His Love is Even Here

I feel like I'm in the Twilight Zone. The last few weeks of the semester tend to do that to me.

Sickness messed with my sleep and work schedules, which messed with my concentration and homework time, which messed with my free time and has me confused as to which day of the week it is today. Friends needing a shoulder to cry on; other friends not wanting to talk at all; other friends flip-flopping between wanting to be friends and ignoring the threads of friendship between us.

This has all left me tired and definitely in the midst of a real-life Twilight Zone. What can break me out of this mind-trick?

• Twelve hours of sleep made me feel better physically, but not really mentally. 
• A random act of kindness filled the gap like drugs: a high I could ride that left me in a crash.
• Waiting for a summer job interview, a placement for student teaching, a reply on my resubmitted nonfiction piece... I'm always waiting.
• Running lines with two precious girls for our church Christmas play lifted my spirits but reminded me of the work to be done for the play.
• Letting go of a crush the same day I see friends comforted by their boyfriends is disheartening. Very disheartening.
• Canceling our Thursday small group provided rest for my co-leader and me, but now it doesn't feel like Thursday anymore, and I can't shake the feeling I'm failing at ministry again.
• Breakfast at 10:30am. Enough said.
• My roommate and housemate pulled an all-nighter last night and woke me up just before 7 this morning. Lovely.

Speaking of which, I wrote my roommate a raw and painfully honest letter this morning about various things in our friendship. I was so busy writing it that I was almost late to my class this morning. When I looked down at the pages I had written, my heart was broken at how angry I sounded. The passive-aggressive letter is long and full of questions and exclamations I would have to flinch to even say aloud to her. Who do I think I am, expressing those hurtful comments to someone who matters so much to me? But, what if those comments need to be spoken because of how much she matters to me?

At this point I don't know.

Religion seems meaningless right now.

Ecclesiastes ends with the Teacher telling us to fear God and obey Him, for we will be judged. He goes through twelve chapters shooting down everything in the entire universe as meaningless, and then he comes back to God. Obey Him. Those are his final words.

And even at this point, obedience seems meaningless. Unless I disconnect it from religion.

Obedience because of religion is heartless and pointless. Muslims bow in prayer five times a day. Jewish people light eight candles (with a ninth candle in the middle) for Hanukkah each year. Why? These seem to be empty traditions based on obedience to religions that seem empty themselves.

If we think of Christianity in those terms of empty religion, it is meaningless. However, if we think of obedience as an out-flowing of the love we have for our Savior and friend, it becomes a relationship.

Did you know that his love is even here? Even here in the Twilight Zone with a headache, waiting for so many things, trying to get well, sipping tea that's gone cold, wondering how I feel so alone when I'm so surrounded... His love is here. Even here.

• When I can only get out his name in a broken voice before the guilt of my sin overcomes me, He's here.
• When I can't concentrate on a single homework assignment, not to mention a chapter of my favorite book in His Word, He's here.
• When I feel like I'm failing as a small group co-leader, like my past has come back to haunt me, He's here.
• When I wrongly think that hearing his words and feeling his hug would make things right, He's here.
• When I hurt with desperation over the confusion in my friendships, He's here.
• When I have trouble even lasting a shift at work, He's here.
• When no food satisfies and most of it leaves me feeling nauseous, He's here.
• When my singleness adds to my already disillusioned outlook, He's here.
• And even when I don't want Him, He's here. Like a patient gentleman, He's waiting on me to ask Him to come in and be at home with me with nothing but jasmine tea between us.

His love is over, it's underneath, it's inside, it's in between. 

Oh, How He Loves.
Yes, Jesus loves me. Yes, Jesus loves me. For the Bible tells me so.

He is the God who is here.

What I'm Listening To:

"Times" - Tenth Avenue North

"Sometimes" - David Crowder Band

A Success Story

This is a success story. Freedom is possible.

There's this realization that kinda hits you in the face when you overcome. It's even better when you realize God already overcame for you and in you.
Hillsong sings that when God took on human form in Jesus and came to die for us on a cross, shame and sinfulness were broken, faithfulness was revealed, sin was broken, hope and defense in Christ were proven, the lost were saved, and his name was (and will be) lifted higher. That's beyond incredible. God really died for us. For our hearts and for our souls.

So, back to the story. I overcame. That could be the entire story, but I'm going to be a little more open with you guys and share some of the back story. This is a slight bit vague so you can apply it to you and your struggles.

When dealing with repetitive sins (lying, coveting, sexual sins, anything that seems to ensnare or entangle you), I've learned that there are certain triggers that may prompt them. These may start out innocently enough, or may take the form of temptation. Either way, when faced with a trigger, we have choices. The knee-jerk reaction is to do what we've always done, in most cases, the sin. It's almost immediate. Sometimes we can get so accustomed to the repetition that we feel as if we have no option but the knee-jerk reaction.
I would like to take this chance to argue that we do have another option. Remember when I said that we have choices? Plural. More than one. So what do we do?

We cannot keep all of the triggers from happening. For example, say someone struggles with alcoholism. They can choose not to walk into a bar. That one is obvious. However, they may not be aware that a friend of a friend is planning to bring wine to a dinner party. One smell and that becomes a trigger. There is a sense of carefulness and discernment that comes along with an alcoholic's choice to embrace sobriety and healing.

My step one is this: Don't be stupid. (And I don't use that word flippantly.) Don't walk into a bar if you are a recovering alcoholic. Avoid the dessert table if you want to loose weight. Choose not to spend extended time with gossipy friends. Don't put yourself in a compromising position.
And step two: Bounce and replace. When I was in high school, the guys in my youth group learned a trick called "the bounce." For example, a girl at school is wearing something low cut. Instead of staring, they would "bounce" their eyes away. Tempted to covet your neighbor's oxen (er.... whatever)? If you can't avoid his "oxen," choose to focus on something else while you're over at his "farm." Get your mind off of the issue, whatever the issue is.
Replace refers to choosing something to fill the gap left by removing the sin. It's not enough to be tempted to punch some dude in the face and then just decide not to do it. What are you going to do with all of that energy that you built up while getting ready to punch him? What are going to do with those feelings of anger? Replace the sin you just avoided with a better coping strategy. One of the reasons I took up knitting was because I used to bite my fingernails. When I decided I didn't want to bite my nails anymore, I looked for something else to do with my hands. It is also great that knitting involves creating something, because I was more likely to stay with it when I saw the benefits that could come from it. Namely, scarves and sweaters and stuff. Slowly, the repetition of knitting (and of choosing knitting over nail-biting) replaced the repetition of biting my nails.

When it comes to repetitive sins, identify your triggers, don't be stupid, and bounce/replace. In this way, overcoming becomes much more possible. Just a word to the wise, however, if and when you follow through with your first reaction (the sin one), know that God has already forgiven you. And he is still overcoming for you. Choose to avoid sin for the purpose of strengthening your relationship with God and keeping yourself from the consequences, but don't ever fall into the trap of legalism. I believe that eventually, your first reaction will be the better strategy instead of the sin. But that takes a lot of time and consistently choosing good over evil for that to happen. So don't let your guard down.

Anyway, so I told you this was a success story. Well, last night I encountered a significant trigger for me. And I was not moving in the right direction. (The right direction, by the way, is as far away from the trigger as possible, mentally or physically, usually both.) It wasn't looking good. I came to the point in which I had to make a choice: keep going in this direction (give into the temptation) or turn around and run away (flee temptation). Suddenly I caught a glimpse of how I would see this situation if I were an outsider looking in on the circumstances. Not a pretty picture. Then I realized that looking back on that moment and seeing it as future-me was not any prettier. And in that moment when I thought I had no choice but to give in to the knee-jerk reaction, I made the choice to stop right there in my tracks. Turn around. And run away as fast as possible. I bounced and then replaced: went to play piano and then made cookies with some friends.

Easy does not describe that choice to change directions. At all. But overcome does. I overcame. Victory, hallelujah.

1 Corinthians 10:13:

The temptations in your life are no different from what others experience. And God is faithful. He will not allow the temptation to be more than you can stand. When you are tempted, he will show you a way out so that you can endure.

For an entire year, from one Easter to the next, God hammered (for lack of a better word) his faithfulness into me. I bet I heard faithful used in some form every day that year. To see that word show up in this verse, seven months after that "hammering" subsided, is pretty amazing. God is not finished with us. He will not give up on us. And he is faithful, not only to provide a way out, but also to forgive us if we do fall.

So beautiful. Our God is so merciful and so good and so just. Hallelujah, we are free to struggle, Tenth Avenue North sings, but we're not struggling to be free. We are already free. We are free to struggle. It's that struggle that makes us feel alive and that gives us the joy we can find when we overcome. Hallelujah, God did not make robots. God made people with free will who have the choice for relationships with Him. And because of that free will and those choices, we can know love.

Relationships are a lot of give-and-take. I have an amazing roommate who I've been blessed to share a room with for a second school year now. This friendship we share is so unlike anything I've done before. We are so close that we now know so much about each other and, yet, there is no judgement in our relationship. She knows my crap and loves me anyway. Our relationship is full of give-and-take. When one of us is upset about something, the other one will be, too. When one of us acts selfishly, it takes away from the other. And that relationship is a (not-perfect, but similar) picture of the relationship God wants to have with us.

Blessed be the name of the Lord that he made us for relationships, not dictatorships or mechanical repetition or false obedience. We obey God out of love for him. How beautiful is that?

In this moment when I'm sharing my success story, I have to give all honor and praise to God. Success is not possible without him. Trying to avoid a repetitive sin without God's strength and grace is like trying to survive a hurricane while standing outside in an open field beside a telephone pole. It doesn't work, because in that moment, you are a prime target.
I also want to leave you with the thought that success in overcoming is even more possible with accountability. Trying to avoid a repetitive sin without someone else knowing and holding you accountable is like trying to survive without water. Telling someone else is extremely painful, but it is also amazingly refreshing. That's why I went to counseling. And it's the same reason why I am phasing out of counseling and into an accountability/mentoring kind of thing in this next semester. And you know what? Go back and read 1 Corinthians 10:13. It says that "no temptation has seized you except that which is common to man." Literally. That means that you're not alone. Did you catch that? You. Are. Not. Alone. Realizing that right there made it easier for me to tell someone. I hope it does the same for you.

I want to leave you with these truths: Success is possible. Freedom is real. Healing is tangible. There is nothing wrong with you. God is merciful. God has already forgiven you. You don't have to live like your past.
Remember: avoid your triggers (don't be stupid), bounce/replace, get accountability. More on that last one soon.

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us.

- Hebrews 12:1

Peace be with you.

What I'm Listening to:

"Lay Me Down" - Chris Tomlin
"The Earth is Yours" - Gungor
"The Struggle" - Tenth Avenue North
"Worn" - Tenth Avenue North

Love Yourself: Advice for Christians (Part Two)

If you missed part one, you can read it here.

I accepted Jesus into my heart fourteen years ago this month. I've spent fourteen years in this religion that is more like a relationship; fourteen years deeper into the heart of God.

A lot has changed since then. For one, I have learned how to articulate my beliefs. I finally nailed down my views on Calvinism and Arminianism (closer to the latter), soteriology (ransom theory with a bit of Christus Victor), and predestination ("ordained" free will... kinda). In addition, I've had my fair share of heartaches, victories, doubts, and beliefs. I watched the breaking apart of my parents' marriage. I lost a piece of my innocence. I lost my grandpa. I faced my fears. I began counseling.

Sometimes I characterize my growing up as "overchurched," in the sense that attending a Christian school and being involved in every activity at church often made me jaded to Christ. I literally did not want to hear it anymore. Unfortunately, living with a continual and typically repetitive or even simplistic "dose" of Jesus every time you turn around can be unhealthy. We may forget the most important things about Christianity.

Case in point: We all know the words of John 3:16 by heart, but most of us really do not believe them in our hearts. John 3:16 begins with these two words: God loves. Do we believe that he loves? Does our acknowledgement of his love change the way we live, interact, or think?

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In my last post, I offered the idea that the advice "Love Yourself" can actually be beneficial for Christians. When I look at 1 Corinthians 13 and see that love is patient, love is kind, it only makes sense that I would treat myself, just as I treat others, in those ways.

To continue with 1 Corinthians 13, verse five says that love "keeps no record of being wronged." When it comes to loving yourself, I think this phrase goes both ways. Love does not make a list of every time someone sins against you. But also, love does not make a list of every time you sin. Yourself. Love is not about keeping the law or maintaining rules and regulations. Love is about living a spirit-filled life. Romans 8:3-4 reads:

The law of Moses was unable to save us because of the weakness of our sinful nature. So God did what the law could not do. He sent his own Son in a body like the bodies we sinners have. And in that body God declared an end to sin's control over us by giving his Son as a sacrifice for our sins. He did this so that the just requirement of the law would be fully satisfied for us, who no longer follow our sinful nature but instead follow the Spirit.

The thing is, under the new covenant (basically, the New Testament), we do not live by the rules of the Law (the old covenant, the Old Testament Law). And when we meet Christ and accept his free gift of salvation, we no longer live in slavery to the sinful nature. As born-again Christians, we live by the Spirit. God declared an end to both the law's control and sin's control over us.

Now, take this theology and apply it to keeping no record of wrongs. If Romans 8:1 is correct, if there really is no condemnation for those who in Christ Jesus, then of course God does not make a list of our sins and judge us by it. He loves us as his children, and I believe he isn't about to bring up our past sins to make us feel guilty or to place blame or shame on us. That's not the way love works.

Similarly, when we talk about loving ourselves, it is important that we acknowledge that we sin, that we are aware that we are not yet who we want to be in Christ, but that we not become obsessed with feeling bad about our sins or walking around with this subjective feeling of "condemnation" for doing something wrong. Has God forgiven you? Has God already forgiven you? The answer is a firm and resounding Yes. Don't keep holding to that bad feeling after you sin. 1 John 1:9 says, "But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness." So confess it and move on.

Keeping a record of your wrongs and bringing them up again every single time someone mentions forgiveness and grace is a pretty depressing way to live. I know. I've been there. The thing is, God doesn't care about all of that. He loves you regardless. He loves you for who he made you to be. He loves you because His son's blood covers all of your sins. Why hold on to something Jesus has already washed off of you? Why grasp the chains of sin and guilt that Jesus already broke? Tenth Avenue North sings:

Your blood bought and makes us children
Children drop your chains and sing

Friends, a healthy realization that, as Christians, we still sin, is good. Yes, Christians still sin. The only difference is that sin does not drive us from God in a desperation, it actually ends up drawing us closer to God. When we sin now, as believers, we can come to God and kneel before him and confess, "God, I'm sorry for my sin. I repent." And you know what? God says, "What sin? I don't know what you're talking about." Come up here and sit on my lap.

Hebrews chapter four says that since Jesus was tempted in every way we are, yet he did not sin, we can "approach the 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). God is not angry at us! He wants to give us mercy and grace. He wants to help us in our weaknesses. He beckons us towards him. What a beautiful realization that, even though it seems impossible, if we give God our pain and mistakes and heartaches, if we reveal to him our brokenness and sins, he will redeem us. He will forgive us. In fact, he already has. Come to the water, my friend.

God keeps no record of wrongs. Love keeps no record of wrongs (your own or someone else's). To love yourself means to not beat yourself up over what has happened in the past. To love yourself means to confess it and move on, to accept God's graciousness and forgiveness and be loved. To let yourself be loved.

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1 Corinthians 13:7 says that love always hopes. Check back for part three where I will discuss how hope applies to loving yourself.

What I'm Listening To:

Hallelujah, The Struggle, and Shadows - Tenth Avenue North
Doubts or Disbelief - Chasen

The Mystery of Grace

Towards the beginning of the summer, I wrote a post on my realization that God sees me, and that He is aware of me and cares specifically for me. Last week, after an incredible Spiritual Emphasis Week, I felt the need to write a post describing my interactions and reactions with what I learned in chapel.

But I was at a loss for words. Until tonight.

I was fighting the temptation to throw myself a pity party for some ridiculous reason when I hopped on to Twitter and saw a line from C.S. Lewis sitting on my homepage. 

Wow. "He sees because He loves, and therefore loves although He sees."

I acknowledged back in June that God loves us and sees us, but I still have a difficult time understanding God's love "although He sees." The fact that he loves even though he knows we are broken and messy. Being a natural rule-follower, I have legalistic tendencies, which show up in huge way in my interactions with sin and grace. Grace, to a rule-follower and people-pleaser like me, is ludicrous. It makes zero sense. Why would a perfect God choose to love and forgive a consistently sinful person like me? My confession is that I don't understand grace.

If God truly saw me, We reason, he would never love me. He would never forgive me. He would always be angry with me.
If my friends knew who I really was, they would be disappointed in me or just avoid me.
If, God forbid, I told my pastor or even a mentor or counselor, about my struggles or pain, I would be pegged as a psycho by everyone who knew.

Um, hello? None of that is true. I know, I know, it is so hard to believe it. For one, our godly friends are gifts from heaven who make up the body of Christ for us. They are there to bear our burdens.  A friend who will not only confront us with grace, but who will also hold us to accountable if and when we mess up again is extremely valuable (Galatians 6). Two, many times there are issues, struggles, or pain we legitmately cannot handle on our own. God gives us not only friends and family, but also pastors, mentors, counselors, and the like to walk with us through those dark places.

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I'm in my second semester of counseling right now. It seems like forever ago when I asked one of the counselors on campus if we could talk. We dealt with my parents' divorce. We identified practical steps for dealing with a broken friendship. We talked about a personal struggle. I found freedom in naming my issues. I was working to learn from them and move on from them.

I signed up to continue counseling this semester without even thinking about it. I came back here to school three weeks ago, moved in, and began weekly meetings again. We both knew there was more to my story. I ignored it and my counselor didn't press for it.

And then one day I told him that we could do "feeling journals" for the rest of the semester, but I didn't feel like we would go anywhere until I told him the rest of the story. (Paul Harvey, anyone? Anyway...)

"There's more." I said simply. He nodded. Silently and obviously, I gathered the courage to open the door into one of the darkest places of my heart. It took almost four weeks, not to mention the semester prior, to get to that point where I could let someone in on the "stuffed stuff," meaning, the thoughts and experiences I tried so hard to forget. They keep coming back because, until that point, they had not been dealt with. Now, it is freeing that someone else knows me to my core. It is freeing to have a safe place to talk about things that have been hidden for so long.

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So I have advocated for Christian siblings and for professional help, but I have failed to make the connection to God's grace. Yet. As Lewis said, "...He loves although He sees." Honestly, even as I sit here, I'm wondering if his love really is enough.

It seems to me that at any point, God could just stand up and say, "Look, Alex, I thought you were different. I thought my gift of salvation changed your life, but apparently you are still the sinful human now that you were back before salvation. It's too late for you. I'm tired of dealing with your crap."

Oh, how wrong that is! Brothers and sisters, God will never make that statement to any of us. I'm a firm believer in permanent salvation - God does not take it back.

Yet we know that God is holy, and, on our own, we are not. So, why does he love us? Because he wants to.

I was once told that the Japanese (and Chinese, I believe) symbol for righteousness is depicted by drawing the symbol for "lamb" above the symbol for "me." Thus, when God looks down from heaven, he doesn't see my sinfulness, but Christ (the lamb of God who took on the sin of the world) covering over me. (See more info here) This is righteousness. It is as if Jesus Christ, who never sinned, is like a white robe to cover me.

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One of the most significant things I learned from Spiritual Emphasis Week is that God wants to come sit with me in my brokenness. He loves me enough to want to be invited into the dark places of my heart so we can drink Chai lattes (my drink of choice!) and feel that pain together. I believe the Holy Spirit is the person of the trinity who does just that.

And the reason that God can come into my place of sinfulness and pain with me? He's already forgiven me for it. "Christ suffered for our sins once for all time" (1 Peter). I think He is able to feel my pain because we have a high priest who sympathizes with us, namely, Jesus. He loves me intimately and wants me to trust him with the dark places. Isn't that beautiful?

Friends, God will not give up on you. I went to a Tenth Avenue North concert this past weekend and I was blown away by the stories Mike Donehey (the lead singer) shared about God's grace. I had pre-ordered the new album, The Struggle, when it was first available, but it wasn't until I heard Mike share stories and Biblical truths behind the album's songs that I was aware of how they really capture the idea of God's grace.

I hope to post more about grace as I'm learning to understand what I can of it, but I will leave you with this chorus from "The Struggle," by Tenth Avenue North.

Hallelujah, we are free to struggle
But we're not struggling to be free
Your blood bought and makes us children
Children, drop your chains and sing

Suddenly, freedom in Christ becomes a much more beautiful thing. Yes, God sees us because he loves us. As a direct result, he also loves us even though he sees us. All of us. They say a true friend knows everything about you and still loves you.

Oh what a friend we have in Jesus...

Impossible

It's become almost like a curse word to me now: the "i" word. Let me explain...

My last full day in Asia, my own shortsightedness and humanity hit me in the face. For all my group's previous large-group meetings, we had been in a fairly big room with a projector, floor to ceiling windows, and several rows of chairs. Yet for some reason, we were scheduled to gather in a much smaller room for our final meeting. My roommate and I arrived around 8 minutes early to find the room empty, save for a few scattered tables. We were very confused.

A minute later, a man arrived who would be conducting part of the meeting. He clarified who he was and that this was the room we were meeting in, and then he asked for our help to arrange the room. We began folding tables and unstacking chairs as more people arrived. Soon, there were at least ten of us arranging rows and occasionally pausing to count the chairs.

The entire time, I kept saying to myself and, even more unfortunately, to the people around me: "This is not going to work. There isn't enough room. This area is too small. How are we going to fit more than seventy people in here?" I remember once, leaning over to my roommate and saying a bit too loudly, "This is just impossible."

Less than ten minutes later, the room was arranged and seating was provided for more than seventy people.

When I realized what had just happened, I felt extremely humiliated. I found a seat on the second row and sat down, feeling awkward and probably blushing a bit. The good news is that the man who had asked us to help wasn't bothered at all by my doubt, and he struck up a conversation with me before the meeting started.

It occurred to me later that God did a lot of impossible things this summer. I mean, seriously, I lived half-way around the world for more than five weeks and not only survived, but loved it. My team and I led, organized, and taught a three-week English camp to almost 200 Asian teenagers. I built friendships with my team, my students, and a bunch of Lao college kids that I hope will be lasting. I saw the need for prayer and some methods of prayer and I discovered the importance of intentionality in relationships. I lost my wallet, but thankfully not my ID or passport, and I received my replacement debit card in the mail in perfect timing. And, with about 9 other people, I set up seventy chairs in a room which I thought could not hold that many people.

And I realized: Nothing is impossible for God. When I'm putting my trust in the Almighty Father, He is truly that: All. Mighty. Omnipotent. Can't the One who created the world also work in the world? He is not a hands-off God, He is an active and present and all-knowing God.

Nothing is impossible for Him. He works everything out in His ways and with His provision. We may feel as if that limits Him, but it doesn't. It only shows his greatness and omnipotence. I guess I should stop saying that things are impossible. Saying that just proves that I am not trusting my Father. "For nothing is impossible with God." (Luke 1:37)

What I'm Listening To:

"Grace" - Tenth Avenue North

"You Do All Things Well" - Tenth Avenue North