God is not a cashier at a fast food restaurant... (Though I have been waiting here for a while and I'm still waiting for my order)

The other night, Chris went to his high school's homecoming football game and I stayed home to recuperate a bit from some difficult things that I had taken in over the course of the day/week/month/year (it's been a little rough recently).

Thinking that taking some time to think included not making my own dinner, I ventured the mile up the street to a fast food restaurant, went inside, and placed my order at the counter.

Now, there were definitely other customers, but it's not like the place was swarmed. After placing my order, I filled up my drink cup at the beverage station and settled in to wait for my food.

About 5 minutes went by, which was fine (I'm willing to wait a bit if need be), and I noticed that one or two of the customers who had placed orders before mine were still waiting.

Another 5 minutes went by, so I went and re-filled my drink cup (because I'd been drinking my fizzy beverage since I started waiting). Still no food.

By now, though, I'm starting to realize that customers who ordered after me have gotten their food and moved out of the ordering/receiving area. But I still wait, thinking that maybe there was just an issue with that particular food and maybe they ran out of chicken temporarily or whatever.

And then another 5 minutes went by (we're up to 15 minutes now) and I realized that all but the two or three most recent customers had all received their food orders. Then the kid next to me (maybe he was in college) asked me how long I'd been waiting.

When other customers begin to notice that you've been there a while, there's a good chance that something went awry, so I went to the counter and politely told the cashier that I'd been waiting 15 minutes for my order and had yet to see or receive it.

Upon hearing this, she promptly went and grabbed my food order from the kitchen and handed it to me in a paper bag, and I returned home and ate it.

And as I ate my now not-so-satisfying bag filled with lard, I realized that what I had experienced in the fast food restaurant was a pretty acute metaphor for my life as of late - starting with the fact that I felt forgotten.

It struck me because I had been trying to explain to both Christopher and one of my friends earlier in the week (and in the day) how I felt, and I came up with a word (abandoned) that I knew didn't quite convey my feelings accurately, but for which I didn't possess a better alternative.

It's a weird concept, especially when you throw in the words "feel" and "by God." Because, let's face it - God's plans are not up for grabs at a fast food counter. You don't just go up and place your order, wait the prescribed amount of time for your next life season to fry in a tub of oil, and then take it home with you. It doesn't work like that. God doesn't work like that.

Nonetheless, I'm trying to root out this mentality when it comes to my expectations of God and His interest in and interaction with my life.

I feel like I placed my order 15 minutes ago, and I've seen people get theirs ahead of me and understood that they got here first and waited their allotments of time, but now people who arrived after me are getting theirs, too - punk kids, the geriatric crowd getting their milkshakes (I actually happen to love that older people go to get milkshakes together - I totally want to be like that, but that's not at all my point here), and others who are pretty similar to myself.

But the thing is, I'm still waiting. Sipping my fizzy beverage from my drink cup.

And, you know, I've started to get a little impatient. I'm eager to get my hands on that nice hot slice of deep-fried life. It just never comes.

And then I go ask again.

Of course, this is where the analogy breaks down, because God is not the cashier at a fast food restaurant, where the customer is always right and helpings are served up almost instantaneously if only you let them know that something didn't happen quite as it should have.

God is always right. Huge difference.

The thing that I'm really trying to work into my head, though, is that in the waiting for this big portion of life, I too easily skip over the blessing of the fizzy beverage sitting in my hand. It's easy to complain when it's there for too long and your hand starts to be incredibly cold, and you forget that you've already received part of your order - even if it's not the piece that you think you need.

I too easily forget the many blessings that God has given to Christopher and me over the past year. It has not been easy, and the fight to keep my life out of the prison of depression has been incredibly difficult in ways it has never been, and the fight against my flesh more intense and more acknowledged. I've been wearied by our circumstances. I miss people who have passed into the glorious presence of our God and who have moved out-of-state. I'm even back at work hoping to pay off some things that accumulated in the wake of Christopher's accident and buying a house (and those pesky student loan repayments that start up in February or whenever).

But God has greatly blessed us and been faithful. We might still be waiting for our order, but He's given us drink cups to fill and be refreshed in while we wait:

• Christopher's surgery and rehabilitation went well, with no permanent nerve damage, and he's already back to doing most of the things he loves best
• We are happily settled into our home, which was impossible from the start, but for which God cleared every hurdle and answered every prayer for help with finances and remodeling after Christopher's injury, and in allowing it to be a place where we can welcome others
• I finished my coursework for my grad program (though that thesis is still pending)
• Our summer with Mpact was incredible, and included a great conference, encouraging meetings with the youth, and a study of Galatians that was challenging
• Christopher's job and coaching have continued, despite budget cuts statewide to educators
• We have gotten to spend quite a bit of time with both of our families
• When life finally settled down in September and I realized I was bored for the first time in months, I set out to find a job - and had three offers within a week

My spiritual drink cup is overflowing with gloriously sweet and fizzy beverage. I'm just struggling to see it for what it is because it's really cold and kind of sticky on my fingers, and it's not exactly what I wanted most out of the order I placed. I know I'm still waiting for what I ordered, and it might feel like things got lost back there behind the counter, but I'm trying to trust that it isn't the case. The God I know and love doesn't forget people - sins, of course, because Scripture tells us that, but not people.

And so, when you see me sitting around still waiting for my order, could you encourage me to just enjoy the unlimited refills on my fizzy beverage?

Because it's one thing to feel forgotten by God and another entirely to believe it.

Reading: Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
Listening to: Odd Soul, Mutemath; Vice Verses, Switchfoot

A Night Owl's Growing Convictions on the Importance of Daylight

"I have come into the world as light, so that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness." (John 12:46)

I woke up at 2:38 this morning with an incredible headache. And I'm not sure why, but a headache is one of the few things that actually will get me out of bed in the morning and keep me there. Perhaps that is why God allows me headaches in the night. Perhaps not.

Regardless, I took something and went back to bed, and slept for approximately three more hours. Considering that I only slept for a total of about five hours (and most of that was intermittent), it's quite an amazing thing that I'm not still in bed at the moment. I don't often function on five hours of sleep.

After letting the dogs out and putting the kettle on to boil water, I settled in with my Bible and the study I'm using as an opening devotional (since I completed it a few years ago and want to review some of the incredible truths that lie within - "Knowing God by Name" by Mary Kassian). I read my day's worth from the One Year (I'm in Leviticus and Mark, I think). Leviticus normally excites me, which I'm well aware of as being strange, but it just wasn't hitting me in the heart this morning as I emerged from my headache-induced fog.

As I sat there, I pondered over something that I prayed while Chris and I walked through our neighborhood the other night - that I hadn't thanked God for the season that He has just walked us through - and the following verse popped into my head (thank you, nearly 10 years of summer Bible camp):

"In everything, give thanks."

Which of course led me to the question, "Where the heck is that passage?" and "What around it might give me a better understanding of what that means?"

Amazingly, I still remember that reference pretty well (not a normal occurrence - the references are always the difficult part for me). I flipped open to 1 Thessalonians 5 and spent the next few hours steeped in the wonderment of trying to figure out verses 4-24, and what they mean to me.

But you are not in darkness, brothers, for that day to surprise you like a thief. For you are all children of light, children of the day. We are not of the night or of the darkness. So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober. For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, are drunk at night. But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation. For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him. Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing.

We ask you, brothers, to respect those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you, and to esteem them very highly in love because of their work. Be at peace among yourselves. And we urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all. See that no one repays anyone evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to everyone. Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise prophecies, but test everything; hold fast what is good. Abstain from every form of evil.

Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it.

There are more than a few things that I took away from this passage as convictions for my own life, but I'll only highlight a few (to avoid an even longer post, but perhaps I'll share more at another time).

The first is simply this: I need to belong to the daylight.

I have long been a 'night owl' and have attempted to justify my life in that respect. It is easy for me to stay up all night as long as I make it past midnight, but I rarely do anything that is worth doing so late. Now don't get me wrong - I understand fully that the meaning implied here is more metaphorical than literal - but I think (at least in my case) there's an actual reason for the metaphor that can be applied to the way I think about life.

It hit me this morning that there is a stillness in the early morning, just as there is in the middle of the night - but it is more glorious. The stillness of the night is magnified because I can see clearly what lies around me, and I am less apt to dwell upon myself and more apt to see myself in the light of who God is and what He has made me to be.

Additionally, I came to the realization that people live in the daylight. If my aim in life is to cultivate relationship with those around me in the hope that we each might each be justified and sanctified by the blood spent on the cross on our behalf, I can't expect that to happen when most people aren't awake or available! It is difficult to "admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, [or] be patient with them all," if I am not part of the daylight when opportunities to do so are most likely to present themselves.

How easily I have catered to my flesh, attempting to rationalize my need to sleep for (up to) half of the day because I didn't get to bed until late after having done little (if nothing) of sufficient worth for which to remain awake!

Part of why I think I struggle to "hold fast to what is good [and] abstain from every form of evil," is that I cannot see through the darkness. This can be metaphorical for me, as I have periodically battled with depression, but I think it can still be literal, as well.

And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. (John 3:19)

The society in which we live glorifies the darkness. When reading the verse quoted in the last paragraph, I found myself wanting to know where the loopholes were for "every form of evil." It is easy to think that my life must contain evil things because the culture in which we live is evil. But we deceive ourselves if we think we cannot abstain.

Darkness is striving into the daylight, and what was once hidden in shame is now socially acceptable to be seen and known. Let us not be deceived, for God will not be mocked - we will reap the destruction of sowing to our flesh (Galatians 6: 7-8).

The beauty of it all is this:

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. (John 1:5)

In truth, the darkness cannot overcome it. What a marvelous thing! The glory of the risen Christ will always drown out the darkness. He is greater.

And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. (Galatians 6:9)