another post about the rapture...

This will begin like any other post composed after May 21st, 2011; the rapture has not occurred. Whether this came as a surprise to you, a disappointment, a relief; whether you mock or rejoice or bless or curse, it has not happened--God knows. (The book of Deuteronomy: "The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.”) I heard and read and listened to so many varying reactions. Some were insightful, some helpful, some hard-hitting reminders; some broke my heart and challenged my faith. One I can recall in particular, a facebook status, remarked something sarcastically to the extent that this person had been left out of a sort of Christian ‘in’ group, the ‘awesome’ group, and as I read it, there seemed to beat a raw spot of my own, a sharing of pain…

An image that has been haunting my mind, compelling to me, has been this: trying to run hard, so hard, the Christian life, not realizing that a bone is broken here; a muscle is pulled there; and I am dehydrated. I keep coming hard back and back again to my spiritual bankruptcy, the imperfection of my love and the love I can receive or desire from other people, the poverty, boringness, and pain the world offers. The hardest business is the business of people; all I give can be snatched away, and then I have no more; instead of giving all and then some, and knowing the Lord will supply. I am so disappointed in people; but I need to be, so I can really love.

This is what a wise man by the name of Oswald Chambers had to say:

“Our Lord [Jesus] trusted no man; yet He was never suspicious, never bitter, never in despair about any man, because He put God first in trust; He trusted absolutely in what God's grace could do for any man. If I put my trust in human beings first, I will end in despairing of everyone; I will become bitter, because I have insisted on man being what no man ever can be - absolutely right. Never trust anything but the grace of God in yourself or in anyone else.” (please check out the entire article here: http://www.myutmost.org/05/0531.html)

I can’t hold onto bitterness, refusing to forgive, riding down disappointment like a stairwell. Take another route.

***

Today my siblings were watching, on TV, Titanic. I caught pieces as I wandered in and out of the room; what I did see intrigued me, so much that I found a web resource, an excellent one (http://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org). It gave each person a name, a biography, and a listing of the most penetrating fact: what happened to them on that night, April 15th 1912? The movie evoked so much pain, anxiety, anger, helplessness, and, yet, a quiet peace--but it happened, and slowly the Titanic stooped into the water, as time ripened, the boats were loaded, panic ensued, and only a few were saved. I poured over that website; Owen Allum, Karen Abelseth, Wallace Hartley; names, some faces, listed with “died in the sinking” or “rescue boat A,” some bodies were not found, some were. Though all passengers are, by this year, dead, I read: that night, this person perished. And this person lived. The boat, slowly, inevitably overcome by water, would sink, and on that night, people died.

I was sad. Saying the least. The excursion to that website was a slight detour from my main task: the attempt to resuscitate my blog. I was dry of things, so much on my mind.

The Lord blows me away all the time.
Praying tonight, pondering and clutching a phrase I had heard today--“Vision without action is merely a dream. Action without vision is passing the time. Vision with action can change the world.”--I knew.

I am living on the Titanic.

Do I get that? Do I see how foolish it is to hang on, even to pick at different wounds instead of going to the Healer? As John Mark MacMillan said, “I don’t have time to maintain these regrets when I think about the way He loves us; oh, how He loves us.”

Do I even see these people around me, making way to the inevitable? Unless. I can look at a screen and say, “I would give my right arm for this not to have happened,” but Jesus, He gave His life. This is God’s desire: that none should perish. None. Christians are not the awesome group, but the group of rejects coming to an awesome God.

And Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction. When he saw the crowds he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest."

***

I remember my senior year, one night, after I heard about someone who had come to repentance, had come to acceptance of the gospel--the overwhelming conclusion, what I had surrendered to, was this: “Such a tiny offering, compared to Calvary; but, nevertheless, I lay it at Your feet.” (“All That is Within Me,” MercyMe)

My life, my words, my heart, my conviction; such a tiny offering. Nevertheless, I lay it at Your feet.

“I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” Galatians 2:20.

***

A dear friend once shared a prayer someone had prayed for her, and it has become intensely my desire: I want to be with people who get it.

People who get real.

People who want God’s will to be done in their life--no excuses.

People who get that loving others is a privilege, not a burden.

More than that, though--I fall short so many times, and my attitude is, unfortunately, many times judgmental. Grace washes that clean. Thank You, God. I need to strive after those things, to flee sin and get it, get real, function on “Thy will be done,” and loves without bounds or qualifications.

I want to follow the Lord, and I want to see people responding to the call only God can make: “Will you follow me, forsaking all else?”

I do.

***

I had claimed these next few verses earlier as my summer.

1 Thessalonians 5
1Now concerning the times and the seasons, brothers, you have no need to have anything written to you. 2For you yourselves are fully aware that the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night. 3While people are saying, "There is peace and security," then sudden destruction will come upon them as labor pains come upon a pregnant woman, and they will not escape. 4But you are not in darkness, brothers, for that day to surprise you like a thief. 5For you are all children of light, children of the day. We are not of the night or of the darkness. 6So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober. 7For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, are drunk at night. 8But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, having put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation. 9For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, 10 who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him. 11Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing.
These words are life.

“Vision without action is merely a dream. Action without vision is passing the time.
Vision with action can change the world.”

Be Thou my vision.

“But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. 10For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.
11But as for you, O man of God, flee these things. Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness. 12 Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and about which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.” (1 Timothy 6:9-12)

But as for me, flee these things, and pursue the Lord.

As for me, I will follow Jesus.

Who is with me?

Faith. Nothing I have particularly figured out.

Sometimes I wish I knew who was reading this. Because, right now, I imagine sitting across from you, maybe at a coffee shop (right now I am at a booth at Starbucks) presenting you with My Utmost for His Highest, to March 15th, and saying, "Read this. And I will tell you a story."

But I am not actually where you are. Therefore I will merely recommend you find the March 15th passage of My Utmost and I will scrape out tidbits.*

This is how Chambers begins: "At the beginning we were sure we knew all about Jesus Christ, it was a delight to sell all and to fling ourselves out in a hardihood of love; but now we are not quite so sure. Jesus is on in front and He looks strange: 'Jesus went before them and they were amazed.'"

Oh, man, God. You know just how I feel. Just what dismayed me. Today, it seems, I was wrestling with that exact, exact thing. "It was a delight to sell all and to fling ourselves out." I seem to look back longingly through a tinted window into the way I had operated, completely out of zeal and love for the Lord, being aware of the Gospel. I did feel like I had it all firgured out, and now---hardly. Sometimes I am not sure if it is worth it---or what it is, exactly.

Chambers continues, "At first I was confident that I understood Him, but now I am not so sure. I begin to realize there is a distance between Jesus Christ and me; I can no longer be familiar with Him. He is ahead of me and He never turns round; I have no idea where He is going, and the goal has become strangely far off."

And just a minute ago I was reading Jason Gray's blog. Here is something he wrote:

“It’s an important idea to me, that – as G. K. Chesterton has said – our Christianity should look 'less like a theory and more like a love affair.' Sometimes I think we’re in danger of making our faith solely about intellectual assent to the facts of who Jesus was/is."

That is me. It is ironic how the more I try to fit God into a box (not necessarily learn more about him, but exactly to 'figure him out') I get frustrated. I do not understand. The more I try to rationalize things out, the more amazing it is. Now I do not believe it makes sense that God would, first, know me. After that, that he would love me. And then the strangest thing of all: that he would come down, become nothing, be despised by man, be hated, and suffer. (Isaiah 53, Hebrews 12:3) Jesus operated under human weakness. He preached the Beatitudes after pulling an all-nighter. (Luke 6:12) I take that for granted. So many ways I try to minimalize his love, when everything about Jesus shouts, "I love you in a way that is painful and foolish."

Chambers: "Jesus Christ had to fathom every sin and every sorrow man could experience, and that is what makes Him seem strange. When we see Him in this aspect we do not know Him, we do not recognize one feature of His life, and we do not know how to begin to follow Him. He is on in front, a Leader Who is very strange, and we have no comradeship with Him."

Gray: “I’ve wondered: We seem intent on protecting our hearts from God – knowing that to give him true, unlimited access to our hearts is to risk having our whole world turned upside down. Though Jesus is called 'The Prince Of Peace' we suspect that he is a disturber of the peace as well – at least of the false, half-hearted, varieties of peace we try to create for ourselves with relationships, job-security, money, etc. Instinctively we know that it’s a risky venture to get too tangled up with God…
“So do we intellectualize our faith in a subconscious attempt to keep God at a safer distance? It’s a thought worth reflecting on, I think…”

Keeping God at a distance. Do I realize how painful it is to see him suffer? I do. I do not think I realized it before, but it really is, because in my humanness it does not make sense. That is the danger, I have found. Faith is the answer to it: understand that is is beyond understanding. The closer I get to that kind of grace, the real kind of love that Christ displays on the cross---the more painful it is to my flesh, to my selfishness and desire to possess, to grasp everything, to make things manageable.

The other day I was at the library and happened upon A.W. Tozer's The Pursuit of God at their booksale. Twenty-five cents. Here is what he says in a chapter entitled "Apprehending God":

"Imagination projects unreal images out of the mind and seeks to attach reality to them. Faith creates nothing; it simply reckons upon that which is already there"

Chambers: "The discipline of dismay is essential in the life of discipleship. The danger is to get back to a little fire of our own and kindle enthusiasm at it (cf. Isaiah 1:10-11). When the darkness of dismay comes, endure until it is over, because out of it will come that following of Jesus which is an unspeakable joy."

That is what I do: I try to create a little fire of my own, because I am just impatient. Do I need to understand? No. I know what Christ has been in my life in the past, I have received abundant, abundant blessings that come, undeniably, from the Lord. I have seen God enter through the reasoning and conversation of my own mind. Sometimes he completely breaks it, blows my mind.
So I know those things. God, you have proved to be everything your Word says you are.

"Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it the people of old receoved their commendation. By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible...These all (men and women of faith) died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland..." (Hebrews 11)

I claim that. Hopefully this was helpful to you.

Hannah

*I will not tease you. Here is a link: http://www.myutmost.org/03/0315.html

whoa---

--I am blogging.

I have not blogged in a while. I have journaled and rambled and spoken. But not anything like this, crafting a paragraph so people I do not know (or do know) can read.
I feel like the last blog post was a universe away. In some ways it was a universe away. It is a new semester. I know different people, am known by different people. I am different. The way I see is constantly (by God's grace, literally) being seared.
But in some ways it is not. This is stil God's universe.
Actually, I just crept back at the lat post I made. This sentence was in bold:

I keep slipping back into grace, after slipping out of it.
Why do I do that? I want to carry this burden of award. I there is one thing I can testfy to, it is that it is better to be loved rather than 'appreciated.' And another thing: no responsibility means no repentance, and repentance gives us hands to accept grace.

Blesed is he whoe transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man whos sin the LORD does not count against him and in whose spirit there is no deceit. Psalm 32:1, 2

FORGIVEN.

Main Entry:for*give
Pronunciation:f*r-*giv
Function:verb
Inflected Form:-gave \-*g*v\ ; -giv*en \-*gi-v*n\ ; -giv*ing

1 : to give up resentment of
2 : PARDON : ABSOLVE
3 : to grant relief from payment of
–for*giv*able adjective
–for*give*ness noun

Give up, pardon, absolve, dissolve, relieve.

I am reading a short essay called "A Short History of Happiness." I want to blog about it, sometime.

That is all I have. God is so good. Read Psalm 32 all the way through.

Psalm 32
Of David. A maskil.[a]
1 Blessed is the one
whose transgressions are forgiven,
whose sins are covered.
2 Blessed is the one
whose sin the LORD does not count against them
and in whose spirit is no deceit.

3 When I kept silent,
my bones wasted away
through my groaning all day long.
4 For day and night
your hand was heavy on me;
my strength was sapped
as in the heat of summer.[b]

5 Then I acknowledged my sin to you
and did not cover up my iniquity.
I said, “I will confess
my transgressions to the LORD.”
And you forgave
the guilt of my sin.

6 Therefore let all the faithful pray to you
while you may be found;
surely the rising of the mighty waters
will not reach them.
7 You are my hiding place;
you will protect me from trouble
and surround me with songs of deliverance.

8 I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go;
I will counsel you with my loving eye on you.
9 Do not be like the horse or the mule,
which have no understanding
but must be controlled by bit and bridle
or they will not come to you.
10 Many are the woes of the wicked,
but the LORD’s unfailing love
surrounds the one who trusts in him.

11 Rejoice in the LORD and be glad, you righteous;
sing, all you who are upright in heart!

Another thing I can testify to: This is battle. This life will always be a battle, so we need to fight. But we are victors.

"Moses answered the people, 'Do not be afraid. Stand firm and you will see the deliverance the LORD will bring you today. The Egyptians you see today you will never see again. The LORD will fight for you; you need only to be still.'"

Before God I lay down my defenses. He will deliver me.
Deliverance, relief, salvation, grace, grace, grace.

Thank you, my God.


Where my eyes open.

Silent seas curving purple
and shadow of Your hand.

I see finally

silver between breaks
of Your skin. Your breath minting words
into forms. Your breath against

the space between my rib cage and where
my heart beats
newly warm.

Born in Your breath.

Can it be all I hear?
Risen

Your fingers scent---

God, today I heard the sun rise

and all I could know was,
“Your love for me

is more wonderful.”
Than the love of men. And the love

of my lovers that do not love.

Claim me in that silence,
a world, enamored,

creation in transport held by

Your breath.

Can it be all I hear?
Risen,
Your breath
my song,

Your hand
the only place I know.

Unknown in every eye but Your own.