Growing Pains

Does anyone else still struggle to figure out what life is supposed to look like?

I personally have no clue. Factor in the fact that, somehow, in some way, Christ is meant to be at the center of it all, and I find myself floundering even when it comes down to deciding what to do with my life. Should I be an organizational communication consultant? A musician? A mother and homemaker? A professional gift wrapper (still holding out for this one to be remotely possible)? A writer? An artist? A seamstress? All of the above (laugh all you want, but I do try to make it all work in my head sometimes)?

By now, I do know that I can't have it all. On my best days, two of the above seem improbable, if not impossible. Perhaps I have too many interests or perhaps I think I do just so that I can avoid making a decision as to what to do with my time and energy and talents. Perhaps I'm just scared that what I have to offer the world isn't good enough. Really scared.

But there's the crux of the whole issue right there, isn't it? I'm not good enough.

I've spent a lifetime trying to skirt by on my own virtues and successes, in spite of the fact that it is God's supreme sovereignty and grace that has gifted me with everything that I have and am.

Currently, I'm finding my way through Water into Wine: Hope for the Miraculous in the Struggle of the Mundane by Kelly Minter. She is quickly becoming one of my favorite authors, for many reasons, but this particular book concerns the miracle of Jesus turning water into wine at the wedding in Cana (from John 2).

One of the most indelible things she has hit thus far has been the perspective of the servants. Her point is that they likely served guests and their masters day after day, year after year, with little variation in the routine - until Jesus showed up and asked them to draw water, which they drew and, somehow in the transfer, it became the best of wines.

But I love what Minter has to say:

What is it all for? Another day of work, another day of showing up, another concert, another wedding, another stone jar of water, another order from yet another person: "Fill the jars with water... Take them to the master of the banquet." The servants had probably been doing this for years. Feast after feast, they served people who were wealthier and higher in status. It was the same rote activity with no shadow of turning.

"Would you care for another hors d'oeuvre?"
"May I recommend the salmon puffs?"
"May I take your plate?"
"Can I get you a refill?"

Day after day. Water in... water out. Routine. Predictable. Monotonous. Mundane. Regimented.
What in the world is it all for?

I don't think I'm stretching things by suggesting that this may have been the servants' dilemma, because it seems to me that this is everyone's dilemma: We all go 'round and 'round, attempting to make life work just so we can get up the next day to make it work again. Whether we act on Broadway or deliver newspapers for a living, life doesn't seem to make much sense or have much value without the conviction that God is divinely involved, able and eager to reach down at any moment and turn the everyday stuff of life into something divine, something that counts for eternity, something that is beyond ourselves.

Beyond myself. I so rarely think in those terms. It's either "I can do this" or "I can't." There doesn't seem to be a fuzzy gray area in between where I discover that "I can't, but God can." I'm not bringing Him my water jars "filled to the brim" and expecting Him to do something bewilderingly amazing with them - such as turning them into wine.

I find every excuse not to fill my water jars. At all. I complain about the water being the wrong temperature, requiring a filter, or splashing all over what I'm wearing - I don't simply obey in offering all that I am and all that God made me to be (which is the same thing, really) for Him to use.

Not every day will be extraordinary. The servants at Cana likely waited a really long time before that one incredible day that Jesus was there. But I need to expect that God both can and will provide in miraculous ways for my life here and there. I need to expect that He can and will divinely speak into my life about what it should look like, where I should work, how I should serve those that I love (and some that I struggle to), and when to simply rest.

So this is what being grown-up feels like, huh? Still working to fork over to God the things that are already rightfully His... and praying that I might occasionally, by His grace, be able to do so.

Excerpt from Water into Wine: Hope for the Miraculous in the Struggle of the Mundane by Kelly Minter. Minter also wrote No Other Gods: Confronting our Modern Day Idols, which I read earlier this year and which was an instrument God used to reveal idolatry that had/has made a home in my own heart; and The Fitting Room: Putting on the Character of Christ, which just came out in April and which I will be starting as soon as I finish Water into Wine.

Like I said, one of my newest favorite authors. See kellyminter.com for more.

Why I'm leaving Facebook after 7 years as a user...

There was once a time that Facebook was simple, and so (to be honest) was my life. I went to classes and came home, seeing all the people I really knew in the dorms, catching up with them at dinner, and enjoying late night chats in the lounges. The few people I didn't see regularly, I began to keep up with on "the Face", which gave me a little bit of insight to their lives when I gave them a phone call and got caught up that way.

Life's now a little more complex, however, and so has become my Facebook habit.

Now, I've never gotten into the games. When I first saw that my father had planted corn (in Farmville, as I later found out), I was really confused because my parents' neighborhood won't let them plant anything edible. And when I tried to get into playing Scrabble with the family, I would forget to check on the game and ended up force-forfeiting almost every one I ever tried to play.

So, obviously, I'm not talking about that.

What has gotten quite absurdly out of control has been my need to know every tidbit about every person that I both do and do not hang out with on a daily basis. It wouldn't be so bad if I actually took the time to seek out each individual to see how he or she was doing, but the fact that it is so readily supplied and I do not need to initiate any type of communication (or relationship), is ridiculous. No wonder I feel cut off from people - almost every relationship is mediated and nothing is genuine.

So, why now?

I've been toying with this idea for a while. It is nothing new in the back recesses of my mind, though perhaps not purely in this light. My original stance was going to be for privacy, but Facebook fixed some things and that's not really a hill I wanted to die on.

This, however is:

Do not turn aside after empty things that cannot profit or deliver, for they are empty. [1 Samuel 12:21]

Those that cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs. [Jonah 2:8]

When we put it plainly like this - as a direct choice between God and our stuff - most of us hope we would choose God. But we need to realize that how we spend our time, what our money goes toward, and where we will invest our energy is equivalent to choosing God or rejecting Him. How could we think for even a second that something on this puny little earth compares to the Creator and Sustainer and Savior of it all? [Francis Chan, Crazy Love]

Now, I don't want to say that Facebook is entirely empty or without value - it certainly can be useful when handled with the correct heart. I simply do not currently have that heart.

Facebook can be a great communication tool, but I am not using it as such. It can be a great way to keep in touch with old friends at various distances, but I often find discouragement, heartache, and even bitterness in what appears in my News Feed.

My heart is not centered heavily on Christ right now - and I'm finally seeing that to be the root of the problem. I need Christ, but I do not see my need for Him.

And this must change.

In the next few months, I'm hoping to seek the stripping away of "worthless idols" - those things that are empty, that do not "profit or deliver" me to the foot of the cross. I want to choose my Creator over the created things that He has so graciously given me. I want to know again the desire to sit at His feet and be fully known by Him. I want to boldly come before the throne of grace - and, right now, I do not remember what that looks like.

Therefore, the first thing to go is Facebook. More will certainly follow, though it will certainly be a process that requires honesty with myself where (especially) my media use is concerned. Only as things are stripped away will I see what needs to go next.

My life has become a constant refrain of, "If only I get to keep (fill in the blank)... (fill in the blank)." We were created for so much more - if there is "no greater loss" than to lose myself in the One who was broken and died on a cross so that He could conquer death and my sin in His resurrection, then I need to change how I live, for my life does not currently reflect this.

On September 15th, I will pull the plug on my Facebook account. Until then, I'll be trying to gather as much contact information as I can so that I might possibly cultivate relationships again, rather than seeing my reading of status updates for people I know as "relationships".

Regardless, you can still get ahold of me here, at my e-mail address, akatereynolds[at]yahoo.com, on Twitter [akatereynolds] or by telephone.

Listening to: Mumford & Sons, Sigh No More
Reading: Jan Karon, In This Mountain [among other things]

To know God...

"To know God is to know fear. The fear of God is a heart-pounding, knee-trembling, spine-tingling, shuddering recognition that God is infinitely more good and powerful and important than me. It means that I live and think and act and speak with a keen awareness that He is the Creator and I am the creature; He is holy and I am not; He is wise and I am a fool; He is powerful and I am weak; He is ruler and I am servant; He is self-sufficient and I am utterly dependent.

To fear God means to be ever-aware of His all-pervasive presence, conscious of my absolute need for Him, mindful of my responsibility to follow His way, determined to obey Him, cautious of offending Him, and overwhelmed in amazement and gratitude at His incredible goodness and grace."

[[Mary Kassian, Knowing God by Name]]

The Ninth Letter

Let us thus think often that our only business in this life is to please God, and that all besides is but folly and vanity. You and I have lived about forty years in religion (i.e., a monastic life). Have we employed them in loving and serving God, who by His mercy has called us to this state, and for that very end? I am filled with shame and confusion when I reflect, on one hand, upon the great favors which God has done, and incessantly continues to do me; and on the other, upon the ill use I have made of them, and my small advancement in the way of perfection.

Since by His mercy He gives us still a little time, let us begin in earnest; let us repair the lost time; let us return with a full assurance to that Father of mercies, who is always ready to receive us affectionately. Let us renounce, let us generously renounce, for the love of Him, all that is not Himself; He deserves infinitely more. Let us think of Him perpetually. Let us put all our trust in Him. I doubt not but we shall soon find the effects of it in receiving the abundance of His grace, with which we can do all things, and without which we can do nothing but sin.

We cannot escape the dangers which abound in life without the actual and continual help of God. Let us, then, pray to Him for it continually. How can we pray to Him without being with Him? How can we be with Him but in thinking of Him often? And how can we often think of Him but by a holy habit which we should form of it? You will tell me that I am always saying the same thing. It is true, for this is the best and easiest method I know; and as I use no other, I advise all the world to do it. We must know before we can love. In order to know God, we must often think of Him; and when we come to love Him, we shall also think of Him often, for our heart will be with our treasure. This is an argument which well deserves your consideration.

[[Brother Lawrence, "The Practice of the Presence of God"]]

I have been very numb of late, wanting so desperately to hunger and thirst for spiritual things and yet I have not even been willing to take the first step, to simply talk (or wait) with God, or to even open His Word and ask that He direct me.

I have felt so incredibly dirty, an outcast of the very kingdom to which I so desperately cling. This evening, I looked over countless old songs and wondered what it would be like to be back in my six-year-old shoes and looking at a God I knew was stronger than anything I could ever face.

Granted, that part still lives inside of me - the part that knows my God is so much more than I could ever dream up in a hundred years. I, a mere member of the human race, am entirely incapable of understanding all the facets of this God that I serve.

Above all, I still cling to these three things:

1. In spite of my circumstances, my God is still good.

     Nothing can change this. No human; no animal; no grain of sand - not Satan himself. 

2. In spite of His goodness and His love, my God is still just.

     There would be no use in worshipping a God who did not punish evil. I don't want to.

3. In spite of God's justice, my God is still merciful.

     The death of Jesus Christ upon a cross 2000+ years ago still stands as the atoning sacrifice for anyone who dares to enter the living waters and breathe deep - to die with Him means to live with Him. It is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He paid for my wretched little life with His own so that He could be restored to fellowship and relationship with me! He punished evil - our evil - but He found a way for us to be justified without seeing that punishment ourselves!

Christ died so that we might fulfill our only purpose - to please Him!

Yet so many are still captive. So many are enslaved within darkness and try to ignore the disease that has set itself into the very marrow of their bones. If they do not have to be reminded that they are sinful, they do not need to even consider the fact that they might have been created by One to whom they will give an account for that sin.

And, all the while, the very cells that are diseased cry out for their Creator to be glorified - to receive the reward of His suffering. How long, Lord Jesus, before You set these captives free?

But some of them may never know freedom, and it is for those that I weep tonight. We hold onto hope, however, knowing that if "our only business in this life is to please God, and that all besides is but folly and vanity," then, perhaps - just perhaps - God will continue to be good in granting mercy through His fulfillment of justice in Jesus Christ, and a few more might be awakened from death into life.

I love the first chapter of Colossians... "He has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son He loves..."

All that is needed to illuminate the darkness is the smallest bit of light. I cling to that.

I need the reminders tonight, perhaps more than ever - that is, perhaps, why I was at the Ninth Letter - and God has been gracious to grant them. 

...all besides is but folly and vanity.

Mood: Broken, yet edified Reading: Red, Ted Dekker [finished yesterday, actually] 

Listening to: The rain as it falls outside of our apartment