Renovation

O break, O break, hard heart of mine!
Thy weak self-love and guilty pride
His Pilate and His Judas were:
Jesus, our Lord, is crucified.

-Hymn, O Come and Mourn with Me a While

I believe, help my unbelief!
-Father of a sick child Jesus healed, Mark 9:24


I don’t pick up the Bible as often as I’d like.

Before you roll your eyes at me and suggest that I just calm down about having a spiritual high horse, or say the Bible is hard to understand anyway and is full of contradictions and confusion and controversy, or tell me to get on the quiet time band wagon, let me say that I know all of that. Believe me. I grew up in church, surrounded by activities like Sunday school and Awana and Bible quizzing, attending and serving at apologetics camp. I’ve memorized a lot of Scripture over the years, most of which now I couldn’t repeat word for word now, but its truth remains in my head and heart. I’ve messed up a lot in my life, in relationships and life choices, and just in the daily grind of deciding how to live my little life. I’m usually in some stage of doubting faith, usually about my own ability to practice Christianity, because I typically forget that life in Christ is grace-ridden. But my raggedy faith is my own, won through dark nights of the soul, and I believe in the life, death, resurrection, and message of Jesus wholeheartedly. I have a deep, deep love of Scripture. I don’t think I’ve read it all the way through yet, and there’s lots from the Old Testament that I don’t understand. But love of the Word is foundational to my life and my thinking.

So…why don’t I read it more often now?

A simple question that I’ve shied away from. I think I tell myself that I’m too tired in the morning, and I’ll read it before bed. But if my eyes aren’t drooping too much when I crawl in bed, I tend to reach for the murder mystery on top of my Bible instead. You know. I’ve been practicing this technique of “I’ll read it later” for so long it’s a strong habit to break. And this is something I know is life-giving, a fresh wind in my soul, helps me breathe better, and inspires my creativity and introvert self.

I think the real reason is that life-giving things also tend to be hard things. Things that we can break ourselves on. I know from experience that my walls of pride, independence, anger, and malice will be assailed with the good and hard things of God when I read the Bible. I am afraid my little walls and fortresses and towers will be completely breached. God calls me to put to death the things that are not of Him-the ways of anger and gossip and hatred and storing up bitterness. He calls me to put on the ways of love and forgiveness and compassion for everyone, to forgive as He has forgiven me. Such a beautiful and holy way to live, but so challenging. Life apart from Christ beckons me to an existence of mediocre rules and regulations, of the easy life of selfishness. My heart gets hard so quickly-it freezes tight and squeezes shut. Scripture is my exfoliate, my rock tumbler, my pumice stone, the tide that washes all my stones smooth.

I want to read the Bible more…not because I have to, but because I get to. Because it washes my dusty being, because it restores me, because my hard heart must break wide open for His transformation to begin. I long for soul-deep renovation, and it is to be found in the living words of Scripture, in addition to prayer, to solitude, to community, to service, to practicing belief, to being in nature. Knowing Scripture widens my heart and graces me with compassion for others and fills me with the knowledge of His love.

Treasuring Change

Everybody’s changing, and I don’t feel the same. 

-Keane

But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead. 

-The Apostle Paul, Letter to the Philippians

Last Tuesday, my favorite and I celebrated two whole years of marriage together. It’s hard to imagine that not too long ago, we were planning wedding festivities and future plans together. Now we are in the middle of this astounding marriage between two imperfect but wholly commited people. Two years into this change, I still marvel at God’s grace and joy at blessing me in this way. It is the beautiful making, the growing, of me.

Yet in the midst of joyfully learning and embracing being one in life, I am realizing more and more the need for some silence, for some solitude. The older I get, the more changes I go through, and the more time I need to just think about them. I balk at most of them, to be honest. Through all the large ones and small ones alike-I usually grit my teeth and just try to get through the change. In the past few  years, there have been things like marriage, job changes, health changes, food-allergy changes, and relationship changes, just to name a few.

I was reminded recently during our small group of the life of Mary, the mother of Jesus, in the context of transition. I hadn’t really thought before how much transition and change she went through. She was told she would be the mother of God, then she was called upon to let go of that responsibility in leaps and bounds throughout her life. A missing-for-three-days 12-year old Jesus told her and Joseph that he was merely going about his father’s business...and not Joseph’s business. She was abruptly told that his real mother, his real family were those who did the will of his father in heaven. She was constantly being tugged and pulled upon to change; indeed, she had no other choice but to embrace all these changes for the good of the gospel. She had to step aside and lay down her God-given role as Jesus’ earthly mother, so he could become the Savior of the world, of her world.

How did she do it? I mean, really? The more I think about it, the more amazing her story and life becomes. We are told consistently that she pondered, that she treasured, that she stored up the events and words of these transitions. Was that her secret to not imploding? Not to merely ruminate or notate, but to treasure the change. What does that really mean? What does He want me to treasure, to ponder, to store up in my heart? What does He want me to let go of, in order to make way for positive new things? I am not a gracious changer! Not even with the good things. I burrow deep down in my little life, clench the earth in my tight greedy fingers, clinging to what I know in the shadows. Even when I'm gently called upon by my God to come out into the sunlight and dance. Dance in the new gifts He's given me. Dance throughout the changes. To grow more flexible, to open my closed hands more readily. He wants to shower gifts of freedom, laughter, purpose, meaning, health, strength, grief, joy. My head is usually tucked in, my arms crossed, my eyes closed to the good things of God. One of those very good things is...change. I've always seen change as the mortal enemy. Change takes away the familiar, the usual, the cozy-worn-in-slipper feeling of my life. Changes bring bracing winds, reviving rain through a constant need for decision, a constant need for Jesus. Surely the gift of decision...how will we choose our life's path...how will we handle change thrust upon us...how will we respond to daily joys and sorrows, to pain of all kinds, to life-changing events...is a true joy, a true responsibility.

I'm finally realizing that I can embrace change with joy and courage. My head doesn't have to hang low...I don't just have to grit my teeth and hold on. Even though that is sometimes all I feel I can do! But it seems that somewhere deep inside, I have the guts and the determination and the know-how to change with grace and confidence. We don't just have to love change for the sake of change, either. We don't just have to "treasure" seemingly random change or difficult transition without any reason. The reason is because we are born to change. Changing means growth. I’m realizing that of course, I don't want to stay the same! I do want to grow...and that does mean transition by necessity. Perhaps this is one reason Jesus used the metaphor of the vine and the branch when illustrating the life of a lover of God-because learning to abide means learning to change. The branch grows around and into and takes hold of the vine, the root, the trunk-the source of strength and existence. And it's beautiful and natural and good and hard to change. It takes seasons and time and all kinds of weather for a tree to fully mature. Here's to growing up in hope, faith, and love, looking forward with joy.