Dreams

When I was a kid, I wanted to grow up to be a superhero. Or maybe a knight. I wanted to be able to go around saving and protecting people from evil. Later on I wanted to be like one of those Christians you might hear about who do covert operations in foreign countries, slipping past guarded borders as I smuggle Bibles into places where God is opposed. I did not think I would be able to impact the whole world, just the few I came into contact with. As I grew up, rather as I grow up, I find myself thinking more and more about getting a real job. I think about how I will support a family one day and what I need to do to get there. Do well in school, go to college, meet the right people. There's really nothing wrong with not wanting to be a superhero, but I lose more than that. I become more complacent as I just try to make it through each day and forget about how I can revolutionize the world, if only for a few people. I forget how to dream big dreams for my future. And as I do, I start to trade in my dreams for the "American Dream".

When I say dreams, I'm not talking about when people shirk responsibility to become a movie star or leave their spouse and kids to find their "true" love. I mean when people can imagine a better life for themselves and a better life for others. Like those doctors who go to foreign countries to work for the world's poorest or missionaries who seek to take God's Word where people have never seen a Bible. I know many people who have great ideas and hopes for their lives, even for their next year, but they don't act on them. When you ask them what their dreams are, they will weave amazing stories about what they can do. But they keep their dreams tucked away in the corners of their minds, like glass mosaics in a basement. After retreats or sermons, people feel convicted to spend more time each day seeking after God and the enriching life He has. But instead of spending time discovering more about our loving Creator, they turn on the TV or the computer. I know because I am one of those people. And I have to wonder, why do we fill our heads with all the ways we can lead a more fulfilling life, and then do nothing about it? I think it's because the dreams are too hard, or they don't pay much, or they don't hold any glory, or they require too much of ourselves. I think we're scared sometimes.

I look at people like David, a kid probably no older than me, dreaming he could take down Goliath, a guy who probably could eat people bigger than me. Where other people saw a killing machine, he saw a dead man walking. I think God also has dreams, because He sees who people are at the moment, and dreams big dreams for them. He can see me and know that even though I make a lot of stupid mistakes, I have potential to do great things for Him. God was willing to bet His son's life on the fact that humans have the ability to become better. Jesus said "I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father". I have a hard time believing that sometimes. I can't see the person in the mirror and dream big dreams for that person. I see what I have done in the past and what I want to do in the future to keep my life moderately comfortable. It's like I stuff my life into a box and just hold onto it, and God wants to rip my life out and chuck the box away.

So now the question is: if I can actually stop, for one day, being complacent and let myself imagine what life could be like, what would I do? What crazy ideas would God tell me? He once told a guy to marry a prostitute. He told someone else to build an ocean liner in the middle of a country. What might He tell me? I would like to think that if He told me to do something, that I would drop everything and do it. If He told me I could experience real life, deep life in Him, and that it would just take trust and perserverance, would I listen? Adam and Eve didn't, the Pharisees didn't, Judas didn't, Jonah didn't (the first time).

I pray that I can let myself dream, that I won't put limits on the plans God has for me, and that I would be brave enough to make them reality.

Cigars In Heaven

Let me first start out by saying that I totally jacked the tile from A Year With C.S. Lewis. The book quotes a Lewis in A Grief Observed about the past.

"Reality never repeats. The exact same thing is never taken away and given back. How well the spiritualists bait their hook! 'Things on this side are not so different after all.' There are cigars in Heaven. For that is what we should all like. The happy past restored."
"And that, just that, is what I cry out for, with mad, midnight endearments and entreaties spoken into the empty air."

I feel that I relate to what C.S. Lewis is talking about, except perhaps that my pain cannot compare to his, because he mourns his dearly beloved wife whereas I only mourn the past. I find myself sometimes wishing that I could go back to when I felt more at ease and more at home. Before my family moved to Iowa and before my brother and I had to leave for college. Sometimes I wish I could go back to when I was still living in Houston, because even though my family was in Iowa, I still had my close Christian family in Houston. Since I came to Harding, it seems like I have lost a way of life as well as many precious people in my life; people in Texas, many of whom I may not see again. I mean come on, just having to leave Texas is heartbreak enough.

I constantly find myself yearning for a life like what I used to have. And yet, as I find myself dwelling on the past, I know that it is in the past. All good things must come to an end in this world. I read Lewis' words that "The exact same thing is never taken away and given back" and know that God doesn't give you the exact same blessing over and over. Not even in Heaven will it be the same, no matter how much I tell myself it will.

Last night, I took a walk in the rain as I poured out my heart to God, confiding in Him all my fears and hopes and prayers. And when I stopped to listen, I could feel a sense of peace and security as though nothing had changed. As I heard the rain steadily beating against the trees and the grass and the buildings, it was like I could hear God saying "It's ok, I am here. Even though your life is changing, I am constant and I have a plan for you."

It is such a great relief to know that there is a God. That He has plans for me, and that I have been created specifically for them. That when life swirls around me, God is there constant and steady, like a mountain in a storm. That even though I have lost something very dear to me, God has new things to bless me with. That I don't have to cry out for the happy past to be restored.

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future." - Jeremiah 29:11
" Direct me in the path of your commands, for there I find delight." - Psalm 119:35

Braveheart

So, I'm at Harding for Student Impact and we just had a movie/tv star dinner that I didn't know about before this weekend. As I was talking to my friend John, who I had just met, we came up with the idea of getting some guys together and dressing up as guys from Braveheart. So, we talked to our roommates, Peter and Malcolm, as well as another guy we had recently met, Kevin. About an hour and a half before the dinner we decided to get our costumes. So we hit up a 5-dollar tree (kinda expensive, but it was worth it) and we bought plaid skirts, then went to walmart and got blue face paint. John just so happened to have a Scottish flag hanging in his room, which we proceeded to put on a pole and wave as we walked around. It was awesome acting like a group Scottish Highlander with a few guys who I barely knew. Alba gu bra.

Stability

Sometimes I think God has His work cut out for Him when it comes to teaching me lessons. At the beginning of summer right before my senior year, I had a weird feeling about what God might be doing in my life. I felt like I was in for some change, which can sometimes be a good thing, but I didn't really want change to happen at that point. So I prayed to God that He would give me 'stability'. Over the next couple months, most of my close friends went off to college, my dad lost his job, got a new one in Iowa, moved the rest of the family there, and I was faced with a long senior year living with some friends of ours who eventually took in another senior whose parents had moved. I went from living in the same house with my family for six years (the longest I have ever stayed in one spot), to spending a year with a hodgepodge of people from three different families, really nice people, just not my family. I felt like God had completely ignored my plea for stability. I tried to adopt a "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I will depart"-attitude (Job 1:21), but that was easier said than done as reality set in.

Over the next year, I felt like I was always pulled into two. When I was in Houston, I wanted to be with my family, but I knew that I didn't want to move away from Houston and all the people I had grown up with there. I felt like I didn't really have a place to call home, since I felt like a guest in Houston and a stranger in Iowa. The stability that I had prayed for slipped away even as my support had slipped away with my family moving. In order to get through some of the harder days, I was constantly praying to God for strength and comfort. As the year went on, school and my various leadership activities really put pressure on me. Five AP classes, president of National Honor Society, leader of youth group stuff, and applying for college and scholarships made it a tumultuous year. Throw in a couple of hurricanes, a bunch of gang activity at school, the deaths of people I knew and you have my memorable senior year.

Whereas before I would turn to my family or friends, with maybe a prayer sent God's way for help when things got tough, I now found that I really could only turn to God and pray for grace. God was taking away the crutches that I had used to prop myself up and letting me fall into His arms. He gave me peace and joy when I had no reason to have either. When I was lonely and in need of Christian fellowship, He sent me a couple friends who reflected Jesus into my life. When I felt unworthy to do His work, He used me ways I didn't think possible. I know God used those events my senior year to reveal more of Himself to me; that He is the only shelter in a storm, that there is always hope with God, that my true home will be in heaven, that He gives and takes away and all I can do is praise His name. He answered my prayer for stability by stripping away my illusion of stability and offering Himself instead. And in all honesty, my senior year was one of the best experiences I have ever had.

Psalm 9:9 The LORD is a refuge for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble.

The Book of John

I wasn't sure what I wanted to talk about in my first blog, so I decided to talk about one of my favorite books, the book of John from the Bible. I once tried to memorize John, but could never get past the first chapter because it was so full of meaning. Well, mostly because I was lazy and memorizing takes a lot of time for me. I love the way John writes. He is able to say so many profound things, that I am constantly having to stop and just take in what he said. If you have never read it before, I would encourage you to start by reading the first 18 verses or so. John says stuff like "In Him (the Word) was life and that life was the light of men", and from what I understand "the Word" is not the Bible but Jesus. John makes it abundantly clear that grace, truth and life come through the "One and Only", which is Jesus once again. John's words made me stop and rethink what Jesus meant to me. Jesus wasn't just a sacrifice for my sins. He was also a bringer of life, 'life to the full' as he later says in John 10:10. And knowing that He wants me to have life that can only be found in Him makes me want to seek after Him even more.