Seized by the Spirit

Have you ever been unquestionably aware of something that you had no way of articulating? You know that it is true, whatever it is; you just don’t know how to express it.

This has been true of the state of my heart… my livingness of life.

A lot of people have observed the change… or at least some of the outward manifestations of the change. And I KNOW things are different. But I have had no explanation for those who have inquired about the transformation. I have only been able to agree with them, very conscious of a reality that I could not express but that was so beyond argument that it was confirmed by the testimony of many witnesses.

Each person has observed it and articulated it in very different ways, but I know that they are talking about the same thing. I have become more expressive. My smile is brighter. I have come out of some sort of shell. I have a new boldness. My voice is different. And on and on and on. All of these statements are true, but none of them are particularly meaningful, independent of the greater reality from which they are flowing.

I am freer… more alive. And I don’t know how to explain it.

Fortunately, Jurgen Moltmann did.

I found this paragraph in The Source of Life, a phenomenal book about the Holy Spirit. Despite the fact that it is translated from another language, it is beautifully articulated. And it felt like a perfect explanation of the new life and freedom that I am continuously encountering.

So… here it is. Here is my Jurgen’s explanation for what has been happening:

If we are seized by the Spirit of the resurrection, we get up out of our sadness and apathy. We begin to flower and become fruitful again, like the plants and trees in the spring of the year. An undreamed-of love for life awakens in us; we drive out the sweet poison of resignation, and our painful remembrances of death are healed. We encounter life again like children, in eager expectancy.

Defining Hope

Before I write my next post on John 13-17, I thought it would be helpful to give you an overview of my working definition of hope. This will just help us be on the same page as I try to explain how Jesus’ words in these chapters are a message of hope.

Most simply, I define hope as a confident and joyful expectation for the future. Hope is desire. Here are some definitions that Webster gives us… my concept of hope is expressed in each of these:

1. to cherish a desire with anticipation
2. trust
3. to desire with expectation of obtainment
4. to expect with confidence

Biblical hope is birthed in the promises of God. Trusting His faithfulness and ability, we confidently expect and await the joyful fulfillment of those promises.

Psalm 37 is a beautiful hope Psalm. Again and again, David gives the exhortation to hope, articulating it from a slightly different angle each time. (Something we frequently find in the Psalms.) Rather than presenting a lengthy list of things that David thinks are a generally good idea, it further develops this uniting theme of hope or trust.

I see each of these phrases from Psalm 37 as an exhortation to hope:

• Do not fret
• Trust in the Lord
• Abide… and feed on His faithfulness
• Delight yourself in the Lord (… and He will give you the desires of your heart)
• Commit your way to the Lord
• Trust in Him
• Rest in the Lord
• Wait patiently (or longingly) for Him
• Cease from anger and forsake wrath
• Depart from evil and do good

I will not give a lengthy explanation of each of these and how they exhort us to hope, but I will happily clarify any of them if you ask.

My definition of hope actually came to life as my heart was resting in the book of Hebrews. Hebrews, as a whole, is all about hope. It, like Psalm 37, is a constant exhortation to hope, packed with beautiful articulations of the nature God. My time in Hebrews has resulted in the following conclusions (among other things):

• the concepts of COURAGE and encouragement/exhortation are closely linked with hope
• hope is manifest in OBEDIENCE
• hope sustains ENDURANCE
• hope is about PROMISE
• hope is BELIEVING
• hope requires FAITH in who God declares Himself to be
• … and a lot more than that, but we’re trying to keep this simple.

And, most significantly, I pulled this really simplified definition of hope out of Hebrews 3:6 – Hope is essentially CONFIDENCE AND REJOICING.

My favorite apostolic prayer is Romans 15:13. It reinforces this basic definition (in a chapter that similarly addresses themes of believing, courage, and promise):

Now may the God of HOPE fill you with all JOY and PEACE in BELIVING, so that you will abound in HOPE by the power of the Holy Spirit.

(The Holy Spirit aspect of all of this is pretty exciting, too, but I’ll wait for that, until I actually start talking about John 13-17.)

Each of the terms I have mentioned throughout this post always evoke the idea of hope when I hear them. And my definition of hope is a glorious swirly pool of all of those terms and concepts.

Hope. I love it.

The Complexities of Simplification

Today has been a miserable day. I know I’ve said this before, but the grieving process really doesn’t make ANY sense to me.

I’ve been occupied with some intense decluttering, simplifying, and letting go in the last few weeks. I guess I should have known how difficult it would be. I probably should have realized that I would be confronted with a million Mom things that were going to be really painful to contemplate releasing.

It’s amazing how difficult it can be to get rid of something that I have in any way associated with my mother.

Today was a big day. And I didn’t even realize it until I was curled up in the fetal position and bawling on the sound booth floor, leaving no one at my screens post.

On one of her last visits to Kansas City, my mom had spent a considerable amount of time hanging these little shelve things in my room. She had sketched out an entire layout for these shelves that were intended to house my Willow Tree figurines. A bunch of my friends (and my boyfriend, who was cooking for us that night) were over so that my mom and friends from Texas could get to know them a bit. We had great difficulty coaxing her to come and join us because she would not walk away from her project. She loved to express her love through giving and serving.

When I moved out of that room into the little basement apartment, I never took those shelves down. I couldn’t do it. So my incomplete wall of stuff decorated a chunk of Des and Jen’s room for the entire time that they lived in the house.

Well, we have a new roommate, now. And I realized that it was a bit ridiculous that pieces of my life are still residing in two bedrooms that I no longer physically occupy in our house. So, I took the shelves down today.

As I was boxing all of the little figurines, I found one that was still in its box. At the top of the box, stuck to the styrofoam, was a note from my mom.

Needless to say, my project for the day experienced a long delay. I couldn’t see a thing anymore, so I just stood there crying.

Fact: I have too much stuff. I value simplicity and the fasted lifestyle. There is a contradiction between my values and my circumstances. I need to let go of some things.

Fact: So many of my things have my mom attached to them. I want to hold on to every little bit of her that I still can.  The most important woman of my life is gone. How can I give up the tiny remnants of her life that surround me? It’s all that I have.

I’m still doing it. I’m not letting go of everything that I perhaps should, but I am letting go of little things here and there. And it is shredding my heart to pieces.

I just want her back in my life. It has been far too long.

Selfishness Consumed in Unquenchable Love

John of the Cross. Brilliant. I’m not sure if there’s much else to say than that.

I am presently three days into “a 40-day journey in the company of John of the Cross”. The book, “You Set My Spirit Free”, is arranged and paraphrased by David Hazard. I do not yet know what days 4-40 hold, but if they are anything like days 1-3, I think this one is worth searching out.

The words of today’s reading are still drifting along the surface of my thoughts. Here are a couple of sentences that nicely convey the general message of this chapter:

“The more we allow love to enter, the more we grow to love others with our whole will–even when they treat us miserably.”

“I tell you, acting in love when others are not acting in love toward you–this is of the highest value to your soul.”

And I am utterly convinced.

This is where the Holy Spirit has been leading me… into love. He is teaching me to desire the most excellent way. He is exposing my selfishness, my coldness, my impatience, my bitterness, and the ways “I barricade and protect myself against others… and mostly against [Him].” (Borrowing that quote from an ouchy little prayer at the end of the chapter.) He is tenderizing my icy heart with the flame of His love. Opening my heart to Him, exposing it to that fire, is the wisest thing I can do. I am so grateful for His leadership.

That is why I am being so deeply moved by today’s reading. It simply and beautifully articulates the lessons that my Teacher has been so persistently unfolding in these last months. The Spirit of Truth has not relented in drawing my stubborn, calloused, and weak heart into wisdom. And amidst the tears and the immense pain of the journey, He has continually manifested Himself as my Comforter and the source of life, the One who sustains and enables me.

Holy Spirit, teach me! You are able to present me faultless. You know how to lead me. Do not relent until You bring it to completion. I commit my way to You. You who are able and faithful. Your words are faithful and true. Bring them to pass.

John 13-17

My heart is still moving like crazy in John 14-16. My enjoyment of that passage has pushed me out a bit, to the surrounding chapters. John 13 offers some essential context and of course I want to spend some time in the concluding prayer of John 17.

So… I just wanted to write a quick post to let you know that my love for the passage has not faded and I still have every intention of following through with my former commitment to blog about it.

In a little while…

Adjective Failure

I feel like I use the same core set of adjectives for everything. That bothers me.

I have a friend who constantly agitates this frustration with the apparent shrinking of my vocabulary. He is brilliant, thinks about his words, teaches English, and starts crazy things like fasts from crutch words. (For the record, I am grateful for such agitation.)

I don’t have an action plan for this right now. But I felt like verbalizing this continuing frustration.

I need to start reading again. I miss books. My vocabulary misses books.

Twitter Killed My Blog

So, I haven’t been in much of a writing mood lately. (Hence… nothing yet on John 14-16.)

Then again… it could be Twitter.

Twitter is easier to update. You are limited to 140 characters, so it’s not a big time commitment. AND… I update from my phone… so it’s always accessible. I just push a few buttons and there it is… on facebook, on my blog, and on a few friends’ phones. So easy.

Oh, convenience… how easily I have given in to you.

Anyway… if you are just dying to read something I wrote… there’s always that little twitter widget in the side-bar of this blog. Not that I can say much in 140 characters.

Hopefully I’ll be in the mood to write again soon.

TULIPS!!!

The amazing Dorean Beattie just posted what may be the best pictures I have ever seen of tulips.

In all honestly, when I see ANY picture of a tulip, I get absurdly happy. But I am usually somewhat disappointed (once the “Oh! A TULIP!” wears off) by the failure of the picture to really capture the tulip.

These pictures, though… there’s nothing disappointing about them. Which makes them a pretty exciting find. Even more exciting, I know the incredible woman who took those pictures. Crazy!

Anyway, you should go check them out. They’re absolutely fantastic. I would write about the specific pictures, but I already rambled on about them in slightly incoherent, overly-excited fashion on the page itself. So… you can read the outburst of “ooh, I like” that came out when I first encountered them, if you really want to know how I feel about them.

OK… here it is again. Go love them. They’re perfect.

John 14-16

John 14-16 is presently one of my favorite passages in the Bible. Jesus’ words. He speaks a great deal about three of my favorite topics: Holy Spirit, hope, and love.

Actually, now that I think of it, the Holy Spirit and hope are THE two topics that I am actually highlighting in my current Bible. And love is something I have been seriously focusing on for the last 5 months. No wonder I love this passage so much!

Throughout His dialogue, Jesus elaborates several times on the immanent sending of the Holy Spirit and how this person of the Trinity would serve and help us. (Ah! God’s humility!) I love it when one person of the Trinity talks about another person of the Trinity. They actually do it quite a bit. It’s beautiful! If anyone knows about God and has something to say about God… it’s God.

The hope topic isn’t necessarily evident in a quick scan of the passage. This is primarily because he uses the language of peace, joy, and believing.

And then we have love. Jesus keeps coming back to this theme. And He especially focuses on defining love as obedience.

This post was originally going to be about obedience. I was having one of those really good conversations with the Holy Spirit that felt like it needed to overflow into verbal expression. But then, as I sat down to write… I realized that I wanted to talk about a lot of things from this passage. And that I was so enamored with the other two subjects that I could not leave them alone in order to maintain some level of focus for this post.

So we have, instead, an introduction. I have decided, in my failed attempt to stay on the one topic, to start a tiny series of posts on John 14-16.

I’m not looking at the passage right now. In fact, I haven’t for a few days. So right now I am simply talking from what has stuck with me in the last few months as I have been looking at it and talking to the Lord about it.

From those recollections of the things that have most struck me, I would say that these three topics are essentially the three main themes of this passage. If I sat down and looked at it more analytically, I might change my stance a bit. But, my study of the Bible happens in the context of relationship and primarily exists as dialogue with God about God. (Let us all remember, prayer and love are literally my primary occupation. Sigh… I love life as an intercessory missionary. Apart from being at the core of my job description, though, these are truly what we are called to as Christians.)

So, as I talk about this passage, I will be emphasizing the things that have been the highlights of these “conversations” with God. So, whether hope, Holy Spirit, and love=obedience are the three main themes of this passage or not… I can almost guarantee that they will be the three main themes of this little series.

I’m not going to make any promises about how quickly these posts will be written. I am simply going to state my intent to write them and follow through with that at whatever pace my schedule allows.

I also cannot make any guarantees concerning the length of the series. I anticipate that there will probably be three posts, one for each topic. But… then again… I anticipated, upon sitting down to blog, that I was writing one post about obedience. And now… here I am, introducing a series. So who knows what this will look like when all is said and done.

In any case, I am excited about it. This is the stuff that is moving my heart. I love to talk about the things that move my heart. (Now that I have a heart that moves and all. Thank You, God, for reviving the heart that I spent so many years trying to numb and deaden!)

Yay fun!

Boldness

I am watching the DVDs of David Pawson’s recent visit. I LOVE that man. What he just said was really resonating in me, so I decided to push pause (on the DVD and my admin) and write a quick little post-let.

He talked about the Greek word “parrhesia”, translated boldness. Here’s what he said:

“God is looking, not just for people who speak in tongues to him, but who will speak in boldness to a world that needs to hear the truth. And the Holy Spirit gives both gifts. So are you as keen to have the gift of boldness of speech as you are to speak in tongues? Hallelujah if you are. Because it takes great courage to tell the truth to a sinful world.”

YES. Holy Spirit, give me the gift of boldness. Purify my speech and make me a wholehearted lover of the truth, without compromise. Give me courage to speak against the spirit of this age and to be a witness and messenger of the truth.

I never really wanted boldness before. I’ve always had some vague notion of the implications of that… and they terrified me. The Lord knows that. So the simple fact of my desiring to be a messenger and saying yes to His invitation to this kind of partnership is evidence of God moving. So it’s going to happen. It’s still somewhat horrifying. But He only really asks me to lean and to rest in His leadership, anyway. (Ummm… and to die. But… whatever.)