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.)

Tough Mud, Miry Pits, and Why God Won't Be Mocked

A blog-reader (and near friend) wrote me an email the other day containing these words:

l love the peace-speaking, life-giving nature of your blogs. You seem seized by your faith that the Lord can work out the differences in His Body—or at least help us live in peace despite them.

And then I read yet another diatribe about yet another divisive issue in the Church. And a biting tweet from someone who ministers effectively from an office about someone who ministers effectively from a garden. And then I heard someone snort behind me when a certain demographic was discussed.

Seized by my faith. Yes. But seized by my faith in a sovereign God. Yes.

Perhaps I'm simplistic, but I know how my brain works and the miles it runs every day, the questions it asks and the solutions it tries to find. I know how quickly I can survey the ground in front of me and how fast I can estimate the work to be done and the best way to do the work. So I don't think it's simplistic thinking that drives me to breathe deep at the factions, lift my eyes up and say, "But God."

We're all so concerned with defending truth, or at least our best white-knuckled version of the truth, that sometimes we forget that God guards His truth and He will not be mocked.

He will not be mocked (Gal. 6:7).

Westboro Baptist Church may seem to make a mockery of Him, but then Fred Phelps grand-daughter comes out and extols His name.

Chic-Fila may have walked into a hornet's nest, but then president Dan Cathy meets with GLBT spokesperson and puts flesh on the Gospel.

Mark Driscoll may tick a lot of people off, but Mars Hill Seattle is filled with hundreds of pastors who are on the ground, doing the work of the gospel and people are being saved.

But that's not all:

I have pounded my fists in the air and cursed God's name, and He still wants me.

He wants me?

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

God will not be mocked and He will use arms, legs, hands, and feet shod with truth to take the Gospel to doubters and dwellers, skeptics and seekers, askers and atheists, pharisees and philosophers. He uses you and me—and all of us fools.

So the next time we're tempted to write a blog post denouncing yet another brother or sister in Christ, or type 140 characters about how we know so much more about another person's life or ministry calling, let's take a second and a second look at the miry pit from which we came.

He drew me up from the pit of destruction, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure. Psalm 40.2

He wants you. And He might have used a fool or two along the way to get to you.

Because, don't worry, He knows His sheep and they know Him. And His name is safe.

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

TRADES

You listened to part of the transcripts this morning before someone who knows you better than you do told you to stop, before you'd end up in the closet, in a ball of tears. You've never seen New York like this. Eerily silent and dust covered. A city of the walking wounded. You stare into the eyes of strangers for five, ten, forty seconds before either of you realized that in New York City you don't do that. You avert your eyes, look away, avoid, but not this week. This week you stare. And you nod at the end, sighing in unison. You are both thinking the same thing after all: what just happened?

Every park is filled, every corner is filled, every mind is filled: what just happened?

Fences are filled with Missing Person signs and the homeless aren't the only ones laying, dazed, on park benches and curbs.

You know things are going to change you, but you don't know how much, or to what length. You don't know, for instance, while you watch planes crash into familiar buildings, that in ten years two of your baby brothers will be soldiers and men, stationed in countries torn by war. You don't know that in ten years every day you will pray for peace, mostly because peace means that they will come home in one piece.

You don't know that in the weeks to come, you will open the coffee shop every morning at 5am and you will listen to your fellow countrymen wake up to the news, giving their best war-plan strategies while they hand you their dollar-sixtyfive. You don't know these things. You don't know that freedom really does cost something, but in your wildest dreams you never imagined it would cost this.

You stumble through a shell-shocked city, one wrapped in yellow caution tape. You try to make sense of what just happened.

You don't know that everyone you know knows someone who knew someone and you find out years later that you knew someone too. You regret losing touch.

You love history because when you hear about what has happened, it helps make sense of what is happening. But when what is happening is happening in real time, in your life, around you, there is no sense to be made of it.

You just stare at strangers a little longer. You both nod. Maybe you reach out and touch their arm.

What should have made us afraid, for a few weeks there, made us brave.

(pinterest)

You're proud to be an American. You are. You pray for peace. You hate conflict. You hate that your baby brothers wield guns and wear uniforms. But you love your country. You loved it dusty and shell-shocked, and you love it bankrupt and tired. You loved it confused and bewildered, and you love it arrogant and corrupt.

But you love heaven more and you long for it. So you pray only this, but every day: even so, Lord Jesus, come quickly.

Come quickly. 

(Originally posted on the ten-year anniversary of September 11.)

ADOPTION as SONS

Once I climbed to the top of a Himalayan foothill to watch a sunrise over the Annapurna mountain range in Nepal. The sunrise was brilliant and beautiful, but what I couldn't take my eyes away from was a small girl and her brother who stood in front of their broken-down stone home at the top of that hill. I took her photo and she took my photo, black and white film. And then I put my hand on her head and asked God to give me babies of my own. They did not need to be babies made from love and knit in my womb—I asked Him for babies from other worlds and other hills, babies with black hair and black eyes. I asked Him to make me an adopter.

That was seven Augusts ago and I never knew it would take so long for Him to lend His ear to my cry.

I thought marriage would happen in between then and now.

I thought a baby or three would have been knit already within me.

I thought I would have been there and back so many times, bringing home babies without homes.

But sometimes God lends His ears to our cries and sometimes His answers are, "Not yet."

I have friends who struggle with their womb's inability to make, hold, and keep a baby inside them. I have sat across from them and I have heard their cries, the cry of a mother who feels less a mother because she has no child to mother. And I have felt that angst in me too. Singleness brings with it a form of barrenness, though we won't say that of course. We won't say that because only the married should expect to have progeny, seed.

Last night I think about God and I think about the groaning of creation to be with our Father. I think about how desperately my soul longs for heaven and God and all that is eternal. I think about my adoption into a kingdom like His. I stand in front of my broken down home and he puts His hand on my head and longs to bring me home.

I think about a father who has already adopted his children, but who is waiting to bring us home.

And I think about my Nepali girl and her broken-down stone home, my hand on her head, my ask to God. I thank Him that He has lent His ear, been near to the needy and brokenhearted, the orphan and barren. And I thank Him that what feels far off is a mere moment, a vapor, a breath to Him.

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 first-fruits of the spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for the adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. Romans 8.22-23

JOY and the ABACUS

Praise God for the abacus.

When He was dolling out brains and gifts, knitting me together in quiet, He crafted me into a right brain, made me a host of creativity. Math left me crying with my head in my hands through school and college. If it was not for a professor who shut the door of a classroom containing me, him, and two blackboards filled with chemistry equations, promising me we would not leave until I could solve every one of them, I would have never passed CHE101. A faithful friend tutored me for six hours before an algebra final, which I aced, and promptly forgot everything I'd just learned.

So praise God for the abacus.

This ancient tool made for counting was—in the creative bastion of art and literature of my childhood home—used for more than simply adding and subtracting. For hours my hands would spread and separate those colored beads, creating patterns and chaos. I knew it was intended for mathematics, but to me it seemed more a thing of art and beauty.

The concepts of math have always felt far from me. I am always sure that I could manage my way through them if necessary, but I have been clever about my vocational choices and I never double recipes. When I take account of what I need to count, I focus instead on beads of joy, colors and patterns of life in front of me and count them thus.

So when yet another friend brings her heart to the threshold of my inbox, when I sit across from a friend at lunch, when I get a desperate text message from another one, when the trials of our faith are near and close and oh, so painful, you will not find me saying to count it all joy.

Because counting is painful.

And, for me, counting is a process. A long, slow process.

It cannot be rushed or formulated into additions, subtractions, and divisions.

Counting all things joy means taking each bead of sweat, each beautifully painful moment, and each complicated pattern, and it means counting it, touching it, feeling it, and knowing it is part of a whole abacus. But sometimes counting is slow going and that's okay.

Praise God for the abacus, praise Him for tangible numbers and complicated patterns. But praise Him more that His math isn't always our math and sometimes what feels like our subtraction is His multiplication.

Vacate

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rest in that.

You keep him in perfect peace 

whose mind is stayed on you, 

because he trusts in you. 

Isaiah 26.3

(The bride was beautiful. 

The groom was ecstatic. 

The details were attended to. 

The gospel was preached.)

(We did lay around like sleepyheads on Sunday

at a log cabin in the woods. 

If anyone asks, 

this is what I did on my vacation.)

Everything there is to read on successful blogging (and there is plenty to read on it) says that you ought to offer something to your readers, have contests if necessary, change it up, but not too much, but above all, be consistent.

This is one reason I will never have a successful blog.

I regularly do battle with myself on this one. Because, see, I am desperate for your approval. The approval of the reader, the web, and the community. I am desperate to stand out and say something worth saying so much and so often, that one day an offer comes in, a book deal, something. Anything really. Anything to make me feel successful at something.

A friend and I talked about dreams the other day and I confessed, with joy, that I'd let most of my drift away. I haven't got them anymore. I have given up the hope of birthing children. I have given up hope of being picked from a crowd of women as one man's own. I have decided that it is better to work for an international ministry than to travel internationally. I have decided that having my own home is too much tying me to the earth. I have learned that all of the things I wanted to be identified by are ultimately lesser gods and I want the Only Wise God, our Savior completing my story.

I have done this with joy, so please don't pity me. I choose to live today, instead of borrowing what might never come tomorrow.

But the dream of being a successful writer is never one far from me. I hone my craft and harbor my words with the hope that someday I can put together sentences that make enough sense to be bound in a book and sold in stores. I don't crave fame, don't care to be known, can't stomach the thought of book tours ands autographs. So when I ask myself why it is that I want this, I come up empty.

The deep truth is that I don't know why I write.

If its only purpose was that it is helpful tool for me to work out my salvation, this can be done privately (and isn't, you should know). If it was only to bless others, then I would surely attempt to be more consistent at it. The truth is that it ought to be done to give glory to God and most times, I don't think that it does.

Here is the truth, reader: the truth is that I wrestle with this subject a lot, and not only as it pertains to writing or keeping a blog or communicating truth. I struggle to reconcile what I do with why I do it.

This is the tension we're called to and Colossians makes it clear to me every day for weeks now: we can love God, but not hold fast to the Head from whom the whole body, nourished and knit together through its joints and ligaments, grows with a growth that is from God.

I grow, too often, from the working out of my salvation, from the blessing of others, from the communication of His gospel, and less so from Him alone.

I gauge my growth on outward signs (and this not all bad, we are grateful for sanctification!) and give less glory to God and more to my will, my stamina, and my own wisdom.

The truth is that I cannot ever have successful blog because I am human, and this human suffers from an inability to muster up the will to be disciplined about writing. Or anything else for that matter.

And I think I'm learning to be okay with that. I think I am.

Because He is not interested in my mustering efforts or consistency. He is not impressed by my faithfulness or my fervor. He is interested in my heart, in plumbing the depths of it, in reaching in and changing me from the inside out.

"He must increase. I must decrease."

TIME: Part III

How do you know whether you should stop giving or whether there's cheerfulness in your giving?

Check your heart. Now check it again. You shouldn't have to check it more than once or twice because you already know. Really. You do. Did you grumble on your way there? On your way home? Did you have to take a deep breath before you walked in? Did you have time/make time to do your homework? Did you miss it deeply last week when you couldn't go?

Those sort of things help us gauge the condition of our hearts toward giving.

But more importantly they identify the depravity of our hearts.

No, this isn't a post on how we ought to be convicted that we grumbled about parents being late to pick their kids up from church nursery or how we're always being asked to do a task that someone else could probably do just as well. This is not really a post about conviction at all.

This is one about assurance.

An absolute assurance that our hearts are depraved. Desperately wicked, who can know them?

Even we, with our heart checks above, can we know our own hearts?

I don't think we can. I think the only thing I can know with full assurance is that my heart is always going to be bent on going the wrong direction. And that even when there is a small portion of me that finds joy in the giving, there will always be something else more shiny, more attractive that I'll want to strive to give instead.

This is why Jesus wants our hearts and I'm convinced that when we identify ourselves with Him alone, we begin to find joy in the most unexpected places. Cheerfulness will creep in, unannounced and root deeply in us. Relinquishing joyless tasks that have been our drudging responsibility for years will feel easy and seamless as we pass them on to someone else who wants the job, and will probably do a better job of it, or at least find more joy in it.

He is the author of our joy and who are we to assume that He doesn't want to give it to us?

TIME: Part II

But how do you decide what to give and where and how much?

Get away, get some time, go on a personal retreat, take an hour in your morning if that's all you have, take a break from your blogging if you're like me and stupidly committed to 30 days of writing! Whatever it takes, take a minute. Think about your commitments, think about your budget, think about your busy, busy life. Now stop thinking about it.

Just stop.

Stop.

Sanford Robinson

Isaiah 30:15 says, In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength.

Repent.
Rest.
Quiet.
Trust.

These are the things that strengthen us. Not success. Not money. Not time. Not other people. Nothing else.

There is nothing in your life that you can derive more strength from than you can from a simple, quiet trust in Jesus to meet not only your needs, but other people's needs as well.

With that as your perspective, suddenly all the things on that list of commitments suddenly seem less important. Jesus will meet the needs of your children, your neighbor, your budget, your fears, your husband, your pantry, your emptiness, your future, all of it. And when (this is hard, I know) we take our eyes off of the stuff we fill in the holes because we're afraid Jesus won't, and we just put our eyes on Him, He fills.

He just does. It's His nature to fill. To encompass. To surpass. To provide. He is the ultimate verb in our life, nothing else can do like Him.

TIME: Part I

A few years ago I read this excuse on a website: "Why is being unbusy never as good of an excuse as being busy?" The writer submitted that they are equally important. And I agree.

There's this very common misconception in the world, that unless you are very, very busy, your worth is very, very minimal. This is seen in the tendency to workaholicism, being success driven, children involved in every sport, lesson, or extracurricular activity possible, speed dating, etc. We want to look busy because busy looks good.

But the church suffers from this too! We fly it under the flag of The Kingdom is Coming, The Kingdom is Coming, Look Busy! but unless we're very intentional, the fruit is the same: ultimate exhaustion.

The Bible says that the Lord loves a cheerful giver and I challenge any one of us to sit down, look at a list of everything we do and search our hearts for cheerfulness attached to it. This is not to say that there will not be times in our lives that we must obey out of sheer submission to the Lord, but I mean deeply, deeply--is there cheerfulness in our giving? If there is anything other than cheerfulness behind our giving and busyness, we ought to stop.

Bryce Brown

We ought to stop because we are doing a disservice to the people we're serving by not being able to give them 100% of ourselves.

We ought to stop because we are doing a disservice to other people who might have opportunity to step in our shoes and do so more cheerfully.

We ought to stop because we are doing a disservice to ourselves by not finding any joy in our giving.

And, most of all, we are doing a disservice to the Lord because He's the one who loves our cheerfulness more than our duty.

The excuse that I hear for this tendency to out-give ourselves is that God requires us to give all, like the woman with two mites, giving everything she had to live on. I say you're right! You're absolutely right. We ought to give all, but we ought to primarily give all like Peter and John gave all "Silver and gold have I none, but such as I have give I thee..." and then they gave a miracle through Jesus Christ. This ought to be our primary gift: the gospel of Jesus Christ in practical and lifegiving ways. If the gospel is not the motivating factor and the joy behind your giving, stop giving.

God does require us to give, but even He sees the wrong of giving out of compulsion. In the Old Testament the offerings He required in the law were the same offerings he despised when His people weren't giving their hearts. (Isaiah 1)

That's what He wants. He wants our hearts.

If we're too busy to search and submit our hearts, we're too busy.

Tomorrow: How do you decide what to give and how much and when?

It is good and gracious of God to teach us things the hard way first and then the easy way. I think sometimes that I've always assumed that God teaches the easy way first and when we don't listen, then He brings out the big guns. Or something.

But that's not really His character at all.

He always gives us good, firm gospel truth first. If we don't listen, He is painstakingly patient with us, the embodiment of long-suffering. If we do listen, He is still painstakingly patient with us, the embodiment of long-suffering. See what an unchanging God He is?

I say this because this week has been a week of relearning grace for me. I thought it was about the small things, the small sanctifications, but really it's about the big ones. The big Grace with a capital G. He's so faithful to cover all of me in one big grace and then one by one begin rooting out the areas where Me is still on the throne, handing out judgments like candy-tossers at a parade.

One thing I am so struck by is how much pride I still put in my abilities and my time. The deep lessons of my life (do all things without complaining, being a cheerful giver, extending grace, loving people) all come to a breaking-point this week and I find that unkind words and a grumbling spirit are my first responses every time. And they weren't even directed at other people! They were mostly directed toward myself!

This is when I know (because I know myself so well) that I am doing too much with my time and talents. I have stacked too much on my plate and my plate-stack is about to tumble.

Tonight I spent a few hours writing, pulling those plates out, one by one, and identifying their need and place in my life. I also spent some of that time writing out my thoughts about time and cheerfulness and giving and I'll be posting them all this week. I'll be addressing issues like this each day:

"Why is being unbusy never as good of an excuse as being busy?"

"But how do you decide what to give and where and how much?"

"How do you know whether you should stop giving or whether there's cheerfulness in your giving?"

"People say that singles have more time than married people, is that true (because it doesn't feel like it's true and it really frustrates me that people say it)?"

"There's so much to do, there isn't enough time to rest!?"

I hope that you'll enjoy and chime in on these thoughts, even challenge me if you feel they're in error. What you'll find here won't be bullet points though. I'm still learning so much about living fully gospel-centered in all areas of my life and time is such an important one, no checklist can reconcile the importance of the gospel at the heart of everything we do.

day fifteen of 30 day challenge put down by one Jason Alan Churchill Thorburne Morris.

It's 8:22pm and I'm still working. Which begs the question, at what point is one classified a workaholic?

In the shower this morning, still reeling from last night's spiral down a world of anti-grace, I had to say it right out loud: you suffer from a case of the guilts, get over it. I retold a story to my brother last night, same story to my roommate, and once again to a coworker (What!? I can tell the same story three times, it was that bad!), they all said a version of the same thing: you suffer from a case of the guilts.

I know.

Which is why it's 8:22pm and I'm still working.

I have this inkling in the back of my mind who is always there, no matter how hard I try to shush him, talk over him or ignore him. He's there. He's saying, nagging, threatening: what if you fail? Better try harder. Better be better. You won't get anywhere with an attitude like that.

I think there was a sense of the prophetic, or perhaps irony, when at three days old my parents changed my name from Sarah to Lore. Sarah means princess, pampered and entitled, already won. Lore means laurel crowned, one who fights for the victory and I know this is the story of my life. I know it well.

Last night my pastor spoke about how we are uniquely wired for our ministry and I couldn't help but remember how a year ago I screamed at God, my car pulled over on the side of the road, crying hysterically, begging him to not make me a testimony of grace. Grace means hard things must be walked through and grace is not just a noun, it's also an action of sort: to be grace, extend grace, have grace, win through grace. Anything, I prayed, anything but grace.

And yet grace is the theme of my life and overcoming the mess is who I am wired to be.

Which means that I will fight the most to have grace for myself. That is how I am wired. That is why I am prone to working late hours and why I am riddled with guilt for small innocuous things. I will probably always be my own worst critic and if I meet someone who is a harsher one than me, it will only serve to make me more critical of myself.

But it also means that He will fight the most to provide opportunity for me to learn grace. He will let me spill cups of coffee in inopportune places and get bridled into buying office supplies from pushy salesmen. He will let me come into the office in the morning to a fried hard-drive and He will be gracious enough to give me circumstances and choices where the only response that can be given is grace.

Grace to you and grace to me.

From Him.

"Grace to you from the Lord Jesus Christ..."
Every Epistle of Paul

day fourteen of 30 day challenge put down by one Jason Alan Churchill Thorburne Morris.

I am tired. I feel the need to confess this. Partly because I want to excuse the fact that I went a day without posting, clearly proving that I could not do a 30 Day Writing Challenge (However, I don't remember there being anything in the bylaws about the days being consecutive, so I feel a sense of liberation based on that.). But mostly I tell you that because it is true. I'm tired.

This day last year I was about to embark on a forty day fast from everything but fruits and vegetables. I was about to stick it to The Man and see if He'd pull through for me by Easter and the fast's end. I remembered tonight when I read my sidekick's blog that when everyone else was rejoicing and shouting "He is risen indeed!" I was weeping, row ten, left side. I felt completely and utterly left. Forgotten. Cast aside. Like Judas, I denied Him and I felt denied.

It amazes me now to read of things that a year ago were just beginning to shape my new foundation. The concept of digging down deep like the wise man did, instead of just building a house on the hardest rock I could find around me (which is what I did and what I fear so many of us do), began to wreck at the deepest parts of me, the secreted fears and the doubts I never voiced. So much of 2010 was chiseling, painful, painful chiseling. So much felt like standing in front of a mirror and trusting the work to be done without my help, or in many ways, even my participation. I felt crafted and, for the first time in my life, I felt completely incapable of helping that crafting along.

I was done.

2011 has already been a year, just two months in, of great faith for me. For what, you ask? I can't even tell you. I don't have my finger on the pulse of needs or wants anymore, I whisper names in quiet breath, circumstances as they come to mind, but really, I don't know what this storehouse of faith is saved for. This is what I do know: tonight, I'm tired.

I came home on my lunchbreak today, ate steamed broccoli and sat on my back porch feeling the tired set in. It could be allergies or hormones, that's the truth. But sometimes I wonder if it's not the Lord saying, "Hey, you're starting to help me along again and I don't want you to." Because that's also the truth.

I am working full-time, trying to blog something intelligent everyday, involved in small groups and bible studies, an intensive discipleship class and building community here. I am ALL here and sometimes I get that confused with helping God help me.

So tonight, tonight I'm tired. It's a good reminder, though. These days I take every opportunity to remember the gospel and my need, so now is as good a time as ever.

God, the Master, The Holy of Israel, has this solemn counsel:
"Your salvation requires you to turn back to me and
stop your silly efforts to save yourselves.
Your strength will come from settling down
in complete dependence on me..."
Isaiah 30:15

day eleven of 30 day challenge put down by one Jason Alan Churchill Thorburne Morris.

They say the Indian word for a place near me means literally Bad Air. As in, what you're breathing is bad. It might be tempting to blame all that bad air on the pollution in one of the fasting growing cities in the United States. But not so fast; it was named that far before the urban Dallasites were sipping their lattes and wearing skinny jeans and the Fort Worthians were tipping their hats to tourists gawking at cowboys and the hipsters snubbed anything that wasn't vegan. I think those Indians were onto something when they dubbed the air bad.

What I mean to say is that the allergens in the metroplex are competing for a name for themselves. And my pounding head and sleepy eyes are ready to cry surrender.

And what I really mean to say is that in the past week I've been seething mad, the boiling fearful kind, the kind that surprises you and but isn't enough to shock you into chilling out. What I also mean to say is that the little fears creep in and nag, hanging on my every thought with a well placed contradiction. I also mean to say that where there is an unfilled space, dirty things gather into corners and make defeating plans. What I'm telling you is that the ugliness on my insides has been on the outside this week.

And I thought I was so clean and victorious, didn't I?

That'll teach me.

This morning I am listening to a man talk about an active heart. He spoke of a heart that is not ignorant of the warfare with which we are faced, but instead grabs hold of truth and prepares for the circumstances. I think of a week of bad air, a stuffy head and longing heart, a harsh or needy word in my mouth instead of a gentle and loving one. I think about how ill prepared I am in my heart for the sin that manifests and turns me around again and again and again to my need for Christ, but first turns me around again and again in a cycle of sin.

I try to beat it, but the truth is that, like bad air, it's too big for me to fight and impossible for me to overcome. And before I know it, I'm ready to crawl into a hole and cover my head over with a cloak of self-pity and sleep.

So today is a day of spiritual sleep. And I don't know how to defend that or even if I should. I am tired and my soul is tired and the only thing I can rest on is that He knows and he's prepared, even if I haven't.

And we know that in all things God works
for the good of those who love him,
who have been called according to his purpose.
For those God foreknew he also predestined..
And those he predestined, he also called;
those he called, he also justified;
those he justified, he also glorified.
Romans 8:28-30