devotional books, perhaps there's still hope

I am continuously amazed by how God speaks just the word we need to hear at exactly the time we need to hear it. Lately (as evidenced in my last blog post) I have been struggling with the frustration of two competing feelings -one is of peace and comfort knowing that as I am getting closer to committing myself to five years of graduate school that this is what I really want in terms of future career goals but then there is also that nagging feeling that I get when I feel school is tying me down so much so that I am not doing enough right now in my life in furthering God's kingdom.

Well today I just so happened to pick up a book that had an excerpt from Oswald Chamber's devotional My Utmost for His Highest (although I know a lot of people who are hard-devotional-book-critics who actually like this one, I never was really able to get into it for some reason but I like this following entry) and this is what it said:

"Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow, they simply are! Think of the sea, the air, the sun, the stars and the moon -all these are, and what a ministration they exert. So often we mar God's designed influence through us by our self-conscious effort to be consistent and useful. Jesus says that there is only one way to develop spiritually, and that is by concentration on God. "Do not bother about being of use to others; believe on Me" -pay attention to the Source, and out of you will flow rivers of living water. We cannot get at the springs of our natural life by common sense, and Jesus is teaching that growth in spiritual life does not depend on our watching it, but on concentration on our Father in heaven. Our heavenly Father knows the circumstances we are in, and if we keep concentrated on Him we will grow spiritually as the lilies.
The people who influence us most are not those who buttonhole us and talk to us, but those who live their lives like the stars in heaven and the lilies in the field, perfectly simply and unaffectedly. Those are the lives that mold us.
If you want to be of use to God, get rightly related to Jesus Christ and He will make you of use unconsciously every minute you live."

Here Comes the Sun

New Zealanders really know how to blog –I mean like the last 15 blogs I looked at were so beautifully artistic and thoughtful. They also really know how to utilize blogging as a device to share their ideas and thoughts. Normally I hardly spend much time perusing strangers’ blogs but I stumbled upon this one super cool New Zealander’s blog when researching the history of the song Here Comes the Sun (which I think is like my favorite song ever….I love how it isn’t just a sappy song but it’s so real and genuine). If you are looking for some justification for the time you spend looking at these blogs just think about how you are becoming so much more culturally literate because there seriously is so much culture in some of them.

Anyway a year ago I would have never written the above paragraph in a blog because who would want to read what I think about Here Comes the Sun and New Zealanders? Unless I had something to say that was really insightful, meaningful, or interesting about George Harrison’s masterpiece of a song than who cares if I happen to really like this song, millions of other people like this song too.

Every time I listen to this song I just get so inspired. It makes me want to go change the world or at least try to start changing it by walking down the street and smiling at every stranger I see….but here I sit in a comfy, leather armchair blogging about inspiration. 

I am sure everyone at some point experiences such extreme inspiration that they don’t know what to do with it. While Here Comes the Sun gave me the inspiration to write about inspiration, the inspiration I daily live with is of an entirely different kind –it is the divine kind that we are all inherently born with, the kind that either leads us in the direction of further sanctification or further destruction. Perhaps “inspiration” is not the word I am looking for…love is a much better word…but I will use “inspiration” here to mean that feeling of “rebirth” where one is freshly awakened to a love that has always existed –it’s that realization that life is such a precious gift, a gift like no other, a gift that is short-lived, a gift that can easily be wasted if you aren’t constantly aware of the meaningless activities that fill so much of your daily life, a gift that must be taken seriously. 

Although inspiration is a great feeling –a superb feeling, it does not feel so great when it is accompanied with great frustration. Living life completely for the glory of God is a calling we must take seriously. Every moment of our daily lives we should be asking ourselves: “Am I doing this for God’s glory or my own? Is this activity furthering His Kingdom?” The frustration I often feel when I experience this kind of “inspiration” comes about when I am unsure of what I should be doing at a given time. 

I find the biggest frustration in life is this: there is just so much life to be lived and just not enough time to live it! There is so much I want to accomplish on a daily basis that I never to seem to get done. One reason I love summer break or any break from school is for the extra time I have to read all the books I want. Over this Christmas break I have already read five (relatively short) books and hope to read another five or so before it’s over. I spent most of yesterday reading about theophostic counseling (to see if I would want to some day incorporate that into my own eclectic counseling approach –by the way, this type of counseling, from what I read, appears to be more like heresy dressed as therapy). But, sometimes I feel so guilty for spending so much time reading and trying to educate myself on a particular topic. Because of my voracious reading habit, I can be perfectly content to sit in a room all day and just read with little outside interaction. I also love school (well, maybe not the structure of it) but I love learning for the sake of learning. God is glorified in us when we engage ourselves in an academic discipline whether it be spiritual or not. I believe He takes immense pleasure in our curiosity and insatiable desire to learn all we can about His creation. At the same time, He wants us to diligently study His Word. But, is it wrong to stay curled up by the fire with a C.S. Lewis book on a cold, blistery winter day when I could be passing out warm blankets and hot meals to the starving and shivering homeless on the streets of Chicago? Honestly, on a cold, winter day like today I think I rather choose Lewis over freezing my fingers off. I don’t want to get into legalism, but trying to figure out how to best use our time to serve Him in every day situations is a perplexing, demanding question that we must all ask ourselves. 

Trying to figure out what the best outcome would be when choosing between two goods is very frustrating and I am not sure there is an easy answer. I can’t express the frustration I sometimes feel when I think that I have five years of grad school ahead of me and a couple hundred thousand dollars in tuition before I receive my doctorate –don’t get me wrong I love school and have blessed with the financial resources to continue my education and it is with great joy that I look forward to those years, but I can’t help but think how that time and money could be used in other ways in furthering His kingdom. Sure the point of this education is so that I can eventually be equipped with the knowledge and skills I need in order to help those struggling with mental illness. I often think about the analogy of how we are all running a race and whoever gets the prize wins. Sometimes I get a little jealous when I think about my friend who went into full-time missions after college graduation or the other friend who is now serving in the peace corps and I can’t help but wonder if those activities are allowing them to run the race better (maybe at the present moment they are?). I know the activity itself is not as important as the heart’s desire and motive behind the activity, but it’s the feeling that I should be doing something more right now that is so frustrating. Obviously God has positioned each of us in different places and stages in life and learning to be content in those stages is certainly challenging.    

Learning contentment while at the same time trying to satisfy that “inspiration” is one frustrating experience. But perhaps God allows us to feel a moderate dose of frustration in order to help safeguard us against complacency. May we continue asking ourselves how we can make the most of today in bringing Him the glory that is due His name. 

“Here comes the sun, and I say it’s all right.”

aids and adoration

Without a home: A three-year-old HIV positive orphan cries at the Aidchild Orphanage in Mpigi, 60 km north of the capital Kampala, Uganda. She was abandoned in Kampala at a hospital and refused by an orphanage due to her condition.

I used to get really upset and annoyed with people who would get angry at God because of their “less-than-ideal” plot in life that God dealt them. I used to get so frustrated with these peoples’ “immature” way of thinking. Like Job sometimes I would feel like saying to them: “Should we accept good from God, and not trouble?” I just could not comprehend how any intelligent human being could not understand that we are not entitled to anything in life –that life itself is such a precious gift from God –that God is the supplier of every breath we breathe. I had this self-righteous attitude (which I am obviously still working on) –I thought if I could get through some tough times and trials in my life and still give God the praise and thank Him for what I do have and what He has brought me through –then why can’t they? I realize everyone might not be going through the same circumstances as me and many others may be going through things I can’t even imagine, but –for those who acknowledge God as their Creator –it’s like I just expect them to accept the “simple” truth that “the Lord gives and takes away, blessed be His name.” And that, "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I shall return there.”

But lately I have been realizing more and more that I too must go through some maturation. To assume that I have mastered the spiritual discipline of complete contentment simply because I can’t easily recollect the last time I complained to God or was angry (maybe not directly with God, but angry with someone else) is a lie. This lie was just recently brought to my attention once again as I have been reviewing some literature on AIDS.

I just finished reading through a very informative and interesting book that dispels some of the myths surrounding AIDS. (Since I am headed to country with a high prevalence of AIDS soon, I thought I should probably educate myself about the pandemic a little more before I go). Reading through this book and other online articles on this issue does something to you. If only words are adequate enough to describe both the hope and the despair I feel; the longing to help and the I-would-rather-remain-ignorant-so-I-don’t-feel-compelled-to-do-something-state; the helplessness and the I-can-change-the-world-with-my-own-two-hands-feeling (Ben Harper song), then I would use more words than these. (Perhaps a major part of the frustration we experience as a result of failing to adequately or sufficiently express ourselves is because we may not be able to more loudly express ourselves than the thing that serves as the impetus for the expression).

Anyway, since I really want to put into writing what I am feeling but can’t find the words, I thought I would share this powerful picture I discovered online which is pretty touching. Seeing this picture of this child crying just stirred up so many emotions inside of me. It makes me want to run to this girl’s side and just hold her. It makes me want to trade places with her, although I don’t think I would be able to if given the chance.

So all this got me thinking about the lie I live with everyday –the lie all of us live with everyday. That self-righteous lie that tells us we are better than everybody else. Who are we to gauge our neighbor’s heart of thanksgiving when trials come their way? While I am still sometimes mystified by how some people only expect good from God, I am learning the importance of putting myself in others’ shoes and the discipline of judging not.

Sometimes I wonder whether I would still give God the same praise if I was the little, crying girl in this picture.

Mordaciously Melodious

“I want to touch you. I want to see your face. I want to know you more.” I don’t know about you, but I don’t think I want to touch the most holy, the most powerful God of the universe. We should desperately want to know Him more, but should we really be singing about wanting to touch Him?

Lately (as in like the past few years) I really have been thinking a lot about the flippancy which many Christians approach worship music. Some people myself included sometimes have a really hard time engaging in real, meaningful worship because of the errancy of Scripture embedded in many of the worship songs we sing today. What is so troubling though is that it is oftentimes very difficult to recognize unbiblical lyrics because of the power of music.

Music has the ability to tap into the still, mysterious deep well of our emotions. Music can color our mood, affect our perceptions and generate a behavioral pattern. It’s easy to get caught up in the aesthetically pleasing melody of a song before you realize: “what the heck am I singing about?”

We all have our complaints about some worship songs, and here are some of mine: some are too simplistic, banal, lacking in depth, shallow, doctrineless, and repetitive. Then there are some that focus too much on us and not God (one reason my church changed the “Above All” song’s verse “you took the fall, and thought of me” to “you took the fall instead of me”).

Also, not everyone in the congregation will be able to relate to the same song. If you're not in the frame of mind or don't have the emotional state in question (e.g. a desperate longing for God), then what are you doing lying and singing it? Worship leaders who encourage that sort of thing are making their congregations sing falsehoods. However, I do not put the blame solely on worship leaders. It is our responsibility to choose what we want to sing. Corporate or not, worshipping through song is ultimately a matter between us and God.

My purpose here is not to dissect every worship song but to call attention to how we go about praising God through song. So many blogs can be written on this topic or even on a sub-topic of this topic such as: “What do you think when people applaud at the end of a song, during a worship service? Do you encourage it, ignore it or correct it?” But I guess that will have to be a blog for another time.

Pointedly, I have been thinking a lot lately about how I worship through song. Sometimes it’s hard for me to escape that self-conscious trap. If you’re like me, you may feel forced to sing every corporate worship song or else you feel judged for not singing even if your heart is not in it or you do not agree with the unbiblical lyrics….or worse, maybe you do not even understand what you are singing. Obviously, if someone chooses to judge you for not singing a particular song then really the judgment is upon themselves for who are they to think they can take on the role of a judge when they are simultaneously trying to give the greatest Judge their praise? Personally, I feel most able to give God my utmost praise through song when I am by myself with the lyrics in front of me and I can really meditate on them without having to worry about how the song is to be sung or if I am even on key. Learning to engage whole-heartedly in corporate worship through song is something I am still learning.

Right now I am listening to “Outloud” by Dispatch. I don’t know about you, but sometimes I find myself worshipping through songs not intended for worship –but don’t worry I am not worshipping to Dispatch right now (it just got me thinking about this topic). Based on what I believe constitutes worship, I think any and every song can provoke worship…although maybe not always the kind of worship I am referring to here. But one has to be very careful because musical style can communicate so much culture, that all it does is take profound gospel truth and pull it down rather than the truth elevating the music. It’s kind of scary when ambiguous, secular songs such as Vertical Horizon’s “Everything you want” (“He’s everything you want/need/ect.”) get turned into worship songs.

One danger I have observed involves the heavy emotional aspect of music. Weeping, crying out loud, joyful noises, and fear are some responses worship music may trigger; but the purpose of corporate worship is not the glorification of an emotional response, it is the glorification of God and what He has done for man. There is danger in looking for an emotional high every time we come to worship. I do not believe emotionalism negates true worship, but I do believe irresponsible emotionalism is something we need to be careful of. As John Piper would say: “Truth without emotion produces dead orthodoxy, but emotion without truth produces empty frenzy.”

Before we engage in worship of any kind, we must ask ourselves: "where is my heart?" Amos 5 says, "Stop your songs, your hearts aren't right." We also must not let fear of judgment or fear of disapproval stop us from not singing than to let unbiblical words flow from our mouths.

If you aren’t familiar with a particular song, look at the words before trying to put them to a melody. Take the title of this blog –“a bulwark never failing” –I am pretty sure when I was younger I thought I was singing about a bird as we sang “A Mighty Fortress is our God” in church. Now I am resolved to teach my kids at a young age that God, in this song, is like a bulwark as in a defensive fortification not so much a warm-blooded, egg-laying, feathered vertebrate.

the dangers of the romanticization of poverty

This is a response (that is still developing) to the blog I wrote two summers ago when I had a deep yet short-lived Irresistible Revolution fanaticism. Although I haven’t started making my own clothes yet, I haven’t stopped thinking about how Jesus would be living if He was born into an upper-middle class family in suburbia America. This week I have been reading through Dallas Willard’s The Spirit of the Disciplines: Understanding How God Changes Lives and have been really mulling over chapter 10, “Is Poverty Spiritual.” In this chapter, Willard carefully dissects many issues concerning justice, the possible advantages of poverty and the danger of romanticizing it.

Obviously wealth is not evil, but then why so much uneasiness among many financially independent Christians? Is it a fear of failing in our responsibilities to use our goods to help the less fortunate or is it the radical thought that in order to most fully serve God we must commit ourselves to poverty? I know I have definitely struggled and still am struggling with the latter. Obviously wealth is not evil but there is great danger in the idealization of poverty.

Theologian John Wesley once preached that Christianity “begets diligence and frugality, which makes one rich. Riches, in turn, naturally beget pride, love of the world, and every temper that is destructive of Christianity.” He believed one should sell everything they have and give it all to the poor. Willard then applies some great arguments as why we should learn to be content in whatever socio-economic position we are in. First, being poor is one of the poorest of ways to help the poor. While it is a praiseworthy act for someone to give everything they have away, this cannot be considered a spiritual discipline because the discipline is in the act of giving not in the resultant state of poverty. Sure there is always the possibility of deceitfulness in riches, but the delusions caused by possessions cannot be prevented by having none. Also, we must never forget that the riches of this world, whether they are to be regarded as good or evil, are realities that do not just disappear if we abandon them. The fact that we do not possess them does not mean that they will be better distributed. So to assume the responsibility for the right use and guidance of possessions through ownership is far more of a discipline of the spirit than poverty itself. “…to abandon the goods of this world to the enemies of God is to fail the responsibilities we are given at creation to have dominion, to rule over all life forms above the plants (Gen. 1:26).” God’s purpose in our creation and the nature of our life explain the almost universal failure of people to actually carry through with poverty as a life-style. Even St. Francis’s cult of poverty did not even survive to the end of his own life.

The removal of the idea of poverty from the reality of poverty is what allows it to be romanticized among all groups of Christians –and even permits a certain “poverty chic” to flourish in some quarters of secular society. Another aspect of the romanticization of poverty is its identification with simplicity.

Perhaps much of this uneasiness in the minds of many Christians is the result of inadequate teaching and preaching and thus an inadequate vision of the Kingdom of God. We so often have sermons on giving and stewardship but not too many on how members of the body of Christ should relate and act (not just in terms of giving) to those who are from a different socio-economic status.

Wealth is a gift from God but along with it comes the heavy responsibility to exercise stewardship. I am beginning to see more and more how one who has a stable and substantial income may actually be able to bless more people by their financial resources if they manage them well than compared to someone who has very few if any financial resources. Willard gives several good suggestions on how to reconcile our financially well-off mindset to be more in one accord with the poor. To experience a small taste of economic deprivation, we can do our shopping, banking, and perhaps even living in the poorer districts of our area. We must remember that Jesus did not send help but rather He came among us. We should continue on in His incarnational model. I used to think that if Jesus was living among us today His life would resemble Shane Claiborne’s closely. Trying to understand the specifics of what exactly it looks like to live among the poverty-stricken is perplexing. Sure we can live in the poorer section of our area, but if we don’t give away much of our possessions how will our neighbors view us –with jealously? with bitterness for not sharing our obvious wealth or not sharing enough of it? but when is enough ever really "enough?"

Wesley’s famous formula, “Get all you can; save all you can; give all you can,” must be adjusted. Perhaps it should read: “get all you can, save all you can; freely use all you can within a properly disciplined spiritual life; and control all you can for the good of humankind and God’s glory.”