Be Still

For the last few weeks, I’ve had this sensation like something was going on. There was movement occurring. I couldn’t exactly put my finger on it. Maybe I still can’t. 

Any user of social media can tell you that people present causes, ideas, viewpoints, and a host of other things that become points of tension. Sometimes we are witness to the clashes, and sometimes we take part in them. Sometimes we take sides in them and become emotionally invested, spending our energies and time and resources. Sometimes the opportunity for comparison becomes overwhelming and we gives ourselves over to it. Sometimes you are just addicted to the news feed. I’m guilty of all of that. My heart is especially prone to crave the praise of others, and I’m guilty of constantly checking texts, this blog, Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Pinterest, and e-mail hoping for a morsel of that praise. How many followers do I have? How many times have my posts been read? Beyond that, I’m currently struggling with rampant materialism and desire to be satisfied with things. The thing that is consuming my time and thoughts and energies right now is a mountain bike that I don’t even have the money for. It’s suffocating to want things so badly, yet I try to breathe in stuff instead of fresh air. There’s so much noise in life!

“Be still, and know that I am God” reads Psalm 46:10. This is the verse that started whispering to me, beckoning me to quiet myself, about a week ago. Trying to do this, I find that I hate the stillness and quiet. It’s like I’m addicted to noise. I feed on arguments. In a frustrated moment last week, I Tweeted “So many voices in Christianity! Maybe I should just read the Bible instead of blogs.” So noisy, it’s hard to think straight. In sitting down to write this post, I checked out Psalm 46:10 in a few different versions of the Bible -ESV, NLT, and HCSB. I found it interesting to read the HCSB, which translates it as “Stop your fighting – and know that I am God, exalted among the nations, exalted on the earth.” The context of this verse is speaking to the nations, but I believe that can easily be dialed to speak to how I – we – can be in noisy conflict and scattered attentions daily. Mowing the grass today, in the noise, somehow I was quieted.

The first verse that came to mind was 1 Thessalonians 4:10b-12. Sticking with the HCSB: “But we encourage you brothers, to do so even more, to seek to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business, and to work with your own hands, doing as we commanded you, so that you may walk properly in the presence of outsiders and not be dependent on anyone.” Is this running through my posts and statuses and shares and tweets and pins? I’m convicted that it is not. I’m convicted that my heart loves to act like some dungeon master of noise, versus being still to know the Lord. I love the turmoil, if I’m going to be really honest. This is the fruit of my own hands, and it’s not good. Yet the mere fact that I’ve even become aware of it, which is purely revelation as opposed to self-discovery, gives me hope. Here the law once again crushes me, and it is only by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone that I am lifted up out of this empire of dirt. It’s not just big sins that Jesus deals with, it’s subtle ones like my life seems to be permeated with. Ones I don’t even see always. That I don’t always see my sins and error is that much more evidence I can only despair of my own goodness and throw myself on the mercy of God, that my sins were paid for by Jesus when he died on the cross, and I have hope for life because Jesus rose again to life and doesn’t remain in the grave. Grace grace grace alone, because by the law alone I’m hopeless.

The final verse that bubbled to life while doing yard work was Psalm 34:8 (HCSB): “Taste and see that the Lord is good. How happy is the man who takes refuge in Him!” Ultimately, that is why this is even showing up on this blog. The mission statement of what I post here Eternity has been written on your heart. Fight to taste it. Much of that takes place in the wonder of seeing God in creation, but even though creation tells me about the nature of God, displays God’s awesome creativity and testifies to God’s existence, it doesn’t offer me any hope. That is only found in the Bible, the revealed and kept word of God. The mountains and streams cannot quiet the noise for good, but the Lord can. How? By telling us that it is in tasting and seeing that he is good. I want happiness in a hike, in a bike, in a lawn that appeases others, in peoples opinions and praises, in turmoil, in things. Happiness is only found in tasting and seeing that the Lord is good, and taking refuge in him instead of a hike, or a bike, or the praises of others, or things. 

Whatever is happening right now, whatever revelation is coming into view, and whatever sanctification that is so dramatic in my life that I can sense it taking place… that started sitting on a log in my backyard after midnight. It started when I was able to quiet myself. Beneath all the crazy places an things I run to for satisfaction, I know they will never satisfy me. I know, deep deep down in my once dead heart of stone that has been brought to life by the grace of God, that the Lord is the desire of my heart. I know because in Psalm 16:11 says of God “You reveal the path of life to me; in Your presence is abundant joy; in Your right hand are eternal pleasures.” Do I revel in that? More often than not, I find myself on the judgment end of Jeremiah 2:12-13 – “Be horrified at this, heavens; be shocked and utterly appalled. This is the Lord’s declaration. For My people have committed a double evil: They have abandoned Me, the fountain of living water, and dug cisterns for themselves, cracked cisterns that cannot hold water.” I try to live and find that happiness in researching mountain bikes, or fighting bushes for a waterfall, or gaining the praises of men or more acutely followers on Twitter. God help me to fight to taste the eternity that you’ve prepared, which is full of and out of your goodness!

So what comes out of all this, and how is it working out? I’m going to try and cut back the noise. No deleting any accounts, but definitely a scale back of their use. I’ll be maintaining this blog, still updating it with trip reports from The SC Project. I’m deleting the apps off my phone, because that is a huge source of noise for me. I want to not be so glued to my phone, hoping to scrounge a praise for myself or satisfy the lust for a new notification. I’ll be keeping Facebook Messenger app, so for those who contact me through that can continue to do so. “Oh this is legalism and duty!” you may be thinking. Not really… though I can’t do anything with 100% pure motives (even this post is mixed and there is a level of wanting people to know!), I just want to taste and see that the Lord is good. I want my happiness and joy to be found in Him. I want any adventures I have to merely be arrow that point the praises to the Creator. I want the praise of God to be ever on my lips. Even as I type that out, the thought is savory and satisfying. I want to clear the noise. I want to learn to be still. I want to throw myself into whatever God is stirring in me. I want to deepen and strengthen the relationships around me instead of pollute them with phone distractions. I want to fight to taste the eternity that has been written on my heart so badly that my wife and kids and our friends want to taste it, too. That is what I want.

https://youtube.googleapis.com/v/t1pBOAiSJp8&source=uds

Learn to Swim

The other night, I heard a song by Tool on the radio that I once loved. To my surprise, even though it has been nearly 10 years since I last heard the song, I still remembered 90% of the lyrics to it. The lyrics describe his disgust with a certain section of California and the people who live there, climaxing at hoping an earthquake will cause the land to go down into the ocean carrying the inhabitants with it. Flush it all away. He sings “One great big festering neon distraction, I’ve a suggestion to keep you all occupied – learn to swim.” 

As I listened to the song jam on, I remember thinking, “Wow, this is dark.” I mean, I knew it was then, but maybe I’m just seeing it with new eyes. It was so pointed, full of venom and hate. This is what I fed myself. This, and worse, was the preaching I listened to in the late 90’s/early 2000’s. Growing up in a Christian home, I would have told you my heart and mind and mood wasn’t affected by it. This was straight rock and roll, and to be honest, it really does jam. I’m not going to sit here and type out lies to you that the music doesn’t have any appeal to me, because it does. The problem is that there is heart poison on that apple. Feeding on these things over several years gained me a worldview that could be summed up succinctly by Marilyn Manson, another old favorite band of mine: “I wasn’t born with enough middle fingers, I don’t need to choose a side.“

This is who I was. Outspokenly cursing the world around me, and add into the mix a full blown unapologetic racist and bigot, waiting for the ground to give way into the open water while I nihilistically stood over the population in judgment sarcastically counseling them, “Learn to swim.” With fist high, digit raised, I was letting people know what I thought of them. That was life.

In 2005, God interrupted that life. Since, I have learned that people are created in the image of God, each person uniquely (though still tainted with sin) reflecting attributes and facets of our Creator. Each person is due respect and dignity, because every man and woman and child is made in God’s likeness, bearing his image, broadcasting to the world around them ways that God is like. Can you see how grievous sin is? Don’t you think this would put me in debt with God, committing these treasonous crimes against his name? Even without being a Christian, I still bore the image of God and with my life I was telling people that God is saying to us, “Learn to swim.” This couldn’t be further from the truth. While we were drowning in sin, Jesus took on human flesh while remaining God to offer himself as a ransom for a people who had only given the world around them false and distorted images of God. In Jesus, God gave up his son into the hands of evil men so that some may be rescued. That is a far cry from telling humanity to learn to swim. That’s throwing the only lifeline.

So what was I living for? This has really come around from originally wanting to say how things affect you (I’ve been humming that song over 24 hours now), and how we are all listening to preaching in some form or another, whether through music, movies, the news, advertising, and more. It’s turned into a filleting of myself. I can’t really come down on some music for its content when my heart was full of more darkness than what is visible from a few minutes of singing. An old school punk band Crux once sang, “Where I focus my eyes is where I’m led in time.” There is a lot of truth to that. A lot. Read it one more time. “Where I focus my eyes is where I’m led in time.“

Each of us holds two worlds in their hands, and we weigh Jesus against everything else. We can hold onto (in my case) self-righteousness, greed, sex, and misanthropy. Those were the altars I worshipped at. We have to ask ourselves, like I did, who do I say Jesus is? Since I’ve been quoting a lot of lyrics in this post, why stop now. More recently, Theocracy sang: “For if the key to life is right here in my hand, why would I trade it for an hourglass of sand?” Why would I trade Jesus, who is of infinite value, for a life of misanthropy? I can’t tell you why I thought my hate was worth it, other than my eyes were blinded. I once was anticipating the destruction of the world as it went up in flames; now I am anticipating the restoration of the world, where wrongs are made right and that which is crooked is made straight. This is not being a good person, or getting a little religion; this is “God happened to me.” Who do you say Jesus is? 

We give Jesus our sin, Jesus gives us his righteousness. What I laid at his feet was not any sacrifice for what he laid on me.

We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Corinthians 5:20b-21, ESV)