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.

Everything...

Something In the Eyes of Prostitutes...

I can still see them, all of them, face by face. They stand, side by side, glancing up and down at you, taking you in. I feel taken in. I feel exposed. Their looks are a mix of fear, hatred, hurt, and need. I’m not sure what to do with myself, and I look away awkwardly, continuing my run home. I am in my jogging shorts and tank top, they are all clothed in worn silk dresses or scanty shorts and low-cut necklines. These girls line the bars and clubs along the Garapan Strip in Saipan. Heading back from a market night or from my routine jog, I pass these innocents as the sun is setting just off shore.

I wake up in a cold sweat, breathing hard, disoriented. I’m in dorm room #602, Foreman Hall. My room mate sleeps beneath me. I know immediately that I’ve had the dream again, and I set my head back down on my pillow and try to clear my mind of the pictures. I can still see them. All of them. Face by face. Soul by soul. They stare into my soul and ask me what I’m living for. My heart stutters, and I don’t know what to say. I am at a loss for words. How do you tell a battered heart and a cynical mind that there’s more? It’s harder than they say it is in Sabbath School. “WWJD?” is harder to apply than your Youth Pastor said it would be. As those young girls stared at me, I knew that no words I possessed could ever lead them from their prison of prostitution into the sunlight of love.

My mind would start to argue with me: I was a Student Missionary, wasn’t I? What was I doing if wasn’t helping people who couldn’t help themselves? What was I here for anyway? Wake up, Sacha! There are people in pain lining these streets and you just keep jogging!? Then logic would fight back: I’m here to teach. I’m teaching 1st and 2nd Grade at Saipan SDA School. That’s what I’m doing. I’m reaching that group of people, those hurt souls, and the innocent hearts in my class room.

Now I find myself awake night after night, seeing faces that I passed by day after day... and I can’t tear away. I keep asking myself what I should have done. I keep re-thinking my words and my thoughts; trying to put something together that could touch these broken slaves in a sexual world. I feel their pain, their hurt, and their need; I cry for their hatred and fear. It’s extremely inconvenient. I don’t know what to do with myself. I didn’t know then and I don’t know now... Oh how I wish I knew. Oh how I wish I had known.

I am not Jesus. I won’t always know what Jesus would do; but I can ask Him to be in whatever I end up doing. I can guarantee that my heart will still stutter, I can guarantee that my mouth will stutter even more. But maybe those prostitutes in Saipan weren’t interested in my eloquence or my heart’s stability. I think they just needed me to look into their eyes and feel. Feel everything that they couldn’t understand; and let them know that it hurt me too. Sometimes the walk to freedom begins in someone else’s eyes and someone else’s heart; the knowledge that you can get where they are going. We are all in slavery, and we all need help. We are surrounded by slaves every day, passing them on our way to class, or in the lines at Starbucks. We all need each other, and your problems are always worth my time. I need to be able to look in your eyes and know that what you have conquered, I can conquer too; what I have conquered, you can conquer too. Simply the knowledge that you can be free, releases a kind of freedom into my life.

Someday I’m going back to Saipan, back to the Garapan Strip. I won’t jog past this time, and I won’t regret what I do. I may stutter and I may look stupid, but I’ll do what I should have done a year ago. I’m going to let them know that there’s love. Real love. And I’ve found it, so they can find it too.

Furious activity is no substitute for understanding.

20 Years With God... What Now?

I don’t feel mature. Nope. Not even close. As a child, I thought that by the time I had reached the amazingly-awesome-crazy-cool age of 20, I would have the entire world figured out and spend my days stunning the world with my abilities and my maturity. Then I woke up as a 20 year-old going on 21 and realized that I was no where near mature.
I remember the day I was baptized. I was a 9 year old in the College Church (Yes, it was called that back then...), and Pastor Karl Haffner was my hero . As I waited in the wings behind the baptismal tank, I was nervous and excited. I felt ready. I stepped down into the tank at my official cue (Something like, “Sacha, will you please join me.”) and climbed on the stool placed in the water for me. Yes, I was short, thanks for noticing. I went under just like I had practiced, and as I came out of the water I realized something... I was not very mature. Even at age nine I noticed my own immaturity. I had expected some great revelation from God or a dove to appear, but instead I only thought about how nice it was in the water, and I hoped that Pastor Karl would hold me under longer so that I could swim around a little bit. Yeah, I was definitely feeling immature.
Sometimes I wonder how much has changed. Probably not much. And, in some ways, probably a lot. Not much has changed because I still find myself in these amazing “God moments” that are intended to change my life forever, and all I can think about is swimming. But a lot has changed because now I’m seeking out more of those “God moments.”
Inadequacy. That’s a pretty big word. And an even bigger concept. Try wrapping your mind around it sometime, and let meknow how it goes. I believe that my feelings of immaturity radiate frommy need for “adequacy.” What does God want from me? Am I doing the wrong things? What can I do to be more “spiritually mature?” What is the meaning of life? Okay, maybe not the last one, but the rest of those questions rear their ugly heads in my life far too often. I think God curses the day “living for Christ” became translated as “living up to the standard.” Adequacy. Yuck.
I asked my grandma about this the other day. I said, “Grandma, do you feel mature?” You wanna’ know her answer? Blew me away... She said, “No.” I turned to look at her with amazement and said, “Me neither.” She told me that it’s like learning a language; the more you know, the more you know you don’t know. A Chinese proverb says, “The wise man knows that he is not wise.” I’m not quite sure what that means, but it makes me feel a bit better to know that other people are confused too.
God never asked me to be mature. He never asked me to be adequate. He just tells me that He’s adequate - that He is MORE THAN ENOUGH. So I don’t have to worry. He gives me what I need when I need it. I’m glad I don’t have it all figured out right now... I’m glad that I am still looking for my purpose in life. I kind of hope that I’m looking for it until the day my life ends. I hope that I’m searching, always searching, and always unlocking new doors.
20 years with God... Maybe now it’s time to become a kid. Time to stop worrying about how mature I am, and just be happy making mud pies with Jesus. When I grow up, I want to be a kid. I want to be a kid with Jesus.