It’s been a whirlwind week, and the busyness will get worse before it gets better.
One particular big decision (not a decision I must make, or even a decision regarding me–but a big decision others must make concerning a friend) weighs upon my heart.
I’m clinging to the word: “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:6-7)
And so I choose not to be anxious.
I choose to lift my requests to God.
I choose to be thankful.
And His peace, beyond my understanding, sets a guard over my heart and my mind.
I’ve got a Muslim classmate–actually, I’m sure that I have several Muslim classmates. But I have one particular Muslim classmate with whom I converse on occasion.
I’m not sure how we met or started talking. But somehow, we did. And since our paths often lie in the same direction, we walk together and talk every so often.
The thing is, I’m acutely aware that he is a man and I a woman. And I’m not sure where propriety draws a line. I know enough of Muslim culture to know not to initiate friendship with a Muslim man. I haven’t done that. But what about when a Muslim man initiates friendship with a single, non-Muslim woman? That’s where the tricky part comes in.
What culture does Muhammad (I’ll call him that here, for it is his name, even though I call him by another name in “real life”) belong to, and which culture’s rules should I follow in responding to him? He is Libyan by birth, he studied in Malaysia, and now he is here in the US pursuing an advanced degree.
Do I treat him as just a fellow grad student? Do I treat him as an international student (whatever that might look like)? Or do I treat him as a Muslim man?
Most of you probably know that I don’t believe in “best friendships” with guys. I don’t think that kind of heart intimacy is appropriate for a platonic male-female relationship. So I have no intention of taking this friendship to a heart level.
The “problem” is that I want for Muhammad to know Christ–just as I want all of my friends to know Christ. But sharing Christ with a Muslim man is different than sharing Christ with a non-Muslim man. I don’t know if I’m equal to the task. I don’t know if I should be.
So for now, I pray that I would walk in wisdom. I pray that the Holy Spirit would guide me to not act or speak out of turn–and to know when and if it is appropriate to speak. Most of all, I pray that God would give Muhammad male Christian friends who would be bold to share the gospel with him.
Notes on Francis Chan’s Forgotten God
Introduction
Variety. Balance. Moderation.
Buzzwords for healthy eating. Buzzwords for healthy living.
Try lots of different things. Have them in proportion. Don’t have too much of anything.
I’m by no means perfect, but this is how I try to live–finding a balance between the hundreds of things that attract my interest, trying to moderate my affections and attentions.
I find this spilling over into my spiritual life, where I’m constantly trying to find a balance–between holiness and grace, between spirit and truth, between orthodoxy and relevance.
But this is where I go wrong–and where Chan’s words hit me:
“When we are referring to God, balance is a huge mistake. God is not just one thing we add to the mix called life. He wants an invitation from us to permeate everything and every part of us. In the same way, seeking a “healthy balance” of the Holy Spirit assumes that there are some who have too much Holy Spirit and others who have too little. I have yet to meet anyone with too much Holy Spirit. Granted, I’ve met many who talk about Him too much, but none who are actually overfilled with His presence.
When it comes to God, I don’t need variety. Deuteronomy 4:35 says “…the Lord Himself is God, there is none other beside Him.”
When it comes to God, I don’t need balance. I don not need to walk a fine line between which character attribute I emphasize and which I de-emphasize. I need to emphasize them all.
When it comes to God, I don’t need moderation. I need everything.
When it comes to God, I need to see Him entirely, experience Him completely, and cling to Him wholeheartedly.
The imbalances I see in those who emphasize holiness to the exclusion of grace or spirit to the exclusion of truth are not solved by running a balancing act between the two. They are solved by emphasizing God to the exclusion of all else.
Imbalances come when I try to pick and choose between radicalism and stagnation–when instead, I should be choosing God.
Imbalances come when I, a human, try to balance God instead of recognizing that God needs no balancing. I need God. Period.
It is not possible to have too much of God. Imbalances occur not when I have too much of God (or even to much of a specific one of God’s attributes). Imbalances come because there is too much me.
My goal in life, then, should be like John the Baptist’s: that He would increase and that I would decrease. My goal should be to have all that He is, to embrace Him fully, to let Him take over my life.
It is not possible to have too much of God.
Lord, I repent of placing myself in Your place, trying to be the judge weighing You on my balance. I see now that the opposite should be true. You are the judge, the arbiter of right and wrong, of balance and imbalance. You are all that is good–and I have only to embrace all of You for my life to be balanced. I repent of picking and choosing which parts of You to embrace. I repent of trying to choose how much of Your control I’d allow. And today I choose to desire all of You. I want Your exclusive reign over every part of my life. I offer my life to You. Take it–until all that remains is You.
With a long day (22 hours on 4 hours of sleep) on Saturday and a wedding early Sunday afternoon, I elected to not attend church Sunday morning. My hostess in the Master’s College dorms had invited me to chapel on Monday morning, so I knew I’d still have a chance to worship with a body of believers this week.
I was excited to be there, to worship with these college students. I was supremely grateful to Kim for inviting me. It wasn’t until I got into the gymnasium and took my seat next to Kim in the aisle about halfway down that I started to get nervous.
It was then that I suddenly realized that I had no idea how these people conducted their musical worship. I know a wee bit about Master’s college’s theology–after all, John MacArthur is the president of the school. I know MacArthur’s theology to be quite conservative, and dogmatic on certain issues that I consider secondary issues (ones over which true believers can and do disagree). It made me wonder whether this conservatism would carry over into musical worship.
Because my worship style… Well…
Music moves me.
And I don’t just mean emotionally.
That I know of, I have never been able to keep my body still when music is going. Try as I may to keep myself still, my body sways, my feet tap, my arms begin flowing.
In my church, with its very open worship-style, this isn’t really a problem. “That’s just Rebekah,” the congregation says of the girl with the long hair who’s almost dancing in the front row. But then again, my church is fine with people actually dancing–the jump up and down and twirl in circles kind of dancing.
But what happens when I enter a more conservative congregation?
Usually, I know in advance that I’m entering a more conservative congregation, and I have a pew in front of me that I can grasp to stabilize myself–to keep my body from giving me away.
Here, my hostess has selected the row with a big break between it and the one in front of it–a horizontal aisle for people to cross back and forth. What’s more, she’s given me the aisle seat. This is the seat I’d normally choose, the seat I’d desire if I knew the church had no problem with my worship style. Aisle seats mean I have plenty of room to simply worship, without worrying that my unconscious movement would run into anyone.
Except that I have no desire to place a stumbling block in anyone’s way by allowing myself such freedom in worship here.
For the first song, I tightly grasp my hands together in front of me, trying to focus on the lyrics, trying to focus on God–but mostly just focusing on keeping myself still.
When a member of the worship band half raises his hand towards the end of the first song, I breathe a sigh of relief. This expression of worship is allowed.
I begin to see some students with hands half raised, so I allow myself that freedom.
Now some have their hands fully raised in the air. I relax a bit more.
They begin the song “Before the Throne of God Above”.
My heart is overwhelmed with thankfulness for the
“great High Priest whose name is love
Who ever lives and pleads for me.”
I forget myself and simply worship.
I want to honor God by honoring His body. I also want to honor God by fixing my attention on Him alone in worship. The difficulty is when fixing my attention on Him might be a distraction for others seeking to do the same.
Photo Albums:
In honor of Amy’s wedding this weekend and the reuniting of four of the five “Unveiled Daughters” from Jacksonville STP 2006, I’ve posted some Jacksonville Summer Training Program Photos.
Ladies Retreat (We camped for a night in Jacksonville for our “ladies retreat”)
Dying my hair (In preparation for my role as “Posh Spice” in the upcoming costume party)
Spice Girls (Our team as the Spice Girls for a costume party)
A Series I’m Really Looking forward to…
As someone who has had the privilege of tutoring an underliterate (my word) student and seen her literacy dramatically improve as she grasped hold of the joys of the written word, I’m really excited to hear about Janna’s experiences tutoring a 16 year old boy who couldn’t write the word “remember”.
“We set the date and time for our first session. What would I discover about his reading skills? How desperate would his need be? Would I really be able to make a difference? I prayed and told God I was willing, but that He would have to direct my mouth.
He arrived Monday evening and after answering a few “getting to know you” questions, we got started. I asked him to write the word “remember.” He hesitated, twirled the pen in his long, brown fingers, and looked around. I asked him again and he scrawled three letters. “Keep going,” I encouraged.
He added a few more letters and leaned back.
The paper said, “remomble.””
News to take note of:
Lincoln’s police deal with an auto/turkey accident. My dad mentioned this, but it wasn’t until I saw the diagram that I realized the hilarity of this particular incident that occurred on the road I take to church every week.
All public tweets to be archived in the Library of Congress. Every public tweet ever made since Twitter’s inception in 2006 will now be housed in the Library of Congress. Which means the humble bekahcubed (along with thousands of others) will make her way into the national collection.
An open letter to fetal humans. In this pro-life satire, Joe Carter helps fetal humans understand how to reduce their risks of being aborted.
From the intro:
“You have made it to the second stage of life. But you’re not out of the woods, as they say, until you’re out of the womb. In America there are roughly 250 abortions for every 1000 live births, which means that you have (all other things being equal) a one in five chance of still being aborted. Here are four reasons you might be aborted and what you can do to avoid this gruesome fate.”
From the conclusion:
“Your best hope is to pray and hope that others are praying for you too. With any luck you’ll survive the fetal stage of development and move on to infancy, adolescence, and adulthood. Once you reach this stage of life you’ll be able to join other Americans in exercising one of our most cherished and incontrovertible rights: the right to kill a fetus for any reason you choose.”
Mark Driscoll on the four streams of the emerging/emergent church–in which he makes a distinction between emerging and emergent. I had a conversation with our church’s youth pastor about the church while I was going through the book Why We Love the Church here on my blog. Jeremy (our youth pastor) mentioned Driscoll’s distinction between emergent and emerging. I kept it in the back of my mind–but now I’ve finally found the source!
Random:
Somehow a tweet I tweeted way back in the day made it on to Joshua Harris’s blog. Weird. Amazing the things you find when you google yourself (or your nom-de-plume, as the case may be.)
to Southern California to see a dear friend married.
I have many hours to fly, to layover, to drive. I have brought grading and books and notebooks. I did not bring a computer (I’m old-fashioned that way–I like my computer to stay put on my desktop!) So there shouldn’t be much activity this weekend–and might not be at the beginning of next week either, since I’ll be busy inputting grades and catching up on all my school/work-ish stuff.
Wish me well on my journey and send a prayer of blessing for Amy and Craig as they begin their married life together!
There’s nothing more beautiful to my eye and my soul than Nebraska springtime after the rain.
I was overwhelmed with thankfulness as I walked into class this morning, beholding the land, breathing in the sweet scent of spring. I’m so thankful to be located on Lincoln’s lovely East Campus, strewn with flowering trees, green grass, and freshly turned fields.
As the agricultural campus of Nebraska’s land grant university, we enjoy a bit of farm life right in the middle of the city. Little plats of experimental fields surround the campus. In summer and fall they are green or brown with corn or soybeans or the like. But in spring, they are the dark black of rich, life-giving earth.
After a rainstorm, the gravel roads that lead to the fields turn muddy, dandelions pop up seemingly overnight, and the grass grows so green it almost hurts to look at it.
This is my favorite part of springtime in Nebraska–the sharp contrast between the rich dark soil and the startlingly brilliant green grass.
I long to take off my shoes, to run in this grass, to squidge my toes into the earth. And sometimes, I do.
Yesterday I was wearing a pair of shoes that were unkind to my feet. I took it as an excuse to slip them off and to walk on the grass beside the walk instead of on the walk itself. Undoubtedly I looked undignified, wending my way through the grass in my stockinged feet and proper skirt set. When I took off my stockings at home, they were ruined–completely grass-stained. But a pair of stockings is a small thing to sacrifice for the delightfulness of walking (nearly) barefoot on Nebraska’s good land–in the grass after the rain.
Today I’m thankful…
…for the compliment one of my students unwittingly paid me today
…for two wonderful instructors to TA under
…for the student I was administering a test to this afternoon not showing up to my office hours before I did (I was right on the line and how I HATE to be late. Kind of weird to be thankful that my student WAS late, though!)
…for the decent amount of grading I got done this afternoon while proctoring said exam
…that although the Blackboard course management software eats up large chunks of my life, it is NOT my life.
…that I have a job for next semester (even if I don’t know who it’ll be with–if one of them doesn’t take me, another has already told me I’m her first choice)
Oh, and I just about forgot…
I’m also thankful…
…that I’m leaving on a jet plane
even if I’ll be back again
after a few short days
in sunny Southern Cali
seeing my friend Amy wed
rooming with Veronica
catching up with Sandra
It’s the opposite coast
from where we met
but it’s where we’ll meet again
Another juncture in our lives
as we run this race together
For me, Thursday starts on Wednesday night when I gather everything that I need for the next day, bathe, and pack myself into bed (hopefully not too late.)
Thursday is my “long day”–so named because I’m gone from 7 to 6. Certainly, it’s not the longest day I’ve ever had–one semester, I did two 14 hour days every week–but it’s long enough that I need to be prepared ahead of time.
So every Wednesday night, I put together my Thursday stuff.
Clothes and shoes set out, down to jewelry? Check. (I’ll add my glasses as soon as I take them off this evening.)
Bag of books, including graded papers to be returned and lab manual? Check.
Anything extra needed for lab? Check. (This week it’s returning the flour, salt, pastry dowels, and pastry blender I used to make pie crust–and, of course, bringing along the pie crusts I made for demonstration.)
Necessities for afternoon office hours and class? Check. (This week I’m not meeting with my dad for lunch, so I’ll have a spare hour to run home and grab the text and extra tests I’ll be administering during office hours. Usually, I’m a bag lady carting half a dozen bags around campus.)
Computer off. That’s the tricky part.
I’ve got to actually get off the computer and get to bed if I really want to have a successful Thursday.
So, as Thursday starts for me, I bid you good night.
I haven’t ever seen one in real life. But I’d love it if I did start seeing them in real life.
That is an electronic cigarette–a battery powered cartridge that atomizes a small amount of nicotine without producing smoke.
It’s a boon to public health, because unlike traditional cigarettes, electronic cigarettes (or e-cigarettes) do not produce smoke–and therefore eliminate the problem of second-hand smoke.
What’s more, e-cigarettes do not produce any of the carcinogens tobacco produces when it is burned–so they’re safer for the “smoker” as well. The only similarity between the output of e-cigarettes and traditional cigarettes is the presence of nicotine. Nicotine is a legal but controlled stimulant that is similar to caffeine. While nicotine has some slight risks, they are few compared to the enormous risks associated with smoking.
This suggests a great health boon to people who have tried to quit smoking multiple times–but without success. E-cigarettes approximate the look and feel of cigarettes, as well as delivering small doses of nicotine through the incredibly sensitive mucous lining of the mouth–but without the risks to self or others.
There are some who decry these little glowing sticks, convinced that nothing that looks like a cigarette could be positive.
Certainly, I’d never encourage someone to induce nicotine addiction in any form. I don’t want anybody to start smoking–or using smokeless nicotine.
But if switching from cigarettes to these smokeless smokes can protect both the smoker and those around him from cancer? I’m all for it.
