It's all just talk ...

Today I got an email that made me nervous. It was a polite request for a meeting, but something about it raised a lot of questions and even alarms in my mind. Because I assumed I knew what the meeting would be about, I got angry. Then I got beligerent. I ranted for a while. I worried for a while. I huffed, and I puffed, and if there'd been anything wobbly nearby I'd have blown it down! As I sat in my chair, I caught sight of my cell phone from the corner of my eye. I love my cell phone cause my friends live in there. In a rush, I began to think about a variety of conversations I've had in the last two weeks with my friends. I thought about all of the things they are having to trust God for, and all of the times I have counseled them that trusting Him is the best and only way to weather life's storms. You can probably guess the next thought through my head. "Will you trust Me, Kristen?" Ah, man! I was busted. I had to run through a series of "But God's ..." before I finally surrendered. It's amazing what happens when you give to the Lord what's already His. I spent a little time telling Him how much I love the things I think might be threatened. I told him how scared I am of what the future might hold. I told him how nervous change and transition make me, especially when they come from so many angles all at once! I didn't hear any audible voice or have any real visions, but it wasn't hard for me to imagine my insanely patient, gracious heavenly Father nodding calmly as I listed each concern and saying simply, "I know."
He knows. He knew before the email came. It's all just talk until it's my turn to practice it, and I desperately want to live it well. So, I've given Him the email. I've given Him the meeting. I've given Him my future. (All things He already owned, of course!) Tonight, after a full day at work and three more hours at VBS, I finally had time to call a friend and give vent to all my concerns. You know what I found? I didn't have any. I got her on the phone, and I couldn't think of a worry one to tell her about. :-)
"Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God, and the peace of God which passes all understanding will guard your heart and your mind in Christ Jesus." ~ Philippians 4:6-7

Boiling Frogs

This post must begin with a confession. I love pop culture. I am a sucker for countdowns of any kind. When I had cable, I was almost always tuned in to E! Entertainment News or whatever the current celeb-reality show was on VH1. If you give me a choice between Southern Living or People magazine while waiting for a my nail technician to get the pedicure water just the right temperature, I'm always picking People. Sometimes, my conscience gets the best of me, and I'll pick a news magazine over US or OK!, but not always. I have a cousin who prays for celebrities. She genuinely grieves when a celebrity marriage fails because she's honestly invested energy into praying for the couple. I'm not that good.

These are just the facts. You need to know this about me.

Not having cable has helped curb that appetite a lot. I don't have cable because I can't afford it, not because I'm trying to be holy or anything. I'm just saying ...

Anyway, about boiling frogs. It is said that if you place a frog in boiling water, he will hop right back out. But, if you place a frog in tepid water and slowly increase the temperature, he will adapt until he simply boils to death.

My love affair with pop culture has been much like boiling a frog I'm afraid, and it took leaving "civilization" for ten days to realize it. I was getting ready for work the other morning at my house, and the radio was on the top 40 station. I thoroughly enjoy their morning dj's, and I rarely pay attention to the lyrics of the songs until they're already stuck in my head. On this particular morning, there was a catchy song I didn't recognize playing when I turned off the hairdryer. For whatever reason, I actually listened to the lyrics. I got about two lines in before I ran for the buttons to change stations! It was so appalling to me. I was shocked, horrified, and disappointed that this station that makes me laugh so much in the mornings would make that song part of their format. I was indignant!

That indignation lasted about two seconds before conviction set in and the tender voice of the Holy Spirit showed me that my conscience had been slowly boiling to death for a long time now. The truth is that the song I turned off is appalling, but so are most of the others ones I don't turn off. The truth is that I should have been shocked and horrified that I let that trash into my room that morning, but the reality is that I'd been pumping a whole lot of other trash through those speakers for way too long.

For much of last week, there was a sentence that kept running through my mind, and I wanted to blog about it. "Sin is never the right way." It was the Holy Spirit's way of reminding me that sin is never justifiable, and it's never something that God can or will bless. In His grace, he doesn't drop me dead, but he could, and he'd be right to do so. This week, the thing that keeps running through my head, something that I'm going to have a much harder time really heeding, is "Sin is not funny." I know many of you are thinking, "Well, duh, Kristen." And maybe you have a much healthier conscience and sense of humor than I do. If that's the case, I am so glad for you. The truth is, I don't. I laugh at all the wrong things. I am not easily offended. I am quick to forget that a Holy Spirit dwells in me and is grieved by anything that is dishonoring to the Lord or separating God from the world He sent His Son to save. The truth is I rarely change the channel be it on the radio or the television. And, the truth is, I should. A lot more often than I do.

There is an old joke about Baptists and beer. It says don't take one Baptist fishing with you cause he'll drink all your beer. Take two. They'll never touch the stuff.

I think that's a lot like the way I approach pop culture. If you were sitting in my car, in my home, in my room with me and something like that came on the airwaves, I'd pretend to be horrified, and I'd quickly switch it something more edifying. But, when you're not there to watch me pretend to be holy, most of the time I don't bother. I just let it play and pretend like I'm not boiling.

God, give me stronger convictions. Teach me to love what you love and to hate what you hate. Make me aware of and sensitive to things that grieve your Holy Spirit. Forgive me for allowing myself to be so comfortable in such slowly boiling water. Give me courage to jump out before the temperature can be turned up another notch.

My Daddy, My Daddy, My Sweet Sweet Daddy!

Someday (hopefully sooner than later) I plan to write a book called "Daddy's Girl" and include pictures like these, not just from my own collection, but also from my friends, along with stories about girls and their daddies. The idea first came to me about two years ago when sweet friends were expecting their first child. Upon finding out that they were expecting a little girl, he seemed distraught. "What am I going to do with a girl?" I laughed. Hard. (I know that's tough to imagine, but ...) I laughed because according to my grandmother, it's exactly what my dad said the day I was born. The doctor had been so sure they were expecting "Jonathan Fain Eugene" and out came "Kristen Rea." Nana says Daddy, the football coach, walked into the waiting room with a stunned look on his face and said very slowly, "It's a girl. What do you do with a girl?" :-) I sat with my friends that day and began telling stories of things that made my relationship with my daddy special and talking about all of the wonderful opportunities he would have as a daddy to create special memories with his little girl.

I haven't written the book, but I did come across these pictures the other day. David Horton is the finest man I know. The man that the world sees and knows and loves is the same man at home. He's full of integrity, gives wise and godly counsel ("Do what you know to be right."), has an incredibly tender heart of compassion (that is often hidden by the way he laughs when people get hurt), is gifted with an ability to put others at ease in almost any situation, and for 32 years has done the best thing any father can do for a child -- he loves my mom!

Happy Father's Day, Daddy. I love you.

When It Seems Easier Not to Believe

I had a conversation last week with a friend who calls himself a skeptic/atheist. He wants to question God about why things have happened in his life, but he's not entirely certain there is a God to be questioned.

This was a difficult conversation for me because everything in me wanted to defend God. How dare he not believe in the Almighty? How dare he not trust God's divine providence? How dare he question God's goodness? The funny thing is, whether blatantly or inadvertantly, I am fairly certain I pose a lot of the same questions on a frequent basis in my own heart and mind.

Believing God isn't always easy.

As I thought about all that this friend has experienced, and I reflected back on painful seasons in my own life, I realized that sometimes it really does seem easier not to believe.

I wrote a few weeks ago about Habakkuk. I'm preparing to teach Habakkuk 2 tomorrow night, and I'm increasingly intrigued by the prophet's relationship with God. The prophet asked honest questions, rooted in his knowledge of and confidence in God's character. God answered with a vision. Only, it wasn't the vision of the end, it was a vision of the middle of things. It wasn't the picture of God and His people triumphing. It was a picture of evil men overtaking God's people, followed by a picture of the same evil men being destroyed by their own pride. It was ugly and dark and terrifying. And, still, Habakkuk responds with praise. And, I am challenged. Will I do the same?

Sometimes, particularly in the darkness where daily life feels like an open wound being opened and salted repeatedly until we become blinded and numb by grief and pain, when evil appears to triumph over good, and the Rescuer is nowhere in sight, it seems easier not to believe. Isn't it easier to believe that there's Nobody or Nothing out there than to have to cling desperately to the belief that an all-knowing, all-powerful, sovereign God not only allowed our circumstances but has not chosen to change them?

I remember clearly the day I cried out to Him in anguish, telling Him how I wished He wasn't there, so I wouldn't feel so angry and betrayed by what He hadn't done. Scripture likens that conversation to the clay calling out to the potter, and it's truly laughable now, but it was no laughable matter at the time.

Here's some of what I learned from that place.

A) God does ordain darkness. There are times when He allows His children to walk through dark places for a variety of reasons. Isaiah 50:10 says, "Let Him who walks in darkness and has no light trust in the name of the Lord and rely on His God."

B) God never leaves us in the darkness. His silence does not equal His absence.

C) God and I have different definitions of good. Psalm 73:28, "But as for me, the nearness of God is my good." Psalm 34:18, "The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit." Psalm 119:71, "It is good for me that I was afflicted, that I might learn your statutes."

D) God's heart is always for my good. God has never allowed anything into my life that He could not make beautiful when surrendered to His skillful, loving hand. Ephesians 2:10, "For we are God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared in advance for us to do."

E) He who gave His son for me, will never withhold any good thing from me. Romans 8:31-32, "What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?"

I've been thinking a lot lately about the power of personal testimony. A very wise friend spoke to me as I was coming out of that dark season saying, "Kristen, don't you think it's important when you look people in the eye and speak to them of God's faithfulness that there be something deep inside you that is able to communicate that with the conviction of experiential knowledge?" She was so right. I sit across my desk every day from broken women, and I can tell them with utter confidence that my God is mighty to save. I can look directly into the eyes of a friend steeped in dark pain and confidently tell him that God is near, and He is good.

Yes, there are times I admit it seems easier not to believe. But, the despair of that state of mind is intolerable. I choose the more difficult road of belief because hope sustains me. "Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail." Lamentations 3:22

Quote

God cannot give us happiness and peace apart from Himself because it is not there. There is no such thing. ~ C.S. Lewis

Change?

I returned to DFW from 10 days in Peru on Sunday afternoon. Our plane landed about 11:30 a.m. By the time we dropped off film, ate lunch, picked up film, and got home it was 2:00 p.m. I enjoyed a leisurely soak in the tub, then got busy uploading pictures and journaling. Friends brought dinner over around 5:30, and we visited, looked at pics and souvenirs until 9:00. I went to bed at 9:45, woke just before 6:00 a.m. on Monday morning, and I was at my desk by 8:00. I worked, I ran errands, I had dinner with friends, I went to bed. I told everyone I was "fine" and I joked about how quickly I was diving back into life here. This morning, I woke much more slowly, and I took a long look at myself in the mirror as I prepared for work. I went through the motions of fixing my hair and putting on makeup (simple routines), but nothing felt the same. It seemed strange to put on make up, to spend time curling my hair, to search for earring to match my blouse. I thought to myself, "Did that trip really change me this much?" It nagged at me. Then, I headed into the kitchen and grabbed my usual Pop-Tart breakfast, and I thought, "Nah, it didn't change me that much," with a smirk. However, as I got in my car and drove to the office, I couldn't decide if I was more concerned that the trip had changed me or worried that maybe it hadn't. I know there are things about me that needed to be changed, and I want them to be different. I don't want to be the same as I was before I experienced a week in the jungle. I shouldn't be the same.

The two greatest things about my trip that I can identify so far are very simple things. 1) Not once during the entire time I was gone did I find myself doubting God's goodness, questioning His faithfulness, or wondering if His plan for my life really was a good one. I didn't worry about anything or question whether or not He really would show up in the places we visited each day. His presence was as real to me as the keys I'm typing on now, and as natural as the breaths that are sustaining me even now. 2) The gospel became simple again. As I translated a sermon one afternoon, and as I visited with a new believer on another occassion, I realized just how good the Good News is. 4 1/2 years of seminary education and a lifetime of Baptist politics had complicated things in my head. But, in the jungle, where people are literally dying for Hope, the simplicity of God's love story was stunning.

The IMB estimates that there are some 340,000 people in the Amazon River Basin who have yet to hear the gospel, who simply do not have access to the gospel because of their location. Yet, for some unknown reason, God has seen fit to make himself known in seven tiny Yagua villages along that mighty river's shores. And, the most confounding thing to me, He's seen fit to allow us to be a part of that glorious revelation.

The jungle was not easy to get to and my favorite place to stay. 10 hours in three different planes, another 10 hours in a motor boat, mosquitoes, biting flies, chiggars, spiders, unsanitary water, suffocating heat and humidity, cold showers (when showers were available at all), mud everywhere, and plenty of unidentifiable foods. Did I mention the hammocks? Or the roosters? The lack of electricity? Oh! let's not forget the monkeys! And yet, after all of that, something in me still thrills at the thought of it all. Something God-sized is happening in that jungle, and for five days, I got to be part of it.

Yes, I think it's fairly certain that it's changed me. I hope it's a permanent change.

Home again, home again!

I'm back from Peru. My notes from that trip are at www.reapperu.wordpress.com, but you can see pics here. I hope to have some entries up soon as I begin processing the things God taught me personally. This morning however, we have a new CCWJC class to kick off, and my head is spinning from the speed of the shift back into life here!