Remembering Answered Prayers

The campus ministry I'm a part of (Chi Alpha) has started this mega-saccharine community blog. This week we focused on various thanksgiving-themed posts and I had the pleasure of being able to contribute again. So here's a preview and a link to the original post on the site. And I'd encourage you to check back to it regularly because we've all got something important to share.

My small group just finished a three week study on Esther. It's a short book so I encourage you to go read it to get the full story but the basic gist of what happens is that Queen Esther saved her people (she is Jewish, by the way).

Y'know, all in a day's work.

So, Hamon (our antagonist and the king's right hand man) has a bone to pick with Mordecai (Esther's father figure; another Jew who has been a faithful worker in the kingdom for several years) because Mordecai refuses to bow down to Hamon as he pridefully commands. As the story continues, not only is Mordecai put on the kingdom's death list but so is the entire Jewish community. So Esther must use her favor with the king to appeal to him that her people must be spared. One of the prevalent themes in the book of Esther is God's provision, but the beauty of the story is a lack of a physical presence of God. Instead, his provision is seen through a series of "twists of fate". So at the end of the story, all the wrongs are righted. Hamon pays his dues and the king reissues decrees making it illegal to kill the Jews now. But the story doesn't just stop there. The last chapters are dedicated to recording the establishment of the Festival of Purim.

FINISH THE STORY.

God is not our last resort.

God is not your last resort.

He is not the one you call on when you're at your wit's end,

the end of your rope,

your last act of desperation.

We are not to make pleas to Him saying that although we don't believe in Him, if He could make this one thing happen,

we could go on living.

I am not saying He's distant,

sitting on some shadowed throne, aimlessly moving the chess pieces of our world from square to square.

I am not saying He is powerless or without care.

In fact, I am pleading the opposite case.

He is so full of glory we cannot even see His face.

The God I know is closer than my own heartbeat,

and more powerful than the winds of the strongest hurricane.

The God I know wants what's best for me, every day of my life.

He wants a relationship with me,

but I tell Him He's my last resort.

I tell Him I don't need Him day after day,

that it's my way or the highway.

That just because I can't see His plans scribbled in my moleskine,

I get scared and think He's not around.

When I place my class rank above my spiritual health,

I tell my creator that He's not good enough to save me.

That He doesn't know what's best for me and I can write my own prescriptions, thank you.

God is not my last resort.

He is in every flower that blooms,

every leaf that falls.

He pulls the sun up each morning and lays it to rest each evening.

Although the rains fall, and the thunders roll,

there is always a rainbow to behold.

God is always there.

In the midst of every heartache,

every tear that's shed,

every doubt we act on.

He will never leave nor forsake us.

He even reaches into the deep to save us.

And this is why God is not my last resort,

He is my strength and my light,

my reason and my purpose.

But I'm prone to wander and I'm prone to leave this God I love,

So here's my heart, Lord, take and seal it - seal it for Thy courts above.

Counter Cultural: give until there's nothing left.

As I was filling my smartrip card today, a man came up beside me and asked if I could fill the rest of his farecard so he could make it to whatever stop he needed to get to. I absent-mindedly said yes because I was preoccupied with the machine in front of me and had assumed he was a tourist asking how to get a farecard, but when I was done I realized he was asking me for money. Our natural instinct in this situation is to hold on even tighter to what we have and I was taken a little aback when I realized what he was asking for, but he had noticed that I was using my credit card so there was no backing out of the situation. So after I was done, I added the $3.60 he needed to complete his metro trip and then he left - with hardly a word, and in less time than it took to run up the Tenleytown escalator. I was left a little surprised by this encounter but just shrugged it off and continued on my way when my friend who was with me turned and said "That was nice of you." I didn't feel like I deserved the affirmation, because had I been given more time to think or if he had been on the side of the street asking for the money, I would've thought up some excuse and just continued walking. But, this is exactly what we're called to do:

"But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil." -Luke 6:35

I am not sharing the experience in search for praise and attention, but I'm sharing the experience because it's something I struggle with so I'm sure others do to. If we were given those extra seconds to decide to give or not, I'm sure most of us would say no. And, to quote myself from my previous blog post:

i am walking onwards.

i refuse to become stagnant.

it is Christ who compels me to love and live.

to love until i have nothing left,

to live with my final breath.

to give of myself until the goblet is empty,

only to be overflowed by the purest of waters.

So really, I'm just taking the public opportunity to throw my own words back at myself and to keep myself accountable. We hear so often "Ask and you shall receive" but we forget that in receiving, someone else has to give. Jesus gave everything so we might receive life. He doesn't ask us to literally go up on a cross to die for someone else - but in a way, he does. He calls us to give of ourselves, out our selfish nature, against our culture, in accordance with his teachings and his character. If we are true followers of Jesus, we are not just absorbing his teachings from afar, but we are to engage with them on a real level - like unexpectedly giving someone $3.60 of metrofare.

this is what my heart looks like when worn on my sleeve:

if my identity determines my steps,

what determines my identity?

where is the mirror to tell me who i am or who i should be?

when i introduce myself to you, who am i claiming to be -

a child of the world

or a child of God?

do my actions reflect my heart?

does my heart reflect my maker?

i stand at the edge of a gorge yelling

WHO AM I CALLED TO BE?

all too often i find myself drinking out of the goblets of self

of dreams

of relations

of travel

i look for my worth behind the stained glass of status and prestige.

am i studying the right thing?

am i friends with the right people?

am i in the right place?

but whose lens am i looking through?

there are two paths i face:

two roads,

two choices.

one will cause me to shrink and cower

the other will allow me to flourish,

like the rising sun that shines -

AWAKE, MY SOUL

RISE AND SING.

you were made to meet your maker!

it's better to live than to hide!

why would i wait til i die to come alive?

I'M READY NOW, i'm not waiting for the afterlife.

oh, how i desperately long for the comfort of the past semesters -

the rainy music-filled nights,

the many bodies crammed in small spaces,

the talks that last throughout the setting sun -

but, my friends -

i must take this time to flourish and to stand, uniquely created and uniquely called.

this is my awakening:

my anthem of truth.

i stand at the edge of the gorge to yell

but with my frantic sound waves comes back a louder response

to remember who i am and live in full confidence of my identity.

my identity. my nametag. my heart. my mindset.

the thing that haunts me so

is CHRIST.

Christ who died to set me free

Christ who died so i may live.

he has given me the pen and compels me to write

to write pages and pages of splotched ink,

to weave ideas into actions and actions into stories.

to teach, to love, to learn, to grow.

to be inspired and to pay it forward.

i am walking onwards.

i refuse to become stagnant.

it is Christ who compels me to love and live.

to love until i have nothing left,

to live with my final breath.

to give of myself until the goblet is empty,

only to be overflowed by the purest of waters.

this is my awakening.

to be fully alive and aware of my life.

to be at peace with not having the answers,

with not seeing the whole map in front of me.

to live in the pursuit of dreams,

knowing that every painstaking step i take brings me closer to who i am,

and who i will be.

i am living up to my own character description,

answering my own casting call.

i have been given the stage directions,

now all i need to do is as i'm told.

remove these shackles from my ankles.

no more hiding, no more holding back.

there is something inside of me just waiting to burst forth

and i will not be the one to stand in the way of that.

Project Optimism: A Dose of My Own Medicine

glory's waiting outside your window

wake on up from your slumber,

baby, open up your eyes.

-needtobreathe

There are a few things I like to do in this life. (Well, there's really more, but for the intents and purposes of this blog post, there's only a few.) I like to pretend I have a twitter by hashtagging random sayings in my facebook statuses. I like to find hope and rainbows in cloudy days and demeanors. And I like to write lists in my moleskine notebook.

Another thing I like to do in this life, is call myself an optimist. Granted, in the midst of a situation I tend to see things very black and white. It's either gonna work out or it will fail and I'll either be at peace or I'll be completely miserable. But, even when I overwhelm myself I know deep down that things will work out because "...we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to his purpose" (Romans 8:28). And when I looked up the actual meaning of optimism, I agreed with my self-description.

Being optimistic is not necessarily being joyful in every situation. I think that is a common misconception. Optimism is seeing the good where others fail to. It is seeing the potential in someone and having the hope that it will be reached. I believe optimism is a choice. For everyone. It is a lifestyle. Optimism is being "hopeful and confident about the future or the successful outcome of something". Enter #projectoptimism.

It all started early in the summer when I gave a friend the challenge to find something good in every day. I thought I was so clever in coming up with this challenge, but taking the challenge myself wasn't something that crossed my mind until a couple weeks ago. I think because I don't deal with depression on a regular basis, I forget that optimism/pessimism is a mindset that I am largely in control of. Of course there will be days when I'll think the world is just simply out to get me! I am human. I am described by many different words and my mood changes daily, even hourly. But I refuse to let that become a constant in my life.

You see, all the time we focus on our inadequacies, our insecurities, our fears, the improbable what ifs in a situation.... We dig ourselves a rut that can seem near impossible to get out of, the walls lined with the lies and discouragements of the world that we forget to look out for the positive encouragement God gives us every day. It can be the WORST day of your life, but you're still alive.

weeping may go on all night,

but joy comes with the morning

psalm 30:5

•

the steadfast love of the LORD never ceases;

his mercies never come to an end;

they are new every morning;

great is your faithfulness

lamentations 3:22-23

We all fall into the trap of clinging to the bad and forgetting the good. How many times have you had a great start to the day and then one little thing - like the Dav's espresso machine being broken or a bit of rain on your (semi) perfectly coiffed hair - turns your day right around? Once that instance happens, it seems to wipe our memory clean and all we can focus on is that bad moment and how nothing is going right.

We were discussing this is small group those weeks ago and this is what brings us full circle. As one of our girls brought up, Philippians 4:8 tells us to "Fix your thoughts on what is true and honorable and right. Think about things that are pure and lovely and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise." But how often do we really do this? It was in that moment that I - rather spontaneously - decided to give not only my small group the same challenge I gave my friend before, but this time, I took it myself.

So now we have "Project: Optimism". I never intended it to become "a thing". I thought I was the only member of our small group who actually took this challenge to heart, honestly. I immediately made a list in my notebook and affectionately called it "Project: Optimism" simply because I really like naming things. At the end of every day, I forced myself to process its events. What had I done that day? But more importantly, what was good about that day?

Take this blog post as my invitation to join this challenge. As I said before, I believe optimism is a choice and a lifestyle. I don't care what kind of a diagnosis you've been given. We have the power to overcome the let-downs of this world, because guess what? Jesus already has. He calls us to rise up and to take our place beside him as we go out in his name to do the work of our father. To reclaim this earth for everything that is true, honorable, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, and worthy of praise.

Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us,

let us also run with endurance the race which has been set before us,

fixing our eyes on Jesus - the author and perfecter of faith -

who for the joy set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame,

and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Hebrews 12:1-2

•••

Standing straight is not just proper etiquette.

hope which was lost

now stands renewed

There is power in our stance. On Christ the solid rock we stand. We stand before a judge. We take a stand when we own up to something. We stand out when we are different. We stand up to someone. I find so much wonderful imagery in the word stand. And what's more is that it's a verb. That means it's an action. We can't stand if we're tired; it requires energy. We stand firm, we stand strong - like a tree, rooted to the ground for centuries, standing tall and majestic in a forest - this is how we are when we have the power of Christ coursing through our veins. The dictionary defines stand as "to have or maintain an upright position supported by one's feet". And as we see in Ephesians 6, when we put on the armour of God we are instructed to "as shoes for your feet, ... put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace" (v15 - ESV). So let us stand in full confidence of what we've been delivered from and who we've been created to become. Let us embrace the processes of life, standing tall and firm because we choose to root ourselves in the word and character of God, standing strong in our laced up boots of peace and we will not be shaken.

no power of hell, no scheme of man

can ever pluck me from his hand

til he returns or call me home

here in the power of christ i'll stand.

Jon Foreman, wordsmith

"There is no way out. We were born into the fight. Every noble pursuit will cost you: justice, wisdom, strength, marriage, children -- you will pay for these with your breath, your tears, your blood, even your life. We're all in this together -- fighting to make sense of the madness, to make our lives count. All of us are on a journey of desire. Longing, yearning, hoping, dreaming for a better day. But these dreams of ours are held in tension by the obstacles between where we are and where we hope to be. We are suspended in mid-air like a still life, a photograph. Frame by frame, we live our lives, forever stuck in the ether of the frozen now. Frame by frame we are frozen in the present between yesterday and tomorrow. Frame by frame we step forward towards the infinite unknown that only tomorrow can bring.

Between the dialectic of life and death we are pulled tight, stretched out like the strings of my guitar. We are forever in still-life. A delicate balancing act between the end and the beginning, between the consciousness and the dream, between the forgetting that we call birth and the remembering that we call death. We are the notes dancing from the strings of time, held firm between life and death. This is the polarity of our existence, pulled tight between despair and hope, belief and doubt. We are strung tight between our birth and the grave. Humanity is dancing on the fretboard in-between. Death will one-day cut the string. Until then, we live in the tension."

read the full article from The Huffington Post here.