trust

YOLO guarded by the Spirit

September 17, 2020 — Leave a comment

For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands. For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline. So do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord or of me his prisoner. Rather, join with me in suffering for the gospel, by the power of God. he has saved us and called us to a holy life – not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time, but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. And of this gospel I was appointed a herald and an apostle and a teacher. That is why I am suffering as I am. Yet this is no cause for shame, because I know when I have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him until that day. What you heard from me, keep as the pattern of sound teaching, with faith and love in Christ Jesus. Guard the good deposit that was entrusted to you — guard it with the help of the Holy Spirit who lives in us.

2 Timothy 1:6-14

What gets me is the see-saw I experience in life. One moment I am determined to live my life to the fullest, have a DGAF attitude and live in my power by doing things where after I can say, No one can judge me, but God. The next I’m reading this Word and there’s another kind of power that makes my life moments dim and the purposes of God so bold. Here Paul makes living for the gospel, living a holy life so worthwhile, so much bigger than us. And aren’t we all at least a bit drawn to living a life that exceeds beyond our little life?

It’s the marrying of these two moments — the DGAF, only God can judge me energy of being in this world WITH the big purpose, living for the gospel hope that makes every interaction, every word, every action meaningful. How does this play out in our daily thoughts, relationships, pursuits and paths?

In church, they always encourage us to measure all life by the Scriptures, but instead of leaning into a one way street where the Word of God sometimes halts all our behaviors and actions, make it more of a conversation. Yes, before acting and speaking let it filter through the bigness & goodness of the Word of God. But you have to come back to this world, too. What does it look like to still pursue those actions and honor those desires but with the refreshed & renewed sense of bigness, goodness and power of God? It doesn’t always have to mean, don’t do it anymore, give up your hopes. It could mean, boundaries, coming back to your immutable worth and not doing things just to please others and the world, or realizing that the standards the church has used to tried to shame you into a “holy life” may actually not align with the Word of God. Live a YOLO kind of life that honors the gospel.

The calm before the fill

September 16, 2020 — Leave a comment

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.

Genesis 1:1-2

God resides in the emptyness and in the creation.
God is there for the formless and for what will take shape.
God is there for the empty and for the filling.

God is there when you feel like you’re in a void, when you’re at the beginning, when you’re feeling lost and spent. God hovers over his creation with purpose and creates and forms in stride. More than that, the Spirit of God is in you. So even when you feel separated and empty, the Spirit of God is stirring inside ready to create a masterpiece. Well, more than that, God has already created a masterpiece and is simply waiting for our minds to catch up to that truth.

Where in your life do you feel empty? Where are you feeling anxiety to fill what feels like a lack? Sometimes in the beginning, insecurities, fears and crushing expectations flood in to take up the space of God’s intimacy and quiet. Can the longing instead point to a truth of God — that he provides, that he is good, that he is wise in timing, that he creates for good? Can this start of something new be filled with joyful anticipation and hope instead of exhausted pre-filled disappointment? Yet how do we get from that place of lack and dark to a place of openness and faithful expectation?

By embracing and acknowledging the empty and the longing. By looking back at examples whether in the Bible or in your life when Jesus pulled through. By praying so hard that there is no time and room for fears to take hold. By filling your mind with songs of praise and worship and promise. By embracing the empty and filling it with the Spirit of God and trusting that as that filling takes place, it will manifest into a fullness you can experience on this side of heaven.

Ready to Mingle

September 10, 2020 — Leave a comment

And they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God, and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.

Acts 2:42-47

What a fellowship! What a community! How do we have any of this now when the kindest and wisest thing is to limit gathering? Moreover, how do we have this kind of community when our hearts are discouraged, hurt and distrusting of the church? What is my part to play?

I will never forget my first year in Los Angeles. It was in my community group that I met my first & best friends, reopened my heart to God and ate a lot of delicious free food. When my grandma passed away, my community group rallied around me to pray for my family’s healing and for my time back home. It was in that fellowship that I came to know the tangible power of Jesus, the presence Holy Spirit and the provision of the Father. Fast forward to now, I feel very disconnected and disheartened by the church. Like with any group of people, I have experienced judgments, relationship fall outs, disagreements that seem to divide more than show diversity and distance. Some in part because I pulled away with the expectation that someone would come get me, and didn’t. Some because I no longer tolerate the wrongs I once allowed because I didn’t want to make others uncomfortable. So here I am, feeling separated and distant from the thing that once upon a time brought me so much healing, joy and belonging.

So with my heart bruised and weary, I read Acts 2 knowing that, yet still, it is a community of vulnerability, generosity and joy that I need. Where can I be more vulnerable, generous and grateful? With whom can I exhibit more of these to build this Acts 2 community? And this is the hardest: what will it take for me to still have faith and hope that it is worth it to be surrounded by people who love God? Can past memories and miracles propel be back into that space of faith? Can letting go of resentment and judgment bring me back into the fold of relationships that are actually ready for me? Who can I invite into this process of rebuilding my trust in church?

I read Acts 2 with such jealousy and longing. I miss and need so much of what it talks about. The devotion to learning together. The breaking of bread together. The prayer together. The generosity and gladness experienced together. The growth in friendships. These things without the together, feel lacking and sad. Virtual fellowship falls short. Podcasts come and fade. I wish I had the solution for you, for me. I’m here acknowledging that I miss these things and I want these things, and we need to do that first. God, open my heart to see where opportunities for safe community lie in today’s landscape. I’m ready.

CBG: Vulnerability

May 5, 2020 — Leave a comment

O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory above the heavens.
Out of the mouth of babies and infants, you have established strength because of your foes, to still the enemy and the avenger.
When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?
Yet you have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings, and crowned him with glory and honor.
You have given him dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the seas, whatever passes along the paths of the seas.
O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!

Psalm 8

It takes a minute to receive a passage like the one above. If you are in a state of irritation, annoyance, anger, frustration, Psalm 8 feels trite. A lot of passages about God’s goodness and glory feel inappropriate according to our present attitudes. Within irritation, annoyance, anger and frustration is a sense of injustice that can armor us up. It is a tightening for safety. It is a pointing outward at all that is out of line and wrong. You have the right to do that. No one can deny your experience. No one can urge you to be soft when you feel slighted and scared and forgotten. I only ask, does the hardening harm you or help you? Is a softening more work or less work? What are you protecting when you harden? What and who are you forgiving when you soften? What will it take for you to feel vindicated? What needs to break for you to heal?

Psalms like the above can only enter through a porous vulnerability. Vulnerability is a conversation between protection and surrender, the risks and the gains. Vulnerability is a rebalancing of trust between that which we have given to humans and that which we give to God. Psalms of God’s goodness and love for us hold their weight most in our surrender. This life is an asymptote to that surrender, so have much grace when you’re not there yet have much hope that you are ever approaching that openness.

Prayer: When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?

Character: Where are you hard?

Grace: Where has Jesus demonstrated his redemption in the midst of that specific hardness?

CBG: #14

April 3, 2020 — 1 Comment

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it the people of old received their commendation. By faith we understood that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.

Hebrews 11:1-3

I hear this a lot. Trust your gut. What does that mean? What does my gut feel like? Gut. It feels like something around my tummy, so around my center. The gut feels rooted deep into purpose. Tummies. They digest and break down food…The gut takes in information and breaks it down…? The gut examines and looks for patterns. Acid breaks down food, killing the germs and leaving the nutrients. (Side: Did you know you can shrink or make the stomach physically smaller and that makes your appetites and desire smaller as well? Oh to make my desires and appetites smaller)…Trust your gut. It processes information so that we eliminate the things that harm us and distribute the things that nourish us. What do things that harm us feel and look like? What do things that nourish and sustain us feel and look like? Trust your gut. Can those in your community reflect back the things and times when you aren’t in health and living in a cycle of harm? Can people also reflect those things and times when you feel excitement, possibility and faith? What’s the wisest, kindest and bravest message your gut is telling you?

Prayer: God, help me to push aside all the distractions and doubts, and exist only in your sanctuary. Please reveal to me, what life and decisions look like if I didn’t have worry, fear or a need for comfort and security. Please reveal to me what a wise, kind and brave living looks like for me.

Creative: Read one of these hope poems and write your own in response.

Brave: Where can you do less today by asking someone for help?

Generous: Who needs your reminder of hope today? Maybe even share that poem…?

CBG COVID Challenge: #2

March 22, 2020 — 1 Comment

Being quarantined in a house with a family has brought up a lot of resentment in me. One, the family is together, planning dinners and game nights, while I am separated from my family and my friends. Two, they can sit back and receive my rent, while I struggle financially and scramble to apply for any employment during this #stayhome season. Three, they seem so happy and it only fuels my own bitterness. What do all these lead to in me? Victimhood. “I have it so much worse.” “No one gets where I’m at.” “Why do I always have to figure things out on my own?” “If this was the end of the world, I don’t want to die with these housemates…” I am a victim.

And a natural step is to continue the cycle of comparison and say, well there are people who have it A LOT worse than me. There are single parents struggling to feed their kids and pay rent. There are families with relatives who have died or are dying. Businesses are closing. Lay offs for people who have worked at a job for over a decade are happening everywhere. So if I want to play the victim card, and then see the state of others in a even grimmer state, I am left with GUILT. While it is helpful, when it gives you perspective to remember those less fortunate, comparison is not the way to get out of a state of victimhood.

What do my resentments reveal? Underneath my “woe is me,” what am I thinking? What is my “victimhood” preserving and protecting? My desires. My hurt. My unmet expectations. Because under the irritation and bitterness are my desires to be with people I love, to have a sense of financial security and to be in joy. All these desires are unmet. And I am scared; and I am hurt. I am sad I don’t have a partner that I’d like to be quarantined with. I am sad that my career after all these years still feels uncertain and stagnant. I realize that my joy is very much wrapped up in circumstances. When I am in this state of thought and meditation, God can work. God can work in our honesty and rawness. He can’t break in fully in our lens of comparison. So what’s the remedy to victimhood? Vulnerability.

Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves one another has fulfilled the law.

Romans 13:8

Prayer: Lay before God your desires, your expectations and your hurt.

Creative: Write a haiku. (5-7-5)

Brave: Let someone know where you’re at, and tell them, you don’t need advice, just a listening ear.

Generous: Venmo $1 to someone to let them know you’re thinking of them, you’re with them!

CBG COVID Challenge: #1

March 21, 2020 — Leave a comment

It is natural and normal to paint the current situation as grim. It is. And it can feel insensitive and fake to simply find the silver lining or to focus on the positive. We as children of God DO NOT and SHOULD NOT do that because God does not silver line or simply zoom past reality to eventual heaven. If anyone and anything exemplifies how to “get through crisis,” it was Jesus f’ng Christ. He lived through humanity aka crisis and pain and hurt. He was with humanity. So as Christians we must set an example of how to live through reality while focusing on the goal and treasure we have already gained. This is our special time to overtly balance things that seem incongruent — here and not yet; fully clean yet needs sanctification; saints and sinners. What would it look like for us to be the truest church today, a church that makes others know and feel, we may be human form but we are Spirit guided.

As I was meditating on what the current situation feels like — anxiety, fear, depression, anger, sorrow, joy, gratitude, the movie Inside Out — I landed on this scripture which I think can be a way in to how we will get through.

For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?

Matthew 16:26

When we have the world, it’s easy to meditate on that scripture and tell ourselves — yes don’t be hoarding, don’t be selfish, meditate on God. We were focused on and we had the world, and we didn’t know it. Until now, when it really feels like we have lost the world. We have. We have lost our plans, our community, our money, our jobs, our hugs, life as we know it. So, now that the world is upside down, I’m going to flip this scripture.

For what will it profit a man if he gains his soul and forfeits the whole world?

That, children of God, is what we have. We have gained our soul and we have lost our world. This special time we have is a time for us to one, meditate and live into what it means to “gain our soul” and two, acknowledge and work through a reality of “forfeiting the world.” Can we do this? Can we do the hard work to shift and mold our character and soul while being real humans about our loss? I think by the Holy Spirit we can and we must!

Not sure if it’s Warren Buffet or Benjamin Graham, one of these old wealthy rich dudes, said to do something creative, brave and generous every day. Through these three categories I hope to make tangible the posture of Matthew 16:26. I also want to share a daily prayer posture. I hope this reset and reframe God has put on humanity will lead to a kinder, more vulnerable, and more overtly interdependent world. We need each other and each other is the funnest way through. Virtually, of course. STAY AWAY FROM PEOPLE!

Prayer: Grief. Be real and honest with God with loss you are experiencing and you see the world around you experiencing. Give it to God, hardcore lay it on God. Take a breath and let God really respond however God does.

Creative: Dance and jam to a song. YAS queen.

Brave: Who can you forgive?

Generous: Pray for someone who annoys you.

John 16: Tell all the truth but tell it slant

January 20, 2020 — Leave a comment

I have said these things to you in figures of speech. The hour is coming when I will no longer speak to you in figures of speech but will tell you plainly about the Father.

Metaphor

Similes, As If’s and like’s

Make the medicine go down

Movies art

Poetry

Make suffering and realties

Digestible and gentle

Candy coated like gardens of Eden

Hold the stories and feelings we understand

Growing and pruning truth in its core

What if Jesus is a metaphor?

What if the words we take to be so inherently true

Are true in the sense that they point to truth

But within itself are malleable and allow for shifts

According to where the light hits

And the time of day

And season of life

Flexible allows for faith

Flexible holds a God that has inherent worth

A God who is unafraid of your doubt and anger

I want the truth

Straight and slanted

John 10: Knowing the Voice

January 13, 2020 — 1 Comment

There are so many damn voices. Loud ones. Sultry alluring ones. Witty and enticing ones. Every voice is vying for our attention. Every voice wants us to listen and follow. Social media. Instagram. All the damn tv shows on all the damn networks. Which voice are we supposed to follow? How do we know? How do we know this is God? How do we know which voices to tune out and which one to tune in to?

We need to know what quiet sounds like. We need to know what complete surrender feels like. We need to be so blank and so silent that there’s a clearing. A nothingness. A lack. A valley. Then in that empty, in that nothing, what voice calls not for anything you can provide but simply for your vulnerability, truthfulness & openness?

What voice makes you feel exposed in a way you’ve longed for but you’ve never felt courageous enough to do to yourself? What voice exposes you so you can see yourself with no shame, no guilt, but with a brave curiosity and desire to shed & become!

Psalms 6 – 9: oh Lord…how long?

January 11, 2020 — Leave a comment

The ache and the rejoice are neighbors. The desire for God and the anger of the world are complementary. The recounting of God’s presence and the feeling of God’s absence fuel each other. We live in this tension of want and have, of yes Lord and where are you Lord? Maybe there are no peaks and valleys, only journey in the present.

The presence and calling of God calls forth all our emotions. God forces us to self-reflect. The moment we want vengeance, we also see our own faults. We cannot see the speck in another without seeing the plank in ourselves. So what then? Have your say and have your feel. However end with trusting that God is sovereign and we are only responsible for doing our parts that are led by justice, righteousness, gratitude and wholehearted surrender.

God I pray for self-awareness in the stead of self-pity. I pray for vulnerability in the stead of bitterness and fear. God I pray for an overflow of trust in you even when I cannot see and cannot hear because when I recount where I am now, I know you have been with me till now. Amen.