here be dragons / the god who wastes nothing

at the edges of many medieval maps was penciled in the phrase "here be dragons." this was unexplored territory and no one knew what was there so they wrote in that warning. basically the message was "stay away - we don't know what is here, it's not safe here." it may even hurt. one author i'm reading says that we need to go to the edges of our medieval maps and confront our dragons more often. if you think about - some one at some point decided to go deal with those dragons on the edge of the known map and found out that it wasn't so bad after all - maybe they learned something about themselves on the journey to dragon land and maybe they learned something about the un-explored world when they got to dragon land and found there were no dragons - (or defeated them) we need to go to the places in our lives that are marked "here be dragons." the idea is that when we sit in our darkness and brokenness - sort of like the concept of the lenten season - that is when we experience God, and when we grow the most. when we face the fringes of our metaphorical maps we are pushed out of our comfort zones into what some have called liminal space. this is the space of God. this space is where God meets us where we are and moves us along. liminal space is that place where everything you know has been turned upside down and you have no frame of reference for anything. some have compared it to the birth of a child or the death of a loved one.

so my first year of "official" ministry has been a crazy one. (I used quotes around official because everybody is in ministry whether you get paid or not) if you don't know what I am talking about - I work for InterVarsity Christian Fellowship in Rhode Island. It is a campus ministry organization. my supervisor and many others have said that your first year of ministry is more for you and your own development than it is for anyone else...I affirm that now. this year has stretched me in ways that I did not know were possible, and looking back i would say the defining word for the year is "growth."

visiting the fringes of ourselves often seems scary and lonely. when we confront our own unknown it is frightening. we often find things there (situations, people, places, memories, events etc) that we don't want to deal with - and they often seem like a waste. there is a phrase in hebrew that translates to "the God who wastes nothing." Nothing in our lives is wasted by God, He is not afraid of our dragons and if we just need to be still and let God take care of the dragons for us. There is a verse in Exodus (14:14) that says "The Lord will fight for you, you only need to be still." The Israelites had just gotten out of Egypt and already they are complaining and being fearful of the desert. (maybe they are afraid there are dragons there) Moses says to them essentially "God will fight for you, just shut up."

this is the summation of the lessons i learned this year:
it's not up to me,
God will use me in my junk regardless and i just need to be still and let God fight the dragons.
God uses my brokenness and fear of dragons in His reconciliation of all things.
I am not God.
the answer is often "yes." (to many different questions.)

genesis 1 and skin garments

so i'm preparing my first real "talk" for when intervarsity takes college students down to new orleans over spring break. i am doing two talks - one on why God would allow so much suffering and how the world was not always how we see it and will not always be this way. I'm also doing the last talk on how Jesus invites us to be a part of God's redemption in the world. And I'm giving the invitation to follow Jesus at the end!

So - Genesis 1-3 is amazing. There is so much there, and there is ALWAYS more to learn in re-reading it. Without listing my entire talk...the thing that made me write this post was Genesis 3:21 "The LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them." Seemingly trivial right?

IMMEDIATELY after humanity turns their back on God and his plan, they choose outside of His love and are cast out of the garden. And the FIRST thing God does is make them clothes! Adam and Eve felt shame because they were naked and the first thing God does after basically being stabbed in the back is....clothe them so they don't feel shame!?

Amazing.

This is something I'm re-learning (or maybe actually learning for the first time) that God stinkin loves us - no matter how many times we turn our backs on Him - he still clothes our nakedness and covers our shame.

Could clothes be the first post fall example of God meeting humans where they are at?

cloud cities

so recently I went to this thing called "Urbana." Ironically its not in Urbana but St. Louis. Anyway, its a student mission conference sponsored by the organization i work for - intervarsity...its a campus ministry org.

16,000 christians take over the city of st. louis - it's intense...i'll leave it at that

i've been in this season of re-evaluating, questioning, doubting, falling in love all over again with things, falling out of love with those things yet again, thinking a lot, needing to find answers, and sadly not as much time praying.

my quest for a theological "cure all" for all my questions had left me extremely tired and honestly somewhat hopeless. my quest for head knowledge and a better intellectual understanding of God took over and my heart knowledge and my experience of God slacked, which didn't help the doubting part.
I have an over analytical mind - which is a blessing and a curse sometimes - i was also a history student, i was taught to have my first reaction to be skepticism...i question everything which causes me to search for answers and when i find answers, it only raises at least 8 more questions for every answer i find...so you can see the dilema

i had a revelation on my way home from urbana
on the plane ride back from urbana i got schooled by a young German child in the seat behind me..

"Look at the clouds son"
Me in my head: "ya look at the clouds."
(A few minutes before I had been looking out the window as well...I have always been fascinated when I fly through clouds. I mean you are so close to them but can't touch them, its frustrating At this particular time we were starting our descent, so I was ready, and excited.)
"Look daddy! a cloud city!"
"Oh wow son, you're right look at that!"
Me: "cloud city what?"
"look at that cloud city daddy! its even bigger

Me: (in my head)
"I wonder what it would be like to touch a cloud."
"how freekin awesome would it be to be attached to some rope swinging through the clouds."
"I wonder what it would feel like, probably soft and fluffy."
"well, I'd probably get wet if I touched a cloud, they are after all, condensation - water."
"how does the plane not get wet?"
"how does the wetness not affect the engine? shouldn't an engine stall when its wet? clouds after all are made of water vapor..I wonder how they prevent that, clearly planes have flown through clouds before...hmmmm"

"look at that city son!"
"look daddy! a _________(insert random cloud animal shape)"

Me: "oh, look at that, it IS a cloud city..."

you get the idea...and this point it hit me like a wall of bricks, that I am trapped in my western-ness, my predisposition to reason and having the answers, prevents me from seeing and experiencing the beauty all around me. my thought pattern went from wonder and awe at the thought of swinging through clouds, to pondering the inner workings of a jet engine in a matter of seconds...it took a 5 year old to point out a cloud city for me to actually see it.

maybe this is why jesus says we need to become like little children...

"Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it." - Mark 10:15