Adventures of a Sell-Out

This year's Christmas was low key, quiet and incredible. The time that I got to spend with my family was warm, and joyful, and fun! We didn't give any grand, extraordinary gifts that cost a lot of money. Everything was thought out and precious. It truly was a beautiful Christmas. But I think my favorite gift that I got this year, is what God showed me out in the wilderness.

You see, every year me and my best friend go out Christmas night and do something (usually something crazy). This year we decided to drive all the way out to the observatory and look at the stars. It was dark, creepy, windy, and COLD. We bundled up, and climbed up the big hill, coffee and sleeping bags in tow. At first, I was miserable. It was windy and freezing. But then we got to our destination: a circle made out of rocks stacked on top of one another, about two feet high. When I sat down in the circle all of a sudden the wind was gone, but I could hear it rushing, and roaring all around me. It was amazing! And then I looked up. The sky was perfectly clear and we could see the milky way stretching from horizon to horizon. There were so many stars that we couldn't even find the big dipper until I whipped out google sky on my phone! It was truly breath-taking.

There are a few different things that I learned as we were lying out under this blanket of lights. The first was a really cool analogy about light. We noticed that Venus was shining brighter than any of the stars, and we thought it was crazy because Venus is the only one we could see that doesn't create it's own light. It made me wonder, do we shine brighter when we reflect the light of the sun/son than when we are trying to create our own light? Just something to think about...

But the most profound thing that I realized, this Christmas, is just how crazy the Christmas story really is. The God who created all of those stars, uncountable, came to this earth as baby. The maker of the skies was humble enough to become helpless and completely reliant on a people he knew failed over and over again. And throughout his life on this earth, knowing exactly where he was heading, he remembered. I can just imagine him lying on his back in the garden of Gethsamane, looking up at a brilliant sky and remembering creating those stars; recalling giving them each a name. Incredible. Each person he met, he created. I wonder if his thoughts ever went back to the moment he created someone has he rebuked them, or healed them, or brought them back from the dead. It's so crazy to think about.

And then my mind goes to the cross. Did Christ remember creating the soldier who pounded the nails into his flesh? Did he consciously will the soldier to keep breathing as he lifted the hammer? And when the nail sunk into his wrist, did he flashback to designing the medial nerve, and how it would be capable of such intense sensations? Did he think of how flawlessly his design proved to work as the pain became unbearable? I cannot even fathom.

This is what he did for me. He is the best present ever. It makes me wonder how I can possible question if he will be true to his promises, or if he will come, when he already came. I don't want to just remember this, or even merely celebrate it. I want to learn to live every day as if I believe that it's true. Because I do. With all of my heart.

"One thing have I asked of the Lord, that I will seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the glory of the Lord, and to inquire in His temple... My heart saith unto thee, since thou hast said, Seek ye my face, Thy face, Lord will I seek... I should despair, unless I believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; be strong and let thine heart take courage; yea, wait thou for the Lord."

Yep.

I.

Fail.

At.

Blogging.

It's only been forever and a half since I blogged last, and I will certainly not attempt to fill you in on the whole story since then. But lately my heart has been seeking for a venue of release. I do journal a lot, but there's definitely something to sharing your heart in a tangible way, where other people can experience it with you. And so... I will blog. God is working in my heart in ways that are absolutely blowing my mind, and I cannot wait to testify to His incredible grace and glory on paper (or on screen, if you will). So here it is, the heart of Me.

I believe with everything in me that God meets us just where we are at and speaks to us through our hearts deepest cries, joys, and hopes. So when God is speaking to me, He is often speaking directly to the things that are weighing the most prevalent on my heart. Most of the time, I don't even recognize my hearts' cry until the Lord reveals it to me, speaking to me about just that. So when I am lost and confused, I ask myself, "What is God speaking to me about?"

Well... He hasn't been. Not in the 'Lord, why have you forsaken me?' way... But in a much more beautiful and profound way. The last few days my quiet times have been just that. Quiet. Silent. I have been retreating into the presence of the Lord to find stillness, peacefulness, and rest, in the midst of forlorn confusion. My heart cries out in anguish, and the Lord responds with silence.

It brings me to remember Gomer, the prostitute wife of Hosea. The Lord says in a beautiful heart cry that he will allure her and lead her into the wilderness to speak tenderly to her. He promises to betroth her to himself with righteousness and justice, in love and compassion. What a beautiful romance. The Lord is crying out to Jerusalem to follow Him out into the wilderness, into the silence, so that He can speak tenderly to them. His heart is to restore her broken life and fill her with peace and rest. This has been my very experience this week. The world is screaming at me around every corner to be afraid, and be so ashamed. But when I look to Christ in the quiet place I find just the opposite. I am immediately embraced with healing, restoration, and love.

It's such a beautiful thing. Suddenly all of the creation around me becomes so much more. Today I was sitting in Pioneer park and the beauty around me captivated me. It seemed as if every blade of grass was pouring out its very essence to display the righteous glory of Christ. I sat on a rock by the river and it seemed as if the love streaming through me was like this river, placed exactly where it is to reveal God's breathtaking beauty and glory.

I realized today that God cannot create anything outside of His character. He can only create with what he possesses. Therefore, everything in creation reveals to us a piece of the character of God. And yet, it's so easy to pass by a green field, or a simple flower, or a tree and pass it off as ordinary. But if you really look at it for what it is (and intricate creation that bears a part of the character of God and reveals to us His beauty and cries out His praise) it becomes much more than ordinary. It becomes much more than extraordinary, even. Think about it! Creation will cry out His name if you don't! Wow.

Now take this image of beauty and think about something even more wholly beautiful. Even more captivating and breath-taking. The source of all things beautiful and all things good. This blows me away. God's incredible beauty and glory, is revealed in what he created! But this also leads me to a question that very heavily burdens my heart. If the blades of grass, and rushing water, and a shining star, can reveal God's glory in such awe-inspiring ways, how can I so pridefully fall so short of the glory of God every day of my life? Every second of this life has been given to me to reveal His glory, beauty, and the rest of His character to the world. That's the very reason that I will even take my next breath. But I fail every day. My character does not match up with His, and my words certainly do not continually cry out in praise to my Creator. And it breaks my heart. God has this incredible plan for me to share in His glory (2 Corinthians 3:12-18)and I daily fall so desperately short.

"This righteousness in God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God," (Romans 3:22-23)

Wow. The reality of how much I fall short has been right there in scripture, all my life. I have heard this verse thousands of times, and I am just now realizing the gravity of what it means. We were created to reveal God's glory on this world, but every single one of us has fallen so desperately short of this. Except one. And because of this One, there is a statement of hope attached to our downfall from glory:

"...for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus." (Romans 3:23-24)

Bigger wow. We live in a depraved world, and yet, because of of God's grace through Christ Jesus, we are freely justified to once again share in His glory. Wow. I just can't stop saying wow. WOW!

I have frequently heard the phrase 'the beauty of the cross'. Now I get it. Because of the cross, we can once again, freely display God's beauty as His creation. Anything beautiful that we have or any beauty that is within us, has been extended to us by grace, from the beauty of the cross.

Being raised in the church has always made it a challenge to get a fresh picture of the cross. It's so burned into my head as a Sunday School friendly story that I have a hard time coming to terms with the reality of just what it is that Christ did for us. But this last week when I began to recognize my depravity, I became hungry to grasp it, desperate to understand the bittersweet, breath-taking beauty that is the cross. Then God showed me a new picture of it. Joni Eareckson Tada and Steven Estes recount the story in their book "When God Weeps". I encourage you to read the book but for now I will share with you a passage that painfully recounts the core of the beauty of the cross.



The face that Moses had begged to see--was forbidden to see--was slapped bloody (Exodus 33:19-20). The thorns that God had sent to curse the earth's rebellion now twisted around His own brow...

"On your back with you!" One raises a mallet to sink in the spike. But the soldiers heart must continue pumping as he readies the prisoner's wrist. Someone must sustain the soldier's life minute by minute, for no man has this power on his own. Who supplies breath to his lungs? Who gives energy to his cells? Who holds his molecules together? Only by the Son do 'all things hold together' (Colossians 1:17). The victim wills that the soldier live on--He grants the warrior's continued existence. The man swings.

As the man swings, the Son recalls how He and His Father first designed the medial nerve of the human forearm--the sensations it would be capable of. The design proves flawless--The nerves perform exquisitely. "Up you go!" They lift the cross. God is on display in His underwear and can scarcely breathe.

But these pains are a mere warm-up to His other and growing dread, He begins to feel a foreign sensation. Somewhere during this day an unearthly foul odor began to waft, not around His nose, but around His heart. He feels dirty. Human wickedness starts to crawl upon His spotless being--the living excrement from our souls. The apple of His Father's eye turns brown with rot.

His Father! He must face His Father like this!

From heaven, the Father now rouses Himself like a lion disturbed, shakes His mane, and roars against the shriveling remnant of a man hanging on the cross. Never has the Son seen the Father look at Him so, never felt even the least of His hot breath. But the roar shakes the unseen world and darkens the visible sky. The Son does not recognize these eyes.

"Son of Man! Why have you behaved so? You have cheated, lusted, stolen, gossiped--murdered, envied, hated, lied. You have cursed, robbed, overspent, overeaten--fornicated, disobeyed, embezzled, and blasphemed. Oh, the duties you have shirked, the children you have abandoned! Who has ever so ignored the poor, so played the coward, so belittled my name? Have you ever held your razor tongue? What a self-righteous, pitiful drunk--you, who molest young boys, peddle killer dogs, travel in cliques, and mock your parents. Who gave you the boldness to rig elections, foment revolutions, torture animals, and worship demons? Does the list never end! Splitting families, raping virgins, acting smugly, playing the pimp--buying politicians, practicing exhortation, filming pornography, accepting bribes. You have burned down buildings, perfected terrorist tactics, founded false religions, traded in slaves--relishing each morsel and bragging about it all. I hate, loathe these things in you! Disgust for everything about you consumes me! Can you not feel my wrath?"

Of course the Son is innocent. He is blamelessness itself. The Father knows this. But the divine pair have an agreement, and the unthinkable must now take place. Jesus will be treated as if personally responsible for every sin ever committed.

The Father watches as His heart's treasure, the mirror image of Himself, sinks drowning into raw, liquid sin. Jehovah's stored rage against humankind from every century explodes in a single direction.

"Father! Father! Why have you forsaken me?"

But heaven stops its ears. The Son stares up at the One who cannot, who will not, reach down or reply.

The Trinity had planned it. The Son endured it. The Spirit enabled Him. The Father rejected the Son whom He loved. Jesus, the God-man from Nazareth, perished. The Father accepted His sacrifice for sin and was satisfied. The rescue was accomplished."



Get it?

All of His beauty and glory and holiness was stripped away and replaced with all of our inherent wickedness, evil and sin. All so that we might be able to share in His glory and beauty. The beauty of the cross.

This overwhelms me so much. I do not understand it and I very much doubt that I, or anyone else will ever fully grasp what Christ did on the cross until we reach eternity and are seated next to Him in the midst of the glory and beauty that He so loving and painfully gave up for us. For you. For me. Again I say, wow.

All I know is that I want to be a woman of the beauty of the cross. A woman who is keenly aware that anything beautiful in me is extended to me by the cross, and I am nothing apart from the cross. I desire to count all my gains as loss, and live my life to learn the beauty of Christ, to share in His glory, and to display it to the world, proclaiming His praise with each breath that I take.

"And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord's glory, are being transformed into His likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit." ~2 Corinthians 3:18