Addressing Invitations and Content Singleness

While making bridal shower invitations this morning for my friend Ginny, I remarked to my roommate that I was writing “Mrs.” more frequently than “Miss” on the envelopes. Marie replied that she imagines it will become an even more common occurrence as the years go by.

Initially my response when reminded of my singleness is a feeling of loneliness. That I’m deprived. Missing out. But as I thought a little harder, I realized something. I am content.

This afternoon I read basking in the warmth of my parents’ fireplace, Ginger’s head resting in my lap. The dog thinks she’s a cat, I swear. A brief respite in food preparation left us waiting for guests to arrive. I was content.

Each year I wonder if it will be the last Thanksgiving I show up alone. The last time I sit and watch football with just Dad and Anthony, where Thanksgiving dinner is just me, Mom, Dad, Anthony, Aunt Shelley, Eva, and Grandma.

Content. I am content. I cannot complain. Being in charge of my accounts, having my own place, my own car, books, guitar, bike(s), furniture, kitchen gadgets. Tomorrow I head up to care for the farm while the Froelichs visit family in the San Juans. I didn’t have to run it by anyone before saying that I’d love to come up and stay. I am so blessed.

Company leaves, the fire is still going, Dad comments, “You know your car is totally bad-ass, right?” Anthony is lying on the floor, stuffed with a bounty of food, flipping through the newspaper. Ginger, having experienced her first Thanksgiving with the Hart family, watches Mom put the food away hoping against hope Mom will drop some on the floor. I feel comfort. Safe. Content.

Now, back in Ballard as I type, figuring what I journaled might be worth sharing, I simultaneously watch one of my favorite movies. Someday I’m totally naming my dog Indiana.The apartment is empty. Marie is down in Vancouver with her family. I am totally alone. And I don't mind it. The introvert in me relishes these moments.

When the Thanksgiving finally comes where I don't show up alone, I won't be complaining, I'm sure. I will be rejoicing about a new life stage. A new adventure. The first time walking down the street holding hands, my first kiss. But I have no desire to rush God.

While shopping for my car, a salesman tried to talk me into looking at a different kind of car. My brother told the salesman bluntly before I could respond, "She knows what she wants. She's stubborn. She won't go for anything else." And I've heard remarks that I'm not just that way with cars.

And the idealist within hopes I don't reach the point of desperation that I'll take someone that won't really make me happy, but is only preferable to being alone. I still can't in my mind reconcile being told, "God has someone for you" with my, "We all have free will and a person can choose to marry the wrong person and thus mess up the entire plan" thought process.

But I don't need all the answers to do what God wills. To serve Him. To serve people. I trust Him.

I am contentedly still a 'Miss Erynn Hart' on those invitations.

Your Will, Not Mine

"Whom have I in Heaven but You? And earth has nothing I desire besides you," wrote the psalmist.

The desire to crave God. That He is more than enough, but that we cannot get enough of Him.

Desperate that our lives be bound up in His will.

I think most who follow Christ have been there at some point, probably several times. One of those mountaintop moments.

And yet our gaze lowers oh so easily. We look away. Our eyes set upon lesser things. Our minds crave our wants. We become determined to realize our own desires and dreams. Our motivations become misdirected.

Jesus prayed in Gesthemene that God not make him go through with it. Betrayed, beaten, scorned, denied, deserted and nailed to a cross. I mean really, who would wantingly endure that? But he ended his prayer with, “Yet not what I will, but what you will.” (Mark 14:36)

We pray, “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven.”

But as those words fall off our lips, do they enter our souls? Do we crave God’s will to be done here, in our lives, in our churches, our communities, nation and world?

From the Common Book of Prayer:

Almighty God, unto Whom all hearts be open, all desires known, and from Whom no secrets are hid: Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of Thy Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love Thee, and worthily magnify Thy holy Name: through Christ our Lord. Amen.

God knows what we want. The secret desires of our hearts. We can’t hide.

Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. (From Psalm 139)

To the bottom of the ocean? He’s there. To the furthest star? He’s there.

But we can ignore when He tells us what He wants. And we do. Especially when what He wants isn’t the same as what we want.

Corporately at my church we’ve been in a season of anticipation. Praying for what we’ve been sensing… that God is doing something new. Last Wednesday we had a prayer service (where I picked up the Psalm 73 and Common Book of Prayer quotes... like I could have come up with those on my own) and we prayed for God's will to be done at our little church. And God is doing new things! It is so wonderful watching Him work and being a part of it.

And I’ve sensed the same thing in my own life… that God is going to move. That something new and unprecedented is coming.

But I also sense that I need to give God room to move. I can’t limit Him by refusing to surrender my desires. I won’t know what He will be able to do until I’ve submitted myself completely to His will.

I wonder what we’re holding back. What’s keeping God from moving in our hearts? Why do we want to sit on His throne?

I’m afraid of surrendering because I could lose what I want. If I let God on the throne, my selfish desires won’t be realized. And I always think I know what's best for me. And for others.

But how much more will I hurt if I refuse to give all to God?

“God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains. It is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world,” wrote C.S. Lewis.

If we keep running from our Lover, not only do we break His heart constantly, but we ourselves who were created to be in a relationship with Him get hurt.

Hold everything in your hands lightly, otherwise it hurts when God pries your fingers open. -Corrie ten Boom

Unfortunately, what I know to be true in my head and soul doesn't always transfer over to what my heart desires and what my actions disclose. Genuinely wanting God's will to be done not mine is such a struggle. A war I will no doubt be fighting my entire life.

I Surrender All (okay, some…)

September 2011. I’m again reading Bonhoeffer’s “The Cost of Discipleship” and as Dietrich so often does… he got me thinking. When Jesus spoke to the rich young man he asked him to give what he could not give up. The young man had kept the commandments. But to Jesus that wasn’t enough. The young man was holding something back.

“If we heard Jesus speaking to us in this way today we should probably try to argue ourselves out of it like this: ‘It is true that the demand of Jesus is definite enough, but I have to remember that he never expects us to take his commands legalistically. What he really wants me to have is faith… it is not important that I should have no possessions. But if I do I must keep them as though I had them not…’ We are excusing ourselves from single-minded obedience to the word of Jesus. The difference between ourselves and the rich young man is that he was not allowed to solace his regrets by saying: ‘Never mind what Jesus says, I can still hold on to my riches, but in a spirit of inner detachment.’ No, he went away sorrowful.” (The Cost of Discipleship, Ch. 3)

As I read I started wondering just how much I’m holding back from Jesus. My time, for sure. I mean, okay Jesus, you can have 9-12 Sunday mornings, 6-8 Monday nights once a month, 6-8 Wednesday nights, 6-9 Thursday nights, and then whenever I decide to get up early and do my devotions, or have a deep conversation with a friend, or listen to Christian music. But all that other time? That’s MY time.

So, I know I hold time back from God. But what else? Pride. I love me my pride. While I don’t tend to explicitly seek out attention, oh, the thrill I get when someone says, “That photo you took? Amazing!” or “God really spoke to me when you sang that song” or my personal favorite, “Erynn, why don’t you have a boyfriend? I don’t get it. You are such a catch. Some young man has to see that.” And of course, I wonder the same thing.

So that’s something else. Boys. My desire for companionship. In June on a backpacking trip as I lay beside a mountain lake sunning myself it hit me why. I wrote, “I’ve been taught that God knows me, loves me, created me, cherishes me and wants to be the greatest object of my affection. But I have so much trouble committing to something so intangible. What I want, what I crave, is evidence that I am so valuable, so amazing that someone wants me for himself and no one else.”

The thought of someone wanting my affection so badly he’ll stop at nothing to get it just sounds SO wonderful. And of course, this has to be someone who fits the list… not just some pig who says, “You’re hot. Wanna have dinner with me?” NO. I don’t. And this dress isn’t even that slutty. How can you tell I’m hot? I’ve been accused of not ever giving anyone a chance but I’m not going to date someone I won’t marry. And with how quickly I judge men, I will probably die an old maid. But the point is. I haven’t surrendered that desire for companionship to God. I haven’t really put it in His hands.

I can sing all I want:

All to Jesus I surrender;

Humbly at his feet I bow,

Worldly pleasures all forsaken;

Take me, Jesus, take me now

… and still have so many worldly pleasures I won’t give up. Say, my exorbitant amount of shoes. But I wonder. If I walked up to Jesus and asked him what I had to do to join his kingdom, what would he say? For starters, perhaps, sell your shoes and give the profits to the poor.

Derek Webb’s amazing songwriting interprets perhaps what Jesus would say to us in this day and age.

“Come on and follow me

But sell your house, sell your SUV

Sell your stock, sell your security

And give it to the poor

… I want the things you just can’t give me.”

And to borrow from Bonhoeffer again, Luther’s pecca fortiter (Sin boldly, but believe and rejoice in Christ more boldly still) doesn’t tell us to keep sinning because cheap grace will cover it. But we trust that we enter the Kingdom even though we cling to all our crap.That God’s costly grace is enough to wash all that crap away.

But what would happen if I could bring myself to surrender all I’m holding onto?

Experiencing, not Proving God

Running out the door a few weeks ago I grabbed The Great Divorce off my bookshelf. Finding time to read, and having read the book more times than can I can count on one hand, I picked a page at random. My fingers slid to chapter 5, the chapter where the Anglican Ghost is talking to an old friend. The Ghost had no idea that he hadn't been in Heaven. He even had a “Theological Society” down there he needed to return to so he could read a paper on some new theological idea he’d come up with. As he talked with this old friend from the High Countries he couldn’t accept that he hadn't been in Heaven. What the proud Ghost had done was replace God with theology.

I’ve found that when I read too much “theology” I lose track of God. How easy it is to get wrapped up in studying God, so much so that I forget to follow. As I have heard it, Lewis came to God trying to prove He didn't exist. But for Lewis the evidence for God became insurmountable. I wonder if Lewis struggled with this… wanting so much to show others that God exists that he sometimes would lose track what it means to follow God.

I wonder if this is why he dedicated so much of his exploration on Heaven and Hell to this idea.

A few chapters later, “Said the Teacher with a piercing glance, ‘…there have been men before now who got so interested in proving the existence of God that they came to care nothing for God Himself… as if the good Lord had nothing to do but exist!’”

In high school while I was on staff for the student paper one of the opinion editors wrote on why they were an atheist. Frustrated, I countered with an article detailing why I believed in God. I was very proud of that article.

But when the paper came back from the press my response hadn’t been run, not only to my chagrin but also to that of several other staff members. Some reporters actually got mad at the opinion editors, who had claimed there wasn’t space for my article. I’m not bitter (anymore) but… in the process of writing the article, I realized I wasn’t so much focused on God, rather I was focused on the idea of God.

What I had sought to do was prove that I was right. I was trying to defend how I think, what I believe, but I wasn’t necessarily seeking God nor growing closer to God in the process.

I’m not so convinced anymore that God needs defending, rather that He needs to be experienced, and then loved and followed.

“It is not the objective proof of God’s existence that we want but the experience of God’s presence.” –Frederick Buechner

One Word, Two Definitions

Leadership.

There are those our society seems to regard as good leaders – wealthy, important, motivated. There are those that lead out of love – humble, selfless, with a servant’s heart. There are those who lead out of a desire to serve other people and to serve God, and there are those who lead out of a desire to feel important.

There are humble leaders who we really respect and admire, Mother Teresa for example. But no one actually wants to be like her. I hear kids say, “I want to grow up to be president.” I have never heard someone say, “I want to be like Mother Teresa. I want to devote my life to the poor living in the slums of India. The lepers, the orphans, the sick. I want to give up my comfortable lifestyle to make others comfortable.” And yet the argument could be made that Mother Teresa is one of the most respected people to have lived. Perhaps because she was willing to do what we won't.

I mean, look at Jesus. There are a lot of people who respect and recognize Jesus as a great moral teacher even if they don’t believe he still lives. But how many people would say they want to walk around a homeless teacher for three years and then die an agonizing death?

How many people dream of being a band leader, a star athlete, a government official, or spend their lives working their way up the corporate ladder to become a manager, maybe even a CEO?

We look for attention. We want to be noticed. We want all eyes on us.

"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men." - Lord Acton.

There are those who taste what it's like to be in the spotlight and crave more. Brighter lights, more shows. Who learn to manipulate people to achieve their own ends. Maybe even lead people astray to keep their power.

Yet there are those who lead to bring others to their full potential. Who make sacrifices for those who are under their care. Most of us would be nowhere without people like this.