Dreaming of Silver Roses

Today I spent time with my husband and kids at the Heritage Jubilee. The photos will explain it better than words. It was fun. The real joy in it for me, aside from family time, as usual for me in a crowd, was in people watching. Diallo is all about getting in and getting out like we’re entering a war zone and just have to make it swiftly across enemy lines in such experiences. Abbey still small is all about seeing past kneecaps. Mat watches the stuff. He sees booths, rides, food, animal, details of stuff. I see people. Lots of people all trying to see what they came to find. Some faces were weary. Some faces were in love. Some faces held a glimpse of something deeper than they were able to communicate in those moments of passing in the crowd. Some eyes caught mine. Some carefully stuck to safer sights like arts, crafts, food, rides, and their own steps, whatever. I go for the people.

When I woke this morning, it had been kind of a challenging night evidently. I was wrestling with yesterday and tomorrow all night I guess. I have recently had reminders of the importance of both. I should have been a bit more prepared to face something coming at me in Christ if I had remembered Wed. hearing Beth Moore on Life Today say:

“Now here is what I’m going to throw out at you — I believe what God would say to us today is one reason why we live at such subsistence level, such mediocre level, such less than God had planned for us level in our present is, is because our was and our is to come is cheating us from the enjoyment and the fullness of our present is. Would that be fair to say to anyone?” - http://www.lifetoday.org/site/PageServer?pagename=bth_media

Beth Moore was teaching about the Almighty I Am over my is, was, and is to come. I should have listened more closely or possibly taken tons of notes. I missed the clue phone ringing I guess. Any way I went through yesterday afternoon, last, night, and this morning, wrestling with the cheating powers of yesterday and tomorrow.

Where it has led me so far is to pull up some old Rich Mullins video clips from YouTube. Why? Because he’s real. He never faked his limping walk with Christ. (Neither does Beth Moore which is why I respect her. She is genuine about how hard it is even when it is so worth the fight!) Rich was gutsy and real. I was looking for wisdom. I couldn’t have put it into words when I started scrolling and clicking the mouse, but I was asking “How do I get closer to God? How can I just crawl up in my Father’s lap and do the courageous thing first to make the climb to sit there in the lap of holiness and second how can I live out of that place with all the faces I have recently run into on some websites I surf, in crowds like those many, many faces at the Jubilee, like tomorrow’s sancti-fried crowd (Many of us are just that. We are tired of striving and trying to “get right with God” in our own strength but we so want to please Him and others and “get it right” that we don’t know what else to do but keep fighting. We haven’t learned yet that, that isn’t even the ‘good fight’ He’s called us to, but we just weld our sword like Peter in Disney’s The Chronicles of Narnia: the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe where he was first fighting Maugrim and the wolves at the ice flow. We’re shaky, unsure, and terrified but we fight unprepared and desperately. Then walk away from the services of Sunday unsatisfied because we were so busy protecting ourselves from others catching us with our holy pants down that we never were nourished.). So I went to the wisdom of the real through Rich Mullins.

I am laughing at myself right now because Rich would have been offended, maybe slightly honored, or laughed outright at me saying that I’m sure. The first clip showed Amy grant talking about “the shoeless man” who would run headlong toward the God that most of us just gently somewhat cautiously lean into carefully. She talked about how Rich would run right up to the abyss and bring back a song. That left me thinking, “Ah, Rich will know what I am suppose to do next, a method, a 12 step program to climbing into Abba’s lap!” The second clip I saw Rich was speaking in Lufkin, Texas and flatly said that those who most we think should feel that they were really close to God never felt that way. I thnk he meant that at least they didn’t feel it in a prolonged or daily walk. They had seasons of intimacy with God, but could not consistently say they felt close to God. He read the life of the saints, the psalmists, and some current writers and none of them convey in any measurable way that they “felt close to God”. He said that it’s not even about how we feel, but that the journey is more about obedience. If we obey that sometimes we will at least sense that we are closer, but in disobedience we can be certain that we will never get close at all. I quickly clicked to another clip. Rich talked about touring when he first started out in music touring alone. He talked about how hard it was for him to go to all the hotels and not watch “the movies” and to walk up and down the streets alone and avoid temptations. He said that he called a spiritual mentor and the mentor told him, “Rich you aren’t bad, you just aren’t meant to go it alone.” And so along came his friend, Beaker. He talked about going to Amsterdam on tour with Beaker and how everything is legal in Amsterdam half in jest. He said that he was listening for Beaker to finally go to sleep and start snoring so that he could get up and go do whatever it was he could find to do, and that sometimes even if you have no intention of overt sin “it feels nice to be tempted”.

I believe (it’s easy to put words in the mouth of someone who can’t correct me I guess so I say I believe with great respect and caution) Rich meant the rush of getting close to the line without crossing it feels attractive. I think many Christians, if caught off guard and asked about that would say, “OH NO! No, don’t even get close. No way,” when the reality is that it is a temptation because of the sensational rush it gives if only for a moment. That’s the rub. The momentary rush draws us and that is more alluring than obedience that may or may not allow us to “feel” closer to God. One is certain and tangible. The other is a life by faith. Rich smiled really wide and said that “Beaker never did snore that night” so about five in the morning Rich was finally tired of trying to wait Beaker out and got up and wrote this prayer instead.

Hmm. I consider every bit of that sharing to be courageous and transparent. It’s real. Rich’s confession although shared in a poetic fashion could have read simply. “I need God feel God. I want to feel God. I don’t always feel God. I need to feel. I am tempted with what to feel. I am stronger back to back with a brother than alone. I feel at least near my aim in shared space with a brother who needs to feel God, too.” That is courage. Courage to confess the needs. Courage to confess the weaknesses. Courage to reach out toward others to ask them to share his space. It’s far more real than those trapped in “the stained glass masquerade” Mark Hall of Casting Crowns wrote about. But that’s so hard. Who do you drop the mask with? Who do you allow in? I know few who would be allowed into my brokenness. Very precious few! Jesus was close to the least, the last, the lonely, and the lost. I think it’s because they were aware of the poverty of their spirit like He preached about on the Mount (Matthew 5:3). They had nothing to hold over anyone else’s heads before God because they were spiritually bankrupt and knew it! Those who are honestly aware of their own position before a holy God who are looking to humble themselves before Him hands open expressing that poverty will be the back to back warrior friends you need in the heat of your battles.

“…I will be my brother’s keeper

Not the one who judges him

I won’t despise him for his weakness

I won’t regard him for his strength

I won’t take away his freedom

I will help him learn to stand

And I will, I will, be my brother’s keeper…” – excerpt from Brother’s Keeper, Rich Mullins, album Brother’s Keeper, ‘95

So how does all that help me in my dark hours of introspection and self examination while I am fearing and stressing about yesterday and tomorrow? Well, first of all it brings me back to Beth’s quote. He is the Almighty I Am over them. I may not “feel” it, but I can walk in obedience and confidence about it. When I don’t feel like fighting and instead want to wallow in something that medicates the pain of not feeling close to God – that’s usually what sends me into the seeking temptation mode – I can run to a trusted warrior friend who is evidence of God’s work in this world to me and get real like Rich with them. Even if it doesn’t fix the feeling, it will remind me that I am not alone. This world is not my home. I am waiting on the day I will be close enough to touch the Father.

Filed under: Christianity, life on April 19th, 2008