Musings on Hebrews

I go to a little church called Second Mile. I won't go into all the reasons I love and adore it because I'm saving that for another post coming sometime soon. But the important thing here is not that I do love and adore it, but that right now we are making our way through the book of Hebrews together on Sunday evenings. And since I'm filling up my little corner of the internet with words, I am going to start a little series I'm calling Musings on Hebrews. This will not be teaching; I'll leave that to our pastor, Chad. (I know everyone is grateful for this condescension on my part.) This series will be my thoughts on how I might be able to apply His words to my life, maybe some prayers that come out of what I'm processing, or questions I'm mulling over. If you would like to experience Hebrews with us, you can click here for the audio/video of Chad's messages. They are so full of good words and this is just a sliver of what I'm reflecting on throughout my week.

Last week we focused on Hebrews 3:7-19. This passage talks a lot about unbelief and compares our propensity toward unbelief to the Israelites' while wandering the desert. Good, meaty stuff. During his message, Chad noted that (I'm paraphrasing) unbelief robs God of his glory and robs the unbeliever of the privilege of seeing God's blessing in providing for his household. When we don't believe God in whatever area of life, whether for our salvation, His promies, His faithfulness, we rob him and ourselves. And, naturally, this got me thinking about my own unbelief. How many times have I missed out on seeing God provide or work because of my unbelief? How many times have I robbed him of glory? Many more times than I'd like to think about, and certainly even more than I really remember. I find this so disappointing. I mean, no one is perfect, so we're all going to miss some opportunities, but what if we didn't? What if we always believed God and his promises and obeyed in accordance with such great faith? How much more glory would he receive and how much more would we get to see that glory displayed this side of heaven?

Then I started to pray for belief and repent for the opportunities I lose, but mostly to ask for his grace to fill me with belief. Because what I'm tempted to do when faced with my own unbelief, or any shortcoming, really, is to try to believe more or harder or better. I start to think that I can simply be aware of the problem and force my way into obedience from my own strength. I start to think that I can strive to believe in order to make God proud or let him see he didn't waste his blood on me, to show him I was worth it.

Isn't that just so ugly and disgusting? It's prideful and doesn't give glory to God at all. I cannot earn my salvation, I cannot prove I was worth it because the cold, hard truth is that I wasn't. He didn't die on the cross because I'm special or worth it. He did it because of his own mercy and grace and goodness. He did it for his own glory and I can't earn favor with him now or at anytime in the future. And you know what else I can't do? I can't make myself believe more. Only God's grace in my life can do that. Only his Holy Spirit in me can bring any kind of sanctifying change in my heart.

So what's a girl to do? Sit back and twiddle my thumbs and wait for him to show up and magically change me? Of course not! God wants me to participate in my sanctification. If I could do it on my own, then I wouldn't need Jesus and he wouldn't get the glory for the work being done in my life. I would. So he somehow orchestrated it so that he does the work in my soul and that I join him in that work by being obedient through faith. Chad also said last week that being in His word increases our ability to understand him. How could getting to know God's character better not increase my faith? So, some practical things I can do to grow my belief? Meditate on his word, spend time in it, learn it, memorize it. I can allow him to show me his faithfulness by expecting him to do big things, praying and talking to him throughout my day. I can be more intentional about listening to him, through his word and through his Spirit. And again, not to earn God's favor, but to increase my depth of relationship with him. He will not fail me and the more I trust him, the more my faith and belief will grow. And the more glory I will give him and the more of his blessings I will get to witness, for myself and others. It has to be about Jesus, not me. Unfortunately that's a lesson I keep having to learn in new and deeper ways. But I'm so grateful that he cares to do the hard work in us and not leave us to ourselves.

More Musings on Writing and Perseverance

I love when I feel that Jesus has me on a path and he seems to confirm it with little things all around me. My post yesterday was truly of my own design, but I woke up to find that one of my favorite current authors put much of what I was thinking into much more eloquent words. I love Shauna Niequist because her voice is calming and she chooses her words so well. She paints pictures and creates metaphors that I love and shares a quiet vulnerability that draws you in. But all of that seems so outside what I can create on my own at this point in my writing journey. Here is a excerpt from her blog post that confirmed what I was thinking last night. If you want to read the full post (you do), click here.

"For me, writing is a lot like prayer, a lot like running, a lot like meditation: you trust that in doing it you will be transformed into the kind of person who does it better with each week, with each month, with each year. You trust that the work changes you into the kind of person who can more easily and deeply and wholeheartedly do that work."

This is exactly what I'm trying to do. Practice and be disciplined in order to get to where I want to go. For some reason I've had this subconscious mentality my whole life that if you are good at something, you shouldn't have to work at it. It should just come easily to you. I know consciously that this isn't true, that people who are ridiculously good at their thing practice. A lot. They put in their 10,000 hours. They perfect. But that seems like so much work and I've never been a very disciplined person. So I just tell myself that I'm not as good as others and chalk it up to talent and talk myself into being happy where I'm at, doing what I'm doing. I am very prone to being happy, which I consider to be a strength most of the time. I'm adaptable, I go with the flow. When life gives me lemons, I make Arnold Palmers. But what I don't do well is plan, work, practice or persevere. What would my life look like if I stuck with something and really worked at it? (It would probably look like my marriage, which is a wonderful testament to the notion that I can stick things out, that I can persevere, that I can make things really good if I work at it. And also if I'm linked together with someone for life and they make me work at it. That helps too.)

I've been thinking a lot about a regret I have from high school. I used to be a singer and I was always in choir and in the chorus in school musicals. The musicals were some of my best memories of high school, but I still always wish I had gotten the chance to be one of the lead parts. In my high school I could sing well enough to get one of those parts, but I was so shy. I was so afraid of looking like I was trying too hard or trying to be something that everyone else could clearly see that I wasn't, that I just never worked at it. I never sought ways to get better. I never took a drama class. I just told myself that if I was good enough to get one of those parts, I would be good enough naturally and if not, it wasn't meant to be. As an adult I can see how insecure and scared I really was. If I had tried just a little bit I think I could have gotten what I wanted. I see now that the kids that did get those parts probably did work at it. They probably practiced and practiced, not just for the shows, but for the auditions as well. It's the same with writing. If I start to work on it now, maybe in a few years I'll be able to see the difference from where I am today. Maybe I'll have found my purpose and my voice. Maybe I'll have something worth publishing. And if not? Then perhaps I'll just be a better writer and that's not entirely bad either. It's not like I'll break the internet by adding a few words to it here and there. Right?

Lastly, I know there is such a difference between working at something in order for it to be used well and striving to earn love or salvation. I don't want to work at this so God will love me more or so I'll be more popular (although those are always struggles in the back of my mind). But it is a very fine line between the two and I often struggle with wanting to earn approval. So to avoid that I then default to just not working on anything at all. Back and forth like I'm on a teeter totter with a much smaller person on the other side, never able to find the balancing point. So I'll keep praying that my motives stay pure and my focus stays on Jesus and that this thing comes about to glorify him now and in the future. I can release control while still pursuing excellence, even if it's difficult. That's where growth comes from, so I've heard.

Thoughts on Becoming a Writer

I want to be a writer. I've actually always wanted to be a writer. My mom reminded me of that when she was visiting a few weeks ago. But the desire has been growing stronger lately. I'm not sure if it's because I'm reading better writers on a regular basis or if I'm just so bored with my status quo or because I think it's a good way for a lot of people to know me and hear my opinions. Maybe it's because all the writers I follow online get to travel a lot and I want a flexible schedule where I get to travel a lot. What I'm saying is that I'm not sure my motives are all the way pure, but I like to think they are somewhat pure. Maybe God could would use me to speak to people. To do something big in the world. To inspire people to look to him more, do more, love more.

I like to think I'm a pretty clear communicator. I can put ideas across clearly and (somewhat) concisely. I could work on my humor. I just wonder if I have all that much to say. There are a million good communicators out there, why do I think I'm so special? Maybe I need to be a much deeper thinker to have much to say; or maybe you have to be much more vulnerable than I am in this stage of life. These are all things to work on.

But to be a writer you have to write. So for now, this will be my little practice corner of the world. I can build discipline in to my writing, work at it, try to improve and try to find my voice, my stuff to say. I can try to write without worrying so much if people are reading it or critiquing it. Build some confidence in writing because I enjoy it and want to practice and try to ignore the other people for now. It's not that I don't think deep thoughts or have valid stories to share, it's just that I don't really think anyone is interested in hearing them. Also, it's a little embarrassing to go back and see how immature you sound a year later and a blog pretty much lets everyone do that for you.

There are so many good writers in the world. People who think deep thoughts and can pair them with such humor and wit. But they didn't wake up one day and have their craft perfected. (Well, not most of them, right?) So this is me trying to say (for about the fifth time since I started this blog) that I'm going to try to be consistent and move forward with this little adventure. And if all I have left in the end is documentation of my journey through writing, that will still be something.