Homeostasis: the maintenance of equilibrium
We want things to go well; everything in us longs for comfort, familiarity, and stability. I believe fervently with each passing day, that chasing after God often means we are knocked off-balance into the realms of the unexpected. A life after God, to be a 'Jesus-follower', I imagine, is a truly frightening, unknowable, yet exhilarating and ultimately fulfilling existence.
The weekend before last, I was blessed with an early and unexpected birthday present: 'Unwrap the Bible' from Women of Faith, held in Houston, Texas. Moreso through circumstances than speeches, God reminded me that He never does what I expect. His realities incinerate my expectations - every time. And with Him, I genuinely love being wrong.
See, our God is in the business of doing the unexpected. He performed miracles. He waited until timed moments in history. He let men die. He chooses losers; He chooses the lost and the last. His power shines out of human weakness. He reminded me that weekend, that when everything is easy to label and our lives run monotonous, we can still be pursued, wooed, upturned, and re-oriented from the flat-line by His gracious, unstoppable, tremulous, and unfailing Love. The refuge of God's love becomes human homeostasis.
Friday night was amazing; after a four hour delay at DIA we arrived at the conference in Houston on time, well-fed, and excited for what God would say through powerful speakers, and how He would move through this... multi-thousand seat auditorium - in the middle of a huge city, lined with palm trees marinating cheekily in 70 degree weather. A time of growth, a change in scenery {in location, in momentum} ... my happiness and the anticipation were palpable; I could feel it in my hands... then mind, soul, body, heart.
Each speaker would preach heart points on one woman of the Bible throughout the weekend; Beth Moore was the sole speaker Friday night, and she talked about Hagar {sidebar - six months ago I would have run from a women's conference, cry-laughing behind the person's back who thought it possible to cram me into a plane, Stepford wife-smiling excitedly for such an event. Isn't God hilarious? My life a cosmic joke? That in a season of pain and growing, God smashed one of my idols, that "dude teachers are what's what!", at my feet, now using only women to teach me? To befriend me? To mentor me? The Unexpected.} So Beth Moore... with Hagar and Ishmael wandering through the desert. She has this grapeskin for water, but it's run empty. And she's crying, because she knows her son is going to die, and it's overwhelming-painstakingly serious-moaning in the desert-shaking her fist at God pain. It's here where, in typical Beth Moore fashion, she hones in on this one Biblical factoid about the grapeskin, and dresses it as an unrelated challenge.
{"Are you holding out your empty grapeskin for someone to fill that isn't God?"}
I'm not kidding; it was like a punch to the stomach. I enthusiastically stood up, called out - "YES." Self-loathing. "Yes, I am! Hallelujah, sister. Amen!" Trying not to cry, I'm the only person in my section screaming - - a perfectly timed metaphor and reflection of a heart crying out amongst seemingly silent peers.
{Remember! 1 Peter 5:9}
That night, I got sick. I would continue to be sick throughout the remainder of the conference, feverish, floating in and out of what God's people were saying, through waves of nausea and pain, doubled over into a bag {IN FRONT OF PEOPLE!} at one point. I even missed Chris Caine speak... I know! If I had funeral dirge music, I would link it up right here.
But through this, I would remember... and I've kept remembering all week the grapeskin thing.
And this is where the anger comes in. A fever burning away sin and the self.
I have held up my lifeline to someone, who is not God. I have asked this someone to fill something that they literally cannot fill. I have been rebuked and rejected, and that hurt feels insatiable, the lack a gaping hole. I keep trying; I keep pushing, keep praying against, keep hoping for different circumstances. Wandering in an already pre-defined desert time, all the while holding my heart out to them like, "Don't you want this?" while the God of the universe quietly covets, saying "...that belongs to me." I know it. I know it a thousand times over. It's sluggish in moving from mind to heart. {I just want you to know that I care about you, and that I'm sorry. I believe in you and always will!}
I'm so stupid sometimes, it hurts. This long-suffering 'angst', turned righteous when I finally "feel" {or am actually supernaturally} equipped to fight, to address the perceived lack, or when I pray rightfully to be lead from temptation, into the light, into a full breath - into capital 'F' it-is-finished-FREEDOM. But deliverance doesn't work this way. It is painstakingly slow, while the Gardener patiently prunes a dying, bleeding plant. Another wayward dive into the unexpected. The good news is, there is a victory in this that has already been handed over to me. And I am claiming that victory for myself in His holy, powerful name.
It has been back to back viruses in our house for three weeks now, including 102 degree fevers. There is nothing like sickness or a fever to illustrate that lack of stability, the absence of homeostasis - chills then sweats, sleepless tossing and turning, stomach cramps, and then vomiting. And even darker illnesses still! The point is, when you're sick, all you want is to not be sick. A trailing list of symptoms perfectly points to what it means to be healthy. It's like all we want is to not be upset - to ride on the boat or to take the flight as long as there are no waves or turbulence to screw stuff up.
Sometimes I wonder how God hears our prayers. When did we lose our wonder, our passion? When did we settle for 'as long as' or 'unless'?
"God please take this from me unless that means You'll actually take it from me, and the pain is unbearable."
"God, send me! I'll go; I love you but please don't send me there."
"God, put people in my path; help me to show them your love! But please don't let it be that person; oh man, You're actually making me do this?"
"God, I want more of You unless it means getting up earlier, or pursuing Your people, or living out my faith, or ending my affair, or buying less stuff, or less of _______ ..."
"God, mold me! Unless it's going to hurt."
"God, I want to be Your hands and feet, until it's too inconvenient to take a pie across the street."
"Just keep it simple, God. Don't rock the boat God. God, don't touch me."
Our Savior is good. He is the balance and the calm we're seeking. I don't have an @ symbol before my name or #'s after the words I say. Honestly, I'm one voice amongst millions in His grand design. But, I want to encourage and embolden and set AFLAME the church, as in the body of believers, to get outside the walls of the church and to start pursuing lost people. Even when it's hard or takes you wildly outside of your 'comfort zone'. Friend, following Jesus is meant to be a WILD ride. You are not salt within the saltshaker anymore! You are not light within an already lit room! God did not save us so that we could set cruise-control on our race, walking comfortably to the finish line, never tagging anyone else in or suffering a single cramp. The end goal is not to die 'well' or to be raptured before anything 'bad' happens to us. It's in the pain, and the suffering, and the relationships, and the growing, and the messiness, and the waves and the turbulence, and the 'anything bad happening' that we find God-given purpose. Our destiny. It's in the possible yet subjective 'anything bad happening' that we reorient and are born. Run, people!
It has been back to back viruses in our house for three weeks now, including 102 degree fevers. There is nothing like sickness or a fever to illustrate that lack of stability, the absence of homeostasis - chills then sweats, sleepless tossing and turning, stomach cramps, and then vomiting. And even darker illnesses still! The point is, when you're sick, all you want is to not be sick. A trailing list of symptoms perfectly points to what it means to be healthy. It's like all we want is to not be upset - to ride on the boat or to take the flight as long as there are no waves or turbulence to screw stuff up.
Sometimes I wonder how God hears our prayers. When did we lose our wonder, our passion? When did we settle for 'as long as' or 'unless'?
"God please take this from me unless that means You'll actually take it from me, and the pain is unbearable."
"God, send me! I'll go; I love you but please don't send me there."
"God, put people in my path; help me to show them your love! But please don't let it be that person; oh man, You're actually making me do this?"
"God, I want more of You unless it means getting up earlier, or pursuing Your people, or living out my faith, or ending my affair, or buying less stuff, or less of _______ ..."
"God, mold me! Unless it's going to hurt."
"God, I want to be Your hands and feet, until it's too inconvenient to take a pie across the street."
"Just keep it simple, God. Don't rock the boat God. God, don't touch me."
Our Savior is good. He is the balance and the calm we're seeking. I don't have an @ symbol before my name or #'s after the words I say. Honestly, I'm one voice amongst millions in His grand design. But, I want to encourage and embolden and set AFLAME the church, as in the body of believers, to get outside the walls of the church and to start pursuing lost people. Even when it's hard or takes you wildly outside of your 'comfort zone'. Friend, following Jesus is meant to be a WILD ride. You are not salt within the saltshaker anymore! You are not light within an already lit room! God did not save us so that we could set cruise-control on our race, walking comfortably to the finish line, never tagging anyone else in or suffering a single cramp. The end goal is not to die 'well' or to be raptured before anything 'bad' happens to us. It's in the pain, and the suffering, and the relationships, and the growing, and the messiness, and the waves and the turbulence, and the 'anything bad happening' that we find God-given purpose. Our destiny. It's in the possible yet subjective 'anything bad happening' that we reorient and are born. Run, people!