You Matter

Rallied by one young prince's victory, a thousand men of the Israelite nation rush from their hiding places, armed with sticks and shovels, to pursue and to destroy their enemies. Successfully.

Ranks of young men file into ships, to land at Normandy Beach and to scramble and battle their way inland in a desperate struggle to free Europe.

Suicide bombers train for days, weeks--only to destroy themselves in a final explosion for what they believe is the right.

We are obsessed, we humans, with being part of something bigger than ourselves. With fighting for the right. With the ideal of the stalwart hero who battles and struggles and finally, though his death or through his life, wins. We want this. We crave it. It is part of both our deepest fears and our deepest dreams. It constantly drives us upward toward glory, or downward toward greatest loss. 

Because we are. We are part of Something Bigger. We do fight for it. Every day. 

The question is: What? What am I fighting for? Am I the hero fighting to free Europe, to rescue Israel from the Philistines? Or am I the suicide bomber who destroys not only others, but himself, in a blaze of terror?

There are only two sides. The side that destroys, and the Side that renews. The side that wounds, and the Side that heals. And one of the essences of the Gospel is just this:

YOU MATTER.

Your life matters. Your choices matter. YOU matter. More than you can ever dream. Because in every choice, no matter how small, no matter how insignificant, you fight. Because every time you choose the good, evil loses. 

And so in a hundred little choices, in a hundred little prayers, in a hundred little surrenders every day...we fight.

By His grace, choose the good.

"Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, to which you were also called and have confessed the good confession in the presence of many witnesses." (1 Tim. 6:12)

Canaan Bound

Source

It seems all the stories start the same.

"It was just an ordinary day. . ."

Maybe that's because it was. Until. 

Mine was. Or I suppose, I should say, it was an ordinary night. Until...

Wait--the whole story--you haven't heard it. It's a long story, you know. You don't mind? Well, let's begin, then...

Flat roofs are meant for stargazing. I've always been up there nights, as long as I can remember, maybe even more once I had a family. The breeze skips by, touches your face like a lover's hand; the stars twinkle and flash overhead; sometimes the moon burns a hole in the sky. A whisper-smell of jasmine, a far-away owl's hoot. You just can't sleep for long, not in so much beauty.

The moon was full that night, and it threw a halo all around. I've hardly ever seen a moon that bright--seemed you could scarcely see the stars. I'd fixed a bed up top of the roof, threw down a blanket or two at the end of a long day. And I lay there, hands behind my head, staring up at that sky and a thousand questions running in my mind. Don't even remember what they were about, really.

I guess I dozed off despite myself. When I woke the moon was half across the sky. For a moment I wasn't sure what had woken me--but I knew there was something. Then I heard it. Music. But unlike any music I'd ever heard before. It started soft; it took a moment before I could make out... words. And what words...

Get out of your country
From your family
And from your father's house
To a land that I will show you.

If I'd had questions before, they paled in comparison to my questions now. This was unlike anything I'd ever heard before. All I knew was here. All I'd ever known was here. My family, my father's house--it was all I had. My inheritance, my life, my hope for the future. To leave all this--for an unnamed land?

But the music swelled and grew and pulled at me. Somehow I knew it was for me. I remembered how God--the great YAH--had spoken to men in the past. Was this how He spoke? This beautiful but so uncertain way? Would He not be more specific, not give more directions?

I will make you a great nation;
I will bless you
And make your name great;
And you shall be a blessing.
I will bless those who bless you
And I will curse him who curses you;
And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.*

The music faded. Only the moon remained, and I found myself on my knees, knowing I bowed before the Creator of All. Was it enough--His promise? To leave all I knew, to begin in a new and hostile place, knowing no one, with no family, no inheritance, no life?

"I will go," I whispered, though deep within a part of me recoiled from such a life-altering decision. "Tomorrow I shall tell them. We shall go."

* Genesis 12:1-3

IRL: Summer Begins

• Quiet days at the office...
• Reading Pilgrim's Progress, Hinds' Feet on High Places, Captivating, and To Kill a Mockingbird...
• Long-distance book clubs...
• Arranging new songs...
• Google Hangouts with friends...
• Beautiful new lyrics stuck in my head all day...
• Honeysuckle and privet-scented nights...
• Catching up and talking with little brothers and friends...
• Planning a weekend trip to my "new home" to order books, have meetings with the pastor, meet (even more) people, and start getting ready for July...
• Poetry
• Music
• Delighted with others' joy :)
• Solo hikes in the rain
• Thunderstorms

"There are different kinds of happiness," she said. "There is an exuberant happiness, that comes bubbling up and bubbling out--like Old Faithful. And there's a quiet happiness, like when you're hiking with your family at 5,000 feet. And there's a bittersweet happiness, missing the old and being grateful for it, standing alone in the rain, driving by yourself across the mountains. But they're all happiness. All to be embraced."

Somewhere Between

Source

It's a strange feeling being between two worlds.

That's where most of us grads (or soon-to-be-grads) are right now. Two worlds. One world is the one we've been in for at least four, sometimes five or more, years--college. To expand it even further, school in general. We've been students for at least sixteen years, most of us.

The next world varies a lot from person to person, but it has one thing in common--the unknown. Unknown grad school, unknown new jobs, unknown mission service. Unknown.

And for the moment, standing between last finals and an anticipated-but-unknown future, we look at the world and wonder one thing: Where am I today--really?

Because I don't belong here any more, but I still am here.

Because I will belong there someday, but I'm not there yet.

And so we stand somewhere between, in a strangely surrealistic "wood between the worlds," happy but unsure, relieved but just a little apprehensive, not knowing.

The parallels are intriguing.

"These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland." (Heb. 11:13-14)

Broken Healer

"The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon Me,
Because the LORD has anointed Me
To preach good tidings to the poor;
He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted,
To proclaim liberty to the captives,
And the opening of the prison to those who are bound" (Is. 61:1)

What makes God such an incredible Healer? Besides, of course, that He is God, and can do whatever He wants. . .

When we are hurting, we want someone who has been there before us. Somehow, knowing that someone has walked this trail before--it smooths the thorns. It gives us hope. And somehow, that hope is really what most of us are looking for.

So He was broken--He was crushed--so that we might be healed. And so that we might recognize that healing, see it in hands and feet and heart, in flesh and bone.

And perhaps, just perhaps, He sometimes asks us to share in that brokenness--so that we might be able to offer healing and hope to another.