This is What I Want

I want to fall in love with Jesus all over again. Don't get me wrong, I love Jesus. I do. He has forgiven me of all my sins, He has written my name in his Book of Life, and nothing can separate me from His love; I have His Word on it (Romans 8:39).

But something's been missing for far too long.

With few exceptions, I have been blase' and apathetic, content with status quo. I've had moments here and there when my heart surges with gratitude, when my mind can't take in any more of His majesty, or when I am just ready to be done with this life and enter the next with Him, forever.

But I want so much more.

I want to wake up with Him on my mind. Not wake up thinking of my aches, pains, plans, fears, or worries.

I want to journal eagerly every whisper I hear from Him. It's been a long time since I felt the nearness of His voice.

I want to hang around people who are in love with Him, who are asking, "What's God been doing in your life lately? What are you studying? What miracles or answers to prayer has he shown you?" And I don't just mean on scheduled every-other Wednesdays. While I'm grateful for those times, I long for the kind of fellowship I once experienced nearly every time the phone rang. The phone just doesn't ring that often, and I don't use it much for fellowship, either. I miss the telephone. There is a rich fellowship that can only be shared when humans talk. Not type.Not text. Talk.

I long for my Sundays to consist of meaningful content outside the music and the pulpit. I used to wish it would come from other people "off-stage"--in the ladies' room, the nursery, the Sunday School class, the hall. You know, people with fire-hot love for Jesus, who radiate light and heat.

Now I want to be that person. Or rather, be that person once again. There was a time when I was the radiant, fire-hot, zealous, eager disciple of Jesus Christ who couldn't get enough of the Bible, made every effort to talk about Him with fellow Christians, and who felt a deep sadness for people who neither had nor wanted a relationship with Christ.

I am not there yet. I am still in the wanting-to-want-it stage.

This morning I was singing a certain line over and over from Psalm 51:12

Restore to me the joy of my salvation...

I hunger and thirst for more of Him.

"Wear Your Blessings Well"

Since I'm still recovering from surgery, I am home watching some Christian TV instead of being with my church family. I'm not usually a fan of TV preachers, but I do want to hear preaching. So I tuned into Joel Osteen and was encouraged by his message. Not that I buy into the entire prosperity gospel, but I do appreciate when pastors declare that the glory of God sometimes manifests itself in material blessings on His people. Having grown up, like Osteen, with the "poverty is next to godliness" mentality that grew out of the Depression Era of my forebears, I can relate to what he's talking about. Here are some notes I took as I listened. Not verbatim, but paraphrased.

Some people will be your friend at the lunch table as long as you are making the same amount. But as soon as you get an increase, they will be jealous and reject you. Are they true friends?

Do you go around feeling poor, dejected, and defeated and think it's an act of humility? It's not. When people see you going around poor, dejected, and defeated, they don't want any part of it. You can project that without God. Walk around in your abundant life from Christ!

Favor is not always fair. You don't have to feel guilty if God gives you a promotion because promotions come from God, not man. If you don't want to accept it, He'll choose someone who will. Celebrate His blessings.

Some people come in at the end of the movie. They haven't seen what your grandfather, grandmother, father, and mother sacrificed to get their children to a better life than they had.
They didn't see the cardboard your grandfather put in his shoes when the bottoms wore out. They didn't see when your grandmother was making ten cents an hour washing other people's clothes.
They didn't see your father trying to raise five kids on $115 a week as a pastor.
They weren't there when your mom died of terminal cancer and wanted you to have the house. They weren't the ones sweeping the church floor when everyone else had gone home to Sunday supper.
They just come in right now when you are prospering, when God has decided to give you material blessing and they judge you.
They wish they had a nicer house, a bigger piece of property, and they think you are the one who has blessed you.
Life is too short to worry about what people think. Owning two acres of land on earth is not going to bankrupt heaven where the streets are paved with gold! Wear your blessings well.

If you have prayed about buying a nicer house and can afford it and have peace, don't worry about who judges you. God is not going to judge you for the very thing He has given you--prosperity. Like any good Father, He smiles when He gives you things and smiles when you happily receive them. As for true friends, they rejoice when you are blessed. They celebrate your prosperity. As long as you're not being selfish, going into debt, or making objects your idols, it's perfectly fine. Wear your blessing well!


Thoughts on this message?

Sitting on a Barbed Wire Fence

I am a comfortable middle-aged woman living in a comfortable house in a comfortable, middle class neighborhood. I have a comfortable middle-of-the-road view on too many things--some that matter and some that don't. I go to a comfortable church in the middle of the comfortable county and wear comfortable clothes and engage in comfortable activities.

You'd think I'd be satisfied. But I'm not. I'm not content with the status quo. I feel a restlessness growing within my soul, a sense that I have--for far too long--ignored the parts of scripture that I'm just not comfortable with. Or I've been okay with waiting for others to take the initiative and invite me to join them in opportunities to get out of the lukewarm kettle of water I'm in.

For example, every week I go to church, but seldom do I make the effort to get to know people whose faces I don't recognize. Our congregation is almost 450 people strong, and some weeks I don't even see people I'm trying to see. But there are folks I've never met. I fear that they've been around for seven months (or seven years!) and I haven't noticed or bothered to get to know them. My fear of embarrassment holds me back. Pride is ugly. Humility would say, "So what? Show yourself friendly. Don't wait for someone to befriend you. You know how that feels. Be different. Get over yourself."

Three times a month I go to some kind of church-based, small group meeting where we talk about our walk as Christians, or we discuss the Sunday sermon, or express what's going on in our lives, where we need to improve ("grow"), how we identify with each other, and sometimes we pray at length. It's a good group and we do need each other. But lately I have been examining how many
needs OUTSIDE the group I'm aware of (or callously disregarding), how many hurting lives I'm touching rather than merely talking about. Not sure of any except those of other Christians, perhaps. (I am tempted to say "we aren't noticing" or "we aren't doing" or "we are myopic," but I am not responsible for "we." I can't change the group, or even one other person. Just me. If I am hearing God's voice, I don't need to wait for others to initiate or join me. I need to obey regardless.)

I feel I'm sitting right now on a barbed-wire fence. Itching, somewhat annoyed, kind of scared, afraid to move, but more afraid not to. If I move, the barb will put a hole in my jeans and maybe cut my hands; it could really hurt. But if I stay here and don't move, my muscles will atrophy and the fence will rust under me and I could die in my spiritual paralysis.

The devil wants me to stay put and be comfortable because I'm rather ineffective for the Lord as long as I'm just sittin' and hearin', not gettin' up and doin'. It won't be long before I lose my balance. For too long the "balance" has been comfortable. The balance, for me, has really been imbalance. I never leave my comfortable world. I go to a Christian church, have Christian friends, homeschool my youngest child in a Christian family and teach in a Christian co-op. Even when I worked, it was in a Christian school. I have not made choices to leave the Christian bubble at all. To my shame, I am spiritually fat and weak for lack of exercise.

I think God is starting to affect my equilibrium so that I tip and tilt and finally tumble--heart, mind, soul, and body--off the barbed wire fence and into His service in more ways than are comfortable. Uncomfortable service. Uncomfortable sacrifice. Uncomfortable living. Living that requires more faith, more hard work, and in two words, more love.

I want to love more, not just be loved more.
I want to serve more, not just be served more.
I want the will to get over myself and see the needs of the hurting and try to do something--anything--to help relieve their suffering.
I want help through prayer in this, and accountability. I am tempted to say I want a leader in this, but the truth is, that would be an easy excuse to procrastinate. I can't sit on any fences for other people; I can only make a choice about what to do with the barbed wire fence I'm being asked to get off.

God, help me to choose, today, like removing one finger at a time from this death-grip I have on my fence, one person to love more and serve more. Help me be a better servant in my home where the mundane services go unappreciated and unnoticed unless I fail to do them. Help me to do more than think about orphans, the homeless, the widows, the imprisoned, the enslaved, the cold, the lonely, the hungry. Cause me to pray more and do more to show "the least of these" Your love. Let me loosen my grip on the barbed wire fence, and plunge headlong into the rough pasture below. My soul is in green pastures, yes--you've been so kind to give me more comforts than I can count, but I have enjoyed them rather selfishly for too long. I want to feel for those who aren't living in comfortable green pastures, and then go beyond feeling to doing.

Up Close and Very Personal in Haiti

A blog I read occasionally, this one broke me:

Go here.

New Blogger I Like Already

To my fellow saints who enjoy good writing, great humor, and raw emotion, check out this blog:


Sit a Spell

It's the journey of a young American family on the cusp of their new life in Haiti as teaching missionaries.

When Preaching Meets My Daily School Life

An exciting thing happened Sunday: Pastor Arie's message from Acts fueled my passion for the very subject matter I'm teaching to my 5th and 6th graders. We are studying ancient Greece, and the sermon Paul preached at Mars Hill to his Greek audience grabbed my attention in a new way. I sometimes wish I could go back in time and listen to the great preachers of old. The Apostle Paul would top my list!

But Arie's message(link not working; go to sovgracemd.net to find it) is one I will definitely listen to again. I felt like shouting out, "Preach it, brother!" but I am not that type. I wanted to "Amen" loudly after nearly every sentence, but I would probably get "the knee" from Paul or Ben. I said a few, but not as many as I felt. Many messages are good, but few are anointed, in my opinion. This past Sunday's message left no room for debate: God anointed it. Pastor Arie's joy and passion for the gospel have a levitating effect on my heart. What a gift he is. What an extra bonus that God stirred this message in my heart, and I can sort of "preach it" next week after absorbing it again, so as to give my students a spiritual lift. I had the privilege last week of sharing with them the simple, powerful truths I heard from Elyse Fitzpatrick, so as to encourage them that His love is not dependent on their good or bad behavior, their school successes or failures, or anything of themselves. If they are in Christ, God sees Christ when He looks on them. I just melt when I "get it" and when I get to evangelize in my own classroom. Wow. What a privilege.

Socrates, Plato, Aristotle. The Big Three.

Ain't got nothing on the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost!

First Fifth of my Life: Three Influential Women

Pondering some thoughts from my Bible study recently, I wrote down the influential Christians in the first fifth of my life. That is, birth through age nine. Not that I'm quite 45-- I have a year, a week, and a day before that's official, if the Lord tarries--but I rounded up.

My first fifth of life was chock full of Christian influences. Of course my parents were the strongest ones, but three women stand above the rest in my spiritual formation in the early years. I remember a couple of people from as far back as preschool Sunday School. The little old lady named Miss Inie was my first outside-the-family model of Christ to me. (Maybe she was only 45, but she seemed like a chubby, elderly, soft old grandma to me.) Week after week she welcomed me to Sunday School and I LOVED sitting in her lap. I don't remember a thing she said, but I'll never forget her love.

The second woman's influence affected me before I was born, but I never knew her. I only knew her husband. He was a gentle, quiet old widower named Mr. Krueger. The kids all knew him as the Candy Man. Every Sunday after church he held out a brown lunch bag full of lollipops and little wrapped sweets. Of course we had to ask our parents-- who often used the candy promise as leverage before church and sized up our rewardability afterwards. I usually got candy. (I'm sure there was more grace on my parents' part than good behavior on mine.) It was Mr. Krueger's wife for whom I get my middle name, Marie. While my mom was pregnant with me, she had decided to name me Zoanna Susan, for two of her best friends. Marie Krueger told Mama several times, "Now, as soon as that baby's born, I want to bless it. I want to be the first to bless that baby." On the weekend of August 26th, the Kruegers went away to celebrate their anniversary. During dinner at a restaurant, Marie died suddenly. When my mother heard the news, she was crushed in spirit, but felt as if Marie had already blessed me by wanting to bless me. Her influence was so precious that Mama changed her mind about my name and called me Zoanna Marie. She saved "Susan" for my younger sister Andrea's middle name.

The third influence in my first nine years was a woman named Lois Long. She lived right next door to us in Alden, Kansas. Mrs. Long was always smiling and very hospitable. When I was in third and fourth grade, she started up a Good News Club in her home. She invited girls and boys who wanted to study the Bible and learn more about God to come over every week during the summer and sit and read and talk about scripture. I think she served ice cold lemonade and sometimes cookies. I don't remember what I learned from the Bible, exactly, but I learned how it felt to have my spirit cared for by someone other than my mom and dad. It meant more to me than going to Sunday School in that I didn't take it for granted. I felt special, like an elite youngster who was valued so much that a busy adult made time in her weekly schedule for me and a bunch of other elementary school kids, and never seemed bothered.

I felt such love from her that I believed she would actually want to attend my little sheltie puppy's funeral. Tot was only ten weeks old when I came home from my friend Barbie's house. Mama said Tot had turned over flat on her back legs in the air, yelped in pain for ten seconds, and then died--right there in the doggie pen outside our house. I cried and cried. I loved my fluffy little Tot. When I went door-to-door in our little neighborhood inviting people to the funeral in our backyard, Mrs. Long was kind and didn't laugh at me. She didn't come, but she must've been so gentle about her "sorry" that I didn't feel stupid for asking her to the "service".

When I went back to Alden for a visit several years ago, I stopped in to visit Mrs. Long. She insisted I call her Lois, but I couldn't. No sooner had I reintroduced myself than Mrs. Long welcomed me in, offered me a seat in her living room, and asked me about my life, my family, and what I had been reading in scripture. It was almost as if I had never moved away-- just gone away-- for a very long vacation, and was back telling her about my travels, which of course included Jesus.

There were other influences in my first nine years, but those three--Miss Inie from preschool, Mrs. Krueger before I was born, and Mrs. Long when I was on the brink of the second third of my life-- are on pedestals in my memory. I thank my God upon every remembrance of Miss Inie and Mrs. Long, and for the blessing of being blessed by a godly woman named Marie before my birth.