hitting the wall

I hit a wall this week. I decided that I just did not want to do it anymore. I didn’t want to go to the prayer room. I didn’t want to go to class. And yet there was nothing else to do. We were participating in a three day fast that the whole missions base participates in during the first Monday through Wednesday of each month. This time around, Russell and I were fasting our time meaning that we had turned off our computers and the television for three days and that besides eating, working out, and class, we were going to try to spend as much time in prayer as we could. I failed miserably. My passion was at the level 0. I wanted to turn on my computer and just waste time like I can so easily do... and yet I couldn’t. I wanted to go shopping and yet I couldn’t because we are broke. I wanted to go hang out with friends and yet I couldn’t because to be honest, we just don’t have many friends yet and the ones that we do were fasting, too. I wanted to go do something outdoors and I couldn’t because we live in Kansas City and there is nothing good to do in Kansas City. I wanted to eat something really good and yet I couldn’t because we had run out of groceries and couldn’t buy more until the following week. I wanted to do something... anything... and there was absolutely nothing to do.

I realized that I was staring my barrenness directly in the face. And I hated it. Being here in Kansas City, I am learning (slowly) what it means to starve my flesh. The comfort that I have grown so accustomed to for the past 23 years of my life has suddenly been stripped away. You see, it is not like any of the things that I wanted to do were inherently bad. They were all good things... and that is the problem. I have filled my life with so many good things that my appetite for the best thing has been dulled. And now, as a result, I find myself with little access to the good things and a lack of desire for the best thing.

For the first time since I have been here, I had to ask myself “Do I really believe that this is worth my time? Do I really believe that ministering to the Lord is the best thing that I can be doing in this season of my life?” And just like the father whose son Jesus healed, I find myself saying, “I do believe.... but Lord, please help me in my unbelief.”

the weight of glory

These last two weeks have been characterized by a weightiness that I have seldom experienced before. It is a heaviness that burdens me and yet it is one that I do not wish to pray away. For it is a weight of sobriety, a weight of reality, and a weight that I do not want to continue to live without. “It’s the weight of glory”, a dear friend chimed in as I was trying to explain it to her. Up until that point, I had no words to articulate it but as soon as she said it, the words resonated deep within me. I was feeling the weight of God’s glory. Without wanting to sound too abstract, let me explain some of what I mean by this.

For the past two weeks, my heart has been constantly stirred. Through a talk, a scripture, or through prayer, I find myself gripped, firmly anchored in my chair, unable and unwilling to get up, to move, or to leave the moment. I find myself seeing just a glimpse of the glory of God and it leaves me speechless. By glory, I mean the “god-ness” of God, that which makes Him God and everybody else not God, that which causes me to revere Him and to fear Him and to want to run and hide knowing that I have been living a life far less worthy than He deserves. I have seen just a glimpse and it leaves me broken and paralyzed in my response. I mourn my insufficient and inadequate response. I long to kneel down, face to the ground, and kiss His feet, but His feet are not there..

CS Lewis, in a famous sermon of his, described the weight of glory like this: “To please God... to be loved by God, not merely pitied, but delighted in as an artist delights in his work or a father in a son—it seems impossible, a weight or burden of glory which our thoughts can hardly sustain. But so it is.”

I long for my response to be whole-hearted surrender and yet as quickly as I find myself overwhelmed by God, I find myself distracted, snapping at Russell, short-tempered and irritated... another paradox, it seems. The moments of intensity followed by the most carnal moments of all have taken their toll on me these past few weeks. My body is exhausted and yet I long to enter back into the presence of God, back to where I am starting to feel more alive than I ever have before.

"that i may thirst"

God pierced my heart very early in life with the firm realization that "there has to be more" to life than what I was living. Even when circumstances were lining themselves up perfectly, I would still think to myself in the quietest of moments, “this can’t be all that there is”. I can honestly say that this realization has led me to moments (some instantaneous and some lingering) of the greatest satisfaction and fulfillment. I can also honestly say that it has led me to some of the darkest areas of sin in my life. At certain times, it has allowed me to become and feel so alive and at other times, it has brought me to a place of death. Merely knowing that “there has to be more” has become the greatest paradox in my life. I will tell you why.

You know the moments that I am talking about... the moments where you find yourself in an enormous crowd of people and yet you feel so utterly alone, the moments when you accomplished what you never thought that you would accomplish and yet it still doesn’t seem like enough. There are the moments when you peel back the layers of lies and deception that society has constructed and you peer into reality as it is and you realize that there is a meaning to life that is far deeper than what the world has told you. At these moments, I find myself convinced that there is more.

At that point, however, I set out to find, to grasp, to behold, and to seize “more”. When I have that resolve, I inevitably wind up at a crossroads. There are times when I press into what is eternal and I go after it with a longing and desperation in my heart and just touching the hem of His garment makes me come alive. There are also the times when the resolve is there, and yet the hem of His garment is nowhere to be seen and the hunger inside of me is screaming out and with nothing to latch onto, I fall. And at times, I fall hard, grabbing onto everything and anything in my vision.

Augustine once said that God puts salt on our tongues that we may thirst for Him. I believe that the gift of thirst is one of the greatest gifts that we can be given on this Earth. For my biggest fear is to become complacent in life. However, the gift of thirst is rarely given by itself. As Augustine said, thirst comes after salt is placed on our tongues. That salt, through whatever form it may come, is not something that we have to ask for. It is inevitable in this lifetime. The challenge, however, is whether or not we will embrace or reject that thirst. In addition to that, if we do embrace the thirst, the challenge is in where we will turn.

This week has been a week full of salt. I have snapped at Russell far too many times. I have been easily irritated and frustrated. I have been having “nightmares” seemingly every night. I have found myself to be weak in the face of temptation. Yet ironically enough, this week is the first week that I have been here that I am starting to feel a hunger arise from within me and a subtle desperation to be in that prayer room and to sit before my God. And for that, I am deeply grateful.

posture

I have been thinking a lot about the idea of posture for the last few weeks. I am learning that I cannot control when God pours out or when He gives revelation. I cannot control when I “connect” to the Lord or when I feel His emotions. I cannot manipulate my experiences. I cannot muster up passion or fervor. I cannot control God, but I can posture myself so that when He does pour out, I will be ready. I can position myself before Him waiting (expectantly) and hoping (actively) for a revelation, for a prayer that is on His heart, or for a move of His hand. I can fast and therefore assume the posture of voluntary weakness, not to earn favor, but to develop a spiritual hunger and thirst within me. I can immerse myself in the Scriptures and pray the prayers that Jesus prayed- “that the love [God] has for me may be in them...” (John 17:24). Jesus prayed that we would be able to love Him to the extent that His own Father loves Him. Now that is amazing.

And then when God does bring revelation, it blows me away. I was starting to pray through the apostolic prayer that Paul prayed for the church in Ephesus and I barely got through the first few words when God started revealing truth to me. “I pray that out of his glorious riches....” That was all that it took. Just the words “glorious riches” captivated me and I started meditating on those two words. I started thinking about the riches of God, about how He can open up the floodgates of Heaven and how we would not even have room for it (Malachi 3). I started thinking about how every good gift is from Him, about the fullness of His love and power and knowledge, about how He can provide financially in miraculous ways... Just that first little clause had my mind reeling and my heart beating faster.

When God pours out His emotions, it is just as overwhelming. Russell was telling me about his time in the prayer room yesterday and about how he started to feel the emotions of God towards the nation of Israel. People were praying for Israel on the microphone from up front and as Russell started to read through Isaiah 30, he started to cry as He felt just a glimpse of the love and jealousy of God towards His people. Although he had read through the passage many times before, it wasn’t until yesterday that God allowed him to feel some of what He feels and the result was overwhelming.

We cannot make these things happen. But we can posture ourselves so that when they do happen, we will be able to linger there. We can ask God for the new wineskins so that when the new wine is poured out, the old wineskins will not burst (Matthew 9). Just today in class, a wave of frustration came over me as I thought to myself, “Why have I been a Christian for eight years and have barely heard Jesus talked about like this?” Allen Hood was teaching about Jesus’ relentless pursuit of us. He was painting a picture of who God really is, not who we think that He is. Apathy and spiritual boredom, which are far too prominent in the Church today, result from a lack of knowledge of who God really is. Anemic prayers result from a lack of knowledge of what God longs to and is able to do. At the same time, religious striving and legalism result from a lack of knowledge of the character and kindness of God. I am convinced of this. And yet I am guilty of them all!

just another religion class

After four years of classes in the Religious Studies Department at the University of Virginia, I found myself preparing for yet another Religion Class. This time around, the class was going to be taught by Allen Hood, the president of the Forerunner School of Ministry, here at the International House of Prayer. It was going to be a nine-day intensive study on the Excellencies of Christ. I was ready. Or so I thought.

On the third day of class, Allen started talking about the importance of fixing our eyes on Christ. “Whatever your eyes see and are fascinated by, your heart will follow”, he stated. He taught that the enemy’s plan is to dull our eyes, to dull the very faculties that God created to behold Him because by beholding Him, we become like Him. He talked about the increasing temptation in this generation to give our eyes to perversion, to lust, even to jealousy and bitterness. He led us in a time of repentance for our sin and for the sins of our generation. He invited people to rise who wanted to make a commitment to the Lord to gaze upon Him for all the days of their lives, just like David did. The majority of the 300 students rose to their feet. Many opened their palms and held their hands up at their side. A few started to weep. Many started to pray under their breaths, uttering promises to the Lord, confessing and repenting from their sin. Allen Hood began to pray on the microphone yet as he was praying, he instructed us to pray for ourselves as he was going to be praying for himself. We didn’t need one more person to pray for us, he said. We needed to do business with God.

Already, the morning was starting to feel less like a class and more like a church service. Releasing himself from the pressure that most professors live under, Allen seemed to let go of his control and authority over the class and he invited and allowed the Holy Spirit to come and minister to us. This wasn’t just for the five minutes at the end of the class. This wasn’t the ritual thirty second prayer at the beginning of a talk. This was just one hour into a three hour class and the president of the ministry school was sitting down on the stage, fully aware that if the goal of the class was to learn about Jesus, God could surely do a far better job than he could.

Just thirty minutes later, spontaneous choruses started to emerge throughout the room. Voices resounded while singing “O God let us be a generation that seeks, that seeks your face, O God of Jacob”. No instruments were needed. No worship team was on the stage. Songs were arising from within souls. A few courageous individuals, from where they were standing, quoted scripture or spoke a word that they sensed God was saying to them. One young man on the front row started to visibly tremble and then belted out an invitation from the Lord. “My chariot is coming” he said, “and I am looking for laid-down lovers who will follow me into battle”. He went on for a minute and as soon as he closed his mouth, the trembling instantly stopped, he fell forward, and he laid there, prostrate on the ground. Shortly after this, sounds of laughter erupted from the back left corner of the room. Dozens of people were caught up in this laughter. Others just started to laugh at those who were laughing because to be honest, it was pretty hilarious. Those who were laughing didn’t look like the ones who would be prone to laughing in a setting like this. It seemed as if the laughing had just come over them like a spirit. In the back right corner, a young girl was pacing back and forth speaking in a language that I could not understand. I realized that many around me were speaking in similar languages, speaking in tongues as the Bible says.

Throughout this whole time, I was astonished that Allen was sitting down, participating in but not leading what was happening. For close to two hours, the class was being led and yet there was no leader. Without a doubt in my mind, it was being led by the Holy Spirit. Colossians 3:16 says this: “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God”. At the end of the class, the overarching emotion was one of gratitude. “You are a good God!” someone shouted out. “We love you, Jesus!” echoed another.

“Rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents from sending calamity. Who knows? He may turn and have pity and leave behind a blessing—grain offerings and drink offerings for the Lord your God.” Joel 2:13-14

This morning was a picture of what Joel taught. As the students in the class confessed their sin, repented and turned from their former ways, and vowed that they would fix their eyes on Him and Him alone, God came and left behind a blessing of gratitude, joy, and awe in our hearts.

Throughout all of this, I was shocked by my reaction to the entire morning. More than shocked, I was disgusted by my reaction. After four years of being given the right to come to my own conclusions about religion and about God within the university setting, I find myself reaping the consequences of an intellectual spirit and pride. I find myself finally starting to realize that I can know nothing about God unless God reveals it to me. He is infinite. His is boundless. He is eternal. Who am I to use my human mind to try to understand God? Who am I to question how the Holy Spirit moves? Who am I to judge this seemingly charismatic environment just because I happened to come to know the Lord through an evangelical outreach? This morning, I realized what a tragedy it was for me to go through four years of college and allow my heart to become dull just for the sake of allowing my mind to be enlarged. The result is horrific. I now look at the world with eyes of disbelief until I am given reason to believe. Moreover, I look at God and wait for understanding before I give myself to worship. My judgment and skepticism has kept me a spectator and as a result, I have missed out on the entirety of what God has been willing to offer to me.

“I tell you the truth”, Jesus said to his disciples, “unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

My prayer today, as I come before the cross, is that God would humble me. My prayer is that He would break this critical spirit and replace it with the faith of a child.

"Who do you say that I am?"

Dear Friends,

It is nearing midnight as I write this. From our apartment, I can see the faint lights of downtown Kansas City. The sky is rarely dark here and I find myself reminiscing about the beauty and solitude of living out in Ivy this past year. Here, I am reminded of how I am just one of millions in this world and yet on a night like this, I am soberly aware of how I feel so completely alone.

I am grieving, as many of you are, over the death of little Jude Gilliam. I didn’t know the Gilliam family and yet a knot has positioned itself within my stomach ever since I read the news this afternoon on the website that Jude had passed. I felt like I had been punched directly in the stomach for to me, it was a crisis of faith. And here in Kansas City, one thousand miles away from everyone we know, I am forced to wrestle this out alone with God.

It would be far easier to trust in a God who desires good but who is restrained from interacting with His creation. And yet, I have found it exceedingly more difficult to believe in a God who can heal- who can break into our world from that side of eternity in order to touch a child and restore him to life- and who doesn’t. To watch a child die while believing in a God who can heal is perplexing. It is far worse than perplexing. It is paralyzing.

To me, the formula was just right. Jude had Bible-believing parents who worshipped and interceded day and night. He had a God whose desire is for none to perish. He had thousands of eyes across the globe watching, waiting, and hoping for God to perform a miracle.

The sting of death in the natural is not the same as the sting of death in the spiritual. There is no sting in the spiritual for Jude is sitting with His savior at the right hand of His King. Who could possibly argue that there is anything better for him than being where he is right now. But for us- here on this Earth- the sting that results from death is sometimes unbearable. I know this all too well. And yet Paul says in his first letter to the church of Corinth: Stand firm. Let nothing move you. And continue to give yourself fully to the work of the Lord.

And what is the “work of the Lord”? John says that the work of God is this: to believe in the one [the Lord] has sent (John 6:29).

And so I will continue to believe, as so many others are, that the sovereign God is a good God, a powerful God, a God of miracles, a God who hears the prayers of His children, and a God who delights to answer those very prayers.

Even as I am typing, the lyrics of a Jason Upton song are ringing in my ears:
“In the place of suffering, there’s a God worth worshipping
and on these wings of worship, we will fly.”

I am missing a church family to process this tragedy with. Yet I am grateful for this time to be by myself, forced to dig deep as I struggle to reconcile what happened today, forced to choose for myself if I believe that God is who He says He is and that He can do what He says He can do.

Russell and I have sensed a hedge of protection around us this week and are so grateful for prayers that you all have lifted up. We love our apartment- we are learning our way around this city- and we are excited for classes to start on Monday. Thank you for your support- for your love and for your prayers... We miss you already.