Wholehearted Devotion and a Willing Mind

The Lord your God commands you this day to follow these decrees and laws; carefully observe them with all your heart and with all your soul. You have declared this day that the Lord is your God and that you will walk in obedience to him, that you will keep his decrees, commands and laws—that you will listen to him. And the Lord has declared this day that you are his people, his treasured possession as he promised, and that you are to keep all his commands. –Deuteronomy 26:16-18

And you, my son Solomon, acknowledge the God of your father, and serve him with wholehearted devotion and with a willing mind, for the Lord searches every heart and understands every desire and every thought. If you seek him, he will be found by you; but if you forsake him, he will reject you forever. 1 Chronicles 28:9

God has been reminding me that following Jesus is a big deal. It’s not an add-on to an already full and meaningful existence;* it's the central point. The two verses above were in my Bible reading on the same day last week, and they arrived the day after I felt convicted on this matter. I think lately I pay lip service to Christianity without fully entering into what it means. Here is how I can tell: if someone were to ask me what I am living for, and what the point of my life is, I would reply that it's to glorify God, because I don't have anything better to say, but I would know deep down that if you look at all my actions and motivations, that's not really what I am living for. Because love for Jesus isn't what motivates the majority of my actions. In my daily life, I tend to follow him when it's convenient and lines up with what I would already do.

So what am I living for really? Well, that's the million dollar question in this recently-graduated season of my life. But I am far more lost than I ought to be. What I mean by that: I think some of the fear in my life comes from not accepting truths that the Bible teaches pretty plainly. There are some things I know already that I am still allowing to haunt me with doubt. In 1 Corinthians chapter 7 (which my Bible reading plan had me read with the above verses... what a day!) believers are specifically instructed: "each of you should live as a believer in whatever situation the Lord has assigned to you, just as God has called you." (1 Corinthians 7:17a). Then, "each of you should remain in the situation you were in when God called you," (7:20) is repeated twice. Among other things, I take this to mean that the situation I am in is the one God called me to. I shouldn't expect God to fret or be dissatisfied that the people he calls are in their respective locations. (This is also me reminding myself, again, that God doesn't call most of us to sell all our belongings and move to Africa, though he does call some to.) So I don't have to fear that I am wasting time here. I know God calls us to be wise and make the most of every opportunity (Ephesians 5:15-16), but that is separate from this larger concept of "where I am," and whether I "belong" there. The answer is yes, I freaking belong here. I must accept that and move on to other things, rather than getting mired in this question that has already been answered for me, and using that "confusion" as an excuse to walk or even limp after God rather than running after him.

Living in a jr-sr high school and getting little tastes of the social pressures and raw cruelty of that world, not to mention just plain living in another country's culture, have made me less sure of myself than I was before. I weigh my words as carefully as I can, trying to avoid saying things that will make people laugh at me for reasons I don't understand. When I say people, I of course mean the twelve- and thirteen-year-olds, because almost everyone else is mature enough to not be a jerk about language mistakes. This hesitation to speak is not in keeping with my beliefs about life, which include the idea that the only way to fail is to not try. After all, the more mistakes I make in front of these little critics, the quicker I will get feedback and improve my speech.

I am also less sure of myself at the grocery store, partly since I don't understand everything on the shelves. Today I wasn't sure if I wanted to try a can of beans with meat in it (cassoulet) but I knew I definitely didn't want to when someone else came into the aisle and I imagined looking like a loser, living alone and buying something that looked like dog food in a can. The other shopper was not looking at me, and probably even likes cassoulet, because it's probably good if there were so many shelves of its different versions, but I have not been marching to my own drum here because I have no idea how to act, and the constant awareness of not knowing how to act really throws me curveballs. This one is a great example, I mean, I don't think I would be tempted by cassoulet in America, because it doesn't seem that healthy and it wouldn't even have the distinction of being "French food," so only here in France do I find myself in this sort of weird pseudo-dilemma about what to buy and how it might seem to people I don't know, who don't know I live alone, and who are not looking at what I put in my bag.

So those are two ways I have been ruled by fear instead of living within truths I already know, like: my value doesn't come from what rude foreign children, or random strangers on the street, think about me. Or: I can afford to be kind to people, even if I'm afraid of coming across too intense because no one seems to smile and it's confusing and makes me want to stop trying anything at all.

Out of fear, I have been cherry picking which parts of God’s law and command I follow. I make exceptions for dumb reasons like what other people are doing. That is such a terrible reason because my path is different than theirs. If I want to be inspired by people, I should look at the best things they do and seek to emulate those, not use the failings of others to justify my own bad decisions. I used to justify music piracy because I had a missionary friend that didn’t think it was a big deal and got free music all the time. That is between him and God, just as it is between me and God for me to follow my conscience as best I can and not look for loopholes and exceptions and wiggle room.

As a more recent example, nowadays I seem to overlook the repeated parts of God's commands that suggest (oh wait, actually command) that we devote every part of our lives and ourselves to holiness and to his service. I don't think television is necessarily unholy, but I think using reruns to fill any spare moment that's not spent online is a poor stewarding of the time one is given. More to the point, I think if I get to midnight on a day I had two hours of work, and I have found no time to rest in God's presence, but I found time to watch some TV, I have a problem.

To return to the 1 Chronicles passage: I do have devotion. It's just half-hearted devotion. It's devotion that wakes up and hastily gets dressed when guilt gives it a little kick because it's been a bit since I went out of my way to do something nice. It's devotion that swells when good things happen to me and ebbs when I am bored or I might actually have to be in an awkward social situation with the other teachers. And do I have a willing mind? No. I have a mind that's scared I will be called to talk about the gospel with non-believing friends. That hates that idea, and hates the hate. And feels guilt for it. Then, guilty for this guilt. I have a mind that genuinely has to resist the pull of Futurama when it comes down to a choice between that or reading the Word, a mind that lets the Bible win by just 1%, a percent composed of guilt and wanting to be able to say I made that choice if I ever talk about it. There is some part of me that's willing. I know it! But surely it can't be this fragmented and often grumpy mind.

Last week, two days in a row I went to read my Bible and, through moments of quietness and listening, was led instead to a different activity that still connected me with God. It was awesome. One day, it was much-needed self-reflection through writing, and the next it was music and a reminder of what God is for me. And then an impossibly gentle further point was impressed upon me: I have a part to play, too, if I am the Christ-follower I say I am. It’s an if-then thing, which I appreciate. If I am a Christian, I have made commitments I must live up to. If not, then it doesn't matter how I choose what to do. But it's not fair to call myself by Christ's name and then put Jesus second or third on my list of what I live for. Especially if reason #1 is super amorphous and contradictory and more composed of negatives and evasion tactics than anything defined and positive.

Even though this whole thing seems negative and makes me sound really bad, I take comfort in the fact that, as evidenced by my last paragraph, God honors my efforts to reach out to him. I am not terribly disciplined yet, but he is giving me a heart just like his, and that can take a while. One of the hardest things for me to accept as a short-tempered human is God's patience with my serious issues and my waffling. He's not surprised by any of this, and it doesn't make him love me less. Instead I bet he's happy I noticed the glaring problem, and that he accepts whatever little part of my heart is his that is trying to get the rest of my heart on board. I have a hope and a belief that I am moving in the right direction, because God will do the heavy lifting (there's a lot of it) to change me, if only I ask him to. It has to be this way, because I can't do this on my own.

-

*Ha, not that I have that right now anyway.

All My Loving

"Close your eyes and I'll kiss you,
Tomorrow I'll miss you;
Remember I'll always be true.
And then while I'm away,
I'll write home ev'ry day,
And I'll send all my loving to you."

Today I was sitting on a bus randomly listening to "All My Loving" from the movie Across the Universe. I suddenly asked myself, "isn't this the song the guy sings the girl from across the ocean while there's a montage of him cheating on her?" I remembered how I had used to really enjoy the song before seeing the movie, because I took all the words at face value, and I had a revelation.

I believe people. When they tell me things about themselves, I buy them. The best example of this is when they tell me they don't have romantic feelings for someone. I believe their words in spite of their actions. This post isn't meant to target anyone in particular, because this has happened to me several times. And the conclusion I have come to is that people don't know themselves, either. It would be hypocritical of me to complain about this, since I certainly don't understand myself, and I am a verbal processor to boot. But this realization makes it difficult to trust people. It almost seems stupid to do so when so often I get burned in the end, whether simply looking foolish in front of other, more intuitive mutual friends, or feelings of betrayal when people blatantly go against what they told me to my face and I chose to trust.

My question would be how do you know when to trust people and when to ignore what they repeatedly verbalize in face of stronger evidence... but I said "would be," because ultimately I have no question. There isn't an answer. Sometimes I will just be wrong, and that can't be predicted in advance.

But I think there might be inherent value to trusting, given that I'll make mistakes whether I favor trust or cynicism. At the end of The Magician's Nephew, there are talking animals, and they are very nice. But Uncle Andrew can't understand their words and just thinks they are making animal noises, and is afraid of them because he perceives them as violent brutes. This is because Uncle Andrew is a giant jerk. C.S. Lewis is careful to point out here that our personal character affects the way we see others and the assumptions we make about them.

Right now I can't speak for trusting in all circumstances. I still don't trust that all the money we give to beggars goes to a good cause, for example, and my students here lie to my face without breaking a sweat. But in the context of established friendships, I wonder whether believing the words people chose for you to hear-- hard though it may be, and even though you might ultimately be wrong to do so-- is beneficial enough that it's worth it to try. To fight the instinct to distrust everyone forever, just in case. (This instinct isn't unreasonable, after all. Most people in your life end up hurting you, maybe even a lot.) To stay pure of heart and let God defend you when people take advantage. Yet in the end, I just don't know.

[Lastly,

"I'll pretend that I'm kissing
the lips I am missing
And hope that my dreams will come true."

This is unrelated, but I have to complain about this line. In the context of cheating, it's particularly horrible. In my opinion you can't pretend to be kissing the lips you are missing unless you are actually kissing some other pair of lips. Otherwise you'd just be imagining it.]

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.

If you are not too long...

...I will wait here for you all my life. -Oscar Wilde

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Today an episode of Futurama made me cry. I thought that I was just being extra sensitive lately (yesterday I burst into tears five separate times) but in fact that was not necessarily the case today, as I am about to prove. I wanted to find a picture for this post, and when I began my search I was surprised how much Google Instant filled in for me; I clearly wasn’t the first to look for it. I came across the episode’s Wikipedia page and saw that a critic described the ending as, “one of the saddest endings to a television program that I have ever seen.” A TV critic. I’d assume this man has seen his fair share of television programs, and of sad endings. So that made me feel better, but what really clinched it was the enormous amount of commenters on some site (and also below the youtube video) talking about how this made them cry, even though many of them said they weren’t the crying type, or hadn’t cried in five years or whatever. So in this particular case, it’s definitely not just me.

SPOILER ALERT, I’m going to ruin this 2002 episode of Futurama. I don’t feel that bad about it because the rest of the episode wasn’t that great (my overall personal take on this show is that it’s very hit or miss, but mostly miss) and it’s not like you were planning to see it anyway.

So, for necessary background, the character Fry was living in New York in 1999 when on New Year’s Eve of that year he accidentally fell into a thing (a freezer? A time machine? Who cares) that sent him to the year 3000, where he made new friends, etc. Life in the year 3000 is the show’s basic premise. In this particular episode (it’s called “Jurassic Bark”—very classy) Fry and his self-centered robot best friend visit a museum exhibit that happens to be of the pizza place where Fry was working in 1999. They see a few artifacts Fry recognizes, and then a gray dog-shaped fossil. Fry gasps when he realizes who this is: his loyal dog, Seymour, who was his best friend at the time he was suddenly sent to the future with no warning. Through flashbacks you see how close the two of them were. Examples: after rescuing the dog from starvation, Fry says something like, "you're nice, you don't judge me like other dogs do," (my translation from French) and they have a song they sing/bark together.

Bref, I mean, anyway, Fry's doctor friend says he can clone the dog, and that they can even restore his personality, and even his memory to the moment that he died. Fry is SO excited about this idea and buys his dog a collar and a bed and everything in preparation. The robot gets jealous of the attention (and the collar) and throws the fossil in lava, but then rescues it, this just serves to heighten the suspense, and then the moment of truth arrives and they begin the cloning process. First they see that Seymour was age 15 when he died. When Fry sees this, he decides not to go through with it, reasoning that he knew Seymour when he was three, so the dog had had 12 years to move on, find a different master, live a full life. He says, "surely he's forgotten all about me." This is sort of a touching/selfless idea, and who would want to be resurrected old?

It seems like the end of the episode. But then there's one more flashback. Seymour never moved on at all. He sat outside the pizza place every day for twelve years, in all kinds of weather, a fact made most poignant when you see the pizza chef grow old, with white hair, and the pizza place close and get boarded up. He waited for Fry for the rest of his life at the place they last saw each other. Finally Seymour lies down, just once, and closes his eyes and the episode ends. I'm tearing up just typing about it. (It's very findable on youtube but I don't think it would be as good without the more detailed backstory provided by the episode).

I think the idea that really got me was that after all, Seymour would have LOVED to see Fry. Even if it were just for a little while before he would die again, even just one moment. That would have made his life complete in a sense. Yet Fry didn't give him this chance because he was trying to be nice, because he didn't know any better.

When I (and/or others) have a really strong emotional reaction to something, I try to find some sort of way that the emotion-triggering-thing can relate to universal ideas, and/or to God.

In my opinion, a surefire trigger (if done well, of course) is this idea of two ships passing. Sometimes it's two people who physically occupy the same space, but in Grey's Anatomy and The Golden Compass it can also be people who are in a physical space that overlaps but that is spiritually a different/alternate dimension and thus at least one of the people has no way to see, hear, or feel the other person, though they might somehow sense their presence, a little, for a moment.

"All day long I have held out my hands to an obstinate people," -Isaiah 65:2a

I don't see God as a stray dog who waits for us outside a pizza place. Honest, I don't. But if this animated rescued-stray dog's 12 year waiting made me cry, then how much more powerful is it when God waits for us? Waits for we who were created to wait on him. He waits with open arms for his children to turn to him, and many of them never sense this. They never see that in their very own universe (not even an alternate one!) Someone holds out their hands, hoping for a response. I don't have an extremely clear picture of my theological beliefs in this area as regards every human who has ever lived, but I will say confidently that, at least some of the time, God waits for us, eager to share life with us. And his patience and forbearance are beyond all measurement or compare.

If we only knew how attentive God is towards us, even when we do not sense him at all. If we only saw all the ways he blesses us that we're not even aware of. "The Lord longs to be gracious to you; he rises to show you compassion. For the Lord is a God of justice. Blessed are all who wait for him!" (Isaiah 30:18)

I think these words are at the heart of the emotion for me: "If you only knew!" Someone could be praying for you right now, asking God for exactly that thing you need. You could be showing hospitality to an angel (Hebrews 13:2, lol). You could be days away from your next big break. Someone could be writing you a letter, or something could already be in the mail for you. Someone across the world, your next best friend, could be making the decision about what they'll do next in life, that will bring them into your neighborhood.

A closing thought. At prayer meeting tonight, our pastor mentioned that reading the Bible all the way through is something that should be completed by at least 1-3 years after someone gives their life to Christ. He's right, and I am not in any way denying that. But 1-3 years? How patient God is. I think the length of the Bible shows it as much as anything. God doesn't expect us to read the entire Bible in one day. Nor does he ask us to panic about it if we haven't finished yet. It's not about being finished reading the Bible, it's about reading the Bible every day. God just doesn't see time as we do: "With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but wanting everyone to come to repentance." (2 Peter 3:8-9)

God, thank you for allowing me to glimpse your truth and the beauty of faithfulness today through a scruffy cartoon dog.

Women's Bodies and 2nd-Best Friends: paradigms change your life, yo

I think a great deal of my angst comes from my chronic tendency to see things in black and white. This means, for example, that for a long time I assumed that participating in things meant I should be the best at them, and if I would not be the best, I was failing and it wasn't necessarily worth it to continue in what I was doing. A nice thing about improv is that it's so thoroughly a team sport that this way of thinking about it doesn't make any sense. I am more than lucky (I call it providence) that that was my main college "sport."

But now I believe the only thing I should aim to be the best at is being myself. Frankly, I don't have the self-discipline to be the best at singing or ice-skating or graphic design, though I like two of those things. There is no such thing as a best writer, because everyone's style is so different, though admittedly writing seems like a weird thing to do when you consider that everyone who is literate is capable of it, and there are thousands (more, even) of very talented writers out there doing their thing. Does the world need another one? Well, no and yes. No other writer is me. Thus no other writer has been and lived in all the exact combination of places I have physically and emotionally. And no one else has my mind. If writing was purely for entertainment value, well, no one will ever run out of things to read in their lifetime, so I'm adding to the noise. But if writing is to share viewpoints in a world where literally no two people have the same one, then it's not a useless pursuit.

This is meant to illustrate the importance of paradigms. I will take two personal examples to show how a correct vision of something can bring peace of mind, perhaps even joy, though the situation has not changed in any other way.

When I was, oh, I don't know what age(s) exactly, an adolescent, my body changed from that of a child to that of an adult. Pretty cool, huh. The thing was, though, that for years I didn't understand what a woman's body should look like. Or I will rephrase, the shape a woman's body normally has, on average. I never thought about it at all, and then when my body started looking different, I suddenly cared. But I was all wrong. I cannot imagine where I got all my warped views, but I thought the waist was located at the hips, and that it was supposed to be so small you could almost span it with your hands. I thought that thighs were to be completely straight with no roundness to them. I looked at my body and thought, "What the heck is going on here?! Why do I look like this?" I hated the tops of my little legs for each having one long curve down the front of them, because I thought that roundness was an indicator of fatness, and I didn't want to be fat. In retrospect, I guess most of the women I'd seen were curveless models, broken up by the occasional Disney princess. In fact, I'm sure that if I had tried to draw my mental image of what women look like (a combination of those two), it wouldn't have made any sense and I would have more quickly discovered my error. As it was, I don't remember how or when I was put right. I think I read something somewhere that jolted me out of my preconceptions. After this, I do remember noticing the hourglass shape on basically all women, once I started to look for it, and being surprised every time that we all look like that! But when I finally got it, I stopped being bewildered, confused, and vaguely resentful of my body. My body hadn't changed, but when my perspective finally did, it changed everything.

These are the waists I grew up seeing (the words I could take or leave, they're funny but not essential):

[source]

My second example is shorter, and I'm keeping it vague. Basically, I often get jealous of other peoples' friendships. I make progress in this area, then regress again, and I don't know where I'm at with it now. But recently I had the idea that perhaps, just perhaps, I am not meant to be best friends with a particular one of my dearest friends. Maybe God chose before the foundations of the world that I would only be her 2nd or 3rd best friend. This changed everything for me. If this is the case, I don't have to waste one more second wishing I were different, or competing with (any) other girl (or guy). I can be exactly myself, and love my friend in a specific way, without constantly measuring the strength or closeness of our friendship against any other. I can stop keeping score and just do my thing. I don't have to be best friends with all my friends.

This is what I think life is about: we can stop keeping score and just do our thing. [Warning: the rest of this paragraph is repetitive.] God has put us in a position where our task is to love him the way only we can love him. At onething the year I went, 25,000 people sang a song together (to God, obviously): "No one else can love you like I love you, Lord, cause I was made unique in your heart, I was made to bring you joy." The first many times I tried to sing this, even in the privacy of my room, I cried. It's true, though.* No one can love God the father like I love him. No one can love Jesus like I love him. No one can love and honor the Holy Spirit like I love him. If I were missing, if my voice weren't here, speaking, something would be missing. I was meant to be here, and to love him. I was made unique, and my function was, and is, and always will be, to be me. No one is better at that than me. Others might be better at golf, or writing, or speaking French or German, or small talk, they might date or marry sweet people that I would not have said no to, they might even be better friends with friends I love, but no one can take my place. And God does not, will never, love them more than he loves me, no matter what goes down (or up) in our respective lives.

I want everyone to know that this is true of them, too. I will put it in the second person, to this end. God made you to be you. No one can be better at your primary task in life, which is to glorify God using your unique gifts. No matter what others have that you don't, be it adventures or money or relationships, they have not taken it out of your pocket, because you're not competing with them. You're not even to be compared to them. God sees to it that you have enough of the right things for you, for now. You are never short-changed if Jesus is your king; you can't be. He doesn't make mistakes, and he's an abundant giver.

Viewing life through any other lens (as I admit to doing like 90% of the time) brings anxiety, jealousy, perhaps self-disgust, sometimes fear, sometimes confusion, sometimes even shame. And this, my friends, is why I think healthy paradigms are essential.

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*Also the melody is charming and somehow lends itself to tears with all its high jumps.

Too Good to be True: You're Not Breaking the Law

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I know some people think The Shack (the book by William P. Young, not the shack pictured above) has dangerously false ideas in it. Maybe it does. But I think most or maybe all books can contain truths that set people free if handled/interpreted properly, or harm people if misused. I have no doubt that a Spirit-filled, Spirit-led person reading The Shack would be more blessed than harmed by its contents. I recommend this book highly to everyone with the caution that some of it is cheesily and badly written, but the best parts more than make up for the worst.

In The Shack one of the members of the Trinity (I forget which, beautifully, in this case I don't think it matters) says, “The Law that once contained impossible demands—‘Thou shall not…’—actually becomes a promise we fulfill in you.” This was a transformative thing for me to read. In this case, that means I haven't forgotten or gotten sick of the idea, even many months later, and I continue to find new applications for it. A few Scriptures jump out to me as lining up with this idea. Romans 12:1-2 exhorts us “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.” It doesn’t say, “transform yourself,” but “be transformed,” and we as are also incapable of renewing our own minds, that clause, too, puts us in the being-acted-upon category rather than that of the agent: promises are fulfilled in us.

I’ll make a plug here for an idea I heard long ago at Hillsong London and then again briefly at my prayer meeting in St. Claude Thursday night. This is important. What is God's will? How can one discern it? How can you make choices that line up with his will? Good news, pastors say, it's simple: God’s will is always for you to live in such close relationship with him that you can’t help but do good, whether you realize it or not. It might not matter where you live, for example, as long as while you are there you are walking hand in hand with God, seeking him, trusting him, listening for his voice and heeding it when it comes. Same for what job you pick, and maybe other things too. So discerning God’s will might not be hearing your five-year-plan from him one particularly intense prayer night and jotting it down so you can hit all the highlights as they come up. His good, pleasing, and perfect will is for you to love him with all you have, and to love your neighbor, and put their needs on at least equal footing with your own, if not putting them first, depending on the verse you’re currently meditating on. :o) You can start doing this with whoever you interact with next. God’s will. What a blessing to be inside it. How great that you can be there the second you turn to him in faith and pursue him.

All of Romans chapter 8 is a delight to read. I’ll put just a few verses here (though there are more along these same lines) for brevity’s sake. “…And so [God] condemned sin in sinful man, in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit. Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what the nature desires, but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace. […] You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you.” (Romans 8:3b-9a)

I mean, this is neat. If you say Jesus is Lord and mean it--as opposed to saying it just to say it or because you’ve heard other people say it--the Spirit of God is in you (because "no one can say 'Jesus is Lord,' except by the Holy Spirit" 1 Corinthians 12:3b). So if you believe Jesus is Lord, then you are controlled by the Spirit and not the sinful nature. And if that is the case, then simply by living you are fulfilling the demands of the law rather than breaking it. And the demands of the law are totally impossible for humans to keep, so this is the sort of thing that is too good to be true, but is found within God’s promises and is thus still somehow true.

God-wrestler

I think the first time I learned and retained that "Israel" means "God-wrestler" (I've also heard: "he struggles with God") was my senior year of college. I really didn't like it. I complained to Jeremy at the train station (because I learned the weekend of improv regionals) that God and Israel are supposed to be spouses! Not wrestle each other. Yucky. I hate wrestling. (I do struggle with God sometimes, but again, that doesn't sound like a good thing.)

When I was reading Prayer by Philip Yancey he said some of the people in the Bible who were most richly rewarded were those who bargained with God and got in His face about stuff. God frequently is petitioned and shows even more mercy than He was going to. Yancey (paraphrase) writes that He likes when we ask because it can unleash more mercy on earth. Obviously I can see how this is so in the case of Abraham asking to spare those cities if fewer and fewer righteous people can be found (Genesis 18:16-33 if you forgot). Yancey asks: "Abraham stopped asking; would God have spared the cities for just one person?" Also there's that story in Luke 18:1-8 about the widow who won't stop bothering the judge until he gives her the justice she asks for. My TNIV Luke 18:1 says "Jesus told [this] parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up." And there are plenty of others in the Bible too.

Yancey also mentions his relationships with the people closest to him in life, like his brother, his wife, and his editor. About them he says "with each of these people, my intimate partners, I act in a way reminiscent of the bargaining scenes with God. I make suggestions, back off, accommodate their point of view, reach a compromise and come away changed."

Obviously I think it's possible to argue/fight/wrestle someone without love, but maybe there's significance in the fact that they can be done with love, too, and it might be a sign of love to be willing to. It can be really really hard to bring up some things with people, and most of us aren't willing to talk about tough stuff with those we don't know too well. Some aren't even willing to bring them up with friends. But like Yancey says, challenge changes us.

There was also a part I read and was disgusted by. Yancey talks about wrestling his brother in the dark when they were both little kids. And I am paraphrasing this, but he said it was a lot like making love, because you grapple back and forth, using up your energy against each other, body on body, then fall back, spent. I was like, "hello, incest!" but the image has stuck with me for months now. Perhaps because he's right that wrestling indicates a certain closeness. That's why it's far more blessed to wrestle with God than to simply be far away from Him. Sometimes literally.. Jacob receives God's blessing (after having to ask for it) when the wrestling is over in Genesis 32:26-29.

Maybe this is part of the key to the spousal relationship between Israel and God. Maybe a marriage is a promise to keep wrestling and not just peace out when hard stuff comes up, because something of deep value is gained through the back-and-forth of an honest, loving challenge. And maybe that something is the experience of turning into the strong and selfless person you were created to be in the arms of the one you love best.