Why I Don't Tithe II

I've written on why I don't tithe before. The original comments from that post were lost in the site migration this past summer, but that post stirred up some pretty heated discussion and passionate thoughts on semantics, giving, and theology. My position remains, though, and I don't see it changing. In fact, I ask the Holy Spirit regularly that He would not change my heart on it because to live open-handedly takes more faith for me than tithing regularly does. I want to put myself in positions that require more faith over less. I'd recommend you read this post as a preface before reading the post below.

Today I'd like to write a bit about how we should give and why I think it's important not only for me, but for the Body of Christ.

We give humbly (Eph. 4.2) because we can never repay what He has done for us. That we are breathing and walking is grace enough, but that we spend eternity with Him? There is no cost too high. We are not repaying him by giving to others, but we are making a tangible expression to others of His love for us. Giving is tangible evidence that God has come down and changed our lives. We give of the overflow of that—even if the overflow feels only a trickle.

We give circumspectly (Mark 12:42-44) because it is possible to wrongly attribute worth to something that has no worth in God's eyes or is priceless in God's eyes. For example, the widow's two pennies were worth more than the pharisees loud millions, not because the pennies could accomplish more, but because God determines worth, not man. We may be presented with a need in the amount of $2000, but can only give $200, so we ought to give the $200. God accomplishes His purpose, we just get to partake in the process.

We give joyfully (2 Cor. 9.7) because there is a need to be met and we are equipped to meet that need. What other reason should we need to give joyfully?

We give prayerfully (Rom. 12.15) because investing even two pennies into a need invests us in the brokenness of a situation. We acknowledge by giving that we are broken people in a broken world desperately in need of the Father's care. So we do so prayerfully, not flippantly, because we need to feel a measure of the brokenness into which we're entering. This is good for us.

We give quickly (Matt. 6.33) because the Kingdom of God is at hand. There is work to be done and we can help get it done.

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

Now I'm going to say something that might be mildly unpopular to talk about, but I think if we make it personal, it becomes very, very important to the health of the local church:

First let it be said that I work for a non-profit that brings the gospel to third world countries, rescues women/children from sex-trafficking, puts water wells in poverty stricken villages. I am not unaware of the needs of the nations, nor am I advocating that we ignore those needs (though I think the way the US gives needs a radical overhaul). Second let it be said that my salary is paid by men and women who are invested in the local church, giving regularly to their churches which in turn support us. So I am not in any way advocating that we stop giving to our local churches. I am on the giving and receiving end of this, and I will continue to invest in the nations and receive the blessing of those giving to their local church.

The Church ought to be the first place we invest our finances—not because we want to build bigger buildings or buy better communion crackers, but because the Church is not a building or a staff or a pastor or a program. The Church is you and me, and we might be pastors or teachers or writers or designers or engineers or laid-off or working three jobs or under some financial strain—but we are doing the work of the ministry. When I say the Church is the first place we invest, I'm not referring to an offering plate or joy-box—I'm referring to the people who make up the Church.

I want my brothers and sisters to do the work of the ministry. I want to lift up the hands that hang down, strengthen the feeble knees (Hebrews 12:12). Friends, I know how hard it is when you really don't know how you're going to make ends meet this month. But God knows how He'll meet them. And He's saved and equipped us for that purpose: to build up and unify the Church (Eph 4:11-14). The Church in turn then meets the needs of the world.

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

So look to your left and your right today. Which of your brothers and sisters are straining under the weight of financial pressure? You don't have to meet all of their need, you probably can't. But you probably can purchase today's bread and maybe tomorrow's too.

And are you perhaps in need of some bread yourself? Ask. Please ask. Ask the people who have committed to walk alongside you in life, not because you're asking for a handout or because you feel they owe it to you. Ask because we all need bread we cannot buy and He has bought it for us with his broken body and poured out blood.

Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Isaiah 55

I know some of you will have thoughts on this, and I'd love to hear them. As usual, comments on Sayable are closed, but head over to the facebook page if you'd like to share your thoughts.

Why I Can't Be Your Friend Today

Preface: This is some regular reader housekeeping.  If this is your first time here, I hope you're not scared off by me being the meanie I'm about to be, and that if you have thoughts, you'll send yourself over to the facebook thread for commenting!  My parents used to force me to buy milk or make a bank deposit. My mother would set her face, straight ahead, mouth pursed, case closed: I would make the deposit or I would be grounded.

I was an introvert and the only cure for introversion was doing daring things. Like buying milk from the IGA.

We all laugh about it now, but I'm grateful my parents persevered with a painfully shy daughter. I'm also grateful for the leadership of one who quipped often enough: "Be a 'There you are!' person instead of a 'Here I am' person." I have learned to see people, to not be afraid of buying milk or moving across the country, to build relationship easily, and to not care how much of a fool I have looked.

The tension for me now is to stay the line between intentional relationship building and understanding that it is okay that the number on the list of close friends rarely changes. Three, normally, sometimes four. I've taught myself to trust easily, but I do not entrust easily.

Can I unpack this for you, dear readers?

Four Groups of People

Those I do not trust and feel no need to. These are the people who have not seen the gospel as their breath and bread. The strange thing is, this group is mostly made of up unbelievers OR seasoned believers who haven't let the gospel permeate their lives. They've had opportunity to pursue relationship with others and they've continued to squander it. My friendship with this group is limited to evangelism and/or less intentional discipleship.

Those I do trust, but feel no need to pursue a deep relationship with. This is probably the largest group. It's nothing personal, but it's probably because they have a close group of people with whom they're walking. This is mostly church folk, blog readers, and friends from various seasons of life. I don't need another close friend, and chances are, they don't either. I love the small glimpses of the greater body they afford us, but I'm not going to invest my relational first-fruits in them.

Those I trust and with whom I would consider myself in relationship. These are the people in my most immediate community. Because I've moved so much, this group changes often and I've come to expect those changes, and not mourn too long when they come. This is usually the group of people (15-20) with whom I do things socially, the intentional discipleship relationships I'm in, guys and girls both who count on me for counsel and friendship. I enter into their mourning and their joy.

Those I trust and entrust. This is the smallest group, never more than three or four people, all of whom live in separate states (these relationships have little to do with proximity). This group includes those to whom I entrust my confession of sin, the deepest things the Lord is teaching me, the deepest sorrows and joys of my heart, struggles of my flesh, and most of all—my time. I seek this group out regularly for their counsel, I trust it when it comes, and this is the group to whom I give my counsel freely.

Let me say that I firmly believe in responding to the Holy Spirit and so there is flexibility in each of these groups, and some overlap, but I do that at the Holy Spirit's leading and nothing else.

My Struggle

Time is something that whenever an inventory of my life is taken, I find to be the greatest struggle for me. Finances and belongings are rarely difficult for me to give, but time is. This is because time is what people ask the most from me—and contrary to the old milk buying days, saying "No," is one of the most difficult things for me to do.

If I've said "No" to you, or given you what seems to you an unreasonable timeline for when I'm available, or have clearly not pursued a deeper relationship with you, I'm truly sorry for how that comes across. It's not you, it's me. I promise. It's me. I understand you long to know me more, want to understand my heart on some issues, or just want to hang out sometime, but I'm afraid, for today, this blog is going to be the best place for both of us to have that happen. I did not set out to have writing be my primary means of ministry, but more and more the Lord makes it clear this is what today's portion looks like for me. The amount of interactions that result from this blog and other writing keep my inbox topped in the hundreds most of the time—and I still work a full-time job and am deeply involved in the life of my church.

Your Struggle

If you're longing to be known—there are so many people who are longing for the same thing and I am not one of them. Reach out. Befriend someone. I think you'd be surprised to find out their hearts beat with the same passion, same depth, and same love mine does.

Someone you know struggles to make deposits—not bank deposits, relationship deposits. Seek them. Find them. Pursue them. They are often times not at the center of the crowd, but on the outskirts. Make yourself at home on the outskirts until one day you find you're at the center, with two or three people to whom you entrust yourself.

Lives are changed this way.

I promise.

Heaven

Last night a friend of mine shared her desire to sit down and chat for a bit and then we both laughed. She's busy and she knows I'm busy—because we are not one another's primary ministry focus these days. She looked me right in the eye and said, "Hey, we get to spend eternity together. That's way better than coffee and what a relief." I almost cried.

Folks, we get heaven. An eternity with one another and most importantly Jesus Christ. He's where our focus should be today and for all eternity. What a joy to abide in that! 

"Titus, A True Child in Common Faith."

I say to a friend recently that it may be those who have suffered most who trust most.

I hope you don't take offense to that—it is okay if you do, though, because it probably means you haven't suffered and it is coming for you. I promise. I pray sooner rather than later.

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We come in the world with our fists clenched and go out with hands open and I think God did that on purpose—a visual picture of the wrest that our lives will be and the peace that comes when we enter final rest.

What I mean is that I've never met a Christian who has tasted death, whose home has been visited with deep suffering, pain, or loss, who does not know that He is found in the mourning and His mercies are new every morning.

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In the past few months I've encountered some new writers, so many lovely people who love Jesus and love His bride, but two stand out and I want to say a few words about them and then ask something of you.

He is a poet-lawyer. The old joke is that lawyers lie, but this man tells truth and tells it beautifully. His blog is one of my favorite places to visit.

His wife is the same. Not a lawyer, but a poet and a mother. Gentle. Honest. Beautiful. Sparkling with life and faith.

They have four sons and it is the youngest I want to tell you about. Titus. I don't know the full details of his sickness, but that is primarily because his own parents and doctors and specialists do not know the extent of his sickness. Here is what is known: Titus does not grow. His small body just doesn't grow. So while his older brothers grow up, and his parents grow on, Titus stays small, unable to fully process nutrients. I have experienced great loss, but I understand my loss. There is logic and sense to be made of my loss, but this?

This?

I don't understand this.

_____________

But here is what I know: his parents love the Lord, they love the Church, they love the Gospel, they cling to the goodness of God in the land of the living, and trust that He is good in the land of confusion.

So would you pray? Would you pray for wholeness for Titus? Would you pray that Seth and Amber would suffer well in this process, that their pain would not be without meaning and purpose? Would you pray that there would be clarity, but even more, that there would be healing? I believe that God can heal and He may, but I also believe He may not heal, but that either way He is good. And Seth and Amber, they believe that too.

Pray that their faith makes well.

I wrote this post on Sunday, planning to post it sometime this week. Today Amber updated us with news on Titus and Seth made me cry with a song he wrote about the Goodness of God. 

Drinking Often

This morning in class we read through the last few chapters of Matthew, including the final supper. I couldn't help the tears that pooled in my eyes while our campus pastor read the words in that small paragraph. The last supper, yes, but the inaugural supper, that too. The first supper. The first communion. I love that.

So it is fitting, I think, that today I've written on that supper over at Grace for Sinners, the blog of Matthew Sims. I hope you'll head over there and read about a Savior who fulfills the law and uses the word "often."

"He knows us so well to use a word like often.

We need this, with our hearts so prone to attempting and trying, to sacrificing the modern lambs of our time, our tithe and our truant hearts.

We need this, we who do not understand that the kindness of God draws us to repentance and anything less is a marauder of faith and a shortcut to legalism."

Continue reading... 

How to be missional when you get out of bed

A friend stopped me in the hall tonight with a question and I gave a short answer but told her I'd blog the long answer later. This won't be a creative post, but it will hopefully be educational at least and encouraging at most. My friend's question was along the lines of: how do you, as an unmarried person, reconcile this [tonight's sermon on covenantal relationships, specifically marriage] with your singleness?

My short answer:

While I am unmarried the Church is where I am united primarily as a giver and helper. Note that though I use the capital C Church there, it plays itself out in the context of my local church, which, by extension, is my home most locally.

Long answer:

A few years ago I decided that unless I were to craft for myself a creed of sorts during my single years, I would be in danger of letting these years pass me by in either purposeless and vain ways OR in begrudging and self-righteous ways. I know my nature well enough to know that I can't exist in nothingness very well—and judging from nearly every conversation with every single person I know, neither can most of humankind.

Here's my personal creed on how this unmarried person lives in covenant (and it will probably continue in context if I become a married person living in covenant):

My housemates are my primary covenant relationships

In this season of life the girls with whom I live are my first priorities when it comes to covenant. That does not mean they can call first dibs on me, my time, talents, etc. What it does mean, though, is that I will drop almost anything for them. In regard to my finances, time, talents, and wisdom—they are my primary partakers, they get my first-fruits. Because there are four of us, those things are divided, but overall, I seek to defer to them in all things for their good and my sanctification.

This might sound like I'm steam-rolled, but I think if you knew any of us you'd see that's not the case at our house. Everyone in our home has a voice and an opinion, and everyone in our home defers to the others 9.9 times out of ten. If that seems like a recipe for division, well, you're invited to come over anytime. Because...

My home is a place of peace

The first words people say when they see our home is, "So cool!" or "So homey!" or "Love this place!" The second thing people say is, "It's so peaceful here." And it's true, for the most part. We're not perfect people and so one of us feels underfoot sometimes or maybe unheard or overcrowded, but overall, our home is home of peace.

Peace is not just a pretty painting on the wall, though, hanging there passively waiting to be disrupted. No. Peace is an active agent. There is a world of difference between being a peacemaker and peacekeeper. In our home we are peacemakers. We are makers of peace. Peace with one another. Peace with situations. Peace with the onslaught of the world that assaults each of us throughout our day. My aim, at the end of the day, when I say, "Goodnight family, I love you," is to settle it before bed: you are loved, you are known, and in this home, behind these doors, there is no onslaught toward you. This is important because...

My home is my primary place of ministry

I work for a busy non-profit, I lead a homegroup, I write this blog and for many other publications, I have lived in five states and still have close friends to keep up with in all of them, I have a huge family all over the US who I see rarely, I go to a large church with many opportunities to serve,...the list goes on. Outside of my home there are opportunities to minister in a million places. But here's the problem with that, for me: if my home isn't in order, I'm not going to serve well outside of it.

Therefore, my home is my primary place of ministry. Whether that means I invite people into my home (ie. homegroup), or whether I give the best of my ministry (prayer, counsel, love, etc.) to my housemates, or whether home is simply the place where I sit deepest under the ministry of the Holy Spirit—whatever it is for that moment, home is where it's happening for me. If it's not in order here, it will not be in order when I leave & go do other ministry.

How it works for me

Whatever I choose to do gets filtered through those creeds and if I choose not to do something, it's probably related to one of them as well. I do not hold to these perfectly (ask my housemates), but they are ingrained in my spirit deeply enough that they are nearly second nature at this point.

I said this to my friend in the hallway tonight: I'm 31 years old and I have more than a decade of housemates behind me. I have messed up royally many, many, many times. Even with these housemates. In no way do I have the corner on Housemate of the Year Award.

These have tightened up over time and displayed themselves in a myriad of ways depending on the home in which I lived, the people with whom I lived, and the season of life in which we were, but they have generally been kept over the past six or seven years. I have lived with (at last count) 28 housemates in a decade; I have lived with crazy, kind, manipulative, wise, gentle, funny, and angry people, and I have been all of those things in return. No home is perfect and I'm not seeking perfection in my home.

If you're feeling like a bad housemate or an angry single person who feels like the best years of your life are being thwarted by having to live with roommates instead of the person-of-your-dreams, I'd encourage you to sit down and write out a creed for your life, your home, and your ministry. The enemy wants to steal, kill, and destroy, and he's going to start with the place you spend most of your life and the people with whom you spent it. Don't let him. Be proactive. Be on guard.

Conclusion

The pervasive presence of the gospel in your home is going to be your best weapon against the enemy. If you're feeding yourself a gospel of Cosmo or Sport Center or The Food Network or classic literature or social media, you're going to feel thwarted by the enemy. Preach the gospel to yourself, infuse it into your conversations with your housemates, speak it to whoever comes into your door. Be intentional.

Your lease isn't the only covenant you're living in right now. Don't let the opportunity for covenantal relationship pass you by.

This is a silhouette piece I did of the four of us for Christmas last year. Don't we look like a friendly sort?

Related posts:

To the Men To the Women A dual challenge to Singles Living Single: how to do single well Every Single Season

WHAT did HE MEAN?

These days it seems authorial intent is an aside, an afterthought. What really matters is how the piece of music or poetry or prose made us feel and feelings are something we westerners are never short on. And so praise God for twitter and facebook, and someone thank Him for LinkedIn too, because without these outlets of immediacy, how would we ever know how anyone felt about anything? This morning a short twitter exchange:

Him: Sometimes I need to be reminded of what I sometimes believe. Me: Almost all the time I need to be reminded of what I almost never believe.

So this has me thinking about doubt this morning.

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In my Old Testament class we began our study of Deuteronomy today. It is, in short, the paraphrase of the previous four books of the Bible and, in long, an instructive to remember and rejoice, remember and rejoice.

Forget authorial intent and even my innermost feelings, remembering and rejoicing slip my mind more than anything else.

Remember: what God intends, who He intends it for, and why. Rejoice: that God has not forgotten me or His promises, or most of all, His faithfulness to His character and word.

The other night a friend challenged me deeply. I sat on my bed Indian style, while her words came across the phone, and eloquence aside, she finished with, "So get up off your ass and do something about this situation..." Lest you think she's of the coarse, unfeeling sort, she sent me an epistle of love the next day filled with all sorts of right thinking and gospel truth.

Why?

Because I forget. I forget what God has done. I forget what He has promised. I forget what He does intend and not just how it all makes me feel.

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This morning reading through the first few chapters of Deuteronomy with the rest of my class I'm reminded that there is cancer in that room and death, loneliness and confusion, joblessness and despair. In that room of 38 people who love Jesus deeply, who serve Him radically, who have been tapped on the shoulder by leadership at my church to come out and lead well, in that room of 38 people things do not always go well.

There are some of us asking: will we ever get to see the promised land? Has our sin been too great? Has His anger been too deep? Has our doubt been too strong?

And it's not because we don't know the gospel or the grand intent of God's hand: it is because we do not remember the gospel and sometimes forget the grand intent of God's hand.

So Deuteronomy is a sweet comfort to me today. Because it is a book about remembering and rejoicing—even if we never see what we think is promised to us. It is a book of history, of Ebenezers set at which to point and say, "Look what God has done thus far." It is a book about God's intentions, even when our feelings run rampant over truth.

Remember.

And Rejoice.

WHO CAN help US?

A friend asked me recently if I had any thoughts to contribute about what it means for a single person to be fruitful and multiply. It was nicely timed because I'd just written a post on adoption as sons based on the idea that singleness brings with it a barrenness no one wants to acknowledge, so all of that Genesis stuff was fresh on my mind. But then I went to a wedding. And watched a movie about adoption. And RSVPed to a few more weddings. And listened to some friends talk about their new relationships. And held a newborn baby. And suddenly anything I thought I had to say or think about singleness or fruitfulness went the way of hoop skirts and handlebar mustaches, that is to say, extinct.

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I have this other friend. We don't get to see each other often, she lives on the other side of the 70 mile metroplex we call home. But usually all it takes is a glance at one another at church or a text or a simple thought and we're on the same page. She's a talented, beautiful girl, with a talented, godly husband. They live in a beautiful home they've made into a haven. People might envy their idyllic lives, and in some ways, I wouldn't blame those people, this couple has what many people only dream of.

But they don't have a baby.

And that's what they dream of.

She and I, we're the sort of friends who enter into one another's pain, and though it is not the same, it is the same: we both want what we do not have and there is no guarantee for either of us that we will ever get it.

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The longer I am single, the more women come into my life who struggle with infertility, a staggering number of painfully quiet pray-ers.

So I began to listen. I began to listen to their stories, to their mourning, to their agony, to the ways in which they felt inferior or on the exterior or incapable. I began to listen to their tears and their fears. And here is what I am learning:

We are all barren souls, empty wombs, and carved out holes. We, all of us, long for something not yet here and it might be as beautiful as marriage or a baby or it might be a simplistic as a big screen tv or better career. We want. We ache. We ache. Deeply in us for something to satisfy the gnawing inside of us.

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Another friend of mine left our church recently, choosing another church to call home for a season. Why? I asked him. To find a wife, he said. I stared at him—if you're a good man and you can't find a wife at my church, you're not looking to your left or right. But then I realized something: there's a gnawing in him. An ache. A barrenness. A desperateness.

"It is not good for man to be alone.

I will make a helper fit for him."

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I sit in need these days. I wonder how I could ever be a helper fit for anyone and then I remember Christ's words in John: I'm sending my Spirit to you! He will help you, guide you into all truth.

He has made a helper fit for us, all of us.

So friends, I just want you to know that I understand and you understand and more than anything He understands and we, all of us, are called to help. I help my babyless friends by reminding them of God's faithfulness. They help me by reminding me that marriage and a home doesn't equal completion. Women, we help our brothers by being approachable, willing to take risks. Men, you help us by not overlooking what could be the best spouse fit for you.

But more than anything the Holy Spirit helps us all by guiding, teaching, comforting, and filling us full, to overflowing.

You may feel alone, but you are not alone.

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

but His joy comes in the mourning

I’m tired. There, that’s out there.

I’m exhausted. No, I don’t have a little baby waking me up at all times of the night, or four kids to corral into fine formations, or a family to provide for or a company to lead. But I am just one person and being just one for 30 years can be tiring too. I’ve been getting up while it’s still dark most mornings and for this night owl, that’s enough to spin me into the oblivion of tiredness.

I sat across from a friend on Wednesday and we talked about what it means to enter into one another’s sorrow. How it means that we don’t just feel pity or empathy or a burden, but that we actually enter into it. We feel it. We know it. We know it as acutely as our own sorrow.

This goes for joy too. But somehow joy peddles us forward, while sorrow only seems to hold us down.

There are so many, many sorrows in me today. I can’t even give number to them and so few of them are my own that even if you ask, I won’t tell you anything is wrong, they are not my sorrows to tell.

My pastor back home told me once to do my homework in class: pray for a friend while I’m with them, counsel them right there, and that doing this would alleviate some of the burden someone with a gift of mercy is going to carry.

It was some of the best advice I’ve ever gotten and I rarely let an opportunity go by without praying for someone.

But sometimes mourning with those who mourn means that we ache with their unanswered prayers. Sometimes it means we wake up aching and go to bed aching. Sometimes it means we keep careful watch on our phone for updates and careful watch on the messages we send out, keeping watch over souls that have been entrusted to us.

I’ve been depressed before, no secret there. And this season feels acutely like those seasons before: I want to sleep, I forget to eat, smiling feels like too much work, work feels like too much work. But last night as I slid between my sheets and put my head on my pillow, closed my eyes and felt the tears brim to the surface, fall over my cheeks, I felt the Holy Spirit say to me, “There is nothing light about mourning, but there will be light in the morning and morning is coming.”

I woke up late this morning and for the first time this week the sun streamed in my window, a sliver of light across my comforter.

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.

YOU, ME, and EVERYONE we know

Imagine with me a kingdom. A palace set on a hill with a town below littered with small homes of people—and a Troubadour making his way from Palace to People, back and forth. In the palace there are servants, kings, footmen, princes, cooks, and taste-testers; there are seamstresses, children, queens, and teachers. In the town there are servants, fathers, children, mothers, cooks, teachers, sellers, and tailors. And there is a troubadour making his way from Palace to People.

In the Palace everyone has a role and no one without a role is allowed in the door. There is a code of conduct within the castle walls and any outsiders are known, and all the insiders have things to say about them when their backs are turned.

Among the People outsiders are common and welcome, travelers pass through, sick people rest for a while, everyone earns his own way and they get there by the sweat of their brow. There is no protection out here and it is every man for himself. No one dares cross the threshold of the Palace.

And there is a Troubadour who goes from Palace to People to Palace to People.

From the People to the Palace he brings his stories, his lore, his songs, making melody from their harmony. He represents the town-people to the palace-people and they all clap their hands, their cheeks red with laughter and strong drink, they point and beg for more, more, more!

From the Palace to the People, he brings his secrets because who doesn't trust the ears of nearby troubadour? Plans and propositions fly mightily across the tables in the great hall when the wine flows freely and the kings toast in the presence of a mere entertainer.

The Troubadour never belongs in either place and carries with him the residue of both places, the People and the Palace. But kingdoms will rise and fall on the shoulders of this Troubadour, this ambassador, he who is never at home wherever he is, he who is just another person to the People and just another participant at the Palace.

Are you from the Palace or the People? Or are you a Troubadour, easily slipping in and out of both places effortlessly? There's no right or wrong answer here. I've just been thinking about cliques and culture and the people we trust to let in and the people we don't trust and, most of all, the people who purposefully don't fit anywhere.

a COFFEE DATE

Pretend with me for a minute. We've finally decided to make this happen, meet face to face, you've been reading my blog, I've been reading yours. We feel like friends. We're Facebook friends. Our friends think we're friends. So let's just be friends.

We're at a cool, independent coffee shop. We going to be transparent and honest and authentic, or whatever the hip kids are calling it these days. I'm wearing my favorite pair of jeans, you're wearing your favorite t-shirt. We're just going to talk. And drink coffee. But talk, mostly.

We exchange a few little introductions, banter about innocuous coincidences, laugh at things that may or may not be funny or ironic or kindred.

But brimming beneath both of our surfaces we are filled with so many things to say.

I want to tell you so many things about me and about who you think I am and who I'm not. I want to tell you that I'm not big-time or out of your league or too cool. But I also desperately want you to know that I'm something and I'm worth your time and I'm a cool kid too.

I want you to know that I've done awesome things in my life and I also want you to know that I feel like I've done nothing with my life. I want to say that despite the past two years and the life which has been breathed into me, I am terrified almost constantly that the honeymoon is over and it's all downhill from here.

I want to tell you that I want to matter to someone, and I'm okay if that someone is you, but I want to know that I matter to that someone and so you might need to tell me that I do. I might need to hear that from you. But know this, I'm willing to go out on a limb and not look a gift horse in the mouth in order to say the same thing to you.

I want you to matter to me.

And then I'll take a deep breath, take a sip of coffee, one sugar, a bit of cream, and I'll wait for you to tell me everything you need to say too.

PS. To all of you blog readers who I've met in real life 
or who I will meet in real life: this isn't about you, I promise. 
Except it is about you, I promise.

I'M {not} OKAY

"All we need is need." 

John Gerstner

We are little playwrights, each composing our dramas or letting them compose themselves around us, each sure that our drama is not drama or each convinced that our drama is the only drama. And God made us this way, which I cannot figure my way through. He set us in a garden with a plot to tend, a tree to stay away from, and a voice to ignore—and we couldn't even do that.

I have never been a fan of drama, but it has never stopped me from feeling alone in the universe (a gross misdiagnoses).

So when someone knows and someone understands my brokenness, it is tempting to stay there. To rest in that place where I am known or I feel known. To gather in the faint light of camaraderie, join hands that are desperate for human touch, and try to make sense of the parts that have fallen apart.

But in the end, sense is not always made in the gathering and that is why we must leave the faint light, the strong and calloused hands, and move back into places where we are misunderstood and ignored and unheard.

I am grateful for those times, though they are few, the moment I catch the eye of another and our souls sigh in unison: me too.

Me too. 

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

A friend wrote a book a few years ago and that book wrecked me from the inside out. We didn't know each other at the time and so when I tell him now what an affect that book had on me then, I make sure he knows that I am not in the business of flattery. If we were not friends, the book still would have wrecked me and because we are now friends, the book wrecks me more because I know how that book wrecked him.

But it doesn't change the fact that it was the balm and the comfort, the help and the nod I needed when I read it. I needed to be not-okay and his book helped me see that that was okay.

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

My church has a saying, "We're okay if you're not okay," and it was the first thing I heard when I came here. This was what landed me slump-shouldered in the back row, tears falling unashamedly: to not be okay is a broken and beautiful thing.

But there's a second part of that mantra, "...but we're not okay for you to stay that way," and that is Christ in us, the hope of glory.

Glory hasn't come yet, though, so it is Christ in us for now and He is the hope of Glory—and this resolves us, sets us, frees us, calms us.

Because we, none of us, are okay.

SEEing CLEARLY

 pinterest

I was nine when I wore my first pair of glasses. Poor eyesight runs in my family, but the thing is, I had myself convinced for years that I did not need glasses at age nine.

It happened like this: I was a skinny, shy nine year old, somehow left alone in a dark room with a fat optometrist and a dimly lit letter-board. It was a recipe for a myriad of things, not the least of which was for all my fears to rouse their heads.

He stood directly in front of me and asked me, "Can you see this? How about this? How about with this eye? This eye?"

I answered him as surely as I could, but the truth was that his fat backside was in the way and if I couldn't see, it wasn't because I couldn't see, but because I was unable to see around that hulking white-coated posterior.

He wrote my prescription and I picked out frames, ugly pink plastic things, but this was 1989 and ugly, pink plastic things were the thing. I hated those glasses and would lose them frequently, particularly when I needed to practice the piano or do homework.

I could not have known it at that point in life, but it stands earmarked as the first moment that knot in my stomach kept me from telling the truth, to spare the feelings or the possible disappointment of someone.

It's strangulating, this fear. It keeps me sullen and fearful, it eats away at my friendships, it makes unhappy situations last a seeming eternity. There's no way to wrap it up properly as selflessness or humility, as I often try to do. People have accused me of being a floor-mat or codependent, but however they have described it, it doesn't fix the real problem, which is that I cannot tell you the truth.

But the reason is more surprising than I like to admit, and it's because I cannot tell myself the truth.

The truth is that I am not acting in humility or in the best interest of someone (or myself, or God) by shutting down and shutting out when I'm confronted. It is not good when the preferences of someone else go voiced and mine sequester in. The truth is that it is not for anyone's good when they are able to bandy their requests about, demanding that I acquiesce to their demands, while I keep silent about…well…anything.

I say it's because I'm easy-going like that.

But that's fear too.

The truth is that inside I'm broiling over with the fear that I'll never be with someone with whom I can be honest. And that fear turns into angst so quickly and frustration, when it gives way, turns into an ugly green-eyed monster who is a master of manipulation.

Nobody wins.

Poor eyesight runs in my family and so does fear and manipulation and anger and self-righteousness and I suspect it runs in your family too, if we are born of the same Adam. But glasses help turn what is blurry and blocked into what is seen and illuminated. And fear is illuminated by covenantal relationships.

I don't know of another fix for fear but perfect love and I think that's a lifetime search—especially if the people around you are less interested in loving well.

But I know this: Perfect Love says what it believes and it says it so strongly that it stretched out, bleeding and bloodied, and died—even in the face of fear. So I want to let that change how I'm confronted and how I confront, how I tell the truth and how I keep silent, and how I practice humility and not self-righteousness.