Tag Archives: God

Why does God have to pull “Aladdin” moments?

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I love when things go perfectly ( aka perfectly my way). Don’t try to deny it, you do too.

Oscar Wilde might have said that “There are only two tragedies in life: one is not getting what one wants, and the other is getting it.”….but reallyyy, is he one to talk? Looking back, there have been things (and relationships, let’s be honest) I’m so glad didn’t work out but that’s hindsight, y’all. When you’re in the moment and you have a “perfect vision” of what you want, it’s really hard to give it all up. 

So I don’t know about you, but I really don’t like when God pulls an “Aladdin.” No, He doesn’t turn me from a street urchin into a princess or even give me a pet monkey (I would definitely prefer a pet raccoon a la “Pocahontas,” hope you all are taking notes on this); I’m talking about those really annoying moments when God interrupts and stops me from doing my own thing with my own (perfectly arranged) timeline and asks “Do you trust me?”

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I mean…yes? No? Mostly yes? Soft no?

I DO trust God. He has been so faithful to me and He really, really loves me a lot. I have a million examples of the Lord’s goodness in my life. His plans always end up blowing mine out of the water. But…waiting for them to happen is hard.

It’s hard to trust God when you feel lonely. Or if your plan seems like the best/only option you can see. Or if you’re tired of waiting around. (Or if you’re turning 23 soon and could’ve SWORN things would be different by now.)

Habakkuk 2:3 reminds me to be a tad more patient: “For still the vision awaits its appointed time; it hastens to the end—it will not lie. If it seems slow, wait for it; it will surely come; it will not delay.” Unfortunately God’s timing isn’t like a 30 minute sitcom, where the problem is neatly solved by the third commercial break. 

And you know how I feel about answers: I hate writing something that addresses an issue yet isn’t practically seeking out answers. I think Psalms 37:3, the verse right before the frequently quoted (and hard to define) “Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart”, really does help: “Trust in the Lord, and do good; dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness.” 

Befriend Faithfulness: I love this wording (ESV y’all.) I want to be faithful in the little tiny things, so God can entrust me to be faithful in the BIG stuff. And you know, maybe that’s why God tells us (okay, ME) no & asks me to trust Him and wait.

Maybe I’m not ready yet…but I’m almost there (hopefully. Dang.)

Naturally, a degree equates to a calling, right?

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“He trains my hands for battle; he strengthens my arm to draw a bronze bow. You have given me your shield of victory. Your right hand supports me; your help has made me great. You have made a wide path for my feet to keep them from slipping.“

Psalms 18:34-36

Sometimes God trains our hands for roles and positions that we never anticipated for ourselves.

Maybe even something (gasp) we didn’t get a college degree in.

Sometimes four years of collegiate training doesn’t equate to being on the perfect track for your life. I’m currently working in a field quite opposite of my degree and I love it. For the longest time, I didn’t have a “dream,” but now I do and it’s within my current line of work (I thinkkk.)

If you’ve ever done weights at the gym, beginning to strengthen your arms is NOT fun–I would wake up the next morning sore and wondering why I ever wanted to  have Michelle Obama arms in the first place. And even if your arms are strong enough, shooting a bow is another story–it’s tough! It takes a lot of careful training, precision, and core strength. I tried it once and the arrow flew into the air…and landed at my feet.

You might not think you’re functioning in your “calling” (I hate all the baggage that comes with that term) because maybe you’re doing something different than what your degree says or the dream you had for your life back in middle school–but be encouraged: God is training you and preparing you for something for something you never imagined. To be perfectly elementary, it’s kind of like Dora the Explorer and her backpack. Along the journey, you pick up new experiences and lessons that God has given to equip you for later. You might not use that map now, but it was not a mistake that you picked it up.

Also, I don’t know about you, but I love how verse 36 clarifies that God has made a WIDE path for our feet. As a clumsy person (in every way), I need all the grace I can get. God’s supply is never short–He anticipates our needs. He never takes a coffee break from being our Shepherd and supporting us with His right hand.

You might feel in the dark or completely lost, but take heart: God is training you & equipping you for your own version of the verse’s battle. This is not a wasted time.

“I Don’t Care About Being Right Anymore” (by Marshall Pickard)

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Alright, confession time.

As I recently boarded a plane to Italy, I began reading Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code…

I know, I know. As a pre-teen evangelical, I promised myself I would never commit the cardinal sin of reading such a blasphemous book. But I mistakenly thought it was set in Rome (not Paris), so I gave it a shot.

Here’s a quote I found quite interesting from the book’s nerdy but awesome (Tom Hanks, ya’ll) protagonist, Robert Langdon:

“[E]very faith in the world is based on fabrication. That is the definition of faith—acceptance of that which we imagine to be true, that which we cannot prove.”

Wow. That’s some deep stuff—some philosophy that hits hard against my need to always be right.

My experience with church has been this: I was raised as a PK, so I had to be “on” all the time. Even running in the halls as a kid would result in an intervention from the deacons, and with my every move being so scrutinized, I felt more like a Kardashian than the son of a clergyman.

I’ve always loved the Lord, but I was more than happy to head off to my liberal arts university (albeit, Christian) for some time away from the dry religious season of a rough last semester in high school. Hurt too many times, I needed some distance from the family of God.

But at school, after some space to heal, I got plugged in again at a local church and eventually found myself participating in an accountability group and leading a weekly small group in my dorm. I learned that church was more about “doing life with people” and less about performing the letter of the Law flawlessly.

And yet, there still remained the question of doctrine. At my university, I was challenged to look outside my box and ask big questions about my faith. Often this left me more frustrated than I felt I could stand. With so many interpretative differences inside the church, how could I know what to choose to believe? Eventually, I basically adopted a stance Socrates would have been proud of: admitting I ultimately know nothing.

One thing I do know is this: knowing Jesus is so much more about humility than knowing all the answers.

But still answers are important because in the south, I live in a society soaked in the Christian subculture, and I occasionally find myself at odds with it. I am still frustrated at gender bias in the global church. I think Pentecostals focus too much on prosperity, but I think Calvinists focus too much on suffering. I hate how the Church responded the recent World Vision debacle, and I cringe every time I hear someone equate Phil Robertson’s crude comments from last December with “the Gospel.” I think we all talk about “feeding the poor” too much because none of us actually do it. I hate interdenominational spats and heated theological Twitter battles over unresolvable issues.

And I honestly don’t care whether you went to see God’s Not Dead or Noah at the movies or what you thought about it.

But I’m not actually angry at the Church. I just often find myself out of place—too progressive for the Church and too conservative for the world.

Visiting the Roman Colosseum this week, I thought long and hard about the suffering of Christians slaughtered in this ancient arena.

For them, the Church was their lives. It was definitely not a place where you had to have the right answers or pretend you believed everything you are supposed to believe.

For these early believers, church was a place to meet Jesus—the ultimate truth—often through the community of others who also risked their lives to tell of the goodness of God.

No offense to Rome, but after seeing the grandeur of the Vatican, I began thinking about what Jesus—the man who scolded the religious so often—would think about the production we’ve made church.

I think he would turn the temple tables of our insistence to be right, our theological debates that never get anywhere, our hurtful intolerance for one another, and the false idols we have fabricated and propagated.

Then he would turn the table back over, break out some bread and wine, and invite those who don’t have it all figured out to have a seat. In place of religious dogma, he would teach us the message of Ephesians 4:3—finding peace from all life’s questions by choosing to live in unity with our brothers.

There in his sweet company, the disillusioned Church wouldn’t care so much about being right anymore.

Marshall is currently backpacking all across Europe (the lucky guy), having spent the semester  abroad on the same trip I went on last year. Read more from him on his blog, The Train of His Robe.

“Faithful Till the End” (by Caroline Eaton)

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When I was eight years old my parents called a family meeting to announce that my dad was quitting his job as a stockbroker and my parents were going into fulltime ministry.

As an eight year old, I was really supportive of this new plan, yet I had no clue how much our entire family life was about to change. All of the sudden my dad was home a lot more, and we started hosting weekly “house meetings” in our living room, where people would stay into late hours of the night worshipping and hearing from the Lord. In fact, people were always over, and before long, privacy was a thing of the past, and our finances drained.

As different as my parent’s new job made us from every other family, I loved this time. I loved watching my parent’s minister to others. There were some really tough times, and it would’ve been way easier for my parents to give up and return to the “American dream” lifestyle we were used to. People abandoned the ministry, money was tight and my parents didn’t always know what direction the ministry was going in (it was years into this journey before my parents actually called it a church).

But more than anything, my parents taught me what true faithfulness looks like. Throughout every season, every hardship and every moment when they could’ve left the ministry, they remained faithful. Not only did they remain faithful to God and His vision, they were also always faithful to their people. Even when people left without a word, or worse, in a dramatic (and in my opinion pointless) rage, abused their authority or deliberately acted against the counsel they asked for, my parents were always faithful to them, and they always always always loved them.

I saw the Lord work through my parents in amazing ways simply because they were willing. They weren’t spiritual prodigies or even Bible scholars, but when the Lord called, they said yes. Their “yes” resulted in lives changed in unexplainable ways.

I viewed church as a place people could come for love, healing and acceptance, because that’s what my parent’s church gave them. Church was a place where people were protected and encouraged as they grew in their walk and transformed to be more like Christ. In middle and high school, church was home. It was extremely comfortable, and as the pastor’s daughter, I was loved and supported by everyone.

Church became a struggle when I moved away to college, though, so I became a professional church hopper. All of the sudden I didn’t know everyone, and people weren’t as interested in me as they were back home. When you’re the pastor’s daughter, getting involved in church takes no effort at all. You are immediately on the inside track, and you get more hugs in ten minutes than some people get in ten years. But when you’re new in town, getting involved in a church actually takes effort, and I was not used to that.

I got involved in a church once in my freshman year, but left because instead of protection I found pressure. After that, I hopped around from church to church without ever finding one that was “good enough” for me.

It was a hard lesson when I finally learned that church does not have to be about me. In fact, it’s a lesson I’m still learning, but I’m taken back to the biggest lesson I learned from my parents: faithfulness. Like any other commitment, it should take some effort for me to get involved in a church. It should also take some acceptance and love on my end because no church could ever be perfect, but it doesn’t have to be for me to be faithful.

I’ve learned that it isn’t from a specific church that I will find my love, healing and acceptance; it’s from the Lord. I’m still struggling to figure out what I want out of church and what I can/should give to it, but maybe this revelation will make getting involved in a new church easier than it has been in the past. Maybe I won’t give up when it isn’t an easy fit or I don’t get as much attention as I’m used to.

My journey has taught me that church, like life, can be messy. But when approached with a pure heart, it can also be a beautiful place to freely worship and find community. My parents unending faithfulness to the church, and God’s unending faithfulness to me (despite my self-centeredness and church-hopping habit) makes me believe that the church should be a place that doesn’t give up on people, even when people give up on the church.

Read more from Caroline on her blog, the College Cosmopolitan (such a great blog name!) or Twitter.

“Stones & Bricks” (by Evan Olson)

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“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles…

The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood…”

-Theodore Roosevelt

There are times when I hear people talking negatively about the Church. I hear things like:

“The service is too long.”

“They want my money.”

“They want my time.”

“It doesn’t meet my needs.”

It would be very easy to add my voice to this choir.

I’m not blind, folks. I agree that there are things that are wrong with the Church.

The Western Church, to be specific, is definitely too comfortable at times. The Western Church can sometimes seem to be too focused on building projects and not as focused on more pressing issues like poverty or the orphaned.

I could add to the list of the things the Church has done wrong.

It would be a long, well-written list of things that many people would agree with. I would maybe even get some retweets and larger traffic on my blog. I have things to add, things that aren’t exaggerated or misleading. They are real problems that need to be dealt with.

I could add my voice to that choir, but I won’t.

I can’t complain about the Church, because I am the Church.

Unlike myself, I understand that there are those of us who have been deeply hurt by their church or denomination. I have compassion for them and also desire to see them overcome the obstacles that pain has erected.

But there comes a time when we have to forgive.

There comes a time when we have to lay down the stones, especially the stones we find ourselves wanting to cast at the Church.

When we feel like casting disapproval upon the Church, we have to remember that the Church is the fullness of Him (Ephesians 1:22-23). To continually berate the Church is to, in essence, continually berate Christ.

More often than not, people aren’t even saying derogatory things about the Church. Instead, people use sarcasm as a means to complain without becoming too invested.

Sarcasm is not a gift of the Spirit. If anything, sarcasm eats away at the roots that hold us together. I’m not saying sarcasm is evil or immoral – I’m saying that when it’s used to berate the Bride, it’s dangerous and undermines the finished work of Christ.

We can’t complain about a problem when we are members of the very institution we complain about. To complain is irresponsible. We’re better than that. We’re the Church and we’re not built upon sand. We’re built upon a firmer foundation than sarcasm, judgement, or offense.

Furthermore, your church isn’t the Church. To write off the Church because of your experiences with a church is wrong. In fact, it’s not biblical (Ephesians 4:32).

It’s not wrong to have issues with the Church, but I’ve read stories of people being hurt and deciding to completely stop attending because of an offense. By definition, that type of action is contrary to the Bible.

It’s time to stop jumping on the bandwagon that is constantly speaking ill of the Church. Jesus called the Church His Bride. Furthermore, He commanded us to come into community with one another.

While this may not look like its current manifestation – Sunday mornings with Starbucks before service and Chinese buffets afterwards – at least we’re trying. At least we have some semblance of balance when it comes to a weekly gathering.

Personally, I was once annoyed with my own church. We lacked community; we were too concerned with revival and seemed to have little interest in our congregants and their daily lives. In a pursuit of large theological concepts, I felt like we were forgetting about people.

But instead of complaining, boycotting, or leaving: I decided to do something about it. Where I saw a lack, I added myself and began investing time in what I wanted to see happening.

So whatever problems you see, you can help solve. Cliche as it is – be the answer to your own prayer. It is far too easy to cast stones from afar at a denomination, church, or pastoral staff. It’s easier still to blog, tweet, and upload statues about it.

What is truly difficult (but also brave) is to set foot in the arena, to go to where the problems lie, and give your aide.

It’s too easy to throw stones at the Church.

But what I’ve learned is that those same stones we so desire to throw at the Church, can also be used as bricks.

Bricks to build with, bricks to create with.

The things we see that need improvement, we can help improve!

Don’t let offenses blind you. Don’t let the sun set on your anger. We’re still sinking in that ocean of grace.

We’re His Bride, His representation. We’re literally re-presenting Him to all mankind.

It’s time for us to come together, with stones in hand, and begin to build.

After three years of knowing one another & much convincing, I’ve finally agreed
 with Evan that the place he lives, Iowa, actually is cool. He has guest authored for AE before and also authors his own blog. 

Over-thinking Adulthood

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I think one of the biggest hurdles I need to overcome in this whole “You’re now a person with a college degree & no set future plans” state (sometimes also referred to as adulthood) is the crippling fear of making one mistake that ruins everything. So often, well meaning articles online or former professors have told me that the next few years determine the rest of your life (or something). 

That. Is. Terrifying. 

I always interpret that to mean something like “If you don’t make exactly the right decision(s) while 22-25, have fun being stuck as a washed up nobody for the rest of your life.” I’ve always been hyper-aware/fearful of the possibility of settling, but I’ve so fervently tried to fight against it–despite never truly understanding my actions. In my battle to live without regrets, I live a half-life, too full of my overactive mind and burdened by the pressure of being essentially perfect.

But in a rambling sort of way, today I want to kill that lie. 

The choices I make today are important, but just as important as the ones I made at 17 or will make at 43. Life is too full of grace & second chances to ever be just one linear path. And I don’t think I believe in that anyways–God has everything planned out, but I really doubt it’s a straight line. I think life’s a lot more rambling and messy. Or maybe life’s more like Russian nesting dolls–the experiences and stories you live now add more depth to your life, building more on who you were made to be. 

The pressure of putting the fate of entire life on my 22 year old shoulders is a little too much to bear. I mean, the Sistine Chapel wasn’t built in a day. The story of my life cannot be figured out (or written) in one sitting (no matter how much I try to solve the puzzle.) 

An Autumn Promise

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Psalm 84:5-7

What joy for those whose strength comes from the Lord,
    who have set their minds on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem.
6 When they walk through the Valley of Weeping,
    it will become a place of refreshing springs.
    The autumn rains will clothe it with blessings.
7 They will continue to grow stronger,
    and each of them will appear before God in Jerusalem.

God led me to this passage a few nights ago and I was struck by the perfect timing. I’m not sure where my Jerusalem is, but I know that I’m in a season of pilgrimage towards it. (Anddd it’s autumn, so holla at you, verse 6!)

May these verses be just as encouraging to you as they have been for me, especially fellow pilgrims. God will use the things you’ve dealt with in your own personal “Valley of Weeping” and turn it into a place of blessing, hope, and refreshment.  I’m ready for all that.