A number of years ago I entered into what could possibly have been the worst season of my life. I wouldn't wish my experiences upon anyone not even my enemy. I didn't think anything could have been worse than the childhood I lived through but it happened but I'm beginning to think that sometimes conflict can be equally an act of God's grace just as much as God leading us away or around conflict. When Israel finally gained freedom from their slavery in Egypt God purposely and intentionally lead them around the territory of an enemy nation yet Israel left Egypt armed for battle. For years I got stuck on the point that Israel finally left Egypt. I overlooked the more important but the least obvious part to the whole the story which was the fact they left Egypt armed for battle and God intentionally leads them to completely avoid battle. And then as the story progresses we see God begin to call Israel into enemy territory and into certain conflict, battle to conquer land. It is one thing for Israel to gain freedom from their slavery in Egypt and another to walk into enemy territory and while seeing the giants in the land be told to go and conquer. Often times when we read the story of Israel we focus Israel turning their back on God, turning to worship idols and the battles they've lost which would lead them right back into bondage, slavery, and exile. And of course we would also focus on Israel's repentance and turning back to God which then lead to their victories. Where is God in all this?
A number of years ago I attended a bible college. My last year attending bible college might have looked to many as a wasted year but it turned out to be one of the most fruitful years I have ever experienced in my life and one that really had shaped my perspective of God and prepared me to face one of the worst seasons of my life. It's one thing to go into our own "wilderness experience" thinking we know God and believing we do and another thing to know in our heart of hearts that we don't actually know God. The problem is this, that some times when we think we know God, we don't actually know God but rather the image of God that we created by our own intellect rather than a true relationship built from the place of intimacy. The God that we think we know really is the god we've made in our own image and perhaps the faith we've had only existed because we've coasted along borrowing from the faith and relationship somebody else had with God. It turns out then we didn't really know God but rather we've come to know about God. The question then is, how much of our understanding of who God is has been warped by our experiences with people who claim to be Christian or warped because we can't quite understand why God would allow such evil to exist in the world. And here's another question, are we shaping God into our Image or are we allowing God to shape us into His Image?
One course I had taken was called Pentateuch. It was actually a class I thoroughly enjoyed. Every morning I woke up knowing I had Pentateuch class with a teacher that made the scriptures and the story of Israel come alive made for days and classes to remember. Now, I don't remember a whole lot of the course itself but I took away with me real nuggets of truth and revelation I needed for what would lay ahead for me. The class itself wrecked me but it ultimately created room for the grace of God and for His redemptive purposes in my life to unfold in ways I never really could have imagined otherwise.
I needed a season to wreck me. If you really knew me back then you would know where to find me. You would find me either in the chapel praying or practicing on the drumb set but worshiping along to CD's, or you'd find me practicing on the piano in the chapel while spending time in praise, or you'd find me in one of the practice rooms with the light turned off for a little privacy while in my own little world of praise and soaking in worship. One of my favorite things to do would be to enter into one of these practice rooms, turn off the lights and play the piano by feel. And if I could not be found there then I'd be in the cafeteria and if not there then maybe in my room but usually the chapel would almost always be the first place to look. At that particular time our school had been going through a little revival and so many of us would gather for prayer in the chapel at 5am in the morning and I'd be there with all the other keeners. In many ways, this season of my life was like an oasis and in many ways I was young at heart and while feeling equipped for battle so to speak, and in my naivety and youthfulness I had such incredible boldness and zeal for the Lord. I thought all my battles had been won and there existed nothing to tempt me away from the purposes that God had for me. I had one goal in mind back then which was to serve God and to enter into full time ministry. I felt that the struggles of my youth were done and over with, it was in the past and so for me I just had in mind to move forward. Basically, I lived in this euphoric state that enabled me to live outside of reality but essentially, although God had been very present and I had some amazing encounters with God, instead of actually cultivating all that I was experiencing and learning I used that time to run away from my past, to run away from the painful memories and all my failures and to run away from all my fears to the point that I refused to acknowledge the one thing that really held me back from the very thing I desired which was to move forward and to step into the fullness of which God had created me and placed me on this earth to accomplish. God calls us beyond ourselves, beyond our natural ability and to enter into a faith journey beyond our wildest of dreams but we can't get there when our lives are bound by fear and we can't get there when we're so bound by shame that we don't even know who or whose we even are. I can't think of a better way to deal with our fear and all our coping mechanisms including the false pious self righteous deeds of the flesh really, that only feeds into the religious and not the things of the Spirit, it may earn us brownie points within the church even but when we're stripped of all our coping mechanisms and all we're left with is just the person we really are without the false image displayed for all to see, we are who we are naked before God and others and somehow coming to a fresh awareness of all the pain that we've spent an entire lifetime running away from. The whole experience can be likened to the ripping off of a scab causing a fresh new wound to the flesh or worse yet, adding salt to an old wound fleshly opened.
I would spend the next couple of months in a puddle of tears. I can remember trying to write an essay for the class. I had an option between three topics. I could write on Noah and the arc and compare that story to the ancient near eastern mysticism and history, I could write on the 10 commandments, or the character of God. I got as far as writing an outline for all 3 essays and never completing any of them. The last essay I tried to conquer I thought to myself, with all that I've done over the last few years, with this being my third year of bible college and with all the praying I do I should be able to write an essay on the character of God... OK, easy mark there I told myself. After about a week of trying to complete this essay it dawned on me that I really didn't know God. If I can't write an essay on the character of God I'm missing something and it's a pretty big chunk that's missing and if this is my third year of bible college with struggling grades then something must be seriously wrong. And it was that thought that really lead me into the place of despair and yet even though I checked out I thought to myself, I paid to be here and so I'll continue to go to my classes. I pretty much dropped out of bible college that semester but it was the best decision I had ever made because it completely liberated me to go to class and just soak in the lectures and not have to worry about regurgitating the lesson but to hear what God was saying to me. Don't get me wrong, bible college is never just about regurgitating back to the teacher everything they told you in class but rather to actually bring together our relationship with God and our journey with him along with the resource of sitting under the teaching of somebody but I was too wrecked by then to actually salvage anything to bring up my GPA so I thought I'll stick to something more important then a piece of paper that says I got a certificate of study or B.A and to what's more important then the praises of man. I had all of eternity at stake here. So continued to attend my classes. I'm not sure if the faculty even understood or quit frankly cared to know what was going on in my life. All they knew is that I had poor grades and probably looked disinterested in actually being there. I was a mess. I was crying every day and in every class I attended. I couldn't bring my inner reflections to paper let alone do a proper exegetical study on anything and all I knew is that I had some pretty huge questions that really depended upon an answer and the fear that my life was falling apart. And well, my life did fall apart but that's besides the point. God did answer my prayer and He did bring me to the place where my only option was to lift my eyes towards the heavens and towards my God. I was led into a conflict that was perfectly orchestrated by God who partnered with me in my cry to engage in life and with God beyond myself and beyond the neat and tidy Christian life I was in the middle of building for myself.
The years I spent in bible college were some of the best times of my life but also some of the worst times. Things turned when my Grandmother passed away. I can't remember the year my Grandmother passed away, it was either 1999 or 2000. It was like losing my Mother all over again. No really, she became the closest mother figure I ever had since my Mother passed away and the only mother figure I ever knew. It came to me at a great loss and it seemed to me that most people were quite aloof to my pain and incredible amount of grief I began to endure. At the time my Grandmother passed away my Nana immigrated back to Canada after Grandpa Peder had passed away and just when she came back to Canada she received a diagnosis of terminal cancer. All this while attending bible college. I was in the throws of losing some of the most significant women in my life. I felt incredibly alone and really began to live in a haze with all my grief and while this began to happen all the struggles I had seemed to surface with a vengeance. You see, I was quick to claim that I was so incredibly free from homosexuality that I must have turned straight and well homosexuality was such a thing in the past I was this poster child for all ex-gay ministries. At the same time I had no interest in any kind of ex-gay ministries and when I felt led to begin to reach out into the LGBTQ Community it was a calling I felt but a calling I didn't ask for and didn't want but there grew this conviction as God began to show me His heart for the one struggling with a conflict between their faith and sexuality. I really felt as though the LGBTQ Community was like Nineveh and well God really had to ship wreck me literally just like Jonah but that's besides the point. I didn't like the people and I separated myself from "them" because they made my own weaknesses and struggles come to light. Part of my journey really was to accept the fact that their story is actually my story and our stories were woven together and that their gay community was in fact my gay community. My response may be different then most but it's validating a person when we can see that we've all started from the same place at the cross of Jesus Christ regardless of background, regardless of where we come from.
I think sometimes many of us confuse the journey with the end goal and we think good works will stir up our faith when really good works become the fruit of our faith but that's besides the point, the point really is the point of hunger to which we cry Abba Father. When the prodigal son returned home he returned home because he was absolutely convinced of the love of his father. The prodigal son knew his identity and knew his father's character and nature and even being willing to be his father's slave because he knew his father would still take care of him. When he returned home while smelling like pig dung and needing a bath he was greeted by a father who came running and while wrapping his arms around the pig dung smelling boy his father kept kissing him, clothed him, and prepared a feast for him. I think the prodigal son was given a new perspective on his identity as a son and I think it had an affect on how he lived the rest of his life after returning home and not so much in such a way as to earn his father's love but moving forward being secure in his father's love and his identity.
A number of years ago I attended a bible college. My last year attending bible college might have looked to many as a wasted year but it turned out to be one of the most fruitful years I have ever experienced in my life and one that really had shaped my perspective of God and prepared me to face one of the worst seasons of my life. It's one thing to go into our own "wilderness experience" thinking we know God and believing we do and another thing to know in our heart of hearts that we don't actually know God. The problem is this, that some times when we think we know God, we don't actually know God but rather the image of God that we created by our own intellect rather than a true relationship built from the place of intimacy. The God that we think we know really is the god we've made in our own image and perhaps the faith we've had only existed because we've coasted along borrowing from the faith and relationship somebody else had with God. It turns out then we didn't really know God but rather we've come to know about God. The question then is, how much of our understanding of who God is has been warped by our experiences with people who claim to be Christian or warped because we can't quite understand why God would allow such evil to exist in the world. And here's another question, are we shaping God into our Image or are we allowing God to shape us into His Image?
One course I had taken was called Pentateuch. It was actually a class I thoroughly enjoyed. Every morning I woke up knowing I had Pentateuch class with a teacher that made the scriptures and the story of Israel come alive made for days and classes to remember. Now, I don't remember a whole lot of the course itself but I took away with me real nuggets of truth and revelation I needed for what would lay ahead for me. The class itself wrecked me but it ultimately created room for the grace of God and for His redemptive purposes in my life to unfold in ways I never really could have imagined otherwise.
Watering down truth only degrades the value of Christ's death on the cross and thereby not really enabling Christ followers to fully appreciate not only the gravity of sin but also the extravagant love of our God.
I needed a season to wreck me. If you really knew me back then you would know where to find me. You would find me either in the chapel praying or practicing on the drumb set but worshiping along to CD's, or you'd find me practicing on the piano in the chapel while spending time in praise, or you'd find me in one of the practice rooms with the light turned off for a little privacy while in my own little world of praise and soaking in worship. One of my favorite things to do would be to enter into one of these practice rooms, turn off the lights and play the piano by feel. And if I could not be found there then I'd be in the cafeteria and if not there then maybe in my room but usually the chapel would almost always be the first place to look. At that particular time our school had been going through a little revival and so many of us would gather for prayer in the chapel at 5am in the morning and I'd be there with all the other keeners. In many ways, this season of my life was like an oasis and in many ways I was young at heart and while feeling equipped for battle so to speak, and in my naivety and youthfulness I had such incredible boldness and zeal for the Lord. I thought all my battles had been won and there existed nothing to tempt me away from the purposes that God had for me. I had one goal in mind back then which was to serve God and to enter into full time ministry. I felt that the struggles of my youth were done and over with, it was in the past and so for me I just had in mind to move forward. Basically, I lived in this euphoric state that enabled me to live outside of reality but essentially, although God had been very present and I had some amazing encounters with God, instead of actually cultivating all that I was experiencing and learning I used that time to run away from my past, to run away from the painful memories and all my failures and to run away from all my fears to the point that I refused to acknowledge the one thing that really held me back from the very thing I desired which was to move forward and to step into the fullness of which God had created me and placed me on this earth to accomplish. God calls us beyond ourselves, beyond our natural ability and to enter into a faith journey beyond our wildest of dreams but we can't get there when our lives are bound by fear and we can't get there when we're so bound by shame that we don't even know who or whose we even are. I can't think of a better way to deal with our fear and all our coping mechanisms including the false pious self righteous deeds of the flesh really, that only feeds into the religious and not the things of the Spirit, it may earn us brownie points within the church even but when we're stripped of all our coping mechanisms and all we're left with is just the person we really are without the false image displayed for all to see, we are who we are naked before God and others and somehow coming to a fresh awareness of all the pain that we've spent an entire lifetime running away from. The whole experience can be likened to the ripping off of a scab causing a fresh new wound to the flesh or worse yet, adding salt to an old wound fleshly opened.
As I sat in the chapel my last semester spent at the bible college I pleaded with God knowing that I sat in a place quite withdrawn as an incredibly detached individual and seriously confused for the first time, with all my praying and all my seeking I came to have this revelation that I needed to come to the end of myself. And I prayed a dangerous prayer that only the serious should pray.
I received this picture and even physically acted out the picture of buckling up because I knew the journey ahead involved the necessity of something to anchor me, really truly anchor me to some firm foundation and I chose Jesus Christ and His uncompromising word as my firm foundation. It is with that in mind I entered Pentateuch class and walked through the remainder of my time at bible college.
God, I've had faith in myself for far too long. Most people I know have failed me and I've learned to only trust in myself. Bring me to the end of myself where there is no where else to turn but towards you. I want to have faith in you and to trust in you so I need to be brought to the place where I have no other choice but to lift up my eyes towards you.
I would spend the next couple of months in a puddle of tears. I can remember trying to write an essay for the class. I had an option between three topics. I could write on Noah and the arc and compare that story to the ancient near eastern mysticism and history, I could write on the 10 commandments, or the character of God. I got as far as writing an outline for all 3 essays and never completing any of them. The last essay I tried to conquer I thought to myself, with all that I've done over the last few years, with this being my third year of bible college and with all the praying I do I should be able to write an essay on the character of God... OK, easy mark there I told myself. After about a week of trying to complete this essay it dawned on me that I really didn't know God. If I can't write an essay on the character of God I'm missing something and it's a pretty big chunk that's missing and if this is my third year of bible college with struggling grades then something must be seriously wrong. And it was that thought that really lead me into the place of despair and yet even though I checked out I thought to myself, I paid to be here and so I'll continue to go to my classes. I pretty much dropped out of bible college that semester but it was the best decision I had ever made because it completely liberated me to go to class and just soak in the lectures and not have to worry about regurgitating the lesson but to hear what God was saying to me. Don't get me wrong, bible college is never just about regurgitating back to the teacher everything they told you in class but rather to actually bring together our relationship with God and our journey with him along with the resource of sitting under the teaching of somebody but I was too wrecked by then to actually salvage anything to bring up my GPA so I thought I'll stick to something more important then a piece of paper that says I got a certificate of study or B.A and to what's more important then the praises of man. I had all of eternity at stake here. So continued to attend my classes. I'm not sure if the faculty even understood or quit frankly cared to know what was going on in my life. All they knew is that I had poor grades and probably looked disinterested in actually being there. I was a mess. I was crying every day and in every class I attended. I couldn't bring my inner reflections to paper let alone do a proper exegetical study on anything and all I knew is that I had some pretty huge questions that really depended upon an answer and the fear that my life was falling apart. And well, my life did fall apart but that's besides the point. God did answer my prayer and He did bring me to the place where my only option was to lift my eyes towards the heavens and towards my God. I was led into a conflict that was perfectly orchestrated by God who partnered with me in my cry to engage in life and with God beyond myself and beyond the neat and tidy Christian life I was in the middle of building for myself.
The years I spent in bible college were some of the best times of my life but also some of the worst times. Things turned when my Grandmother passed away. I can't remember the year my Grandmother passed away, it was either 1999 or 2000. It was like losing my Mother all over again. No really, she became the closest mother figure I ever had since my Mother passed away and the only mother figure I ever knew. It came to me at a great loss and it seemed to me that most people were quite aloof to my pain and incredible amount of grief I began to endure. At the time my Grandmother passed away my Nana immigrated back to Canada after Grandpa Peder had passed away and just when she came back to Canada she received a diagnosis of terminal cancer. All this while attending bible college. I was in the throws of losing some of the most significant women in my life. I felt incredibly alone and really began to live in a haze with all my grief and while this began to happen all the struggles I had seemed to surface with a vengeance. You see, I was quick to claim that I was so incredibly free from homosexuality that I must have turned straight and well homosexuality was such a thing in the past I was this poster child for all ex-gay ministries. At the same time I had no interest in any kind of ex-gay ministries and when I felt led to begin to reach out into the LGBTQ Community it was a calling I felt but a calling I didn't ask for and didn't want but there grew this conviction as God began to show me His heart for the one struggling with a conflict between their faith and sexuality. I really felt as though the LGBTQ Community was like Nineveh and well God really had to ship wreck me literally just like Jonah but that's besides the point. I didn't like the people and I separated myself from "them" because they made my own weaknesses and struggles come to light. Part of my journey really was to accept the fact that their story is actually my story and our stories were woven together and that their gay community was in fact my gay community. My response may be different then most but it's validating a person when we can see that we've all started from the same place at the cross of Jesus Christ regardless of background, regardless of where we come from.
I think sometimes many of us confuse the journey with the end goal and we think good works will stir up our faith when really good works become the fruit of our faith but that's besides the point, the point really is the point of hunger to which we cry Abba Father. When the prodigal son returned home he returned home because he was absolutely convinced of the love of his father. The prodigal son knew his identity and knew his father's character and nature and even being willing to be his father's slave because he knew his father would still take care of him. When he returned home while smelling like pig dung and needing a bath he was greeted by a father who came running and while wrapping his arms around the pig dung smelling boy his father kept kissing him, clothed him, and prepared a feast for him. I think the prodigal son was given a new perspective on his identity as a son and I think it had an affect on how he lived the rest of his life after returning home and not so much in such a way as to earn his father's love but moving forward being secure in his father's love and his identity.
0 comments:
Post a Comment