Brick by Boring Brick

A photograph of some castle ruins that I saw in Wales during my family's tour of the UK in Christmas 2006.

Well, Christmas has passed; I'm sure all of you are perfectly aware of this. But, guess what time it is now that the holiday season is almost completely over? NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTION TIME! Now that we've spent the last month celebrating the most joyous and exciting time of the year, we feel very ready to conquer the world and defeat our besetting sins, all in one fell swoop. 

In fact, if you're anything like me, you probably imagine this process of starting over and conquering weaknesses to be an empowering, exciting time. I always like to think of acing my New Year's resolution in a way that resembles the two-minute long sequence in Kung Fu Panda in which Po is training to be the dragon warrior and instantaneously becomes a kung fu master. This part of the movie is complete with flashy scene shifts, thrilling Asian-infused Zimmer/Powell music, and no real effort. 

But, in the end, New Year's resolutions aren't anything like that, are they? Our sins are so deeply engrained into our lives in so many different ways; as much as we'd like to just snap our fingers and change for the better as soon as the clock hits midnight on January 1st, we really can't. 

This whole concept reminds me of an old (well, old in my relative time frame), but very catchy song by the secular pop group Paramore, called "Brick by Boring Brick". The entire song is pretty much summed up in its chorus:

"Well go get your shovel

And we'll dig a deep hole
To bury the castle, bury the castle

Go get your shovel
And we'll dig a deep hole
We'll bury the castle, bury the castle"

"The castle" is referring to the fairy tales that we build up for ourselves, which are closely related to New Year's resolutions in some ways. See, at the beginning of every year, we imagine ourselves as fitter, happier, healthier, smarter, and greater individuals. This is similar to the imaginary happy endings that we can see in our favorite Disney films and fairy tales. 

Of course, I'm not trying to say that your New Year's resolutions are impossible and fanciful; it just seems that we need to start viewing our sin-conquering goals and desires to become more like Jesus in a different way. But, what should this new angle to the problem be?

Paramore gives us an answer in their song, believe it or not...

"Well make sure to build your home brick by boring brick
Or the world's gonna blow it down"

In other words, building up a beautiful castle and getting what you've always dreamed of isn't an instantaneous shift; it's a PROCESS. The Bible discusses this too:

"Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up."

Galatians 6:9

This all sounds so terribly hard, yes. But unlike what the song lyrics seem to say, WE don't need to build our own homes and crawl out of our sin problems by ourselves:

"We have escaped like a bird
    from the fowler’s snare;
the snare has been broken,
    and we have escaped.
8 Our help is in the name of the Lord,
    the Maker of heaven and earth."

Psalm 124:7-8

Let's think of our resolutions in a new way this year. Instead of just flying forward on a high of candy cane sugar and leftover Christmas spirit, let's begin to pray for something crazy: patience. Why? Well, because this is a process; it's a lifelong, step-by-step, brick-by-boring-brick type of thing. This sounds sad, yes, but if we decide to just trust our Creator every single day and stop worrying about how long it will take to build the castle, it can become a joyous journey. 

As Psalm 116:7-9 says,

 "Let my soul be at rest again,

    for the Lord has been good to me.
8 He has saved me from death,
    my eyes from tears,
    my feet from stumbling.
9 And so I walk in the Lord’s presence
    as I live here on earth!"

(NLT)

His presence is enough; it will keep us content throughout the long process of becoming more like Him. So, day by day, let's "taste and see that the LORD is good." (Psalm 34:8)

And as the Paramore song goes...

"If it's not real

You can't hold it in your hand
You can't feel it with your heart
And I won't believe it
But if it's true
You can see it with your eyes
Oh, even in the dark
And that's where I want to be"

So this New Year's Day, as you are thinking through your resolutions, remember to SEE His presence first (you'll be sure to find it if you just open your eyes and look), pray for Him to give you patience in the process of your life change, and ask Him to always give your soul rest, in the bright and dark times.  

As 2015 dawns, let's keep this beautiful verse in our minds and on our hearts...

"Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death? Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord."

Romans 7:24-25a (NLT)

A Thesaurus and a Hymn: Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus

Turn

Change course, about-face, shift

Your eyes

Your vision, perception, sight

Upon Jesus,

Upon the Savior, the Creator, the Son of the Most High

Look full

Look completely, entirely, in every respect

In His wonderful face,

In His glorious, magnificent, brilliant face

And the things of earth

And the physical, temporal, corporeal things

Will grow strangely dim,

Will grow perplexingly weak, mysteriously muted, inexplicably faint

In the light of

In the illumination, blaze, radiance of

His glory

His splendor, beauty, magnificence

And grace.

And kindness, favor, acceptance

2 Corinthians 4:18

"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."

Divine Encounters

I've never seen the musical Wicked, but I absolutely love the music in it. One particular song that impacts me every time I hear it is one of the final musical numbers known as "For Good". This song has been performed at almost every graduation that I've attended in the last two years and I haven't gotten tired of hearing it yet, mostly because of the deep truths in it. Here are some of the lyrics:

"I've heard it said,
That people come into our lives
For a reason
Bringing something we must learn.
And we are lead to those
Who help us most to grow if we let them.
And we help them in return.
Well, I don't know if I believe that's true
But I know I'm who I am today
Because I knew you.

Like a comet pulled from orbit
As it passes a sun,
Like a stream that meets a boulder
Halfway through the wood.
Who can say if I've been changed for the better
But because I knew you.
I have been changed for good."

"It well may be
That we will never meet again
In this lifetime.
So, let me say before we part:
So much of me
Is made of what I learned from you.
You'll be with me
Like a handprint on my heart.
And now whatever way our stories end
I know you'll have rewritten mine
By being my friend.

Like a ship blown from its mooring
By a wind off the sea.
Like a seed dropped by a sky bird
In a distant wood.
Who can say if I've been changed for the better
But because I knew you..."

"Because I knew you..."

"I have been changed for good."

Every once in a while, I'll look at a specific shelf in my room, where I store several sentimental items from various places and people. As I study it, I remember a few of the many friends, acquaintances, and classmates who have come in and out of my life and impacted me in some way. I know that I've met more people than I ever could've imagined meeting in only eighteen years of life, and I will meet infinitely more in my whole lifetime.

Reflecting on these thoughts makes me realize why I appreciate the song from Wicked so much. Every person who has come in and out of my life has impacted me in some way, leaving "a handprint on my heart" and rewriting my story. This is true of everyone in the world, I believe. We all meet people and each of them make some type of impact, small or large, on the way we view the world. Whether we realize it or not, we are being affected by the behavior of our friends, family, acquaintances, and even by strangers at every moment of every day. Since our encounters with others are so pivotal to our lives, it can obviously be concluded that our Heavenly Father is the one who orchestrates them all. 

I know I've mentioned this verse before, but I absolutely love it, so I'll mention it again...

"fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God."

Hebrews 12:2 (NASB)

This verse compares Jesus to an author- an author of our faith, specifically. 

What does this mean in relation to the whole "encounters with others" concept?

Well, a well-known verse, Jeremiah 29:11, talks about how He has a plan for each of us. This plan is ultimately a plan of our faith journey. So, naturally, part of the Author's plan is to introduce specific characters into our stories, one by one, little by little, to direct our paths and point our eyes back to Him in some way or form. He uses others to INITIATE each step we take in our walks of faith. 

One of my good friends and I were discussing God's plans the other day and we came up with a beautiful analogy for this...

What if God looks down on our lives like a two-dimensional timeline, drawn out on a piece of paper? He can look all around it, in three dimensions, while we can only move forward on it. AND, what if our timelines intersect with others? What if the Author himself is the one who chooses to intersect them, in perfect, indescribable ways. It's a giant network that He creates, far more complex than we could ever imagine. One of my teachers once called this phenomenon "divine encounters".

So, what does this mean for us? Well, it means that the people intersecting with our timelines are both an opportunity and a blessing to us.

First, they're a blessing because God put them there for a reason! I look at my core groups of friends from my various areas in life and can't help but smile when I think about them. We've done so many fun things together and unknowingly or knowingly, my friends have all taught me truths about my faith in Christ because of our interactions. And, they all came into my life "by accident", in a manner of speaking. Seemingly random circumstances, such as doing a difficult group project in my Discipleship class, having to stay after school and wait for my mom to pick me up in 3rd grade while most of the other kids went to eat lunch, being forced to join marching band by my parents, and switching schools in my junior year of high school have brought me some of the friends I have today.

But, "divine encounters" are also an opportunity for each of us. Think about it. If you are affected by the people you meet and do life with, then consequently, others will be affected by you. How will you use your time with others? The more time we spend thinking about how much WE can get out of the friendship for ourselves or who we wish we could be friends with instead (such as a popular clique or a person of the opposite sex who has "special significance" in your mind), the less of an impact we will be able to make.

Every "hello" or "goodbye" is for a reason. Sometimes, we don't want to accept these circumstances that cause "hello"s and "goodbye"s, especially if they go against the plan that we originally had. But, God has wonderful divine encounters planned for you within each of these changes. I look back at all of the circumstances that I mentioned two paragraphs ago. To be honest, I hated each of those circumstances to begin with, as silly as some of them were. But, as I remember who was brought into my life through each of them, I realize that it was worth it. The Author knows best and "I have been changed for good".