It seems that all too often people are saying to each other, “today is today, and the past is the past,” but I think I can speak for the majority of us that all too often the past is today, and today is the past…so the past is really never forgotten, it just kind of intermingles with the present, forming this weird déjà vu where you can be at the grocery store today, but remembering how your heart was breaking as you stood in the ice cream isle at thirteen because Timmy said you were ugly and then threw a water balloon at you (If I just reminded someone of a terrible memory, I apologize).
It is difficult sometimes to put the past where it belongs, in the past. Maybe you’re watching a movie or reading a book or listening to a song that just happens to walk down memory lane in your brain, and then open that filing cabinet that you’ve attempted to lock, but its relatively simple in that moment to just open and take a look at some of those past files. And before you know it, your camping out on that isle looking through all of the files, some of them making you cry, some making you mad, and some making you want to go hide in the sleeping bag you brought along. It’s a problem. It fact it’s a huge problem. One moment you could throw that file cabinet out of your brain and sweep up any dust it leaves behind, and the next you want to lock it up because you feel that maybe the past is worth saving for sentimental or “a lesson learned” purpose.
I, however, don’t want to keep my file cabinets, and this has been a simple conclusion for me to come to.
Maybe, you don’t want your file cabinets either. You see, we as humans (both the A and B type) like to hold on to the past; we like to neatly organize it for easy reference, and we like to keep it fresh so that when it’s time to be referred to, it’s simple to read and remember. I don’t know why, personally it seems useless and doesn’t get one anywhere, but we do it. And yeah, I am pretty good at just walking past the “past files” most days of the year without noticing that their rattling at me, attempting to follow me around, but I think it would much better to not have them rattling at all, for them not to exist at all.
This is where I came to the conclusion that having memories erased from one’s brain could be a really great thing.
“Oh, this happened then, and this happened then, but my brain is about to empty the trash like an over packed e-mail account, so I won’t be thinking about you “happenings” anymore, mkay, so bye-bye. “
Sounds good doesn’t it. Except, my brain isn’t an e-mail account, and I’m pretty sure there isn’t a delete key I can manually press. So am I defeated? Do I have live in the past forever? And even if I don’t live in the past, do I still have to refer to it so often, or have it snooping around in my today’s business, and the answer to that overly asked questions is…
NO!!
What?! There’s a solution to the past following me around?? “But how,” you might wondering. Well the answer is so simple and so obvious, that you’re going to laugh, and say, “that doesn’t work.” The answer, Jesus Christ. Yeah, I know what you’re thinking. Jesus doesn’t have a delete key to my brain, or does he? No, Jesus can’t literally delete the ever present past in your life from your brain, but he can help you make it into something beautiful.
I love Isaiah 43, in fact, I love this one passage SO MUCH, that I keep it in a locket that I wear from time to time, because most days, it’s something I need to hear. “ Ok Martha, that’s great…I’m so glad you shared with me your favorite passage in the bible, but what does that have to do with the big bad past that’s hiding under my bed?” In this passage is one of the most relieving verses in the world, and it says,
“Remember not the former things, not consider the things of old. Behold I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.” Isaiah 43:18-19
I don’t know what that verse just did for you, but it just made me want to cry…with tears of happiness. God literally just said to anyone who just read that, “Hey, forget the past, I know it hurts, I know it’s scary and intimidating, and a really ugly thing for you to look at, so STOP looking at it. Don’t “consider the things of old,” because if you’re too busy looking at the past, you might not see the “new things” that I’m doing NOW.” Sigh. I just felt a whole lot of file cabinets get crushed into little pieces by the weight of God’s words. Yeah the past happened, but God is doing something now to make the past look like a dream. But how am I supposed to even see this hope and new future, if I’m wearing my “past glasses” where all I see is distorted to remind me of something that happened a week ago, a month ago, a year ago? Um….you can’t. The past files, have got to go. Stop organizing those horrible things for future reference. I’m not telling you to bury the past somewhere deep inside, because I don’t think that’s a healthy or a great idea. But I think what God is saying in this verse is acknowledge the past, but acknowledge that it’s in the past. When He says, “I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert,” He’s saying that out of that ugly file cabinet of a past you have stored away, he’s going to create a promising and beautiful future. I think God can use the past, even the ugly past, to teach us of his Love for us when we see the “river” that was formed from those past
“deserts.” When God does good things in our lives, we feel blessed. But when God does good things from the bad parts of our lives…we feel in awe, grateful, loved; really, what do you not feel when God takes your brokenness to replace it with so much promise and hope?
This one verse says to me, “Martha Lee Anne, I see your past, and I know your past, and I know you keep looking back, but look at the good I’m doing with your past; look what I’m teaching you from it, and look towards the beautiful future I want to give you, if you’ll just give all of your past to me.”
But now maybe you’re thinking, “Ok, so God can use my past/wilderness to create a new path, but what about my sins, what’s He going to do with those?”
“I, I am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and I WILL NOT remember your sins.” Isaiah 43-35
Read that again. One more time. Did you really just absorb what God just said to you? Your past, present, and future are all going to have sins, and those sins may be the cause of a lot of those past files you keep regretting and reading and crying over, but if it’s the sin that your crying over, you can grab a hanky and breathe easy. The moment you accepted Christ as your Savior and you gave Him your life to do with whatever He pleases, then your sins were no longer an issue, because for His “own sake,” He doesn’t want to, and will not remember them. They were “blotted” out. Basically, if you’ve ever painted with a child, you know that they get a little paint happy and sometimes whole sections of a drawing can disappear from the paint that was just slapped, brushed, or dropped on by the hand of that child, so when the painting is done, you may see a horse’s legs, a body, and a tail, but his head is gone. And there’s no use in trying to remember what the head looked like because all traces of it are gone, plus it takes to much out of you to stare at it and imagine what might have been, so you hang that painting up and smile at the tail, and the body, and the feet, and the head is just, well, for all you know, it doesn’t exist.
That’s how God treats your sin, it doesn’t exist because Jesus’ blood was like the red paint that just blotted it out, and all God can see is you, without your sin.
If you’re saved, you know God forgives sins, and you know that the past should stay in the past, but I know that it’s hard to keep it there. I know it’s easy to bring it up, sometimes, because you just want something to think about before you go to bed, but instead of focusing so much on mistakes and past regrets or whatever else the past monster reminds you of, go read Isaiah 43, and when you get to verses 18-19, really consider that God may be using that empty, desert of your past, to bring you to something good. And when you go back to that isle in your brain where you store those past files,I hope that your file has been erased; I hope it’s been “blotted” out, and I hope that while you sit there, bewildered , you fall in love with God when you see that a new story is being written in place of the past, and this one, you never want to put down because instead of being filled with your tears and regret, its filled with rivers and hope, and something much, much more beautiful.
Sunday, August 1, 2010
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Fear...
From time to time, I like to create really random scenarios or perhaps even questions just so that I can think over what I would do or say. For instance, a scenario that I’ve acted out in my mind ever since I was younger is the “what would you save if there were a fire” scenario, and over the years, this answer has changed from my teddy bear when I was seven to my journals at eight to my paintings at twelve to my chest that has all of my journals in it, and maybe I’ll grab just several paintings in the other hand, and then I’ll just throw my favorite books out of the window at twenty two; forget the clothes, money, laptop, phone, and whatever else most people would grab…those books are gold to me, and those journals are basically me in paper form, and those paintings may not be so awe inspiring, but it took way too long to paint them to have them melt in two seconds. Another scenario that I like to entertain before going to bed from time to time is the “what would you do if someone broke into your apartment” scenario. This one has so many different endings, that I’m not going to go into detail.
You get the point. I am a thinker, daydreamer, whatever you want to call it: I am the person who sits in class and when nothing too interesting or important is being said, imagines what I would do if someone showed up on campus with a gun or I’m imagining myself on an adventure overseas working at an orphanage. While lying in bed staring at the ceiling, I’m wondering what one thing I would take with me to an island, or who I would take with me. And if I’m feeling really thoughtful, I’m the person who really thinks in detail about what animal best describes me…by the way, I think it’s the nightingale. I might even be wondering if I could be any fruit, what fruit would I be: I have come to the conclusion that I would be a strawberry 1) because the strawberry is the most unique since it’s the only one that has seeds on the outside, kind of making the whole fruit thing pointless and 2) If you considered seeds a fruit’s heart, then the strawberry wears its heart on its sleeve, and I may not always do this, but I certainly admire it. And lastly, one scenario that I’ve thought over, as mentioned in a previous blog, is the whole knight in shining armor who will hopefully pursue me scenario…
There is one question, however, that I’ve thought over many times and have never known exactly the answer to…this being the, “what are you most afraid of” question.
So on TV, people are most afraid of monsters or spiders or roaches, well frankly, none of things scare me. Mice definitely don’t scare me after the whole catching one and releasing it outside adventure that took place a few weeks ago in Monroeville. I’m not scared of snakes because when you see one, you walk in the other direction. Maggots really do freak me out, but I’m not scared of them..I don’t fear the maggot colony climbing into bed with me or chasing me, but I do have to admit that I do get the whole “I’m going to be sick” when I see them episode. So besides the creepy crawlies, I guess I thought I was scared of the usual things like “what if I fail miserably in a class,” except I don’t worry about failing because I work too hard to fail, plus there’s always forgiveness if I do. I’m not afraid of graduating, I’m not afraid of moving, I’m not afraid of where I’m going to work because there are so many options as a Registered Dietician that is ridiculous, plus these make me feel like a new adventure is about to begin, which is far more exciting than scary. I’m not so scared of the dark any more, unless the power goes out, then I just go outside because for some reason outside dark is not scary like inside dark. I’m not scared of bees or ants or dirt or breaking a fingernail. I’m not deathly afraid of heights or planes or hurricanes. So really, there are things that might momentarily freak me out, but there aren’t many things that I’m really scared of, and even the “cat-lady” scenario, no longer scares me. If I’m the old, single lady with a bunch of cats, I will not be rocking in a rocking chair being depressed, hopefully, I’ll be on an adventure somewhere doing something good for the Lord…and if not, then shame , shame on me. But the point is that after a lot of thinking over this one question, I’ve never gotten to the root of what I’m really scared of…
Until today.
This morning, I was reading through Mathew chapter seven, and I stumbled upon a verse that I’ve read a many times before, and this verse says,
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ and then I will declare to them,
‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’
And after reading that, my stomach dropped, and I knew that without a shadow of a doubt, this verse was an answer to my biggest fear. And my biggest fear is….that again and again, I will get so caught up in the World, that I will again and again forget that I live in a world that sits in God’s hands…and though, I don’t believe that I am just a “Christian” but really a born again believer. I don’t want to be one of those, “whew…I barely made it” to heaven believers.
My biggest fear is never knowing Christ to the depth that He desires for me to know Him…
This verse says a whole lot about the world we live in. I feel like I know so many “Christians” and I know so many people who go to church, but honestly, I don’t know as many people who really know the Lord. And when I say “Christians,” you might be wondering what’s up with the quotes. When I say Christian (without the quotes), I’m referring to those who believe Christ died for them, and so they died to themselves, meaning that everything they were, believed in, knew…changed. Their lives went from one that looked like the world to one that looked like Christ. And when I say “Christians” I’m referring to those who believe in God, and they may or may not go to church, but they don’t look like Christ, they don’t talk like Christ, and they aren’t living to find Christ. So basically, there is your definition of those who are “hot” and those who are straddling the fence of “lukewarm”. Cold would be those who have denied Christ flat out (Revelations 3:15-16). And if you venture to go read Revelations chapter 3:15-16, you’ll see that it’s basically a backup of the Mathew verse, except instead of saying the nicer “depart from me,” He says concerning those who are “lukewarm,” “I will spit you out of my mouth,” but both verses are referring to those who say ‘Lord, Lord,’ but never really knew him. In really simplified terms, you can’t live a life as a “Christian” and satisfy God. God either comes into your life and changes it or He doesn’t, and you remain like the world, but God doesn’t come into your life and you change in the sense that you go to Church and you don’t steal, but you don’t care to study the word, you don’t care to really know him, and you don’t care to follow him because you love Him, you just pick and choose what you will or will not do on your terms, and being a Christian is about God’s terms, being a “Christian” is about your terms, and that isn’t “knowing” God, that’s just “believing” in God, and we know that even Demon’s can do that.
You may be thinking I sound ridiculous, but give it some deep thought. If you were a musician (I don’t know sports, so this example will have to do) you would own an instrument, let’s say a guitar. You would come home every day and want to play that beautiful cedar top guitar. After awhile, you would know the smallest details about this guitar, like what strings sound best on it, or the best way to keep it shiny and new, and if you really love your guitar, you’d name it (my guitars name is Aeda). You would be extremely protective of it, not just anyone could put their greasy fingers on it, and if someone dissed your guitar or put a scratch on your guitar, you’d probably get angry and banish them from touching it forever. So with time, you’d get better at playing, you would constantly be learning new things from playing it, and your guitar would become something that you really care about because you would have invested so much of your life and time into it. And of course you’d carry it around with you on trips or wherever in its case, and you’d take it out and play for those who asked you to, even if sounds crappy, because that is your guitar, and you’re proud of it.
Now if you had a guitar case with a guitar in it, and you carried it around, people would assume that you are a musician, ok. But if you don’t practice, and you never play that guitar, and you just let it sit in the corner of your room to collect dust (which mine does from time to time) and you don’t know anything about that guitar (strings, care taking, what a chord is), then you’re not really a musician, you’re a “musician” because you may do some things that, on the outside, make you look like a musician, like going to guitar shops and buying strings, but if people really pay attention and they never see you play, and they never hear you talk about practicing, they’re going to start disregarding the guitar case, and in their eyes, you’re going to be just like them, musically illiterate.
And if both the musician and the “musician” were to audition for some band, I’m confident, because of the musician’s knowledge of the guitar and overall time spent practicing, that at the audition the lead singer would say,
“Dude, I can tell you love that guitar. Your fingers are so calloused from all the practice, that even if you make mistakes and you’re not as bad as Andy McKee, you have the passion we’re looking for, you can totally be in our band.”
And as for the “musician,” they wouldn’t know anything about the guitar other than it has six strings. They may be able to pull off a few chords from hasty memorization a few months back, but knowing guitar chords and knowing how to play the guitar, are two completely different things. And I’m sure the lead singer would say to the “musician,”
“Dude, you don’t have a clue what you’re doing. I bet you’ve never picked that thing up for more than five minutes in months. Sure, you probably go to the music store every now and then to pick up some tips, but obviously you never put any of them to practice, and it shows. Honestly man, you’re sitting in limbo between knowing about the guitar and not knowing about the guitar, and frankly I don’t want some guy in my band who doesn’t even care enough to learn about the instrument he ‘claims’ to love, you’d be better off just not playing rather than being a ‘lukey.’”
And while the musician gets to stay and hang out and play his guitar that he truly loves playing, the “musician” is probably pondering what “lukey” means, not having a clue that he was just spit out by the lead singer, and “lukey” was short for “lukewarm.”
So that’s pretty much the best I can do at describing to you what it means to be a real Christian and what it means to be a “Christian”. I never really thought about the two too often growing up, because I knew that I loved the Lord and I went to church, but when I was in High School, I realized that I tended to carry the world in my back pocket, which is not anywhere close to being Christ-like.
I don’t know about you, but it’s next to impossible to follow Christ with the world in your back pocket. Because when you start to fall in love with Christ, and you start growing closer to him, you’ll hear those muffled sounds of the world coming from your pocket, and you’ll look back, and when you look back, you’re no longer looking towards Christ. And you may pause, take the world out, play some hacky sac with it, toss it about, roll it in between your fingers, and before you know it, you’ve had the world out for an hour, and then a day, and then it’s been a whole week with you and the world, until you hear a quiet whisper from the other direction, and that’s God, so you feel bad and you put the world back in your back pocket and try all over again to get back to Christ,
But it’s only a matter of time before the world calls, and you’re looking back at that pocket, and your fingers are fidgeting to just take it out for an hour or so.
Even though I love the Lord, I still feel like I could know Him more. I could want Him more. I could choose Him more. I’m reminded of a song that you might have sung in youth growing up, and the chorus goes like this,
“I want to know you. I want to hear your voice. I want to know you more. I want to touch you. I want to see your face. I want to know you more.”
And that…is what I want… I want to know God more. After reading in Mathew, I went to crosswalk.com to look up what it means to “Know” God. Some definitions were “to come to understand,” “have knowledge,” and one that at first I thought was completely irrelevant was the “know” that referred to being intimate with a spouse. Now, I know what you’re thinking because for about five minutes I thought it to: “Martha, you cannot ‘know’ God in that manner because it’s disgusting,” but I don’t think “know” here is referring to being intimate with God in a physical manner as with a spouse, but I think the word “intimate” is really important in our quest to know God. If you look “intimate” up, you’ll find things like “inmost, deep within” or “suggesting privacy, warm or cozy” and lastly, “involving warm friendship or personally close.” I don’t know about you, but being “intimate” with God sounds wonderful. Knowing God in an intimate way is to share with him your deepest fears, desires, and needs(those things deep within). It is to cozy up with him and to whisper your heart to him, it’s to crawl into His lap and know that, though He is the Alpha and the Omega, He’s also a father and a friend. I’m reminded of a song I wrote several years ago called “Just for awhile,” and I want to share those lyrics with you because intimacy with God is what I was longing for when I wrote it.
verse one:
I love you, when the sun begins to rise,
And can you, see me when I close my eyes?
Do you see me the way I see you?
I love you, when the darkness rises,
And can you, see the tears that fall from my eyes?
Do you know me the way I know you?
Chorus
I’m fading away.
Time stand still for awhile.
Nothing seems real today,
When you’re here,
So take me as yours tonight,
If just for awhile.
Verse two:
And I know, I am not forgotten,
When the day is done.
And my heart,
It’s not really broken, just waiting,
For the healer’s touch.
And your there,
Arms wide open,
To a prodigal son
So there you have it. My biggest fear is that instead of throwing that hacky sack of a world away in the next trash can I walk by, I’m going to keep it in my back pocket. I think I’m most afraid that I’ll keep replacing time with God with really stupid and meaningless things like TV and Facebook. I guess, in summary, that even though I am a Christian, I have to be wary of looking like a “Christian,” because the one thing that I desire most, is to stand before God and for him to say,
“Ah, there’s Martha Lee Anne. She knows my heart, and I know hers, and now that she’s here, I can’t wait to get to know her more.”
You get the point. I am a thinker, daydreamer, whatever you want to call it: I am the person who sits in class and when nothing too interesting or important is being said, imagines what I would do if someone showed up on campus with a gun or I’m imagining myself on an adventure overseas working at an orphanage. While lying in bed staring at the ceiling, I’m wondering what one thing I would take with me to an island, or who I would take with me. And if I’m feeling really thoughtful, I’m the person who really thinks in detail about what animal best describes me…by the way, I think it’s the nightingale. I might even be wondering if I could be any fruit, what fruit would I be: I have come to the conclusion that I would be a strawberry 1) because the strawberry is the most unique since it’s the only one that has seeds on the outside, kind of making the whole fruit thing pointless and 2) If you considered seeds a fruit’s heart, then the strawberry wears its heart on its sleeve, and I may not always do this, but I certainly admire it. And lastly, one scenario that I’ve thought over, as mentioned in a previous blog, is the whole knight in shining armor who will hopefully pursue me scenario…
There is one question, however, that I’ve thought over many times and have never known exactly the answer to…this being the, “what are you most afraid of” question.
So on TV, people are most afraid of monsters or spiders or roaches, well frankly, none of things scare me. Mice definitely don’t scare me after the whole catching one and releasing it outside adventure that took place a few weeks ago in Monroeville. I’m not scared of snakes because when you see one, you walk in the other direction. Maggots really do freak me out, but I’m not scared of them..I don’t fear the maggot colony climbing into bed with me or chasing me, but I do have to admit that I do get the whole “I’m going to be sick” when I see them episode. So besides the creepy crawlies, I guess I thought I was scared of the usual things like “what if I fail miserably in a class,” except I don’t worry about failing because I work too hard to fail, plus there’s always forgiveness if I do. I’m not afraid of graduating, I’m not afraid of moving, I’m not afraid of where I’m going to work because there are so many options as a Registered Dietician that is ridiculous, plus these make me feel like a new adventure is about to begin, which is far more exciting than scary. I’m not so scared of the dark any more, unless the power goes out, then I just go outside because for some reason outside dark is not scary like inside dark. I’m not scared of bees or ants or dirt or breaking a fingernail. I’m not deathly afraid of heights or planes or hurricanes. So really, there are things that might momentarily freak me out, but there aren’t many things that I’m really scared of, and even the “cat-lady” scenario, no longer scares me. If I’m the old, single lady with a bunch of cats, I will not be rocking in a rocking chair being depressed, hopefully, I’ll be on an adventure somewhere doing something good for the Lord…and if not, then shame , shame on me. But the point is that after a lot of thinking over this one question, I’ve never gotten to the root of what I’m really scared of…
Until today.
This morning, I was reading through Mathew chapter seven, and I stumbled upon a verse that I’ve read a many times before, and this verse says,
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ and then I will declare to them,
‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’
And after reading that, my stomach dropped, and I knew that without a shadow of a doubt, this verse was an answer to my biggest fear. And my biggest fear is….that again and again, I will get so caught up in the World, that I will again and again forget that I live in a world that sits in God’s hands…and though, I don’t believe that I am just a “Christian” but really a born again believer. I don’t want to be one of those, “whew…I barely made it” to heaven believers.
My biggest fear is never knowing Christ to the depth that He desires for me to know Him…
This verse says a whole lot about the world we live in. I feel like I know so many “Christians” and I know so many people who go to church, but honestly, I don’t know as many people who really know the Lord. And when I say “Christians,” you might be wondering what’s up with the quotes. When I say Christian (without the quotes), I’m referring to those who believe Christ died for them, and so they died to themselves, meaning that everything they were, believed in, knew…changed. Their lives went from one that looked like the world to one that looked like Christ. And when I say “Christians” I’m referring to those who believe in God, and they may or may not go to church, but they don’t look like Christ, they don’t talk like Christ, and they aren’t living to find Christ. So basically, there is your definition of those who are “hot” and those who are straddling the fence of “lukewarm”. Cold would be those who have denied Christ flat out (Revelations 3:15-16). And if you venture to go read Revelations chapter 3:15-16, you’ll see that it’s basically a backup of the Mathew verse, except instead of saying the nicer “depart from me,” He says concerning those who are “lukewarm,” “I will spit you out of my mouth,” but both verses are referring to those who say ‘Lord, Lord,’ but never really knew him. In really simplified terms, you can’t live a life as a “Christian” and satisfy God. God either comes into your life and changes it or He doesn’t, and you remain like the world, but God doesn’t come into your life and you change in the sense that you go to Church and you don’t steal, but you don’t care to study the word, you don’t care to really know him, and you don’t care to follow him because you love Him, you just pick and choose what you will or will not do on your terms, and being a Christian is about God’s terms, being a “Christian” is about your terms, and that isn’t “knowing” God, that’s just “believing” in God, and we know that even Demon’s can do that.
You may be thinking I sound ridiculous, but give it some deep thought. If you were a musician (I don’t know sports, so this example will have to do) you would own an instrument, let’s say a guitar. You would come home every day and want to play that beautiful cedar top guitar. After awhile, you would know the smallest details about this guitar, like what strings sound best on it, or the best way to keep it shiny and new, and if you really love your guitar, you’d name it (my guitars name is Aeda). You would be extremely protective of it, not just anyone could put their greasy fingers on it, and if someone dissed your guitar or put a scratch on your guitar, you’d probably get angry and banish them from touching it forever. So with time, you’d get better at playing, you would constantly be learning new things from playing it, and your guitar would become something that you really care about because you would have invested so much of your life and time into it. And of course you’d carry it around with you on trips or wherever in its case, and you’d take it out and play for those who asked you to, even if sounds crappy, because that is your guitar, and you’re proud of it.
Now if you had a guitar case with a guitar in it, and you carried it around, people would assume that you are a musician, ok. But if you don’t practice, and you never play that guitar, and you just let it sit in the corner of your room to collect dust (which mine does from time to time) and you don’t know anything about that guitar (strings, care taking, what a chord is), then you’re not really a musician, you’re a “musician” because you may do some things that, on the outside, make you look like a musician, like going to guitar shops and buying strings, but if people really pay attention and they never see you play, and they never hear you talk about practicing, they’re going to start disregarding the guitar case, and in their eyes, you’re going to be just like them, musically illiterate.
And if both the musician and the “musician” were to audition for some band, I’m confident, because of the musician’s knowledge of the guitar and overall time spent practicing, that at the audition the lead singer would say,
“Dude, I can tell you love that guitar. Your fingers are so calloused from all the practice, that even if you make mistakes and you’re not as bad as Andy McKee, you have the passion we’re looking for, you can totally be in our band.”
And as for the “musician,” they wouldn’t know anything about the guitar other than it has six strings. They may be able to pull off a few chords from hasty memorization a few months back, but knowing guitar chords and knowing how to play the guitar, are two completely different things. And I’m sure the lead singer would say to the “musician,”
“Dude, you don’t have a clue what you’re doing. I bet you’ve never picked that thing up for more than five minutes in months. Sure, you probably go to the music store every now and then to pick up some tips, but obviously you never put any of them to practice, and it shows. Honestly man, you’re sitting in limbo between knowing about the guitar and not knowing about the guitar, and frankly I don’t want some guy in my band who doesn’t even care enough to learn about the instrument he ‘claims’ to love, you’d be better off just not playing rather than being a ‘lukey.’”
And while the musician gets to stay and hang out and play his guitar that he truly loves playing, the “musician” is probably pondering what “lukey” means, not having a clue that he was just spit out by the lead singer, and “lukey” was short for “lukewarm.”
So that’s pretty much the best I can do at describing to you what it means to be a real Christian and what it means to be a “Christian”. I never really thought about the two too often growing up, because I knew that I loved the Lord and I went to church, but when I was in High School, I realized that I tended to carry the world in my back pocket, which is not anywhere close to being Christ-like.
I don’t know about you, but it’s next to impossible to follow Christ with the world in your back pocket. Because when you start to fall in love with Christ, and you start growing closer to him, you’ll hear those muffled sounds of the world coming from your pocket, and you’ll look back, and when you look back, you’re no longer looking towards Christ. And you may pause, take the world out, play some hacky sac with it, toss it about, roll it in between your fingers, and before you know it, you’ve had the world out for an hour, and then a day, and then it’s been a whole week with you and the world, until you hear a quiet whisper from the other direction, and that’s God, so you feel bad and you put the world back in your back pocket and try all over again to get back to Christ,
But it’s only a matter of time before the world calls, and you’re looking back at that pocket, and your fingers are fidgeting to just take it out for an hour or so.
Even though I love the Lord, I still feel like I could know Him more. I could want Him more. I could choose Him more. I’m reminded of a song that you might have sung in youth growing up, and the chorus goes like this,
“I want to know you. I want to hear your voice. I want to know you more. I want to touch you. I want to see your face. I want to know you more.”
And that…is what I want… I want to know God more. After reading in Mathew, I went to crosswalk.com to look up what it means to “Know” God. Some definitions were “to come to understand,” “have knowledge,” and one that at first I thought was completely irrelevant was the “know” that referred to being intimate with a spouse. Now, I know what you’re thinking because for about five minutes I thought it to: “Martha, you cannot ‘know’ God in that manner because it’s disgusting,” but I don’t think “know” here is referring to being intimate with God in a physical manner as with a spouse, but I think the word “intimate” is really important in our quest to know God. If you look “intimate” up, you’ll find things like “inmost, deep within” or “suggesting privacy, warm or cozy” and lastly, “involving warm friendship or personally close.” I don’t know about you, but being “intimate” with God sounds wonderful. Knowing God in an intimate way is to share with him your deepest fears, desires, and needs(those things deep within). It is to cozy up with him and to whisper your heart to him, it’s to crawl into His lap and know that, though He is the Alpha and the Omega, He’s also a father and a friend. I’m reminded of a song I wrote several years ago called “Just for awhile,” and I want to share those lyrics with you because intimacy with God is what I was longing for when I wrote it.
verse one:
I love you, when the sun begins to rise,
And can you, see me when I close my eyes?
Do you see me the way I see you?
I love you, when the darkness rises,
And can you, see the tears that fall from my eyes?
Do you know me the way I know you?
Chorus
I’m fading away.
Time stand still for awhile.
Nothing seems real today,
When you’re here,
So take me as yours tonight,
If just for awhile.
Verse two:
And I know, I am not forgotten,
When the day is done.
And my heart,
It’s not really broken, just waiting,
For the healer’s touch.
And your there,
Arms wide open,
To a prodigal son
So there you have it. My biggest fear is that instead of throwing that hacky sack of a world away in the next trash can I walk by, I’m going to keep it in my back pocket. I think I’m most afraid that I’ll keep replacing time with God with really stupid and meaningless things like TV and Facebook. I guess, in summary, that even though I am a Christian, I have to be wary of looking like a “Christian,” because the one thing that I desire most, is to stand before God and for him to say,
“Ah, there’s Martha Lee Anne. She knows my heart, and I know hers, and now that she’s here, I can’t wait to get to know her more.”
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