I LOVE that!

I use the word "love" very loosely. In fact, I think the word "love" is a cultural phenomenon. "I LOVE chocolate. I LOVE Taylor Swift. I LOVE Edward Cullen. I LOVE my guitar...." We love TV shoes, music artists, movie stars, movies, books, foods, and all sorts of cool fads. We love our things, our possessions, whatever brings us pleasure. The author of 1 John says, "Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in her." (1 John 2:15). The last month I've been trying to answer the question, "What do I love?" What stirs my heart? What makes me tick? What inspires me? What makes my heart sing? I recognize an inner battle between differing subjects. The first is the things of the world, fighting for my affections and devotion. It's so easy to love the world and it's temporary pleasures. But loving the world leaves me feeling empty, drained, lifeless, disappointed, frustrated, and always wanting more. The second is Jesus, who has embraced the entire human race and carried us into the presence of God and dropped us in God's lap, where we remain forever. Loving this Jesus stirs my heart and makes my inner being shout for joy. Loving this Jesus... is fulfillment, satisfaction, acceptance, and belonging. Loving this Jesus... well, it's something worth dedicating my life to.

And that is the question, isn't it? Once I answer "What do I love?" the remaining question is whether my life demonstrates that it is Jesus who I love. It is not just Jesus, but it is the things that Jesus loves. I love the Church. I love the world. I love life. I see the world, not as a place of immense suffering and darkness, but as that which has been redeemed and made new in Christ. In Christ, there is beauty and hope for the darkest of circumstances. Like a puzzle I've struggled to put together that suddenly is completed, but I have no idea how the pieces fit together, only that they do, and it is beautiful, and it is finished, and I didn't do it. It can never be taken apart again and the fact that I don't understand it doesn't change it. This is what I love... and this is what I want my life to be - captivated by this Jesus. What do I hope for, in my wildest dreams? I hope that I will be so captivated by Jesus that people will meet him when they meet me, see his eyes in mine, hear his words in my voice, and feel his touch in my hands.

We Will Love

My spirit is heavy and I am so saddened by the passing of Amendment One in NC yesterday. I hurt for my state and all of those who will be affected by it.  I will continue to stand for equality with my brothers and sisters.

But my heart is broken for my country... my heart is broken for the hatred I have seen on my Facebook wall and read in blogs and internet sites. My heart is broken for the name calling and the attacking of one another. As we create a deeper, wider divide between "us and them," my heart breaks and I remember a prayer spoken from another a long time ago, "may they all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I am in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me." (John 17:21). I remember that Jesus allowed himself, willingly, to be tortured and killed, and he did not lash out with hate or name calling. No, he said, "Father, forgive them, for they don't know what they are doing." (Luke 23:34). And when he was resurrected, when he won, he did not rub it into the faces of those who were against him. No, he loved them. Because he knew who the real enemy was and he  defeated him. No matter how many times we wedge something between us and another, Jesus Christ died for all of us and through Christ, through the cross, through the Spirit, we are one.

Justice is not retaliation - justice too easily becomes injustice. Justice… no. Not without reconciliation, understanding, and compassion! It takes time and patience to achieve equal rights in this country. It took over a century for African Americans. It took decades or longer for women. We will not stop. But we must not forget that we are all One. We must not forget that justice belongs to God!

To everyone, I ask, stop judging! Stop pointing fingers. Stop using the Bible against each other! Hatred is not the way of the cross. Hatred is not the way that Christ has called us - "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another." John 14:34.  Did we think this would be easy? Have we forgotten who we were made to be? Have we forgotten the following verse? "By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another." John 14:35.

The real enemy is not your brother or sister. The children of God are not your enemies! Our enemy  is evil itself, which seeks to divide us, to drive us against one another, to fill us with hate for each other.  Our enemy is fear. Perfect love casts out fear. Choose love!

Today, I am not ashamed to be American. I am not ashamed to love North Carolina. I am not ashamed of my vote. I am not ashamed of the cross. I am not ashamed of Christ. I am ashamed of the hatred I discovered in my own heart. We should all, "for" and "against," be ashamed of ourselves for the hatred and pride in our hearts

 

I am encouraged by some posts and updates I'm seeing online this morning. Please, everyone, however you voted and however you choose to move forward, stop hating, stop retaliating. Please, choose to embrace, choose grace, choose forgiveness, choose repentance, choose love. Then, with reconciliation being our goal, in compassion, we can seek equality and justice for ALL, placing our hope in the day when we will all be finally and completely reconciled together with our God.  

Living the Captivated Life... Every Day

It's been awhile... Two years actually. Instead of a college student, I am now a college graduate and soon-to-be divinity student. And I am where I least expected to be... I am a pastoral intern in a small, struggling congregation of a small, struggling denomination - their first female pastoral intern and the youngest official intern/pastor (for now anyways).

As I wrote that sentence, my chest got heavy and it got a little harder to breathe. I still remember the 19-year-old college freshman who flat out told her Lord that she would never, ever be a pastor. I grew up a PK (pastor's kid), and I saw the good and the bad, the beautiful and the ugly, the joy and the pain, that church ministry brings to a pastor and the pastoral family. I didn't want it.

Have you ever heard something like, "Never tell God what you will not do, because that's what He will call you to do"? Well, that 19-year-old girl turned into a 23-year-old young woman with a burning passion and burden for the broken, the oppressed, and for the Church of Jesus Christ. I wrestled with God. Not only did I know the struggles firsthand of being a pastor/pastoral leadership family, I also knew the current struggles in my denomination and in the Western Church overall. I had no solutions, no answers, I didn't even know if I had anything to say worthy of a weekly Sunday morning message!

What's more, I knew the challenges I would face as a woman in ministry. A life of singlehood? Possibly. No children of my own? If being single was my fate, then most likely not. If the Lord blessed me with a husband and family, the personal struggle between the call to be a wife/mom and the call to ministry- would I have to choose? Would one suffer? A constant struggle between those who believe women should not be in the pulpit (many of my friends and teachers believe this) and my beliefs on the subject/the assurance I had from the Holy Spirit of my calling. Discomfort in a male-dominated field. A battle against my own insecurities. Loneliness.

After lots of counsel and many "Moses-like" conversations with the Lord, I, of course, obeyed and fully embraced the passion and call the Holy Spirit had given me to participate with Him in Christ's continued mission in and with the Church.

I've re-launched this blog to reflect the transitions in my life during the past two years. And also, to be a place where I will record thoughts and ideas as a woman who follows Christ and a woman in ministry. I am captivated by the life, love, joy, sharing, grace, peace, mercy, essence of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. I am passionate about God, His Church, and those who don't know who Jesus is or who they are in Him. I may have a bachelor's degree, but I have learned that I know very little about anything, if I know something at all. Whether I am doing laundry, reading, studying, hiking, preaching, playing Ninja with teenagers, watching a movie, in a divinity class, sharing a meal with my congregation, spending quality time with my family and friends, or fighting to assemble a whiteboard that's bigger than I am, or whatever alone or with people, these are my thoughts as I daily embrace the captivated life with the Triune God.

May you be blessed and be a blessing!

Love & Fear

So I've been thinking about love and fear this week. The opposite of love is fear, not hate as many of us think. For hate and anger are born out of fear. Fear is at the core of our human nature. In the Garden of Eden, when Adam and Eve decided that they could become like God without God - why would they need Him, they thought - the effect was to fear God and hide from Him. Since then, our human response to God is of fear. Fear of the angry judge who might strike us down for our sinful lives. Fear of being unworthy and insignificant. Fear of not being good enough. Fear of being alone. Fear of being abandoned or rejected. Think about how much fear controls our lives! Look at the movies we watch, how our actions are controlled by fear of some kind. We are an anxious, depressed people.

In the Bible, God's continual message to His people over and over is "Do not be afraid." He says that hundreds of times. I think if Christ had shouted it from the cross, we would still be afraid. How is it that we continue to fear Him and life/death even when He tells us over and over not to. Thanks to Adam, we reflect ourselves upon God - because we are afraid of Him, we assume that He is angry with us. Sure He's angry - it's like if your child came to you and said, "Daddy, I don't think you really love me." Wouldn't you be angry that your child ever believed that you didn't love them and want to fix their misperception immediately?

1 John 4:18 says that perfect love drives out fear. So my question is, why are we still so afraid? Why have we not experienced the perfect love of Christ in our lives? Maybe it's because we are still so much like our ancestor Adam. We don't think we need God. We think we can take care of this ourselves.

Thank you, Papa, for your abounding grace, never ending mercy, unconditional love, and faithfulness that never cease to leave me breathless.

May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you.

Found

In the movie August Rush, the character Wizard and Evan, aka August Rush, the star of the movie, are trying to choose a performing name for Evan. Wizard tells Evan to close his eyes and tell him what he wants most to be. Evan complies, closing his eyes, and immediately opening his eyes with the simple yet reverberating answer - "Found."

When I heard that short exchange, it stuck with me, echoing a lifelong cry in my own soul. Oh, how we all desire to be found!! Everyday, I meet people or see people I know doing crazy things to be found. Like a struggling musician looking to be discovered, or an abandoned child praying that their parents, or a great new family, would find them, we all go through life hoping that someone or something will find us. What do you want to be found to? We want to belong, to be important to someone. We long to know that we are needed and cherished. We all want to be found. So, ironically, we search to be found.

In America, we talk alot about our need to find God. We talk alot about the process of searching for God. This has always bothered me. I tried that search myself in high school, and never found anything except frustration. To bring up another good movie quote - in the wonderful movie Forest Gump, Forest is having a conversation with his military friend, whose name I cannot remember right now. God comes up, and when his friend asks Forest about finding God, Forest responds, "I didn't know He was lost." In another movie, New In Town, when the star moves to a rural town in the north, a local woman asks her if she's found Jesus - the woman responds, "I didn't know He was lost."

Why do we look so hard for God, when He's not the one who's lost? We long to be found, but ya know, the truth is that we're not lost to God either. He knows right where we are and He's there with us. But we feel lost... We haven't experienced being found - we are lost to ourselves, lost in the alienation of our minds, as the apostle Paul writes in the New Testament. So we look for discovery in other areas, always skipping over the truth that we're already found.

In high school, when I finally fell down on my knees, quite literally, exhausted from trying and searching so hard but finding nothing, I gave up my need to find God, to find belonging, to find love. And I simply begged Him that if He existed and loved me at all, to please find me. I couldn't take it anymore. So I stopped searching.

Ya know what? He found me - in fact, He'd been there all along, working in my life to bring me to that moment when I could begin to know Him as He already knew me.

Your Creator, you Redeemer, your Soulmate knows you intimately, loves you, and is with you. You are found through Jesus Christ. Stop searching and look to Jesus.

He found you.

May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you.