Severe.

"The Christian life is a life characterized by true and spontaneous creativity. Consequently, a disciple is subject to the same charge that was leveled against Jesus Christ, namely, the charge of inconsistency. But Jesus Christ was always consistent in His relationship to God, and a Christian must be consistent in his relationship to the life of the Son of God in him, not consistent to strict, unyielding doctrines. People pour themselves into their own doctrines, and God has to blast them out of their preconcieved ideas before they can become devoted to Jesus Christ." -- oswald chambers.

...

All I really know to say to this quote is "Amen."

(Oh, and one more thing):

Praise. the. Lord that at times His mercy is severe.

Praise the Lord when He drags us out of our boxes, forces us outside our lines, and is willing to make us really uncomfortable .

Praise the Lord for his work in us and its sometimes white hot intensity.

Yes, praise the Lord for it all.

For without His refining fire,

I would surely be lost.

Wings.

I have a knack for turning faith into a very selfish thing.

It's this human gunk in me, this constant pull I have inside to turn everything in life back on myself and make it about me.

I pray things like, "God, help me to be strong in faith," or "Lord, help me to get this or that job," or "Lord, I would really love to go to a Ray Lamontagne concert, and I know you have connections..."

You know. All that mememe stuff.

I am constantly asking Jesus to change me or make me better or give me an extra dose of patience, kindness, tenacity, etc. etc.

But I read something in Oswald Chambers' Utmost today that started me thinking that maybe all those "character development prayer requests" of mine might just be a waste of time, or even a subtle form of selfishness and disbelief.

Oswald writes,

"A pitiful, sickly, and self-centered kind of prayer and determined effort and selfish desire to be right with God are never found in the Christian Scriptures. The fact that I am trying to be right with God is actually a sign that I am rebelling against the atonement by the cross of Jesus....There is a great deal of prayer that comes from actual disbelief in the atonement. Jesus is not beginning to save us -- He has already saved us completely. It is an accomplished fact, and it is an insult to Him for us to ask Him to do what He has already done."

...

Jesus has already saved us completely.

...

Perhaps, then, my prayer life should start to look a little differently.

Perhaps, then, my thoughts should be focused in another general direction. One that is moving outward, away from myself.

David H. Stern says that "true humility implies having neither a higher nor lower opinion of oneself than one should," but maybe humility goes even further than that.

Maybe true humility is forgetting ourselves entirely.

Perhaps humility is getting lost in the identity of this man, Jesus, and letting his character cover each part of our meagar selves - the good, the bad, and the mediocre.

Because getting lost in Jesus allows for an amazing thing - being others-minded.

It plants in us outward focus.
It roots in us selflessness.
It grows in us humility.

When Jesus cloaks us in His character, it not only lets us forget ourselves, but it also springs up in us a desire to share the experience of it with those around us.

Because losing yourself in Jesus is a beautiful and a freeing thing, and coming into His presence, really and truly, is something impossible to keep to ourselves.

It bubbles up, it overflows, it transcends.

And I am finding that sometimes the best thing I can do, really, when I am facing a crisis or I am having a hard time liking myself (or I am feeling a little guilty for how much I truly dislike Sarah Palin) - sometimes the best thing I can do in moments like those is to pray for someone else.

To get outside of myself and be about something other - someone who is not.me.

Offering a prayer for someone else has the power to right my mind to things that are true - like who God is and what He's capable of - and that this life of mine is not really about me at all. It's about something so much bigger and more powerful than my lack of a job or how much money I have in the bank or the fact that I would really like to live in Israel (...but I mean, God, that's still a viable option, right?).

Also, there's the pure and simple fact that generosity always opens up the door for hope to flow in. Every time, it does this.

Generosity sheds light on the dusty, selfish places in our hearts and shakes them out like a rug that has been too long indoors, reminding us of beauty and the miraculous and light.

Generosity uplifts us to a higher place. A place of truth. A place of reminder. A place of purpose.

...

So, perhaps humility doesn't really look like us being down on ourselves and obsessively working, striving, and praying hard hard hard to be better.

Perhaps true humility is recognizing the fact that already, we are better, because of nothing else than the incredible gift of God's grace and Jesus' sacrifice -

And then, because of that belief, humility motivates us to get to the task at hand - drawing near to the character of Jesus, letting Him cover us, and then bringing that same Jesus out into the world as we wear His name, bringing others near to it as well.

And the exciting thing is that what follows humility is usually grace. And when we get to grace, we're able to see people entirely better, with a lot more love.

Because that's what grace is, isn't it?

Choosing to see people as they could be.

I mean, that's what God does.

He chooses, every day,
not to see us as we are,

but as ones

sheltered
covered
redeemed

under the wings of grace.

In our small way.

Stone quarries of Biblical Nazereth, Israel. 2009.

I am left-handed.

And contrary to what most people say and think, I have always been proud of it.

I like being a little different, and there are some very interesting people who are lefties as well (Jerry Seinfeld, Julius Caesar, Benjamin Franklin, H.G. Wells, Kurt Cobain, Joan of Arc, etc).

The other day, while roaming the aisles of Barnes and Noble (a weekly ritual), a book about left-handers caught my eye.

Among other interesting facts, the book noted that lefties are often good with spatial things, like architecture, music, combat, etc. For some reason, the way our brain works, left-handers can see more easily how everything fits together. In other words, we see the big picture.

The spatial fact really intrigued me, because I relate. I am a big-picture person. I dream big, I hope big, and I like the idea of living life to the fullest.

This big picture, abstract way of thinking spreads over into all areas of my life, including spiritual. And although it can be good and useful at times, it can also get me into trouble.

Because thinking big IS abstract most of the time, and the big end goal is not generally what a person experiences on a day-to-day basis.

Because of this, big-thinkers such as myself can be easily discouraged. We can get restless and hard on ourselves, thinking that more needs to be done, wondering why a certain goal hasn't been met, annoyed at all the little, trivial details that it takes to get somewhere "big."

And I think that is part of the problem too. Thoughts can always linger on "getting somewhere," rather than living life in the present.

And we can only experience the grace of God in the here and now.

The past is for learning, the future for hope, but now, NOW is when we experience the voice and the presence and the glory of God.

And to get caught up in the "could bes" and the future stuff and the "big-picture" can rob us of those moments.

I know it has robbed me of a few.

Today I read an Oswald (Oswald Chambers, "My Utmost for His Highest") that spoke into my thoughts and helped to clarify them.

His basic sentiment was that God is in the everyday, ordinary, small details of life, and to miss Him there is to miss Him altogether.

It goes along with the idea of loving God with all your heart.

Love Him with the way that you run. Love Him when you cook dinner. Honor Him when you talk on the phone. Glorify Him when you write someone a letter. Rest in Him when you're hoping for that big-picture dream.

Because God calls some of us to be "big" by the world's standards. But for most of us, He calls us to serve in the everyday moments, loving the few people He places around us, with not a whole lot of fanfare or thanks.

For most of us, He puts us in places that, to the world today, don't really measure on the scale of importance, success, or grandeur.

But someone who lives their life for God with the details; a person who loves Him with their whole heart in service through those small things He brings their way, they are GREAT in HIS eyes.

Didn't our small-town Rabbi say once in passing that "the least shall be the greatest?"

Yep, He most certainly did. And He lived that life. He grew up in Nazereth, a town so small it had people asking, "can anything good come from there?" He spent His life as a Rabbi, studying the Word and ministering (for the most part) to a small group of young boys, training them up to live like Him, know the text, and love people well.

And He changed the world.

With their help.

And now, it's our turn. It's our turn to grab hold of the small area that God has rooted us in, care for those around us, love the people we meet, and serve in the capacity that God has gifted us.

Here. Now.

In our small way.

Because that is what makes all the difference.

Walking in the dark

(The Sea of Galilee at night. 2009)

"Do I trust in God's blessings, or in God himself?" - Oswald Chambers.

Sometimes I think it's so easy to lose hope and start questioning ourselves and God when life gets hard. When we experience a lack of obvious blessing, or go through a time of struggle and hardship, we start to wonder if we're doing something wrong, or worse, we start to question if God really is who He says He is.

A lack of obvious blessing often goes hand in hand with doubt.

But what needs to be remembered is that God leads His children through the desert for a reason. He wants us to be ready for when the time comes to take what is promised us. And sometimes that requires ALOT of wandering in between.

Don't forget how our God works.

He promised Abraham a son through Sarah, and she didn't get pregnant until 13 years later. He promised the Israelites a land of their own, and then led them around the wilderness for forty years. He promised Israel a Messiah, and then waited 2,000 years to send Him.

God sees the big picture. And He isn't about immediate blessings. He's about long-lasting ones.

And He's about growth.

And sometimes trust and strength and joy can't be learned until we walk in the dark for a while.

It's in those moments that God makes Himself known, and it's in those moments that we recognize how much we need Him.

And that is the best thing that we could know.

How much our need is for this Great, Almighty God.

And our greatest blessing?

The fact that HE IS.

A word from Oswald.

"You cannot truly intercede through prayer if you do not believe in the reality of redemption...True intercession involves bringing the person, or the circumstance that seems to be crashing in on you, before God, until you are changed by His attitude toward that person or circumstance...People describe intercession by saying, 'It is putting yourself in someone else's place.' That is not true! Intercession is putting yourself in God's place; it is having His mind and His perspective."

-Oswald Chambers

***

Being a vessel or a tool for a person that God has put into our lives requires us to see them and their circumstances as God sees them.

To be useful to the Kingdom, we NEED to have the mind of Christ.

How else can we be certain that we are living out of truth?

To have the mind of Jesus means spending time getting to know Him. It means reading His word and getting to know His story. It means watching His life on earth and how he interacted with God, people, and situations.

And it requires a lot of listening. Jesus prayed often while on this earth, and we must do the same. God longs to speak to us and use us, just as he used Jesus, our Rabbi.

So let us say, "Here we are, send us."

Let us listen.

Let us intercede.

Let us see and do as our Rabbi does.

Let us carry on this mission.