Why Praise God?

I may be stepping on some toes here, but recently I have been asking myself why I'm in praise band. This is not to say that I'm thinking of quitting the band, that I don't like singing or praise: my love for all three will never change. It is not to say that I don't think I can sing, but merely that I see myself as small, and others larger, more important, and far more talented than myself. Whenever I join the others on stage, I join people with multiple talents. I'm up there holding a microphone. On a music stage, that's all I can do, and even that imperfectly. But it doesn't matter if I have one talent to offer God- or two or three. It only matters that I'm offering it (Matthew 25:14-30).

There are others in the congregation that can sing too, some better than I can. And I know that God doesn't need me to praise Him at all; even if no man or woman had a praise song on his or her lips (or guitar, drums, keyboard and etc.), all of creation would cry out in praise (Luke 19:39-40). I praise God because because I believe myself to be particularly talented, but because I'm in love. Praising God is the outflow of deep, obsessive love, and this outflow is part of His plan to change the world.

A great deal of the music, if not most, is devoted to love. You can't escape it; on the radio, it's just about everywhere you turn the dial. It's a modern adage that most contemporary Christian songs wouldn't change much if we exchanged "Jesus" for "baby." I don't think that's because Christian music is watered down these days, but because love is what we as humans instinctively seek.

The search for love is the search for intimacy with something greater than ourselves. The man or woman who is not a Christian innately knows that he or she needs love, but may only know to seek it in human intimacy. If there is anyone who doesn't want love, I don't know him or her, and I don't know of them. It who we love that we love that concerns us: will we choose love of self, or to love God?

Praising God is a way to show the world that we love Him. When I love someone, I can't help but to talk about him, sometimes past the point of the hearer's tolerance. Loving God is no different except it's better. The hearer wonders what's so great about Him that I might choose Him above others. What is it about Jesus that He's always on my mind? It's always Jesus this, or God that. He's so dreamy, and He's so awesome. Blah, blah, blah. Can't I talk about anything else?

Not really. There are times when I'm focused on myself, but when my focus is on the One I love, I can't talk about anything else. My love isn't perfect, but it's real, it's obsessive, and it can't help but to talk about its object. And even when I'm silent, He's always on my mind. Those thoughts leak out in verses posted on my desk and on my fridge. I want to always do things that make Him smile, and I love what He says to me in His word. I praise Him because He really is that great. I praise Him because I can't stop. It's my hope that my enthusiastic love for God will cause others to want the same thing (Song of Solomon 5:9-6:1).

I praise God with words, with my voice, with the admittedly off-rhythm clapping of my hands (offstage), pouring my thoughts into music and prayer, and the tapping of my feet: mind, will and strength (Psalm 150). Although I don't always get this right, I praise Him with abandon, no matter what the person next to me at church is doing (2 Samuel 6:1-23).

The only difference between praise band and the rest of my life is that onstage, I'm holding a mic. I can't think of a better use for it.

Cats and God's Timing

Guidelines for Singleness, pt 2

I tend to learn through best through allegory, so God used my kitten to teach me something about my life as a single, His timing, and that it's ok (and important!) to trust Him.

Sometime around the end of November last year, I had a strong desire to get a new kitten. I wasn't sure where that impulse came from. I was working in a contract position, and I had just moved into my new apartment. I wasn't sure how either was going to work out. Would I stay in my job? Or my apartment, for that matter? How would I afford vet bills, or even take the cat to the vet? Or worse yet, would I find one that I liked? There were so many unknowns.

Yet I had this amazing peace about buying a kitten. I knew that things would work out no matter what, and the very thought of a new feline friend made me smile. Even with so many things unknown, I decided to trust in God and take the plunge.

Once I looked at the cats at Lollypop, one of the first kittens I met was Nellie. She was just a little ball of fuzz. She stood right up and looked at me in her cage, as if to say, "That's her! She's my owner!" But it couldn't possibly be that easy...could it? Surely there was more to it than that. More complications, more cats to meet.

I was escorted into the cattery, a room full of other cats, just in case. Some hid; some hissed; some merely walked away.

I felt at a loss as I walked back to the cages. The cattery cats came with little posters to recommend them. Some were "assistants" that would hop on the keyboard; some were cuddlers; some were shy, but sweet, but if those cats were in there I had no way of knowing it.

When I walked past the cages, I came across Nellie again. She was curled up fast asleep, back to me. She had given up.

My heart melted. "How about that cat?" I asked.

Once I met her, I just knew that she was my cat. Nelllie's not perfect - no cat is - but she's perfect for me. Every day I'm thankful that God has allowed me to be the caretaker of this beautiful creature.

It's been 9 years since I've been "ready" to own a cat. Each place I lived in either didn't allow cats as a rule, or had prohibitive pet costs. My hopes sunk with every move, and was unable to house my childhood cat. I began to believe I wasn't meant to ever own a cat, and that I should be content with birds.

After 5 months of being Nellie's proud cat-momma, I've learned that the only reason I didn't have a cat is that I had to wait for Nellie to be born. With every day I am convinced that no other cat would give me the joy that comes with Nellie's lovably spunky personality.

Waiting for Nellie is like waiting for romance. At times it can seem more like Waiting for Gedot: I never saw the opera, but I hear the guy never shows up. I'm learning to be content with the "birds" of my life God has blessed me with, for however long He chooses. I don't know what or who God has for me, but I do know I can trust Him.

Maybe, just maybe, it's just a matter of timing. Just like I had to wait for my kitten to be born, it could very well be that my special someone just isn't ready yet - or shock! Maybe I'm not ready for him either! I don't know how it works. If a writer of Proverbs couldn't figure it out, what chance do I have? I just know that there's a time for all things, and God knows when those times are.

I leave this post with some words from the Song of Solomon:

Oh, let me warn you, sisters in Jerusalem, by the gazelles, yes, by all the wild deer: Don't excite love, don't stir it up, until the time is ripe--and you're ready.

The Image of God - part 1 of ??

To write this entry is to grapple with an impossible question: why did mankind come to be? This question is as old as humanity itself. But I think that a facet of this answer - a tiny sliver - lies in the husband and wife and the parent and child relaionships. Both are ways in which we show that we are the image of God, for both are aspects of how He acts. This entry will touch on the first kind of relationship.

I will only be able to skim the surface here. I realize what I am up against, first because I have never been married and therefore cannot write about that relationship from my own experiences, and second because even the wisest of mankind cannot figure out how love works. Even Agur - who wrote Prov. 30 and therefore must have been pretty wise - writes below in verses 18-19:

"There are three things that are too amazing for me,
four that I do not understand:

the way of an eagle in the sky,
the way of a snake on a rock,
the way of a ship on the high seas,
and the way of a man with a maiden."

If a writer of Proverbs confesses himself lost, what hope do I have? I write about things I have no hope of understanding.

Genesis 2:24 states that the very reason we leave home is to marry. I think that deep down, the seed of the hope for a spouse is within us when we leave home - it is a part of being an adult. We may go to college to learn about a profession or a trade, but very few of us leave home solely with those thoughts in mind. We learn a trade because we hope that it will be a satisfying way to pay the bills, not because it will satisfy our deeper needs. The "gift of singleness" - that of lifelong devotion to Christ alone - is granted to few.

Paul quotes Genesis 2:24 in Ephesians 5:31-32. He ackowledging the divine mystery, and he adds, "but I am talking about Christ and the church."

The marriage allegory is helpful, but doesn't answer all my questions. We live in an imperfect world, and there is a lot of fear and confusion from both genders. Confusion follows us before we even get out the gate. For example, the question of who should ask whom out on a date receives varied responses, even in the church. Who leads, and who follows? Is there value for a woman in being pursued, and should men bother pursuing? Who's on first? This mess of confusion is less like Christ and the church and more like an Abbott and Costello routine.

I take comfort in knowing that God sought us out from the beginning. Ephesians 1:11 tells us that God has us in mind before we were even a glimmer in our parents' eyes. Before our parents' parents' parents. His love for us - for me - was real and true before time began.

He sought us out by leaving home to look for us. * He stripped Himself of his majesty because He knew His glory would overwhelm us (Ex. 33:20). Even though so much would go wrong in us (Romans 5:8), He learned obedience as a son and then proved His love by giving up what is most precious. He was so overcome by love that He would rather sacrifice Himself than to live for an eternity without us.

He sought us with vigor, like the shepherd seeks one lost sheep out of 100, like one lost coin out of perhaps a pile full - for a lost person retains the value of a found person.

He seeks us out as a betrothed. He puts an engagement ring on our finger. The most important question we will ever be asked, is "Do you take Me to be your Savior?" The moment we say "I do," He puts a ring on our finger; He seals us with the promise of the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 1:13-14). And oh, how that ring sparkles! He's fixing up a beautiful house to live in together forever (John 14:3). That is pure, single-minded pursuit. That is the altar call - to be the bride of Christ.

As for how that answers the "image of God" question, I think part of how we show that we are the image of God is acting like He acts. We show that we are the image of God **when our men love and treasure women like Christ loves the church, and women honor men and trust their leadership as the church honors God and follows His lead (Ephesians 5:22-33). I may spend my life learning what that means.

* I'd also recommend Kierkegaard's Parable of a King and a Maiden. Powerful stuff.
** I've heard verse 21 quoted as a justification for an egalatarian marriage. I just don't buy it; the rest of the text doesn't seem to bear it out. Verse 22 seems to be a divider to me - Paul is shifting topics to general church business to something more specific.

A Game Without Rules

Guidelines for Christian Dating, part 1

There is a great deal of pressure to conform to societal expectations of dating, and then eventually marriage. One writer even goes so far as to call the single years past 25 "The Panic Years." She couldn't be more right. Every year more of my friends and family marry; every year come those awkward moments at weddings. Relatives ask if I have a boyfriend, have found "The One," or worse, am married yet. Any single who is over 25 knows what I mean; weddings seem to invite this sort of behavior. Once you reach that magical quarterly milestone, singleness is full of embarrassing moments like this.

Pressure is worse in the church. If singleness is pandemic, so is the pressure to marry. It usually starts around the age of 21 - younger if the single in question attends a conservative church. Singleness beyond a certain age is held to be sinful and unnatural, and many writers blame Christian men - men who receive and must sort through the same messages as their single sisters. Christian bookstores stock far more books on marriage and how to reach this state than books on singleness. Singleness is the problem, and marriage is the solution. This notion is prized despite the fact that divorce statistics for Christians mirror that of the rest of the world. Marriage, like singleness, is a state, not a solution.

While singleness beyond 25 is held to be unnatural, it is also a holy time between the single and Jesus. The latter point is carried to extremes: a single woman isn't allowed to look, or even to desire a husband other than Christ. I've lost count of the number of times I've been told some variation of “If you stop looking for love you’ll find it.” These conflicting values create a generation of Christian singles that want love, but are afraid to admit it.

Love whispers nervously in the pews, but it shouts at us from the billboards. The pervasive value that society puts on romance is inescapable: turn the radio on; turn the TV on or go to the movies, and within five minutes you will hear about somebody’s emotionally profound experience in love. The Beatles tell us that all we need is love; Romeo and Juliet were willing to die for it. Since these messages bombard from every direction, even the most contented single can take a hit.

Despite the number of resources available on the subject, we are no wiser than our ancestors. We write, sing and speak about what we don't understand. Humans have invented courtship models to direct and contain it. While some direction is good, no human invention can ever be perfect. Old models of courtship are romanticized today; however, for the better part of last millennium, courtship was heavily based on the social standing of one's family. King Agur's words in Proverbs 30:18-19 continue to be true today. We may blame modern convention for our troubles, but ambiguity concerning love is as old as mankind.

"There are three things that are too amazing for me,
four that I do not understand:
the way of an eagle in the sky,
the way of a snake on a rock,
the way of a ship on the high seas,
and the way of a man with a maiden.
- Proverbs 30:18-19

Love in a postmodern society is a game without rules. Christians blame the world, but ambiguity is also present in the conflicting social mores of the church. However, we must keep in mind that confusion is not a God-ordained state; it's a human one that God doesn't wish on us at all (1 Cor. 14:33).

Fortunately, the Bible has a lot to say on the subject. Read on below:

• Take it slow: Christ commands that we approach marriage soberly, with maturity and discernment (Matt 19:7-12).
• Sexual Purity: Purity is a direction that starts in the mind, and extends forward to deeds of the body - including dating. Keep your mind pure (Prov. 4:23; 2 Timothy 2:22), by reading the Word (Psalm 40:8, 94:12, 119:9, 11; 2 Tim. 2:15), and your actions will follow (Matt 12:35, 15:17-20, Phil. 4:6-9).
• Past Relationships: Don't live in the past, and forgive those who have wronged you (Matt 18:21-35; Phil 3:13-14).
• Only Date and Marry Believers: Choose a likeminded Christian who's on the same page as you are (2 Cor 6:14-18).

I plan on addressing each point separately in the entries to come.

Love and Lattes

Further reflections on Romans 13:8-14

The last time anyone alluded to the rich young ruler (Matthew 19:16-28), my initial reaction was to scoff. Pssshyeah, right! Like I need this passage?! I’m one of the least possession-oriented people that I know! What thing of mine could I possibly have been holding me back? Clearly, this passage was written with somebody else in mind.

Gently, God called me deeper into His word. No, that wasn’t it. God doesn’t write His word for only some of us. What could possibly be my problem?

Said problem occurred to me at lunchtime today, which I had at a small Mexican restaurant: I am a poor steward of my money. How bad could this possibly be? Pfft. A quick bite to eat here, a latte there...can’t be much worse than that, right?

A closer inspection of my bank account revealed that my self-indulgence is not occasional; it is habitual. Costly, too. How much of this money could have been given to the poor? All of it?

"What is this; hey, what's the deal? I don't sleep around, and I don't steal! But I want the things you just can't give me..."
Derek Webb, Rich Young Ruler

Am I willing to cross that threshold, to do whatever it takes to follow God? To really give of myself, even when that gift becomes a sacrifice? I have a funny feeling that Jesus would have me do no less.

I’m not sure that Jesus wants me to give all of our stuff away to sell, and I'm the last person to put any rules on anyone else; if God hasn't called you to do something, don't do it. However, I do implore each of us - myself included - to ask what's holding us back from really serving the King. What is it that may cause each of us to "walk away sorrowful?" (Matthew 19:22) Life should be a mad dash towards God - what weighs us down? (Hebrews 12:1)

God wants all of me. He wants my heart and my soul, and everything that I do. He wants every detail of my life: the huge, life-altering decisions, day-to-day minutiae, and everything in between. My checkbook fits neatly in here as well: how I spend alters how I give. And somehow, God even wants my café lattes.

Typed entirely with my left hand - 2nd monologue

Thoughts upon ordering a new pocket Bible

His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.
- 2 Peter 1:3

All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
- 2 Timothy 3:16

I can't quite remember when I got my pocket Bible. It feels like it's always been with me, almost like my right arm. I carry it wherever I go, and I don't feel complete if I don't have it with me. It's the same sensation as leaving the apartment without my coat in the winter, or going to a new place without a map or GPS. I feel that lost without it.

This Bible is a tiny New Testament and Psalms, and has become worse for wear over the time it's been with me. It was once blanched white, but shows wear in the dirt that creeps in through the cracks of the patent leather cover, and the lovable dog-ear on the upper right of the cover.

My Bible has been with me when I've been in desperate need for a quiet time alone with God. Somehow, God has used it to lead me wherever He wants me to go; whenever I feel lost, lonely or confused, He'll point me to the right place in Scripture. Whenever anyone else in my life has a need, God points me where to go; all I need to do is stay in tune with God and listen for what He wants me to say (2 Tim. 4:2). My Bible may be small -and mostly New Testament at that, but somehow, it has everything I need. (2 Peter 1:3; 2 Tim. 3:16-17)

I've heard it said that if your Bible's a mess, that's a pretty good indication that your life isn't. Oh, that I might continue to fall in love with God through His word (Psalm 119)!

Typed entirely with my left hand - 1st monologue

Drunk on Stimulus: Too Much of a Good Thing

Lately, when I look at my schedule I cringe. Bible study on Monday, movies on Tuesday, BBQ with small group on Wednesday, watch The Office on Thursday. Last week's schedule of events was similar. Same bad show, same bad channel.

It's not that I don't like doing any of these things. I'm not anti-fun. It just seems like that's all I've been doing lately. I could blame my recent hand surgery, but I know that's not the answer. My schedule was this way before - there was just more of it.

I think it's because there's a God-shaped hole in me (yes, we can blame Plumb for the musical reference), and I'm prone to trying to stuff that hole with the wrong things. Kind of like filling up on candy bars instead of eating a healthy meal. Sure, the candy bar is tasty, and the fulfillment is immediate. But it's temporary, and too many of them can lead to diabetes.

"We are all on drugs yeah
Never getting enough (never get enough)
We are all on drugs yeah
Give me some of that stuff (WOO)"

"We Are All On Drugs," Weezer

I'm prone to filling that God-shaped hole with the wrong things: movies with shiny machines, big explosions and characters that grab me, new songs with thumping bass and driving guitars, the best artwork, and the deepest conversations. Fulfillment is immediate, but temporary. Too much can lead to addiction - the type 2 diabetes of the soul. My soul wants God, but I glut it with something else. Eventually, it becomes resistant to the very thing it was meant to thrive on.

"The eye never has enough of seeing, nor the ear its fill of hearing."
- Ecclesiastes 1:8b

I'm not satisfied by what I see and hear; I never will be. I wasn't designed that way. Nobody is. Solomon recognized the problem with entertainment 2,700 years ago: when we seek to glut ourselves with entertainment, we attempt to fill ourselves with what can't possibly satisfy. We can't satisfy our souls on what we can see and hear - the temporal - because we are designed to be satisfied by that which is eternal, Christ (Psalm 37:4).

I think that my dissatisfaction with my entertainment-soaked life is really a cry for more God in it. I want fellowship that goes deeper. I want to reach out to those who are lost and hurting in this world. I don't want to just soak in church on Sundays and speak God on Mondays - I want to put into action what I'm learning.

I like fun, but too much of a good thing is not good. I don't want a life that is just fun. I want one that is marked by purpose.