A Prayer

There is much I want to be Lord. There is so much in my desires and in my passions. Some of these things are godly, some of them sinful, and some of them are neither. I want to be an intellectual, a genius who knows an inordinate amount about everything. I want to be an amazing video gamer. I want to be an athlete. I want to be a football player. I want to be a full-time student with a 4.0. I want to stay up all night and hangout with people all the time. I want to be a partier. I want to be a flirt. I want to be incredible at interacting with people. I want attention. I want to be alone all the time. I want the American Dream. I want to be a rockstar. I want to be famous. I want to be respected. I want to write brilliant books. I want to quit school and work instead. I want to be unconcerned for others. I want to love people. I want to pursue You in Your word. I want unparalleled theological brilliance. I want to be unmatched. I want to declare truth without love. I want to be arrogant. I want to be humble. I want my life. I want Your will. I want to impress people. I want to impress myself. I want to find my worth in my performance and perfection. I want to find my worth in You. I want to compare myself to others. I want to accept who I am. I want to be attractive. I want glory among men. I want Your glory among men. I want to be loved. I want to live without need for love. I want to hide from everyone. I want unoccluded transparency. I want to be cynical. I want to see the best in everything. I want my peace. I want my safety. I want my stability. I want to trust You for these things. I want to work to get them on my own. I want a cold heart. I want a soft heart. I want a high paying and powerful career. I want to undermine people. I want to smoke. I want to drink. I want to be as much as I think I can be. I want to join the Army and kill people. I want to live in my own fantasy world. I want to live in reality. I want money to have no hold on me. I want power to mean nothing to me. I want to put people before myself. I want purity. I want licentiousness. I want to be who You've called me to be. I want a baby. I want a wife. I want to have sex. I want those things to be incomparable to whatever You have for me. I want to think and talk about You without living for You. I want Your love. I want to live free from Your conviction. I want to live freely. I want to live for You. I want my life. I want Your will. I want to be what I want to be. I want You. I want what You want. I want to be who You've called me to be. Lord take my wants. Take my will. Take my passions. They are vast in number and contradictory in nature. Conform my wants, my passions, my desires, my will to Yours, to Yours, oh Lord. To Yours. I want nothing more than Your will done in me. I want nothing less than Your will done in me. Crucify these desires that I may live in Yours.

The Ache In Me

In recent months, since the summer perhaps (I can't put an exact date on it), my heart has healed in different ways that has left me free to seriously consider and pursue a relationship with girls. And those that know me understand that I want that deeply. It's just something that God has placed upon my heart to desire and go after. I know I haven't been designed for timidity or hesitancy. I move forward, full of the love that drives out all fear.

At least mentally, that's what I did. I opened myself, again, to the possibility of dating someone. For a plethora (most people say they like this word, I think it's kind of lame) of good reasons, manifested actions were curtailed. Well, I did ask one girl on a casual date, but she declined (which I was down with, just glad I didn't sit on my butt and wish I would have asked). It mainly involved rethinking about what it is I desire in a woman and I permitted myself to dream of a Spirit-infused, Christ-centered, Father-glorifying relationship. It's quite the dream.

My dream became a longing. Remembrances of what was not a part of my life perpetuated my wishes for someone to share, experience, and grow with. The passionate craving became a part of my daily existence. I would often think and pray it over, hoping that soon I would have an opportunity to at least experience an infinitesimal degree of it or at least move toward it, however slowly. At no point was my desire sinful, and it's not like I was objectifying women in the way men sometimes do, as things to fill our desire for partnership and relational intimacy (as opposed to objectifying to satisfy virulent lust). Until today. Today I felt an ache like I haven't felt in years. I burned for my dreams to become my reality, or at least to begin emerging. I felt half-full and all but incapacitated.

And I asked why. "My heart aches Lord. What is this emotion? Why is this emotion even existing? Do You want me to feel this way? Is this just my depravity coming through? Just let me feel what You want me to feel. Oh please help me understand this pain!" Then, in His unique voice, quieter than silence, clearer than water, He explained. This ache, this longing beyond what I can remember experiencing, is good. Inherently good. For my desideratum is not a relationship, but YHWH. May my ache drive me to a ceaseless Pursuit.

Disattending To Who Men Are

Jesus didn't really pay any attention to men. Don't get me wrong, he gave people a lot of attention and ascribed to them the infinite worth they have as people. And He loved them deeply. But, Christ dealt with a lot of people - many of those who had a lot of power, influence, and communal respect - without in any way being influenced by the pressure that often comes from dealing with people.

Ever felt that pressure? I sure do. It looks like a lot of different things in my variegated life. Sometimes I feel like I need to say certain things in a certain way to avoid ostracism. Other times I'm talking to someone who is, in some way, really important, so I'm more careful about what I say and I converse in such a way as to impress. Still, at other times, I feel like to accrue love I've got to act within self-constructed confines that I believe others put me in. No matter what caving into the felt (real or not) pressure looks like, it always chains me and limits me.

Back to Jesus (I pronounced it "Hey Zeus" that time). I read about the nature of the environments Jesus was in and the people he was around and ascertain that he probably faced a lot of the same pressures I face, and under which, I falter. He's stood the easy test of being in situations with excessive drinking and not sinning, but some of the others are impressive. At age 30 Christ stood against, in acts and words of blatant subversive deracination, the most exalted men of his culture, lightly shouldering their disapproval. Hundreds who literally followed Jesus, who He called friends, abandoned Him because of His unyielding theology, opting for more meretricious doctrines. One of his best friends tried to get Jesus to take an easier route, Jesus unflinchingly called him Satan. The people He grew up with and knew for His entire life disbelieved what Jesus said of Himself and what He was capable of; Jesus never attenuated a single statement or went into a high-energy unmitigated pursuit to prove them wrong. Over and over again in Scripture, there is Christ immovable in the face of intense people pressures. And, it doesn't even seem difficult for Him… it looks like a light yolk He's under.

And it is. One reason that Jesus is so much better at loving people than I am is that He is free from any sort of explicit or implicit social, cultural, religious, and relational pressures that I too often succumb to. Jesus was able to be around the broken, battered, and sinful without concern for risking his reputation. He could defend the culturally repugnant sinners against the esteemed judgmental Pharisees. Jesus spoke truth passionately, insouciantly, audaciously. And in the end, His freedom from people pressures enabled Him to endure the unequivocal shame of the cross - despised by those who once praised Him, denied and deserted by His closest friends, and betrayed by the very people He came to save.

So, I see this freedom and how essential it is to truly living life in Christ, a child of God in the Kingdom of heaven, but man, it's difficult. I've been held back from living the Christ-infused, God-glorifying life I've been called to because of this difficulty. Too often I refrain from having that difficult conversation with someone close to me. Too often I circumlocute amongst those who have an aversion to Christianity, and my faith remains undiscovered. Too often I quickly catalyze a transient permutation of my character to in some way acquire rapport. Too often I care who people are, what they think, and how that will negatively or positively affect me in the environment I'm in. Too often, too often.

And, honestly, I'm not quite sure what is behind this messed up way of living I find myself in far too frequently. It's a conglomeration of reasons methinks, some probably pretty good and some probably pretty bad. There's probably some fear in there, likely some pride, and I think also a passion to maintain a strong witness and to fame the name of Jesus. Doesn't really matter why so much though, does it? What matter is that I'm not being like Jesus - supremely confident in who God is and who He is in relation to God. Never shrinking back, holding back, or moving back, but ever boldly pressing forward, bringing the Kingdom of God with Him. May I, standing firmly upon my Rock, live freely, and thus, live valiantly.

They came to him and said, "Teacher, we know you are a man of integrity. You aren't swayed by men, because you pay no attention to who they are; but you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth." -Mk 12:14

Understanding God's Love - Part III: It Changes Everything

Alright, so we've covered our indigent state of helplessness and depravity and noted that God's love exists despite that, not as something to be worked for or earned, but is simply there. As I've submitted repeatedly, this acknowledgement of our own sinful repugnance and understanding that God freely loves despite that, is the starting point of a fuller comprehension of God's love. When we accept the merciful, grace-filled gift of the love of God in Christ Jesus, everything changes.

First I've got to a give a short, inadequate, but necessary explanation on the point of God sending His son, in His great act of love, to die for us. God, who created humanity good, looked upon the people He created and saw that they were killing themselves with sin, their corrupted hearts driving them to engage in behaviors, thoughts, and attitudes that were bringing death to their lives, creating a divide between His people and Himself - the source of life. Because of their sinfulness, which is completely antithetical to God's nature, He could not be near them, for when sin is in the presence of God, it is engulfed in flames like chaff in a fire. The requisite result of sin is death. Somehow, God needed to make up for our complete lack, so He did. He sent His Son, who, begotten of God, was by nature God, to live a pure and holy life, and after doing so, being perfect, take our sin and it's consequences upon Himself, through death removing our sin from us forever, through resurrection bringing life where sin once reigned. By doing this for us, God is allowed intimacy with us because our essence has changed. We're no longer contemptible.

The sinfulness in our hearts has been washed away by the blood of Christ. Sinful Humanity, once innocent, has been redeemed by Jesus, given back their purity. We have been given freedom from condemnation, while the sinfulness in us, that has kept us from God, has been condemned. Where death once reigned, we now reign in life. What was dirty has been cleansed. What was broken has been fixed. What was by nature disgusting is now by nature beautifully enthralling. By trusting in God and allowing Him to have us, the very essence of who we are is pure, righteous, and holy. And, as we let His love in more and more, this unwarranted but desperately necessary love begins to change the way we live.

Now, because of our redemption through the love of God in Christ Jesus, we are not only changed on the inside, but we change on the outside. By the same love, His love, that drove us to allow Jesus to have our lives, forgive our sins, and redeem our souls, we are now tenderly impelled to become the person God has made us. Whole, New, Alive. The Spirit of God infused in our souls provides us what we need to live without the sin we were once stuck with. As we continue to allow God in more and more and work toward complete obedience, the beatific essence in us grows and develops, shining forth from the inside into how we act on the exterior. This magnificent interaction between our love-driven active submission and God's love-driven active provision enables us to be people who, inside and out, powerfully resemble Jesus Christ - the very image of life, glory, perfection, and love.

And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power� to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge - that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. - Ephesians 3:17-19