Words

I've struggled to express myself with words all my life. I often feel like I don't have the words to describe what I'm seeing or what I'm feeling. Trying to convey the message to someone else, it frustrates me. One of my friends said wisely, "A picture is like a thousand words. Trying to describe a picture with words is like trying to color a large box with a thin pen." Indeed.

I now understand why during worship, I don't usually sing in words. I cry out in wordless sounds, but deep inside I feel like God knows exactly what I'm trying to say. It unlimits me from the need to find the right words, bypassing my mind, allowing my spirit to interact with Him directly.

Before the Tower of Babel, all of the world's people spoke in one language and they understood each other perfectly. But after Babel, they started to babble as their language got confused. When Jesus died on the cross, this curse was reversed. Indeed, when the Holy Spirit came, the people spoke in tongues. I believe this was what language was truly like before Babel. It was a spiritual language, where words did not just have logical content, but had emotional and spiritual content as well.

I feel like God is trying to teach me to speak a new way. "Use words to describe what you want to say, but not to define what you want to say." My words are no longer to be taken at face value. They are only portals to the larger picture that I hold inside of me. Anyone who wants to know me will recognize this portal and receive the invitation to enter in. I feel that this is the same with God and His words. He often gives us such a small snippet, but it opens up a whole new world, if we choose to enter in.

Words have depth. Some words are so deep they draw us straight to the depths of the intimacies and the vulnerabilities of His heart. To truly know someone else, we don't need them to tell us exactly what is going on inside of them. They only need to give us a tiny snippet of it, and with that invitation, we can enter in entirely.

Entertaining the possibility

God recently showed me a way of looking at faith that I had not understood before. Sometimes, when I think about faith, I think about believing absolutely that something is going to happen, or something is the truth or the reality. For instance, if God says, "It is going to snow tomorrow," I sometimes feel like I have to believe it absolutely or it might not happen. I start thinking in my mind, how it might happen because this week's weather is so warm, and whether I am testing God, and whether it would cause problems on the streets because cars don't know how to drive in the snow? I start wrestling in my mind, if it is God's voice or my own voice, and if I need to ask Him to confirm this, and if I just need to rest in how much He loves me, and if I have enough faith?

Perhaps God is just saying "What if it could snow in Berkeley, the way it snows in Tahoe?"

Entertaining the possibility. It really takes the stress off of you, to try to make something happen, when God wants to be the one to accomplish it. I'm learning that God wants to speak to me in the What-If's. What if everything you do every moment of every day could be fun? What if I can be in His manifest presence all the time? What if anything I could entertain the possibility of actually comes true? What if entertaining the possibility is all that is required of us? What if this is what Jesus meant when he talks about "faith as small as a mustard seed"? What if God understands and knows exactly how to satisfy fully every need for intimacy inside of me? What if I never ever have to bring His presence to the world, but it is more like a flood that I cannot contain because He is so with me all the time?

Intimacy

Intimacy has no greater goal than to know and to be known. Sometimes, this happens when we sit side by side, not saying anything at all.

Boundaries in Dating

I read this paragraph about romantic relationships on pg 146-147 of the book "Boundaries" by Henry Cloud and John Townsend. Not your typical stuff about dating boundaries. In short, don't date to heal your inner wounds.

Romantic relationships are, by nature, risky. Many singles who have not developed good attachments with other people and who have not had their boundaries respected try to learn the rules of biblical friendships by dating. They hope that the safety of these relationships will help them to learn to love, be loved and set limits.

Quite often, these individuals come out of a few months of dating more injured than when they went in. They may feel let down, put down, or used. This is not a dating problem. It's a problem in understanding the purpose of dating.

The purpose of dating is to practice and experiment. The end goal of dating is generally to decide, sooner or later, whether or not to marry. Dating is a means to find out what kind of person we complement and with whom we are spiritually and emotionally compatible. It's a training ground for marriage.

This fact causes a built-in conflict. When we date, we have the freedom to say, at any time, "This isn't working out," and to end the relationship. The other person has the same freedom.

What does this mean for the person whose boundaries have been injured? Often, she brings immature, undeveloped aspects of her character to an adult romantic situation. In an arena of low commitment and high risk, she seeks the safety, bonding, and consistency that her wounds need. She entrusts herself too quickly to someone whom she is dating because her needs are so intense. And she will be devastated when things "don't work out."

This is a little like sending a three-year-old to the front lines of battle. Dating is a way for adults to find out about each other's suitability for marriage; it's not a place for young, injured souls to find healing. This healing can best be found in nonromantic arenas, such as support groups, church groups, therapy, and same-sex friendships. We need to keep separate the purposes of romantic and nonromantic friendships.

It's best to learn the skill of setting boundaries in these nonromantic arenas, where the attachments and commitments are greater. Once we've learned to recognize, set, and keep our biblical boundaries, we can use them on the adult playground called dating.

Dating

I just found out from Dewen that Shawn Bolz just released a book about dating recently, called "The Nonreligious Guide to Dating and Being Single". I have not read it but if it is anything like his blog posts, it should be awesome!

I've been thinking about romantic relationships lately. In my own life, I've often wondered about my resistance to dating and marriage. One day, it occurred to me that it's because I've been taught subtly in my youth that relationship with a girl threatens my relationship with God. This cannot be further from the truth. In the beginning, Adam was alone with God, but God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone." And He created Eve. Don't be mistaken. God did not create Eve just for friendship. He created her for union with Adam. "That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh."

What about Paul? Didn't he say that celibacy is good in 1 Cor 7? Kris Vallotton gives a very good commentary about this passage in one of his sermons, if you can find it. In summary, Paul was talking to a crowd of people who believed that marriage was the only way. So he says to the unmarried and the widows, who felt condemned for choosing to be single, that "It is good for them to stay unmarried, as I do." And when he says, "I wish that all of you were as I am. But each of you has your own gift from God; one has this gift, another has that," he was talking about his gift in not being tempted sexually, not his gift of celibacy. Paul never condemned marriage. He would never say that something is bad, something which God himself says is good. In fact, he talks about marriage all the time in all his books, especially with regards to Jesus as the Groom, and us the Bride.

So now, what about all the young teens who are getting into hurtful romantic relationships and premarital sex and all that stuff? I agree that such things are dangerous, but WE SHOULD NEVER CREATE THEOLOGY TO SOLVE A PROBLEM!! I believe the solution is to teach our youths what healthy romantic relationships are. For instance, we should not get from our girl/boyfriend what we actually want from God, and we should not get from God what we need to get from our girl/boyfriend. That perhaps there is "THE ONE" (who you marry), but it is often impossible to figure that out (i.e. prophetically?) until we start to date that person and get to know that person the normal way (i.e. spend quality time).

So I encourage young people to date. Ask God what it is like to have a healthy fulfilling relationship. It is a great learning experience. But don't date if you don't want to date. There have been seasons in my life where God was leading me into so much intimacy that I did not have any desire to date anyone at all. This is very different from believing that God can only lead you into more intimacy if you don't date. My own dating experience is testimony that there are things that God can teach me only through a romantic relationship.

What if

What if God always causes good to come out of every situation, no matter whether you believe Him or not?

Perhaps this is what faith feels like.

What if God always finishes the good work which he begun in you, no matter whether you are trying hard or not?

Perhaps this is what faith feels like.

Faith is seeing that there are two parallel realities you can live in, and then realizing that only one is real.

That reality does not depend on how much we can do or believe. Its very existence is the force that causes us to believe. That reality tells us to let go of being defined by how much we can do. Unlearn. Life is not about learning more, but about unlearning the things that hinder us. Because God has already put in us everything we need for this journey, from the very beginning.