Pour Life

Hanging out with kids can make you laugh like crazy and can expose you to kid cooties.

This Friday I came home with a nasty cold/sinus infection/plague... oh what fun! Because of this I have been cooped up in my room in my pajamas, with tea and my computer for almost 48 hrs. I am going a little stir crazy and started a dance party with the cats. They didn't appreciate my efforts so I thought I would focus my energy into something more creative and restful like writing (also when you have a sinus infection it throws off your equilibrium and dancing can become dangerous to everyone involved even cats). 

Ruminating on what one wants from life is always a good exercise. When you think about what you want out of life it gets you to invest more in life, because life is truly what you make of it. In my ruminations and writings I noticed that I kept using the phrase "pour life," in ways such as "I want to be in a community that pours life into me" and "I want to pour life into children/women/families who desperately need it." This phrase kept coming up so much that I wanted to distill what I meant by it, so I pulled out my handy-dandy iPhone ESV bible app and searched for "life."

Psalm 16:11 

"You make known to me the path of life;

in your presence there is fullness of joy;

at your right hand are pleasures forever more." 

Ecclesiastes 7:20

"For he will not much remember the days of his life because God keeps him occupied with joy in his heart."

Mathew 7:14 

"For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few." 

Mark 8:35

"For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it."

Philippians 2:16-18

"holding fast to the word of life so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain. Even if I am to be poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrificial offering of your faith, I am glad and rejoice. Likewise you also should be glad and rejoice with me." 

Colossians 3:3

"For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory." 

2 Peter 1:3-6

"His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness."

Revelations 21:6

"To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment."

Basically what "pour life" means is to live a life of sacrificial love like Jesus'. As this pouring out happens a pouring in happens as well. Like a stream that flows, the waters keep coming and keep going. Refreshing and resting at the very same time. And again the precious grace and goodness of The Father leads me back to his love and lap, to build a deeper dependence on his arm to sustain me. 

I love the verse from Ecclesiastes. I want to be so occupied with the joy of the Lord that I lose track of my days in how lavishly I am living them. As the world is awakening to the warmth of Spring, I feel my heart awakening and sprouting joy. Soon Summer will be here with fruit, and Autumn with harvest, and Winter again for the deepening of roots. But as these seasons come over and over again, I want to find myself "hidden with Christ in God," tucked away in his identity, covered and fulfilled.  

Being Myself

Again I am sitting down to blog, but there is so much floating around in my head that I am not sure where to begin except to just type. 

I like having things worked out before I say them. I am realizing that I have a propensity to do the same for the other types of communication as well. I don't really have anything "worked-out" right now. No nice conclusion to get to or theme to follow. Except that God is urging me, in his gentlemanly way, to get out of my comfort zone yet again. 

Be yourself.

That is what I keep feeling and hearing. But why is this so hard? I guess there is always room for another existential crisis, but I thought I had gone through enough of those in college to have figured out who I am already. 

What I have known for a long time is that I have people pleasing tendencies. Almost without thinking I try to be what people want me to be, and do what people what me to do. I usually don't exactly know what people want, but I assume. Often I am right on, but more recently I have been wrong, hurting myself and others in my folly. 

This probably all is being compounded because right now as I am living in another culture. I cannot just assume that people understand me or my motives for doing things. It causes me to think, not just the usual twice before I do things, but I now have to think three times in hopes to prevent offence or misunderstanding.  

I have learned a good deal about Indian and Nepali cultures, but even still I am running off assumptions. One thing I do know is that it is very rare to get a straight answer from people especially if you have offended them. So I have just been keeping my head down and trying to mind my own business. But is that really being myself?

I want deep connections here, but I feel like I cannot ever hope to earn a place in this culture. I want to speak out, especially to the challenge the church, but where do I even begin as I am an outsider who will never be allowed to be an insider. There is so much injustice, so much dishonesty, and such a disparity between the rich and the poor. So much need for the Kingdom to come on earth as it is in heaven. 

I guess it comes back to prayer. Prayer is the very first step to changing things. The next is a radical pure life lived as an example. This is all we can really do. But there is no way to measure our progress or our proximity to the goal. The goal is completely out of our reach. 

Why are the simple things so hard to really accept and to really do? If I really accept this then all my big expectations of changing the world, seeing revival sweep over India, seeing hundreds of children snatched from the fires of hell and given loving homes, and seeing the church really act like the Bride of Christ can never be realized as my imagination has painted them. 
Do I give up these dreams? I think that would kill me. 
Do I keep up the delusion and live a life of appointment? Sounds fun. Not. 
Do I dream smaller? Maybe. 

But it is still painful to realize that all my dreams and desires for my life might come to nothing. Maybe that is the problem, that they are all MY dreams and desires.   

I have been praying that God would give me the desires of his heart. Maybe this is what He is doing... stripping me of my desires and replacing them with His; stripping me of my expectations for my life so He can give me His own expectations. 

Who has God made me to be? What had He made me to do? I thought I knew, but now I honestly don't have many answers. 

"Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart." Psalm 37:4 

I guess all that I can do is keep trusting in this promise the Lord has made and wait for Him to fulfill it.  

weakness and perfection

It has been so refreshing to reconnect with the blogging world now that our internet is working (well kind of) again.

Over the past month or so there has been a myriad of things that I have been thinking through. I would love to be able to sort it all out and make sense of it in one tidy little post but I am not sure that is possible. Many things that I have been musing on are much too raw yet for all of the internet to be able to peer into. I am sure with more time I will have perspective enough to sort things out better, but each day has to be lived, hour and minute spent to gain this time and perspective.

The little that I do understand is that I am quite a mess. I don't like to admit this or let anyone see this. I know many of my weaknesses and I have gotten good at hiding them, but sometimes God allows things to happen to expose your weaknesses. It is dangerous to ask God to teach you about humility, cause He usually answers you with a “Yes, I already had some lessons in mind. If you are ready let's get started.” It is a good thing to desire your pride to be rooted out, but oh my it can be painful.

I am quite a perfectionist. Not in the typical, perfectly-clean-house, alphabetized-spice-rack, immaculate-closets sort of perfection, but in a I-want-to-seem-like-a-Godly-sweet-Christian-girl-with-all-the-answers sort of perfection. Growing up going to all of the youth group events, helping Mom run VBS, reading the entire bible through before I was out of high school, going on countless mission trips, and pretty much having all the right “church” answers has left me with a unique little construct for forge my “perfection” on. Somehow I thought I knew all the answers and therefore I could easily guess what God wanted for me life. DANGER! Even when God speaks to us we should NEVER assume that we know exactly what He means. Usually when God speaks He usually leaves some details blank for us to trust Him with. Don't fill in those blanks yourself, even if you are a “good-Christian-girl” who knows all the right answers to the bible quiz. I tried filling in those blanks myself once and got my heart broken. I tried again and broke someone else's heart. And again, as it has before, my “perfection” has come crashing down and this time exposing my weaknesses to the world (at least that is how I feel).

Isaiah 55:9 “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.”

As I start over, I want to try and rebuild my perfection not on my faulty understanding, but on the Lord's perfection. It says in Matthew 5:48 “...be perfect, as your Father in heaven is perfect.” and it goes on in chapter 6 saying “beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them”. Perfection is not a bad thing to desire, but this perfection we are called to is not one judged by others. It is judged only by the Lord. It is a perfection of the heart. It is a perfection we are gifted by the blood of Jesus and the grace that flows from the cross, not a perfection that we can earn by knowing the all the right answers or by making people like us.

The more days I live the more I realize I do not know anything. I have realized that I will never know all the answers to life, and that I will only begin to know some of them by living life, making messes, and running to the arms of Jesus. Sarah Young says it beautifully in her devotional, Jesus Calling, “Instead of seeking perfection in this fallen world, pour your energy in to seeking Me: the Perfect One.” (January 26^th).

All I know is that I am a people-pleasing mess. All I know is that I need more Jesus.