Monthly Archives: November 2005

One of the wisest things that anyone ever told me was that God doesn’t see things the way we do. Like, we realize that, but we don’t really get it. We see things from our human linear persective. We’re at point A, and we do well to see point B somewhere far off in the distance, where we can’t reach it seemingly forever. But God’s looking down on the chessboard from above. He sees point A, but He also sees point Z where He ultimately wants to get us.

I get so frustrated with my life sometimes, because it just doens’t make any sense. But you know, I’ve come to the conclusion that when I told God to take over my life and take me where He wanted, that I pretty much gave up on it making sense. I’ve never seen anything in the Bible talking about life making sense from our perspective. Because we’re a knight or a rook on the chessboard (we usually feel like a pawn), and we’ve just been moved to a new square. We might have been perfectly happy with the square we were in, but now we’ve been moved to a new one. And we can see all these other pieces around us, and their positions seem to make sense. So why in the world did we just get moved here? We can’t see the logic. It doesn’t make sense to us.

But it does make sense to Him. Because He’s not in the game, He’s above it. He’s moving the pieces. He’s thinking a hundred moves ahead.

Now, before we get into some huge debate, our life isn’t exactly a chess game. We have the freedom to choose if we’re going to go where He’s trying to move us. And believe me, I’ve refused before. Stupidest thing I’ve ever done. And what’s worse, I didn’t learn my lesson the first time. But if we let Him move us where we need to be, then we’ll end up accomplishing exactly what He wants. Because He’ll put us in exactly the right places at the right times.

My life’s been a little chaotic recently. I’ve been struggling with God moving me away from where I felt a sense of security and stability, and into something new. In order to do that, He’s had to, as my friend says, “sour the milk.” He had to get me to a point where I’m just not happy where I am anymore, in order for me to be willing to go where He wants.

But I guess today He’s really spoken to me, and He’s given me peace about it. And the odd part is, I know I’ll be happier moving into the unknown than I would be staying in the routine. God knows what’s going on.

Comes back to trusting Him, doesn’t it?

Okay, okay, so the chess board wasn’t the best example. We’re not His robots. We’re His kids. He only wants what’s best for us. That’s always a good thing to remember.

Ok, so I’ve memorized my verse for the week. It’s one of my favorites, and it actually came into play in our youth service tonight:

“”But God proves His own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us!” (Romans 5:8, HCSB)

That one has always kind of stuck in my head in some form or another since I first read it. I guess it’s because there’s so much theological content in that one little sentence. I was just talking with someone last night about how theology is just straight up overdone so much of the time. But when I think about this verse, I think about something I heard in (ironically) my systematic theology class last semester. There was this big discussion about how we know that we’re saved. I guess I’m more of an emotional person than I am a logical person, and I’m always looking and asking God for a new experience of Him, a way to really feel Him in my life. He’s responded in all kinds of ways from dreams to just an overwhelming feeling of comfort…on time I literally could just feel Him kneeling down beside me. But, at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter whether or not I feel saved. ‘Cause some days, I just don’t. But I always get hung up on a hunger for the experiential side of it.

Like, I remember being backstage at a concert last year, and I was with a group of counselors who were receiving people who had made decisions during the concert. I remember people who had just accepted Christ coming backstage in tears, totally broken, totally overwhelmed at what He had done. And I guess I remember being sort of jealous in a way, ’cause I didn’t have one of those really huge emotional conversion experiences. But I always wanted one. To just feel it. To just feel Him. I guess because I’m a little finite human, I want a referent for God that I can experience and wrap my brain around. And we were talking about this that day in class. A lot of answers were thrown out, people talking about different stuff, and finally this one girl who had been patiently waiting to be called on answered this:

“I know I’m saved because Jesus died on the cross for me.”

That shut us up.

And it’s that simple. “…while we were still sinners Christ died for us!” That’s why we’re saved. Not because we feel like it, or because we said a certain magic set of words, or because we were baptized, or because we spoke in tongues. ‘Cause it appears different ways with different people, and that stuff is the effect of it, not the substance of it. The simple summation of it all is, we’re saved because of what He did for us.

And every time I hear that verse, that’s what I think of.

Thank You, Jesus. ‘Cause You know I can’t deserve this.

Today in class (after I recovered from that horrible Jeep sighting) we talked a lot about attributions; judgements we make about people based on appearance. You know, like thinking someone’s dumb because they’re blonde, or thinking someone’s a jock because they’re in good shape, stuff like that. Presuppositions we make with no grounds about people. Stereotypes.

But I have to laugh right now, ’cause I’m being the biggest stereotype in the world. I’m totally into the coffeehouse scene. Part of it’s my addiction to coffee and any other form of caffeine, and part of it is just the atmosphere. The laid back, welcome feeling, something mellow spilling into the air from an XM station, and a bunch of funky granola artistic types hanging out and discussing philosophy and typing away at their laptops.

Oh, and it’s an unwritten rule…you have to have a Mac if you plan to look cool at a coffeeshop.

So here’s where I admit that, yes, I have a Mac. But it’s just funny how we follow these little subcultures like this. I mean, “don’t stereotype me as a writer/student…I’m just hanging out at a coffeeshop, sipping my white mocha and typing on my Mac…”

Incidentally, that’s exactly what I’m doing right now. Would it be revealing to say that the people who work at this coffeeshop know me by name? Hmmmm…

I think it’s because we want to identify with something. Whenever you’re meeting someone, how early in the conversation do you ask them what they do for a living? It’s because we identify people, at least in part, with what they do. We “attribute” certain behaviors and personality characteristics with certain types of occupations. Happens all the time. I find myself (too) eager to include my occupation in an introduction, because I’m proud of what I do. We want, for some reason, to be able to classify each other in some way, so, apparently, this is the way we choose.

Is it the right thing to do? Absolutely not. But I guess maybe we shouldn’t complain so much when we do so much to perpetuate the myth.

Our American love affair with the automobile is finding itself throroughly undermined of late.

I remember almost gagging when I saw the new Mustangs. I didn’t think they could ruin that, but turns out they did. But it gets worse. ‘Cause today on my way to class, I walked past a new Jeep whatever-it’s-called. I call it a cheap Hummer wannabe.

Where did the originality go? Italian cars have it, but few American cars do anymore. It’s disappointing to say the least.

Okay, I just had to vent that.

I’m having one of those nights where I’m a lot more tired than I should be after the amount of work I’ve done today. I mean, I’ve been busy and all, but I’m completely whipped and it’s not even midnight yet. How much of a joke would it be if God were changing my circadian rhythm into that of a morning person? Somebody in Heaven would get a kick out of that.

I guess I should get used to it. I mean, after I finish grad school, I am going to have to go back to the real world and keep normal hours again, right? It’s been a nice break, though, ’cause the 9 to 5 gets pretty routine, and I can’t stand routines. They just kill you inside. Then again, writers basically set their own hours, so I could be onto something there. As long as I’m not confined in an office all day. That just sucks whatever spark I might have had out of me.

Have you ever turned on the visualizer to your music application and just watched it for a while? iTunes has a really sweet visualizer. I turned it on full screen a few minutes ago (playing jazz of course), and it’s almost kind of hypnotizing.

I’ve been concentrating a lot on spiritual disciplines lately. Especially Scripture memorization. I don’t do so great at that. So my new goal is to memorize one new passage each week.

Which puts me seriously behind this week…

I could have metaphor here! We should stop staring at the visualizers of our lives and start being constructive about what we’re doing with our days.

Then again, I could have been right the first time. I think it was a butterfly.