spiritual stuff

He whispers it to me on Tuesday morning, “You don’t have a parent-sized hole in your soul. Or a husband-sized hole. Or a man-sized hole. Or a child-sized hole.  You have a God-sized hole.”

If you are feeling empty and tired and unfulfilled and lost and joyless, may I suggest you stop trying to hastily fill your soul with anything and everyone and finally slow down enough to feed your soul what it is meant to be filled with—God and God alone.

“There is a God-shaped vacuum in the heart of every person,
and it can never be filled by any created thing.
It can only be filled by God,
made known through Jesus Christ.”
– Blaise Pascal, Pensees

I sit in Monday morning traffic, tired and wanting Spring Break back.  I’m having God thoughts and pose the question that I have so many times before—God, are you ever disappointed in me?  I know I mess up and so many do.  How does it make you feel? 

I don’t get any clear answers.

I pull up the IF:Equip daily devotional. Sarah and Rebekah talk about Joseph and Nicodemus.  I hear the Spirit whisper—you remind me of Nicodemus.  Nicodemus, who helped wrapped Jesus’s body after he died.  I remember he was a religious leader but the rest escapes me.  Usually being a religious leader with Jesus isn’t good news, but Nicodemus does clearly love Jesus by the end. Yes, Jesus, I do love you, I whisper back and hope for the best.

I get to work and scrawl out my to-do list and right in between, I jot down the name Nicodemus.  I don’t want to forget to read what he was trying to tell me.

At a break, I do a search on Nicodemus and am taken to John 3.

The story starts coming back.  Nicodemus goes to Jesus at night, wanting to question him away from prying eyes.  He knows Jesus is from God but doesn’t understand it all.  Jesus tells him he must be born again.  Nicodemus is confused about what he needs to do.

And there it is, we all keep talking about what we do.

Jesus answers our question about what we need to do with what he’s going to do.

Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.

His sacrifice is always our answer.

And then out of nowhere because I didn’t remember it’s John 3:16…For God so loved the world, he gave his only begotten Son…

And here we are again, Jesus whispering to me, I love you so much I died for you.

He ignores my question altogether and reminds me it’s not about what I do or how he feels about it.  It’s about how he loves me and what he did for me.

And we always stop at verse 16 but 17 comes along and tells us he didn’t come to condemn the world, but to save it.

God’s about the business of loving and saving not condemning.  If we’re feeling defeated and disappointed, we’re not about Kingdom work.

And there, in the middle of a gray cubicle, I rest in his love and I rest in his work.

I was sitting in church last Sunday morning thinking about you.  I thought about how maybe you haven’t been to church since last Easter or maybe never at all.  I wondered how you might react to hearing the story of Jesus’s death and resurrection one more time.  I wondered if you thought that’s all we talk about at church—pain and death.  I was a little sad because I thought of all the sermons I’ve listened to since last Easter.  They cover so many topics—finances, marriage, parenting.  I wish you could have heard those too.  Yes, it all starts with understanding the message of Easter, but it’s so much more.

I kept thinking about the reactions you might have to next week’s sermon.  I had a feeling it could go either way.  First, you could be bored out of your mind and all you can think about is the ham at your grandmother’s after church.  The words coming out of the pastor’s mouth will be like Charlie’s teacher. I get that. It happens to me every once in awhile. 

But then, I think there’s going to be a second group of people that will have another type of reaction.  Something will start making sense.  You’ll be drawn to what the preacher will say. But undoubtedly, I think you will have an actual physical reaction to this.  I think your fight or flight system is going to turn on. Either, you will want to reject what is said and fight it, coming up with all the reasons that you know this to be crazy, how you don’t want to be “one of them”, how you don’t want to change your life, how no one really knows this stuff to be true, how the Bible is just a history book—fraught with human error, at that.  And then some of you will have the flight syndrome.  You’ll just want out of there.  Stop talking to me, quit playing the music, quit being so dramatic, I just want to leave! 

This is normal.

Our bodies are meant to have these reactions when we fear something, when we don’t know the outcome.  Your body is trying to get you to do something to protect you.  But, listen, I’ve been sitting at church for thousands of hours of my life and I can tell you, this is the best feeling.  For me, I usually feel like my stomach is moving somewhere up in my throat and I can’t breathe.  Talking is difficult.  My heart starts beating super fast even though I’m sitting still.  I feel a pressure on my chest like an elephant is stepping on it.  Sometimes I cry. And in my experience, this is what it feels like when God is trying to talk to you.  He is literally pressuring you to answer Him.  And in my experience, you need to quit trying to fight it or run from it and say yes.

See, God isn’t trying to condemn you for who you are or what you’ve done since last Easter. I know it kind of feels like it because of the pressure and all.  But that’s not it.  What God’s really trying to say is I love you, I love you, I love you.  I love you so much I want you to feel it.  You have chosen to spend one hour to be still enough to hear about God and now he’s trying to talk to you.

The very best thing you can do in this moment is just say “yes”.  Yes, God, I’m listening and yes, God, I want you to love me.  That’s all he wants.  In fact, you’ll hear about it next Sunday.  He loves you so much He died for you.  No one else has ever done that.  And the really cool thing about God is he came back to life. Did you know YOU were not only his reason for the pain, but also his reward for going through all that pain?  All he wants is to love you and spend time with you.  He’s got big plans for you.  But he needs you paying attention to him more often so you can know what they are.

As I was sitting there in church last week, I was thinking about my youngest daughter and how when she gets a bruise, she hates to put on band-aids.  I beg her, thinking about how it needs protected so it can heal.  I think about how if it gets junk in it or scraped again, that it will get hurt even worse and the pain will last longer.  I never get why she won’t let me put a band-aid on it.  I think maybe she’s afraid it will hurt even worse.

And I’m thinking that’s the way next Sunday will be.  A lot of us have bruises in our life.  Sometimes we’ve made a mess of our lives on our own and sometimes other people have done things to us that have royally bruised us.  And sometimes, our lives sorta-kinda work ok, but we’re still not totally happy.  God has a band-aid, if you will, named Jesus that will cover our bruises.  He will heal us if we let him. But God never forces Jesus on us.  We have to let him heal us.  We have to say yes.

So, as you sit there next Sunday, I hope you are not in the first group that feels nothing.  I’m praying you are not in that group. I hope you are reminded of your bruise that needs healed.  I hope you experience some type of reaction.  And I hope you say yes.  He loves you.  He really does.

For those of you reading that are like me that have sat in hours of church since last Easter, I’m praying the same thing for us.  The cool thing about God is he loves to remind us he loves us. I hope you feel the tension too and are reminded all over again what he did for you and how he keeps covering us and healing us.  Let our yes whisper out like a thank you.

At the beginning of our “Prayer Experience” on Saturday at the Priscilla Shirer simulcast, Priscilla implored everyone to stay engaged.  Prayer time was not something to be glossed over in between worship and teaching, but it was “the thing” of the day.

She explained how they take prayer requests at each of her events. The requests tend to fall in a few broad categories.  As she introduced each one, she asked for those that felt God had given them victory in that particular area to stand.  Then, she asked for those with prayer requests in that area to raise their hands.  Those with victory were to go to those with needs and pray for them.

The first category was marriage.  If you know our story, then you know I stood up in victory through Christ.  I was able to pray for my sister’s upcoming marriage and the marriage of other women from my home church. 

She then asked for those that had found freedom from addictions—whether it be to a person or thing.  Well, if you know why our marriage was struggling, then you know I had an emotional addiction to a person. I was again able to pray for my sisters in Christ.

She then mentioned finances which hasn’t been an area where we’ve struggled with yet.  And then she asked for those that have been healed, whether physically, mentally or emotionally.  I’ve written here about the healing of my hearing as a child and also just wrote this month about the healing and freedom of my mind.

I was almost laughing as I stood up so many times—probably more than anyone there.  I giggled to my church friends, “I’m such a mess!”  One replied, “No, you’re a testimony!”

And she was right. I’m so, so, so thankful he doesn’t leave us where we are.  We should be eager to stand and give glory to God.

We were all so encouraged by what God had done for the women in the room.  We clapped and celebrated and mostly didn’t even know one single detail.

********************************

On Sunday, my dad finished a 100 mile race after 27 hours.  For real.  He was in extreme pain all over by the end and he declared it the hardest thing he’d ever done.

As I was working out at home during the beginning of his race, I was hating the mountain climbers I was being put through by the guy on the DVD.  But then I remembered my dad at the beginning of his long race.  Surely I could make it for 45 more seconds of mountain climbers.

As my dad’s race was winding down, my sister posted on Facebook, “My dad just finished running 81 miles. That makes my 30 min walk/jog sound doable this morning.”

********************************

After this weekend, I was reminded how much we need someone to stand up and say, “Hey, I’ve been there and God brought me through.”  Even if you aren’t going through something difficult, you are reminded how loving, how gracious our Father is.

I want YOU to write the rest of this post in the comments.  It would be so encouraging if everyone could comment on a category where God has really worked in your life—marriage, addiction, finances, healing, salvation, etc.  What is your story?

And, if you have a need, leave your category of need so others can pray for and encourage you.

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Gal 5:1

You might consider this post to be a third post in an unexpected series.  It began with seeing four ways people are redeemed in Psalm 107.  Then, God led me to the book Battlefield of the Mind and showed me how many of my thought processes were bound up in Green Pastures.

Since that time, I’ve been astounded, quite frankly, with how different my thoughts have been.  Instead of always expecting the worst, feeling negative about myself or my circumstances, I’m finding myself feeling secure in God’s promises, positive about the changes he’s making and content with where has me.

I wanted to share two areas in particular that I truly feel freed from as a result of these thought process changes.  I share them not in an attempt to overshare or boast in the changes, but to share that God has done much work.  And, if you find yourself in a similar situation, that you might reach out to God for the same.

In surprise to no one, God brought me two more books to shed light on these areas.  The first is Brene Brown’s bestseller, Daring Greatly.  Daring Greatly has been read widely and I’m likely the last of my reading friends to check it out, but like many books do, it came at just the right time.

Daring Greatly is about shame and vulnerability.  It’s impossible to do the whole book justice, but let me try to share a few concepts.  First, Brene suggests that whole, healthy people allow themselves to be vulnerable.  They allow themselves to be who they really are and connect with others.  People who are not whole often feel shame in some capacity and do not feel like they deserve to connect.  In order to protect themselves from this vulnerability, they wear armor.

Brene describes three main types of armor that people use to protect themselves: foreboding joy, perfectionism and numbing. 

To explain foreboding joy, Brene says, “In a culture of deep scarcity—of never feeling safe, certain, and sure enough—joy can feel like a setup.  We wake up in the morning and think, Work is going well.  Everyone in the family is healthy.  No major crises are happening. The house is still standing. I’m working out and feeling good. Oh, shit. This is bad. This is really bad. Disaster must be lurking right around the corner.” (Excuse the language)

I need to share that quote because that’s how I’ve lived a lot of my life.  It was ok to be happy, but only for a few moments.  I’d be staring at my newborn and thinking how beautiful she was and how blessed I was and then immediately think, she’ll probably die in a car accident tomorrow.  It pains me to admit that and I want to weep for my younger self.  My joy was so great, but I had to tamper it down so I wouldn’t get hurt.

Connecting this back to what Joyce talked about in Battlefield of the Mind, this relates to the wondering, anxious thoughts I knew I had.

I’ve done this with many things, but one of those is my job.  In addition, I wrapped a sense of foreboding joy about my husband’s job and some perfectionism I felt around my job and I was a mess.

For those who have read here for years, you might know I have spent years wishing I was home.  I felt like I needed to be a stay at home mom to be a real mom (although I never judged any other mother that worked).  I never really expected to fully enjoy my job.  Surely God was going to send me home soon.  I was good at it and loved my coworkers but the “perfect” mom would be at home with her kids.  And I worried what all those people thought about me being a working mom.

Plus, I had foreboding joy with Scott.  I love him so much and I never, ever worry about him going to work as a highway patrolman, but I am seeing now I have tampered the joy with a deep, inner sense of foreboding about what might happen to him.  I felt like I needed to do everything in order to keep our family running just in case.  I felt an extreme burden to do it all and do it well because Amy, one day you might have to.

Just in the last few weeks God has opened my eyes to this destructive thinking and it’s been amazing the results.

And I don’t doubt for one second his timing.  At work, I was given a new and difficult project just as I started this book.  The weight of it two months ago would have put me into a depression.  Even though it is difficult, I now approach it with joy.  Somewhere along the way I have felt a chain broken about my job.  I’ve been fighting God for so many years, but I have come to peace that God really does want me in my job.  And it’s ok to like it too.

He has shown me that I don’t have to shoulder everything in our family.  It’s ok to let Scott help and fill in my gaps. God put us together because we need each other.  I don’t find it an accident at all that Scott has a schedule that allows him to pick the girls up when I’m at work or that he doesn’t mind fixing dinner when I’m away because his dad did the exact same thing for his family.  If God does ever separate us, then he will provide, but I cannot live my life with that assumption.

Brene says the solution to foreboding joy is gratitude—seeing the small moments for the wonderful moments they are.  The solution to perfectionism is to find beauty in the cracks—we need to come to the point where we believe we are enough.  We aren’t everything, but we are enough.

So, with my family and with my job, which are very intertwined for me, I am learning to do both of those things.  I need to be grateful for those people, for my job, for a meeting well-led and a project much-enjoyed or for dinner cooked by my husband.  I have to believe I’m enough even though I am not everything.

I am so thankful for the work God has done.  In Christian circles we talk a lot about God delivering us and giving us freedom. Many equate that to situations or addictions or behaviors, but the more I follow Christ, the more I see that it is in the heart and mind where we most need freedom.  I think that’s why Jesus was always more concerned about our heart rather than our actions.  True joy is found with a free mind, no matter your circumstances.

There is another area in which I have been finding freedom in the past weeks, but I believe I’ll save that for another 1,000 words tomorrow.  Come back?

I was listening to a podcast fro m Loran Livingston of Central Church of God where I went to church as a teenager this week.  Hearing his preaching still feels like a coming home.

He was talking about how before the world was created that God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit came together and decided to make this world and us in it. They understood the fall and our inability to get back in His presence without redemption.  He talked about how Jesus must have agreed that he would make a way, that He would come and suffer and die in our place.  And that God said because he did that, he would give us to him.  That we, lowly and sinful, were his reward.

And that overwhelms me.

How little I give him in return for his great sacrifice.  Me, who is easily swayed and distracted, is supposed to be a living “thank you” for what he did.  God, how can I be more grateful?

But part of that made me angry.  How could they choose to do that knowing that not everyone would believe and be saved?  How could they sacrifice others? Why would they even create them? 

And God asked me, Amy, if you knew that Lexi would not love you back, that there would be pain in her life, and it would be cut short, would you choose not to have either Emma and Lexi in your life at all? Oh, dear God, no.  Whatever time I have with them, no matter how it goes, is precious.  I love to love them.  And how much greater is his love for his children?  I can’t imagine how much it hurts him when one of his children chooses not to love him back.  But oh, his love for all of us anyway.  That all of this—the pain, the time, the sacrifice—it’s all worth it to Him even when we give him so little back.

I don’t understand it all and I know my thoughts are not like His thoughts—maybe that’s not His why or how–but something about hearing that this week made me love him more for my salvation and want to be grateful more.  His love is mighty, indeed.

This post is linked to Five Minute Friday with Lisa Jo Baker.