The Struggle

Between the call to create & the ability. There is nothing new under the sun.

Have you ever experienced the sinking/stabbing pins and needles realization that you have nothing new to say? To contribute (that it would be almost arrogant to assume that you do)? It's kind of like when your foot falls asleep, but maybe it's the soul.

I'm there. I've been listening to a lot of music lately, and it's like .. all of the good songs have already been written. Everything worth saying already said; everything worth writing already written. I'm not sad, just maybe a little lost. If anything, it creates a deeper empty-handed awe. They wanted actresses and models, but I'm a writer.

Feels Like Summer

Solomon's insight here is so pure. God just keeps me bringing me back:

For everything there is a season,
    a time for every activity under heaven.
A time to be born and a time to die.
    A time to plant and a time to harvest.
A time to kill and a time to heal.
    A time to tear down and a time to build up.
A time to cry and a time to laugh.
    A time to grieve and a time to dance.
A time to scatter stones and a time to gather stones.
    A time to embrace and a time to turn away.
A time to search and a time to quit searching.
    A time to keep and a time to throw away.
A time to tear and a time to mend.
    A time to be quiet and a time to speak.
A time to love and a time to hate.
    A time for war and a time for peace.

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

People come and go. Words go out and come back in, and if we're lucky, we listen.  Love hardens into indifference. The world, simultaneously changing and staying the same, is still under His orchestration, like He's saying, "It's all okay, it's all going to be okay."

Jerusalem, New York, Berlin - Vampire Weekend

Feels Like Summer - Weezer

Time & Silence

God is on me lately about being a better friend; it's like I can't get out from under it. When I'm not trudging through it myself, I'm seeing it. Everywhere. Please don't mishear me; I don't have this all down. I've made a lot of mistakes but by His grace, He's allowing me to learn from them. My hope is to help others navigate this, because I believe relationships are important to God, & therefore worth salvaging - especially in light of a culture that says it's ok to dispose of whatever is no longer serving us.

With all of this being said, I think one of the biggest avoidable pitfalls in relationship lies in assuming everything will survive with just enough time & silence. Just cutting a tie & letting it drift off to sea after a fracture is suffered, hoping it all returns in one piece someday. I know this - too much time & silence leads to the eventual loss of the relationship. Are we that willing to let our people go? And over what .. a misunderstanding? Ego? Having to acknowledge our failures? To (gulp).. apologize? (Y I K E S!)

Humility is an affront to all of this. Humility says to die to it. Die to it for Jesus. Die to it for that person. Your 'right' to be right. Your pride. The potential awkwardness. Let the offense go, not the person; if anything elevate the other person.

Time is fine, often necessary, but coupled with follow-up. Prayer. Discernment. Then the hard part: vulnerability.  The honest, often awkward conversations. Apologies. Amends. It's one thing to know how to do it, another thing to talk about it, an offensive line to tell others how to do it & an entirely different entity altogether to actually do it. If we want real relationships we're going to have to grow up a little bit in this area (and it works in all things, right? Doing, not just hearing, saying. Regurgitating with no action.)

So who have we hurt, maybe even unintentionally? Which relationship needs tending? In my own life, I'm trying to adopt a mindset that says I can't (won't) just let them slip away, especially when I know God has given them to me & He demonstrated for all of us the very power and nature of rescue & reconciliation, how we were all, in spite of ourselves, fought for on the cross. Don't let them go.

September Favorites

"Only people who are capable of loving strongly can also suffer great sorrow, but this same necessity of loving serves to counteract their grief and heals them."

- - Tolstoy

Places - Allie Paige

Galatians 5

So Christ has truly set us free. Now make sure that you stay free, and don’t get tied up again in slavery to the law ...

But we who live by the Spirit eagerly wait to receive by faith the righteousness God has promised to us. For when we place our faith in Christ Jesus, there is no benefit in being circumcised or being uncircumcised. What is important is faith expressing itself in love.

You were running the race so well. Who has held you back from following the truth? It certainly isn’t God, for he is the one who called you to freedom. This false teaching is like a little yeast that spreads through the whole batch of dough! I am trusting the Lord to keep you from believing false teachings. God will judge that person, whoever he is, who has been confusing you ...

For you have been called to live in freedom, my brothers and sisters. But don’t use your freedom to satisfy your sinful nature. Instead, use your freedom to serve one another in love. For the whole law can be summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” But if you are always biting and devouring one another, watch out! Beware of destroying one another.

So I say, let the Holy Spirit guide your lives. Then you won’t be doing what your sinful nature craves. The sinful nature wants to do evil, which is just the opposite of what the Spirit wants. And the Spirit gives us desires that are the opposite of what the sinful nature desires. These two forces are constantly fighting each other, so you are not free to carry out your good intentions. But when you are directed by the Spirit, you are not under obligation to the law of Moses.

When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, the results are very clear: sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these. Let me tell you again, as I have before, that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the Kingdom of God.

But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!

Those who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful nature to his cross and crucified them there. Since we are living by the Spirit, let us follow the Spirit’s leading in every part of our lives. Let us not become conceited, or provoke one another, or be jealous of one another.

August Favorites

Youth is in a grand flush, like the hot days of ending summer; and pleasant dreams thrall your spirit, like the smoky atmosphere that bathes the landscape of an August day.  - Donald G. Mitchell

A Million Times Over

These scriptures struck me this morning:

"I remember concerning you the devotion of your youth, the love of your betrothals, your following after me in the wilderness, through a land not sown." Jeremiah 2:2

"What injustice did your fathers find in Me, that they went far from Me & walked after emptiness & became empty?" Jeremiah 2:5

"For My people have committed two evils: they have forsaken Me, the Fountain of living waters, to hew for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water." Jeremiah 2:13

God is more forgotten than likely to forget.
He asks why, abandoned.
A million times over more ache than wrath.

God is Greater than our Heart

"We will know by this that we are of the truth, and will assure our heart before Him in whatever our heart condemns us; for God is greater than our heart and knows all things."

- - 1 John 3:19-20 (NAS)

Commentary Note:

God is greater than our heart. We may be either too strict

or too lenient in examining our lives;

therefore John's word of comfort is,

God the all-knowing is also the all-loving.

I've held a certain sin within scar tissue

wondering if it would ever heal.

God forgave me & seared my conscious

& I will forever sing His praises.