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A Night Owl’s Take on Sunday Mornings

It’s no surprise I’m not a morning person. I tweet people in the morning instead of talking to them. But as I was going through my sleepy/crazy Sunday morning thoughts today, I couldn’t help but share. Maybe some of you can relate.

1. Ugh. Why does the alarm always interrupt my dream?
2. I’ll just lay here until we figure out the pumpkin bread mystery.
3. I dream weird stuff.
4. Christen, get out of bed you lazy freak!
5. Ugh…..
6. The clock is 3 minutes fast, so I’ll sleep 3 more minutes.
7. If I were ever going to murder someone, it would be because they interrupted my sleep.
8. Now I have to pee…
9. Stupid bladder. I hope you die.
10. Fine. I’ll get out of bed but I’m still asleep.
11. This shirt is stupid. I hate it. It’s all… Shirty.
12. Yeah.
13. I’m cold. Stupid window. Oh. I should put on pants. Then I wouldn’t be so cold…
14. I feel angry. Maybe I should put on jewelry.
15. Why is my ear revolting? Just take the dang earring. Take it…. *glares menacingly at mirror*
16. I have a man voice. I should brush my teeth.
17. Do guys have girl voices in the morning?
18. That shirt comment was funny. I should write a Facebook note.
19. Nobody reads Facebook notes.
20. I wonder how long it’ll take for someone to comment about me being on my phone at church.
21. I got my answer already.

Yup. Can anyone relate? Or am I just a weirdo?

Kicking it with Jesus

Psalms is probably one of my favorite books. It’s just so real and honest, and honesty is my favorite thing ever. One of the Psalms I read this morning was asking who could dwell in God’s sanctuary, or in cool kid terms, who can kick it with Jesus. ;)

Now, the Bible is very clear that all are welcome to come; there is no one who would come with a sincere heart who could be rejected. But dwelling means something deeper. It is not only a coming to, but a deep commitment to stay. It is gaining the closeness with God that He truly desires. And although any of us are welcome to dwell, few of us really do.

“Lord, who may dwell in Your sanctuary? Who may live on Your holy hill? He whose walk is blameless and who does what is righteous, who speaks the truth from his heart.” Psalm 15:1,2 “…who keeps his oath even when it hurts.” v 4b

In order to dwell, really stay close to God, we have to make a commitment to live a life above reproach. To live a life that everyone is free to examine, and upon inspection, would find no fault. True transparency! That sounds pretty intense. I know that I have made decisions in life that people would judge unjust, and rightly so. The Bible also states that there is ‘none righteous, no not one.’ So is God giving us some cruel requirement to kick it with Him, knowing we’ll never be able to meet it? He’s totally being sarcastic in this chapter, right??

If you answered yes to either of those questions, boy do I have some good news for you! ;) God doesn’t expect perfection from us, because He already sent his Son to BE our blameless-ness. When we come to God in light of Christ; when we ask His forgiveness for our sins, God sees us through the blood of His Son and we are clean, pure, blameless. The first requirement here, is already done! God isn’t lazy. If He asks us to do something, He doesn’t lay it all on our shoulders. He is faithful to work together with us to bring about our good. (Rom 8:28)

I was going to touch on the other things listed, but I think just knowing God works right along with us when He asks us to do something is a big enough nugget for today.

God, help us today to see all the ways you work on our behalf, even when we are unwilling to do our own part.

Psalm 78:18-29, 32 NLT “They stubbornly tested God in their hearts, demanding the foods they craved. They even spoke against God himself, saying, “God can’t give us food in the wilderness. Yes, he can strike a rock so water gushes out, but he can’t give his people bread and meat.” When the Lord heard them, he was furious. The fire of his wrath burned against Jacob. Yes, his anger rose against Israel, for they did not believe God or trust him to care for them. But he commanded the skies to open; he opened the doors of heaven. He rained down manna for them to eat; he gave them bread from heaven. They ate the food of angels! God gave them all they could hold. He released the east wind in the heavens and guided the south wind by his mighty power. He rained down meat as thick as dust— birds as plentiful as the sand on the seashore! He caused the birds to fall within their camp and all around their tents. The people ate their fill. He gave them what they craved. But in spite of this, the people kept sinning. Despite his wonders, they refused to trust him.” Wow. These people seem like complete and total idiots! God gave them streams of water in the desert, literally out of nowhere, and they still doubted His ability to provide for their needs! And what did God do? Even in the midst of the Israelites grumbling, even when they didn’t trust Him to provide their wants along with their needs, He provided anyway. He saw their doubt and then proved His promises were true. He didn’t have to. He could have just rebuked them for grumbling and sent a plague, or just killed them all off. Instead, He proved He was worthy of their trust, yet they refused to trust Him. He provided anyway. Not just their needs, either. He went beyond that, and provided their wants! He didn’t have to give them the meat they craved. They would have survived just fine eating that tasty, tasty manna (yum), but He wanted to fulfill their wants; He wanted to fulfill their desires! Here’s the kicker- He already knew that giving them what they wanted would still not evoke the trust He desired, but He provided anyway! Wow.
Sometimes we forget the kind of God we serve. We don’t serve a God with a heart of stone, or selfish motives. We serve a lavish Giver who expects nothing in return; not even what He deserves! He is patient with us and loves to see our delight. No questions asked.
Is there an area of your life you haven’t trusted Him in yet? No worries; He is faithful and just to forgive us and start over new. Just be willing to take the journey into your heart to uncover the rocky areas, shadowy places, and pits of doubt. He won’t leave you there alone. :)

I asked myself this morning, “Why do I write?”. Songs, music, blogs, books, whatever it might be, why do I do it? I was writing a song a few moments ago, then I just stopped in the middle of writing. I started to get ahead of myself. I wanted my writing to mean something to someone. I wanted people to relate to it and for people to want to listen. For people to be touched. So I started to think of all sorts of things people might be dealing with, and might need a song about. Then I stopped. I can craft the most beautiful song, but if it doesn’t come from my heart, if it doesn’t relate to me, it’s just garbage. Just noise. People don’t relate to lyrics. They don’t relate to words. They relate to passion. They relate to weakness. They relate to transparency. And if my writing doesn’t have that, it’s empty. Why do I write? Because that’s how my heart speaks. It’s what makes me come to life. And the world needs people who have come alive.

Life to the Full

Reading John chapter 5 this morning. There was a man who was sick for 38 years. Jesus asked this man if he wanted to get well. Instead of answering the question, the man was full of excuses. He told Jesus why He wasn’t well, placing the blame on his circumstances. Jesus healed the man anyway, and when the Jews saw this, they criticized the man for doing what Jesus told Him to do. Instead of standing firm and giving glory to God for what was done, instead of even realizing what had just happened to him, he placed the blame on Jesus, “that man told me to break the sabbath”. Jesus then found him and told him to leave his old ways, at which point the man tattled on Jesus. Seriously? He was right there, he was healed, his life was drastically improved, yet he missed it. Maybe he thought he was entitled to healing. Maybe he thought it was normal. Either way, he failed to realize who he had just encountered. I want to yell at this man, to call him to reason. How could someone physically be there with Jesus, and not recognize it? But how often do we do that? We see God’s hand everyday, yet choose to ignore it. We don’t recognize who He really is. We fail to live in His reality. So then, even though we have been made whole, we fail to taste life. We have been given life to the full, yet we don’t walk in it. How sad is that?

I’ve been needing to write this post for weeks, but the finality of it all has stopped me. I’m on the road to healing. Somedays I feel shattered, somedays I feel like superwoman, but most days I think he’s coming back. He so is the opposite of that. He’s completely ignoring me, pretending like we never happened, leaving me to sort out the financial and emotional implications all by myself. If you couldn’t tell, this post is about Jason. But it’s also about my dad. You see, I’ve been abandoned so many times by the men in my life, I stopped believing in their ability to come through for me. On any level. My father… he didn’t even want to know me. Called us up when he found out he had cancer, pushed his way into my siblings lives(excluding me), and then died on us. Gee, thanks padre. I wish he had just remained anonymous. It’s one thing to not know your dad. But to have him show up after 14 years, solidify his disinterest with you, and then just die? That’s just cruel. I’m sure he didn’t know what he was doing. I’m sure he got to the end of his life and realized just how alone he was, and that’s why he contacted us. I’m sure he was thinking about making things right. And I’m glad he did what he needed to do for himself, but it really made me feel cheap. And unloved. So I hated men. They brought nothing good. A few years of college taught me that it’s possible for guys to have redeeming qualities. Maybe they’re all eventually gonna leave, but some of them do truly care about the people in their lives
Enter Jason on the scene. He was going through a rough time, so me being who I am chased him down until he told me what was up. And here begins the saga. Fast forward to today. We broke up because he moved to Ohio with no plans to come back. No plans to include me in his life. I trusted him with my dreams for the future, with the intention of forever, and to me it’s like he took it for granted. But that’s not the worst part. I could handle losing my best friend, breaking up, finding new plans for the future. I could handle all that. But it’s the purposeful abandonement that keeps me up at night. As a means to protect himself, he’s cut off all communication. And I know why he’s done it, I know he did it with his old ex too. But it drives me crazy because he’s one of the only men I’ve ever trusted, and I still believe in him. However unfounded and impossible it is, I believe that he’ll come back, be a man, and sweep me of my feet again. I don’t trust him, but I do believe in him. But my head knows this will never ever happen. So why do I feel this way? For the longest time, he was my rock. The only one I turned to in desperate situations. I still talked to God and I still loved God, but I depended on Jason. And now that he’s removed himself completely out of my life, my whole world has shifted. I want to believe he’ll come back, and if he wasn’t a man, he would(because men are completely and totally oblivious to the way of the heart until a good woman has trained them). But he is a man, and thank goodness for that, lol. Towards the end, he wasn’t my rock, because I started to see the things in him that were not in the best interest of us. He loved me with his words, but I don’t think even he realizes how much it was just words. Empty wishes. He wanted to be in love, but wasn’t moved to action by it. Maybe he did love me, maybe he didn’t. I guess I’ll never really know. What I do know is that I’m having a hard time moving on. He was always in my future plans. And now it almost feels as if I have no future. He completely blotted me out from his memory, and his life, and even though my head knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that he’s not coming back, the 6 year old in me is just confidently waiting for the man in her life to return. Maybe it’s time for my heart to grow up. To face reality. But for now, I’ll keep watching and hoping he’ll be the man I thought he was.

How come I just realized how importantly this verse ends? We often say we don’t know what God’s will is for our lives, but if we are being renewed, it says we are able to test and approve His will. It doesn’t say He just tells us flat out, (although sometimes He does) it says we have the ability to test it. And when we are in tune with His heart/mind, we will be able to approve it as His. Pretty neat. “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is–his good, pleasing and perfect will.” Connected by MOTOBLUR™ on T-Mobile

I’m pretty much a hypochondriac. I guess. If you think you’re a hypochondriac, but you really aren’t, wouldn’t that essentially make you one anyway? Maybe. My mind goes a million miles a minute. I’m thirsty, so maybe I have a tumor somewhere in my brain. Or diabetes. And my side hurts. Maybe my appendix just burst….
Or maybe I don’t really believe any of that crap. Actually, I think they are all possibilities that I don’t want to be true, but I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t overthink things.
But I’ve just figured out that I think that way about EVERYTHING. From work to relationships to Jesus, everything has to be analyzed and assumed the worst. I say it’s so I can prepare myself, but most days I just want someone to prove me wrong. Why can’t I prove me wrong?
I don’t know yet. Don’t have the answers, but I gotta try to find them. Life depends on it.