Little Birds

Luke and Samm took off around 7 (am!) for a long shoot. So here I am with a mango candle burning, innocence Mission playing, a kitty curled on my lap sleeping, and, always, coffee. I thought of journaling, but today I'll write it here.

I am troubled lately to recognize a desire for total faith - and really not much at all.

We talked about "faith" in my mtg. with my pastor ("rector"/"priest") and intern yesterday. I said I used to have a broad concept of faith, like you either have it - in God - or you don't - and you're rebelling. But the more people I knew, the more I watched lives around me unfold, the less that vague promise of faith in "god" made sense. What did we have faith he would do, specifically?

I see in my own life good things that I attribute to him... my marriage, especially, a surprise, an uncharted course that has caused me to be freed from my "evangelical princess" mindset. A gift of intimacy, friendship, support to pursue my gifts in a way I wouldn't have with the sort of guys I wanted. I see God using all this for good in my life.

But then, I find I don't have faith He will do for others. What has he actually promised us that we should and can hold on to?


I have some really lovely single friends, and I want to see them be loved, like i am loved right now. It hurts to think that I can't make a confident prediction that God will take care of that...

My first setback was Beth. We were both confident (and assured by many older and wiser) that her cancer would be an opportunity to trust in God, and that if she let him, he would minister to her during that pain. According to her, she wanted that spiritual "peace," and it never came. Her cancer healed, but her confidence in God's presence and care waned and by our sr. year it had dissipated altogether.

This experience started me listening more carefully to the promises everyone seemed to be always making for God. You need to trust Him, He will take care of you. He will guide you. He will show you. etc, etc.

Really?

Arriving at Moody, I watched a friend jump in and out of good men's hearts claiming that God HAD showed her, guided her clearly, cared for her through it all. It seemed highly suspect that He was the one to blame.

I started seeing the promises I had understood to be immediate and personal promises to me as promises to Israel that were given as they waited in exile. Many of them died before they got to rebuild their city, their temple. The land was never all theirs. Hasn't been fully restored yet even.

Have we...been lied to? In the sense of faith in God answering promises during our lifetime?

This morning I was thinking about why Jesus said this:

Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?


Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life ?


"And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin.


Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these.


If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?


So do not worry... But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

All these things - clothes and food will be given - how do I understand this promise when there are people (christians too) starving? I don't know. I really don't know.


All I can understand is that it seems like the promise is that God does care and that He says he will eventually restore the broken and feed the hungry with himself and raise the dead to life again. And here we are, hearing that, haunted by that.

In our own aches, our own needs, like Israel in the Exile, we wait, we yearn, we mourn, we hope the dawn will come in our lifetime.

On the Lakes of Canada

I just fell in love with The Innocence Mission - a folksy husband wife duo from Lancaster, very old school. You simply must find them and listen to all their songs! They have a lullaby album with What a Wonderful World, Somewhere over the Rainbow, Edelweiss I used to sing Helen to sleep singing Edelweiss when we were tiny... i was almost in tears listening to it.

Anyways, this is a song of theirs used for a video about addiction. Not sure if that's what the song is about exactly, but I was so moved by it... by the idea of hope that you can change. I've been talking with my girls at youth group and with christine and with my family about the idea of not living for what other people think of you. The idea of freedom that comes with that, like what I had for 5 weeks at Capernwray. Samm said last night, in a way, when we truly meet ourselves, we meet God. If we are in his image, yet always trying to contort ourselves to meet the approval of others, than we twist that image. We do not let it be beautiful and alive.

So this is my addiction, caring what people think. And as cheesy as it is, this video moved me a lot.

Mystery

So this was part of my Greek quiz I just finished (due at midnight). Generally greek has been quite awful - just a tedious impersonal memorization basically. Well, yeah, not quite that awful, but not invigorating whatsoever.

But once in a while when we actually translate it seems is shocking to read the text:

Many will say to me in that day, “Lord, Lord, did not we prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name and do many miracles in your name?” And then I will say to them I never knew you.

I never knew you.

Not 'I don't know you now that you've gotten carried away, lost perspective, had an affair, walked away from me'... it's 'never knew you, even when you prophesied and did powerful deeds.'

So it makes me wonder as I try to do "powerful deeds" and be an amazing youth minister... what does our Creator really desire from us? What is the "will of my Father" mean that Christ refers to right before that.

All this is said in context of hearing and then obeying the sermon on the mount. Ahhh, I feel far removed from those words, from those teachings, from its simplicity and its incredible demands.

My life evolves largely around my own happiness. Ministry, even, makes me happy and fulfilled. I work out, yes, partly to keep my spirit alive and my body honoring God... but mostly to look better. Seminary is so much about finding my own worth, earning the Christian version of the American Dream. I love Samm so he will be sweet to me and do what I want.

I sense this is not ok. That maybe these self motives for doing good things are the antithesis of knowing God,or of being known by Him, as he puts it here.

Samm and I just found this song. I think it is my new theme song for this season. It summarizes, so simply, what my heart has doubted and very often forgotten lately. As siblings I love desperately have rejected - have walked away from - have questioned the practical significance of this - I cling to this simple creed. It is all I have. Well, if I am willing to let go of everything else, then it is all. Then He is all: My sanity, my clarity.