I was reading through my blog today and finding myself drawn to the "Jesus Fish and other such nonsense" entry. It's been a while since that particular entry and I wanted to update my blog with a recent experience. 

I took Brooke and Audrey through the drive through of Chick-Fil-A a few days ago and as usual I found myself irritated with the world around me. The guy in the car in front of me didn't pull up when the car in front of him did and of course I sighed in exasperation. Really who would be so inconsiderate as to not pay attention to that sort of thing. Didn't he know that there were 20 cars behind him in line, some of which were probably blocking traffic because they were half way in the street? Or didn't he care? No, I was sure in my own little head that this man was very into himself, and probably didn't even care to notice the rest of the world around him. My mind came up with a thousand scenarios of how this man had to be incredibly selfish. How he probably wouldn't hold a door open for a woman with a stroller, or let an old man with one item in from of him in the check out line at Wal-Mart. 

The man finally got to the window and payed and got his food. And then he did something that was straight up appalling to me. He handed the woman at the window what looked to be business cards. Are you kidding me? Seriously! Who advertises themselves in the drive through line at Chick-Fil-A? Apparently that selfish jerk! Again my mind went off on this self-absorbed idiot. I pulled up to the window, debit card in hand. The woman there handed me my drinks and then my bag of food and then said something that blew my mind. 

The man in front of me had payed for my food. That's $18.00! What do you mean he payed for my food? She told me that he had covered it all and wanted me to have this card. The business card he had handed her that I was so appalled at. The card turned out to be a tract- had the whole salvation message printed on the back. Now I'll be the first to balk at a tract. I hate the stupid things most of the time. You know why? Because I've worked in the service industry- in coffee shops, restaurants, I've had my entire income depend on the tips I get day to day. And I have known of people who leave tracts that look like money as a tip! I've been given tracts by people who go to the church down the street. And just like any unbeliever would do (at least it's what I've heard) I've thrown them away. Because they mean nothing most of the time. 

The unbelieving world in most circumstances does not relate to a piece of paper with a message printed on it. They just don't care what some person has decided to say that someone else decided to mass produce that someone else has decided to hand to a stranger. And even more than that they've heard it all before. Especially in the US. Most people have gone to church or known a Bible-thumping Christian who has preached the Good News at them. 

But you know what they haven't heard before? That the guy in the car in front of them payed for their meal. That the kids in the parking lot at Garden of the Gods want to give them FREE bottled water. That the church 3 blocks down is having a free movie night for kids, complete with free pizza, popcorn, drinks and games and prizes. That the youth group from the church in the neighborhood wants to mow their lawn for no pay. 

It almost makes me tear up to think about it- because I've seen all of this. And this is the way we engage a dying world. We have to take them by surprise. We have to be different. We have to be something they haven't seen or heard before. Then they might listen, might read the tract, might visit the church, might give this Jesus a chance. 

I read that tract. I wasn't sure what it was at first. And it touched me. If I hadn't been a believer, it would have at least made me think a little bit differently about this Jesus. For a little while I was proud to associate myself with another Christian. 

Somehow I forgot about how he hadn't been paying attention to the cars in front of him and hadn't pulled up right away. Somehow I forgot that I was the most important person in line and that he was irritating me. Somehow I forgot what a rude selfish person he must be. I was too overwhelmed with how much Jesus loves me and the rest of the world. I was too impressed by what the man in front of me at Chick-Fil-A had done. 

Wonder

   It never ceases to frustrate me- the finite nature of my mind. I am constantly irritated that I can't wrap my mind around the Trinity, or eternity, or the complete Godhood/Manhood of Christ. Sometimes this seems to me to be a dignified virtue of sorts. As though I am some great thinker and seeker of God because I wish I understood. Other times though, it seems almost blasphemous. How dare I, little man, even consider trying to fit so huge a God in such a small space as my mind? What right have I to seek out that which God has been seemingly purposeful in hiding? And I begin to wonder if I’m allowed to wonder. Am I allowed to try to figure it out? Even more I wonder if I’m allowed to ask for the ability to understand.

   I like to go outside when I think such deep thoughts. Maybe it feels philosophical as though I am searching the heavens for answers. Or maybe I feel like my thoughts can reach bigger proportions if there aren’t walls or ceilings to hinder their growth. Truly though, if I’m honest with myself, I’m sure my thoughts couldn’t fill up my linen closet, let alone my bedroom. They certainly don’t need so great an expanse as the sky. So maybe I just like being outside, to feel natural, more in touch with the direct creation of God.

   So then why doesn’t human contact seem as comfortable or natural to me? Why does it seem so suffocating to talk to another person? Maybe it’s because I'm so self addicted. In conversations I seek out affirmation and compliments and advice on my current affairs. I try to give my input and my advice. I try to make the other person like me more or understand me better. I certainly don’t want them to get the wrong idea about me. 

   Really, human contact should seem the most natural I suppose. Humans are not only the direct creation of God, they were created to think, look, feel, talk and act like Him. And even more interestingly, the life in them is the personal breath of God breathed into them at birth. 

Maybe relationships would be less suffocating and more natural if instead I would seek to understand the nature and the character of the other person. Perhaps if I would seek to find God in my relationships and conversations, He would reveal more of Himself to me. And I wouldn’t have to worry if wonder were a virtue or a sin. Because wonder would become awe. 

JESUS FISH AND OTHER SUCH NONSENSE

  I remember in elementary school how everytime we would go on a field trip the teachers would say something like, “Now, remember children, when we go to [said destination], you are a representative of [said school]. So be on your best behavior.” Looking back I realize just how huge a responsibility and how much pressure that is really putting on a nine-year-old, particularly an over active, loud child with ADD who probably didn’t hear you in the first place. I don’t know if I was a good representative of the school. I never really payed it any attention once we got to the museum or ghost town or state capital building. For one thing I never signed up to be a school representative, and it’s not like we had name tags that said “Hi, my name is...and I represent [said school]” To be honest I don’t really think all those other people thought bad of whatever school i was going to at the time if we acted out. They probably either laughed because they new we were kids, or got mad at the teacher, or the kid, or the maybe even the museum for letting us in. I think if I had been given a name tag that told everyone what school I went to I would have ripped it off- I don’t need that kind of pressure.

   In the grocery store parking lot today I had my two babies and a cart full of groceries. The girls were screaming and I was struggling to keep them happy and put my groceries in the trunk. Not that it’s a huge deal to me, or even unexpected, but not one person offered to help- not from the store, the parking lot- not the woman who got into her car next to me who had one bag and was by herself, she had a Jesus fish on her car. So did the lady parked across the row- she didn’t even smile. Maybe this is a rant born of my own self-addiction. Maybe I just really feel a need to be served, but I don’t think so. I really was more hurt then angry. More appalled then upset. Are we really these people? Do we really wear the name if Jesus so loud and proud and yet neglect to be Jesus to a hurting world? A world who maybe right now just needs someone to help them put the groceries in the trunk of their car, or put the grocery cart in the corral so they don’t have to leave their screaming kids in the car all alone. And I can’t justify myself in this either. I far too often don’t notice, don’t care, don’t offer to help, sometimes just out of pure selfishness, or insecurity. I wouldn’t put a Jesus fish on my car. I don’t need that kind of pressure. Or maybe I do. Maybe I need to be reminded that whether or not the people around me associate me with Jesus, I am His representative. 

   Recently, I’ve been convicted to read the Bible all the way through- something I’ve never done before. I have gotten to the 5th chapter of Genesis so far (big whoop- i’m a stinker when it comes to commitment). The more I read of Genesis the more questions I have. But one thing is clear to me. 

   Genesis  1:27 says “  So God created man in his own image; in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”

   We were created in God’s image as ambassadors in this world of His glory. Pretty big responsibility. Huge amount of pressure. And it’s not the kind of name tag we can rip off. I know that more often than not I don’t do His name justice. I wish I could say that wasn’t true. But I’m being honest here- I am just too self-addicted to pay any attention to what’s going on around me, to who needs help or a hug or a smile. And I’m too insecure- what will people think? 

   Before I said that maybe I do need to pressure of a tag bearing the name of Jesus- but my past record tells me that’s not such a great idea. I don’t want people to associate my finger flipping, loud mouth, aggressive driving with Jesus, and I sure don’t want them to associate the way I talk to my husband or the way I complain about everything or the way I talk about other people with Jesus. 

   On my way home from the grocery store I decided instead to put a name tag on every body else. 

Blue Like Jazz

I have just finished reading Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller and in chapter 13 entitled romance he has a beautiful monologue for a play he wrote called polaroids. The play is about a man's life, beginning  with his birth and ending with his death. In the play the man and his wife experience tension after their son dies in a car accident. Don Miller originally was going to portray the ugliness of divorce as a result of this tension but changed his mind after having a conversation with a married friend who enlightened him on the subject of marriage.

 Anyways, the monologue that follows is his response to what he learned and I think it's just beautifully honest and insightful considering this is a man who has never married:

   "What great gravity is this that drew my soul toward yours? What great force, that though I went falsely, went kicking, went disguising myself to earn your love, also disguised to earn your keeping, your resting, your staying, your will fleshed into mine, rasped by a slowly revealed truth, the barter of my soul, the soul that I fear, the soul that I loathe, the soul that: if you will love, I will love. I will redeem you, if you will redeem me? Is this our purpose, you and I together to pacify each other, to lead each other toward the lie that we are good, that we are noble, that we need not redemption, save the one that you and I invented of our own clay?

   I am not scared of you, my love, I am scared of me.

   I went looking, I wrote out a list, I drew and image, I bled a poem for you. You were pretty, and my friends believed that I was worthy of you. You were clever, but I was smarter, perhaps the only one smarter, the only one able to lead you. You see, love, I did not love you, I loved me. And you were only a tool that I used to fix myself, to fool myself, to redeem myself. And though I have taught you to lay your lily hand in mine, I walk alone, for I cannot talk to you, lest you talk it back to me, lest I believe that I am not worthy, not deserving, not redeemed,

   I want desperately for you to be my friend. But you are not my friend; you have slid up warmly to the man I wanted to be, the man I pretended to be, and I was your Jesus and, you were mine. Should I show you who I am, we may crumble. I am not scared of you, my love, I am scared you me. 

   I want to be known and loved anyway. Can you do this? I trust by your easy breathing that you are human like me, that you are fallen like me, that you are lonely, like me. My love, do I know you?  What is this great gravity that pulls us so painfully toward each other? Why do we not connect? Will we be forever fleshing this out? And how will we with words, narrow words, come into the knowing of each other? Is this God's way of meriting grace, of teach us of the labyrinth of His love for us, teaching us, in degrees, that which he is sacrificing to join ourselves to Him? Or better yet, has He formed our being fractional so that we might conclude one great hope, plodding and sighing and breathing into one another in such a great push that we might break through into the known and being loved, only to cave into a greater perdition and fall down at His throne still begging for our acceptance? Begging for our completion?

   We were fools to believe that we would redeem each other.

   Were I some sleeping Adam, to wake and find you resting at my rib, to share these things that God has done, to walk you through the garden, to counsel your timid steps, your bewildered eye, you heart so slow to love, so careful to love, so sheepish that I stepped up my aim and became a man. Is this what God intended? That though He made you from my rib, it is you who is making me, humbling me, destroying me, and in so doing revealing Him. 

   Will we be in ashes before we are one? 

   What great gravity is this that drew my heart toward yours? What great force collapsed my orbit, my lonesome state? What is this that wants in me the want in you? Don’t we go at each other with yielded eyes, with cumbered hands and feet, with clunky tongues? This deed is unattainable! We cannot know each other!

   I am quitting this thing, but not what you think. I am not going away.

   I will give you this, my love, and I will not bargain or barter any longer. I will love you, as sure as He has loved me. I will discover what I can discover and though you remain a mystery, save God’s own knowledge, what I disclose of you I will keep in the warmest chamber of my heart, the very chamber where God has stowed Himself in me. And I will do this to my death, and to death it may bring me.

   I will love you like God, because of God, mighted by the power of God. I will stop expecting your love, demanding your love, trading for your love, gaming for your love. I will simply love. I am giving myself to you , and tomorrow I will do it again. I suppose the clock itself will wear thin its time before I am ended at this altar of dying and dying again.

   God risked Himself on me. I will risk myself on you. And together, we will learn to love, and perhaps then and only then understand this gravity that drew Him, unto us.