God’s mind > than my mind

When I began this blog over a year ago, I had every intention of being very intentional and consistent in my posting. I planned to process the things that came up in my job, my marriage, my church, and my everyday whatevers… Tonight I have been scrolling through my posts (the most recent over 5 months ago) and wondering how to get back in it. How to stir my brain to thoughtfulness and an ability to process coherently and productively again.

My brain. Oh my brain. How feeble, how small, how easily overwhelmed my brain is.

I am a busybody. I like to have jobs to do. I like to be helpful, hardworking, and dependable. I like to push my limits in order to see what I am truly capable of. One consequence of this is a severe and deep rooted exhaustion that sets in every now and then it settles onto me slowly, taking down little parts of me as it goes. Physical shutdown is one thing, but eventually it hits my emotions, my processing speed, and my thoughts… I become crippled in the knowledge that I am unable to complete all that I would want to complete. I become irritated with myself and others for the lack of “doing”, the lack of saying the right things, and the lack of happiness.

The fleshly response is to become bitter, angry, and to shutdown completely (I usually start here). The response when operating under the anointing and call of Christ is to surrender (by the grace of God – I have learned to end here). Surrender the irritation and give way to peace. Surrender the commitment to self and the world in order to commit fully to Christ, His kingdom, His work. Commit to not knowing everything but knowing who God is, and realizing that He is everything.

“The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct them? But we have the mind of Christ.” 1 Corinthians 2:14-16

It is necessary to be reminded how weak our brains our. It is necessary to fall back on having the mind of Christ. His mind is immeasurably more significant, powerful, and capable than anything we could hope or dream to do with our own. Yes, He created us. Yes, He made our brains to process and to work – he delights in what we think and learn… BUT the mind of Christ still surpasses the mind of flesh.

What a beautiful understanding this has been to me today as I reached the point of total shutdown. When my desire is to have his mind and to operate in it, he will grant it to me. When my desires align with his own, my exhaustion can be dealt with and mended. When my flesh gives way to his power, my broken thinking can be fixed and cleared.

Here’s the most beautiful thing – His mind is not fleeting. It does not move, sleep, or change. It is constant and present even when we forget about it. Like the sunrise peeking through the hazy morning, we can stumble our way back and rest in His mind. It is beautiful. Embrace it.

No Offense

If you know me at all, you know that I have strong opinions and I generally am able to state them pretty boldly. With that said, this post is specifically written with my own habits and tendencies in mind, but I hope it will engage and stir up thoughts in anyone else who reads it as well.

I began reading “The Screwtape Letters” by C.S. Lewis recently and I was immediately struck by its relevancy in our current world. Screwtape is a demon guiding his nephew Wormwood, another demon, in the controlling of a human being’s life. Though the stories are not technically historical, they are still very common. As a Christian I can see the work of this kind of demonic force in every day situations. I do not claim to know whether demons are each assigned a person to control or not, but I do know that the demonic is real – the bible is perfectly clear on that. One way it affects and manipulates everyone (especially within Christian circles) is through offense.

Here is a section from “The Screwtape Letters” that speaks into this, and inspired this post. “In civilized life domestic hatred usually expresses itself by saying things which would appear quite harmless on paper (the words are not offensive) but in such a voice, or at such a moment, that they are not far short of a blow in the face. To keep this game up you and Glubose must see to it that each of these two fools has a sort of double standard. Your patient must demand that all his own utterances are to be taken at their face value and judged simply on the actual words, while at the same time judging the other’s utterances with the fullest and most oversensitive interpretation of the tone and context and the suspected intention… Hence from every quarrel they can both go away convinced that they are quite innocent. Once this habit is well established you have the delightful situation of a human saying things with the express purpose of offending and yet having a grievance when offence is taken.”

Okay, this is a long quote and out of context it may appear confusing. Basically Screwtape is telling his nephew how humans tend to react in relationships with each other. He is absolutely correct. I read this passage and was blown away by how often I do this (sometimes completely unintentionally…. but not always). It is so easy to expect others to receive my opinions with grace and an open mind, but I don’t have the same expectation of myself.

This kind of “please don’t take offense while I say extremely offensive things” battle happens all the time on the liberal University campus I attend. You can see it very practically on a political level. The smart political minded students have strong, well practiced arguments that they expect the “other” side to receive with grace, while they intend on ripping to shreds everything said by the opposing force. This does not occur on only one side. It isn’t about good people and bad people. It’s about people. We have a very hard time stepping out of our deeply emotional selves to see the impact of our words on other people.

As I write this, I am torn trying to find a good way of stressing the importance of believing in something fully and sticking to that without wavering while still being humble and gracious in conversations with opposing views.  There are important issues that need to be addressed on many levels with many views – but nothing positive occurs when offense is the first reaction or the main intention.

Again, I feel I need to make it clear that I am writing this as a bible believing Christian. Based on my religious beliefs (which completely drive the details of my life) I have experienced the “no offense” battle on both sides. Even within the body of believers I have found myself stating my opinion on a person’s actions and expecting them to react with an non-offended and simple understanding of my “best intentions”. I have also been faced with statements about Christians as a whole that have been offensive beyond measure that I am expected to receive without offense and with the simple understanding of their “best intentions”.

I believe in right and wrong. In most conflicts there is a clear right and a clear wrong – but that doesn’t mean one side has everything right and the other has everything wrong. I would tend to say that in relationships especially, each side has its share of right positions and wrong positions on each issue. If we understood this and were able to separate ourselves from the pieces we believe to be right, perhaps the pieces we are missing would become more apparent.

So.. Where to go from here? For myself, I need to accept the the non-necessity of “being right” in every conversation. As Christ followers especially, we need to understand that our being right holds no sway over eternity or the judgement of any person. God has the power and dominion and authority to be right in all things – but that is the only claim we can (and certainly should) make. Perhaps this realization is not at all as profound as I think it is, but I find it freeing to have a better grasp on both being offensive and being offended.

“For you were called to freedom, brothers. Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another.” Galatians 5:13-15

We have the blessing and gift of freedom. Free speech, free beliefs, free living… Let’s use that freedom properly. Believe things strongly, but educate yourself on the other side with grace (in the end it will actually aid your own argument). State your opinions, but do not be surprised, or offended, when others state theirs as well.

Just learning and growing through the grace of God.

Learning Curve

Looking back on my life I can pinpoint several significant changes that required huge adjustment and helped me to learn important things about who I am. At age 12 my family moved from California to Minnesota. At age 15 one of my best friends moved hundreds of miles away. At age 17 I graduated and prepare to move to Morris for college. Most recently at age 20, I got married to an incredible man.

That week before the wedding was full of laughter, excitement, anticipation, and the gathering of many people we love and cherish. 5 + years of relationship had built up to that day, August 4th 2012. Gabe and I were surrounded by incredible family and friends as we said our vows and became Mr & Mrs.

The intention of a wedding is to commit yourself to your significant other for life. To promise in front of friends and family that you will love and cherish this person to the very end. But most important for Gabe and I it was/is to represent the relationship between Christ and his church. For this reason, our wedding held meaning far deeper than the surface beauty of a gorgeous white gown, lovely yellow flowers, and delicious cake. 1 John 4:7-10 held the key to what we were choosing to do and display that day. “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins…”

Over the last year it has been a journey for sure, and I can’t think of a better description than calling it a learning curve. I have learned (sometimes quickly, sometimes very slowly) how to be a wife to my best friend. I have found out that my angry can be very ugly. My sad can be very crippling. My joy can be completely all encompassing. And that my love for Gabe and his love for me is the most solid thing in this world and a gift that can only be explained  by the grace and love of God.

I have been given the privilege of loving a man who is kind, humble, gracious, and most importantly seeking after God’s own heart. I am so grateful for everything that led up to our wedding day. It truly was a beautiful and one of a kind day. We experienced the love of God so greatly in the little things our friends and family did the weeks leading up to the wedding. But honestly, I am just as thankful for every day afterwards. 362 days I have had so far to get to grow, change, and learn with my husband. I can’t even begin to fathom what this next year will hold, and I can’t wait.

Photos by http://emmazingphotography.com/