The women of the IF:Gathering have left me with words that are game changers; too much to process in one sitting or one day.  This is part five of a week long look back at the ways that I don’t want to stay the same. 
______________________________

It’s 4:40am on Friday morning after a very full week.  We’ve had everything from small group, bible study, workouts, and class to croup, timeouts for a two year old, bad days on the job, and taxes.  In six days, all these things and a hundred more. My jobs are to be a wife and a mom, and then I get paid by teaching and I get filled by writing.  And some days I feel like I have a better handle on it all than others, but really, that’s just life, isn’t it? 

On Sunday after the IF:Gathering last weekend, I committed to spending time each morning diving a little bit deeper in to the moments and words that were most impactful to me.  With a little help from the kids who slept past 6:00am some days and from Daniel Tiger on in the background on the other days, I’ve been able to do it.  But honestly, Monday was easy.  Today is not.  The words are coming slowly and incoherently at times.  I’m feeling tired and out of creativity, and we ran out of TJ’s cold brew—a small tragedy in itself.

But maybe, just maybe I’m supposed to be a little spent.  Because the last phrase I had picked out to write about last weekend is much more important today than it would have been on Monday.  From Bianca Olthoff’s closing lesson, a reminder for all of us: show up everyday.

Not just when I am full and rested.

Not just when I see results.

And not just when it’s easy.  Or because people will like me. 

I want to show up everyday because God can use me everyday.  He can use all of us. Giving my best is enough.  Giving my brave is enough.  God does the hard part when I show up.  Our lives have the amazing gift of knowing where this story ends, so I’m going to start at that place— with a kingdom that cannot be shaken*— and live from there.  Everyday.  Many days I will stumble or even crawl through, unsure of everything except this: God is not done, and he is writing our stories into a beautiful ending.  But we have to show up.    

P.S. Thanks to everyone for sticking with me this week.
#letsdothis

The women of the IF:Gathering have left me with words that are game changers; too much to process in one sitting or one day.  This is part four of a week long look back at the ways that I don’t want to stay the same. 
______________________________

As I sit down this morning to write about what was probably the most impactful sentence of the whole IF:Gathering for me, I feel incredibly inadequate to say anything more than what these words already say: “We live out God’s kingdom to the same fullness that we believe in it.”  Another Jen Hatmaker gem.  It stands alone in both is simplicity and it’s profound truth. 

And still, these words resound.  They demand something. They beg the question for me: What do I believe in the most?  Myself, or my God?

Jesus was quite fond of speaking about the kingdom of heaven.  He often taught about it in the form of parables, like in Matthew 13 where he compares it to a merchant selling everything he has to buy this “pearl of great value.”  But taken as a whole, the entirety of scripture tells of a God who cares a great deal about his kingdom and has made two things regarding this kingdom very clear: it is of great value—so great it is worth losing everything else in our life for; and there will be a great opposition to both believe in it and actually live for it. It is worth fighting for, but there will be a fight, we can count on it.

Thinking about eternity, about God’s kingdom, takes a lot out of me.  Because it is both overwhelmingly beautiful and overwhelmingly intimidating; my mind cannot fully get there, cannot wrap my mental comprehension around the concept of forever.  We are beginning and end kind of people, because everything else in our life has a beginning and an end.  Life itself does.  Good seasons come to an end, hard seasons come to an end.  Everything we put our hands to eventually comes to an end.

So the questions flood in: how much do I believe in this kingdom that will last forever?  Do I believe in it in the morning, when I think about my day ahead and the to-do lists and babies I will take care of and the people I will interact with?  Do I believe in it when my husband has a terrible day, and we are a bit at odds and each one of us wants something the other person cannot give in the moment?  Do I believe in it when motherhood feels exhausting and on days when I just cannot get a parenting victory?  Do I believe in it when something really sweet happens?  Do I believe in it when the bad news comes?  When I’m scared?  Because if I really believe in God’s kingdom and all it’s grandness, the answer to these questions are underlined with echoes of God’s glory and seen through the lens of eternity.  That is what all of these things are about.  And, wow, that changes so, so much.  Life feels so big and important right now, and it is.  But it’s not big and important because I am—with all of my dreams of success and a nice career and well-rounded children; it’s only big and important because God left his followers with a work so big and important to do: love Jesus and love people.  And we will live that only as much as we believe it is true.

I wrote this sentence on a stick note and put it on my mirror, because these are every day words.  They are big picture words for a big picture life.  The more space in my mind and life I make for God’s kingdom, the less space there is for me.  And that’s kind of perfect, I think.    

The women of the IF:Gathering have left me with words that are game changers; too much to process in one sitting or one day.  This is part three of a week long look back at the ways that I don’t want to stay the same. 
______________________________

I’m just not even afraid to say how much of a girl crush I have on Jen Hatmaker.  It’s a real thing.  And I could tell you all a hundred reasons why but I think they are all underlined by the fact that this women has the fire of a prophet and the humor of comic, and taken together I think she is a teacher who cares about the right things and tells us in the best ways.  During her lesson at IF, I could not write fast enough.  In fact, we paused her talk no less than four times because her words kept landing in the places of our hearts where we needed them.

I have dozens of her sentences scribbled in my journal, but the one I’m processing today is this, that “faith IS the prize.”  It seems almost too simple at first read.  But the more I sit with it, the heavier it feels. 

Everyone has faith in something.  Everyone.  We have faith in God.  Maybe you have faith in science.  Maybe karma.  Or you might even argue to death that no, you do not have faith in anything because all of this spiritual talk is nonsense.  But I would tell you then that your faith is in your own logic, because it is.  We are living beings and by default we are always trying to make sense of things.  We would not be able to sleep at night if we were not at least a little bit satisfied with the conclusions we have drawn about life and the world.  Whether we are conscious of it or not, we live every single day guided by faith in something. (And the philosophical nature of this paragraph is already getting way beyond my scope of comfort so let’s move on…)

I cannot stop thinking about this: if faith is the goal, and not simply the means, how does that change my life—my day-to-day, changing diapers, making dinner, loving my husband, teaching, serving, play-dating life?  I think I will spend many, many years—maybe a lifetime—living in to the answer to that question.  But what I think it means for me today is that I have to practice this faith before it just shows up and works it magic.  I have to do things that feel scary.  I have to take risks.  I have to know God’s word and live out the commands that are inside of it.  I have to allow myself to try things that truly require this thing called faith.  And I don’t know, but I think the faith will come a little bit at a time, until I’m not really faking it so much, I’m just believing it.

That’s the kind of life I want—not one that is easy and always comfortable but one that has complete confidence in Jesus.  And I know if I only pursue ease and comfort, the life of faith that wants to live in me will keep bumping up against the walls of safety I keep around it.  Faith, assurance, confidence, these are the prize.  Life without them is impossible to bear.  Life with them, well, that kind of life can do anything.     

The women of the IF:Gathering have left me with words that are game changers; too much to process in one sitting or one day.  This is part two of a week long look back at the ways that I don’t want to stay the same. 
______________________________

I care a lot about what others think.  And that is not always a bad thing: I think it is good and healthy to want to be respected and thought well of, because it is hard to do life alongside people whom, for whatever reason, we may have a strong distaste for.  But that is not really what I’m talking about.  I really care what other people think, like, to the point that my day could be a pretty good one or a pretty bad one depending on how I perceive my standing in your mind. 

I came out of the womb being a people pleaser.  And then God blessed me with an upper middle class upbringing and an athletic talent that got me more recognition than most as a teenager.  Not that I never made mistakes, but my childhood was really fairly storybook.  The result is that I grew far too accustomed to people high-fiving me along the way.

Adulthood may have changed the context from which I seek approval but it hasn’t changed my craving of it, and I do so many things on a regular basis because I think people will like me if I do.  I watch my sweet little daughter be, well, not so sweet at times and I worry more about what others are thinking of my parenting than I am about actually parenting her.  I write something here on this space and measure its success by likes and comments rather than by the authenticity that I wrote it with.

But here is something I know to be true, and I am learning this more and more every day: God doesn’t care about the same things people care about.      

During Jennie Allen’s opening talk at IF, a talk that was raw and so true to her journey leading this gathering, she said this: “I have tasted God in such a way that now all of you people feel small to me.”  And I’m sure what she said in the few minutes after that was beautiful but I actually don’t remember it, because those words were taking up all the space in mind as I quickly wrote them in my journal.  All of you feel small to me. I want that so badly.  Not a lesser view of people, places, community and life right here where I am, but a much, much greater view of God.  I actually tremble with an anxious excitement at the thought of what my life would look and feel like if His guidance was the first and last place I went, if His will was actually the truest pursuit of my life.  What could change if I was really willing to be totally misunderstood by people if it meant that I was exactly where God wanted me to be, doing what He wanted me to do?

People around me have told me that I’m brave. But I’m not.  I want to be, but the truth is I have chosen a very safe journey, one that has not cost me too much yet.  I do have a heart that breaks at the knowledge or sight of injustice, but y’all, that does not feel very brave.  It actually feels safe, because who could possibly criticize me for wanting to stop an injustice?  It is a path of altruism that I’ve been walking, not at all hating the high fives along the way because believe it or not, I can turn even a seemingly selfless pursuit in to one that makes me look ok in your eyes. 

God can, no, will accomplish his work in anyone, perfectly pure hearts or not.  But I think we can be doing all the right things and still feel empty if we are doing them for the wrong reasons.  This has been so much of my story.  Yesterday I thought a lot about repentance, and today I’m thinking about really knowing, even tasting God, in such a way that everything else feels so, so small.  He is the good soil I have to be growing in.  Otherwise I’m just a temporarily pretty flower in a jar of water.  It looks nice on the table today, but very soon that water won’t be enough.  We do need each other to keep us going, to refuel our visions and to support us and love us and tell us what our hearts need to hear (trust me, I believe this!).  But not instead of what Jesus wants us to hear.  It’s an equation I have often gotten backwards, but one I am working on correcting.  Jesus > approval.  He is bigger.      

This weekend I had the privilege of joining thousands of women around the world to watch the IF:Gathering.  My sweet friends Emily, Meghan and I cozied up with warm blankets and coffee and journals, listened to wise teachers and then let their lessons guide us in to discussions about everything from fear and anxiety to motherhood and marriage.   

The women of IF have left me with words that are game changers; far too much to process in one sitting or one day.  This is part one of a week long look back at the words and the sentences and the ways that I don’t want to stay the same.  ___________________________________

When we take the very honest pieces of our hearts out from behind their protective coverings, something incredibly humbling happens.  We look at them in detail, we hold them in our hands and test their authenticity, and we sift them in our minds with good questions and honest answers.  Then we start to really see them, the things that truly make up who we are.  It’s a good process, and a hard one.  Because in the very honest, very real moments I see a lot that I don’t love about these pieces.  Things like that fact that I am obsessed with your approval of me, that I criticize the ministry of the church for missing the mark, that I talk about others, and that I compare compare compare my children, my writing, my theology, my home, my life to yours, as if I am always looking for information to affirm that I am enough, or better. 

And then I hold these things out to Jesus, and the only words that come to me are I’m sorry.  I’m so sorry.  Because as much as I think and say that I want nothing more than to know Christ and him crucified, those are words more than they are actions.  I want that, yes; but the truth is I want that as long as I also get a comfortable life and a good reputation, too. 

I realized this weekend that I have no idea how big and beautiful God is.  I have thirty years of Sunday school and a fairly legalistic, I’m a pretty good girl don’t I deserve a good life kind of faith.  I have hundreds of books and quotes that have taught me how to talk about Jesus.  I have dozens of journals that have documented a very safe faith.  And I have more prayers for my own well-being and desires than I can count.  I realized that, quite frankly, I think about myself a lot.  And for the past few years this kind of faith has made me restless, stale, frustrated, and strangely judgmental—because if I couldn’t fix a discontent in myself I would simply point to something or someone tangible to blame it on, and that eased the discontent for approximately three minutes.     

It has just been too hard to own my junk. So I’ve have done far too much deflecting the junk to something else, then I’ve held up a list of ways that I’m such a good girl and called that faith in Jesus.    

“I know your works, your toil and your patient endurance, and how you cannot bear with those that are evil… I know you are enduring patiently and bearing up for my name’s sake, and you have not grown weary.  But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first…repent.”  Revelation 2:2-5

A few years ago I would have heard Rebekah Lyons’ words that “the repentance starts in me” and I would have thought she was talking mostly about other people.  Now, I hear those words and I write about them here and I am ashamed.  Because they are without question for me.  There are so many dreams I have, so many ways I want to take the message of faith and run bravely with it.  But first, I need forgiveness.  Today is a day for sitting a little bit longer with my desperate need for repentance, for staring at the ways I have forgotten how much I need Jesus, for admitting that there are many things I have wanted more than him, my first love.  I will have no endurance to run this race if I don’t admit that I have no ability to run it on my own.  Before I can move forward and step in to any work that I believe is mine to do in the world, I am asking God for forgiveness, and for the constant reminder that there is no weakness in humility—in fact, humility is exactly where to begin.