Alone? Not at all.

There is something I know in my head but forget in my heart.

Do you ever look at your believing friends–those people you see every Sunday and meet for coffee during the week–and get overwhelmed by their spiritual “giantness”?

At times, exchanging a deep spiritual dialogue or having someone shower you with love strengthens your walk with God. Other times though, it discourages you. At least if you’re like me.

Sometimes, when I see flawless spirituality in others, I feel insignificant. I feel dirty. And selfish. My mind replays my past sins one by one.

“I’ll do better. I’ll try harder to be like my friend!”

Those are the times I feel the most alone; it’s as if no one can identify with the monster inside my sinful shell. No one else faces my daily temptations. No one else has to struggle with their thought life. No one else makes selfish choices that destroy trust in a relationship.

Have you ever thought that? Well, here’s a little bit of truth for you (and me):

“No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man.”

1 Cor. 10:13a

You’ve probably heard that a thousand times. Maybe two thousand. But the truth hasn’t changed. YOU ARE NOT ALONE. Whatever you’re struggling with has been struggled with before by someone else…maybe someone is even struggling with it right now. And not just one someone but enough someones to make it “common to man.”

Depending on how you look at that, it’s encouraging. But wait; lest knowing that others have the same struggles makes us gloss over our sinfulness. There’s more:

God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.

1 Cor. 10:13b

Having a faithful God means that we shouldn’t yield to temptation so that His grace may abound. God forbid! (Rom. 6:1) Without rejoicing in others’ failures, we can realize we’re not the only one in our boat, paddling furiously against temptation’s current. Others are in the boat with us. What would happen if we would paddle together without fear and without judgment?

Enough of this silently drowning in our own shame! We have an “very present help in trouble” (Ps. 46:1). We are not alone. Not at all.

Refugee

Specially selected Friend,
Can you find a way to live?
To take advantage of every day
and be the first to make a home
inspired by your history?
To dare to dream of beauty?
To save your child- your perfect baby-
and to offer the gift of security?
Can you manage
to live better next year?
And is there a way to forget
this black adventure?

This is a work of appropriation (the art of intentionally altering or borrowing words from a pre-existing source). Pre-existing source: a department store’s Black Friday website page.

Photo by Julie Ricard on Unsplash

Bittersweet release

Here I am at the coffee shop, thinking that there’s just something melancholy about today.

Dark clouds sprinkle the sky, peppering brick storefronts with moving shadows. Somehow watching the sun and rain play tag makes me not want to go.

I got my ticket today; I’m excited! ecstatic! but also nostalgic. Am I ready to introduce another home to my heart? Can I really say goodbye to life as it is?

These aren’t doubts exactly because I already know the answer to these questions is “yes.” But must feeling fulfilled in a calling always be preceded by a bittersweet release? Perhaps I just want to have my cake and eat it too…

Listen

Sometimes, I imagine I’m a well-known writer. The truth is, however, that I have a hard time expressing myself. Emotions often don’t translate well into prose.

But tonight I’m thinking that maybe that’s not such a bad thing. Expressing myself doesn’t have to be my notable character attribute. What if I were a good listener instead?

My time of training in New York brought out reflective questions: Do I listen with my heart? Do I hear the longings behind the words people are saying? Or am I too preoccupied with finding an avenue of expressing myself?

God used New York for my “ah-ha!” moment. The real training has started since I’ve been home. So many people need listening to. What have I been missing out on all these years?

Today I had lunch with a lady from church who shared some of the struggles of being a mom. In class tonight, a student told me about the discrimination she sometimes faces as an immigrant. Just when I thought I’d used up my daily quota of compassion, another acquaintance expressed concern over potentially losing her job over a moral issue.

So, I listened. Now what? What exactly does “weep with those who weep” (Rom. 12:15) look like from day to day?

I guess I’m still learning.

A Steinway afternoon

Despite the diversity of New York City, Steinway street is different for me. It feels as if God is showing me a map with a red arrow and a clarifying “You are here” hovering over Steinway Street. This is very well what my life might look like for the next year while I’m in North Africa.

What are these people really like? What are their hopes, longings, and hurts?

  • A woman escorting her aging mother to the doctor.
  • A Lebanese man selling pastries.
  • A man with a leg injury, lingering outside of the mosque.
  • An middle-aged Egyptian couple–he sipping coffee and she rattling Arabic, hoping for someone to see her beyond the Alzheimer’s.
  • A young lady with heavy, dark makeup–guarded and watchful.
  • A sales clerk turning every hopeful conversation into a potential sale.

“They don’t know! They don’t know You.”

TELL THEM.

Sand castles

Last weekend I was in Ohio for a seminar. It was incredible. One of the most applicable things I learned all weekend was an analogy that exemplified a principle.

Picture yourself and your siblings as children playing in the sand. Each of you is building your own sand castle. But building a sand castle is more effective with more than one builder. You begin to strategize how you can get your siblings to help you build your castle:

You could approach their castles, mocking them: “You’re building it all wrong! How silly! It doesn’t even look like a castle!” Maybe you’d even kick over a tower.

Or you could focus on your castle, building it up with your words as well as with your hands. You could talk about your plans for your castle. “Look at this! Isn’t it great?! I want a double moat around it here… and don’t you think it would look nice to extend it out this way?”

“Religion”=Sand castle

Which method would be more likely to attract people to what you believe? Think about it.

Photo by Hello I’m Nik on Unsplash

How far is heaven?

Was it even open?

The handle turned beneath my eager fingertips. It was!

I hadn’t been to the library in months. I wasn’t even sure why I’d come today except that I wasn’t ready to leave town and go home. I wanted to be alone. It was one of those days: interruptions at every turn; repeating everything I said at least once; everyone expecting me to be a team player when I just wanted to grab my journal and disappear until next week.

That’s why the library was such a good place to vanish for an hour. Here, the shelves were lined with stories of people who had lived and breathed life’s struggle. They had faced the same problems I faced today. I felt a camaraderie with these characters beyond the lettered spines on floor-to-ceiling bookshelves.

“Are you looking for something in particular?” A librarian approached me, even as I was still inhaling the tawny scent of explored pages.

She seemed satisfied when I said, “No, just looking.”

I fought the urge to just stand and soak in the stories. I was in the fiction section anyway, so I slipped over to the next aisle. Art. Music. History. Sewing. Biography. Religion. I pulled books off the shelf to page through them before adding them to the growing stack tucked in the crook of my elbow.

There were books for sale- 5 cents each- that town citizens had donated to the library. I browsed that section and found a book about heaven.

Heaven.

I wove through the displays of cheap romance novels and heaved my stack onto the check-out counter.

“Do you need a sack?”

“No. Thanks. I have one in the car.”

“Can I get the door for you?”

“Thanks. I got it.”

I loaded my car and was on the way home–beside the elementary school and the reduced speed limit signs–when I remembered the book about heaven.

I had only forked over the nickel to give the book away. I didn’t read books about heaven. The incessant chatter of an afternoon radio show interrupted my emerging thoughts. I hit the power button.

“Why?” I said aloud. “Why don’t I think about heaven?”

Was it that I was comfortable on earth? Hardly! I was always yearning for something.

“But what is it?” Was I yearning for heaven or the “next big thing” in my life wherein lie coveted fulfillment? Couldn’t I pretend that it was all just a subconscious longing to be with God?

Or was it more like a choice of where I based my citizenship?

“These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seem them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. For people who speak thus make it clear that they are seeking a homeland.”

(Heb. 11:13-14)

On the drive home, the dusty wind and thick, angry raindrops reminded me of life’s trials. But somehow, with the hope of heaven, trials didn’t look so scary.

No longer practical or safe

I needed guidance so I asked for a sign. He showed me Gideon’s life: how a normal man became radically obedient to God and consequently did things that didn’t make sense. Neither would my life make sense, He said.

Then He took me through the woods to a clearing overlooking the water. The sweet musk of rotting wood and damp leaves pervaded the quiet space. There He told me that in staying safe, I would miss a deeper relationship with Him.

I came home, burdened with thought. Isn’t it natural to want to be practical? After all, God gave us brains with the intention that we use them.

Gideon’s army was about 1/6 of the Midianite army; using every available man would have been the only practical thing to do outside of waving a flag of surrender. Yet God said, “The people with you are too many for me to give the Midianites into their hand, lest Israel boast over me, saying, ‘My own hand has saved me'” (Judges 7:2). Like the children of Israel, am I boasting my own strength? Dare I weed out my self-sufficiency to see that it is not I who prevails but He who is within me?

And as for safety, it’s second from the bottom in the pyramid of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Humans need to feel safe even before love, esteem, and self-actualization. Of course, I’m not acknowledging Abraham Maslow as the expert on all things psychological; however, his study reveals the human desire for safety. We rarely put ourselves in danger’s way unless we somehow feel in control. To always be safe is like the fetus who never exits the mother’s womb. Never will he grow and mature into a child, teenager, adult. Never will he taste life’s richness unless he becomes unsafe. Am I ready to face the world outside of the womb?

Walking in Phoenix

The drying sun scalds
A tree of drooping red pods

The humming planes are low enough
To brush with jealous fingertips

Shrubbery sprawls over landscape
Like frazzled starfish

A name--Jason--engraved
In concrete not yet dry

A squeaking rope fastens
A willful flag to its pole

Windows of a lonely skyscraper
Glow pink in sleepy sunlight

Choruses of weary air conditioners
Ricochet between adobe houses

Breezes dance along baked concrete
And chase us inside

Photo by PJ Gal-Szabo on Unsplash