what are we doing?!

Well, I officially broke my movies-and-books fast on Sunday, but I am starting it up again. Part of me felt that it had accomplished what the Lord desired, but Tabitha challenged me on whether God had given me the okay to end it. I realized that He hadn’t. On Sunday, I mended two relationships with women in my house, and when they invited me to sit down and watch a movie with them, I didn’t want to say no. I wanted to spend time with them and not withdraw to my bedroom like a loner or an isolationist, religious fanatic. So I did.

We watched Abandon, Brittany Murphy’s last movie before she died of a cardiac arrest, and I couldn’t really get into it. I felt this terrible sadness throughout the entire movie, looking at her withered frame, her sunken dark eyes, her too-large lips on bony, dead-looking face. I couldn’t stop thinking that she’d looked like a dead woman even before she passed away, and if I had known her before she died, I would have wanted to trap her in my house and feed her good, hearty food and tell her she was beautiful and God loves her and she can stop starving to be good enough. I almost started crying while I was watching Abandon simply because Brittany Murphy was so obviously sick in mind, sick in heart, sick in spirit, and sick in body, and I couldn’t stop wondering if anybody ever told her Jesus Christ is alive and could save her from herself. My heart felt like it was being crushed. It was horrible.

----

I am disturbed and saddened to the point of tears as I write this. I found out that someone here at the Honor Academy, someone I have lived with for almost a year now, has been struggling with depression. Intense, heavy depression to the point of suicidal thoughts, the point of finally giving in and taking a knife to her skin. Now she is going home to get some help. I am angry because she has been on my heart these past two days. When I told her that, she said, “That’s funny, because two days ago is when it happened.” God had been stirring me to reach out to her, and I didn’t, because she wasn’t around, because she‘s not that easy to get to. I kept thinking, Oh, I’ll get to that. But now she is leaving, and now she has a cut on her wrist, and though I know she is going to be okay and God is going to win her heart and heal her mind because He is faithful, I am angry. I am angry that none of us really knew how bad it’s been with her. I’m angry that God was nudging me to talk to her and I didn’t listen.

When we prayed for her, I prayed, “God, please bring people into her life who will be bold and who will listen when you tell them to reach out to her, not like me!” I am still struggling with anger towards myself. I know God forgives me, I know that He wants to use this to teach me something. I just feel like this has happened one too many times. God shows me something about someone or some situation, and I am too consumed with myself and the goings-on in my life to do anything. Sometimes I am just afraid to say anything for fear of being totally wrong in my discernments. There’s that stupid pride in me that doesn’t want to risk failure and looking imperfect or stupid. Evil pride, actually.

----

I am disturbed. I am so disturbed by what I see in myself because it mirrors so much of what one finds in the church. I am not surprised that most secular psychologists believe that the “church is not an adequate place for helping psychological matters.” Why would it be? Ask most non-Christian counselors and they will tell you that all of their patients are hungry for something they will not find in the church-- love and acceptance.

I mean, what the hell is that?

I am angry. No, I am pissed, to the point of tears. When are we going to step it up? We are the body of Christ, we are the hands and feet and mouth of Jesus Christ on this earth! We lift our hands and worship God at church, but we don’t lift a finger to love anyone besides those who care for us:

“For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?” - Matthew 5:6.

We use our feet to lead . . Ourselves to the couch, or the theatre, or wherever else we can find entertainment and pleasure and comfort. God forbid we use them to chase after our brothers and sisters for whom God’s heart breaks. Why? We don’t want to lead others to the Lord because we doubt ourselves, or, really, we doubt God. We doubt His Word is true, and we doubt that Jesus is even the truth. We believe Him just enough to feel at peace about ourselves and about our dead loved ones. But we doubt Him just enough to justify sitting on the couch and letting people die and go to hell everyday. What the hell is that? Why don’t we figure out what we believe already and live like we believe it? Jesus is the Son of God or he isn’t! And if we say he is, then he wasn’t lying when he said that he is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and no one gets to the Father except through him!

Half the time, we use our mouths for plain and simple sin. We gossip, we slander, we tell lies, we reject, we argue over meaningless things. We wound the very people we are called to love.

“[The tongue] is a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God. From the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so.” - James 3:8-10.

God forbid we should encourage each other, letting the Lord use sweet words as a healing balm to people’s broken spirits. We sure don’t live like Jesus said that we will be held accountable for every careless word spoken (Matthew 12:36-37). For many, like myself, the problem is not opening my mouth when God is telling me to, and opening it when God is telling me clearly to keep the thing shut.

We are the body of Christ, we are the church. Do we love God? If we do, then why aren’t we loving his people?

----

At the end of the book of John, Jesus is spending some last time on earth with the disciples before being taken back up into heaven. He has cooked a breakfast of bread and fish for them, and after they have finished eating, he asks Peter if Peter loves him. Peter says, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.” Jesus replies, “Feed my lambs.”

“Simon, son of John, do you love me?” he asks Peter again.

“Yes, Lord; you know that I love you.”

“Tend my sheep.”

Again, Jesus asks, “Do you love me?” Jesus asks three times because, back when he was being beaten and prepared for crucifixion- in his greatest time of need- Peter had denied even knowing him three times. Peter is grieved by the third question, perhaps because he realizes why he is being asked repeatedly. But he responds:

“Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.”

And Jesus replies, “Feed my sheep. Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you used to dress yourself and walk wherever you wanted, but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go… Follow me.”

Peter did finally decide to truly follow God. He became the rock on which Jesus’ church was built. Later in life, Peter was crucified upside-down. Upside-down because he didn’t want to dishonor the death of Jesus Christ on the cross by dying the same exact way.

Peter followed Jesus Christ . . To an upside-down crucifixion..

Half the time I don’t even want to get up for church on Sunday.

---

“Yet they seek me daily and delight to know my ways, as if they were a nation that did righteousness and did not forsake the judgment of their God; they ask of me righteous judgments; they delight to draw near to God.

“ ‘Why have we fasted, and you see it not? Why have we humbled ourselves, and you take no knowledge of it?’”

“Behold, in the day of your fast you seek your own pleasure, and oppress all your workers. Behold, you fast only to quarrel and fight and to hit with a wicked fist. Fasting like yours this day will not make your voice to be heard on high. Is such the fast that I choose, a day for a person to humble himself? … Will you call this a fast, and a day acceptable to the LORD?”

“Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover him, and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?”

“Then shall your light break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up speedily; your righteousness shall go before you; the glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard. Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer; you shall cry, and he will say, ‘Here I am.’ ”

“If you take away the yoke from your midst, the pointing of the finger, and speaking wickedness, if your pour yourself out for the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then shall your light rise in the darkness and your gloom be as noonday.”

“And the LORD will guide you continually and satisfy your desire in scorched places and make your bones strong; and you shall be a well-watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail…”

“If your turn back your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on my holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight and the holy day of the Lord honorable; if you honor it, not going your own ways, or seeking your own pleasure, or talking idly, then you shall take delight in the LORD, and I will make you ride on the heights of the earth; I will feed you…” - Isaiah 58: 2-14.

----

There is a reason why I thought that God had accomplished what he had set out to do with my little fast. I had a breakdown the other day. The only reason I had a breakdown was that I actually had a lot of undistracted time to think. I didn’t have Donald Miller to run to or a movie to pop in the laptop. With all the brain-silence, things started surfacing. Like that I talk a lot about how God loves me but part of me doesn’t really believe it. There’s this part of me that still feels ashamed before him, like he is disgusted with me but he still chooses to use me in other people’s lives because he loves them so much. Not so much me. There’s still this part of me that doesn’t believe in unconditional love. That’s why I don’t really want to get married. I am just barely beginning to get that God loves me despite so much junk in my heart. The thought of a human loving unconditionally, to be honest, makes me laugh a bit in my head. Especially a man. I know that sounds terrible. It’s just how I feel right now. I’m pretty jacked up, man.

So I had this breakdown and everything just sort of hit me all at once. I felt this terrible, gut-wrenching pain and clenched my stomach and fell into my bed sobbing. I could barely breathe. I cried out to God and talked to him for an hour in bed, telling him through tears how I really feel about how he looks at me and feels about me. It was good. I slept so well. It felt as though Jesus had sat beside me, listened to all my fears as I fell asleep, and then laid a blanket of peace over me. The bitter became sweet and he gave me rest.

----

I am being healed. I know that as I continue to humble myself before God and focus on serving instead of self, my own healing will continue to break forth. I know a lot of people who know the Lord and are yet dissatisfied and hopeless. Perhaps just restless, knowing that there is more to life than overeating and watching movies.

There is. There definitely is. When we get our eyes off ourselves, focus our gaze on God and the needs--physical, spiritual, and emotional-- of the people around us, I believe we begin to see what that “more” is. We were created to live for so much more than what most of us are living for. We were meant to live for so much more than just ourselves.

Will we love God with all we have? Will we love his people with all we have, even and especially when it is hard? Or will we continue to love our lives so as to shrink from death? For most American Christians, the death we shrink from is the death of our pride, the death of that selfish pride that says we are the most important person in our lives, next up is our family, and our comfort is ultimately what matters the most.

“Now the salvation and the power and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death.” - Revelation 12:10-11.

----

We will all appear before the throne of God to give an account for what we did in our earthly bodies. As a follower of Christ, I know that I will go to heaven and be with my Father and nothing can separate me from the love of God. But I also understand that I will receive due reward and discipline for both the good and the evil I did with this body.

It’s a sobering thought. A lot of Christians don’t like to think about it. But it is the truth.

Am I ready to appear before God? Most of my life has been poured out on meaningless things. I know that I am not ready. I’m honestly not so sure God would say, “Well done, good and faithful servant.” Yes, I have spent almost two years now serving as an intern at a non-profit Christian organization. One could look at my life from the outside and think, “She’s doing pretty good!” But I know my heart. And I have spent most of my entire life, these past two years included, seeking to satisfy myself in everything that I have done, not seeking to glorify God. So I am not sure that I have yet built something solid with my life that will endure the flames of God’s refining judgment.

Will your life withstand the flames? I’m not talking about salvation. If you believe Jesus Christ is Lord, I believe we will be together in heaven. I mean, are you using your life to love God, love God’s people, and make a real impact of eternal value? Are you dying to yourself on a daily basis and living to be a vessel of God’s love and truth in the world? People need what you’ve got. People need what I have as well. Namely, Jesus. Our lives are not our own.

----

It breaks my heart the most Christians believe only some are called to serve with their whole lives, that only some are called away from themselves. I’m sure Satan loves that most of us believe this lie. There are 27 million people enslaved by the sex-trafficking industry right now. Yet only some are called to do something about this? I think a lot more than a few “special” people are called to fight injustice and free the oppressed and proclaim healing salvation to the captives. A lot more than a few people need freedom-- spiritual and physical. There are more slaves in the world than ever has been since the dawn of humanity. The body of Christ--the church-- needs to unite as a whole and do something about this evil industry. Not just a few select people.

The crazy part is that when we pour out our lives to bring healing and salvation to others, God pours out his blessings and healing on us. Is it really not worth getting off the couch?

----

“Feed my sheep. Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you used to dress yourself and walk wherever you wanted, but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go.

“Follow me.”

Our lives are not our own. We have been bought with a price. Let’s grow up and get past this lie that we still should dress ourselves and walk wherever we want. Let’s stretch out our hands and let the Lord dress us and carry us even where we do not want to go. It’s not about us anymore. And, more often than not, where we do not want to go is exactly where God wants to use us. Will we get past ourselves? Will we not just stifle our flesh but murder it completely and follow God wherever he leads? Even if he just leads you back to church? And even if he leads you to an Indian mosque to show love to some Muslims? Or even if he just leads you to spend some time with an irritating person? Will you follow him?

----

“But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever must be first among you must be your slave, even as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” - Matthew 20:26-28.

----

This are some of the things God is stirring in my heart.