It's like coming home...

It's like coming home. It's like taking a breath after you've been underwater. It's like waking up one morning and realizing that it's summer. It's like a hug from the person you love most. It's like stepping off of a plane and setting foot, for the first time, in a foreign country. And it's like coming home.

Missing someone. Finding someone.

It's like coming home.

Trois mots... Three words...

France. It's the word written at the top of my Adventist Colleges Abroad application. It's a nice word. People really like that word... France. It's a favorite vacation spot, it's rich in culture, it's beautiful, and its language is supposed to be the most beautiful and romantic in the world. Who wouldn't want to travel to France? Who wouldn't want to study for an entire year in France? I've been thinking about these questions since the beginning of fall quarter. The ACA application has sat on my desk since the beginning of fall quarter. Why would I ever regret a year in France? Oddly enough, I have had many fears holding me back. Yes, I LOVE to travel. A lot. But I wanted to make sure that, if I went, next year wasn't going to be just another trip to France; just another trip around the world for the sake of cultural diversity. I need a purpose. And I need a purpose bigger than learning French or cultural exposure or even education. I need a Jesus purpose.

Purpose is an interesting thing. I've been thinking a lot about it. I have no idea what I want to do when I grow up, and I am constantly thinking about where God might ask me to go. Options come to the table, and people want me to work, study, and play all around the world. But I refuse to go anywhere I don't feel is "purposeful." That word is so vague so often. There are so many "purposes" in life. Everyone has a different purpose, and most of our time is spent knocking heads with each other over this issue. Very few people even get to choose their purpose. It's all too often just handed to us by our circumstances, or our social structure. The purpose in life I choose to focus on is a spiritual one. My purpose is helping to bring the Kingdom of Heaven to earth, and I won't go somewhere if I don't feel like it's specifically in line with that purpose. But this can get ambiguous. Choices like France can get confusing. Where am I supposed to be? What am I supposed to be? What should I be doing? And why can't I figure this out?

I can see myself, standing on the streets of downtown Portland with a group of 30 other people. I'm on the Portland Mission Trip. The grime of oatmeal, maple syrup, and French toast that was breakfast for 142 homeless people an hour ago is now nothing but a sticky residue on my fingers. We've barely made a divot in the staggering homeless population in Portland. Now I'm standing on the edge of a curb grabbing as many mittens, scarves, blankets, and lunch bags as I can fit in my hands. I am in a group of five people. Five people who just want to be used... Five hearts that want to love these people... Five people who desire to change lives, but are more likely to have their lives changed.

The streets of Portland are cold this time of year. Some sun peaks over the edges of the old buildings, but it's barely enough to penetrate the cold wind tingling against my skin. But I'm thankful for the sun. I carry blankets and food in plastic bags at my side. An old man on a bike stops beside us and asks me if he can have a blanket. I hand it over and watch him awkwardly pedal away with his new blanket in hand - smiling. I can't remember his name. It's even hard to remember his face. But I'll never forget his heart.

Another man walks up to us at a crosswalk. Yes, of course he would love a blanket. And he offers to take us to a women's shelter where more than one person is in need of warmth. We walk with him for what could have been hours as he talks to us about his life so far. He's lived 20 years on the streets. Somehow he can still say this with a smile in his eyes. The blanket that we gave him is slipping from his hand, so I offer to carry it. He says thank you and tells me how hard it is to do so many things with one hand. With his left hand he finishes sipping on the coffee some dear heart had given him earlier that morning, and then he moves quickly to the nearest garbage can to throw away the dingy paper cup.

The street cars are loud, the stench from the gutters is slowly overwhelming my nostrils along with the smell of his coffee breath. The large bags of blankets and food are slipping out of my hands and the straps are starting to dig into my skin. I am forced to lean in close to his rough, unshaven face so that I can make out the words he's mumbling to us in a voice dripping with years of casual pain. He is telling me a story. Part of his story. He's lost all use of his right hand. It's limp and dead-looking, hanging dormant at his side. He explains that he fell asleep on the street one night and then woke up in a hospital bed. His body temperature was well below hypothermic when someone found him. He looks in my eyes, holding up his dead hand, and says, "I should be dead. I was dead." He means what he's saying. One look in his eyes and you feel like an entire world of cold nights and food-less days has trickled into your own system. He is homeless. He surprises me as he continues his thought, "I know that God needed me to be alive still. It's a miracle that I'm here. I must be here for a reason." I didn't know how to respond to this. If this man had been a friend or one of the high school girls in my youth group, I would have known exactly how to respond. I would have encouraged them, poured into them, explained to them how every thing they were doing was beautiful to God and that He had a special purpose for them. I would focus on their strengths and their great love for people, I would push them one step closer to grace. But I had no response for this man. I opened my mouth to encourage him, and nothing came out. I had no words. In all honesty, I had no idea why God still needed him alive. I had no idea why God would save this homeless man on the streets of Portland. I didn't have a clue what kind of purpose he could serve in life. I had no words.

What was his purpose? What was my purpose? It's difficult for me to answer either of those questions.

Everyone is going to have a different purpose in life. Was my purpose in life somehow better than the man lying on the street, just trying to survive until tomorrow? I have no idea. I have no idea where my purpose is taking me, I have no idea why my purpose is different from the person next to me. I wish that I could end this column with some resolute sentence of surety. But I can't. I have just as many questions now as I did at the beginning of fall quarter.

France. It's a nice word. Homeless. It's a hard word. Purpose... that's the confusing one...

Peace. Vision. Seasons.

Seasons. Not spring, summer, autumn, or winter. But seasons ... of life. That phrase gets thrown around a lot and can be irritating at times. "The seasons of the soul." It looks like something that should be on an ornate piece of wood in my mother's kitchen. But it's become an actual part of my life. God likes to take me through seasons. I've known for the last month that I'm in some kind of transition between seasons, but I couldn't really nail down what the transition would mean. What season was I moving into? What was I supposed to look for? What did I need to do?

Peace. The first word that God has spoken to me is peace. I get so worried when I feel like I'm not DOING anything. I constantly fear that I'm becoming apathetic. When I step into a worship environment and I'm not passionate or eager, I instantly worry that there's something wrong with me. God has told me that I need to stop worrying about this. I need to stop worrying about what I am or I am not doing for God, and just let Him BE GOD. I need to be okay with peace. That's very hard for me. My genetics and upbringing revolt against a lack of movement, a lack of productivity, and a lack of doing. Today God informed me that I'm moving into a season marked by peace. He's going to teach me how to rest in Him, how to stop and listen, and how to be okay with His peace. Rest. Peace.

Vision. God is encouraging my capacity to see. To do this, He is growing my faith, because faith provides eyes for the heart. Faith isn't what gets me into the family of God. Rather, it is the nature of life inside that family. Faith sees. It brings the Kingdom into focus. Everything that God has is accessible through faith. Jesus said, "For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal." Jesus wants me to look at the invisible. Jesus told us that He only did what He saw the Father do. The beauty and power of His actions were rooted in His ability to see. I need new vision. This new season is a season of vision.

I'm done being a realist. I'm tired of believing more in what I can see than what God has waiting for me beyond my natural sight. I don't want my belief in this material world to over rule my belief in an invisible God. God is jealous for my heart and I don't want anything to get in the way of what He has for me. I want to know what He's doing!

New season. New start. Am I nervous? . . . Yes. I am. But I'm excited. My eyes are tired; I need new vision. My heart is tired; I need peace and rest. Peace. Vision. Season.

Who Are We Fooling?

We’ve all been there. You know the feeling... You’re with your friends, your “Christian” friends - you’ve all been Christians since your first breath. Every thing’s going swell, everybody’s laughing and talking. And then someone does it. They actually bring up Jesus Christ. ... yeah. Everything gets quieter. Everything gets... awkward. It’s that... “Did you really just bring up God?” silence. It’s that “I just got out of Bible class, why are you bringing this up AGAIN” silence. It’s that “What does this have to do with our conversation?” silence.

I find it odd when I can be on a “Christian” campus, with a majority of “Christian” students and peers, yet the Christ I see in the Bible seems so distant at times. We talk about “not putting God in a box,” yet we daily compartmentalize our lives so that there’s no overlap between friends, school, church, and the Lord. According to an extremely respected spiritual thinker and mover, “Everything is spiritual.” So, why does spirituality not take an ACTIVE role in our lives today? I don’t mean reading your Bible a little bit in the mornings, or praying before a test, or even just praying in your room and spending time getting to know God. I mean living every second of every day as if you’re living in the Kingdom of Heaven. Because we are! When we accept Christ and He lives in us, we carry the Kingdom of Heaven inside of us! It’s the crazy-awesome beauty of Christianity! Yet we live out our days like God isn’t a part of and doesn’t care about my entire life... second by second. All of it. What good is the Christianity we cultivate in our rooms, if it never let it flow into and consumes our lives? What does it look like to be an active follower of the Lord Jesus? Whatever it is, I don’t think it’s what we’re used to seeing...

Who are we fooling? Who are we trying to fake? Is it each other? Is it the world?... Is it Jesus? I hope that none of those are the answer. I hope that we’re not hiding anything. One of my favorite texts is Romans 1:16, and it says, “For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone...” So, if this presence of Jesus Christ in my life and His gospel is the power of God to save, then why don’t I live and breathe that every day? How important is it to me?

I want to make it more important to me. I don’t want to fool anyone anymore... I’m tired of being good. I want to be Christian. I want to be consumed... Consumed by God. Consumed by Christ and His heart for this broken, hurting world. I’m not sure how to do that, but I’m pretty sure that is not my job. That’s God’s job... He’ll get me where I need to go. I just need to desire it, ask for it, and be ready to hand whatever He gives me. No matter how awkward it is. And THAT, my friends... will be hard.

Hands Possessed by Violence

It's everywhere. It's suffocating.

I was just talking to a dear friend of mine. The conversation began with small talk, proceeded to future plans in life, and then moved into the deeper parts of life. The deeper parts of spiritual life. I am not "in the know" as far as movies and up-coming movies are concerned, and he was filling me in on the list of flicks about to emerge. Things like movies on Spider Man, Thor, Superman, Batman, and Mortal Combat. As we spoke, I was struck hard by just how much violence is on the TV screen. How much violence is rooted into our culture. How much violence we tolerate and celebrate. Daily.

This year I had an interesting experience with a movie based on the popular book "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" which left me reeling and broken inside. I used to be a violence addict in high school, my favourite movie was "300" and if an action movie wasn't rated at least R, then I wasn't interested. . . . But I can't stand it anymore. My nerves can't take it, my mind can't take it, I get sickened by the children of God bashing each other around on screen. Yes, it's all fake and dramatized. But it's based on life. Real life. A life where killing and murdering are both done in the name of freedom, justice, peace, and even love. . . . LOVE. "Killing in the name of love." Now that is one messed up sentence.

When a murderer gets murdered, it's seen as good. When anything that infringes our rights as a human being or a citizen, we want to see it dead. Yes, freedom, justice, peace, and love are all things to be sought after and are dear to God's heart! But if stopping the violence is done through more violence... is that right? No, it's not. it's not even close to being right.

We're possessed. We're possessed by a spirit of violence. It flows through everything we do. The way that society views relationships, friendships, social structures, work, sex, and justice is completely rooted in violence. We live out our lives on a battle field where only the brutal survive. Evil necessitates evil. Yuck. That sickens me. There's no such thing a lesser of two evils. EVER. Yet we sit here convincing ourselves that evil men deserve evil ends. Who are we to decide what anyone deserves??? Who are we to say that they don't deserve God's grace, just as much as I do?? Who are we to say that there's no chance for them and their road needs to end????

I'm tired of it. I'm tired of hurt people who hurt people. I'm tired of hands that are possessed by violence.

I want hands that heal... at least I can hold onto a hand that heals...

I want to live in the culture of Heaven. On earth, as it is in Heaven.

Nothing.

I want God. I want Him every way I can find Him. I don't believe that all roads lead to God... But I desire, more than anything, to go find God on every single road.

I'm in Canada right now, but I don't want to be here. I want, more than anything, to jump on a plain right now - heading to Calcutta. I wish I was already there. I wish Mother Teresa was still alive and that I could go learn from her and work beside her. I wish that Dietrich Bonhoeffer was still alive so that I could go and learn from him about giving everything for Christ. I wish that I could go anywhere, so long as it was not here, and learn what it is to be nothing. But I'm still here... trying to learn what it is to be nothing.

I want God. I want Him every way I can find him. I want to spend my life living in the culture of Heaven. On earth as it is in Heaven. Jesus tells me to care for the widows and orphans. I want to go and do that. I want to be selfless. I want to be fearless. I want to be loving... But I'm not.

I want to have nothing and give everything.

But I don't.

There's a lot of things I don't do. There's a lot of things I want to do.

I want so badly to go travel every road. and find God there.

I want God. I want Him every way I can find Him.

Hmm... Words

Today at church, I was given a word... I was given a prophetic word. I've been given these before. This isn't the first time that I've been handed a message from the Lord, and I'm ALWAYS blessed by them. They are usually inspiring, insightful, encouraging, and meaningful. . . I usually leave ready to conquer my new battle and take on the world.

This time I was scared. Really scared... God's been giving me lots of words, texts, conversations, all of them pointing to one thing... all of them pointing to something I need to do. And I don't want to do it. I'm scared. Really scared. Well, that's not completely true... I do want to do it. I do want to grab hold of this word and run with it... But I'm scared. The fear of failure overwhelms me, and I know it shouldn't. Honestly, I don't usually struggle with this. Failure is never on my list of greatest fears... or at least it rarely is.

But here I find myself... afraid to fail. My Bible is packed with texts reiterating to me the fact that I don't serve a God of failure, and that my God is ready to back me up and pour through everything I do in His name. Not only are they in my Bible, but those texts are highlighted, underlined, and commented on... So how am I in this position? Why am I in this position? And why can't I get out? . . . I want out.

The word I got in church was a good word. It was a holy word. It was from a holy man of God... I want to embrace, to cherish it, to be inspired by it, and run with it.

Pray for me.