The Post about Politics

I know that all of you sincerely appreciate a political post, because there's a severe lack of them floating around right now (yeah, just being a little sarcastic). But seriously though, I am going to touch on something else related to the election, besides the general rants and commentaries floating around the Internet. In this post, I want to bring up a dangerous mindset that I've seen brewing underneath the surface of our snappy political posts and polarized conversations about candidates. It's a problem that we must be aware of, as the body of Christ...

The problem that I want to bring to your attention is nothing new; in fact, Jesus himself dealt with it during his time here on earth. It was a problem of expectations. As many of the accounts in the Gospel discuss, Jesus's follower's didn't know or really seem to care about Jesus's true purpose of being here on earth; they expected Jesus to save them from the Roman rule in those days. They were so hyper-focused on their own expectations of how Jesus would save them that they became completely oblivious to his actual purpose, which was much bigger and much more wonderful than any of them ever imagined.

Our current mindset is strikingly similar to this. Just as Jesus's followers did thousands of years ago, we are falling into a problem of expectations- expecting God to do something in America and becoming uneasy and fearful when it doesn't happen quite the way we wanted.

Let me clarify something before I continue: I'm not saying that it's bad to be involved in political discourse. In fact, I voted in a primary election last week, for the first time in my life. I'm extremely proud to be part of this system. But, I personally think that many of us are taking this entire process beyond the normal amount of good citizenship/educated voting/healthy interest in how our own country is run, and into territory that could be dangerous for us, as Americans and as the body of Christ. Let me explain...

Okay so we, as Christians, love to talk about overcoming fear in our circles. There are a hundred bajillion verses on fear in the Bible. If you've been a church person for a while (as I have), you can probably generate two or three of these "anti-fear" verses right off the top of your head. But, here's the problem- the dangerous territory- as it relates to politics:
 If someone comes up to any of us and discusses that they are faced with fear of thunderstorms or darkness or heights, we recite or paraphrase the concepts of an anti-fear verse to them. If someone comes up to any of us and discusses that they are faced with anxiety problems, we recite or paraphrase the concepts of an anti-fear verse to them. But, if someone comes up to any of us and discusses that they are afraid that [fill in the blank] will win the primaries and become the president, we respond by agreeing and bringing up our own fears or by refuting them. Since when did politics become an exception to the countless "do not be afraid"s that God has given us in his word?

If we sincerely begin to fear the "might"s and"will"s of our government's future, a few bad things happen.
1. We scare the people around us.
 Fear spreads like a sickness. And when we know for a fact that perfect love casts out all fear (1 John 4:18), why would we promote being afraid in any context?
2. We use up our energy in negative ways, overanalyzing and worrying rather than actually doing productive things for the kingdom of God.
Our time is limited. As Jesus said, "Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?" (Matthew 6:27)
3.We start to doubt the success of our country and discount the future of America.
Let's all work together- young and old- to build a foundation of hope and excitement for the future, rather than fear or dismay.

Here's what I think we should do. Once we've done all we can, voted and supported who we want and moved to a point of just waiting for results, we need to just stop fearing the future of our government and realize that there's a God who is so much bigger than all of it, keeping it all under control.

Our country is not going under. And no, we don't all have to move to Canada if a bad candidate gets elected. What if we, like the people in Jesus's time, are anxiously waiting for God to do something in the government that he never intended to do and never will do? What if there's something bigger going on under the surface that reaches far beyond our nation and the current generations?

Here's the cliche part, but I think it really applies: let's stop worrying and start praying instead. Ask God to show you what's going on under the surface of our current circumstances. We, as the people of God and the ones saved by Jesus Christ, have more power and influence than any politician or government could ever have. Let's throw off our fears so we can truly lean into what we can do in Jesus's name, within the little bit of America situated right around each of us.

Hanging by a Moment Here with You

No Name Face (2000), Lifehouse's album that includes the song "Hanging by a Moment"
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/da/No_Name_Face.jpg

I am a planner. The spontaneous, unplanned, and random aren't exactly my thing. Whenever something goes against my prescribed plans or ideas, I freak out quite a bit. But over the past few months, God has taught me some lessons about learning to trust His plans, not my own. For the first few months of this school year, I was stuck. Or so I thought. I was at a school that I didn't really choose and I didn't know if I was going to stay there or not. I had spent the past three years with a specific identity and a wonderful friend group that were both lost in the transition between high school and college, so I felt like I was left with absolutely nothing. That's where I stayed, for months, pleading for God to just give me answers to my many questions. As I was in this spot, I learned something difficult to process, but wonderful to believe: the art of trusting God, even when He seems silent. 

Last month, I found an old song from my childhood: Hanging by a Moment by Lifehouse. Interestingly enough, the lyrics to this song exactly summarize what God has been teaching me. Today, I just want to write out the lyrics in a broken-down format, as a stream-of-consciousness-styled prayer to Him, using various Bible verses to emphasize each section of the prayer. I know that I'm not unique in my struggles to trust God and His promises, so I hope that this prayer will impact you as well. 

I'm desperate for changing
Starving for truth
"I wait for the LORD, my whole being waits, and in his word I put my hope." Psalm 130:5
God, I want to know what's going to happen next in this area of my life.  I want a change. I want something to be different from this endless mundane.

I'm closer to where I started
Chasing after you
"Sing to the LORD, all the earth; proclaim his salvation day after day." 1 Chronicles 16:23
Every day feels empty, yet somehow I feel closer to you in each day of waiting. That's the mysterious and paradoxical part of following You; I get closer and closer to You every day, despite my frustrations.

I'm falling even more in love with you
Letting go of all I've held onto
"Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need." Hebrews 4:16
These feelings of desperation are somehow making me fall deeper in love with You, God. That's the irony, isn't it? The longer I wait for You, the more I realize my desperate need for You. As every bit of trust in other things of this world fall away and I'm left with nothing, the more I cling to You.

 I'm standing here until you make me move
I'm hanging by a moment here with you
"Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for Him." Psalm 37:7a
That's what it means to be still. Resting, waiting, knowing that You're working, even when I'd rather be moving. Squirming with the discomfort of not knowing, but also choosing to close my eyes and be still instead.

Forgetting all I'm lacking
Completely incomplete
I'll take your invitation
You take all of me now...
I feel like I'm waiting for something big to happen in this area of my life, but You also have work for me to do right now. As I am being still and waiting in one area, I know You want me to stay busy in the other areas of life. That's what's wonderful about You. You take all of me- as I am completely incomplete- and You use me for something beautiful. And that's how I can take my mind off of the noise of impatience and focus on You instead- by focusing on what You want me to do right now.

I'm falling even more in love with you
I'm letting go of all I've held onto
I'm standing here until you make me move
I'm hanging by a moment here with you
"There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love." 1 John 4:18
God, make this true in my heart. Make me courageous enough to just stand here, without fear of the future and with complete trust in Your unfailing love.

I'm living for the only thing I know
I'm running and not quite sure where to go
And I don't know what I'm diving into
Just hanging by a moment here with you
I have no earthly idea why You put me in this place or why You're telling me to make these small decisions day by day, but, I do know one thing: You're doing all of this for a reason. Every up and down, every moment of hardship, every moment of joy, it's all there to mold me into something amazing. So here we go, God.

There's nothing else to lose
There's nothing else to find
There's nothing in the world
That can change my mind
There is nothing else
There is nothing else
There is nothing else
"So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal." 2 Corinthians 4:18
There's nothing else to lose or to find except You. Because everything else is temporal and conditional. But this gradual, still peace that comes from trusting You is eternal.

Desperate for changing
Starving for truth
I'm closer to where I started
Chasing after you...
I'm falling even more in love with you
Letting go of all I've held onto
I'm standing here until you make me move
I'm hanging by a moment here with you
I'm living for the only thing I know
I'm running and not quite sure where to go
And I don't know what I'm diving into
Just hanging by a moment here with you
"Jesus replied, 'You do not realize now what I am doing, but later you will understand.'" John 13:7
You said this verse in John while discussing Your ministry here on earth- Your purpose of coming here to save us and serve us. So basically, if You saved me from my sins with such a wonderful plan, how much more do You care about this little plan for my day-to-day life?

Just hanging by a moment (here with you)
Hanging by a moment (here with you)
Hanging by a moment
Hanging by a moment here with you
That's it. I'm just hanging by a moment here with You, Lord. I just wait, moment by moment, day by day, until You move me to the next frame of life. And as I look back, I know that I'll be able to see how You moved me, so gradually and so unlike my own ideas, into Your perfect plan.

You Are- a poem

You are the expanse
Of endless azure sky
The gentle breeze
That bring tears to my eyes
You are the emotion
Swelling in my chest
When I sing praises
You bring me rest
You are that inexplicable feeling
Covering me with joyous peace
Your presence grows
 My fears decrease

You are the roaring thunder
 the incomprehensible one
Who paints with lighting
And shines brighter than the sun
You are the one who wrote out
The laws of earth and humankind
You are wonderfully impossible
To understand or define

But still You are the steady voice
Inside the torrential storm
When the cold rain shoots down like arrows
And I cannot stay warm
When I shiver and feel like drowning
In the endless water and cold

You are the only refuge
The perfect stronghold
You are the one,
When I'm lost in the depths of sin,
Who speaks to me softly and says,
“Calm down, just let me in."
You realize just what You're doing
When You work inside of me
Remind me, forgive me for forgetting
That I am Yours, You have won, I am set free

"I'll stay awake"... Some thoughts on Christmas

This Christmas feels extraordinarily peaceful for me. It follows a hard semester, in which I was transplanted into a new situation of life and a new mindset. I'm still in the middle of making some tough decisions about my future (because current society requires me to make decisions at the measly age of 19 that will directly affect the rest of my adult life). But yet, there's this huge sense of peace in all of it, and I've realized that it's specifically related to the Christmas story. God has been planting some interesting ideas in my mind, through Christmas carols and through very vivid images. Today, I want to share these carols and word-pictures with you. They all deal with a specific theme: light.

And in despair I bowed my head:
"There is no peace on earth," I said,
"For hate is strong and mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good will to men."
Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
"God is not dead, nor doth he sleep;
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail,
With peace on earth, good will to men."
~I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day

The ideas of peace really all began when I saw some chalk letters written on the sidewalk at my school a few months ago: "God's not dead". Yes, the movie and the song have made this saying sound cliche. But just the vision of God working under the surface of my public university was a striking and beautiful picture. Admittedly, there's a lot of junk on my campus. But, there's also so much life and hope, as there probably is in every place. No amount of darkness can squelch the evident presence of God. Seeing these words on the sidewalk brought a verse to my mind. Since then, it has become my current favorite Bible verse.
"In him was life and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it."
John 1:4-5

Son of God, love's pure light,
Radiant beams from
Thy holy face, with the dawn of redeeming grace
~Silent Night

This verse led me to my next image. It started with a question: what does darkness truly feel like? Several years ago, I visited Mammoth Cave with my family. At one point of the tour inside the cavern, our guide led us into a huge, cathedral-like chasm. We all stood inside this huge space and he asked us to turn off our lights for a minute. As all of the people in our group flipped off the switches on their flashlights and lanterns, the entire area fell into blackness and a cold chill ran down my spine. It takes first-hand experience inside a cave or other completely enclosed space to really understand this sensation of total darkness. Your eyes cannot adjust and begin to see after a few seconds, as would happen in a mostly dark place. There is no light for your eyes to use; even after they try to adjust themselves, switching from the sensitive, light-responsive cones to the night-vision rods, nothing happens and the darkness cannot be corrected. Standing in a place of complete darkness was equivalent to blindness. My remembrance of the dark cave is so similar to our world, before Jesus Christ was born to save us. The people tried to adjust themselves, just as our eyes attempt to work with the darkness and find sight in it. But, nothing works in complete darkness. This is exactly why we needed Jesus; he came to fix our darkness, our sin problem. A phrase in "Silent Night" is strikingly relevant to this darkness/light comparison: "dawn of redeeming grace". Jesus's birth was a new beginning. Let's not forget just how significant His arrival was; it was the dawn of redeeming grace: a new plan, a new Light, as never seen before. It's just as John Newton wrote in "Amazing Grace": "I once was lost, but now am found; was blind, but now I see."
It also ties back to the writing of Matthew the disciple:
"The people dwelling in darkness
    have seen a great light,
and for those dwelling in the region and shadow of death,
    on them a light has dawned."
Matthew 4:16

"O little town of Bethlehem,
How still we see thee lie!
Above your deep and dreamless sleep,
The silent stars go by.
Yet in thy dark streets shineth
The everlasting Light,
The hopes and fears of all the years,
Are met in thee tonight."
~O Little Town of Bethlehem

So in the end, it all boils down to one statement: Jesus is the Light of the World. Yeah, I assume that you've heard that one before. "Jesus is the Light" is a fact so overstated to any American who have lived around Christians or been inside a church that it's probably like someone telling you that "dogs bark" or "you have ten fingers". But, it means so much more than that. It means that we, as Christ-followers, are also the light of the world (Matthew 5:16). This is so very difficult in a world that continues to live in darkness and reject Jesus's gift of grace.
Now, please follow my train of thought for a second here. Whenever I hear the word "darkness", it reminds me of one of my favorite songs ever: Ode to Sleep by Twenty One Pilots (a non-Christian, alternative band that tackles deep issues of darkness and depression). The song has one line that stands out, through its melody and its repetition: "I'll stay awake, cause the dark's not taking prisoners tonight."
Here's a rhetorical question for you: what does darkness do to us as human beings- literal darkness I mean? Well, it causes us to feel sleepy (see the connection to the TOP song...?). The spiritual darkness surrounding us does the exact same thing; it tries to put us to sleep- into apathy, self-absorption, and status quo.
There's another image that illustrates this "spiritual sleep" beautifully; It's a verse in a song from my early childhood, "This Little Light of Mine".
 "Hide it under a bushel, No! I'm gonna let it shine. Hide it under a bushel, no! I'm gonna let it shine, let it shine, let it shine."
After I learned what a bushel even was (it's a basket), my child brain decided that hiding a candle under a bushel was the dumbest concept known to humankind. What's the point of a light if it's hidden away? But now that I'm older, I realize that metaphorically, I've done it so many times. That's exactly what it looks like to fall asleep: putting our light- our hope and trust in Christ- on the back-burner or in a forgotten desk drawer. Ultimately, when we are apathetic about our faith and our belief in the significance of Jesus's birth, we're hiding our lights under a bushel. And yes, a light hidden under a basket is pretty darn useless. As if I hadn't referenced enough random songs already, I also imagine the carol "O Little Town of Bethlehem" when I think about the "sleep" concept. The people of Bethlehem were in a deep, dreamless sleep when Jesus arrived. The Light of the world was literally within their reach; they were within a minute's walk from seeing the Savior of the world in person and worshipping Him. But from what we know, many of them simply missed it as they slept on. Ugh, that's awful, isn't it? As already discussed in this post, this Light matters so much more than any of us can comprehend. So consequently, each of us need to decide to make it matter in our lives.

So this Christmas, what will you do with the Light- the living, undefeated light that miraculously came down to earth and brought a dawn of redeeming grace, then bestowed some of that brilliant light on you? Don't just hide it or forget what it means for you and to the entire world. Even in the darkest nights, when God doesn't seem to be responsive or when He doesn't make any sense to you, trust in His unending love- the very love that sent His son on Christmas night to die for you. Don't miss the beauty and life at the real root of this crazy commercialized season, and the remaining 11 months after it. Stay awake. Cause the dark's not taking prisoners tonight.

God and I Have a Conversation

When I was in my early teen years, I read a magazine that published conversations between God and the magazine's author. Today, I was thinking through many of the scattered talks I've had with God in the past few months and I decided to compact all of them into one, hypothetical conversation- similar to the articles I used to read. Please note that when I write out what God says, it's through the lens of my own humanity, so obviously, I'm not being a prophet or anything mystic like that. Also, I wanted to clarify that I've never literally heard a voice of God before. These conversations mainly occur in my head. When I'm thinking through some of the problems that you are going to read about, I will often get a clear train of thought, bursting through the noises of worry and frustration. These sudden and seemingly spontaneous thoughts will remind me of some truth that is very consistent with verses that I know or have read in the past. So, this conversation is a reflection of those trains of thought, which I know to be God, as He overthrows my anxiety and inhibitions.




Me: God, I’m fretful right now. In fact, I’m feeling so fretful, that I don’t really find meaning in Your word anymore. 

God: How so?

Me: Well, my feelings right now, my emotions of being unsettled and ungrounded, seem so real and so strong. When I try to read scripture, it seems bland and inapplicable in comparison to my feelings.

God: But, it was written for you. It was written for every situation that you face in your life.

Me: Yeah, I know. But right now, I have a hard time even trusting You. I’m so torn right now. My future is a complete question mark. Do I stay here, or do I move? This is a huge question that You’re posing in my mind right now, and I don’t like it. God, I’m in limbo! I’m stuck between my past and my future and I don’t know where I’m headed next. I’m not only fretful; I’m scared. 

God: Do not be afraid. I am with you.

Me: I know, I know! I could probably recite all of the “Do not be afraid” passages from the Bible in my sleep! But, I can’t feel it.

God: You don’t have to feel it.

Me: Why not?! I don’t understand.

God: I am so much more than your feelings, child. I am infinitely bigger than them.

Me: Well then, why are all of my emotions fighting against me? Why do I feel so confused and lost?

God: Emotions follow a state of mind. You say that you know Me, but do you truly know Me?

Me: Of course I do. I read my Bible every night. 

God: Why do you read it? 

Me: Because I feel guilty if I don’t? I don’t know!

God: That guilt that you feel isn’t from Me. I am a God of love and grace, not of fear. 

Me: I know. But, this still doesn’t answer my questions. Can You help me? I still feel afraid.

God: I already helped you.

Me: Um, I still feel scared of the future…

God:  …I sent My only Son to save you and cover you with grace. I have written your name on the palms of My hands. My thoughts about you cannot be numbered. I go before you; I protect you from behind. 

Me: Then, can You at least tell me what’s going to happen next? I want to know so badly.

God: It’s not time for you to know yet.

Me: Why not?!

God: I know you better than you know yourself, My child. And remember, I am outside of time. I understand your ways perfectly. I have an amazing plan of what will happen to you and how it will be revealed. 

Me: It’s all head knowledge. All of this is. But, I can’t snap out of these emotions. I’m scared. This fear has built up in me for months now. It’s like a dark cloud over me. 

God: My grace is sufficient for you, dearest.

Me: I want answers! Please!

God: My grace is sufficient for you. That is the answer. 

Me: Where will I be in a year? In six months?!

God: Where are you now? Today, you’re protected from all sides by My love. Today, you’re exactly where you need to be. You are strategically surrounded by the right classmates and friends for this moment in time. Right now, you are soaring on wings like an eagle and you are continuing in the beautiful story I am writing for you. My grace is sufficient for you. 

Me: But, what if I have to move? What if I have to leave where I am right now? I’m not ready.

God: You will always be ready for whatever happens next. I’ve always made sure of that. Look back on your past. Every moment of your life, you were in the right place at the right time to meet very specific people and to experience very specific events. I have you exactly where you need to be.

Me:…

God: Can you trust Me? Can you open your hands instead of grabbing onto what was and what could be? 

Me: Yes, LORD. I can. I do.