Privilege in Pain, Glory in Dying

I can almost guarantee that you have never considered something as undesirable as pain to be a privilege. I had not ever considered it, either, until I progressed out of a season of pain into a season of painful silence. In my season of pain, I felt compelled into the presence of Jesus. In my season of pain, I felt a sense of life and security. In my pain I found purpose, and drive, and motivation, and will power. Here in this season, I find stillness. Here in this season, I find feelings of intense disconnect. Here in this season, I find myself in the dying, and it is extremely uncomfortable yet unexpectedly beautiful in the most indescribable way. Naturally, I am going to try and write a blog about the most unexplainable thing I have ever encountered.

In some respects, the past month of my life has been the most uncomfortable thing I have ever encountered. I wake up in the morning and struggle in vain to find some kind of normal. My rogue heart strives to find just one thing besides the Lord that is consistent to cling to as if he were not enough. I sit down at the end of the day to process my thoughts and consider where I am, and I come up totally empty-handed, unable to pinpoint what the Lord is doing in my life. I feel as though I am floating through my days and weeks, collecting scratches as I bump up against the rough edges of unfamiliar environments and try to squeeze into places that were not meant for me.

What is happening, Jesus?

At the same time, I am realizing like never before exactly what I was made for. I am realizing what my heart burns for. I am starting to see a glimpse of what Jesus had in mind as he sat down to craft me, and opportunities have been unfolding more rapidly than I could have ever imagined for me to carry out what I was built for. Even at the end of those days when I feel most alive, however, there is  a wrestling on the inside of me that stops me in my tracks. When I am doing what I most love, whether it be loving teenagers or holding the hands of the homeless or lying on the floor of my room in worship, I can feel an opposing force rising up on the inside of me and war being waged in the depths of my being.

What is this, Lord? 

Turns out, this is the dying. This is my flesh being put to death. I can honestly say I have never been in this place before. I have never passed through a season of life quite like this where the Lord asked for my hand and then walked beside me in near silence concerning my own heart. He is being so intentional in every minute of this season, and I am seeing almost none of it as it transpires. I know he is working because I feel the shift, the struggle, the battle taking place. I see his purpose in it all. I understand that I cannot live my life if there is any of me left to live it. I find glory in the dying because he considered me, and now calls me higher. He is taking me to a place where I no longer live, where nothing of Alexis remains. He is gutting this space and creating a meeting room to conduct his business, and I am losing who I am in the process in the best way possible.

No one serves so faithfully as a dead man resurrected, for he has nothing standing in his way. 

Throwing Out Plan B

When I crawled out of bed at 11pm last night to grab my laptop and start writing, I thought this was going to go an entirely different direction. I have written, erased, and rewritten these first three sentences (and almost every sentence after these) about four times now and I am finally giving up my own ideas about what I am about to say. You and I are officially on a journey to hear from Jesus together, and I am just as curious as you are to see what he has to say.

We have all been taught the importance of having a backup plan. We have them for almost everything in life. In case of fire, take the stairs. In case of a flat tire, keep a spare in the trunk. In case of emergency landing, check under your seat for the cushion that doubles as a floatation device (this one always makes me really nervous). These kinds of backup plans are wise. If the building is burning down, you don't need to be standing in line for the elevator. If you blow out a tire, you don't need to ride the rim all the way to your destination. If your plane goes down in the Pacific, you really shouldn't rely on your 8th grade swim team skills to save you. All great things to take into consideration.

However, some backup plans can be extremely harmful to the plans of God on your life. Sometimes we use backup plans in the same way we would use emergency exit stairs, except there is no fire, only a fear of one. "Jesus… I am going to follow you wherever you may lead me. Unless of course it starts to look like I can't make a living off of that, so I'm going to get that second degree in mechanical engineering just to be safe." A few years later when the economy plummets and times get hard, the temptation is there to take the emergency exit and walk away from where the Lord has you in order to stabilize your financial situation without any regard for the fact that when the Lord calls a man, he provides for his every need. When we start to make our decisions based off of what we see and not what we have heard from the Lord, we end up on the path to Plan B, and Plan B can be a long, bumpy road when we are trying to pave the way for ourselves.

Sometimes our backup plans don't look like career paths, but something much more personal. However, no matter what our backup plans are for, they always have something to do with our control over our own situations. "Jesus… I know you are asking me to trust you completely in this situation. I know that you want to be the one to work it out from start to finish, but I am just going to keep my foot in that door in case you need help and I need to barge in and manipulate any part of this thing to make it go "our" way. I'm just here in case you need backup." Assuming that we recognize the irrationality of our "in case you need help" logic, Plan B signifies an area of the heart that is still resistant to trusting God. What area of our lives is so big that God is not capable to work out even the most complicated detail without a single strategy of our own?

Not only does Plan B rob Jesus of our trust in the moment, but it also comes back to stir up doubt in the years to come. When we make our own plans and pave our own paths, we will always be able to look back and question whether or not we did the right thing. When we stick with plan A, following the voice of Jesus all the way, there is no room left for questioning. He always does the right thing. When life gets really hard on the road to Plan B, there is no reference point to look back to that promises everything will work out in the end. When life gets really hard on the road to Plan A, I can still my heart, remember the moment that I heard Jesus whisper his plans, and know that it doesn't matter what I am seeing, because he is already waiting at the end of the road.

Here is the challenge to both you and I… Would we be so bold as to trash every Plan B in these seasons to come? Would we live our lives with a violent faith that says, "Jesus, if you don't come through, I'm not going through, because I am not deviating from the plans you have set before me." That seems like a really big risk, but it isn't like the risk of being stuck on the side of the road with no spare, or the plane going down without a floatation device. We already have the promise that he WILL come through. The hard part is in those moments or seasons when it does't look that way and everything is telling us otherwise. The hard part is when we wish we would have kept our foot in that door because we can't see how Jesus is possibly going to work out the situation without any help on our part. But friends, just hold on a few moments longer, because Plan A with Jesus has never failed… not once.

(Not) Empty-Handed

Take a moment and hold out your hand in front of you. I promise I'm not going to try and tell you your future or anything, but I want you to get a good look at the palm of your hand. Some of us have little hands, some of us large hands. Some of us have soft hands, others calloused hands from a hard day's work. My hand happens to have a wrinkle in the shape of the letter "M" and a freckle in the middle that has been there ever since I can remember. Regardless of how big or small or tender or tough your hands are, there is one true statement about every hand in the world: it can only hold so much until there is no room left to hold anything else.

I'm going to lead you to my point with an extremely practical example. Lets pretend you and I are talking face to face and I ask you to offer me your hand. If I pull out a bag of pennies, I can only place so many pennies in your palm until all the free space has been filled and the excess pennies begin spilling onto the floor. If I decide I want to place quarters in your hand, I am going to have to remove some of those pennies that are already taking up space in order to make room for the new coins. 

Our lives are a lot like our open hands. We have x amount of space that we can fill as we please. If we want to fill it with a lot of work, then there might not be as much time left for family. If we want to fill it with a lot of fun, then there might not be much time left to get the job done. But what about Jesus? Where does he fit into our open hand principle? Because Jesus will take just as much of our space as we want to give him. If we want to throw out 1 square inch of distractions, Jesus will come inhabit 1 square inch. If we want to clear half the room for Jesus, Jesus will take half the room. However, regardless of how much space you decide to offer Jesus, in order to make room, something else has to go. 

Sometimes we live with tightly closed fists. After all, it is extremely uncomfortable to open our hands and let something go that we have held onto for a long time. We fear opening our hands because we are afraid that one day we will turn up completely empty-handed. On top of that, Jesus isn't a great space-sharer. The Bible tells us that we serve a jealous God. When we assign Jesus a little space between work and relationships and possessions and goals, all those things that are pressing against his space become increasingly less comfortable until we are willing to let them go to make more space for Jesus; or until we decide to remove him and allow them to take his place.

It all comes down to a decision of what you really want most out of life. It all comes down to a decision of whether or not you will open your hand, clear every inch of space to make room for Jesus, and face the fear of being left empty-handed. I'm going to let out the secret, though. When you open your hand for the sake of more of Jesus, it will never be empty. It's impossible. Never one time has God forsaken his people who abandoned everything for the sake of knowing him more deeply. Not once.

In fact, you would be in a much safer boat to go ahead and bulldoze that space you have reserved for all your hopes, dreams, goals, and ambitions, and to allow Jesus to invade that place and rebuild some of those dreams according to his plan. It would be to your benefit to release your tight grasp on your career path so that Jesus could come and straighten the way for you no matter how much of a different direction it seemed he was taking. It would not hurt you one bit to lay down every relationship in your life before the Lord and ask Jesus to resurrect them and place them back into your hands according to his plans and purposes for your life in this season. There are some things you might need to let go of in order to make more space for Jesus that you will never see again. That is okay, friend. Once that area of your life has been invaded by the presence of God, you won't feel the sting of any lack.

When the world looks at my hand, I am sure that to them it appears to be empty. When I look at my hand, I see the fullness and the richness of God's plans for my life. I keep my fingers spread open wide, not in a hurry to cling tightly to anything, but willing to allow any and every thing to pass through onto the ground trusting that Jesus will keep for me everything I have need of. It really is the only way to do life with Jesus, and I would not trade it for the false sense of security that comes from placing anything of my own design into the palm of my hand. Would you be willing to open your hand today?

It's Always Been A Waiting Game

Life truly is one giant waiting game. We wait in traffic, we wait in line, we wait for the promotion, we wait for the news from the doctor, we wait for the perfect opportunity. Most anything that is worth anything to us requires some kind of waiting on our part. Waiting is nothing new. Waiting wasn't invented when Apple decided to make us stand in line for the new iPhone or when Chic-fil-a opened up a second drive-thru lane that really only serves to create a bigger parking lot problem. Since the beginning of time, man found himself waiting.

Abraham waited for God to fulfill his promise of a child who would be the first of many offspring. Jacob waited seven years as he worked for his wife Rachel and then seven more after he was deceived by her father Laban. Joseph waited from the bottom of a pit and then from the deepest part of prison to see the fruition of his dreams come to pass. Moses waited for God to soften Pharaoh's heart to see the release of his people from slavery. Joshua waited for the Lord to deliver his people into the Promised Land. David waited to become king as he fled from Saul. Esther waited for the Lord to save her people. Daniel waited to be delivered from the mouths of lions… And all of these people received the promises of God.

Then, for 400 years after the latest Old Testament prophet delivered his message from God, the world waited in silence to once again hear God speak. Man waited to be delivered from his sin problem. He waited to be set free from the chains that had bound him since before the time of Abraham and Jacob and Joseph and Moses. Creation cried out for a deliverer, and the time had finally come.

"The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them a light has shone… For unto us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end, on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore." Isaiah 9:2,6-7

The waiting was over. God not only opened his mouth, but the WORD BECAME FLESH and dwelt among us and showed us his glory. That baby, the Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, and Prince of Peace, grew in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and man. He began to reveal himself as the perfect solution to the sin problem that we had been waiting for. He found himself at the age of 33 years old hanging on a cross, fulfilling his own plan that he had since the beginning of time for our redemption. He overcame death, and he eradicated the sin problem for all those who were willing to believe both in that moment and these moments that we are living in now.

Christmas, Christmas is the celebration of the end of the waiting game. We don't have to wait for another savior. We don't have to wait for another redeemer. We aren't facing the possibility of another 400 years of silence. Jesus already came and sealed the deal with his Holy Spirit. THIS IS MY FAVORITE GOOD NEWS. The end of this waiting game signifies a beginning of a whole new way of life-- full of PROMISE, HOPE, PEACE, JOY, and PURPOSE. And now, now we wait for something different. We wait for the moment that we get to stand face to face with Jesus, whole and complete, perfected in every way. This time, we do not wait alone, unsure of when his promise will be fulfilled. We wait FOR Jesus WITH Jesus, knowing that in the blink of an eye when this world passes away, when we breathe our last breath, the waiting is over and a whole new day begins… again.

CHRISTMAS. IS. AWESOME.

Lessons from the Man in Manitou

Manitou Springs, CO

This weekend, I had the coolest opportunity to go see some of my dearest friends in Colorado Springs. It was an AWESOME time to reconnect with incredible people, spend some intimate time with Jesus, and unwind at the end of an insane semester. We did all kinds of super fun things from soaking up some awesome worship at Every Home for Christ to exploring the snowy, narrow mountain roads. On Friday afternoon, we decided we would head up to Manitou Springs to try and tackle some Christmas shopping for our parents. In an attempt not to ruin Christmas, I'll just say that my mom loves unique things and she LOVES her homeland of Colorado, so I figured one of the little shops in Manitou was bound to have something for her. A shop filled with brightly colored metals and stones caught my eye, so we decided to venture in.

After looking around for a minute, the owner of the shop casually walked in from outside to greet us. The older gentleman walked us around the store telling us about all of the great deals and discounts he was going to offer us, and seemed satisfied when I settled on the perfect gift for my mom. We walked over to the checkout, and that is when the real conversation started. Seemingly out of nowhere, with no prompting from us, the man from Manitou started talking to us about his life. 

He told us about serving in Vietnam, watching his friends die on the field in front of him, and coming back at the end of the war seeking something real to alleviate the numbness that plagued him daily. After being back in United States for some time and struggling day after day just to find something to hold on to, he decided to return his Native American roots and began practicing suspension and weekly rituals at the sweat lodge. Every week, he goes and has his body pierced so that he can be hung from metal hooks in his chest, torso, legs, or back. He told us that all of these things are done in an attempt to feel something real, TO EXPERIENCE SOMETHING THAT COSTS HIM. He tried all kinds of religion, and this is where he finally settled because at least in pain there is 'something.' This man in Manitou is simply searching for something that makes him feel more than dead inside and he knows that feeling alive always comes with a cost. 

I can't tell you what my face looked like as I stood there and listened to him. I don't know if the tears fighting their way to the surface were evident to anyone but me, but my heart shattered. This man had seen death and experienced heartache and then came back to the United States and all he could find to make him feel alive again was more pain and more heartache. THIS is why a Christianity that costs us nothing must soon come to an end. This is why the church in America that promises nothing more than prosperity and riches to its converts can't go on much longer.

We will soon live in a nation that is so hurt, so desperate for something real, so broken and so numb from tradgedy that the church will finally have to be what it was meant to be. We as followers of Jesus will finally have to take up our cross and follow him. We will finally have to respond to the call to count everything as loss for the surpassing glory of knowing Christ. I am sorry that the man in Manitou never found a place among a body of believers where he was shown just how real life with Jesus can be. I sit here and weep over the fact that we were not there to extend the love of Jesus that strips away every bit of numbness and leaves a heart of flesh once again. I lament over the fact that the Christianity that was promoted to him promised a life that would cost nothing, and as a result, he walked away.

I take hope in the fact that there is a trumpet sounding, calling for all the sons and daughters of God to pick up their swords once again and FIGHT for something REAL that will COST EVERYTHING. I rejoice in the fact that true relationship with Jesus IS available to every hurt, broken, and calloused heart looking for another chance to feel again. I sing for joy that the day is coming and is here now that God is raising up a generation who will seek his glory and lay down their own because they know they have found the better thing.

Dear __________,

Dear _________,

I don't know how else to relay this message to you other than through this blog post because I simply don't know who you are. Maybe I know you better than I think I do, maybe you are more than one person, or maybe you live on the other side of the ocean. Either way, I want to share with you something that the Lord showed me in a very sweet moment with him that I think is for you, too. Maybe you will find a meaning in it that goes deeper or in a different direction than the one I found, but I pray that you would allow the Lord to show himself to you regardless. I know that for me, my heart has been branded.

As I was talking to the Lord on my way to take a final exam yesterday, my prayer sounded something like this... "Lord, I could pray about so many things right now. I could ask for help on a test or answers to all of these questions in my life, or I could request a word from you concerning the state of my heart; but I would just like for you to show me what is on YOUR heart today. What do you want to say to me without me having to ask?"

The Lord gave me this vision…

It was what looked like a scene from the movie The Impossible. A huge tsunami had come ashore and was rapidly clearing the streets of every unrooted thing. Out of nowhere, I noticed a vine hanging down from the top of the skyline that I was able to grip onto in order to keep from being swept away. The torrent seemed to last for hours and I became frightened that nothing besides myself would remain at the end of the day. There was no one left as far as I could see who had kept their head above the water. I was convinced that I had been left the sole survivor of an unexpected disaster. Slowly, the water began to recede and and I saw that there were, in fact, a few things left standing in the middle of the road. Some of them were people, but other things were simply pillars that I had not seen standing there before. They had been covered by the flood, but had either managed to root themselves in the street or find vines of their own to cling to.

This is what the Lord said: Hold onto me as the flood waters rise; cling to me with everything you have. Every thing that is not worthy of remaining will be swept away, but the few things that prove themselves to be rooted will remain. You will not be left on your own, simply hold on and allow me to finish my process. I know it looks like nothing is going to be left standing at the end of the day, but you cannot see what I see. You don't see the refinement that is happening beneath the flood waters.

I can't explain to you in words how deeply this spoke to me in my present season. The magnitude of this revelation in my heart is something that will only ever be known between my Father and I, and that's okay. Whoever you are reading this that needed to hear these words from the Lord, take them and etch them into your very being. Hold onto them and don't let go of them for anything. I am praying for you even now that you would cling to the vine, grow your roots down deep, and be found stronger at the end of this season.

I Am For You

I am afraid two blogs in two days might be overkill, so I will keep this one very short and very simple. I wrestled to even write this down anywhere but in my own journal, but I don't want someone to miss out on something that might not just be for me. If it is just for the sake of one more to hear Jesus speaking today, let me open my heart to you all again.

I woke up this morning at 6am. That would be totally normal for some people, but I am junior in college and we tend not to do much before 8 in the morning especially during dead week. My eyes popped open and I instantly felt overwhelmed by the day at hand. I knew I had some hard things to face and I just wanted to pull the covers over my head and face it all over again in two hours. My body wouldn't let me.

I rolled out of bed and headed for the shower. If you read my blog yesterday, you know that the shower usually signifies a Jesus meeting, but I felt so heavy hearted I didn't want to let my walls down. I felt myself pulling my heart further inside of me in an attempt not to turn it over for the daily examination, but I know better than to run from Jesus.

I got ready as quickly as I could, packed my bag, and headed for the prayer tower here at ORU. I had a final, work, and a lot of uncomfortable situations ahead of me, but I could hear Jesus calling. I spent about an hour downstairs sobbing as I let Jesus chisel away at my walls and restore pieces of my heart, and let me tell you… It hurt. It always hurts when Jesus is removing barriers, but the reward is always so sweet.

The upstairs of the prayer tower has been reconstructed over the years as a type of guided "prayer journey" for students and visitors to walk around and listen for the voice of God. It maybe sounds a bit spooky to you, but all it is really is excerpts from Oral Robert's book on how to hear from God painted on the walls as you walk the circle overlooking the campus. I have only been up there one time in all my time as a student here at ORU, but this morning, it sounded like a good idea. I went up and walked the circle paying no attention to the words on the walls. As I was about to go back down, a still small voice prompted me to walk it again and really listen. I was clinging to words God had spoken yesterday and the day before, but I needed to hear him today. I needed to know what he was saying to me.

I got to the second excerpt from the book painted on the wall, when Jesus whispered "I am with you." I said thanks to Jesus because he was speaking directly to a fear I had been facing and that was awesome, but he had already told me that yesterday (major heart check needed! I want the voice of Jesus to always shake me to my core no matter what he says!) I kept walking when all of a sudden Jesus whispered, "Not only am I WITH you but I am FOR you." I totally lost it. I thought I had no tears left after the first hour in there… I was wrong. He started speaking to me that not only does he walk beside me, but he walks ahead of me, fighting for me, making a way for me, orchestrating events and circumstances for my good, working out the minute details of my life.

That is MIND BLOWING to me!! The creator of the universe who I have been created for, is for me! Why?! It makes no sense! He could choose to be a God that sits on his throne solely absorbing the praises of his people, but he chooses to get his hands dirty. He chooses to work in us and through us and for us. WHAT. PLEASE HEAR ME! God is not only with you, he is FOR you. He proved it when he took the cross and tore the veil making a way for you to come to him. Don't for a second doubt his faithfulness or his love for you, that he would turn the whole world upside down for the sake of one of his kids. I don't know what you're facing. I may not even know you, but I know God is FOR you. So rise up, friend, out of the ashes and the fear and doubt, and take a hold of the promises and call of God on your life. Use your every breath to sing of his mercy and love and faithfulness.