A Day in a Coffee Shop

The majority of the day has been spent in this small coffee shop in Galveston. The environment is relaxing to say the least. It feels almost like time is standing still and I am looking back at the patchy landscape of my life. I don't mind the smell of cigarette smoke. Ceiling fans move hypnotically, making shadows flash across the tables and walls. The music is mostly melancholy, washing away the busy thoughts that have accumulated in my mind. I read here all morning and wrote emails, sipping coffee and floating effortlessly in my mind. I'm back here in the late afternoon and have been listening to music and writing in my journal.

I read beautiful, encouraging, and truth-filled words from Andrew Murray this morning about surrendering to God and letting Him do the work of establishing us in Christ. He pointed out that all our efforts just get in the way when God promises do this work Himself. My focus now becomes more one of not getting distracted, surrendering, and releasing my heart into His promising and loving hands.

Crazy that I should have forgotten the countless times Jesus asked me to lay my burdens down. As I wake each morning, the picture of myself is like a traveller who wakes up from sleep and immediately looks around to gather his things so he can continue his long and tiresome journey. A new image is coming alive in my mind right now and it is of someone who wakes up and immediately his eyes fall on the familiar gaze of His Savior. He then gathers his things and gives them up to the offering Hand and suddenly they all disappear. He feels the Savior take his hand and this Hand leads him through the day, guiding through suffering and joys alike. Suffering and joy are one and the same in light of the the ever-present Savior living from within his own heart.

"And it is God who establishes us with you in Christ, and has anointed us, and who has also put his seal on us and given us his Spirit as a guarantee."
2 Corinthians 1:21

Riding the Bus in the Morning

I just had wonderful memory as I was standing outside on the ship this morning of riding the bus to school when I was little. On mornings in the spring, riding the bus was especially refreshing. There would always be atleast a few windows cracked open and fresh spring air would be lightly circulating throughout the bus. Sometimes I would have a book that I was into and it was so wonderful to be wrapped up in a story as the familiar scene passed by outside.
School would pass by as well with all its presumed importance as I would steal brief minutes in my book. While the morning busride would have more of a peaceful, melancholy sweetness, the afternoon busride was happier and full of anticipation as I look forward to more time reading, playing outside, and of course, eating a good afterschool snack with some kool-aid. Now that is a memory that makes me smile:)

A Rising Sun

In just a short while I will standing in heaven looking back on my life. Or I wonder if my eyes will be so utterly captivated by the beauty of Jesus Christ that I will not have any desire to look back. Such a thought confronts my heart in many ways. The first thought is one of comfort because the things that frighten me are all the sudden of little consequence. There is also a feeling of reservation though because there are certain things in my life that I am looking forward to such as getting married and seeing what my kids are going to be like. I find then that my thoughts of heaven also make getting married seem to be of little consequence. And the truth is that my dreams of happiness on this earth really are trivial when they stand next to the light of the beauty of Christ. All of this is still setting in but it is gradually dawning on me that I am going to have to let go of such worldly cares as marriage and kids if I am going to experience the joy of being captivated completely by Christ. To be honest, there are two things in my life right now that consume much of my thoughts. One of them is that I will be spending 7 of the next 8 months underway on my ship. The other thought is one of looking forward to getting married. A thought of anxiety and a thought of longing and joy. The beauty of Christ is like a sun rising over the horizon and its light is falling on both of these worries and transforming both of them into vehicles that have the simple purpose of bringing me closer to Christ.

And so I rejoice.

I rejoice at going underway for 7 months because I know without a doubt that such a time will make me fall more in love with my Savior. I rejoice as I look forward to getting married for the reason that this also will also bring me closer to Christ. As my heart conforms with this view, I am finding that my departure is not a cause for sorrow and neither is getting married merely a cause for temporal happiness. All sorrow and temporal happiness dissipate as my hearts' doors open to the light of Christ.

Give me one pure and holy passion
give me one magnificent obsession
give me one glorious ambition for my life
to know and follow hard after you

To know and follow hard after you
to grow as your disciple in your truth
This world is empty pale and poor
compared to knowing you my Lord

Lead me on and I will run after You:)

Rose of Bethlehem

There’s a Rose in Bethlehem
Colored red like mercy’s blood
Tis the flower of our faith
Tis the blossom of God’s love

Though its bloom is fresh with youth
Surely what will be He knows
For a tear of morning dew
Is rolling down the Rose

Oh, Rose of Bethlehem
How lovely, pure and sweet
Born to glorify the Father
Born to wear the thorns for me

This song is just beautiful. I have been listening to it over and over again in the past couple of days. It is probably my favorite Christmas song ever. Last time I journaled here about Chrismas I talked about how I was trying not to be selfish around Christmas time. It is so much work not to just join in everyone else's attitude around Christmas time as far just being caught up in it all and not slowing down to remember. Remember Christ's words, "Do this in remembrance of me." Let this be our thought as we celebrate Christmas, as we love and serve people, as we give of ourselves and what is precious to us just like God did in giving us Himself wrapped in flesh. The things of this world will not last. Our glory will not last. God will last forever and his glory will remain long after the glory of this world has faded.

Oh, Rose of Bethlehem. You are lovely. You are pure. You are sweet. Make us like you.

A Star-Filled Sky

Loneliness. Despair. Restlessness.

These are my initial feelings at being out to sea. I was about to go crazy sitting in my stateroom and so I put my headphones on and rocked out dancing around to O God Our Help In Ages Past. Ha, it helped a little bit:)
What really pierced through my heart though was when I went outside for fifteen minutes before the Ops brief. I knew the Christmas party for my church care group was going on while I was out there but all I could think was that if I was there I would be missing this beautiful sight.

So many stars, the sound of the ocean, and water as far as the eye can see.

These were the same stars that Abraham gazed at probably through tear-filled eyes as God foretold the number of his descendants. He was probably also acutely mindful of his old lady of a wife Sarah probably lay sleeping nearby. These were the same stars I had gazed at countless times before in my life. So many Spirit-filled times around the campfire at White Sulphur Springs. The sweet smell of the forest and the cool mountain air refreshing my senses. Wonderful people surrounded me, all singing to the same magnificent God, his Spirit filling everyone with breath. How brightly the stars did shine then!

So I sat curled up, staring at the stars that night and felt God telling me, Behold the number and brilliance of these stars; so are my promises for you. Did you not know they were here? I swallowed hard at this and tears pushed at my eyes. So many stars, so many promises that shine out. How rarely do I retreat from my life to meditate on them and gain strength from them? Tonight though they came alive for me finally and through tear-filled eyes I sang the only words that came to my heart.

O Lord
You're beautiful
Your face is all I seek
And when your eyes
Are on this child
Your grace abounds
To me

In that moment I was enfolded as the beloved of God.

Falling In Love

So many things are coming together in my mind. I read the first chapter of a book called A Severe Mercy by Sheldon Vanauken. I can already tell that this book is going to have a profound effect on me at this point in my life. The author falls in love with a girl that he goes to university with and through their encounters with C.S. Lewis, they becomes Christians, though not without much intellectual scrutiny. I haven't read that far but supposedly he becomes jealous when he finds out she is caught up in love with someone else. That someone else is God. My jaw drops at this. What a beautiful occurence and one full of joy and sorrow as she dies two years after their marriage and he is forced to search out his own love for God.
I have been reminded more recently of the importance of viewing my interaction with God as falling in love, filled with both the joys and sorrows of love. Community has been a markedly beautiful gift in my life recently and through it I have been confronted with whom I am seeking most to fall in love with. I have met so many people with beautiful hearts during this time and would be lying to say that I haven't been neglecting the most beautiful of hearts, the heart of God. I have been spending much of my thoughts pondering on who among the girls I know could be my future wife. I am somewhat ashamed to admit this because this is not the view of myself that I portray to others. I will also say that I feel an invigorating joy at leaving these thoughts by the wayside and consuming my thoughts with God. Something snapped when I read that first chapter of A Severe Mercy and I realized with weight, the foolishness of me even doubting for one second God's promise to provide me with a companion in his time.
I have been listening to the song How To Save A Life over and over as I write this journal. Somehow it fits with what I'm feeling right now. I think it is the aspect of having wasted opportunities that you wish you could have back. Yes, I am forgiven and God gives me new mercy after I waste so many thoughts on other things but I cannot merely shrug these wasted times from my memory so casually. I cannot help but think how these wasted opportunities translate into my heart being numb to the greatest love and greatest beauty that sit right in front of me. It's like when a person is talking to you intently and you are secretly looking around the room for another person whose attention you would like to have more. This reflects my actions with God. How foolish!
And so I accept God's forgiveness now, but not without tears as I see my sin for what it is. As God so intently looks into my eyes right down to my heart, may I with tear-filled eyes look intently back at him with an eagerness to begin running as hard as I can towards his heart.

A Return To Community

I once read a great book on community called The Kingdom of Couches. I was reminded of the book as I was staying up late talking with Wes and Steve last weekend. Steve was talking about just struggles he was having with feeling out of place at the church and I mean, I had stuff in my head that I could have said but for some reason I had this feeling that these words would be of no real help to him. So I prayed that God would give me what He had to say and what came to mind eventually was community. And so I began to examine our community of singles at the church and just how we hang out. We are really good at hanging out but what's missing is a spiritual depth as a group. I am truly amazed at the spiritual depth of singles in our church but it doesn't seem like we go deep together. I wonder how necessary this is because I know that many would respond to this by pointing out that they have a couple special people that they feel comfortable sharing their lives with. Surely that is necessary as well but something inside me feels that during our hang-out time there should be almost a tangible eagerness to engage each other spiritually and care for each other. And so I must pray on the matter and prepare myself to be amazed at what God is going to do.

Wednesday night, the guys in our care group got together and talked about pornography and lust. I'm always amazed to hear people talk about their struggles who I would have never expected. It's amazing what we can keep hidden from others. As I considered my own struggle since I turned that wonderful age of 12 or so, I realized that my only victory over pornography and lust came through community. In community you are reminded of the beauty of others. Something so impersonal as pornography then becomes sickening having tasted something so personal as community with others.

Community becomes an idol for me though when I begin pursuing community instead of pursuing Christ through community. I have been experiencing this recently and it has required some adjusting in how I experience God's gift of community. As John Piper pointed out to me, our tendency is so often to worship God's gifts instead of God himself. Rather, God's gifts are meant to be the wings that carry us to God. This is definitely evident with community. Community as a gift provides a place where we can build up our faith, practice our gifts, and hear from God so that we are then able to reach out into the world and ultimately point ourselves and others to Christ. Community allows us to come out of hiding so that our exposed hearts can be both seen for what they are and then healed. Then we can respond by hiding in Christ as a body.