God……Why?

Tonight I watched a video. A few Middle Eastern natives were watching it across the table from me. One of the guys himself was Syrian. All I heard was screaming, gun shots and fear. I asked them what it was about, he replied with sorrow, “Syrian’s are being shot left and right for their protests.” I answered with the fact that I didn’t realize it was so bad there and that it must be because our media has focused on the UN’s new venture in Libya and the redemption of Egypt. Although this should not be ignored and it is good to see the change, why has the eye of the media turned from Syria?

April 22,2011 was the bloodiest day Syria has seen thus far. 90 protestors were killed. I watched this 7 and a half minute video. My heart raced with fear and sharp pain pressed upon it. The images you see from this man’s camera are horrendous. Civilian men, like scattered rain drops on the street, lay on the street with crimson red that seeped from beneath them.  You could see the realization in their eyes, the horror of how this day came to be their end.  The camera all the while in a frenzy as the man behind it screamed names and the name of Allah and other blurbs of Arabic that I WANTED to understand, that someday I hope to understand. This man then ran to the aid of another as they dashed with a young boy in their arms. The boy was shot in several places, too wounded to survive. I wanted to cry. I wanted to be angry. I wanted it to change me in a big way. I wanted to throw down my books and finals and say “I have something else I need to take care of, that’s of more importance then an A (which I’m not getting by the way).” Get on plane and…….help? Can I help?

Tonight I cried to God over my personal frustrations and confusions. He let me. He comforted me. However, my thoughts shifted quickly to the image of a man in the video. Sorry this is rather graphic so you may want to skip this(though knowing I said that, it makes you want to read it more) again, sorry. He lay there on the ground several men had dragged him from harms way, wherever that is anymore. He groaned with pain. Eye’s fluttered between life and death. I don’t know if he’d been shot in the face but his chin and bottom lip were completely blown off. In my pillow, finally, I cried. I wept, for I had so many questions in my head. But it was mostly, Jesus Why?! Why has our world come to this? How can we let people live through these atrocities? How can I weep for silly fears? How can I go on having joy, knowing there so many laying out there helpless and hurting? And, oh, here’s the big one, God is this too big for You? Yes…I asked it.

My God is HUGE! And weeping. He has not turned his eyes from this country and it’s pain. He loves them. He died for them. For this pain, He understands. He understands? Yes.

Isaiah 53

There was nothing beautiful about his appearance, nothing to attract us to him. He was despised and rejected–a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief. All the world turned their backs on him and looked the other way. He was despised and we did not care. Yet it was our weakness he carried; it was our sorrows that weighed him down……..Pierced for our rebellion, crushed for our sins. He was beaten so we could be whole, whipped so we could be healed………..He was oppressed and treated harshly, yet he never said a word.

In deep waters, I will be with you. In rivers of difficulty, you will not drown. In the fires of oppression, you will not be burned up nor consumed by flames. For I am the Lord, your Savior. Isa. 43:1-3

How can you say God ignores your rights? Have you not heard or understood. I AM everlasting. I, the Lord, never grow weak or weary and you cannot measure the depths of my understanding. Trust in ME and you will find new strength. You will soar like an eagle, run and not grow weary, walk and not faint. Isa. 40:27-31

For He will break the yoke of their slavery and lift the heavy burden from their shoulders. The Lord will break the oppressor’s rod and their bloodstained uniforms will be fuel for the fire. For a child is born to us, a son given to us. The government will rest on His shoulders. He will be called: Wonderful, Counselor, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Isa. 9:4-6

God, is this too big for you? I guess He answered my question. I cannot save Syria. Or the rest of the world. Although with all my heart I desire too, that burden has been taken.  So I pray and I obey. I take a language that I don’t do as well at as others in my class because deep down Jesus says, “there’s purpose, there’s a purpose, trust my plan.” As for those who, may and I pray read or find this blog, pray. Even if it’s to the God that you don’t believe in. Because Syria, Libya, Darfur, Rwanda, Congo and all others struggling to survive need them, and sometimes it’s the only action we can take.

Relishing the Season

God says, “I know the plans that I have for you, they are plans for good and not disaster, to give you a future and a hope.
He goes further onto say, ” For in those days when you pray, I WILL listen. If you look for me wholeheartedly, you WILL find me. I WILL be found by you,” says the Lord.           Jeremiah 29:11-14

I’ve spent the last several days trying to think of what to write about. In what way have I messed up so that I can tell the world how God picked up the mess. It’s been six months almost to the T since I wrote about my new year experience of coming back from disastrous desires. I’ve had my failures and victories, things I did and didn’t do that I’d set off to do, and things that were unexpected and should have been expected.

Today as I rode my bike this morning I realized something, I heard nothing. No chatter of voices in my mind speaking of the disappointments, no river flow of anxiety and worry in my heart, no sudden signs of where am I going and who am I? Just the sound and feel of a gentle quiet spirit finding its summer season, its freedom in the Son. For quite some time it has seemed to be the season to seek the beauty in sometimes, a not so beautiful life. I’ve listened on the radio, in my prayers, and from so many others, that they are shutting their mouths of complaining and sulking in hopes of growing winsome words that will root themselves deep into their heart to take the residence of the thoughts and words that once were.

I’ve waited for a long time to have this season to come take its place in my life. A season in which God is more than enough, in which the days are spent in conversation with Him, seeking Him, hearing Him, and where most of your love is poured directly through Him, from Him, and before Him. A season that has set forth a wild but glorious change within you because of Him and fear takes no form in your past, present or future. The place in life where the verse above is a description of your current status, because where man has failed you God will not fail you. And in those time’s where failure from others and from yourself come, having a God that is more than sufficient and a God that says in your weakness I am strong, will be the veil the covers our disappointments and defeats.

So,
Dear God,

Thank you for being the God  of all seasons, and the God who is with us in every season.

Amen.

Don’t Let the Fire Die

“For, finally, remember this–that a personal religion which remains individualistic and unshared soon loses its own freshness and glow and certainty; whereas a faith which goes forth witnessing confirms itself, and gathers strength and vigor and momentum. To go on holding your peace, when good good tidings are in your heart, is eventually to reach a point where even for yourself God’s mightiest works seem drab and common and unmeaning. To tell the good tidings out and to share them with the world that needs them is to keep the flame of wonder and adoration continually alive and burning on the altar of your own spirit.” -James S. Stewart

I read this today, and it stabbed me in the heart. God is good. Lord, may I never forget or cease to praise You for Your goodness, Your majesty, and Your splendor.

New Year and a Chapped Lip

So for the past week or so I have had this chapped bottom lip. The kind thats penetrated past the first layer of the lip right down to the nerves. I’ve used several different chap-sticks and they only solve the pain and the dry little sucker for some time. Though I haven’t necessarily gone out to a Walgreen’s to find what might really help them. And I bite it, you know when you have a bruise or a pimple that just hurts like the dickens? But yet you push on the bruise and you poke at the pimple knowing that you’ll hit it just right to feel the full potential of pain that it carries. Thats what I did with my lip, just bit it all the time, and scolding myself quietly every time I’d found that streak of pain.

No I’m not gonna write a whole blog about my chapped lip, though suggestions from my imaginary readers might help, God maybe. Yes God, he did point out something, that my lip was something of a metaphor to my life these past three months. For I have been quite the un-christian as you could see from my last blog. The events from that point on are many and much like my chapped lip. This sore on something that’s sensitive to begin with, that is covered up here and there, you bite at it irritating it and making it worse, and never going to the greatest extent to change your condition when its as easy as a drive away or a prayer in this case.

Last night I brought in the new year with some of the people that I love most, and by people who have stood by me as best they could considering I’d taken my life in my own hands. At about 10 minutes to 2010 we turned on the TV to time square. The excitement was exhilarating all around me and from what I could see, the world was covered in it as well. I noticed it for about a minute before all became quiet and I heard God only. As the time neared to the new year I felt my heart tremble with fear above all things. God was in the thick of me, asking me to give up everything that I had clingged too this past year. The count down began and I found myself in a panic, the seconds were slipping out like a water soaked bar soap in the shower, couldn’t seem to pick it back up so I could hold on too it. And finally 2010! Not that the new year matters; I suppose you can choose to give things up to God everyday, and everyday to this point I tried and failed again and again believing that every attempt failed was a step farther and farther from coming back. But God knew my heart in those last moments of 2009, He knows the heaviness it carries, the confusion that plagues it, and the desperate ransom it’s been trying to escape. Above all He knows how ready I am to shed this layer of filth and muck from my life. He comforts me in saying this was just a time and now it’s over, come take my hand and lets continue on. No time to lay in bed, as I so tried this morning refusing to begin this new year, no time to hide in a cave for God’s grand signs such as fire falling from the sky, or a huge storm to say it all. You guessed it, nothing only but a gentle whisper.

And though it’s pushed me as far as my living room, which you must understand is the start of some big accomplishments compared to my agenda for the year, I know I’m gonna have to do things for awhile with fear. I fear writing an eassay worth 20,000 dollars. I fear that I won’t improve as person. I fear that the friendships I have tattered and broken won’t mend. I fear the long road to the college I plan to go to in the fall. I fear the day I say goodbye and do actually leave for somewhere. I fear I’ve missed my chance. I fear giving it to God. Above all, I fear God. Just for kicks i fear i wont wake up enough to put soap in my dishwasher before I start it.

For everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven. A time to be born and a tie to die. A time too plant and a time to harvest. A time to kill and a time to heal. A time to tear down and a time to build up. A time to cry and a time to laugh. A time to grieve and a time to dance. A time to scatter stones and a time to gather stones. A time to embrace and time to turn away. A time to search and a time to quit searching. A time to keep and a time to throw away. A time to tear and a time to mend. A time to be quiet and a time to speak. A time to love and a time to hate. A time for war and a time for peace.

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

It’s time to go back to where I belong, take off this costume that portrays me as a wild thing, I know only God alone can give me the strength to make it a thing of the past. Prayer will also be my only guiding light through this unknown if I so choose to use it. Thank You Yaweh, Amen.

Advent

“Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that light was the light of men. The light shines in darkness, but the darkness has not understood it… The true light that gives light to every man was coming into the world… He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God—children born not out of natural decent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.”—John the Apostle

I haven’t been able to get this verse out of my head these past few weeks. I love advent, but it is also a time of struggle for me. Over and over I read John’s words:

The light shines in darkness, but the darkness has not understood it…

He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him…

Jesus, the creator of all that exists, came to be with his creation and was rejected, misunderstood, and ignored. In Jesus’ day, as well as our own, there were many who claimed to know God, and who were confident of their divine wisdom, yet they did not even smell a hint of God when he stood before them. This bothers me, makes me squirm internally. Honestly, what makes me or us any different than any of these other men and women? I have read the scriptures, and I’ve gone to Sunday school almost all of my life; I know how to talk the talk and walk the walk. Does this guarantee that I’ll be able to see Christ if he’s standing right in front of me?

What’s interesting–or should I say ironic–about this passage is that one chapter later John tells us about Jesus’ little wedding miracle. The one where Jesus turns  water into wine and nobody seems to notice. Well, technically the wedding coordinator does take notice, but he seems to think the choice wine came from the groom’s ability to plan wisely–saving the choice wine until the end. It’s sad, Jesus is in the midst of all these people and nowhere do we read that any of the guests took notice of him. Here’s a classic case of Jesus “coming to his own, but his own not recognizing him.” But it doesn’t end here. In fact, this is where it all begins. Jesus continues to lift the shades on his identity only to be met with indifference, blindness, and resistance. Sadly, it was the religious individuals who misunderstood and hated him the most. These people had been diligently waiting for God to come, but rejected Him when He finally did.

So, this brings me back to today… to here and now. It’s advent, and like the religious fanatics of old, we are diligently awaiting and celebrating Christ’s return. But here are the questions that are eating at me: Are we really looking for Christ to return? Two thousand years ago people wanted God to come, and what happened when He finally did? They turned him away. Could it be that Christ is here, in our midst, but we’re not seeing him either? Could it be that maybe we are truly looking forward to Christ’s return, but maybe we have a different Christ in mind than the one that’s actually here or coming? The pious in Jesus’ day were certain they knew how God would come–what he would look like, how he would act, what he would do–but they were a little off. Likewise, many of us are convinced we know what God’s presence on this earth looks like, or will look like, but could we be walking into the same trap: trying to pinhole God into our expectations?

I could be mistaken in all of this, but what we’ve seen in history is that when God comes, He usually does so in ways we least expect Him to. I fear that in all of my watching and waiting, I may be missing God’s presence standing in front of me. Or, I may desperately want my “Jesus” to come so badly that I’ve been overlooking the Biblical Jesus working all around me. Even worse, I fear I may be so fixated on my “Jesus” that I’m screaming at the real Jesus to get out of the way and picking up stones to threaten him if he doesn’t.

Lord, I pray my eyes will be opened to your presence here on this earth.