What I wanna be when I grow up...

What do I want to be when I grow up? That question is a little bit more painful this week....I turned 34 on Monday. And I've been sorta looking at my life, single, never married, have a good job, I play outside doing trips, climbing, camping, canoeing....I don't have a bad life.

But what am I gonna do when I grow up? There are several reasons I feel that I haven't yet "grown up". One I haven't gotten married and settled down, I still haven't finished an official college degree, and I haven't bought a house. All these things that I looked at in my younger years as signs that I would have arrived at the "grown up" stage.

But there are other more sinister signs of my immaturity....I struggle with simple obedience to Christ. Daily spiritual disciplines are a chore. And this area of lustful addictions, that doesn't rank high on my list of growth areas. I'm still in the same rut I fell into when I was 16-17 years old.

All is not lost...God has a plan, and with each passing year I need to make more effort to discern that plan and ask Him for the strength to follow it. I want to be able to look back a year from now and see 34 as a turning point, a year that God used to prepare me for the rest of the years I have left on this spinning rock.

Sodom and Gomorrah

I'm sure there were a few people who lived in Sodom that thought to themselves, "My, how progressive of me to be able to live in this city! I think the architecture is just wonderful, and the theater district....they do such avante garde productions, the open aire markets...it's just like all the other cities isn't it?" Sodom and Gomorrah don't have a very good reputation in biblical history, or regular history for that matter. Genesis 18 and 19

But I can see where people could get sucked in...I mean every place has is darker side...doesn't it? There is always something "less than acceptable" in a city of any size..right? Not according to God, he didn't even find 10 righteous men there to spare the city.

But Lot, who lived there, raised a family there, he knew what the city was like...and he stayed. Why? When the angels told him to flee to the mountains (a common place of refuge, and often where it is said the Lord dwells) he said he couldn't go that far...hmm sound familiar. God says you can't stay here, its not safe for you. But I say Lord, I can't go that far, I'll surely be destroyed! Lot didn't want to leave everything he knew, he knew the city was doomed, but maybe he could just hang around a few cities away....not as bad as Sodom, but I'm sure that Zoar was not a shining city of God. It was too close to Sodom to not be under the influence.

Lots' wife looked back, she wasn't able to fully reject ALL that Sodom represented. So in the end her fate was tied with Sodom.

Am I able to reject ALL that the Sodom of my mind has represented? Have I built my own godless city with parks, and festivals, history, and beautiful architecture? Am I willing to flee to the mountains and take refuge? Or am I hoping to just move a couple cities away...away, but close enough to still look over the hill and see what it used to be? Do I remember my walks in the parks of Sodom with holy disappointment that I was even there, or do I miss the festivals like one longs for an old occasion to be repeated someday? Maybe not live there...but at least go for a visit?

I need to leave my Sodom and Gomorrah and run for the hills...never to look back. Anything from the old city needs to be burned...pictures, memories, phone numbers, addresses, special occasions, dates, friendships...anything that belongs to that city - destroyed. And who did the burning? Yup, fire from Heaven....INCOMING!!!!!!! Burn, Baby, Burn!!!

Headed for the Hills...

God, I hurt...and I need You.

I recently was confronted with some issues from my past. Things that I thought were pretty far gone but have up again. It was tough to hear and even tougher to wonder how to deal with it.

I was pretty emotional and was one of the hardest nights I've had in a long time. I was unable to sleep more than 20 minutes before I would wake up in a sweat. I tried a different approach than my normal self-gratifying release. I actually decided to pray about it! Sounds silly after being a Christian this long...but anyway. I had to pray that God would ease the tension in my stomach and calm the fear in my heart so I could at least fall asleep, and He did. Then I would wake up 20 minutes later, all in a sweat, and I'd have to pray and give it up to God again, basically it went on like this all night. I didn't really eat anything Friday...I was (and still am) pretty emotionally charged over this.

But that night taught me that I can trust God for my emotional needs...of course we know this in our heads, but in my practice I was takign care of my own emotional needs and asking God only for less temptation or for more physical, tangible things. It seems so rudimentary that I would trust God for this, but in the twisted grip of sin our thinking becomes warped. Or at least mine has.

So I've learned a new prayer to utter in moments of emotional desparation, "God, I hurt...and I need You!"

The proper way to say "I'm sorry"

In my SCF devotional for today they had tons of quotes from Charles Spurgeon. But the one that really struck me was about Repentance, and not the "I'm sorry for getting caught" kind of repentance. I realized how much more Spurgeon I should be reading, maybe that would make it easier to quote him then the latest rowdy story I just heard.

True repentance has a distinct and constant reference to the Lord Jesus Christ. If you repent of sin without looking to Christ, away with your repentance. If you are so lamenting your sin as to forget the Savior, you have a need to begin all this work over again. Whenever we repent of sin, we must have one eye upon sin and another upon the cross; or, better still, let us have both eyes upon Christ, seeing our sin punished in him, and by no means let us look at sin except as we look at Jesus. A man may hate sin just as a murderer hates the gallows but this does not prove repentance if I hate sin because of the punishment, I have not repented of sin; I merely regret that God is just. But if I can see sin as an offense against Jesus Christ, and loathe myself because I have wounded him, then I have a true brokenness of heart. If I see the Savior and believe that those thorns upon his head were put there by my sinful words; if I believe that those wounds in his heart were pierced by my heart-sins; if I believe that those wounds in his feet were made by my wandering steps, and that the wounds in his hands were made by my sinful deeds, then I repent after a right fashion. Only under the cross can you repent. Repentance elsewhere is remorse, which clings to the sin and only dreads the punishment. Let us then seek, under God, to have a hatred of sin caused by a site of Christ's love.

Charles Spurgeon

I think I have spent alot of time regretting that God is just...but not enough time regretting the things I just did, and how that affects my relationship with Him.

Oh for the Love of God!!!!

That phrase still gets used in response to the sheer stupidity of another person, I seem to take it's meaning to be "Oh man the only reason you aren't dead yet is because God loves you, or if it weren't for the Love of God that restrains me, I'd prolly kill you myself!" But truly the phrase has so much more meaning than that. This post is a response to a hymn that I was reminded of in a daily devotion on the SCF website. I heard this hymn for the first time years ago at Eastbrook, it is one of Marc Ericsons' (Senior pastor) favorite hymns, for a few reasons...his sister (if I remember correctly) was ill and the treatment or the disease was going to take away her beautiful voice. She recorded several of her favorite hymns on a tape to play later for her children...this was one of them. Also the author of the hymn wrote that he found the third verse written on the cell wall of an old patient in an insane asylum after they carried him out to be buried, the lines are part of an old Jewish poem, but were thought to have been scribbled there by the patient in a rare moment of lucidity. Frederick Lehman then penned the other two verses of the song preceding the third stanza.

The love of God is greater far
Than tongue or pen can ever tell;
It goes beyond the highest star,
And reaches to the lowest hell;
The guilty pair, bowed down with care,
God gave His Son to win;
His erring child He reconciled,
And pardoned from his sin.

Refrain
O love of God, how rich and pure!
How measureless and strong!
It shall forevermore endure
The saints’ and angels’ song.

When years of time shall pass away,
And earthly thrones and kingdoms fall,
When men, who here refuse to pray,
On rocks and hills and mountains call,
God’s love so sure, shall still endure,
All measureless and strong;
Redeeming grace to Adam’s race
The saints’ and angels’ song.

Refrain

Could we with ink the ocean fill,
And were the skies of parchment made,
Were every stalk on earth a quill,
And every man a scribe by trade,
To write the love of God above,
Would drain the ocean dry.
Nor could the scroll contain the whole,
Though stretched from sky to sky.

1917, Fred­er­ick Leh­man

That these words were so important and moving to these people in the moments of darkest trial...gives me pause to wonder why more of my time is not spent dwelling on these things. But for today my heart has been lifted by these words. Click here if want to hear this song.

Un-flap-able

My struggle right now is, I seem to have little or no motivation to actually follow after what is right. Well intentioned people suggest that you "surrender" to God....and I understand the concept but the actual act of surrender, that is so much harder. It is harder because when you "give in" to lust you are giving in to a pressure that feels like the force of a million gallons of water against the dam, but to "surrender" to God is not like just letting the dam break, it is more of an active choice. You have to actually say "no" to the lust first and then you additionally have to say "yes" to God. And to find Him you have to search, pray, read, study - all those things are active....giving in to lust only requires that you not move towards those active things and eventually you will give in.

So I guess there is my answer, if I am not actively seeking out the things of God thru study, prayer, and fellowship...then I ultimately a sitting duck directly in the line of fire.

Except I just feel like I don't even have the strength to flap my wings, even a little...

Do I stay or do I go?

Well the idea of changing churches has gone thru my head more than a few times in the last couple months. I've spoken to couple of my good friends about the idea...and I'm still not sure. See the problem is that I don't feel connected to my current church. I went there because it was a close (geographically and theologically) substitute for my old church. Also I knew a few people so I thought that would decrease the time it took me to get integrated into the new church.

That hasn't happened. I've actually sat down and admitted my struggles with the associate pastor, the youth pastor (a friend of mine), and several men at a men's retreat this last Fall. And in each case I got some encouragement to "keep seeking after God" and "we all struggle like that, but God is working on you" but what I did not get was any consistent followup from anyone. For those who have dealt with sexual addicitions (counseling or having them) they know that isolation is one of the key parts of the issue, I really think I made an effort to be vunerable and transparent to these people in an attempt to bring myself into some sort of mentoring relationship that God could use in the healing and restoration process in my life.

So my question is, how long should I stay at this church (I'm going on 2 years)? It's not that I think its a bad church...but I guess I'm realizing that it may not be the best place for me right now. But if not there...then where? I'm at a total loss for how to look for a church, or to pick one, and how do I even know what I need? My church attendance hasn't been the most consistent hing in teh last 2 years....I miss at least one weekend a month for one reason or another, but sometimes its 2 or even 3 weeks that I miss. So no matter where I go, I need to go consistently in order to really get any benefit and truly evaluate the church or even experience any sort of connectedness or interaction with the people there.

I struggle with this idea that the church, whatever church, isn't "doing it" for me. It really smacks of a consumerism mentality, a mentality that I have advised others to avoid because God seems most close and we feel most connected when we are part of serving others. But am I in a position to serve others? Do I need to admit that I am so broken that I need to be served while I struggle for sobriety? Part of me finds that distastefull too...I think I sound so "needy", so "emotional"....I don't know if thats bad of me just trying to be independant thru even this.

Does this sound completely off-base?