Love and Lust...

Ok this is another excerpt from a devotional I wrote a few months ago:

God created us male and female.

One of the greatest struggles in our world today is attempting to see people, men and women, as God desires us to see them.  God created humans in His own image, male and female he created them.

When we are pursuing purity, we are able to see all people as created in God's image, and we experience FREEDOM in how we relate to both men and women.  As people living in a fallen world, we have no ability to purify our own hearts but must rely on God to purify our hearts.  Why? So we can be free to love people as God intended.

I have learned that the fight for freedom, the fight for purity is not a one-time event, but a constant submission, marked by failures and challenges, a daily prayer of, "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me." (Psalm 51:10)

We are meant to CELEBRATE the gift of God creating us male and female.  Lust is perhaps the greatest destroyer of this.  We must fight and pray to see one another with love and not lust.

I think we mistakenly think of lust as a synonym for sexual desire, but lust is actually only a selfish and self-gratifying sexual desire.  Sexual desire is good, created by God, a gift to be enjoyed and meant to express love in marriage.

Love = GIVING of oneself for the other's good
Lust = TAKING from a person, using a person, viewing a person as a means to one's own gratification

This is why lust causes so much shame and damage to a person and to relationships.

God desires us to be free.
God desires us to love and be loved.
And he never meant for us to struggle with all of this by our own strength alone.  He meant for us to reach out to Him especially when we feel like a lost cause.

CHALLENGE:
Identify an area in your life where you struggle to see people as created in God's image.  Confess it to God today (Let's be serious, he knows anyway...) and ask God to create in you a pure heart.
Take action against this area of brokenness by taking a concrete step: Do you need to ask a friend or mentor for help? Usually keeping our struggles secret prevents them from healing.  Do you need to get rid of something in your life that incites lust?  Do you need to seek counsel to begin viewing men or women in a healthy way that honors other people and God?
Remember that God desires us to be free to love people with a pure heart, and that it is an ongoing process of seeking love, freedom, and purity daily.  It's a fight worth fighting.

Massage Therapy

Something you should know: I have a tendency to internalize stress, hold it in my body.  Nausea, teeth clenching, neck pain...

I often write blog posts when I've emerged from the struggle by God's gentle hand.  When the Lord has taught me something precious or important, when the mess subsides, and I hold His gift in my hand like a treasure.

But I got to be honest, this is not one of those blog posts. I have not emerged from the struggle. I keep telling myself to relax my jaw as I am writing this.  I keep praying (and reminding myself) "Jesus, I trust in You."  But even in this season of uncertainty, God is still teaching me about who He is and what He is doing.

 I've been praying through the decision to leave my job.  Apparently that meant my neck had to freeze up for a couple months.  Some days I had to twist at the waist when I was approaching an intersection because turning my head would send shooting pain down my neck and back.  Sleeping has been a project of pillows and propping and angles.

A few weeks ago, I decided to cash in a gift certificate for a massage.

Let's say, for this story, that my massage therapist's name was Rick.  I didn't even need to tell Rick what was wrong with me.  He could feel it in my back, in my neck, the tension, the tightness, the knots, the parts that aggravated me the most.  The stress.  Apparently my body could tell the story.

Rick would bend my neck so that my ear was moving toward my shoulder, while his hand put pressure on my other shoulder, elongating, stretching.  It hurt!  I'm not sure why I thought a massage would be relaxing because it wasn't.  It was painful with only brief moments of relief.

As he pushed my ear toward my shoulder, I realized I was resisting this, making his job harder.  I was pushing back against his hand, fighting against his pushing and stretching of my neck.  It felt instinctual, to resist someone causing pain.  I feared getting hurt worse than I already was.  I didn't know this man, his record, his credentials.  I was putting a lot of trust that he knew what he was doing with my body.  I had to talk myself into letting my neck and shoulders be moved as Rick moved them, stretched as Rick stretched them.  I prayed and I stopped fighting.

I was reminded later of this experience and how it was a physical picture of what God seems to be doing in my life right now.  I can feel God stretching me in parts of my life and parts of my faith like he has never before.  I am stepping into the unknown with more questions than answers.




When I first thought God might be calling me to this, I pushed against it in fear and pain and self-protection.  In the past year, I've felt let down and heartbroken, and weary and hurt.  I was afraid to feel even more vulnerable, even more pain.  I was sure if God tried to stretch me now, my neck might snap.  So I held my neck up in resistance to His hand.

But the difference between massage therapist Rick and God is that I know enough about God to trust Him completely.  Why is it still so difficult?  Why do I resist His work in me?

Still, I know that if massage-hands-Ricky can know what my neck needs without me saying a word, the God who created me and holds all wisdom surely knows what I need.  He is infinitely good.  He loves me as His daughter.  He is all-powerful and in control.  He is faithful.  I know His credentials, and I have no reason to fear.  So I can let him stretch me, mold me, shape me, change me.  I can surrender.  I can walk forward in faith even though I cannot see what lies ahead.  He offers us this freedom!

Any pain in the process is for my good.  He is just working out the knots.
Let our lives be in Your hands Lord.  And there is no better place to be.

Does the clay say to the potter, 'What are you making?'
Isaiah 45:9

Good

A couple months ago, someone asked me to write some devotionals.  I've decided to revise them a little into my upcoming posts.

In preparing for my first assignment, I asked my friend D what was one thing God has taught her through being single.  She hit me with this verse:

"For the Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord bestows favor and honor; no good thing does he withhold from those whose walk is blameless. Lord Almighty, blessed is the one who trusts in you."
Psalm 84:11-12

She explained that she learned that God doesn't withhold good things from His people.  He sees all things and knows what is good for us and what will be good for us.

If you asked me, I would say I believe that God is good.  Yet the root of my worry, my impatience, and even much of my sin lies in my struggle to not only assent to a good God in thought but also believe and trust in this with my whole being.

When we experience anxiety about our present, worry about our future; when we experience frustration or despair that our lives look different than we imagined they would, or even wrestle with the command to abstain from sins such as envy or sexual immorality, we have lost sight of God's goodness and God's love for us.

I have found that I need to be reminded that God's plans for me are not only good but supremely good.

When Eve sinned in the Garden, she first believed the lies that the enemy told her that God was withholding something good from her.  He told her that eating the fruit would not bring death but something good that God did not want her to have.  She doubted God's very character: God's perfect goodness.  She doubted His perfect love for her, and so she tried to grasp at what she thought she was missing.

Don't we do that too?  It is as if God is taking us to a 5-course feast at the best restaurant in the world but on the way, when the drive seems long and unknown, we doubt that God is taking us anywhere good at all.  We opt out for the McDonald's drive-thru, scraping together our spare change for the dollar menu.

We either spend our time in fear and worry about our future or grasp for what we think will bring us joy instead of trusting in the goodness of our Father.

So much of being single for me is trusting in God's timing, God's goodness, and God's plans for my life, but it is easier said than done.  Sometimes, when doubts creep in, I need to speak words that affirm who I know God to be: God is good, God is faithful, God is loving.

I need to remember that God is steadfast.  He is always true to His character.  I believe that God does not have just a good plan but the best plan.  I trust that God does not withhold what he knows is good from his children.

Dear Tim Tebow and Other Adventures

I've been single for awhile now, and one thing I've learned from being single is that people love playing matchmaker.  Now I know that some people find that annoying, but I actually find it amusing, especially in my situation being a 30-year-old Christian living in Massachusetts.

If a well-meaning matchmaker-in-the-making friend pokes and prods me enough, they'll soon discover that I hope to marry a man who loves Jesus because I want to share the most important part of my life with my husband.  Now for any of you Bible-belters out there, you should know that up here in Massachusetts, a lot of people, especially my friends who don't go to church on a regular basis, think that a Jesus-loving guy is a unicorn- more the stuff of legends than of reality.  So to them, finding a Jesus-loving guy who is also single, not a priest, not drinking any Kool-Aid, yet also old enough and young enough for me is a bit crazy to them.  Nonetheless, the amazing and loving people in my life have tried their best.  I'll share with you some of my favorites.

• One of my dearest friends in the world has lamented several times that she wishes her cousin wasn't gay because we would be perfect together since he is an Episcopal priest.

• One of my second cousins, in a moment of forgetting that I was actually related to her, tried to tell me that I would be perfect for her son.

• A couple of sweet church ladies who shall remain nameless thought they found the perfect guy for me until they learned he was 50 years old, married, and had 4 children.

• A woman on a mission trip asked me if I would consider waiting for her son, who was still in high school.

But the best matchmaking attempt of all time happened several years ago.  If anyone knows my Grammy, she is both a hard core Patriots fan and a Jesus-loving woman.  We avoid visiting her when the Pats are on because she doesn't like people talking through the game.  She wears her Teddy Bruschi pin to daily mass.  You get the picture.  You can also imagine that a Patriots player who also loves Jesus would be as close to perfect as you can get in Grandma's book.  She might even let him date one of her grandbabies.

Back when the Pats signed Tim Tebow, my grandmother was sure to tell me all about it.  Just like when my friends try to talk up a guy they want me to consider, Gram was sure to talk up Tim.  She told me about what he has said about his faith and the various missionary work he has been involved with.  She even saved the newspaper article about Tim being dyslexic and called to suggest to me that I get Tim to speak at the school I work at since all my students are dyslexic too.

Shortly after, oddly enough, I met one of Tim Tebow's good friends in Haiti.  I'm not the type of person who gives a professional sports player more attention than a janitor, but for Gram's sake, I made a point to strike up a conversation about Tim just so I could tell Gram about it later.

The best thing about grandmas like mine is that they aren't going to set you up with just any single guy they know, but they'll try to set you up with the best single guy they can think of.  Grandmas like mine never think that guy is too good, too famous, or too special for their granddaughters.  No, quite the opposite.  And in a world full of well-meaning but misguided matchmakers, it is endearing and encouraging to have someone love me like that.

Thank God for good grandmas.

"I am reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice and, I am persuaded, now lives in you also."
2Timothy 1:5

30 hours til 30

"Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be."  -Psalm 139:16

These past few weeks, I've been reminded that every day we live is ordained by God, and only he knows how many we are given.  My friends' child was given 15 days of this life and no one took for granted one of Abel's days.  Each day was cherished.  Each day was a weighty and sacred gift.

By the time I finish this post I will have 30 hours before my 30th birthday.  I have been given many days.  I must admit, I did not cherish each day as the gift it was, but still I'm grateful for the gift of 30 years and I praise God for his love for me and his work in me and for everyday he has given me.

So in celebration of the gift, I propose my list of 30 things in the next 30 hours:

1.  Spend 1 hour outside.
2.  Spend time with at least 2 people I love.
3.  Be completely still for 3 minutes.
4.  Send 4 pieces of mail.
5.  Drive 5 minutes with the windows rolled down.
6.  6 minutes of dancing.
7.  Share 7 of my dreams and hopes with Jesus.
8.  Notice 8 small but wonderful things.
9.  Skip for 9 seconds.
10.  Sing along to 10 songs.
11.  Savor 11 bites or sips of delicious things.
12.  Spend 12 minutes in a chapel.
13.  Ask 13 questions.
14.  Read 14 verses of scripture.
15.  Say 15 kind and honest things.
16.  Learn 16 new things.
17.  Get rid of or give away 17 things.
18.  Take 18 photos.
19.  Watch 19 waves hit the shore.
20.  Give away $20 to someone.
21.  Pray for 21 people.
22.  22 minutes of painting.
23.  Draw 23 straight lines.
24. 24 deep breaths.
25.  Take a 25 minute nap.
26.  Write 26 words in my journal.
27.  27 minutes of exercise.
28.  Donate $28 to a great cause.
29.  29 minutes with all technology off.
30.  Thank God for 30 things.

Here's to ushering in 30.  I don't know the number of my days but I thank and praise God for giving me 30 years.  I'll update with any highlights from my 30 list.