A thirty-day "diet" of passion~

Passion and Calling are interesting, hungry beasts, and nothing wakes them like this particular day, each year. Where December 31st comes gliding into our psyches on the beautiful and holy winter exhale of Christmas, New Year's Day shoves at our hearts with purpose, rousing it with a newfound umph!

We long to start well, and January reminds us that the slate is clean, that Jesus has bannered us with a firm it is finished, and we get to wear His name instead of our own murky deeds, identity, and effort. And I think the Lord loves this time of year too… The heft of symbols, and all that advent means burns my heart up each year--learning to wait on and with my Abba--and then to have it followed by the freshness of a new chance to learn to follow Him well.

One of the small ways I want to do that this year is to intentionally feed on what excites the Lord. I find those things in His word, in His creation (us, and nature) and the images of His creativity that come out through us (music, art, poetry..). But I also find it in the passions He's placed inside of me and others---all images of the passions contained in His own heart, the one pure heart. This month, I feel Him calling me to celebrate that, and to nestle into Him by learning more about what brings Him joy, what He's up to around the world and specifically in Bible translation, and what He longs for us to do about it!

So for 30 days, I will process and post what I find here, and I hope you'll join me in my pursuit and celebration!

Between dust and flowing water

“Between Times
Paul Tournier, in A Place for You, describes the experience of being in between—between the time we leave home and arrive at our destination; between the time we leave adolescence and arrive at adulthood; between the time we leave doubt and arrive at faith. It is like the time when a trapeze artist lets go the bar and hangs in midair, ready to catch another support: it is a time of danger, of expectation, of uncertainty, of excitement, of extraordinary aliveness.

Christians will recognize how appropriately these psalms [Psalms 120-134] may be sung between the times: between the time we leave the world’s environment and arrive at the Spirit’s assembly; between the time we leave sin and arrive at holiness; between the time we leave home on Sunday morning and arrive in church with the company of God’s people; between the time we leave the works of the law and arrive at justification by faith. They are songs of transition, brief hymns that provide courage, support and inner direction for getting us to where God is leading us in Jesus Christ.

Meanwhile the world whispers, “Why bother? There is plenty to enjoy without involving yourself in all that. The past is a graveyard—ignore it; the future is a holocaust—avoid it. There is no payoff for discipleship, there is no destination for pilgrimage. Get God the quick way; buy instant charisma.” But other voices speak—if not more attractively, at least more truly.”

-Eugene H. Peterson
A Long Obedience in the Same Direction, p.20

In the previous post, I mention a fortuitous coffee-date that I got to have this week, where we closed down the shop and were asked to continue our conversation outside ;)...

At one point in this long conversation, we hit a silly note, referring to a need for a "dating tips" site in regards to the life of a disciple of Christ ("How to keep it fresh when you've been together for 20+ years",  ha!)...  It feels very laughable to have typed that out, but what hit a chord for me is that, especially in this year of transitioning towards the missionary lifestyle, far from family, friends, and often a church Body, I am on a quest to sort out what a mature, fully grounded and steadfast discipleship should look like, apart from the structure that I am blessed to have just because I grew up around established church programs and awesome opportunities to learn from other believers on a daily and weekly basis...

When I look at not being utterly submerged in that in the future, the urgency of personal discipline is unveiled in the most real way I've ever experienced. This is most certainly a concept I've taken seriously all my life, and I was blessed with parents and a church that never for a second let me think that faith is "grandfathered-in", but in my most honest moments, I know that the Christian culture in America makes it very easy to think I know how to feed myself, because there is never a lack of spiritual food at my fingertips, and I have surely fallen into living off of what I can absorb “just  by showing up” before. 

But the beautiful side-effect of living on a precipice is that it mirrors back to me what   should   not   be.   And so alongside this journey towards serving in the Bible Translation process, I am on a journey to live in that vulnerable, chest-cavity-open-on-an-operating-alter kind of honesty, and to rediscover, each day, what intimacy with Christ can look like--and how alive  a "long obedience in the same direction" can be.  One of the most poignant characteristics that long seasons of sickness wrought out in me was the will  involved in submitting my heart and direction, not because there was a mountain peak coming, but just because the One I followed was deeply trustworthy, even if the journey felt ugly and painful.    In the last year though, He has been whispering me into a subsequent understanding of obedience and discipline----dancing me out of a fertile but somber valley, and onto unknown rocks and adventure. I have been praying that my submission would learn how to travel between these heavy and light hearted seasons with grace, whimsy, and praise, and that I would not loosen my grip on Him, depending on the form of the season…  

And may this be contagious. May we, irregardless of our different contexts, see the need to quest forward----for closeness with each other and with Him, for divine passion for what He's placed in us to do and be,  for hearts that would have no rest in or patience for our own nestled apathy, but would all seek the transition between dust and flowing water.