Advent: Getting Rid of the Ugly

It doesn't take knowing me long to figure out that I ADORE the Christmas season.
I love the kitsch, the cheesy songs, decorating the tree (anyone's tree, really...I've helped with 4 so far), cookie baking, Muppet Christmas Carol (which I can probably quote from start to finish), geekin' out to Amy Grant and Michael Buble, I just discovered Cee Lo Green's Christmas album and stinkin' love it!

If Christmas could be a love language, it'd be this gal's.

Now, advent, however... is a whole other thing.

The incarnation. The intervention of God in humanity. The One who was thought to be some divine impersonal Logos becoming a person with skin and hair and guts. The answer to humanity's longing and crying for a solution to the human sin condition.

For those who don't know what it is, Advent is the time that Christians take during the weeks before Christmas to take on the posture of the Old Testament Jews and "wait for the Messiah." We wait as those who have already received the Messiah in Jesus Christ, but in doing so we wait for Him to come again when He will restore all things, and everyone will know Him as the true King.

Most of my Decembers for the 10 years that I've been observing Advent have seen me waiting on God for...something. An answer, direction, a truth, an epiphany, something like that.

On this side of the resurrection, we already know the end goal. Christ CAME. Yeah, there is the waiting, but mostly there's the thing that's been waited for. The prize. The end. The change. The incarnation. It's happened, and we wait with hope because...the mystery's been solved.

HOWEVER...I've been missing something significant (not the first time that's happened :/).

In viewing waiting this way, I've made waiting a period of latency and passivity.
But it's not just what we're waiting FOR.
It's the waiting itself, y'all.

While the end is what gives the hope, it's the longing in the meantime that makes the juxtaposition of the unrealized/realized hope so powerful.

This year I've come to see Advent as kind of a mini lifetime. A microcosm, if you will.
If one could take a lifetime with all of its experiences and lessons and events and joys and sorrows and concentrate it down into one month, it bears a remarkable likeness to the Advent season:
~We've got a promise of the coming King
~There's lots of fellowship
~Times of loneliness and joy feel extra hard or extra beautiful
~The hurts and lack of justice in the world are augmented
~There are lots of distractions with materialism and missing the point altogether through the love of secondary or created goods

And, just as in my life, if I am to work out my salvation with fear and trembling, the Advent season as a concentrated lifetime should see me laboring even more to be like Christ...not to just wait passively.

Now, the end is, indeed, GLORIOUS! A perfect prize--the first coming of the incarnation as well as the time when He will come again and establish His kingdom on earth.

...but He delays. He makes us wait. Why?
So that people who don't believe may come to repentance, and so that we who are regenerate might be made more like Him.

II Peter 3:11-12
"...what sort of people ought you to be in lives of holiness and godliness, waiting for and hastening the coming of the day of God..."

I've been faced with this question this Advent: What sort of person ought I to be, and am I becoming that? Because I'm becoming something, whether I know it or mean to or not.

C.S. Lewis speaks to this in Mere Christianity:
"...every time you make a choice you are turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a little different from what it was before.And taking your life as a whole, with all your innumerable choices, all your life long you are slowly turning this central thing either into a heavenly creature or into a hellish creature...
To be the one kind of creature is heaven: that is, it is joy and peace and knowledge and power. To be the other means madness, horror, idiocy, rage, impotence, and eternal loneliness.
Each of us at each moment is progressing to the one state or the other."

So this Advent...I've been called to actively wait and work out my salvation, basking in the beauty of the incarnation while warring against my flesh and selfishness.

He has come, and He is coming. Wait well with me.

On God's Heart

So. Most people who have talked to me for more than ten minutes over the past 8 months have heard me say the phrase, "I got to learn a lot about God's heart through the divorce and all the crap I went through."
Or something more eloquent than that. (Not likely.)

It occurred to me recently, though, that I haven't gone into any detail at all about what I actually learned.
Because I'm lame.
Let's call it...divine omnibenevolence amnesia. Or the forgetsy oopsies.

PLEASE forgive my lack of witness. Time to testifyyyyyyy! *waves hand in the air*

What I've Learned on God's Heart:

1. He wants me to understand who He is vastly more than what He does.
Frankly, you can't become like someone you don't personally know. The goal isn't to become like some interesting construction of Christ based on collective opinion or cultural Christianity. The only way to really become like Him is to experience Him as He ACTUALLY is. Not just talking about or understanding the value of Him drawing close to me...but actually DOING it.

I mean, I can end up having similar attributes to someone by happenstance (both Lebron and I might be competitive, for example...), but to become like someone who is wholly unlike us in every way takes an enormous amount of intentional time and study.
Knowing Him...spending disciplined time in the Word, letting prayer become a posture and a continuous internal dialogue rather than a quip said before meals and bedtime, and taking time to really open myself up to who He wants to reveal Himself as (rather than who I've constructed Him to be) has changed everything.
~John 17:3 And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.

2. He really, really hates sin.
We kind of talk about this vaguely in the church...but as I've spent more time intimately involved with Him and asking Him to let me feel what He feels, I've definitely experienced more of a righteous indignation over my own sin.
He deeply hates sin. He hates it because He knows the end from the beginning. He knows precisely how the selfish decisions I make destroy my relationships, the lies I tell violate people's trust in me, the immaturity I exercise crushes my example, and the foolishness I partake in undermines the church's credibility and makes a joke of my witness.
 He hates sin because He can't commit it, because it's a violation of His character, and we are never more unlike Him than when we are engulfed in ourselves and entrenched in sin.
Spending more time abiding with Him directly results in a greater awareness of the Holy Spirit's presence...and the Spirit's convicting work is BRUTAL when my heart proceeds in rebellion.
He hates when I sin, and He lets me feel it.
~Psalm 5:4 ...evil may not dwell with you...
~Psalm 11:5-6 The Lord tests the righteous, but his soul hates the wicked and the one who loves violence. Let him rain coals on the wicked; fire and sulfur and a scorching wind shall be the portion of their cup. (daaaang, Jesus...)
⁵ 

3. He delights in us.
I hesitate to say this a bit, because experience is pretty subjective...but palpably feeling God's approval is pretty stinkin' exciting.
It's kind of like when you study really hard and get an A, or when you surprise a loved one with a gift and they love it as much as you thought they would...only it's a dozen times better, because the approval He gives us is entirely unmerited by us.
Like I mentioned in point #1, knowing Him means spending time and abiding with Him. As we become more in tune with His Spirit, it's kind of like we start to do life together with Him. He experiences things along with us (He's not temporal like we are, but He has experienced life as a human and understands...is what I mean). So when He feels things, if we're abiding in Him, we feel them, too. And just like I feel His anger over my sin, I also feel His joy as his daughter.
I've been struck lately by how multidimensional His emotions are...that He knows what's going to happen and yet STILL delights in it once it does happen. For most of us, knowing the surprise ruins the joy of it. Knowing the end takes the delight out of the process. He, however, is not robbed or depleted of joy even though He knows every act of obedience we will ever commit.
He's just that awesome. :)
~Psalm 149:4 For the Lord takes pleasure in His people. He will beautify the humble with salvation.

If you haven't noticed, I've quoted a lot of Psalms. David, the author of the Psalms, is referred to as the man after God's own heart. Who better to speak on God's heart than one who is reputed for most diggin' on that business??

Good golly!!! I could write way more on this.
But I'm trying to get better about my disgustingly long posts.

So for now... I'm kid-on-christmas-morning thankful over who He is, His righteous anger, and His deep and constant delight.

Divorce, Identity, and Restored Humanity

My sister suggested to me that I was not done writing about identity yet.
...She was right.
This gets more to the heart of what I was talking about in my last post...and isn't as long. :)
It's also much more easily delivered through the context of my own story.

Having gone through a divorce and being involved in a ministry that works with divorced people, identity is a topic that I deal with a lot.
It's obviously not just me...everyone has a story that shapes, destroys, or rebuilds his or her sense of self, but divorce is one that employs all three.

So.

One of the repercussions of dealing with divorce is loneliness. This is not something I struggle with often by any means, but in the days, weeks, and months after my ex asked me to move out, I experienced somewhat of a shock to the system at being forced to adjust to coming home at the end of the day to...no one.
Sure, I missed having someone to talk to, cook with, and watch random nonsense on hulu with. But what struck me most deeply was the wrenching emptiness of feeling unknown.
DON'T GET ME WRONG...I have amazing people in my life who go to GREAT lengths to love me well.
The incomplete nature of this life on earth, however, makes this love very fragmented in some ways.

For example...
My dear friends here in Dallas never knew what I was like as a single person before I was married. My friends from high school and college never really saw my marriage. My family never really saw my marriage because I lived in another state. Any friends I made after September 2011 don't know what my life was like in the context of marriage.
Lives are so multifaceted...there are so many components of our stories that, even as much as we do life together, we can never fully know each other.

This, though, is what makes knowing Jesus valuable so profoundly necessary. We are temporal, and in order to live our lives, to pay attention to one aspect of our lives (either the fact that I was married, or the fact that I'm single now) is to necessarily neglect the other aspects. We simply just don't have the capacity to take in the whole story as one...in my case, no one can know me simultaneously as single and married. No one can address all parts of my story at once.

BUT (my favorite parts of Scripture often begin with "but")...Jesus gets it.
Because He's outside of time. Because He's orchestrating my story. Because He made me.
And this makes it so much more necessary and BEAUTIFUL to abide in Him...because He knows the whole story of our lives without having to neglect any of its parts in order to give another part of it attention.

What about all that stuff I said in my last post about losing ourselves in order to find ourselves? What about all that "I must decrease so that He may increase" business? That doesn't sound like being known...it seems a complete contradiction to say that in order to realize our uniqueness or be fully known, we have to essentially be depleted of everything about us.

HOWEVER...this mysterious decrease of our "selves" is actually the increase of our ultimate Self. As we become more like Him...(He, the ultimate reality, the One who has always existed and has never changed, He who is so wonderfully complex that if He placed a single, solitary unique attribute of His into every human He created, there would never exist enough people over the span of time and space to even begin to house all of His properties)
...rather than losing our humanity as we put our flesh to death, our humanity is more fully restored. Only when we purge ourselves of our love of self do our real Selves begin to take shape.

We've kind of constructed this depressing conundrum where we think that God wants us to lose our uniqueness and become absorbed into some amorphous, homogenized mass.
Good golly. That WOULD be depressing.
The joyful reality is that it is only in becoming more like Him that our uniqueness and humanity can hope to be fully realized.

Christ, in becoming human, redeemed the essence of what it IS to be human.
He doesn't deny us our humanity. He provides the only venue in which we can fully realize it.

Without this ultimate fulfillment of self in the Maker, we walk around like shades...shadows. Becoming less substantive, less real, less known with every self-oriented thought.
Being real means being known...and known especially by Someone who will never stop knowing you, never have to neglect a part of your story to focus on another part, and who has fashioned every detail of your life for His glory.
His glory is much more real than our inhumanity...so really, the crucifixion of the flesh is the crucifixion of our inhumanity.


So for me personally...going through my divorce jarred me to my core...because at my core, I was still finding parts of my identity in my role as a married person. I prized that relationship so much that it became an inextricable part of what I drew my value from.
But God has constructed these elements of life to be enjoyed...NOT to have an identity constructed from them. When we build our value/identity/meaning on something temporal (albeit wonderful, but temporal) like relationships, vocation, political beliefs, intelligence, talents, interests, or anything else created, ANYTHING created is susceptible to change.
Anything, then, that can act as an agent of change in life is not just an agent of change, but a great and real threat to our identities. 

So I've put the role of a married person to rest...and in doing so I have embarked on a journey of losing my need to live for myself or find my identity in anything that changes.
I've been wrestling with the Holy Spirit over what other things I let define me other than Him. It's pretty staggering...my appearance, my intelligence, my potential, my work ethic, my responsibility, my date-ability, my knowledge, my opinions...
I am known...fully...unique and special and loved not because of my temporal roles or changing interests...but because I'm made uniquely in His complex image.

Identity and the Problem of Self

So. Blogging is hard to do when you've got 18 credit hours and lots of homework/church/life/travel/people/stuff that matters more than blogging going on. I could blog more, I suppose, if I just posted the papers I write for class on here...
Not sure, though, if anyone wants to read about the use of ideology and terror in post cold war America or how I had to bring Aristotle out of hell based on his engagement and regard for natural law.
Any takers? No? I wouldn't, either.

So this is one of the things that my mind has been engaging over the last 2 months...

Just about everything in my life...what I'm reading, what I'm studying, my life experiences, conversations I'm having, the music I'm listening to...are all pointing to one thing: a catastrophic struggle with identity.

I'm not just talking Christians here by any means. I mean everyone.

What I'm referring to goes beyond the scope of people not knowing who they are...because most people at least think they know who they are. They look to their interests, vocations, roles, skills, experience, and values to categorize it.
If I did this, I'd say I'm an artist, a musician, a nanny, student, daughter, friend, a traveler, a (groan...) borderline hipster. I'm moderate politically. I like most genres of music. I like trying new things. Blah blah blah.
The rub with all of the components of this laundry list is this: they either change with time and circumstance, or are not unique to any individual.
Everyone is a daughter or son. Friends change. Jobs change. Interests change.

Where am I seeing this? Everywhere.

In marriages.
I serve in a ministry at Watermark (the church I attend here in Dallas, for those who don't know) called DivorceCare where I get to love on folks going through the pain of divorce. I have lost count of the number of people I've heard frame their marriages as tragic mistakes because they "got married too young, before I knew who I really was." This was one of the things my ex said to me when he ended our marriage, as well. As if unbiblical divorce is justifiable because people change over time.

In popular culture.
"What do I stand for? Most nights I don't know anymore." (Fun.)
"In the dark I have no name." (Mumford and Sons)
"Only worth living if somebody is loving you." (Lana Del Rey)

In literature.
I read Manhood and American Political Culture in the Cold War by K.A. Cuordileone. It's a work of history that draws attention to the gender-saturated language used in society (the government, academia, popular culture) during the early Cold War years. She argues that the call to masculinize the weak, soft, effeminate political left that so many spoke of during the Cold War years was really a reflection of profound sexual and gender identity tension. According to Cuordileone, this gender identity crisis is what perpetuated things like the Red Scare, the Lavender Scare, and even the civil rights movement.

Even in The Hunger Games, Katniss resolves that making it a life's mission to kill President Snow and ultimately President Coin is framed as noble because revenge became so deeply engrained in her identity after a lifetime of oppression.
(I have way more examples of books that deal with identity, but for sake of space, I'll stick with these two).


...a malleable identity.
Dictated by roles, experiences, and circumstance.
Put together by...whatever you decide.

Why is this a problem? It sounds ideal in some ways, actually. Openness, change, adaptability. This is the pinnacle of human maturity and civil society! Well...not exactly....

I've become increasingly aware of an inextricable connection between the malleable self and the eschewing of moral culpability.

So much of my life recently has been saturated with the theme of the self...namely, what the self is responsible for.
Can one sin without a self?
Are we culpable for decisions we make in our search for identity?
While the answer seems obvious to some, the reality that a lot of people, even Christians, perpetuate the facade that the lack of a concrete self is grounds for exoneration from responsibility or consequences.




We're a society of rampant logical inconsistencies.
(Caveat--I'd be way overselling myself if I said I could adequately put all of the non sequiturs and fallacies into the appropriate philosophical categories (I'd probably just as soon refer to "denying the antecedent" as "crazy business."...let's stick with that.)
But attending a public university has me daily experiencing people and reading material that betrays the fact that everyone is faced with the reality of worldview...and a lot of worldviews are simply just not thought through.

Why did I just bring up worldview?
Because worldview shapes identity.
 A lot of people are quite content with not thinking through their worldview or exploring where it leads at its logical end.

For example...
Here's a statement: Humans have meaning and dignity.
Most of us are down with that. I've got a political theory prof who loves to talk about society needing to have leaders who rule justly and according to virtue, that rights to freedom from tyranny are inalienable, and that some things are just WRONG...
BUT most times my fellow classmates press him on where that meaning comes from, he falls back on the postmodern answer of "whatever you find meaning in. Religion, naturalism, family, your job...whatever it happens to be for you. You decide." Really? That's it? We're talking about why humans have meaning and you shrink back?

People are fine with granting and embodying significance...and not bothered at all about it coming from an unidentifiable source. The intellectual pursuit breaks down, the worldview has been exposed as paper-thin, and rather than face the reality that the argument is glaringly less than comprehensive, we call it being open minded...because we're afraid to call it what it really is: irresponsible and insufficient.
Meaning is what we're looking for in our basest components, right? As much as we operate at the level of functionaries, the silent but violent tumult in our hearts overtakes all of the coping mechanisms we've built into our psyches...and we're confronted with the reality that we have no idea if we matter, or if what we do matters.
How can we impute meaning to anything if we're waiting for it to be imputed to us in the first place? What gives one the authority to say meaning comes from THIS? One can't give what one doesn't have.

A lot of us (Christian or not) simply don't dig an iota deeper when we realize our worldview is inconsistent.
Why not?
Moral culpability.

I'm super down with how Ravi Zacharias talks about this business.
~Through secularization, religious interpretations and institutions have lost their significance, and we experience the end of shame.
~Through pluralism, no worldview is dominant and every moral decision becomes relative, and we experience the end of reason.
~Through privatization, spiritual beliefs are expunged from the public sector of life, and as secularization and relativism spread in its place, we experience the end of meaning.

No shame. No reason. No meaning. No self. No moral culpability.

No hope? Are we doomed to a lifelong struggle with eat-pray-love philosophy in which we search for meaning in relationships, life experiences, and some crazy ass trip around the world?
Without hope, we'd be crushed under the staggering weight of our own inconsequentiality. 

I have not comprehensively studied every worldview out there...but I have done a lot of homework. And based on the evidence that I have come across...the Judeo-Christian worldview is the most comprehensive answer to the issue of identity:

• Human value is answered in the imago dei, humans' image-bearing of God--an infinitely creative Being uniquely made and gifted each individual. 
• Unique individualism is fulfilled in spiritual gifting and personal identification with the Creator. 
• Moral absolutes are grounded in the immutable attributes and character of the Godhead. 
• The problem of suffering is answered with the ability of people to freely choose to love or rebel against a perfect God.
• Hope for redemption is cemented in the ongoing, sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit.

An identity can only be unshakeable if it is grounded in something, or Someone, that doesn't change...isn't affected by circumstance, geographic or historical location, experience, or role.

THERE IS AN ANSWER TO THE PROBLEM OF SELF.
And it is wrapped up in the message of the Supreme Ruler of the Universe to us: you must lose yourself to find yourself.

The Greatest Crime in the History of Humanity

This post is deeply personal and emotionally charged. And probably the first time I've ever written an entry and posted it all in the same go. Enough caveats.

Abortion was never my issue.
It wasn't at the top of the my list in things I considered pivotal in my voting decisions. I spent awhile mulling over a woman's right to privacy, a "zone of privacy" in the constitution, and whether it should be a federal, state or local issue. I could debate you easily on my position about being "whole life" rather than just "pro life" and caring for the unborn better once outside the womb, how it's rubbed me the wrong way that conservatives defund sex education and anything that resembles welfare but may result in fewer unwanted pregnancies. Still true, and good things.

In my mind I knew I classified abortion itself as wrong. But the way I treated it was as if it was either a non issue, or lamentable.

For my entire life I've kept this issue at arm's length because it never affected me or anyone I knew personally.

Until tonight...

When it hit me like a punch in the stomach while I was falling asleep...the crushing weight and despair of finally, FINALLY realizing that this most certainly affects someone I know personally. My Best Friend, my Father, my Savior, my Redeemer, the One who called me out of death into life...His heart breaks for the murder of the unborn.

I normally hesitate to make statements like the one I'm about to make. Experience is really subjective and easily tainted by emotion. You all can't feel what I felt, so there's no way to verify it, and you may not give a damn. Fine.
But God lets us emote for a reason, and I think something I just experienced is evidence, or at least a manifestation, of how He can use our emotions in a Godly way--to connect us with His heart:

I honestly feel like God allowed me to participate in His sorrow for a moment. And it broke. my. heart.

I wept, y'all. I don't just randomly start crying over stuff I don't care much about. There was absolutely no reason for it to come when and how it did.
I was struck with images in my mind of babies being mostly delivered and having their skulls stabbed and brains sucked out. Even just typing that sentence fills my eyes with tears and makes me want to scream.

Just so....angry. Deep in my bones. At humanity. At sin. At my ugliness and pretension that previously boiled this down to a matter of personal politics rather than ethics. I can't believe how stupid I've been. Maybe I shouldn't be surprised. I'm wrong a lot.

What a tremendous, despicable game the enemy is playing. What deep, dark sludge we wade in...that we live in the height of civilized society, equipped with every resource imaginable to be educating people about abstinence and safe(r) sex, have families with the means to be able to financially support and care for moms with unwanted pregnancies and take in their unwanted babies and children, have excellent medical care, have flexible education systems so that moms don't have to be doomed to welfare and a lifelong struggle to find vocational success because they're single moms...
and we've built such a monument to human selfishness at its pinnacle that we allow citizens to participate in something so barbaric and inhumane.

I didn't get it. I was wrong, and I'm sorry.

How in the WORLD have we allowed this to be legal???

Singleness and the Idol of Family

There's a beautiful push in the Church to take the focus off of individualized self actualization and redirect it to families.

This is a big deal. A lot of parents in our self-exulting postmodern society replace their kids with themselves in terms of priority. Many churches are calling men to be engaged fathers, loving husbands, and servant leaders as sacrificial, Godly heads. Simultaneously, they're convicting women to complete and complement the way the Holy Spirit does with sacrificial, loving submission. Encouraging families to serve together, read the Word together, grow in love and sacrifice together. I SUPER dig that business.

However...what can be a beautiful revival of the place of the family in the Church is, I've noticed, being bent toward to an idolization of family and marriage.

Caveat--this is NOT true of every church, every individual, and every family. These are just things I have noticed after being part of the Church as a married person AND now as a single person.

HEAR THIS FIRST: I love marriage. I highly respect it. God made it for a host of beautiful reasons, my favorite 2 being how it gives us humanoids a tangible demonstration of 1) Christ's love for the Church and 2) the great love/submission/glory of the Trinity. Frankly, I'd love to have it again someday.

THAT BEING SAID, THOUGH. The way the Church talks about marriage is often done in a way that makes it seem like one is somehow incomplete, less sanctified, less stable, or less...awesome... without marriage. This, frankly, is unbiblical and completely misses what Paul says about our lives as Christians--single OR married.

Tim Keller (loooove him) writes in his chapter on singleness in his book The Meaning of Marriage, and talks about how the Church in the West has lost sight of the goodness of singleness. He quotes Paige Benton Brown as she picks apart the various ways that Christian churches try to "explain" singleness (this made me cringe as I've DEFINITELY said some of these...ha):

"As soon as you're satisfied with God alone, he'll bring someone special into your life."

...as though God's blessings are ever earned by our contentment.

"You're too picky."

...as though God is frustrated by our fickle whims and needs broader parameters in which to work.

"As a single you can commit yourself wholeheartedly to the Lord's work."

...as though God requires emotional martyrs to do his work, of which marriage must be no part.

"Before you can marry someone wonderful, the Lord has to make you someone wonderful."

...as though God grants marriage as a second blessing to the satisfactorily sanctified.


Why are we all super awkward when we talk about singleness?
I think it's because we've missed the God's purpose for the Church. If we understood that, this stuff would be way easier. And more affirming, for that matter.

I think what we need is a little understanding from both sides, perhaps. This list is by no means comprehensive, and a lot of points overlap between singles and marrieds. I've categorized them in a way that makes sense to me.

HOW SINGLES ARE RIDICULOUS:

1. Playing the victim.

People say stupid things about your singleness. They give you unsolicited advice. They give you shallow suggestions and make condescending remarks. I've heard quite a few. I've also said quite a few.
Get. Over. It. Everyone does this to everyone in every circumstance.
The question isn't "why do people say stupid stuff?" The question is "how do I respond?"

Truth: Believe it or not, your single situation isn't harder or more pitiable than anyone else's. You do not have a corner on suffering. Everybody suffers, everybody has a story.
When you say something completely idiotic to someone, you hope they respond with grace, yes?
You should do the same.
In order to respond with grace, though, you must have a right understanding of suffering.
Consider it joy when you face trials so that you'll persevere. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be complete, not lacking anything. (James 1:1)

Completion = contentment. When we are complete in Christ, we can't HELP but respond to pithy statements from others about our singleness with grace.

2. Not participating in your Church family.
God gives us everything we need to get through this life. Whether we're single temporarily or indefinitely, our discontentment often comes from loneliness and entitlement.
The great news is, though, we're 1) not alone and 2) deserve nothing but have been given everything.
God accomplishes this through His Spirit and His Word, but especially His people.

Truth: You're called to be known by your spiritual family. You have every imaginable role to play in it--sibling, child, parent, mentor, mentee, disciple, friend, babysitter, teacher, student...
It's not just a beautiful place that God gave us singles to find family in, though. It's a Biblical mandate to be involved in, which I wrote about previously here.
To be bitter about not having a family while neglecting the roles you're called to play in the spiritual family God's made you for (and made for you) is, well, backwards.

Intimately knowing Jesus as your spouse ushers you into a beautiful (and crazy) family. Jump in.

3. Idolizing marriage.
This really applies to everybody--single and married.
Truth: Indeed, marriage is a beautiful mystery (Eph 5). But no marriage will ever satisfy your need to be delighted in eternally.
This highly individualized society so prizes self fulfillment, and we're conditioned from the time we're young (helloooo, Disney) to believe that all our needs will be met by someone in marriage. Imperfect people can never EVER do that for each other.

As Tim Keller puts it, we totally buy into the illusion that "if we find our one true soul mate, everything wrong with us will be healed; but that makes the lover into God, and no human being can live up to that....After all, what is it that we want when we elevate the love partner to the position of God? We want redemption--nothing less."

Marriage is not about personal fulfillment, someone helping you realize your potential, or someone meeting all your needs and letting you be yourself. It's not about you finding and maintaining your independence. It's a profound gift and another beautiful expression of a benevolent Father's love for His children. It's two notoriously broken people covenanting in a lifelong journey.

Take marriage off the pedestal. Marriage not an end in itself--that would make God a means. He's no means--He's the end.


HOW MARRIED FRIENDS HAVE MADE IT HARDER:

1. Not speaking Truth to us when we're being ridiculous about being single.
Sure, everyone needs the freedom to be frustrated or express discontentment. But as our friends, if you let us run our mouths into an escalation that reveals deep dissatisfaction or hostility, that's a heart attitude that we're supposed to be calling out in each other.
Truth: As our friends, you owe us the truth about our situation: when we abide in God, we enter in the dance of the Trinity. We experience the powerful, overwhelming love of our Father, and we are His bride.
I am His daughter. I am his Creation...and I grow in the love of my divine Spouse. That same Truth speaks to your discontentment in marriage, in parenting, in singleness, in joblessness, in life...and you owe it to us.
Faithful are the wounds of a friend (Prov 27:6)

Discontentment is not exclusive to singles--we just apply it to our singleness. Just like we're supposed to be patient with you when you share your discontent about whatever, be patient with us...but remind us of Truth and the big picture.

2. Not being honest with us about other reasons why we may be single.

Do you have a friend who does something unattractive with her face?
Do you have that guy friend who would love to be married but is really immature?
What about brosef who has a great personality but disgusto hygiene?
Or that girl friend who refuses to go out in anything other than something an 18yo would wear?
What about that girl who has a sweet heart but isn't willing to actually go places where she might interact with guys?
Or maybe that girl who is 28 but has no ambition, or that guy who just plays Xbox all day?
Or she's really smart, but is also kind of easy?

Truth: Just like you marrieds can't see the logs in your own eyes (Matt 7) and have a built-in mirror that you're yoked with for the rest of your life, we singles need that, too.
There may be something super obvious (and likely rather sensitive) that we're overlooking.

Being made aware of these kinds of things will likely make us better people/friends/family members all around, and that can only have a helpful effect on our comprehensive attractiveness.

3. Neglecting the fact that we play a God-ordained, indispensable role in a family already.

That family that we'll have "someday"--we already have one, and it's you.

Truth: I'm part of the family of the Church (Matt 12:50). I disciple people, I am discipled by others. I show love to men and women--both single and married. People of substance sharpen me in painful (and beautiful) ways, and I sharpen others, as well.

Raising kids does not have to mean that they are mine. Followers of Christ are called to be trained in the Word in order to teach others (2 Tim 2:1-2). I'm a nanny--I invest in kids every day. I work in the nursery at church and love on crabby little toddlers who are DYING to show off that they know what the sheep says. I have 4 nieces that I get to babysit and have awesome conversations with.
Are you encouraging us to participate in intergenerational relationships? Are you doing so yourself?

We may have a nuclear family that looks like yours someday, but right now, we're not off the hook for the one Family we're a part of.

4. Not sharing your marriages with us.
When you get married, it's just easier to identify with married people. You're struggling through similar things, sharing similar victories, looking for similar advice, tend to be on similar schedules.
I've done it--I get the draw.
But as I just shared in the aforementioned point about us being part of a family...it's hard to be part of a family when that family is insistent on retreating into itself all the time.
You've gleaned lessons from being intimately known by someone that we singles (or even other marrieds!) haven't been clued in on yet.
When married couples disappear into their married bubble and forget to come back out sometimes, you're not allowing members of our spiritual family to learn from you (or you learn from them!).

Truth: We're meant to share life together...not just when we're in the same life stage.
Open your homes to each other, meet each other's needs, break bread together--Acts 2:42-47
Submit to one another--Eph 5:21 (This includes the single people in your life!)
Honor each other above yourselves--Rom. 12:10
Instruct one another--Rom 15:14

Keep your special things special, and keep yourselves fortified, but come out from the bubble and share your lives with us, yo!

5. Talking about singleness like it's a waiting period.
A lot of material that I've come across addressing singles includes large segments on singleness as a season of waiting. A time to be preparing our hearts for marriage. I don't really think this is the case, at least not in the way we've been talking about it.

Truth: From what I've read, the Bible never speaks about singleness like a latency period for growth, maturity, and ministry.
Paul spends a lot of 1 Cor 7 laying out God's heart for singleness, marriage and divorce. He speaks many times of singleness as a good (or even a better) state, since someone who is single doesn't have the pull of their attention (although there's nothing wrong with this) on maintaining an intimate relationship with another person.
He really never talks about the purpose of singleness as a waiting period for marriage...as if your life was on hold until this goal was achieved. Talking about the purpose of singleness is kind of like talking about the purpose of...life. What are we supposed to do in all seasons? Pursue Christ faithfully. Grow in faith. Show God's love to others. Make disciples.

I just don't see any biblical evidence of "use this time to dream up your ideal mate and obsess over them until your heart is so discontent in Christ and hostile toward His waiting to give you a spouse that your marriage, should it come, is worse off than if you wouldn't have done any of that 'preparation.' "
Okay, that was an exaggeration.

I see no problem in people praying for and intentionally trying to let God prepare their hearts for marriage...only done with the humility and willingness to embark on whatever journey God has for them.

Singleness isn't any more or less a season than anything else in life. The only thing we know for sure is that it's a gift. So...let's talk about it like it's that.



I love how marriage and singleness are both talked about as gifts in Scripture. Not plan A and plan B, not more ideal and less ideal. In a decade-old sermon written by Tim Keller, he quoted Stanley Hauerwas and said singleness and marriage are both necessarily part of the kingdom:

"If singleness is a symbol of the church's confidence in God's power to convert lives for the growth of the church, marriage and procreation is the symbol of the church's hope for the world."

(Also, go do yourself a favor right now and get a copy of Tim Keller's The Meaning of Marriage. Both married and single will benefit hugely from its wisdom.)

I love Jesus, but I Hate His Wife

You all remember this guy, right?

It's a great video in a lot of ways. I resonate with his call to get back to the person of Jesus and to strip away the establishment, get rid of "religious professionals," follow Christ, love people, and die to self. Peaches.

However.....his voice echoes the many Christians in the Western Church right now who are disenchanted with the institution...and are walking away from the church disillusioned, burned out, and frustrated.

Oh man. I feel that!

From the religious right claiming a corner on all things moral, to plenty in the American Church parading patriotism hand-in-hand with theological orthodoxy, to different churches overemphasizing certain political hot points (abortion, illegal immigration, gay marriage) to the neglect of others (caring for the poor, living generously, combating sickness and poverty), to the Rob Bell and universalism fiasco, to the mind-numbing amassing of denominations behind certain theological giants while greatly demonizing others, to some denominations neglecting church history/the liturgical calendar/pursuit of intellectual faith altogether, to other denominations overemphasizing education/intellectualism but neglecting religious affections/faith, to disgusting scandal after scandal...

Guh. Who WOULDN'T want to pack up their stuff and poop on the floor and leave?

Not that our deep discontent is that surprising...Matt Carter, pastor of the Austin Stone church in Austin, Texas, talks about how we as a culture have
~a serious problem with commitment
~a serious problem with authority
So aside from the fact that we are already predispositioned to these issues straight out the womb (Psalm 51:5), we have our socio/historic location working against us, as well.

I've felt the pull to disassociate completely from the local church more times than I've ever admitted to anybody. Fortunately (and unfortunately?), it's not that simple.

Two realities hit me pretty hard.

1. It's an issue of Biblical obedience.

Isolation is our default and our demise.

Our hearts are hopelessly wicked and deceitful. Jer 17:9

Spur each other on to love and good deeds.

(how?) Do not forsake meeting together. Heb 10:24-25

We need people to bump up against to be more like Christ.

Iron sharpens iron. Pro 27:17

We expose sin in each other and call each other to repentance. Matt 18:15-20

We need others to keep watch over our souls. (this is big)

Obey your leaders and submit to them,

for they are keeping watch over your soul. Hebrews 13:17

If there is no Biblical requirement for you to belong to a local body...then to which leaders are you as a believer supposed to obey and submit? Local church elders. Titus 1:5 (Paul left Titus in Crete to appoint elders in every town)
Let's be honest with ourselves...the Epistles are fraught with Paul addressing, setting up, rebuking, or praising organized local churches.
(He was often frustrated with them, as well! We're in good company.)

I think this merits more digging into for a sec.
Why would I need someone to keep watch over my soul?

As Matt Carter of the Austin Stone church puts it:

"Scripture is teaching YOU--Christian--you have an enemy.

And he is smarter than you, he is stronger than you, he is wiser than you, he is more determined than you, and he has one desire for your life and that is to TAKE YOU OUT."

According to Scripture, Satan is not in hell. He's here. Now. (1 Peter 5:8, Ephesians 6:12)
We can't afford to be naive, family. We are at war.
He canNOT take away your place in Jesus--that's the beauty of the gospel (John 10:28 "No one can snatch them out of My hand).
But he CAN attack every other area of your life. Your intellect. Your interests. Your hobbies. Your marriage. Your kids. Your health. Your vocation. Your emotions. Your friendships. Your purity.

We need a place of protection. A place for someone to keep watch over our souls.
Don't believe me?
I Corinthians 5:1-5 (This is huge, y'all!)
In this passage, Paul is instructing the church to remove a sexually immoral, unrepentant believer from the fellowship and to "give him over to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord."
I believe this means that there is protection from the enemy afforded in the gathering of believers and submission to church authority. The enemy, it appears, has much greater access to this individual than if he were within the fellowship.


So...it seems from what we've just read that it's pretty clear...

We have to do some pretty lethal jacking with Scripture to justify leaving the local church.
Now, if we want to have a discussion about the inerrancy and infallibility of the Bible, we can have that discussion.
Because that's a discussion we MUST have if we're going to disassociate from the local church in the name of...piety? Enlightenment? "Real" Christianity? Badassery?


So to recap #1: obedience. sanctification. protection.


2. It's the Father's very heart.

This one really gets me.
See, active participation in a local body is not just a mandate. It's not arbitrary.

It's visionary.

Ephesians 4:2-7--"...with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit--just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call--one Lord, one faith, one baptism...but grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ's gift.


We cannot say we love Jesus if we do not love what He loves. He loves the Church deeply and intimately based on nothing other than the fact that He is good and loves us when we're not.

This isn't doctrine. This is Gospel.

He is faithful to His bride in spite of the fact that she isn't always (or often) faithful to Him. This above all, I think, supercedes any reason we could muster to think we're above actively engaging in a local body.


Ephesians 5:25-30..."...Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor... For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body.



Looking into my own heart about it, walking away from the local church isn't just an act of Biblical disobedience for a believer...it's also an act of glaring arrogance.
To behave like I'm not in a war, to overestimate my own ability to stand against the enemy alone, to think much of myself in my pious isolation and well-reasoned enlightenment that I could somehow outsmart or outscheme the most serious and formidable enemy I could imagine OR wade through and successfully discern pursuing Christ on my own...is not to take God at His word that I am constantly as a sheep to be slaughtered.


Here's some more reality. God called us out of darkness and separation into fellowship with Him for a specific purpose in His story, and as His child you were created with a specific role to play in His body. No one else was meant to do it, and no one else can. (I Cor. 12)

Does this mean we resign ourselves to our despondence and succumb to the homogenizing effects of the ills of American evangelicalism? Absolutely not. Paul (and plenty of Church fathers and church participants over time--do some homework!) were constantly brawling with the local church, calling her to excellence and repentance. Admonishing them to care for widows, orphans, and the poor. Challenging them to steward their money well. Exhorting them to love better. But they did it as participants.

Part of loving someone (in this case, the Bride of Christ) is accepting their brokenness and flaws while acknowledging your own brokenness and flaws and walking toward excellence with them. We do it with our friends and families everyday.
And this is, most certainly, our family. Our big, crazy, broken, marvelous family whose sanctification is being worked out by a perfect and loving Husband.



Three quotes on this by my favorite author, then I'm done. Promise.

C.S. Lewis writes about his own gradual understanding of Christ's vision for the church in God in the Dock:

When I first became a Christian...I thought that I could do it on my own, by retiring to my rooms and reading theology, and I wouldn't go to the churches...But as I went on I saw the great merit of it. I came up against different people of quite different outlooks and different education, and then gradually my conceit just began peeling off. I realized that the hymns (which were just sixth-rate music) were, nevertheless, being sung with devotion and benefit by an old saint in elastic-side boots in the opposite pew, and then you realize that you aren't fit to clean those boots. It gets you out of your solitary conceit.

I adore how he puts it in Mere Christianity:

It is at her centre, where her truest children dwell, that each communion is really closest to every other in spirit, if not doctrine. And this suggests at the centre of each there is something, or a Someone, who against all divergences of belief, all differences of temperament, all memories of mutual persecution, speaks with the same voice.

And then here in Letters of C.S. Lewis:

For the Church is not a human society of people united by their natural affinities, but the Body of Christ, in which all members, however different, (and He rejoices in their differences and by no means wishes to iron them out), must share the common life, complementing and helping one another precisely by their differences.

Opposite Sex Friendships Part 2: Genderless BFFs

Two caveats before I begin:

1. These are ideas that are forming, not formed. I'm still figuring this business out. So, as always, I'd love input.

2. I'd also love some pizza right now. 

My question is this: is there a Biblical precedent for close single guy/girl friendships?

(Notice that I said close. I'm not talking about a dating relationship, and I don't mean an acquaintanceship/casual friendship)

My answer is this: I'm not totally sure, but I tend toward no.

What do I use to form my answer? Welp...

Biblically, there's just not much there on male/female friendship. There is plenty on how to conduct ourselves with others in general (Colossians 3), and how to conduct ourselves in marriage (Romans 12, Ephesians 5, I Corinthians 7, etc), but not much about platonic relationships with the opposite sex. While there is a cultural/historical context that speaks some to why this is, I speculate that there's intentional wisdom in this, as well.

From what I can find, it appears that the most highlighted non familial male-female relationships are 1) in marriage and 2) in ministry. The best example I can find is in Acts where Christians in the early Church fellowship, meet in groups, and serve alongside one another.
That's about it.
There's no, "And Paul spent 2 hours having a rousing heart-to-heart with his awesome girl best friend down at the well." His traveling companions and closest ministry partners were men. Jesus' inner circle was men.

So for starters, what DO we know for sure about this business?

We know that our close friendships should be:
~Equally yolked (II Corinthians 6:14-18)
In the Church we spend more time emphasizing the application of this passage to marriage and romantic relationships, but tend to leave out the friendship aspect. Our closest friends are the ones we're most likely to turn to for advice, most likely to spend long periods of time with, and most likely to be vulnerable with. Of course we're in the world but not of it--we have good relationships with nonbelievers frequently--at work, in our own families, in our communities. We are salt and light in our communities, and people get to see that salt and light by being in relationships with us. But those we elect to be in our inner circles...Paul speaks clearly about the need for them to be believers.

~Above Reproach (Titus 2:7-8, I Timothy 4:12, Ephesians 4:17-5:21)
Paul talks in a number of places about conducting ourselves in a way that's blameless before everyone so that 1) we won't cause others to stumble and 2) no one can say anything against us. This is highlighted in Ephesians 5:3 when is says we should have "not even a hint" of immorality.

~Building up the Church (I Thessalonians 5:11, I Corinthians 14:12, Jude 20)
As people who identify ourselves as followers of Christ, we're part of a community whose main purpose in life is to glorify God. God loves His people and gives us resources (including each other) to make each other more like Him.

So...using what there is in Scripture about how we treat people generally (with proactive grace and truth), and how we treat marriage specifically (with protection, which I wrote about here and will explain more), I form these ideas intuitively (in my Steph brain):

You become the company you keep, right?

Men, you want to become men of God? Hang with men of God.

Women want to become women of God? Hang with women of God.

Conversely...

A man doesn't become a man of God by hanging out with mostly women.

A woman doesn't become a woman of God by hanging out with mostly men.


The question I'm processing through is, then...what kind of time/interaction with a single member of the opposite sex IS appropriate?
....I don't know yet. But I can tell you what it's NOT.

It's not friends with benefits (Eph. 5:3)
It's not hooking up (I Thess. 4:3)
And (perhaps controversially), I'd say it's not being close friends. (Heb. 13:4)

Let me explain.
Hebrews 13:4--"Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral."
This verse talks about marriage, but it has implications for other relationships, as well. Especially those relationships that could LEAD to marriage.
While a lot of the verse addresses sexuality, I think the first part of the sentence is a tremendous catch-all. While it's a little more obvious to think about not crossing physical boundaries, a lot of us singles have emotionally whored ourselves out to the opposite sex. Like I talked about in my post on the consequences of breaking God-given boundaries, there are emotional and spiritual lines that shouldn't be crossed in addition to the physical.

Openness is a quality valued highly by our generation in the Church, and we champion buzz words like "authentic," "intentional," and "real." As well we should. Good times.

But openness in relationships is meant to accomplish one thing: intimacy. Who you are being intimate with and how you are doing so matters.


Another thing that strikes me about "platonic" guy/girl intimacy is this:
It's likely that fuzzy boundaries in friendships will carry over to fuzzy boundaries in marriage. The way I treat men--how personal I get with them and how quickly I do it--is a good indication of how I will relate to them later. There isn't a magical maturity button or switch that flips when you get married. The way you relate to the opposite sex won't just change because you're officially off the market.

If you've ever uttered these statements about your close opposite sex friend, listen up:

"Oh, but I'd never date him/her."
"S/He's like my sister/brother."
"S/He's my best friend."

There are a lot of problems with these statements, I think.

Just because you tell people that a certain guy is "like your brother," that doesn't mean he is your brother. He's potential, just like you are. Treating someone of potential like they're NOT potential sends a message contrary to truth.
Chances are that if he WAS your brother, people would probably think it was weird for you two to be spending so much time talking/texting/hanging out. Most opposite sex siblings are not like that, and when they are, they turn heads. They'd probably turn yours. That should tell you something.
Treating him or talking about him like he's one of the girls/your best friend is harmful rather than helpful to his becoming a man of God. It also kind of reveals that you don't want him to. Any woman worth her salt seeing your "best friend" being chummy with you all the time is going to lose interest in him. More on this in my next post.
He also may think he's getting (rather crappy) practice at being your spiritual leader. This is vastly troubling...because he's not.


So, practically speaking...
If my desire is to become a woman of God, but I spend a disproportionate amount of time with guys, or even a certain guy, I need to be honest with myself about what I'm getting from that relationship.

I recently took a hard and honest look at my friendships with single guys. The reality was humbling: most of them had either expressed some kind of romantic interest in me, or I had expressed it in them. 
So then...our saying we're friends is dishonest. Even if it's just dishonest for one of us, that's not the friend box. That's the...dishonesty...box. I dunno what to call it. But for Christians, Truth is our ally. And living above our hearts is not walking in Truth.

If our goal is to love the "other," and if love inherently seeks the BEST for its object, then it must become my desire to die to my need for approval and attention and ...protect the hearts and possible future marriages of my single guy friends. This, I think, is what Hebrews 13:4 is getting at. Honoring marriage while you're a part of it, but certainly honoring it before it's even in the picture.


If you say you're just friends, are you really interacting on the level of a casual friendship?

My Home is in my Head: A Demeanor of Hospitality

"My home is in my head."
I borrowed the line from Bob Marley. It'll make sense, you'll see.

The subject of hospitality is generally taught on in terms of the home. We often think about it as welcoming people in, giving them a safe place to stay, making our resources available to them.
Here, have a quiche!
Here, have my clothes!
I'd love to bring your family food since y'all just had a baby!
Hey, come stay in my back house til you get on your feet!
Why, yes, I'll donate to your mission trip!

That's usually where the discussion ends--stewarding our tangible resources in a way that serves the Kingdom.
It's brilliant! And definitely countercultural since postmodern society revolves around the self.

But is that all?
I think we are prodded to take it a step further.
Or...five steps further.

Yes, hospitality includes our tangible resources and the roofs over our heads. God's resources are on loan to us to be stewarded for His Kingdom. And in our earthly homes, we can create an environment where He is glorified and people are served.

BUT...hospitality goes way beyond that. It goes past the home and straight to where our dwelling place exists all the time--our hearts.
Especially considering that Christians are aliens in a foreign land, our residence is in our hearts, not just our homes.

This isn't just your home or your stuff or your time. IT'S YOUR VERY PRESENCE.


Colossians 3:12-17
"Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience,
bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you must also forgive.
And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.
And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body.
And be thankful.
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly...and whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him."

"Let the word of Christ dwell in your richly." For us to be hospitable/empowering/engaging/loving with our presence, we must exude God's love. To borrow a line from a dear friend...we must ooze life. This is brought about by a deep contentment with the Father.


Sooooo what even does this look like? Sounds vague.

If Christ accepts us as we are with all of our mess and beauty and filth and greatness...just as we are...we should strive as believers to have deeply engrained in our personalities a message that people are free to be themselves.

If we aren't giving people permission to be themselves around us, the stewarding of our resources falls on deaf ears and blind eyes...because while we're telling them they can be safe and at home with us, our way of interacting with them sends an entirely different message.

Think about people you're awkward around.
People you feel like you have to perform for.
People you don't know what to talk about with.

Be honest with yourself. Do people feel that way about you?

If we want genuineness and openness in our relationships, we have to start somewhere. We're going to get nowhere fast if we're not free to be real.

What are you doing to empower people with your presence? If people tend to shrink away or not know where they stand with you, you may be doing something with your countenance or words that is not permitting them to be at home.

Some self-checks:
1. Do you draw others into discussion?
Or do they get the impression that they are going to be verbally pummeled for disagreeing with you?
Are you communicating in a way that shows that you have a humble view of yourself and a respect for those you're discussing with? How highly do you value your opinion over others'? (this is a good check for exhorters such as myself)
(Romans 12:3..."I say to every man among you not to think more highly of himself than he ought to think...")

2. Do you initiate?
As a believer, we bear truth and the reality of the gospel. We have every ability to enter a room or a conversation with confidence in who we are. We don't acclimate to the tone of the room...we set it. Those with the information are the motivators, the vision-casters, the starters. The thermostats in the room full of thermometers, if you will
(I Peter 2: 9..."But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light)

3. Do you facilitate open communication?
This goes hand-in-hand with initiating.
Something beautiful I've witnessed after 5 years of living in the South is that people REALLY know how to make an introduction. A firm handshake, a smile, and a formal introduction of all new people and the relationships that they represent.
The family I live with here in Dallas is the epitome of Southern hospitality. I'm talking sweet tea always in the fridge, sweet southern drawls, the works. I now know when they introduce me to someone, it's no, "Stephanie, this is Bob." It's, "Stephanie, come meet my friend Bob..." I am not only going to know Bob's name...I'm going to know what he does, where he went to school, where he lives, how he know our common friend introducing us, and probably a story about their relationship.
I adore that!

4. Do you ask people questions?
Being known and knowing people.
People won't believe that you give a crap about their story if you don't ask questions.

The way we communicate matters...greatly.
If we can't be winsome, we're only a resounding gong (I Corinthians 13:1).
(I'm not talking about making Truth palatable. I'm talking about welcoming people in and being open with your life...where you can then safely and effectively discuss Truth)


Christ compels us to come. He dwells in our hearts. Our hearts should be continually drawing others into our presence where they can, hopefully, get a glimpse of Christ's love and transformative power.

So let's review....
Hospitality: inviting others into your life (not just home) so they can experience the love of Christ.

Let's give each other permission to be who we are and where we're at. 

What is your presence, demeanor, way of communicating telling others about the character of God?

Opposite Sex Friendships Part 1: Married Friends

Conducting my days as a single lady (now put yo hands up) has faced me with a new and fascinating dilemma.

What in the WORLD do I do with single guys?
Where's the line?
Is it the same as with married guys?
Is it the same as with single girls?

This first post will deal with the question of what to do with married friends of the opposite sex.

Why is this perplexing me so much?
Well...
When I was married it was easy for me to subscribe to the "hedge of protection" mode of behavior. You're a single guy? Cool. I'll hang out with you when my husband's around, but we're definitely not going to have personal or emotional conversations. You're probably much more my husband's friend than mine.
You're a married guy? Cool. I'll hang out with you when my husband's around, and it's probably imperative that your wife's around, too. We'll still avoid one-on-one personal or emotional conversations.

The bottom line was easy: I protect my marriage, I protect your marriage. Even your future marriage (more on that in the next post). Finito. The end.

So...now that I'm single, I keep the same parameters with married guys. I don't seek out one-on-one time, and I won't have a serious or personal conversation unless his wife is part of it. I probably won't even spend time with him unless his wife is a closer friend to me than he is.

You may call that extreme, but if there was ever a situation to be "better safe than sorry," marriage is it. "Losing out" on knowing a guy friend a little more personally is nothing compared to "losing out" on a marriage that fell apart because of broken trust or infidelity.

That being said...I know there are PLENTY of people who disagree with me. I even have a few close friends who disagree. It's been a point of contention on more than one occasion.

I have a dear friend who once mused to me, "I'm just a flirtatious person. So is my husband. So I'm going to flirt with other guys, and he's going to flirt with other girls. But at the end of the day, I know he's not going to run off with anyone. So I don't see what the big deal is."

The crux of it for me at this point in my life is that it's a heart issue.
Well, in truth, everything is a heart issue.
God is SO primarily concerned with hearts. WHY is it okay for married guys/gals to have opposite sex friends? Even close opposite sex friends? What do you glean from that relationship? How does it make the Church look? How does it make Jesus look? How does it make YOU look (Romans 12:17. II Cor. 8:21)?

Since Christianity and sanctification are inherently introspective, I'll let you in on my thought process.
Even if flirtation is "harmless," what's the goal? Is it harmless to be deliberately garnering the attention of someone you're not one with (or if you're single and the other person is married, is it harmless to garner the attention of someone who is one with someone else?)?
We really can't afford not to think about this.
As followers of Christ who profess to have had their minds transformed into His likeness, every interaction, every heart intention and behavior must be evaluated (II Cor. 10:5). There isn't really a paradigm of "we don't really have to think about this" or "it's not a big deal" in Christianity.
Everything comes back to the heart (Luke 6:45).

So the bottom line for me....
In the spirit of self examination...I have a flirtatious personality. I'm snarky, witty, and sarcastic. There's something in my heart as a woman that finds value in making a guy laugh. If I can dazzle him with my intelligence, all the better. If I can get positive attention from a guy...my heart wants that.
Of course my heart wants that! It's basic. It's human.
But it's also the least common denominator.
Everyone wants attention. Everyone looks for value and approval. We love the praise of men (John 12:43)

SO...if my heart is meant to be bent toward Christ, my goal to make Christ more famous, my mission to direct others toward Him and not be a stumbling block for anyone, my mindset to make Christ and the Church look as good as possible...is flirtation with married men really harmless?

I would personally say that it isn't.

Even if my intent is not to cause strife between a man and his wife, even if I want nothing from that interaction but a smile and some nonverbal affirmation that I am pretty/smart/funny/talented/whatever, my heart is looking for approval from someone other than the One whose opinion actually matters...

AND He is jealous and demands all of my attention and affection.

"Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life."
Proverbs 4:23

Eyes Wide Open--A Sober but Grateful Nationalism

I was one of those kids that grew up with a rosy view of her country. In some ways you'd never know it--I never had a lemonade stand, my family didn't own guns, and I never liked country music. I didn't like apple pie until I was 25, much to the chagrin of my mother, who gave up on making any bread/fruit combination due to my pickiness.

Nonetheless, I easily considered myself a true-blue American. I voted as soon as I was old enough, I championed the ideas of democracy and due process, loved me some George Washington, and led the pledge to the flag in school.

When I was 18, however, I went off to college and began to look at the US under a microscope. I also made a bunch of international friends.

I began to see things slightly differently. Yeah, the top blew right off my world.

I saw for the first time the dysfunction of a capitalist system that had at its basis the idea that people should be left to their own faculties, and that the greater good somehow would be achieved through the pursuit of individualized self interest. The theology of capitalism profoundly confused me.

The US has just invaded (intervened in, whatever you want to call it) Iraq and I watched my friends in the international community view the US as an aggressive, realist, imperial power manipulating the public and its allies into war.

I got to know the makeup and evolution of the economic and political systems of the countries my friends were from (Zimbabwe, England, Grenada, Canada, Egypt, Ghana, Indonesia, and others) and got to see from a foreigner's perspective the consequences of a globalized world and the implications of collective action, inaction and strong arming.

I watched a volcano continue to erupt in the Near and Middle East and understood for the first time that the US had a huge part to play in the instability in the region.

I also began dating a guy who spent his entire upbringing in third-world countries, and I began to absorb his family's somewhat cynical anti-US sentiment.

For the first time, I did not see the US as a force of good in the world.
The last 8 years have been a quagmire of confusion and cynicism toward my motherland.



...This is not the post in which I'll be discussing my political viewpoints or an exhaustive assessment of the US' place in history and the world. That's for another day. Probably many other days. :)




This is something significant, though. It is a reflection of the fact that this was the first Independence Day celebration that I was able to wake up the morning of July 4th without shame.

I wouldn't call it pride. But I wouldn't call it resignation either. It's more like...quietly and confidently embracing my social and historical location. That God placed me here...now. That I'm called to be all things to all people...now. That every citizen is part of a group, culture, or nation that has components that we both applaud and shake our heads at.

Now, that being said...everyone sees the world through the paradigm of their own context. Concerning MY context, the pain of my divorce and the intense processing I went through colors everything I see....for better or worse. It doesn't own me or define me, but I carry those lessons, and they are part of my worldview now. Especially with what God has taught me about Himself and the world.

One way that these lessons have been applied to the idea of nationalism is that there is something deeply covenantal about a love for one's country. It's not like marriage, but it's one of the few examples of covenant we have left in this consumer-driven culture.
There is a commitment there...an understanding that there is brokenness, decay, and a story...but also that there is great potential. A willingness not to walk out or abandon things when the system breaks down...but to fight for it as agents of renewal in God's kingdom.
It's never been the point for me to be a gun-slinging, liberty-boasting, flag-waving American with the stars and stripes painted on my face (although I do love to dress up).
The point is to mirror Christ where He calls me.

This reality hit me as quite...beautiful. That my "rights" as an American or even a global citizen aren't the point...but that freedom in Christ is inalienable...whatever the cultural context.

So it was with a sober mind and grateful heart that I, for the first time in years, placed my hand over my heart during the national anthem...and thanked God for this life here. Now. In America.

Tattoos

This is a long post...but it's got pictures. :)

Not a ton of people know this, but I've wanted a tattoo since high school.
I used to want a heart with a crown of thorns around it and flames coming up. Ha.

I talked myself out of it the same way everyone talks themselves/others out of it:
"But it's forever!"
"Your body is a temple!"
"Your body's going to change a lot! It won't look so good when you're 60 or after a couple kids!"
"What if your husband doesn't like it?"
"What if you get something that isn't meaningful to you later?"
"What if they don't let you have it where you work?"
"What if you become a burn victim and all that's left of you is a melting head on a stick?"

So...my answer to all that has been this:

I want something that will be meaningful to me my entire life...something that will never change, never exit my life, never become untrue. God, Scripture and spiritual truths are the only things that fit this description. Once I decide what I want, I'll then sit on it for several months or years to make sure that the desire doesn't wane over time. I'll get them in places on my body that won't change as much as I get older, and the ones that might change won't be in very visible places. As for a husband, if I ever get married again, my husband will love all of me. I'm sure if there was a deal breaker about me, tattoos would not be it. :) And...a melting head on a stick? You're disgusting.

So...what do I want? Scripture. I've tried to be careful to select verses that don't contain textual variants.
I knew if I got Bible verses, I'd want them in the original languages. Lots of people see Bible verses and are immediately turned off or make assumptions. A bit of text in a somewhat unrecognizable language becomes a conversation starter. If you can give a rationale for a tattoo, it also shows you can think. Always a bonus when engaging enquiring minds.

That being said, getting something in a language I don't personally read or write in is risky. I've heard dozens of stories of tattoo fails where people either stupidly use something like google translator or ask people for input after they've already gotten the tattoo. (If you used google translator for your tattoo, this is meant to be offensive. That was dumb.)
This is why I went to a dear friend who reads Biblical Greek and Hebrew and asked him to translate them for me. And also why I'm posting them online before I get them done. Vet away, Biblical Greek and Hebrew experts! :)

1. Ezekiel 37:5 in the original Hebrew on the inside of my left wrist.
"This is what the Sovereign Lord says to these bones, 'I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life.' " (NIV)

From what I understand, it's read from right to left and is literally translated something like,

"Thus says

the Lord God

to bones these

Behold I am bringing/causing to enter

into you a spirit/wind

and you will come to life."

There's a TON going on in this passage. God takes Ezekiel, a Jewish prophet, into the wilderness during Israel's exile in Babylon. Ezekiel surveys a valley of skeletons, the site of an epic battle fought long ago. What is in this valley isn't just dead--it's dead a thousand times over. It's dead, yes, but it's also rotten, decayed, become dust, years have passed, it's in the sun in the middle of nowhere. This isn't just death--it's concentrated hopelessness. With this in mind, God asks Ezekiel, "Can these bones live?"....do we dare hope?

Israel is waiting to be restored to her promised land, and God reveals a profound and prophetic truth to Ezekiel. God isn't done with Israel even though she continually turned her back on her Lord. The bones of a rebellious nation will, indeed, come to life. Her future glory is not yet realized. Her bones will have breath, as will mine and all of us who put our hope in the Lord. Whether you're a believer in Christ or not, THAT is a cool story. :)

I also think it's profound to have a verse about God breathing life into bones over a rather important artery. :)

2. I Corinthians 13:7 in the original Greek on the inside of my right wrist.
"[Love] bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things."

Or more literally translated,

"Love (agape)

All things bears,

All things believes,

All things hopes,

All things endures."

"Love" isn't in that verse originally (it's in a preceding verse) because the verse starts mid sentence, so it's placed at the top, almost like a title rather than as part of the sentence. It speaks about God's heart for us and what our hearts should be for each other.


3. Illuminated Manuscript Chi Rho


This one is going to be the biggest work in progress. Illuminated manuscripts are manuscripts that have some sort of ornate decoration that contains icons/embellishments of the time or enhances the text.

You know like in old storybooks that start with "Once upon a time..." but the O is really big and fancy and there are images of flowers or a prince and princess or something on the page making it look super ornate? Yeah, like that.

What I want are icons from old Bibles, though. I essentially want to make myself into an illuminated manuscript using icons from Byzantine/medieval illuminated manuscripts.

One image that I'm DYING to get is the Chi Rho from the manuscript the Book of Kells:

The Book of Kells is a Celtic medieval manuscript. This image has the heavily stylized Chi and Rho--the first two letters of Christ's name. ISN'T IT AMAZING??? *drool*

I'd want it on my left shoulder blade. If I did this, I'd want to put a lot of text on my back to accompany it--probably a big chunk of Bible verses. Thinking about the prologue to the book of John.

Since the Book of Kells is in latin, I'd have to choose between Greek and Latin.

Either way....I has a plan.