Coffee Shop Confessional

We are lifting the tea bags heavy with Earl Grey loose leaf tea, setting them on the saucer between us, liquid spooling around them. I ask her if it ever stops—the assumption of being known. "You know," she says, her brown eyes lower, "I don't know if it ever does. Or if it should. Jesus hid," she says. She lifts her mug to take a sip, pursing her lips and blowing into the cup, the tea swirls and slows. I wait for her to finish. "I don't know if we're meant to hide when we're in public," she says, "I think there are times for hiding and those need to be intentional. But don't you think that Jesus felt everyone knew Him when even His disciples were wrong? Peter!" She laughs. "The most right he ever was was when he said, 'To whom else would we go?' No. I think we are meant to be only ever partially known. I think Jesus knew we wouldn't have the treasure of being truly known outside of heaven."

"I think it was CS Lewis," I say to her, "who said the only place outside of heaven where we can be safe from the dangers of love is hell." Now I'm the one blowing whirlpools of cool air into my tea.

"I wonder the same thing goes for being safe from being truly known," she says. "I wonder if all the dangers that come from being partially known, people's assumptions about us, if those are only gone in Heaven—or hell. In heaven or hell we know who you are. You're either saved or unsaved. It's across the board; no differentiation."

"This is what makes us all such fools here on earth," I say. "It's that we are so set on hierarchies and systems and compartmentalizing and celebrity. We can't keep ourselves from categorizing the whole world from blue collars to white collars to blue-blood to white trash—we can't keep our grimy fists off the identities of everyone else. Jesus knew though." I set my tea down and flip the pages in my bible til it lands on Luke 23, "Forgive them Father, for they know not what they do."

"He knew we were a bunch of fools, all laid out, splayed out, played out fools. Bare and ignorant, all of us. He leveled it for us right there. Forgive them, Father, the whole lot of 'em."

We shake our heads and laugh. I catch her eye and we both glance down quickly. To know a person is a difficult thing indeed. We hide, even in public places, across steaming cups of Earl Grey tea in busy coffee shops where tables are confessionals and the table between us is flat and equal.

A Life Full of Sabbaths

It's Wendell Berry all this month. I drink in his essays, turning words over and over in my mouth. I read him aloud, even when no one is listening. Last night as she spreads cornmeal on wooden boards, I read her three paragraphs to give context to the quote written on the chalkboard: Though they have no Sundays, their days are full of Sabbaths. He speaks of the cedar waxwings eating grapes in November. But he penned the poem The Peace of the Wild Things nearby then and poetry is meant to speak of the mysterious in the mundane and so he speaks of us, or the hoped-for us.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

This morning I read in Mark of Jesus healing on the Sabbath, the pharisees outrage, and the calm response of the Lord of the Sabbath: "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath."

How we have forgotten that. How have we forgotten that?

She is leaving to get bread flour to bake round loaves in the brick-oven. Do you want to come with, she asks, dropping her prepositional phrase and picking up her purse. I am drinking coffee on the side porch and nothing could bid me leave the wild rushing of the river in front of me and the song of the orioles above me. This is my sabbath and I am made for it, I think.

The last time I was home was a year ago, in May, and I have waited a year for these few days. They are not exactly as I imagined in my mind, other duties and events capped its full breadth, but it is a few days at least of quiet and still. I was made for this week, I think. The coals burned hot in the brick-oven the other night and faces gathered around the tables, children everywhere, laughter lingering. A phone call from Malaysia from a globe-trotting brother: you always sound so happy when you're home, he said, and it is true, except when it hasn't been.

I have lived this year holding my breath, it seems, waiting for the mornings when I could sleep past 4:30 or when I at least didn't have to hit the ground running, literally, as soon as I woke. I have lived this year waiting for Sabbath, guarding it with a fervor I didn't know I had. If anyone came near it, I would square my jaw and shake my head: it's mine!

I preened myself for my Sabbaths.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Whenever I rest and really rest, empty my head of expectations (yours and mine), listen, really listen, I remember there is nothing of my doing in salvation; that salvation is one long rest in the same direction. There is work too, obedience and sanctification, moments of weakness and moments of strength. But at its core and its very marrow, the work of salvation is rest, Sabbath. It is to say, again and again and again, I rest in You, Lord of Rest. I find my Sabbath in you, Lord of the Sabbath.

The work of salvation is to live a life full to Sabbaths, even when there is no margin and little space, when there is demand from every outside element and every inside emotion. This is to trust that a God who rested when His work was not done—even when it was good—to set an example for His people: You are not done, children, no, but it is still good. And so rest. You are not made for Sabbath, the Sabbath was made for you.

For the Weary Christian

It's been a few months of feeling discouraged and one of the effects of that is I simply don't want to write for you. I don't want to write at all, but I especially don't want to write for you. I don't want to be found out, so to speak. I don't want the world to know my first love feels likes seconds and my *gospel wakefulness feels tired. I don't want you to know I've been struggling with condemnation, fear, insecurity, uncertainty, and weariness. I am ashamed of those feelings—especially because I know they are anti-gospel and they are born in me as a result of not reveling in Godward affections.

Tonight I was remembering some of the things that set my soul free a few years ago. Not the sermons or books specifically, but the realizations:

1. I am the younger brother AND the older brother. I hate restrictions and I love approval, I hate poverty and love lavish attention.

2. God is not more or less interested in me because of my legalism or licentiousness: His provision is the same for both.

3. The gospel doesn't only carry the power to save me, but also sanctify and sustain me.

4. I cannot put God in my debt by being good, holy, or faithful enough.

5. All my righteous acts are like filthy rags.

6. God is not beholden to my view of Him. My concept of good is not His definition of good. My ideal of His faithfulness is not His attribute of faithfulness.

7. Man's approval is impossible to attain. God's approval is completely wrapped up in His Son.

8. God is not surprised by my lack of faith or my abundance of faith, by my questions or my fears, by my pride or my sin. On the threshold of His kingdom He will not deny access to me because I didn't understand an aspect of theology or walk in complete faith in certain areas.

9. The Holy Spirit is not tapping His toe waiting for my faith to be big enough or my ear to be tuned. He dwells in me, empowering me to accomplish everything God has ordained for me to accomplish with every gift He formed me to have before the foundation of the world.

10. God is for my joy. He is most glorified when I am most satisfied in Him. My complete confidence and joy in the Holy Spirit, through the finished work of the Son, to the honor of the Father, brings the triune God glory.

It was encouraging for me to simply write these things out, and so I thought I'd share them with you. Perhaps you're struggling too, or perhaps you've never experienced gospel wakefulness, and these points will help you along that way. Either way, I hope you're encouraged. Also, I suggest you take a few minutes to write out what the gospel means to you, or has shown you. Even just to remind truths or clarify errors in your thinking.

*Gospel Wakefulness is not my term, but Jared Wilson's . Jared wrote a book by the same title, but he has also written extensively on it on his blog Gospel Driven Church. Jared is one of the most Godward gazing people I know. His blog has been a constant source of encouragement in the past few years and I recommend every one of his books with full assurance you will be encouraged. Seriously, buy his books. All of 'em.

May Sabbatical

It's been a year since my last writing sabbatical and I wish, oh I wish, I could say this May will be spent much like last May was. It won't. But it will, however, be a sabbatical from this blog.

I always feel a bit guilty when I do this, but on the other side of a month away from the blog I am a healthier and happier writer. And this year I need it more than ever. I'm not sure what happened in the past year, but it still feels a bit like whiplash—a good kind of whiplash, but whiplash nonetheless. I'm writing regularly for multiple publications, trying to finish rigorous classes, coming off of an unbelievably busy March and April at work, still keeping up with 100 in 2013, prepping to co-lead a 12 week course this summer, and have a little more on my personal plate than I have stamina for.

I need a break.

And not only do I need it, God assures me there's much joy in taking it.

This morning we read Isaiah 58 in class and I loved this short section:

If you turn back your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on my holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight and the holy day of the LORD honorable; if you honor it, not going your own ways, or seeking your own pleasure, or talking idly, then you shall take delight in the LORD, and I will make you ride on the heights of the earth. 

I don't know about you friend, but I've been hobbling along in the valleys of the earth for quite a few months, riding on the heights sounds like a good plan. I'm grateful God designed our bodies to need rest and wish I was better about giving mine the rest it needs. But I'm going to just thank Him for the small ways we can step back and call the void of doing a delight.

While I'm gone I have a passel of friends who graciously fought all over each other to fill four weekly slots for the month. Why only four? Well, I suppose I figured a rest might be good for you too. These four ferocious friends are all steadies for me, men and women who love Jesus deeply and extol His name beautifully. I'm excited to share their words with you. I hope you'll enjoy their posts and you'll click through to their sites.

A post like this gives me an opportunity to just say thank you to all of you dear readers. It sounds a bit trite to say that, or I don't know, gushing, but I truly mean it. As truly as I can mean it. I would still write without you, but it means so much to me that you all just keep coming back and telling your friends about Sayable. I read all your emails and am constantly encouraged by how transparent and hopeful you all are in them. Thank you for sharing your stories with me, telling me how much you love good theology, how it changes you and is changing you. Nothing brings me more joy than to know the God of the universe has dipped his hand to you and brought you to ride on the heights of the earth with Him.

He's a good, good God.

See you on the flip side!

(I will have April's 100 in 2013 up later this weekend, but that's it. Promise.)

Perfect Provision, Perfect Protection

No one has to be convinced that something went wrong somewhere in the bodies and beauty department. Stand in a grocery aisle and figure out how to beat those pesky inches, woo your disinterested man, and find more perfect clothes for perfect bodies. Something has gone wrong. So where?

It was at a tree. A food laden tree. Something good, beautiful, and delectable gone horribly wrong.

(Will Deutsch)

It began at the beginning of beginnings, Genesis, where food was made, food was eaten, and where all of our food issues began.

Strange, isn’t it, that one of our principles struggles is still there? With food?

We starve from it, binge on it, measure it out, disgust ourselves with it, pride ourselves on it, obsess over recipes, and TIVO our favorite cooking shows. Rarely do we see food as the perfect provision and perfect protection that it was designed to be. Provided for our health; protection from death.

God created food: a perfect provision for His creation. Then He clearly defined it as right or wrong: a perfect protection for his children. He set up His boundaries, endlessly good ones that felt good too, until they bumped up against the one ‘don’t’ rule: don’t eat of this tree.

Yet this is the tree from which they ate. First the woman and then the man.

Ignoring the plenty and subversively skirting the mandate by a subtle legalism, “God says don’t eat of it AND don’t touch it,” she fell the boundaries that God so lovingly placed on her and him and all of us.

Don’t we do this too? Don’t we see the plenty and choose instead the smaller portion, the lesser good? We add to the boundaries given. Sinking deeply into diets or delectable feasts, feeling helpless against the siren call that is food.

God calls out: Where are you? And we hide, behind exercise, behind enhancement, behind extra weight. We hide.

We hide because it is easier to hide than to be known. We’ve eaten off the tree of knowledge and now we think we know.

Yet still He seeks us. Pursues us. Finds us, shivering and scratching under the weight of man-made garments and expectations. I’m there. Are you too?

And all this because we added to what God said. He gave good boundaries and we made them smaller and tighter, thinking that more rules will keep us safer. God has said don’t eat of the fruit, but we think that it’s safer to just not touch it at all?

This is our great sin. This is our great fall. We add to what God has said and the boundaries become cages. We imagine He is a harsher God than He is.

We eat the fruit thinking it will make us like God and really all it does is make us into our own god. And we are powerless gods, always trying to find things to bulk us, beautify us, fix us.

All the while He is still giving perfect provision and perfect protection. The second time was in a much less beautiful environment. Dark, though midday, the place of the skull. A broken, bleeding, and bruised man. He is saying it is finished and we can hardly believe it is true.

So we are still adding to it. Principles. Practices. Helping God, we think, with clearer expectations on His people and on us. Don’t eat it, we say, or touch it. Or surely you will die.

The truth is that we are finished. Perfect in Christ’s eyes and through His provision. Nothing can be added or removed from you to make you more of who you’re intended to be in Christ.

He looks on you and sees clean, pure, perfect righteousness and beauty.

Polished Pearls and Unfinished Everything

I have always wanted to sell everything I own and buy the field. I have been the man who would give property, possessions, and pride to find the pearl of greatest price. A few years ago I did it. I sold everything I owned, packed what was left in my two-door Honda Civic and drove to Texas with no home, plan, or purpose. I found the pearl and nothing was worth more. When my best friend and I were young we made for ourselves a time-capsule. We put in it special mementos, notes from boys we liked, school pictures, concert tickets—junk to anyone else. We dug a hole in her back yard and planted it deep enough to let our friendship grow. When we dug it up in our junior or senior year it was covered in dirt, crusted with mud. Inside was safe and we have continued to treasure this tradition.

I think sometimes we are caught up in the idea that our pearl will come out polished and pristine. That we will have done the work, sold our belongings, bought the field, dug down deep, and the reward is something beautiful at first sight. But dirt isn't beautiful. And dirt-encrusted treasures are not beautiful.

The pearl we have sorted through mud and sand and tall grass and rocks for will not come out looking like it was worth any of the work at all.

There will be a time when we take the treasure home, rub it over with a soft cloth, wash it over with water, clean it up, and determine its worth. But we must not be selfish in our rush to determine the worth of what only looks like just another rock.

Today I am looking at the pile of stones before me. I asked—I asked for bread. I asked for sustenance and warm bread, and He has given me a pile of dirt-encrusted rocks. Friendships wrought with pain and surprise—not wrong, simply in process. Half-baked theological conclusions—not incorrect, simply unfinished. Relationships that never bloom—not trampled on, simply unopened. Ideas subject to time and space—not false, simply not full to fruition. To my eye this treasure has not been worth what I have given to get it.

The Lord is teaching me the process to a perfect pearl, a finely cut diamond, a shaped gold-piece, does not come without pain and it does not come without a grain of sand, a piece of rock, and a yellow vein in a dark cavern. The treasure is Christ and He wept in a garden, felt forsaken on the cross, and still has not come to take us home. We are his unfinished pearl and, in some ways, He is ours. He is already come and not yet.

Maybe none of this makes sense to you, and in some ways, I'm okay if it doesn't. This is my unfinished treasure, covered over with mud, stuffed full of meaning for me but junk to you. We are all standing behind dark and dim glasses, waiting to see face to face our dearest Treasure, and I never want to pretend my pearls are more polished than yours until that day.

The Hospital

I had a conversation with a writer friend the other day and he told me the main problem with many churches these days is they're more schools than hospitals. Which reminded me of something Jesus said once about coming for the sick and not the well. My writer friend said we have to see a return to the spiritual, the mysterious, and the beauty of the gospel. He might not have said it like that, but as he is a writer he understands poetic license.

We’re all stumbling bumbling idiots, aren’t we? The blind leading the blind, deaf teaching the mute, and all of us trying to make sense of our sins and secrets. It makes my head hurt to think through the issues of our day, homosexuals marrying, drone strikes, economic disasters, babies—all the babies maimed in their mother’s wombs. How can any of us make sense of anything with all the world’s answers shouting so terribly loud in our faces? But how can any of us make sense of anything with us shouting so angrily at ourselves?

Once when I was small I played a game with my brother and he told me to trust him. He took my hand and led me to a dark corner of our basement and we waited there for our father to come down and turn the light on. When he did, and the wait seemed forever, my brother whispered from one to three and we bound up with the energy we’d bottled in those ten minutes hiding. I don’t think we gave my father a fright, but he pretended we did. “Oh, my,” he said, “you surprised me!” and we rushed at him and asked him over and over, “Did we, Daddy, did we?” We had to know that we had surprised him even though deep down we knew we hadn’t.

All we like sheep have gone astray, after our own way, lurking in the dark corners, all bound up in sin sickness and death. Yet all we like good and faithful servants want to come back to Jesus and ask, “Have we done well, Jesus? Have we?” because I think we so desperately want to do well. We do. We don’t want to bring our sickness to the hospital, we want to bring our strength. We don’t want to bring our weakness to the table, we want to bring our wins.

This week, all of it, all I can feel and know is the sin sickness of my heart. I need the hospital. I need to be allowed to be sick, to not bring anything to Jesus when I come but my trembling hands and my tender heart. It is Holy Week and I want to meditate on the cross, but all I am thinking about is my sin and how I feel like a bound up pile of wrong-doing and wrong-thinking and wrong-living. But I want to make sense of it. I want to see Him in it. I want to pop out of my dark dank corners and surprise Him with my goodness and faithfulness.

But He didn’t come for people like that, did He?

He came for the sick.

And we, you and me and all of us, we are so awfully, terribly, beautifully sick in need of Him.

Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire?

Before a polygraph can be performed, the test-giver asks a series of questions to which he knows the answers to ascertain a baseline. Therefore, when a lie is given, it's clear because the needle spikes amidst the truth. Everyone has a different baseline, and some people can BS the lie detector, but it's a rare one who can.

The reason I'm giving you a brief lesson in polygraphy is because what I see across the board in the blogosphere is a lot of people citing spikes as norms (on every side in every issue)—and it's not helpful.

I think if we were to more often consider a holistic picture of any movement (political, spiritual, etc.) we would not only find a more holistic argument for their views—founded or not—and, which is more, we would find people. We would find individuals who care deeply about their issues and often times have deeply personal reasons for caring about them. I'm not arguing that every position should be considered viable, but every person ought to be considered, particularly by Christians, whose ministry is one of reconciliation—namely the reconciliation of man to God.

Recently I've been cited as being part of the Young Restless Reformed corner of the Church. True or not is beside the point (if you have a problem with that, reread the former paragraph). One common pushback on the YRR is that they only listen to like-minded individuals and only call out in public those who disagree. However, if you, like the polygraph giver, would observe the baseline truths of what God is doing there, you'd find they're actively involved in calling out their own brothers and sisters where error occurs. I know my email inbox has been filled with an equal amount of caution and encouragement—and I'm fully prepared for more public responses as my readership grows.

A perfect example of good discourse on this currently is the current amiable conversation between Thabiti Anyabwile and Doug Wilson—on a very polarizing issue—on their blogs. It's been a pleasure to watch a disagreement play out between brothers with good-will and gospel focus.

If you find yourself citing spikes and rushing to share the latest drama from any particular corner of the internet, a word of caution: establish a baseline first; find every reason to think the very best of individuals you're planning on slandering or sharing information about, and then press near to the Holy Spirit for He ushers us into all truth (Jn. 14:26)

(This actually wasn't written in response to the accusations leveled at me from the former post, just thoughts that have been rolling around in my noggin for a while.)

Words from a Weary Writer

It has been a while since I felt like writing. Last night I laid on the hammock in the dark, listening to dishes being washed in the sink indoors, the light from the dining room splaying across the back yard. I squinted my eyes and tried to make the words come, but they didn't.

And I know what you're thinking right now: "but you still write so much, how can you even say the words aren't coming?" What I said is it's been a while since I felt like writing.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

I used to dream of being a writer. When I was 11 years old, I clutched my copy of Troubling a Star by Madeleine L'Engle and knew this was what I would do with my life, string words together beautifully. But any true writer will tell you writing is not about being published. To be published only is for narcissists and public relators. Writers must only write.

There are nebulous goals in front of me, always moving targets, "When this happens" or "When this does," then I will have arrived. But then I reach the nearest pinnacle and I find the finish line has moved back farther still. If it is to be noticed by respected writers and thinkers, I have arrived. If it is to be published in dream places, I have arrived. If it is to be offered a book deal, I have arrived. But nothing satisfies. Every writer who affirms me, I doubt. Every platform given me, I fear. Every offer of publishing, I second guess.

But what if it is only about the pilgrimage?

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

My roommate comes into my room sometimes and crawls under my down comforter and we comfort one another with words like these: you're not finished yet, we haven't arrived, there's more for God to do in and through us, but sometimes? Sometimes we just need to slow down, be still, wait, and hear.

So I am in this place these days. I write and I write voraciously because it is expected of me and depended on from me, but the joy in it is missing these days. I do not feel like writing or saying or publishing or submitting. I feel like forgetting Troubling a Star and Madeleine L'Engle and middle school dreams, leaving words behind and being someone else entirely.

I felt I should tell you this. In case anyone else ever feels this way too.

Rob Bell's New Book and Questioning Faith

It was a poor grasp of theology that led to me to confess in early 2010 I did not believe and could not believe, nor follow, the God I thought I knew. It was one particular line a few months later that turned me right around and into the arms of a Father unlike none I'd ever known: a simple line of truth about Who God Was and Is, and who I am not. Did I believe before that? Was there a moment of salvation in 2010? Did I need to get rebaptized? These were the questions I asked myself and others eventually asked as well. Questions that needed answers immediately, I thought.

Rob Bell is coming out with a new book, What We Talk About When We Talk About God, and I watched the trailer for it this morning. Guy better brace himself because I don't care if you're the Pope or the President of the United States, the backlash about to unleash on him yet again is gonna sting. Should it sting? Well, that's a question I'm not going to address here, so take your snark and stinky attitude elsewhere—regardless of how much you love or hate him.

Here's what I will say: in early 2006 I got my hands on a copy of Velvet Elvis. First, it was the design of the book that appealed to me—I loved the space, the use of graphic elements in the book, and the smokey blue used throughout it. It felt fresh in my hands. I hadn't read a word and already I knew something beautiful was about to happen to me. I was right. My copy of that book is dog-eared and underlined, scribbled in with pages falling out. Someone was giving me permission to think and to ask questions.

All my life, and especially all my Christian life, asking questions was out of the question.

In Velvet Elvis I was able to wrestle with concepts and thoughts that had never been presented to me as beautiful or mysterious. I thought faith was something you got once and never lost, and could never understand why faith had always been so elusive to me. I was [am] a chronic doubter. Bell's book let me stick my hands in the side of Jesus, poke fingers through God made flesh and flesh made God. 2006 began four years of wrestling for me. What I wrestled with was never completely clear, and I see now it's because I was wrestling with mystery.

I had flesh on my Jesus—He looked like me and all the Christians I'd known my whole life: a bit radical, a bit bland, and a bit pragmatic.

But now I had permission to not understand the fullness of Jesus.

And that saved my life.

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

At the end of those four years, sobbing on my bedroom floor, confessing I did not believe and could not believe, what I came to realize is that I did not believe and could not believe in the God I thought was.

This God who was black and white, clear and clean, four points and a poem, and this God who could not be understood at all, an enigma, a full-on mystery—neither God satisfied the deepest doubts and longings of my soul.

Slowly He began to reveal to me that He was both mystery and proof, solid and spirit, firm truth and full life. He was both/and, not either/or. He was stunning in His characteristics and humbling in His holiness. His beauty was in His immutability and His changelessness was in His triune nature, God in three persons.

. . . . . . . . . . . . .

This is important because heresy will always exist and we must be stalwart to point it out, but we also must let each generation come to a place where they are wrestling with very real, very actual, necessary battles with and for their souls. If we do not fling open the doors to what the world brings at us in some respect, we will raise generations of robotic orators with no grounding to their faith. Can I endorse the content of Velvet Elvis knowing what I know now? No. But can I endorse the wrestling with faith that Velvet Elvis encourages? Yes. Without reservation.

We finished the book of Acts this morning in class and several of us offered reflections on what we learned, how we were challenged or blessed. Here's what Paul taught me more than anything in that book: He was ready in season and out because he knew his audience, he knew the Word, and more than anything he knew his God. He, Pharisee of Pharisees, Hebrew of Hebrews, persecutor of Christians, and mocker of faith, was brought low and shown the beautiful mysterious light of his Savior on Damascus road.

We all will have our moment of beautiful mysterious light, some will have it reading Piper or Edwards, some while reading Keller, Chan, Kierkegaard, or even Bell. Maybe it will take longer than we'd like for someone, or even ourselves, to see a faithful work of service behind us and a hopeful path set before us. Maybe some of us will have to hide out in the house of Judas for a few months or days or weeks.

As for me, I take comfort in this: Every knee will bow, every tongue confess, that He is Lord.

There is no mystery or question about that. It will be full-on, the most spectacularly beautiful culminating moment we could ever imagine.

Shelf Life

I have a shelf life of two years, three years max. Once I overheard someone say of me, "She's obviously wife material, my only fear is her aversion to commitment," and the words replay in my mind.

A friend told me last week the lies she tells herself the most are always in second person: you aren't smart enough, you aren't pretty enough, you aren't enough. I tell myself the truth, though, when I use the second person: you won't stick around long enough.

A man put his hand on my head many years ago and spoke these words: "He has given you a flexibility of spirit and there are those who will see you as a flitting butterfly, going from one thing to the next, but remember this: He has given that flexibility to you, He has made you adaptable and transient." I looked up from under his hand into the eyes of someone who knows my soul well, knows its propensity to fly the coop. I smiled; she smiled. But she still cried when I last left her house on my trek back to Texas.

The blessing of my singleness has been flexibility. It is moving quickly and easily, changing careers every few years, worrying little about accumulation of things or resources. It can be a selfish existence, but it can also be the quickest way to remember every single day this place isn't home and ought not feel like it.

The curse of singleness is the same curse on everyone—for man it is to work, to toil, and to commit; for me it is to birth, to nurture, and to commit. A pregnant friend told me once it wasn't until after the shock of knowing a child grew within her wore off, that she realized she had to be committed to this. Nine months of her body shifting and shaping, with an alien thing in her that would come out—the labor process terrified her. But she was committed not because she chose to be every second of every minute, but because the blessing is also the curse: it's a long painful commitment and there is no going back.

Though no child grows in me, and perhaps never will, I understand the angst of long, painful commitments, of nurturing when I feel like running, of entering in when I long to draw back. At times I feel unwilling to do this, to stay, to prolong my shelf life—I just want to go home. This week I want to go home to the northeast corner, some weeks I want to go home to my hometown, most days I just want to go home.

This morning I stopped on Romans 8 and stayed there, committed to it:

For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.

I rarely think of corruption in the way I think Paul meant it here. To me corruption is Wall Street businessmen and the Russian mob, politics and big government. But it also means to crumble, to rot, to fall apart. This is what we're doing, friends, all of us. Our shelf life is crumbling, rotting, and falling apart. We're bound to do it, all of us.

But.

But the redemption of our bodies is not long off, not at all. And this, oh this, I can count on and commit to—it's coming. If we're His children, it's coming. He's coming.

And He has no shelf life or homesickness or fear of commitment—He's in, all in, forever and ever.

Comparing Weight

For this light momentary affliction is preparing for usan eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison... I Corinthians 4:17

Tonight I'm on the phone with a friend and we're talking about the weight of glory like we know what we're talking about. We've seen our fair share of light momentary afflictions and we're both crying "Maranatha!" in our stronger moments.

Come quickly, we're saying, and in the meantime we're shouldering our share of the burden.

"Did you know that the Hebrew word for glory is the same word for heavy?" she asks me. She's in seminary and seminarians know these things. I tell her I didn't know that but it seems fitting, doesn't it? If you can follow it through, the weight of glory is the heaviness of glory is the glory of glory is the glory of heaviness is the glory of weight—and isn't it a beautiful picture when you put it like that?

This light momentary affliction is preparing us for the glory of bearing it through til the end. Finishing well. Finishing without comparison, because we know there is no comparison or coupling in heaven—we will be all too enamored with the King of Kings to consider our neighbor.

And let me be straight—our momentary affliction is not the stuff of real suffering, we have food enough and friends enough and He carries us through in the meantime. But our momentary affliction comes from the comparison we are so wont to do here on earth, and isn't it the way for us all?

No one else seems to struggle here or with this. No one else has to muscle their way through this experience, so why us? Why me? These are the existential questions of our momentary affliction. It is fitting, then, that Paul would use the word comparison when he talks of the weight of glory, isn't it? Listen here, he's saying, you who are looking around you and experiencing the stuff of the earth in deeper and more painful ways than your counterparts are, what it's preparing you for is a glory you can't compare, not even on your best day.

I imagine, for one moment, Isaiah in the year King Uzziah died, seeing the Lord in all His glory. Isaiah, who was undone by all that glorious glory. "Woe is me." I imagine the burning coal touching his mouth and his admission that he would go anywhere the Lord sent Him.

I imagine that and I can bear almost anything.

Have a Good Really Bad Day

When I was ten we bought a Christmas tree from the firehouse lot. It was an immense thing because we had a cathedral ceiling in our living room and grand things made us feel grand. My father wrestled that tree from the roof of our station wagon and into the house. It was so tall though, that even though the bottom was bolted into the stand, it began to tip and then fall over altogether, ornaments and lights going everywhere. My dad laughed, my mom shook her head, and my older brother talked about something called Murphy's Law, and then all three pulled twine around the tree's upper branches and nailed it to the wall.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

"If something can go wrong, it will go wrong," is not the sort of mantra I want to adopt on any day of my life, but there are some days. Some days, you know?

Some days when you wake in the middle of a deep REM cycle, jolted by the sound of your 4:30am alarm. Some days when you drop the toothpaste four times in a row and your contact lenses are irritated. Some days when you're already late and you hit the school zone exactly as the lights start blinking and the traffic slows to 20mph. Days when you drop your debit card out of your car window at the ATM and when the barista gets both your name and your drink wrong. Days when all three printers your computer is connected to at the office won't print content and time sensitive documents. Days when your browser crashes multiple times within the first 20 minutes of work. And it's only noon. And I didn't even list everything that's grating on my last nerve today, because, trust me, there's much more.

Those days.

Today.

I don't know about you, but I find it difficult to pray or think or even resemble a Christian on days like these, when everything that can go wrong (even if it's going right on time—like blinking lights in the school zone), will go wrong. I want to snap at everything and everyone who doesn't understand the urgency of just one thing going my way. Just one thing. My way.

I also don't know about you, but the last thing I want to do today is find some sort of comfort in a Psalm about peace or a Proverb about perseverance.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Today is the sort of day I'm painfully, awfully aware of my sin and the sin of everyone around me. I'm aware that baristas are busy and drivers without constraints are dangerous, printers are prone to malfunction and my frustration with the world at large begins with frustration at myself. Today is the sort of day I remember: oh, it will go wrong, it will go horribly wrong, from the moment I wake until the moment I sleep, but that is only a physical reality of a spiritual truth.

The Genesis curse swooped in on perfect days, idyllic pleasure, quiet ambling, and sweet romance. It swooped in and wrecked a whole lot of things, and January 16, 2013 is one of those things. I keep hoping my day will go better, but it might not, and it will be okay. It will be okay because there is a better day ahead, a final day, a full feast of what is only good and never wrong.

If you're having a bad day today too, let me just encourage you with the reality that you might not have anything pretty or perfect, smooth or safe today at all. But, if you're a child of God, you do have a better day ahead. He promises you that.

"But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have come to share in Christ..." Hebrews 3:13-14a

When He Feels Far Off

"He is near."

I say that a lot these days. In the hallway. In class. In this space. At my kitchen table last night while a candle flickers, light playing off our faces. I say it to convince others but I say it to convince myself too.

He is near.

He is near because his word says he is near. Because he is Emmanuel, God with us. Because He came to earth as a baby and wrapped in rags and humility. He is near because he was a suffering servant, drinking a cup that wasn't taken from him, even when He asked. He is near because he walked through the valley, in the shadow of his own death. Near because he is God, encompassing, creating, drawing, loving, shepherding. He is near not because we feel His nearness, but because He says He is near.

_______________

Three comforts if you feel He is not near:

1. His nearness is not a feeling, it is a truth.  The eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous and his ears toward their cry. Psalm 34.15

We may be in the same room with one another, not touching, but there is usually the feeling of presence. But what about those times when you don't feel that closeness? In my office my chair back is to the door so it is the office joke to startle me. Sometimes I don't know someone is standing there for a long time. I can't feel their presence, but it doesn't change the truth that they are standing there, feet behind me.

When we feel far from God it is important to note that our feelings cannot be trusted. Primarily because being apart from God is not a place where we will be sitting in truth. But also because our feelings are simply untrue in this case. God cannot be far off, He omniscient (having infinite knowledge), omnipotent (holding unlimited power), omnipresent (present everywhere). That is the truth. Our feelings are important, but they are important mainly to God and that is the most important thing when we feel far from Him.

2. We know it's true because His word can be trusted. For the word of the Lord is true, and all his work is done in faithfulness. Psalm 33.4

When we doubt our feelings, when it seems He is not coming through, not answering us, or has turned a cold shoulder to us, it is time for us to first confess those emotions to Him. He is not surprised by our doubt. He is not scrambling for a plan B. He is not trying to sweep up the pieces of our lives. He is God and we know that because His word says He is God and words, right there, in that beautiful book, breathed by the Spirit and recorded for us can be trusted. Dreams, emotions, prophetic words, others, feelings—these fail. His word does not fail.

3. We can trust His word because His word does not return void. So shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it. Isaiah 55.11

God can not be mocked. No, even more, He will not be mocked. He won't stand for it. So neither will His Word. That may seem jeering and standoffish to us, but if we come a bit closer I think we will see what a warm blanket that promise is. That promise means that He is for us, His children, His interest. That promise means that He is deeply involved in our cares and our feelings as they concern Him. Why? Because He won't be mocked. He won't be standing there on that final day wondering what went wrong. That means we're safe, we may feel unsafe, but if you're His child, you're safe. He's got this.

Why?

Because He is near.

How to Get Things Done in Time

A good reminder for me on days like today, in weeks like this week, and in whole seasons like this season, is that I have 24 hours to steward and so does everyone else. I feel acutely the reality that I have 24 hours, but it is often difficult for me to remember that everyone else I know also has only 24 hours. I'm feeling pressed and crushed and persecuted and torn down. I'm feeling like there is never enough time or enough energy or enough hours in my day to accomplish what I feel like I need to accomplish.

A few weeks ago Tim Challies wrote about being busy and I go back to that post often, especially the last few lines,

"This is what disturbs me most, that my busyness, or the perception of busyness, makes me less effective in the areas in which I want to do well. That cost is too high to tolerate. So let me say it again, primarily to reassure myself: I’m not busy. I have all the time I need to accomplish the things the Lord has called me to."

There are so many areas in my life I want to do and I want to do well. I don't do much halfway and I rarely do anything if I don't know that I can excel at it in some sense.

This is pride and while it simultaneously brings me to the end of myself and to the foot of the cross, it also simultaneously puffs me up and drains me out.

I ask a friend the other day why God would call us to something that we couldn't follow through on all the way and the more I think about that question, the more I realize that the entirety of the Christian life is encapsulated there: we have been called something that in and of ourselves, and left to our own devices and power, we cannot ever be: righteous, whole, and holy.

I have 24 hours today and it took me eight minutes to write this post. On one hand I feel as though I wasted those eight minutes and I do not have eight minutes to waste today. On the other hand, though, I have to know that if God has called me to do it, He has given me all the time I need to accomplish it. That's His promise to me. I only need to be faithful and trust He is at work within me and without me.

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. Ephesians 2:8-10