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When 2 & 3 go off the line for the last time, then I’ll be one happy girl.
Have you ever had this song that just broke your heart? That for some inexplicable reason you feel your chest cave in every time you hear it? I’ve had one of those songs – forever it seems – and a couple of years ago it was covered by a group called Across the Sky but the song itself is probably 10-12 years old. I haven’t heard it forever, but it popped up on my iTunes earlier today and I remembered how every single time I hear it, my heart stops.
Dreams
within the still of night
on wings of hope take flight
inside of me
There
upon some distant shore
we want for nothing more
than what will be
And you and I, here we are
I wonder as we’ve come this far
If I could only read your mind
tell me the answer I would find
Do You dream of me?
Love
has found a magic place
a deep and hidden place
where time stands still
Now I hold you in my arms
you know you hold my heart and always will
You and I, here we are
and it’s a wonder that we’ve come this far
And after all that we’ve been through,
you’ve leaned on me I’ve leaned on you
Do you dream of me?
And when you’re smiling in your sleep
beyond the promises we keep
Do you dream of me?
If I could only read your mind tell me the answer I would find
Do you dream of me?
And when you’re smiling in your sleep beyond the promises we keep
Do you dream of me?
And after all that we’ve been through, you’ve leaned on me I’ve leaned on you
Do you dream of me?
What I’m listening to: The Buffseeds’ Picture Show
Why must we pretend to be happy? And why is this asinine desire for others to see us at the best version of ourselves?
You see, this is why I can never work in a job like sales or customer service. I just can’t be a chipper, happy and pleasant person on cue. It’s not in my genetic make-up. I don’t feel like a lesser person because of it. Maybe I should. I just can’t stand acting fake to another person.
What does God say about posing? I haven’t done a lot of looking into this, so I don’t recall much off the top of my head, but I wonder about Matthew 5:37 “Simply let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.” . I remember studying this in a class I had on Instructional Bible Study and in context, Jesus is talking about keeping the promises you make to God. But can’t this be applied to any situation? “Don’t be a faker. Be honest with who you are and what you feel. Stick to your word and follow through with it” I have a hard time believing Jesus would do anything less than that.
I remember about six years ago our former pastor was going through a series on marriage and one sermon in particular I still remember – it was on the myths of marriage. One myth he mentioned was “I shouldn’t have to change to make my husband/wife happy”. He believes it’s important to change because we should want our spouse to be happy. That left a bad taste in my mouth, so I called him up and we talked about it. I was in a relationship at the time where I was being asked to change, and while the change was really no big deal in retrospect, I was concerned about changing the heart of who I was. And I wasn’t about to do that for anyone. He reminded me his wife loves quilts and he doesn’t really care for them. So when she wants to go to a quilt show and wants him to go with, he goes, not because he’s a doormat, but because it makes her happy. And he wants her to be happy. He told me not to compromise who I am at my core, because God made me that way for a reason, but changing behavior to make someone else happy is essentially a gift, as long as it doesn’t conflict with the standard God has set for us in scripture.
I still hate being a poser and in every situation, I avoid doing so because I hate who I become when I do. But I can see my former pastor’s point. Part of being in a relationship with someone is wanting to please them, not to get your own way.
What I’m listening to: Tegan and Sara’s So Jealous
Still reading Peretti’s Monster (with a security blanket nearby). It’s completely freaking me out.
This is a great post. I appreciate blogs on worship because they are leaders like me, in the fray, leading a group of people who are often more concerned with going to church than actually being the church.
I don’t get to just “go” to church. When I’m there I’m either leading worship or behind the church laptop running the projector. So it’s different for me. I don’t have the normal experience of what could become habit-forming church attendance. I don’t get to sit in a pew, sing a few songs and listen to someone talk for while about the Bible. (I’d like to hope regardless of what role I have in the church I wouldn’t go thru the motions instead of the true experience of worship the author writes about in the above blog post… but I digress.)
What does it take for a person to get to this point? What causes it? Unless we discover the root of the problem, the reason for this obligatory behavior, nothing in the church will change.
Here’s the money quote from the above post I linked to:
I think for those in the pew, it’s very easy to go through the motions because we serve a very loving God who continues to put up with our shananigans. He does not smite us for our lack of total abandonment to Him in our worship, in other words. And, no, this ain’t a “personality” issue I’m talking about. This is not a matter of person A being more “overt” in the worship than person B. I am talking about coming to the Lord willing and desiring to offer ALL that we are – heart, soul, mind and body – totally and completely – holding nothing back – just like we see in the pages of scripture.
This is the kind of Christian Barna talks about in his book Revolution. It’s the kind of person God laid it on my heart to be. So I struggle with understanding where others come from, i.e. those who may not know where to place their faith – how to actively live it out – how to share Christ with others without beating them to death with it all – how to be abandoned to him. How to not just “go thru the motions”. As I read Barna’s book, I wondered when this happened to me, when a passion to know Christ fully and to live my life for him come to me. I am sure it wasn’t always this way, but I don’t know what the turning point was. Maybe if I did, I could gain insight on how to affect change in others. Or, share Christ better with Ordinary Attempts as they are called here. But I am still racking my brain.
There are landmarks in my walk with Christ. Several occurred in college – one night on the bench by Wilson Hall, my long bout with insomnia jr. year and the night I finally understood why, one afternoon under a walnut tree with a friend named J.R., one summer on a van with six other people who didn’t understand me, one book that changed my life forever, this song that changed me forever, and this other song that changed me forever, a telephone conversation I had in the hallway of the dorm with my best friend – mostly in tears because I missed him though he was just a few steps away, the summer I spent with lots and lots of brown recluse spiders, one night huddled under a chair hiding from security in the student union, one afternoon on the floor of a dorm room with my accountability partner, a letter Maria wrote me that I still carry in my bible. But these don’t even compare to the landmarks I’ve had in the last two years. There weren’t as many, but these recent landmarks had a much great effect on me.
But the landmarks early on were the ones that stirred my heart to God. The little ones (and 1 big one – care to guess which?) in college, the big ones last year are landmarks that brought me here. God met me where I was and I opened my heart to whatever lesson that came around the corner. And each Sunday, I ask God for the same thing: that the hearts of each person who came through the door would open their hearts to what God wants them to hear. Those people I pray for must actively choose to be open or closed, to experience worship or go thru the motions.
I don’t know if these landmarks are what caused me to chase after God or not. My suspect is that they are because each one, with all their heartache and joy, brought a blessing. God poured out blessings on me and I wanted more, so I continued the chase. And if there is anything that chasing is not it’s simply “going thru the motions”.
What I’m listening to: Caedmon’s Call’s Just Don’t Want Coffee
What I’m reading: Monster by Frank Peretti
This is my greatest fear. At least according to this test.
I took it four years ago and that was my result: I am most afraid of not being good enough. And I remember thinking to myself, at least Russ was wrong, my greatest fear isn’t rejection. Potato, potahto.
So I started to understand myself a little better as the result of this test, but I didn’t know how to fix it. How do you overcome something that’s followed you around for years, something you’ve overcompensated for over and over again, and something you didn’t even realize was a fear in the first place?
What does it truly mean to be the best version of yourself? Or as Chambers puts it “Being my utmost for his highest”? Isn’t this a journey every woman must take for herself? I know who I want to be, but is that attainable?
I’ve found that most people, women in particular, want to be themselves but are just as concerned (if not more so) with being what everyone expects of them. Instead of spending time discovering who God’s wants us to be, we often focus on what the most important person to us wants us to be. And that puts a ridicules amount of pressure on the shoulders of this person.
But what really drives me crazy are the people who think what God wants from them is perfection. I know many “God-fearing” Christians that believe in their hearts God just wants us to follow his rules and that’s it. Somehow, that is obtainable perfection to them. Never mind the matters of the heart, soul and mind. God just wants our actions to mimic his, what scripture says, and we’re good, right? No.
What God wants is me. Not my lip service, not my actions of obligation, but me. Why? Because he created me to be someone specific, unlike anyone else who followed all his rules and unlike anyone else who doesn’t follow his rules.
He wants me to be who he created me to be. And that person is never going to be good enough. If it was, the blood of Christ isn’t necessary to cover my sin.
I was recently at a Third Day/David Crowder concert and Powell told a story about his daughter. One night his wife came to get him and said “Honey, you have to come and see.” They went into their daughters room where she, all of 7 years old, was on her knees, crying. She’s just accepted Jesus into her heart. Powell recounted how special the moment was to him because he misses so much being on the road. But the next morning his cynical side took over and he wondered “Does she really understand her decision? Does she really know what God’s done for her?” And God spoke to him and said “Mac, you don’t understand.”
I may never fully understand who it is God wants me to be. I just know he wants me. He doesn’t need me, but he wants me. And I will never be good enough. But I don’t need to be, because God will love me anyway. If I do it his way, the blessings to follow will be far beyond my greatest hope.
What I’m listening to: Building 429’s Space In Between Us
Stephanie Nelson 