Change and Spring 2013.

If I don't write it's a pretty easy tell that I'm not dealing with something I should be. That's the scary thing about writing...it's honest. It can't lie. Honest comes out, and if you don't want that...you can't write.

 Last semester was not my favorite. Since May was not my favorite. Since starting college, God has touched my finances and pruned me there. Then my friends. And last summer/fall it was my community and ministry.

I finally opened up to my lifegroup about it about 5 months late. I watched something I had invested in and given my whole heart to for a year fall a part in one week. And then I watched my closest community fall a part with it. I watched my friends struggle with the loss and how to trust God if they "tried to be all in and this is what it came too." I watched them settle. I watched them compromise. And you can only do life so closely with people like that until it affects you too. And it did. And I was wrestling with it all too. The best way I can describe last summer was the explosion of what I clung too and the fall felt like a pruned stub of a tree. I had watched the Lord cut off every branch I had been able to produce, all that I felt I had to offer. I felt it, the loss of my branches. And there I sat, a pathetic, cut back version of a tree, not able to produce anything on my own, and only aware that everything I thought I had to offer and produce, everything I poured my life into, was cut off by the Farmer. And I felt every fiber of my pathetic stumpness and was staring at all the branches I was so attached too on the ground, waiting for the burn pile. And with that situation comes the choice....trust the Farmer, choose His way. Or be pathetic and apathetic.

I spent the last 6 months just trying to make it. I wanted to want what He was doing. I wanted to trust His pruning, to choose His ways, to surrender. But I honestly, all I wanted were my branches back. I wanted my best friends who knew me so well and loved me so well. I wanted my ministry that felt like I was investing my life in things that mattered and living differently than the american dream that threatens to steal my heart and waste my life. I wanted my community that spurred me on who I could chase after the Lord with. In it's place was continual compromise in the name of wrestling, excuses instead of chasing after Jesus, going through motions, surviving instead of living, drunken fistfights, disrespect, and no regard for the Lord's reputation and how we were trashing it. I read back to some of the exchanges we all had this time last year and it wrecks me.

The part that hits the most is the recognition this wasn't the Lord's allowing, it was His orchestrating. He orchestrated the failure. And it touched each of us and wrecked each of us. It brought exposure to parts that were covered up and it dealt with us. Now do we pick the Person of Jesus and surrender to His dealing...or do we pick the let down and hurt over wrecked plans and hope placed in His things/our things instead of Him?

The roads diverged. And the scary truth I've watched materialize is the fact that not choosing Life is choosing death by default. And that subtle, little compromises are the most effective way to a changed life.

It's six months later. And all of us sit in vastly different places than we ever thought we'd be this time last year. And my heart hurts.

And I struggled with surrender to THIS. To THIS road. THIS plan. THIS pruning. And I made mistakes of my own. And I lived not fully surrendered for months. And I hurt and was hurt worse than ever before. I didn't sleep for about three months and lost weight because of it. I was so close to being so far away. But you know what? He kept me. And I am humbled and thankful.

And then He started breathing life back into me. And He took me to Israel. For two weeks I got away from all of it. From the disappointment and the changed friends and the hurt and the angry ex and the compromise. And He showed me His heart again. He told me His stories where they happened and shared His unchangingness and intentions that are the same through all of it. And He gave me two beautiful high school girls to pour into. He gave me two weeks of fellowship with hometown friends who are AFTER Him and His heart and ways. And in all of that He ripped the veil off in a lot of ways. And He showed me Himself, His person, His heart. And I am alive again. And there is a fight back in my veins. That trip changed things. It changed me.

And now I'm back. And the diet change and return to this diet and life reveals things I had grown numb too. Again, the road diverges. And there is a choice....Him or the world. Him or a watered down version of Christianity that lets me claim Him and still have my way, things, friends, plans. No.

It all tastes bad in my mouth. And I can feel His repulsion. I can sense His hurt and fury over what we have allowed. I can see the fire in His eyes at the stolen affections of those who claim Him. I can see places where we compromise, publicly, and trash His name, glory, and reputation without batting an eye. Unaware that it's even concerned. And unconcerned when we are aware.

Sweet time with a friend this morning praying. The choice is before me. On Mt. Carmel the question stood, how long will you falter between two gods? In wilderness the call was to trust Him and His promised deliverance against the giants in the good land. In the valley of Elah it was His reputation trashed and people choosing safety and fear over the Lord's strength and call to fight the Philistines. The call is to guard the temple...the place God meets with His people. To fight for it above all else. To value it unto death. To keep it holy. The heart is to save His people, to bring them into something better, His purposes, His salvation, His glory. Haggai comes to mind....build His house, or focus on mine while His lies in ruins? In chapter 1 it talks about going up to gather wood so that we can come back and build His house.

It's time. I have one semester left here. I spent the last two weeks gathering wood. I spent the last six building my house and painting His names on every wall, concerning myself with my things. But it's not about me. And I want to be Elijah, and David, Joshua & Caleb, Deborah, and the disciples who let go of all and followed Him. It's not just a believing He is true. It's a letting go. A rejecting of the world. A cost. It's not just believing, its standing for Him and fighting for Him and His things. It's being holy. Protecting His temple, in us, where He meets with us, and being more concerned about that fellowship than we are about our friends, finances, job, reputation, or security.

And that living doesn't come cheap. And it costs.

Jim Elliot's prayer makes a lot more sense this morning. Father make me a man of crisis, that those who encounter me, encounter Christ in me and the road forks and they must choose, You or the world.

To wrap this up...I have nothing. If the last six months taught me anything it's that I am completely unimpressed with myself. Completely aware of how close I am to giant moral failure and life changing compromise. I am no better. I am so close to being so far away. But I take hope in what He showed me at the Sea of Galilee on the rocks by the shore of Capernaum where He called the first two disciples. His call was to let go and come and HE WILL make disciples. So I let go. And I come. And I trust Him to make. And I hit my knees and pray for Him to make and change and grow and build, that He would do a work in me and that I would steward well here. The minas He has placed in my ownership currently. That I would build HIS house. That I would stand and fight for Him and His temple and reputation uncompromisingly in the land He has placed me in now...in the realms of influence I touch...school, roommates, friends, work. I have little to give, and it's unconcerning because He has much to offer. I have a great need for my God and a great God for my need.

Christ in me, the hope of glory. For me to live is Christ.

Spring 2013 semester is going to be rich.