Saturday

Last night I went to the ACP Good Friday service and was so tired I fell asleep during the organ solo in the middle (and immediately woke up when the sleeping relaxed my hands and I loudly dropped my program to the floor) and I wasn't really connecting to the Scripture being read, or the hymns we sang, but at the end all the lights went out (it was a tenebrae service btw) and there was only one candle lit in the whole room, the Christ candle. And I stared at it avidly, and suddenly I was completely present to the moment, and the weight of Easter sunk over me full force. "Light of the world, by darkness slain..." goes the song.* That line ran through my head again and again. I did not want that candle to go out. I did not want our only hope to be extinguished. We would be in utter, blackest darkness without him. With no hope of a coming morning.

Earlier I had been talking to Elena about how sometimes you have hopes, or even something you think is a promise or dream from God, and waiting for them/it to come about is just like holding your breath. This stereotypical expression is perfect to describe it. You hold your breath until you can't anymore, and instead of gasping, putting your head above the water, because you can't do that-- it's all water once you've jumped into the river with God-- you, well, you drown. Better put, that one part of you dies. It's as painful and strange as you would expect, learning to live with death inside. You wake up every morning, and remember that part of you is dead. Obviously it feels like a mistake. You think, "God is the author of life! What did I do? What happened here? He doesn't make mistakes, so I must have." But I don't think that's necessarily the case.

A few months ago, I heard a sermon on the life of Joseph. It was in French, which for me sometimes means that the message takes on delightfully fuzzy edges and the ideas I take away from it are more general. Not because I don't understand it, but I simply don't remember exact wording as well as I would English. The main takeaway for me from this sermon was that things that look like a mistake aren't necessarily one. Joseph being in jail, for example. Who would think that an honest man, righteous and walking close to God, would go to jail because he did the right thing? What sorts of thoughts did Joseph have as he woke up each morning for those couple years, as he "wasted his life," forgotten and alone, even presumed dead by the father who loved him? But he rose to great honor again, and it had all been part of the plan all along. He was in the perfect position to save all of Egypt (+ suburbs? what was Canaan?) from starvation.

Today, Saturday, is the perfect time to remember that I serve a God who raises people from the dead. A God who died. It must have seemed like the biggest mistake in history to anyone watching. Instead of a kingdom established for eternity, utter hopelessness. They thought he was a king who would reign forever, and instead he died and was buried. They had held their breath for his promises, perhaps half-doubting them all along --they sounded too good to be true-- and he died on them. How hollow the promises must have seemed then. What a Saturday.

If it wasn't a mistake even for Jesus to die, if that was actually the point, then we know that God does allow death. Not small setbacks or obstacles, but even real death to our dreams. He even let Lazarus die, and then said it was better that way. Because he is strong to save, and he resurrects. He takes great delight in resurrection. And frankly, that makes a better story and brings more honor to his name than a shallower alternative. It builds more faith in us.

Today, I am reminded that when I stand before impossible circumstances, there is nothing preventing God from a literal (or any other kind of) resurrection, because that is his thing. That is what he longs to do for his children, if they will only give him control by placing their trust in him. There is no circumstance dark enough that I need to be afraid.

Tomorrow, when the sun comes up over the Seine, I will be outside watching the light seep back into the world. I will sing, "...then bursting forth, in glorious day, up from the grave he rose again!" And I will  remember that even my dead dreams, the ones that seem too impossible for a positive outcome, are in the hands of a God that, out of an infinity of possibilities, chose dying and coming back to life as the best way to redeem all that he'd ever created.

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*In Christ Alone... durrr. But we didn't get to sing that at this Friday service.

What we are praying for when we pray for the gospel to spread

Last night the pastor at my church here was telling the story of his conversion. He said God meant nothing to his family during his childhood. None of the family believed or cared to follow God's ways. But when he was a teenager, first his sister and then his mother began going to church. He decided to investigate what this was all about, and he began to read the Bible. Not out of love for God, but out of curiosity. Then he said because of his reading the gospel message he began to be thirsty. That was not surprising to me.

Then he said he began to feel dirty. I wasn't sure I had translated correctly. He said he began to feel alone, and to feel very ugly. He said that before his encounter with the gospel as portrayed in the Bible he had been a very prideful person, content in his achievements and his intelligence and the pride of his family for these things about him. I knew that what he was saying made sense, but at first it struck me as very strange. And I realized that many people who don't know God simply don't feel a need for Him. And I realized, again, that the way to God dips into a valley before it climbs to heaven. We aren't taken from glory to glory until we've come face to face with the end of ourselves.

This has been a question I've had lately: how to pray for non-believers, when all they really need is God. At my church in America, sometimes they go and pray for people who don't know God, right in front of them. They ask what they need and pray for that. That's probably fine or they wouldn't be doing it, but I said "they" because I've not yet understood how that is supposed to work. It seems to be ignoring the most glaring and basic need in the person's life to pray for them and leave out the part about their heart encountering God, and yet it seems dishonest to leave that part out if you're planning to do it later so that they don't feel weird.

The truth is, when you find a person who is in need of God (aka everyone who doesn't walk with Him yet), what they need first to even be able to approach Him is a deep sense of unease with the way things are going. This might be why some of us describe encountering God as "having your life turned upside down" or "getting rocked" or even (okay, this is just me, in some dramatic moments) "having your life ruined." Because once you see the truth, going back isn't an option. There are no easy roads left to you once your ignorance has been stripped away. You have to do things that break your fleshly little heart, and yet not to do them is to turn your back on the one you love.

All this has been a surprise to me. It's dawned on me very, very slowly. And it's for this that I believe it's not up to us to make the gospel sound appealing to people. I once told a friend it's not like we listen for problems in someone's life and prescribe God to them like a medicine. He's not a product we're selling. We can't even exaggerate how great He is, but we can misrepresent Him sometimes if we try to make (or God forbid, succeed at making) the Christian life look cool. It's just not cool, okay? It's way better than the alternative, but it's not easier, and to tell someone it is can mess them up for a long time as they try to reconcile this paradox. It's not that we convince people into the kingdom; God chooses people, and calls them, and that's His divine initiative. And we can partner with His work by praying that the people we love will come to know Him.

But let's make no mistake about what we're asking. When I ask for someone's salvation, a person far from God who is pretty happy with their life, I am asking that they will be completely broken. That they will begin to feel dirty, and thirsty, and alone. Even ugly. Not that they will stay feeling that way forever with no comfort, but that they will get to that place and not be able to pretend it away anymore.

All through church I kept having more thoughts about this, and I thought, "maybe it's not so bad to pray for a little unhappiness in this life, seeing that it's so fleeting, and painful anyway, and that it could lead to eternal life. It's just like those metaphors about a doctor who gives a painful but life-saving shot, or who relocates a limb, or those people who have to push harder on the trap to free an animal or whatever."

And I also realized that prayers to get closer to God, which we might toss up so casually, knowing they are always a good bet, never the wrong thing to pray, might as well just be prayers for more sadness and more emptiness, so that God can comfort and fill us. It's impossible for Him to fill what is not empty.

I guess if there's anything good about this, at least for me, it is that whenever I am very, very sad (it happens) I am a vessel that can contain more of God's comfort, or when I am empty or alone, I can invite God to fellowship with me in a way that someone who is totally content just wouldn't be able to.

⁸ Even if I caused you sorrow by my letter, I do not regret it. Though I did regret it—I see that my letter hurt you, but only for a little while— ⁹ yet now I am happy, not because you were made sorry, but because your sorrow led you to repentance. For you became sorrowful as God intended and so were not harmed in any way by us. ¹⁰ Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death. ¹¹ See what this godly sorrow has produced in you: what earnestness, what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what alarm, what longing, what concern, what readiness to see justice done. At every point you have proved yourselves to be innocent in this matter. --2 Corinthians 7:8-11

P.S. This idea, paraphrased, "Don't Just Pray For Someone's Happiness, You Fool (Because It Might Interfere With God's Work In Their Life)" was originally given to me about a year ago by good ol Oswald Chambers, and I've been working it through ever since, and continue to realize more about it all the time.

Dirty Jokes and God in Nature

I've always loved the metaphor of God illuminating the universe the way the sun illuminates earth. We'd be hopeless and lightless without Him, and He gives us life so naturally that we take Him for granted at times. Also there is not one thing we could do to stop Him from giving to us, though we could build somewhere we could hide in the shade, though we'd do that by the light of the sun, aka by the life and creativity He shares with us. Then there are places like caves that are not man-made but are naturally ways to escape the light, or, like, places we could go that are not conducive to receiving light and life. But that's a digression. The thing I hadn't thought of before is that nighttimes are not an accident. It's not as though something has gone horribly awry each night and we need to panic. Because the sun always comes up again, we simply trust that it will the next morning and sleep in peace.

If God seems distant for a time, that doesn't mean that we need to freak out and start trying to "relight the sun" by our own power. There are just different seasons for different things. We need to live and trust as though He's going to come back, because He will. Even on cloudy days when the sun is hidden, it's still the way we can see everything, even if we can't see it. And lastly, the moon gives light on most nights, but the moon is only reflecting the sun.

I see this-all (God sort of resembles self-evident things we can understand) as related but not the same as Romans 1:20 (NLT:) For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God.

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Now for dirty jokes. First of all, I think those are the funniest jokes. But I had a great conversation today that made me rethink some stuff. I went to a public high school, and because of that, I am aware of some humor that many home-schoolers (or people raised in a really restrictive home environment) will never understand (this is not me being sassy, it's a fact). This humor almost certainly falls under the category of coarse talk and foolish joking (Ephesians 5:4). I used to be proud of how I could get almost any joke, no matter how gross, proud of how I knew the normal definitions on urban dictionary (there's plenty of stuff on there that no one ever actually uses, so you can't blindly trust it) and was conversant in how to use them. The reason is because it seems more sophisticated, and, well, intelligent, to be able to understand, and furthermore, appreciate, a higher percentage of what's being said. In a way, I would pity those who didn't get it. A whole world out there they didn't understand, and didn't know they didn't understand.

The friend I spoke to today said something like, one's purity of heart may mean that they understand a smaller percentage of the jokes being made around them. This started me thinking, but better yet, they told an improv story. (Names omitted) She said a visiting university's improv troupe, for whom usually no subject was off limits, did a show at a Christian college. The Christian improvisers warned the visitors, "okay, you have to be squeaky clean here, you can't just say anything" and the visitors agreed. During the joint show, the normally-dirty improvisers had no idea what subjects were okay, so they challenged themselves to stay way away from anything slightly controversial. My friend thinks they were even funnier than the Christians who were fluent in the boundaries and stepped quite close to them, knowing what was fine and what wasn't.

Normally I am not huge on risks and challenges but something about the use of the term "challenge," really... reshuffled my mental cards on this matter (Ha. I've never used that metaphor before, or even heard it, ever, but it's exactly what I mean). Maybe being dirtier is not a sign of being smarter, but a sign of being lazier. Maybe you are not more sophisticated if you get more jokes, but instead you're less discerning. Maybe you're avoiding the real challenge, not rising to one.

After all, we call them dirty jokes, and dirtiness is another of those natural things that are self-evident and easily understood. What's harder, to stay dirty or to stay clean? You get dirty without even trying. Cleanliness requires a repeated effort. It doesn't just happen. It's more of a challenge than the alternative. Someone who manages to stay clean or pure should be honored, not pitied. It isn't easy to resist suggestive humor to the extent that you don't even get it. As they say, if you go with the flow you'll end up in a mud puddle at the bottom of the hill. Until now, I've been picking the lazy way out and, stupidly, being proud of that choice.

Lastly, I feel like God's reminding me how cynical I've become and how far I've gotten from a simple, childlike trust in Him. I like to think of how children watch movies (even kids movies) and their parents laugh at what seems like random times to them because they don't get all the nuances yet. I used to glory in being "the adult" no matter what movie it was, but God tells us His kingdom belongs to little children (Luke 18:16) and you must be like them to get into it (Matthew 18:3, Mark 10:15).