzing fear built of doubt. It creeps in slowly at first, comes with indecision and an inability to make a firm and stayed plan. It strangles slowly, giving credence to two good options or the lesser of two evils. It tightens its grip, bringing with it death that sounds like, "What if I'm messing up my life [or someone's life] by making this decision?"

This fear is verbalized as a doubt in oneself: am I making the right decision? Am I doing the right thing? Am I changing the course of my life with this choice?

But we know that whatever doesn't proceed from faith is sin and where should our faith be borne but God?

This paralyzing fear is nothing more than idolatry on stilts.

It is the course of our life (a mere vapor, dew on the morning grass; vanity of vanities, the preacher said) set high on faulty holds. It is the person we'll marry perched atop a totem. It is the person for whom we'll vote sitting on the tip of a flagpole. It is this school or that school, this church or that church, this place or that place wrapped into a head and set upon a body. It is the idol of self and it is passing away.

If God is Creator and we are the created, then we trust Him to be creative with our lives—even in unexpected and surprising ways. Even in ways that cannot be figured on graph paper or whiteboards. If God is God and we are mere mortals, flesh, dew on the morning grass, than the only master plan that matters is His. He has no plan B.

And your Plans A, B, and C will fail anyway, trust me, and I'll pray it's sooner rather than later. You're welcome.

So here is what we do:

We eat, we drink, we go into this city, we leave this place, we make His name great right where we are, we make His name great in the place He calls us to next, we delight, we find joy, we breathe.

We make decisions born of faith in Him, not in us.

We commit to life because of Him, not because of our convenience.

We marry to reflect His nature, not because we don't want to be lonely.

We commit to our church because she is His bride, not because she is always beautiful.

We covenant in life because we know the end of the story and, for Christ, it is already finished, and so for His children it is too.

Go make a hard decision today. Go and do it in peace.

He is not only with you, He is for you.

Selah.

Common Stones

Remember last week when I told you about asking for a fish and getting a stone? A friend told me afterward that sometimes we think we've asked for a fish and still receive a stone, and when that happens it's because we cannot fathom the unending blessing and goodness of God—what we're really asking for is a stone and what He is giving is a fish.

Protection, she called it, from what would ruin us, because He knows best what is best.

I hear that and receive it, but I don't like it. I don't like it because I like fish and I like a particular kind of fish and I see other people getting the fish they asked for and I can't figure out why He won't give me the particular fish for which I crafted a beautiful ask.

Instead he plops a stone down into my lap—it's hard, uncomfortable, and it's covered in dirt.

Well, what am I going to do with this stone, I'm asking Him.

And He's not answering. But it's not because He's not good—I know it's because He is good and sometimes answers come slowly, like rocks eroding in a river instead of fast like fish swimming downstream.

So I'm turning this rock over in my hands and trying to see the beauty in it. And if beauty cannot be found in it, I'm trying to see hope in it. And if hope cannot be found in it, I am trying to see His goodness in it. And the truth is that His goodness can be seen in every common and broken thing on earth.

CROSS CARRYING

I've been thinking a lot about how the world lauds balance, but Christ built his earthly kingdom on tension, not balance. Sometimes it means being in the crowd, sometimes in the closet, sometimes doing miracles, sometimes keeping quiet, sometimes fasting, sometimes feasting. The world wants us to be even, chill, predictable, to embrace zen, practice slowing our reaction times and composing an eloquent response. But Christ says, no, pick up your cross and follow me.

Carrying crosses knocks us off balance.

WHO TOUCHED ME?

It's 8am and I slept in. It's no secret in our house that my bed is the favorite—roommates take naps in it when I'm gone and sometimes they take naps in it when I'm in it reading or typing or staring. But mornings in my bed are my favorite and they are rare. I told everyone who asked that this was the last week they could have a piece of me. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner filled up, and I hit last night going down hard. I knew it would be like this and I did it on purpose. I'm going to be saying no a lot in the coming weeks and months because saying yes to one thing means saying no to other things. God has built in an upcoming season in which I'll have two projects that will need to take precedence, forcing me to say no, no matter how much I want to say yes.

A friend told me a few weeks ago that there's a sense of celebrity in human-nature—everyone clamoring over everyone else to brush shoulders with someone else, network higher, garner more followers, get more likes, podcast more talks, meet more people, drop more names, and

I just want to stay home and drink tea. _________________________________

Last night in church I felt the spirit go out from me. I sat in the back row, the corner chair, and I felt tiredness creep up and the weariness set in. I felt lost in the crowd, seen and at the same time, unseen by the only One I want to see.

I was reading about the woman with the hemorrhage in the Gospels, she who dragged herself from her home, covered her face so she was unrecognizable, and touched the hem of his robe. "Who touched me?" he asked and his disciples were incredulous, "Who touched you? In this crowd? Who touched you? Seriously?"

"I felt the spirit go out from me," he said. "Who touched me?"

I stop on that and reread it. "I felt the spirit go out from me."

_________________________________

It's easy to feel lost in the crowd, isn't it? Where touch is pedestrian and plain, where being noticed feels impossible and oh so possible all at the same time? Where healing feels a hem of a robe away and holiness is near? Where we're all so desperate to be noticed, to be known, to be heard?

I’ve been part of the crowd recently. I follow them. They follow me. We all run circles around the real One we want to see. We do ministry. We are ministry. We lift up the hands that hang down and strengthen the feeble knees. We run in packs, rubbing shoulders with the people who are already in.

We even touch His robe once or twice, or at least touch someone who’s touched His robe.

But He’s not stopping the crowd for us. He’s not questioning His disciples for us. He didn’t feel the power leave Him when our hurried pressing met his woolen dressing.

That was reserved for the one who pressed through all of us just to get to Him.

Last night I felt the spirit go out from me, but not because I am like Jesus and know so acutely the spirit inside of me, but because I am flesh and blood, real and broken, and if I do not run to Him over and over again asking for more, I will feel the lack. There was no time this week, no time to press in, close to him, crowding out the other voices and distractions, to touch the hem of His robe for the healing of my bleeding soul. To take from him the Spirit He freely gives.

But to come close, to touch Him, He knows this and stops everything for that moment. He sees past the crowd and gives freely His spirit.

Did God REALLY say?

One friend and then four more told me this week they hope for me what I hope for myself, and that is to be picked, chosen, and loved. More than one friend and a few more have said the word deserve and when they do the blackest parts of me come to my mind's eye and I disbelieve everything they say from then on. A lie may be small (Did God really say?) but its infractions are limitless.

Today I am driving home from class, the sunrise to my back and a row of 100 cars stopping and going, stopping and going in front of me. I am thinking of Job's friends. Their comfort to his plight was how any of us would respond—with good wishes and you deserves and reminders of good deeds checked off: So why is God not near then? Did He really say?

We speak statements veiled in questions, buffered by doubting inflections so our collective unbelief sounds less wrought with sin than it is.

To ask if God really said what He did indeed say is virtually the same as if to say He did not really say.

In class this morning we read a passage from Genesis that a man read over me a decade ago. He put his hand on my head and promised that if I would do as this man of old did, I would taste of the same richness of relationship in life he did. I set my feet there and I have not moved.

If you were to make a list of my good deeds you could check them off, each one. If you were to cup a portion of the love I have given, you could fill a lot of hearts. I say that because I have so many convinced that I deserve God to come through, make good on what was seemingly promised.

And yet He does not.

And He might not. Not in the way I think He should.

We read about how Abraham died before he saw what was promised and I wanted to shake my fist at God for one moment. How could you promise him and then not deliver!? How could you hold that promise far off like a carrot in front of the face of a working mule? All this, for this? For nothing?

It is no secret that I am doubting Thomas. I know Thomas more than I know any other disciple. I need to thrust my hands into my Lord's side, my fingers into his hollowed out hands. I need Him to walk through walls and I'm not ashamed of that.

Faith needs people who will ask and not stop asking.

But today I am seeing my doubt for what it is. My asks should not be statements punctuated with question marks.

They should bring me further into the light, not the darkness.

Further into His character, not my own.

Further into joy, not sorrow.

Further into what He did say, and not what I think He might have said.

Pick 'em

Whenever I'm in a situation in which pairs must be created and I'm in charge of making those pairs (accountability, confession, or prayer partners usually), I always tell the about-to-be-paired, "If you don't want me to pick your partner/team for you, and you don't want to be picked last, pick someone else first." It's my way of making sure as few people as possible feel like that awkward fourth grader who always got picked last for dodgeball teams (me). I'm a fan of this model because nobody wants to be picked last, but nobody also really wants to pick someone else first.

The thing is, both nobodies here are sitting in a form of pride.

I don't want to be picked last because I want you to see that I matter, I count, there's good stuff about me and in me.

I don't want to pick you first because I don't want to need you, I don't want you to see my insecurities and pitfalls and poor leadership skills.

But sooner or later, everyone gets picked. And the game goes on or partnerships are built. And some teams are winners and some are losers. And sometimes the winners find out later that winning isn't everything, and sometimes the losers feel like crap, but they dig in hard, see where they can improve, and eventually the last really are first.

So pick someone today. Be brave. Just find someone and pick them.

Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor.  Romans 12:10

what shines brightest

I haven't always been a peacemaker. I used to be a peacekeeper. I hoarded peace like a child with his Christmas stocking full of Andes Mints and Pez candy dispensers. I kept peace to myself, sure that if I could pet it, and feed it, and care for it, it would stick around. I kept it like a kept girl, made it work for me, paid its wages at the altar of hiding in groups and keeping relationships at arms length. I kept peace by repeating after myself that I was not at fault for the grenades flying over my head or the words flung across wooden tables or down long hallways.

Romans 12:18 says to live peaceably with all and, well, I have tried to do that. No one can accuse me of bringing wrecking balls into life's infrastructures in the past decade. No sir.

Tonight I think about the rest of that verse, though, or rather, the beginning of it: If possible. So long as it depends on you. Then live peaceably with all.

If possible. Meaning: when all other outlets have been explored, when I have sorted through the cans and wills and dos and don'ts of possibility. When I have exhausted improbability and taken no thought for the bullets colliding through my unchinkable armor. When I have braced myself for the fall that will inevitably come when I am most certainly misunderstood and when I am blacklisted from here til kingdom come. When it is possible, do it.

Stop writing the rebuttal. Don't blog the discourse. Don't preach to the choir or to the vagrant in the back row on whom you have your [plank-filled] eye.

Why? Because it's possible. It's possible for you to shut up, pursue peace.

So long as it depends on you. Meaning, and don't miss this: the world will spin madly on.

Eliza Doolittle sung a bit of theology for us all when she sang to Prof Higgins, "And without much ado we can all muddle through without you." So as long as we hold the beautiful ability to pursue peace with all men, we ought to. So long as it depends on us, we should trust that our meddling in affairs that bring an end to peace, well, people die on hills like that and we wade through the carnage for centuries.

Tonight I sat in a room with some beautiful people and we shared some broken things, some carnage, places where we didn't pursue peace or where someone didn't pursue peace and we were the wreckage left behind.

But here is the beautiful part of that: wreckage will be left while we wander this earth, but what's ultimately left, when the All Consuming Fire has come and burned away everything but what shines brightest, what shines brightest will be the Prince of Peace and we add nothing to that beauty with our earthly bickering.

OIL, WATER, and the LIES we tell ourselves

I’ve got layers of lies that I don’t even know about yet. Sara Groves

Here’s what happened:

A friend told me something and I believed her. I do that. I’m a believing, trusting sort of person. The thing is, what she told me was only half true. Not half true to her—she told me the truth as best as she could, but it was only half of the whole truth. I didn’t know the other parties involved, so what could I do? I believed her. This is what friends do.

But the water has sunk to the bottom and the oil has risen to the top and with it all the floating particles that are still coated with enough water that I can’t look into that cup without seeing more of the whole story.

And my heart is sick.

Because her true-to-her story was only half of the story and now I know the other half, and the other half is my friend too, and when you love oil and water, even if they hate each other, what can you do? You believe them both with as much grace as you can muster. This is what good friends do.

But at some point the whole thing gets shaken up again and it takes a while for things to settle and while it’s still shaken you feel sicker and sicker still because there are always three sides to every story, hers, his, and the horrible, awful, honest truth. With a choice so divided, what can you do? You choose truth. This is what the truest friend does.

To choose truth, though, means to lose other things, namely trust.

Today trust was lost and I mourn that. I mourn it so hard and so deeply because I have been lied to, though neither of them did the lying.

I was the one lying all along. And that is the most heartbreaking of it all.

Paul admonishes the Thessalonians to “aspire to live quietly and to mind your own affairs, and to work with your hands, as we instructed you.”

I’m stuck on that today because I didn’t live quietly and I listened to the lies. But the lies were of my own making and they said something like this: You are big enough to handle the heartbreaking details of someone’s life all by yourself. You are big enough to have an opinion on lives that aren’t your own. You are big enough to discern truth from lies and from opinions and cries.

The truth is that I am not a part of the problem or the solution here; I am only a particle that floated to the top of his story, coated in the residue of her story. Just one small particle.

And if God did not give me the grace to handle this (at least without some amount of bellyaching), then it is probably best for me to simply bow out.

hey you

Hey listen, you. You hiding behind your litany of projects and your mountain of responsibility. You, with your put together persona and your perfect bouts of transparency. You, who reveals little to everyone but lets the world unveil herself to you because you are perceived as trustworthy and wise. You who picks up the burdens and carries them to the next rest stop. You who goes about your duties, shirking love and fearing commitment because it means you are needed and being needed is grounds for running away. Yeah you.

You’re the one I’m talking to.

And I’m saying this: you can’t hide.

You cannot hide.

Because you slip away, drive away, pull into a parking lot and put your head in your hands. You don’t cry because crying doesn’t help, but you sigh and you ask what’s wrong with you? Why is it so hard to be needed? Be wanted? Be loved? And how can you be those things and still feel like none of them?

You tell yourself the lies and then you tell yourself they’re lies and then you lie to yourself again and say it will be okay, that you’ll try harder next time, that you’ll say no next time, that you won’t feel the weight of the world next time.

But you do.

You stub your toe on the “too close, too long, too much” line and you back away slowly, desperate to grab your favorites parts of you back. You’re an introvert in an extrovert’s kingdom. You feel upside down because you’re called to decrease (which you like), but you’re also called to preach and make disciples and be discipled (which you don’t like). You feel inside out, like you’re walking around with your insides out and no one points and stares, they just expect it from you. They feel that they know the real you.

Here’s my heart, you say, it’s on my sleeve.

Here’s the only thing I have to say to you:

You cannot hide because I know where to find you, you’re always near me, like a second skin, like my own breath, my own heart. You’re like me.

And once, I was like you.

You cannot hide because I emptied myself for you, taking on your form, obeyed the sentence of death on my head, for you.

And you’re not beyond me. Trust me. You, with your litany of projects and mountains of responsibility: you still need me.

RUNNING [away] WALKING

Last night we talked about being small and running away. Finding tall pine trees in our native north and shimmying our way up to the nearest branch, then climbing, climbing, climbing until we were at the top of our tower of Babel, touching God and letting Him touch us. And then we'd climb down, forgive our strict parents their brief irrationality, and go home.

Late last night as I drove home I thought about not stopping, just driving, finding the lowest branch and clawing my way out of here. Away from the metroplex, the bubble, the place where I am known and where I do not feel known.

Instead, I called a friend and left a message.

"Call me," I said. That's all.

I unhatched my plan without hesitation, with or without her, but she agreed and so we threw swimsuits, tshirts, and spare change into our bags and we left Dallas at 11:32pm.

Rolled the windows down and left.

We found a hotel a few hours later, convinced the kind gentleman at the front desk to let us go swimming and then we slept hard and hardly.

We woke at 7am and the city was still. I couldn't help but feel like this was what people have meant for the past two years when they have said that I will love Austin, that Austin will feel like home. We read and journaled at a coffee shop, strung a hammock between two trees, talked, talked, sat, and just enjoyed one another and the Lord. And then we drove home.

My heaven will be a still one. A quiet one. The sort of place I can fly fish or enjoy Debussy (who I hope will be there). My heaven will be a place free of distractions, where the groaning of creation has stopped and we have come to a grand rest. It is still.

I am learning more than ever that I cannot run the race.

Everywhere around me people are running the race. The prettiest. The godliest. The best. The most. The biggest. The fullest. The busiest. And I find even the mention of running the race exhausts me. I toe the start line and already feel the defeat. I can not run it.

I crave stillness. I crave quiet. I crave even the groaning of creation over the groaning of concrete roads and the suburban sprawl. I want to shimmy up my tree, find a solid brand on which to stand and I want to touch God.

We're on our way home, less than 13 hours later, and I tell her that all I really want in life is to be like Enoch. Enoch who walked with God and was no more.

"Your heart, Lo," she says. "He loves that about you."

And I suppose He might love that about me. I suppose He might. The bible doesn't say that Enoch died, it just says He was no more, that God took him. I can't help but think that God in His goodness, just took Enoch home with him, plucked him from the race of life, and brought him home where he belonged.

I wouldn't mind being like Enoch.

[In any case, all of you were right, Austin did feel like home to me. Thank you.] 

UNFETTERED

At one of the hip, earthy outdoors stores back in Potsdam they sell Life is Good paraphernalia—the grinning, flat-capped stick figurine who somehow gets his skinny behind up all sorts of mountains and down all sorts of valleys in one piece. There's one shirt or poster that reads, "Not all who wander are lost." J.R.R. Tolkien said it first though and I don't know how he'd feel about it being screen-printed with stick figurines on orange t-shirts worn by upper-class, Subaru-driving environmentalists.

When I first moved to Texas I allowed myself one month with my GPS. I think this was less than generous of me, but what's done is done. Now I use it whenever I'm going somewhere completely new, but for that one month everything was new, and I would have pulled my car over at every intersection and cried without it. After that month, though, I pulled the plug, stowed it in my glove-compartment, and got used to getting lost.

It was wonderful.

I was still self-employed at the time, so time was something I could spend as freely as I wanted and I wanted it freely. I wandered all over the Metroplex, mostly in search of nothing except my way. And I think I found it, eventually. I'm at home right now, lying on my bed, with an open window to my right, and my roommates stirring around in the living room, so it would seem I found my way.

There were times when I'd cry out of sheer frustration because the vast majority of the DFW Metroplex is acres of subdivisions; anyone who has ever tried to find his way out of a subdivision depending on his innate sense of east, west, and the direction of the sun knows it is about as impossible as telling any one of the sub-divided homes apart from another, which is to say, nearly impossible. I would pound my fist on my steering wheel and yell cuss words in my car at people who knew their way around and weren't being patient enough with me.

But there were other times when I would make a left turn, when my gut said right, and I would be taken down a lane with a canopy of trees all bowing their heads in welcome like a line of Japanese diplomats. I would return again and again to that wrong turn just to meet those bowing trees again.

Or, to avoid traffic, I would take a short-cut, which was a long-cut more often, but the reward would be finding a park or a subdivision where the houses didn't all look identical. Never in my life did I ever think that I would call anything about a subdivision a reward, but this is how I make lemonade these days.

Tonight my roommate, the one who knows more than anyone else here what I miss when I talk about New York because she misses all the same things too, stood up and instructed me to put down my writing assignment and go sit at this part of Grapevine Lake she'd found. I thought I knew which part she was talking about. Another roommate and I went last summer in August, when it was above 100 degrees, the water was low, the dirt was red and dry, there was someone's picnic garbage rotting nearby, and I was sure, beyond any doubt, that my first rattlesnake sighting was going to happen in that moment. I didn't want to return there. But it was a different place, she insisted, and so I went.

We didn't get lost on our way there, and only made one wrong turn on our way home (in an attempt to find a way to get there that avoided the highway), but it reminded me of how much I really loved my first few months here, when everything felt new, when every day felt like an adventure, and when getting lost didn't mean being late or disappointing someone or missing something important.

I am an unfettered soul, I know that. I used to think that it was my nemesis, to always long for freedom and always find myself bound down, but more and more I know that it's my blessing. I know that not everyone puts away the GPS or makes wrong turns on purpose, whether because they are in too much of a hurry or because they're too frightened of what they'll find when they get there.

At breakfast this morning with a friend we talk for a minute about heaven and the new earth, and how it is a place of complete satisfaction, where all the wandering and wishing we waste ourselves on here will be at last whole and nobody can take that from us.

I stood on a fallen log at the lake tonight, my mate standing in front of me, her head thrown back, the wind whipping her short brown hair, and I felt, for one glorious moment that we were practicing for heaven here on earth, unfettered and free.

JACOB, the PRODIGAL SON

There are two prodigal sons in the bible and I am always the first one: Jacob.

Jacob, that feisty thief, manipulating birthrights and blindness for his own gain, and what did he gain? The whole world, perhaps, two wives, at least, and a dozen kids, but what did he gain?

He was a man in search of what was not his, a new name, the name of his older brother; he was a slave to what he would have to work for, the wife of his youth. Everything he wanted was never within his grasp.

I am that brother.

…………………

Last night before the sermon finished out and we began to sing, my pastor talked a bit about how on good days it is so easy to believe the gospel, there are days when his soul is able to spot lies and speak truth to his propensity to walk by the law and not grace. But on the bad days, it is not so easy and those lies creep in that he has work for his salvation, that he has to work for what is not his by birth and only by grace. And oh, I felt that.

I felt that.

Then we sung about restoration, joy, and new names, and I thought of Jacob.

I am Jacob. I am always in search of what eludes me, what is not rightfully mine, and what I want so desperately. I know that wrestling he did at the valley of Peniel, I know that plea, "I won't let go until you bless me!" I know that angst, more than anything else I know, that unrelenting fervor until I have what seems possible. I will resort to thievery, bribery, or 14 years of hard labor if at the end there is something on earth to show for it.

He got what he wanted when he wrestled with God, but the new name was not the name he once sought to take and the blessing was not health, wealth, and prosperity, but a permanent limp.

…………………

The gospel is two things, it is a burden and it is light—Christ says this and I find myself still wanting it to be one or the other, but not both because my mind is simple and can only grasp what is logical. But this week I am seeing all the dichotomies in my faith, and why, perhaps, it is so difficult for so many to believe.

The gospel is full of dichotomies. Full of seeming contradictions. But I think, more and more, that this is why I believe it so strongly: I cannot live under the weight of the burden without the hope of the lightness, and I cannot thrive under the lightness without the weight of what it means.

I think Jacob must have known that. That night at Peniel, I think he must have known it in a way I can only dream about, that the love of God is deep and just and good and painful. That God gives us new names, but he bruises our hipbones in the process because we will run ahead stealing birthrights and wreaking havoc if we haven't got a limp to slow us down, remind us of the lengths to which His love goes.

Maurice Denis: Wrestling with the Angel 1893

FACEBOOK, UNDERROOS, and SELF-CONTROL

It's been about two weeks since put myself on a Facebook, Google-reader, and a few other media outlet fasts.

I have friends who say things like, "I don't know why people do things like that. It's attention seeking" or "Why can't people just practice more self-control, why do they have to make it all fast-hiatus-sabbatical sounding, all holy..."

Heck, I say that to myself.

But it's no secret that I lack self-control—I'll tell you face to face, it's my besetting sin. And in conversations with some single friends, I don't think I'm alone.

Singleness is a good place to be if you want to be lazy.

And I hear you, the mass of single readers, who feel like you've had enough of an emotional pelting for the week what with yesterday being what you call, "Singles Awareness Day" and all that. I hear you. You'd like a little love and wouldn't we all? Wouldn't we all...

(For what it's worth, I love Valentine's Day. I do. I have a hard time with nearly every major holiday for various reasons, but a day just to celebrate love? This I can do. The truth is, I'm pretty hopeless about celebrating love every day, ask anyone. So February 14th is just a good excuse to buy red candies, flowers for my mates, write cards with honest words of love, and who's kidding who, wear sexy underroos.) 

(Don't worry, this will all come together.)

The longer I'm single, the more I need to face the fact that my natural bent is toward laziness. I have no one responsible for me and no one to whom to be responsible. I know this isn't the case for all you singles, some of you parents or grandparents, single because of life circumstances, death, or divorce. But for me and the majority of my friends, it's the case.

We aren't necessarily happy singles, but we sure are free and clear ones.

So, for me, my social and otherwise media hiatus (and the other fasts I'm imposing on myself these weeks) is just a way that I can flip the bird to laziness. I'm just trying to say to mindless navel gazing, to sleep, to wasteful conversations, to food, to unproductive uses of my time, "Hey, Time? You don't own me. I don't even own me. My Father owns both of us and I want to remember that well."

That's all.

When I said sexy underroos, 

this is, of course, what I meant.

Vacate

Because we are Americans we dream of Disneyland vacations or the Outer Banks. We pack our favorite, most comfortable clothes and we charge the camera battery. We schedule each day of our vacation to the minute, so we can take full advantage of our time out of the rigor of the office or classroom. We want to kick back, relax, take it as it comes, but usually the kids are arguing and Dad is grumbling and Mom is fried before we're out of the driveway. This is what happens when the destination is the point and not the journey.

I've never had a vacation in my adult life. Never.

I've never gone somewhere for the purpose of vacationing. I've never booked a superfluous ticket or spent my week hanging out at the beach. The closest thing to a vacation I ever had growing up was at a Swiss Chalet nestled in the Green Mountains of Vermont and those memories are fond and rich, but it was only one week and I was 13.

For the New Testament Christian, life is, in some ways, one long sabbath in the same direction. Jesus hid when the crowds pushed in and rested at that first communion table, yes, He knew to get away, but the principle of the sabbath rest is that we would have it and have it more fully. Abundantly. Every day.

A week ago I got on a plane with admonitions from friends to rest and sabbath, but this week has been nothing but a marathon. There have been pockets of rest, but in the back of my mind there have been tasks piling up. There were programs to be designed and printed, cut out and finished, flowers to be hunted down and picked up from florists, bouquets to be assembled, a house to be cleaned, a bedroom to be set up, a reception hall to be decorated, seating charts to be finalized, and a bride to keep unencumbered by the small details.

Never once did I feel beyond myself or exhausted by the small things. Each moment was spent blessing someone I love in preparation for her wedding day. It was pure joy.

This, I think, is what our Sabbaths are supposed to be. Great attention to small things in preparation for that final wedding feast. Moments, days, minutes, hours, years spent up to our elbows in details that delight the heart of God and never feel like a burden to us.

And I don't know what that is, friend, I can't tell you how to Sabbath well and what vacation will bring you and Him the most Joy. I would never choose a Disneyland vacation, give me instead a cabin in the mountains.

But I know this: to be stayed on Him is rest. To be centered and focused and driven and journeying toward Him is Sabbath. It is the longest Sabbath and there may be times where we find ourselves fallen off the track, scrambling to find our rest in the gospel again, to make our work a joy and not a burden. There may be times when we do need to run away, hide until that joy is found and is abundant.

But to rest. To truly rest and find that rest amid the details of life, the work, the job, the people, the family, the duties, the dishwater and the debts--to rest in what is already finished. To find our ultimate peace in the confidence that we are right where we are meant to be every day, that God is not tracking vacation days or tallying the allotment. He's set it all before us, the earth our playground, people our delight, and duties our joy.

Rest in that.

You keep him in perfect peace 

whose mind is stayed on you, 

because he trusts in you. 

Isaiah 26.3

(The bride was beautiful. 

The groom was ecstatic. 

The details were attended to. 

The gospel was preached.)

(We did lay around like sleepyheads on Sunday

at a log cabin in the woods. 

If anyone asks, 

this is what I did on my vacation.)

Curves

It doesn't take a seasoned flier to see that the world really is flat. From up here the horizon stretches on forever, illuminated by the orange of a setting sun. I can see how the pre-Columbusians could have not known the world was more than what they could see from their vantage. And here, centuries later, we're still hoping our suspicions about what the world really is or isn't are really true after all.

It doesn't take a seasoned liver, though, to see that the world is not quite so curved as we'd like it to be.

I used to think that my sins counted against me, tally marks piling up ready to eliminate me from the game entirely. My good works worked in much the same way, do enough and perhaps it will all balance out. I say that I used to think this, but the truth is that I still think it much of the time. I am not beyond a little tally marking of my own in regard to you either. Grace is my second nature, but sin is my first one.

I set out on my exploration of God, setting the spirit's wind in my sails and I'm finding the world is flatter than I once thought. Sin is the great leveler and this both stings and comforts. It stings because I want to be better than you and it comforts because I know I never will.

God knew we would want to grade on a curve, so he flattened it for us.

Paul knew we'd struggle with a flattened world and so he hurried to assure: "Should we keep on sinning so that grace may abound?" He shudders. "May it never be!"

But I'm conscious still of those tally marks, not because I want to measure them against yours, but because I do want to keep grace in the front, abounding, my piteous sin there to point out its constant need and goodness.

I can appreciate Christopher Columbus and his exploratory efforts: it is far too easy to take advantage of a flat earth and easy walk.

 (Horizon by Joeri Bosma)