God Is Not Impressed

Recently I was utterly blown away. The kind of blown away that breaks and restores your heart. My faith is challenged by the people around me here at UO. I love the LORD. God’s character has been revealed to me in his people. I have worked for the good of Kingdom alongside other Christians. I have fed the homeless, loved the wretched, befriended the difficult, fellowshipped with the body, served the lowly, read the Scriptures. I have worshipped the LORD.

And I was delighted to do it.

Then I went to a Bible study here on campus that I had never been to before. The man who led us in the word was talking about Philippians 3. He said something, as a quick side note, that has stuck with me. He said, “I promise you, the God who made the giant galaxies down to the little butterflies is not impressed by your good works.”


Of course, I know this. I was blessed to be raised in the Body. But it hurt to hear. In fact, it was damaging. I guess before it had never really hit me. I know that my good works are filth. But still… I was really upset by this… after all, I was impressed that I managed to read my Bible every day. I was impressed with a lot of the stuff I had been doing. God knows me, He should be impressed that I accomplished it, right? Or that He accomplished it through me? The truth is I have been really disciplined lately, I have prayed and fasted on behalf of my friends and campus, and the world. I have been working hard to be a living sacrifice to my Lord…..

Reality check: the God who created the giant galaxies and the little butterflies is not impressed with me reading my Bible for three minutes a day a few days in a row.

Last night at The Point, a Bible study I attend weekly, we discussed forgiveness. After the message one of my brothers stood and praised the amazing way the Lord has forgiven us and his response to our successes and failures in following our Lord. He was blown away by the compassion of our King-Father in His celebration of our stumbling steps. “God is like a Father celebrating our first steps, grabbing the camera.”

Suddenly it clicked. God is NOT impressed with attempts to follow Him. He delights in them.


GOD IS SO AMAZING!!!! THANK YOU, LORD!

Here is my attempt at expressing visually what i just tried to express verbally.


the God who created the galaxies and the grass is not impressed by my attempts at goodness




but He celebrates them in delight

More Than Conquerers

Just a thought:




maybe when Paul said we Christians are "more than conquerors" he didn't mean



conquerers and then some.







maybe he meant we are greater than conquerers...




just a thought...
(Romans 8)

Glad to Finally Move Out of Your Parents' House?

I am living in Eugene now. I love it here. I moved here for school, and am attending the University of Oregon. God has been so providential, and I ended up in a substance free hall. My roommate is quite possibly the most considerate person I have ever met, and quite frankly, I love being around the people in my dorm. There is a Bible Study that meets in the basement of my building, and I have already been encouraged by the faith of a girl a few rooms down. The food is great, and really close. The campus is beautiful. Even my fish seems to feel more alive here.
God has really blessed me.
But this strange thing keeps happening. When I talk to people about how much I love it they always say the same thing. They all ask me one question that puzzles me, and every single time I simply don’t know how to respond. Everyone says, “Glad to get out of the house?” or “finally getting some space from the parents?” ….
I don’t suppose this question would puzzle me if it was being asked by people my age. I don’t expect people my age to have with their own parents the type of relationship that I have with mine. But I have gotten this question from adults, more often than not.
I guess that it makes sense that people who know me and know that I lived with my parents a year longer than most of my friends, and just went to community college after graduating high school would guess that I felt some sort of amplified version of what the normal teenage desire to get as far away as possible for at least a year. I understand that even my friends who have good relationships with their parents still feel the need to get out. I just didn’t. And I still don’t.
I don’t need to find out who I am, I know. And as funny as it may seem I found out more clearly who I am and who I want to be in the last year, while living with my parents. I watched my mom, a lot. And I saw in her some of what I aspire to be. She has patience, and gentleness that I can’t even imagine maintaining in the kind of environment that she is in everyday. I have known people who do similar things as my mom does. But there is one difference that stands out the most: she doesn’t complain about them. In situations where other adults in my life have endured slight versions of what my mom does every day I have heard complaining that turns even their most beautiful acts into something repugnant. In this my mom amazes me. Shortly after visiting another woman who I look up to and seeing her pour herself out, and then complain about it I began to really appreciate this in my mom. Not a week later my mom was sitting at dinner and announced that she thought she complained too much and she had everything that she needed. She said that God gave her everything she could ever want, and she complained about it, and felt convicted… I want to be like my mom in that. Even more, though, I admire her perspective. In situations where I would get angry, she sees a reason to love. Talking to my mom is a wondrous, and a humbling thing. Living with her this past year taught me who I want to be. And my dad. His perspective is one that I want, too. My dad sees so much of God in this broken world. He always can seem to find some theological perspective, pulled from the Word of God, that I could never see on own. I know who I want to become, because I know my dad. He studies the heart of God for this world, in its justice, in its peace, in its power. I found myself in a piece of his passion for God’s kingdom. My dad is brilliant. I know he doesn’t think so, but he is. He taught me how to think, how to form thoughts, when I was a baby, a kid, a student (in a formal logic class), and especially in the last year. He taught me how to start to think of things in the context of the kingdom of God. That is what I want to be like. My dad judges his responses to any situation according to his faith. I have never met someone who could instantly see what a right course of action might be and why, in, say, a relational disagreement or a specific problem someone is having. In this last year I saw things in my dad that I want to emulate. He is a faithful man, who serves his God to the best of his understanding. And he is a wise man, who always seeks to understand his God. He is a man who God has used mightily, and will continue to use mightily, and I cannot wait to see what God has been preparing him for these last couple of years (and to all those who think that they missed their chance to be used by God, because they aren’t as free as they were in younger years, get ready. I mean, God is expert at freeing people up from impossible situations so they can serve him. And also, He made His entire nation out of Abraham, but only after Abraham turned 100. I think God likes doing crazy stuff with old people. )! While watching my dad, I learned what I want to be like. In talks while picking up my little sister from school, I discovered what I love, and what I am passionate about.
After that 10 year rant, I guess you might be able to understand why that question (I know it’s been awhile since I talked about it, so let me remind you: “glad to finally get out of the house?”) might confuse me. The truth is, I am not glad to be out of my parents’ house. I love it here in Eugene. I plan to stay for quite some time, and I will enjoy it. But not because it’s away from the watchful eyes of my parents. I understand that it is important that I learn to live without my parents holding me accountable for my actions, or guiding my every day, because I need to learn to get those things from my Lord. But I did not resent that when I had it from them (that’s a lie…. I did at some points, but not in the last year). It was my parents that taught me how to follow, and who to follow, so that I can serve my God now. The fact is, I miss living at home. Not because I miss childhood, or responsibility, but because I miss learning from them, I miss being part of their daily stories in following Christ. I miss watching them as they figure out what exactly it means to be followers of the Messiah. I miss it a lot.
I love life here, I love life there. I am not glad to be out of my parents’ house, but I am glad to be in Eugene. I guess I am kinda glad people have been asking me that a lot lately. If only I could find a way to say all of this in a condensed enough way for a socially acceptable phone conversation………….

C.S Lewis Quote

"Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased." -C. S. Lewis(The Weight of Glory)

Shauna Niequist Quote

"I want a life that sizzles and pops and makes me laugh out loud. And I don't want to get to the end, or to tomorrow, even, and realize that my life is a collection of meetings and pop cans and errands and receipts and dirty dishes. I want to eat cold tangerines and sing out loud in the car with the windows open and wear pink shoes and stay up all night laughing and paint my walls the exact color of the sky right now. I want to sleep hard on clean white sheets and throw parties and eat ripe tomatoes and read books so good they make me jump up and down, and I want my everyday to make God belly laugh, glad that he gave life to someone who loves the gift."
— Shauna Niequist (Cold Tangerines: Celebrating the Extraordinary Nature of Everyday Life)

Customer Quote of the Week July 8, 2010

"I would love to get them, but my cousin is subconscious of her toes."

Some Thoughts on Enemy Love

I guess one of the more prominent reasons I started a blog is in hopes of perhaps stumbling across likeminded people, or finding them in current friends. I have spent a long time searching and praying for those people. Pacifism has been the great divide lately. I have so quickly come to a place where I cannot tolerate violence, and especially in Christians. I cannot understand how people can claim to follow the Christ, who is portrayed as a slaughtered lamb, while taking up arms. The problem is that there are good, Christian people that I know who somehow live this way.
I used to laugh at pacifists. I used to refer to them as “crazy liberals.” I used to be able to read the Bible without seeing a contradiction between the serving the state and serving God.
Now I can’t imagine how.
Now my entire life is built around the idea that we Christians, at least until Christ comes back, are still in the era of reattaching the ears of those who are about to kill us. Healing, not wounding, is our call.
I believe that the Bible teaches that Christians are an entirely different type of people. 1 Peter 2:9 says it simply enough. Those who have been called by God out of the darkness of this world are a chosen people, a holy nation. We are an entirely different type of people. We are not Americans, not Asians, not Africans, not Europeans. We are a people not bound by borders. Why then should any of us swear oaths of allegiance to the men who govern the bordered lands? We Christians have known our entire lives that “no one can serve two masters,”(Matthew 6:24), and we all struggle to maintain the purity of our service. However that is what we are called to. We are called to be servants of God, and only God, never of the state. We, as Christians are supposed to look and act entirely different than the rest of the world. Among our strange attributes is that we love our enemies. This is by far the most unique, most scandalous and most holy trait of this odd people made up of the followers of Jesus Christ. I also think it is the most essential (we all know 1 Corinthians 13:13, 1 Peter 4:8, and how the greatest two commandments are about love in Matthew 22, Luke 10, etc).
Most of the time we Christians make “love your enemies” a very vanilla statement, about loving bullies on playgrounds or if we really want to be racy, we say we love criminals, or gay people. We Christians have lost the scandal of enemy-love. Living in the United States of America I have seen the pride of a strong young man or young woman taking up the flag, swearing allegiance and vanquishing evil. In my own church building I have heard the praises of the heroism, the sacrifice, and the service of military people. They risk their lives for a cause greater than themselves. They fight for freedom and destroy those who make it their goal in life to oppress and kill. And if I should stand up and say that they are not serving God in this, that protecting the innocent people by slaughtering their captors is not the work of God, wouldn’t that be a scandal? Let me tell you, I have and it is. But I pray that I have the opportunity to take it farther. So far just my voicing that to be a follower of Christ involves not only clearly identifying who is on the Lord’s side and who is his enemy, but also includes praying for and loving them both equally, has been enough to insult, hurt and scandalize even people within my own family. I hope I get a chance to live it out, though. I hope that God blesses me with many encounters with my enemies, so that he might love them through me.
Biblically, I cannot get over the idea of loving enemies. Christ said to do it, and I cannot see any way of justifying any other behavior, especially not oaths made to men who govern lines on maps replacing commandments given by God himself. Nor can I see ideological differences making it appropriate to justify not loving an enemy. Not even the hideous crimes of an enemy can change the loving approach I am told to take with him. After all, it is in the very nature of enemies to be evil, right? Or else they would not be enemies. So nothing they do should change the way I, as a follower and imitator of Christ, interact with them.
I think that the reason I am so taken by this facet of my faith is a little more personal than wars and good guys vs. bad guys. This is about me. The older I get, the more I find, to my horror and dismay, that I identify more and more in the Bible with the pictures of “the wicked,” and not “the righteous.” I read in the Scriptures about how the righteous man delights in the Word of the LORD, and how the righteous man listens to wisdom, how the righteous man dedicates his days and nights to doing the LORD’s will and meditating on the LORD’s laws. Then I read about the wicked man, and how he speaks lies, hurts people who have never wronged him, how he sins. At my very best I look like the wicked, at my most faithful I think and act like the enemy of God. God’s love for me is scandalous, friends. Although in my soul I want to live in harmony with the Creator, in my flesh I am against him. And he loves me. He loves so much that he would die, be tortured, and every day watch me ignore that sacrifice, whorring away from him every chance that I get, and still take joy in me when I turn to him. God’s love for me is scandalous. All I wish to do is love people in a manner that reflects some small picture of the scandal. And that requires loving my enemies, the ones who hate me, because even the tax collectors love the ones that love them.