revelation from the freezer

i stood feeling a little humbled and foolish after i hung up the cafe phone. one of the girls i work with had called down from the office to chat and as an after thought decided she wanted a cinnamon bun. we didnt have any left out on the counter
so she knew id have to pull it from the freezer. not ideal for taste. ive heard excellent things about these buns we have but have yet to try a fresh one. ive had the frozen ones but i think the promised magic they hold dies in a cold environment.
she said that since it was frozen she should get it for free. i laughed and said i could look the other way this one time. to which she responded:
"if by look the other way you mean put it on my tab then ok. thats the honest, christian thing to do."
it was said good naturedly but it stuck with me for the remainder of the evening in the back of my mind. i was very willing and ready to just hand it over to her without a second thought. it made me wonder what other areas in my life i allow room for compromises that are not within my power to be giving. or taking.
when we have friends (i use "we"loosely and generally..) who work at certain places usually they pull strings and get us discounts or free stuff or in some way or another bend and stretch rules to accommodate us. we get special treatment
because we have some kind of relationship with them. i find that i often treat my relationship with Jesus like this. its not necessarily a bad thing.. it does have biblical merit (read Romans.. all of it). when we enter into a relationship with him we are given special 'privileges' such as: eternal life after death! forgiveness of sins, wholeness and purpose, spiritual giftings, the opportunity to partner with him in his divine commission...BUT just because we are called to be friends, brothers, sisters, and lovers of Jesus this doesn't exempt us from our call to live righteously. if anything it should spur us on in a new ambitious desire TO live righteously. the ways that this can be taken out of context and abused is when we start to think with an attitude that makes us feel deserving of these privileges and so exempt from certain integrities. and this attitude can even give us the audacity to advise others with our clouded perception. when we say to ourselves or others: "Jesus knows where your heart is so he'll understand if you..." or "we really want to wait for the right reasons but we're going to be getting married anyway so what is the huge deal if we..." it becomes easy to justify things away and small allowances will eventually lead to bigger ones.
ultimately we need to remain faithful in the calling to be holy because He is holy.. to be faithful even in the seemingly insignificant things, and our hearts will long to be honest, to be integrous, rules won't look like rules but as a way of worship and expressing our love....
this is something i need to be more consciously applying to MY moment by moment living...
now i've got a mad crave on for some cinnabon!

just a thought...

i'm at the front of the long row of traffic all waiting for the light to turn green. engines revving, impatience contorting the face of every driver. they all have places to go and people to see and this blasted red light is keeping them from it all.
imagination kicks in.
i drum my fingers on the gear shifter in what is now my 1970 stingray corvette. my getaway car. the people around me are no longer fellow citizens but cops with a radar that has zeroed in on me. green eyes turn gray. the light turns green. i throw the engine into gear and speed ahead, weaving in and out of any traffic in my way, knowing that if they catch up to me its all over. i imagine lights and radios, and helicopters beating overhead. they all are after a menace on the loose and if they catch me its prison for sure.
i make it safely to my destination and my car turns back into a cobalt, everyone else turns back into regular strangers on their individual quests in life, and i am no longer a wanted criminal.
but what a cheap thrill!
but why?

there's something about rebellion that feels powerful and drug-like.

the darker side of me sometimes emerges wearing a microscopic black leather cat-woman-esque suit, bringing with it a lust for wreaking havoc.
imagining i'm someone that other people fearfully move out of the way for when they see me coming because they can sense that the path i'm walking leaves a wake of broken hearts and destruction.
just a powerful glance can make people come or go and bend at my will.
made up of lips that poison and curves that kill.
no pleasure is out of bounds.
i don't care who gets in the way.
they don't stand any other chance but to lay in ruin at my feet...

then i snap out of it and praise God that i don't live there anymore! i take off the faded suit and re-robe myself in modesty and humility.
sometimes the seductive advances of the world are magnetic and appeal to the parts of me that have tasted it.

could it be that maybe this was part of God's human design? the draw to do things out of character and to rebel against the world exists in everyone i've ever talked to. but it often has a negative stigma attached to it because we often rebel the wrong way. what if we took the seduction out of it and saw it as a call to be holy? a call to do things out of OUR character and in CHRISTS character. to rebel against the new religion of non-religion. to be outrageously counter-cultural and walk in the power of the Spirit instead of our own. there is no pleasure that satisfies more and no drug that could duplicate the effects. if we see it as a call to holy rebellion and not an opportunity to gratify the flesh while creating a crumbling throne to self then it takes a dying to self. two completely opposite directions.
if we could, in the midst of seduction, see an opportunity to flip it in the opposite direction and turn it into a kingdom-furthering behaviour how pissed would satan be? the plucking at the strings of our selfishness is among his most commonly used weapons in his arsenal. and with a change of perspective we could render it useless!
anyway.. like i said.. its just a thought.

there are two perspectives for every harlot

I'm thinking about the harlot in Hosea.
She comes to mind now and then sporadically when i think about God and his relation to us. She climbs on in there when I glance at my bookshelf and see my copy of "redeeming love" which made me ugly-cry, complete with snot bubbles, from cover to cover when i read it. but today she unexpectedly sprang up out of a different book I was reading.
The reference in the book was to Hosea 2:6-7

"Therefore I will block her path with thorn bushes;
I will wall her in so she cannot find her way.
She will chase after her lovers but she will not catch them;
she will look for them but not find them."

When I first read it I thought it was harsh! it reminded me of times when i've felt walled in on all sides, unable to see past my toes and trying in vain to escape in any way that looked promising.
I imagined her arms bruised and bloodied from trying to rage against the walls and bushes until they fell or parted. Her voice would be gone from relentless screaming to be found. her heart broken from the defeat of thinking she had found a way out only to discover herself deeper in the maze of her entrapment. she's unable to have her love requited because her lovers are always just out of reach. she's soon left with no other option but to.. look up..
oh.
i get it.
i felt the resentment which had been building in my heart subside entirely.
this is not a harsh, mean punishment of God. He is not trapping her, or us for the enjoyment of watching us struggle. This is all done out of his unequaled love for us and his unquenchable desire to have our hearts for his own.
when we start to turn to things, or people, other than him for our salvation he places obstructions on those paths so we can be lovingly led back to where our real salvation is. in Him. he does it to save us from the inevitable pain it causes us to seek wholeness outside of himself. but because he is a loving God we still have the ability to choose. we can proudly thrash at thorns until we bleed to death or we can recognize where we are trying to draw life from death and turn into his waiting arms and together you can find a renewed vision.

This was good for me to realize because i feel like this weekend has been full of variations of thorn bushes and walls. walls of anger and pride, bushes of guilt and fogs of doubt. i would like to stop thrashing now.

a year of new normals... and another night of insomnia.

try as i may, sleep does not want to stay with me long. i'm wearing deodorant and i just had a shower... so it can't be me. it must have other, more important business tonight (or this morning?)
since my last post my life has continued to turn inside out and upside down. and its great! there are so many things I have learned and i am continuing to learn that are writhing just beneath the surface of my chest and competing with each other to bust outta there. my heart aches with a desire to just spill all over this keyboard. I'm never quite sure where to begin, but what do i know for sure? God is good. He is faithful. He is loving. And he's not done with me yet! I feel like I have reached a point where all i desire, all there is to do is stand under a vast starry sky or beaming sunset displaying the beauty and splendor of the God I love, throw my head back with my arms outstretched to each side and yelling "have your way in me!" reaching surrender has been a bloody road. and i know its a road i will have to revisit many times in my walk of faith. But is there any other way? i wouldn't want it if there were. if i had the option of an easier road than this one marked out for me then i don't think i would experience the intimacy with Jesus that I experience now. I wouldn't know the people that I know, read the books that i've read, had the same opportunities, i wouldn't be who I currently am.
not so long ago, shortly after april, i would see others who had what i assumed to be an "easier road" and i was painfully jealous. I felt so ripped off that i had my circumstances forced upon me and now there i stood in the wreckage of it all not knowing where i was or how to make any kind of sense of the chaos. but through that i had a consistent peaceful place in the corner of my heart. This little place held the knowledge that God was in control and that above all he loved me and is faithful. The more i began to visit this space of peace the more i began to realize that these people i was envious of, the ones who were laughing and living what seemed to be an untangled life, i didn't know their full tales. if i would have looked through the veil of my pain i would have seen that behind a lot of the laughter there were old eyes with stale tears. i was not the only one walking with a limp. in fact, as i began to dwell in this peaceful heart space instead of stopping by for frequent visits, i saw how richly blessed i actually am! i have a home, i have regular meals, nine remaining healthy family members, friends who i would die for and i know would do the same for me, and most valued; i have a relentless God who pursues me to no end. since moving into that heart space it has expanded to accommodate and now all of that crippled perspective seems so distant. and i'm left with an overwhelming thankfulness.
more to come...