I Still Might Have to Die

SATURDAY 2.16.08 - HEBREWS 5:7
During the days of Jesus' life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with fervent cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission.

Lord God, I feel like this week I have been offering up fervent cries for myself. Again, as hunger and wanting take on my body, I've tried to figure out just why I undertake this, and what You are going to provide because of it. And as frustration mounted I think that my immediate thought was that You weren't hearing me or You weren't acting on my behalf.

This verse, which brings me back to Joel's sermon a bit, gives me pause. Jesus offered up his prayers to You because You had the power to save him from death, and You heard him because he was submissive, but he still had to die. It was simply that You brought victory out of his pain and death rather than the normal defeat. You did save him from the effects of death, the ultimate effects of death, but not from the process of dying.

I have been having this difficulty knowing if I am submissive this week. I mean, I really haven't changed too darn much in my routine that would make me say I'm submitting to You. All I'm doing differently at all in regards to the fast is not weighing myself. And of course I'm still having trouble with the whole "noticing You" throughout my day thing, not just here in the morning. I have a desire to submit, I just, I don't know exactly what and how. And that's been a bit painful and frustrating...especially when (when I'm honest) I'm fasting and denying myself for the specific purpose of finding these answers. But because of the pain and frustration, I feel like You've not been hearing me. Which makes me feel like I'm doing something wrong, and I'm not sure what that is, and then the whole cycle starts over again. It's tough. But my overriding feeling through all of this is that somehow You don't hear me.

As I think through the whole story of the cross, this feeling must have been so intense for Jesus. Here Jesus is, doing everything You asked him too, and when he asks You to save him from death, You won't. It must have felt like You couldn't hear him. "My God, my God, why have You forsaken me." What gut-wrenching words these are, but all the more so when I realize the feelings that I have been having this week, then multiplied by a thousand. Jesus - in the process of submitting - feels like he isn't heard and that You are not with him.

It is a reminder of three things for me.

#1 - My will is not Your will (at least not all the time). This is why I need submission.

#2 - Your will often involves struggle and pain and even death. Perhaps there are ways of thinking or habits that You are killing in me right now with this pain and frustration. Your way isn't always easy answers to passionate cries. Your way isn't always simply saying yes to me.

#3 - To truly submit, I must trust. I must trust that Your will is for the world's best, no matter what it requires of me.

My God, my God, I trust You. Right now, in this moment of learning, I trust You. I want my way to be easy, my questions to be answered, and my load to always be light. Most of all, I long to understand what's going on and why. But not my will, or my way, be done, but Your's, but Your's be done, O LORD.

Not Always Finding

Lord, everyday as I sit to read the Scriptures I hope that You jump out of them straight into an application, something that moves my everyday life. It's happened so often, or You've connected ideas right in front of my eyes, or You've helped me see a situation in a new way. Well...

It doesn't always happen. There I said it. It's a frustrating reality, and I'm not sure how it fits in to faith. We had a great discussion at Sparky last night about our new ideas in forming a biblical community, our Exodus Community. I'm really excited about getting things about and moving. I'm excited to begin new relationships, meet people with different viewpoints but who mostly want to move in the same direction, towards You. I'm exciting about making my pillow (though I must think of a creative design).

This morning I really wanted to find some overarching theme that would just continue to build these thoughts and dreams and instead I read about Lazarus being raised from the dead. It seems strange to complain about reading a story of a resurrection, but it just felt, well, still dead. Even if it had captured me, I'm not sure it would have led me to immediately see how You are working in my life right now.

I have really appreciated the focus that I've already found in eleven days of searching. I've been proud to take the time to focus on You early in the morning. Maybe the times where I don't find immediate focus are to challenge me to think about You throughout the day, maybe they are because I'm doing something wrong in seeking You, maybe because You don't immediately want me to find You. I don't know. I just kwow that there are times when I am not always finding.

Rolling My Tongue Around the Edges

I love hard candy, well, hard candy that tastes good anyways. I really like mints, Worthers, those candies that are strawberry flavored and are wrapped up in strawberry-looking paper. My favorite thing about hard candy is the texture. I love rolling my tongue around the edges of the first smooth, circular candy. Then I like to crack the candy and feel the jagged, cutting pieces. I push the candy from one side of my mouth to the other. The flavor gets everywhere.

It doesn't make the candy any more nutritious. It doesn't make the candy's flavor change (except in really special candies!) It's just fun to get the texture of it.

Sometimes I think Your word is like candy, Lord. Today, I come home to read Jeremiah, and every night I kind of expect some big new piece of meat for me to digest and dig into. Something totally life changing. But often, I think You're even more interesting in GIVING OUR MINDS something to roll around.

Today, I just thought of something that You've got rolling around in my head. Right now, I'm just tasting and touching the edges of it and I don't know that it gives it significant meaning in any way. In the Old Testament, Your people really struggle with serving You only. They are falling away from You to prostitute themselves before other gods, as You metaphorically put it. But really, after they return from exile in Babylon and rebuild the temple, it seems that they kind of get this. I mean, four hundred years later when Jesus shows up the scene is one of everybody trying to figure out the best ways to follow the laws of the one Father. They get it, they aren't serving other gods. You helped them learn from history.

And yet, You still took the kingdom from them. Because they weren't loving others at all. "Even the demons believe in one God, and shudder," James says. The two greatest commandments tell the story of the whole Bible. Love You and love others. It's amazing how right You are when You said all the law and the prophets hinge on those two commandments. Sometimes we don't give You credit for how right You are.

So the balance must be held. If I don't love God and pursue other worldly "gods," I am headed for an exile punishment. Yet, if I don't love others, the kingdom will be taken from me. Lord, help this balance to be ever before me. Help me to continue to see that hanging there in the middle, doing both, is the way of the kingdom. And Lord, let that kingdom come here in my life and thoughts.

And as it provokes my thoughts, allow me to continue to feel the fascinating textures of rolling my tongue around the edges.