Of fields and streams and beautiful things

I spent this last weekend at home in Spokane with two of my greatest friends. We all needed to get away to a place we could call home. I love my house. I live out in the middle of the wheat fields … green, rolling wheat fields. Only, this time of year, they’re not entirely green. Half of them are green and the other half are just brown. Only a few things are true in life. First is that Jesus loves you. Second is that Cassy Collins ALWAYS smells good. Third is that sharks are monkeys. And fourth is that there are very few things that compare to green rolling wheat fields with the sunset on the horizon, reaching its crescendo of brilliance. The fifth thing to remember in life is that there aren’t many things uglier than brown, cracking, muddy wheat fields, with leftover clumps of straw strewn across them. This last weekend, I saw a lot of both. As I was driving home, I noticed one wheat field in particular. There was a valley, with the remnants of what used to be a creek running through it. This valley was surrounded by beautiful, green, rolling wheat fields. The wheat was just getting long enough that the wind could barely move it. And the brilliant green was offset by the canvas of blue-grey it was painted on. Beautiful. …And then there was the dirt.

I was very unimpressed by the clumpy cracked dirt in the small forgotten valley. And I was wondering why it couldn’t be as pretty as the luscious green grass above it….why the owner of the farm, the creator of the field, couldn’t have planted something there to make it beautiful. I wondered why the creek had dried up. I wondered what it was all for. For some odd reason, I identified with that field. I wondered why at times I feel like my creek is dried up, or like I have brown clumps of straw scattered around …and why I’m not being used to grow something. I decided that the field was ugly. I decided that the field was pointless. I decided that I was ugly …I decided that I was pointless.

And then God jumped into my thoughts. He stopped me. He asked me why I thought it was ugly. He told me to take a second look at the field, and I did. This time, I saw a little boy, crouched in the mud down by the creek. He was making things in the mud. He was forming things with his hands, and he was laughing out of sheer joy. And He looked up and told me, “Don’t call it ugly, because it’s beautiful if I’m in it. Sacha, it’s beautiful if I’m in it. It’s my job to take mud and make life. I don’t care what you think about yourself, or about things around you. All you have to do is let me jump into the middle of whatever you think is ugly and let me mold it…because it’s beautiful if I’m in it.”

I had an amazing weekend, wheat fields included. If you, the person reading this column, have never taken the Palouse Highway between Walla Walla and Spokane in the late afternoon, you need to…because it’s beautiful. If you, the person reading this column, have never let God jump into your mud and handed him your inadequacy, then you need to…because it’s beautiful. I’ve seen a lot of ugly things. We all have. A lot of things down on this earth can get ugly. That’s why it’s so important to ask God to be in everything, because He promises that He’ll be in anything, He’ll recreate anything, and He’ll love you with everything. When I look at myself, I’m ugly. I’m a muddy, cracked up, creek-less field. And that can get depressing…until God bends down into the mud and whispers to me. He says, “It’s beautiful because I’m in it.”

All my devotion

Cappuccinos are beautiful things. Soy cappuccinos. With a shot of Amaretto. Beautiful. And there’s very few things better than drinking a cappuccino at a sidewalk café with a friend. Glorious. I was doing just that a few days ago, and the conversation was flowing from laughing about some puppies playing at our feet to the more serious matters, lodged deep in our minds. And it all happened over cappuccinos. As we talked about life, we discussed the subject of friends. This has always been a confusing subject for me. I have a pretty bad track record, really. That bad record had left me pretty down about the idea of getting close to people and letting them love me. The idea of “best friend” was a pretty disgusting one to me. Yes, I have lots of friends, I love people, and I love interacting with everyone I can find… But actually letting someone lodge themselves under your rib cage, next to your heart, where they could choose to either love or despise you…? Yeah… no. What if they decided to run away? What if I decided to run away? That all sounded too painful. And maybe I had already had some experience with trial and error… I was analyzing my thoughts out loud to my friend that day, when she stopped me. She looked at me and said, “Maybe you don’t need a best friend. You just need a true friend. And I want to be that.”

A day after my conversation, I was talking and praying with a friend of mine, Amanda Potter. She’s an inspiring woman of God and I look up to her in so many ways. She was praying for me about my feelings of inadequacy before God. She stopped mid-sentence in her prayer and she looked at me. She said, “Sacha, God just wants to be your friend. He wants to be your true friend. He’s never going to leave you or forsake you, He won’t chase other lovers, He’s not going to leave you behind. You’re afraid to step forward because you’ve fallen into traps before and you’re afraid that you’ll do it again. But God is laying those bare before you and He’s going to guide you. He’s going to walk with you… Because He’s your friend. Sacha, just learn to sit like Mary, at the feet of Jesus. Just pour your oil on His feet and let Him love it. He’s never going to dislike the scent, or think that you didn’t pour out enough, or be irritated by the way that you did it. He’s just so happy that you’re there and that you’re loving Him. Because He’s the best friend you’ve ever had. He’s a true friend.” I cried.

In July of 2009, I was in Redding California at the Jesus Culture Conference. Kim Walker was speaking at a morning break-out session on true worship. I sat just a few feet from her and listened to her talk about the idea that worship is connection. Worship is connection. We don’t go to church to get connected, we need to live connected, and come to church with that connection already established. We need to fight for our connection, and work on it all week. Weeks in college can be hard, I know. Life can be hard, I know. Believe me… I know. But we don’t need all the right answers to worship God. We tend to hold ourselves back when God doesn’t answer us, but we’re just playing hard to get. It’s hard to stand before God and say, “I won’t require something of You for You to have my heart. Your love makes it worth it all. And whether or not I see the glory, I will fight for the connection.” Is your greatest desire connection? Have you decided that He’s worthy? Are you ready to search for intimacy and let God set the terms? Are you ready for a friendship?

He’s a true friend. He’s a lover. He’s waiting. For me. For us… all He wants is connection. All He wants is me, unashamed, holding nothing back, sitting at His feet and pouring out everything. He’s more than worthy of my time, my love, and my trust. Let me put it in the words of Kristene Mueller:

“Beautiful Man, Beautiful God, You’re more than worthy my time. More than worth these longings of my heart – left unfulfilled, just for a time. And I know You don’t come as easy as some, but I will watch and pray… I will watch and pray. Take it all – but give me Jesus. I don’t want any other lovers, because all of my devotion belongs to this Man.”

Cielo

Heaven. I remember when I first heard about it as a small child. As any curious adolescent would, I pestered my mother endlessly with questions about what I could take to Heaven, who would be there, why I had to go, where I would live, what the angels looked like, and who I would be. I was always so frustrated by her answers, which all left it wide open and up to speculation. She told me a story once about a woman named Ellen G. White who had a vision about Heaven and then came back to earth unable to tell about it. I thought that was rotten luck, and wished I would have a dream. I would tell EVERYONE my dream so that they could all know what it was like. I didn’t like not knowing and I didn’t like how many questions my parents and teachers couldn’t answer. For a little while I got obsessed with reading Revelation. I read and reread the chapters describing the Heavenly city and tried to picture it all – even tried some measly sketches (I was quite the artist back in third grade…) but never felt like I grasped it.

Unanswered questions probably lead to huge levels of curiosity in most people, but to me it just caused a lack of interest. I decided that I didn’t want Jesus to come back for a long time because I wanted to grow up and get a job and travel the world. I had too many plans for Him to come back yet. I mean, come on, I was only in fourth grade, and if He came back now I was never going to get to be an eighth grader. I really wanted to be in eighth grade. High school called my name! College was on the horizon! I knew that I had multiple brilliant careers ahead of me… At least, that’s what my mom said. And I wasn’t ready to give up any of those. Well, I would give them up if Jesus just HAD to come now… But I didn’t like the idea. I wanted a good 50 years. So I became distant from the idea of Heaven. When the nice little ladies with the big smiles told the children stories in church and asked, “So, who wants to go to Heaven?” at the end of the story about Jimmy stealing candy at the grocery store, I just wasn’t too jazzed. No offense nice little lady with the big smile and the intriguing story, but I want to own a mansion and a yacht and a Saint Bernard. Or at least a four-wheeler. As I grew up, and even through high school and my first two years after graduation I wasn’t all too jumpy to get on the “When we all get to Heaven!” wagon.

Then I met the world. Like I had never met it before. Because something was different this time… I was different this time. I stopped looking at hurt people and wondering why they were hurt – I now felt the agony streaking their faces. I saw the vicious cycle of sin and the abuse and the violence and the unadulterated hatred that clung from this world like filthy rags. All of a sudden, the yacht, the brilliant career, or even the four-wheeler just weren’t that big of a deal to me. Now these people were a big deal to me. Now, seeking the hurting and the broken was a big deal to me. And oh, how I longed for Heaven. The idea of no pain, no hatred, no malice, no more broken people. The ability to live a life in complete simplicity with the Lover of my soul… the Man who’s absolutely obsessed with me. I wanted it more than anything. And I still want it more than anything. Complete intimacy with God. Wow.

There’s a song by Phil Wickham that’s called “Cielo.” It’s stunning. If you’ve never heard it, I dare you to listen to it. And when you listen to it, I dare you to actually think about it. And then I dare you to forget the house, the family, the boat, the trips around the world, all the things you’ve planned for yourself … And then realize that all that really matters is complete intimacy with God.

Doing that "Joy" thing...

I love driving. My favorite time to drive is at night. So, I was exceedingly happy to find myself driving from Spokane to Walla Walla late last Saturday night. Aside from the deer I almost hit and the crazy trucker-man I met at a dimly lit gas station, it was rather uneventful; Unless the word “uneventful” carries the same meaning as the word “boring” for you. Because that would be wrong. It was one of the most wonderful drives to Walla Walla I’ve had in a long time. By a matter of chance, I was in the company of a friend. Before the trip I would have referred to him as an acquaintance … but now he is a friend.

We spent the entire three hour drive simply talking. It never got boring, it never seemed purposeless— it was good old conversation. And most of it was on my favorite subject: Jesus. Even if I had space on this column page, I couldn’t begin to relate to you the full extent of our conversation – or even come close. But I want to stir up some thoughts in your own heads about one subject discussed during the midnight drive through the Palouse mountains last weekend.

I’m an active person. I need to be DOING things … If I find myself with a lack of things to do or a lack of purpose to guide my “doings,” I feel lost, alone, and depressed. This applies to my spiritual life as well. I continually have this idea that I have to be finding bigger and better actions, or a bigger and better purpose for my actions. I’m always afraid that what I want to do isn’t what God wants me to do. And then I’m afraid to move … My decisions concerning next year have been riddled with these problems and questions. Where does God want me? What am I supposed to be doing? If I go here or there, will I be outside of His will? Where will this or that take me? Where will I be fulfilled? Where can I minister to others most effectively? All of these questions have plagued my mind. And I’m tired of it.

I was lamenting my sorrows about this subject when my friend said some important things. He started sharing parts of his life story. He started telling me about his own struggles with his purpose and calling. This is a friend who I have always looked up to and respected spiritually. I’ve been jealous of how much he has worked for God and traveled around the world. But he started telling me how it’s not that easy. He is close to many people who run around the world doing even bigger and better things for God. Their lives are just walking testimonies of how much God can accomplish through one individual. And he feels completely overshadowed by their lives.

But over the years, he has come to realize something. He’s realized that those friends can’t do what he does. Those friends don’t have the same loves and passions and callings that he has. And He doesn’t have their loves, passions, and callings. Neither of them could trade places. And God’s not worried about that. God isn’t up in heaven wringing His hands because Sacha Kravig can’t decided where she wants to go to school next year. And He’s not freaking out because I haven’t written a book or toured the world preaching to millions about Jesus. He’s not afraid of my fears. And He’s not afraid of my desires. In fact, He GAVE ME my desires. Our desires are gifts and we need to realize that. We can’t be afraid to follow our desires. If there’s something that I love and it’s a wholesome love, then that’s from God and diving into it is His plan for my life. He wants me to do what I love, He wants me to enjoy where I’m at and He wants me to be fulfilled. The joy we find in life is all centered in Him. So don’t be afraid of joy! He’s the Father of love! He’s the Father of joy! It all comes from Him and it can lead you right back around to Him. It’s less complex than we think it is. And that’s hard for me to grasp. But I’m trying … I’m reaching. Stop worrying about doing things … Let’s try looking for joy.