i know that i am not alone here. i am loved, pursued, and refined by YOU, and i couldn't ask for anything more. YOU reveal YOURSELF to me. these words on this weblog are my dealings with YOU: YOUR heart, YOUR son, YOUR wisdom, YOUR love, YOUR jealousy, and YOUR word.
kurt coordinates the student ministries at oroville church of the nazarene. he is married to the beautiful rhonda, fathers the cutes magoots (bella), and he can't get enough of Jesus. he wants to make Jesus famous. he wants to bring heaven here. kurt is less than HE that lives in him.
Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
i have been reading and reading and rereading and processing this psalm for 3 mornings now. i noticed during the first morning that it starts off in verse one with “o LORD, YOU have searched me and YOU know me.” and then the psalm ends with david telling GOD to search him and know his heart. but HE already did. 22 verses ago. but 22 verses is a long time. 22 breaths is a long time. sometimes i go 22 days without YOU searching me.
it’s really hard to wrap my head around telling YOU to know my heart. me tell YOU to know me? YOU know everything. YOU made me. YOU number my days. YOU keep me breathing. YOU sustain me. YOU provide for me in ways that i’ve never known or noticed.
me tell YOU to know me? to know my heart?
i don’t want to get strip searched. metaphorically or literally. i really don’t. regarding the literal, it’s just embarrassing. regarding the metaphorical, it’s scary. it’s like there is stuff that i know is still in there. hated. pride. lust. discontent. malcontent. bitterness. stuff i haven’t dusted off for years, if not decades. giving YOU permission to search me and know my heart is like willingly telling you to strip search me because i’ve been hiding crap that i can’t remember where i got it or when i hid it. YOU already know it all, but i don’t. i’m holding onto things that hold me back from following YOU.
but in order to get to the end of that verse, the goal in all of this, the end that i am giving my life for is that YOU would lead me in the way everlasting. i want to be a follower. but the ability to be a follower requires getting strip searched.
i am reminded of my vision problem. YOU have given me 20/20 vision in my eyes, and my heart can barely see what YOU are capable of. i have this world that i live in. it was made for me by my parents, and then my teachers, and then my friends. i let them bend the world around me, to make sense of what i saw with words that worked just well enough to let me move on and forget it. my world is not real. it isn’t YOUR real. it isn’t THE real.
i’ve never been to africa. my friend jon is in uganda right now. my cousin went there, and it changed her. shawn went, and he could barely put into words what he saw. and my grandparents have been there. they gave years of their lives to helping people there. joanna went, and it continues to shape her life.
i have a mortgage. i have a car payment and a good job. and a coffee habit. and 2 computers and a cell phone and an electric bill. i’ve got a/c. i’ve got amex, mc, and visa. i’ve got 2 guitars and barely enough talent to warrant owning one. i’ve got books. like, a lot of books. i have 2 nintendo 64 consoles and 2 tvs. i have 4 pairs of jeans, 10 pairs of shoes and at least 2 dozen t-shirts. i’ve got my own energy efficient washer and dryer.
and when i watch this video, which should be uplifting. it should be like, “praise YOUR name. YOU are doing a great work in these kids and in these leaders and in these villages.” but instead, i watch this video, and i have knots. my stomach is in knots. because i know that YOU have what is real and i settle for my real world.
i want more than just ok.
More than fine, more than bent on getting by.
More than fine, more than just ok. -Switchfoot
Dear, dear Corinthians, I can’t tell you how much I long for you to enter this wide-open, spacious life. We didn’t fence you in. The smallness you feel comes from within you. Your lives aren’t small, but you’re living them in a small way. I’m speaking as plainly as I can and with great affection. Open up your lives. Live openly and expansively!
ok. i’ve got fences. i’m sure we all do, but that’s no excuse. the truth is that i’ve got lists of all the things that YOU can’t do, and i ignore the fact that YOU say that all things are possible with YOU. it’s like i took YOUR statement and decided that YOU were lying to make YOUR self look better. i am so so so so wrong.
i was listening to a song on saturday that i haven’t heard since high school. there’s this one part in it where joe from the insyderz says freedom comes from faith in what you believe. so i’ve heard that at least a hundred times, but it didn’t really sink in until i read this plea from paul to the church in corinth to be free. it’s like i’ve believed these things, and some of them are wrong, but even the ones that are true. like on some level i believe that YOU can do all things. i just don’t have faith that YOU’RE going to. i’m not free. i’m fenced. i don’t just want to have faith that YOU saved me. i want to have faith that YOU are saving me. that YOU are still alive. that YOU are able.
In the Messiah, in Christ, God leads us from place to place in one perpetual victory parade. Through us, he brings knowledge of Christ. Everywhere we go, people breathe in the exquisite fragrance. Because of Christ, we give off a sweet scent rising to God, which is recognized by those on the way of salvation—an aroma redolent with life. But those on the way to destruction treat us more like the stench from a rotting corpse.
i live on the sidelines, in my pop-out chair on the sidewalk with an average size gutter separating me from what is happening in life. what kind of parade is this? this parade that i watch so diligently and applaud as it passes me by? this is a victory parade. this is a perpetual victory parade. i sit and watch and breathe it in. i breathe in deep and fill my lungs with the exquisite fragrance. i recognize it. i spectate it.
But i don’t dance. i don’t know the parade route. i have 42 excuses to not be a part of the parade. beyond formal engagements, it is difficult to get out of the chair. i got the shady spot on the sidewalk and it’s easier to watch it. celebrate the victory with a gutter separating me from participation.
but it’s draining to just sit there. i want to be in it. i want to be caught up in it. from place to place. the perpetual victory parade. i need it. i know i do. i can feel it pumping through my veins. i can feel it screaming in my chest. i can feel it in my elbows.
i rest in this: that YOU bring the knowledge of CHRIST. it is through me. through us. but it is YOU that is bringing it. i just have to get in the parade. i just have to dance. get caught up in the perpetual victory parade.
i just about plowed through 1 corinthians in my last 4 or 5 quiet times. there was a ton of good stuff, but this verse stuck out to me. it’s something to live by. it’s to the point. if i could do all 5 of these things for one whole day, i think that would be a pretty good day.
keep your eyes open.
hold tight to your convictions.
give it all you’ve got.
be resolute.
love without stopping.
please give me the mind to remember these things and the strength to do them.
“You have minds like a snake pit! How do you suppose what you say is worth anything when you are so foul-minded? It’s your heart, not the dictionary, that gives meaning to your words. A good person produces good deeds and words season after season. An evil person is a blight on the orchard. Let me tell you something: Every one of these careless words is going to come back to haunt you. There will be a time of Reckoning. Words are powerful; take them seriously. Words can be your salvation. Words can also be your damnation.”
my words. oh man. that cuts to the heart quickly. i thought i could be saved by praying a prayer. oh wait. YOU never said that. so my words matter? not even my intent, or what i want to tell myself my intent was? my heart, not the dictionary gives meaning to my words. so if i substitute a more offensive word for one that is less offensive, but my intent is still to offend, then that’s not ok? i mean, i know it’s not ok, but that’s how i was raised. i need YOU to renew my mind on this one. i am the complaining, critical, gossip. i am more careless with my words than my wit, and that has too change.
honestly, the hardest thing to say right now is this (i know it’s stupid and it shouldn’t be, but if i’m honest, when everyday normal interactions occur, this is what i need to admit): i want to be like YOU more than i want people to think i am funny.
i just re-read the story of joseph in genesis in the message. i am struck with the fact that joseph’s life was awesome. incredible. not boring. he did things. and YOU got all the credit. it was clear that YOUR favor was on joseph. part of me wants that. i want YOUR favor, but when i read about joseph, i have problems with it. i want favor to equal comfort, but it doesn’t, and more than i want that, i want YOU to renew my mind. i want YOU to teach me the truth. i want YOUR favor. YOUR true favor. regardless of the comfort level that may follow.
joseph was thrown in a hole in the ground, dragged out, sold into slavery, falsely accused of attempted rape, found guilty, thrown in prison, used by YOU to interpret dreams, gave you the glory, and still spent 2 more years before that provided him an out, and then he was put in leadership. we don’t do these things. we go to conferences and read books and blogs to be ‘better’ leaders. we want to follow YOU almost as much as we want to be comfortable. i have found my self trusting in chariots and horses (money, walls, self defense, my intelligence, homeland security, good debt, etc.). teach me to trust in YOUR name. remake me, my mind, my will, my heart, my life.
“If you watch your step on the Sabbath and don’t use my holy day for personal advantage, if you treat the Sabbath as a day of joy, God’s holy day as a celebration, if you honor it by refusing ‘business as usual,’ making money, running here and there— then you’ll be free to enjoy God!
YOUR holy day. YOURS. not mine. i was tempted to write a title like my sabbath or my something, but it was wrong. YOU have an agenda with me. and on this day. once a week. it is to rest. to do nothing to further/better/advance my self, or my family, or my business, or my income, or my errands, or my anything… except for my enjoyment of YOU. advance in my celebration of YOU. rest in the joy of YOU. the joy of my salvation which was given to me on no merit of my own effort, no matter how many days a week i worked to earn it. YOU dancing over me. me enjoying YOU.
do i ever slow down enough for this? am i running seven days a week with the tasks and the ladders and the goals and the intersections and the decisions based entirely on my own understanding?
do i trust YOU enough to take a day off from me once a week?
You send scouts to search out the latest in religion, send them all the way to hell and back. You wear yourselves out trying the new and the different, and never see what a waste it all is. You’ve always found strength for the latest fad, never got tired of trying new religions. “Who talked you into the pursuit of this nonsense, leaving me high and dry, forgetting you ever knew me? Because I don’t yell and make a scene, do you think I don’t exist? I’ll go over, detail by detail, all your ‘righteous’ attempts at religion, and expose the absurdity of it all.
how often is that dead on: because YOU don’t yell and make a scene, i get to thinking that YOU don’t exist. that YOU aren’t around. like YOU are limited to a feeling that i get when the worship band is really good. and when i don’t get the feeling, i get all butt hurt like YOU owe me YOUR presence.
what if when i die, when YOU go over, detail by detail, all my ‘righteous’ attempts at religion, what if that is in real time. i always figured that YOU would point out some key moments or something, but i think i’m probably wrong. what if YOU and me just stand there and walk through my life, only this time, i don’t get to act, just give an account for what YOU gave me. what if it’s just as long as life is right now? what if i started to live life like i would have to give an account to you for why i did what i did when i did it, and when i knew in my soul that YOUR HS was calling me to move in a certain direction - that in eternity i will have to stand side by side with YOUR nail scarred hand only inches away from mine, or on my shoulder with YOUR arm around me, and tell you why i did or didn’t do what YOU called me to. when i see the evidence with my eyes, and feel the scars with my hands, when i can see clearly exactly what YOU did for me, will i only then start to see what i should do for YOU? or is it possible in this life to truly take my eyes off of my self, and my wants, and my hurt feelings, and my pouty lip, and my sin, and on to YOU, and YOUR love, and YOUR life, and YOUR movement, and YOUR grace, and YOUR mercy, and YOUR heart, and YOUR infiltration of this world, and YOUR kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven?
i don’t want to be dead before i start taking YOU seriously.
He was looked down on and passed over, a man who suffered, who knew pain firsthand. One look at him and people turned away. We looked down on him, thought he was scum. But the fact is, it was our pains he carried— our disfigurements, all the things wrong with us. We thought he brought it on himself, that God was punishing him for his own failures. But it was our sins that did that to him, that ripped and tore and crushed him—our sins!
i just had this thought. i mean, i’ve read/heard this passage more times than i could remember, but this other stuff connects, and this may be wrong, but just go with me for a second.
so, our sins were why HE suffered, why HE knew pain, why people would turn away, why we looked down on HIM, why we thought HE was scum. it’s our fault and our sins that did that to HIM. now fast forward into the new testament when JESUS tells us that what we do to the least of these, we are doing to HIM.
now track with me here, what if we saw people that were down and out. people that we would look over, turn away from. people that are suffering, that know pain first hand. people that we think they are scum, whether or not we would ever actually say it. what if we treated them as if our sins had done that to them, and we have the chance to serve them instead of over looking them. maybe that would be what HE calls love.
