God, don't you care?

There's a bible story I can't get out of my head right now. It's in Mark, chapter 4, and the disciples are trying to cross a lake with Jesus. Somewhere along the journey, winds of hurricane caliber (according to the original Greek translation) start whipping up the waves until they crash over the boat, and it actually starts filling with water. I've read this story a hundred times, but somehow I have never noticed that detail before - the disciples weren't being dramatic as they panicked. Their boat was literally beginning to fill! Meanwhile, Jesus is SLEEPING on a cushion in the stern. The disciples go to rouse Him and plead - "Lord, don't you care that we are perishing?" I'm sure the undertone of the disciples' question was more like: "How could you be sleeping at a time like this?!"

In the midst of the frightening, threatening storm, they didn't want to know if Jesus was capable of saving them - they had witnessed His miraculous habits and probably guessed that He was. What they wanted to know was whether or not He even cared that they were in this perilous situation!

Jesus stood up and commanded the storm to settle down, and it did (because even the wind and waves know Who is speaking.) He then looked at them, quivering and soaked as I'm sure they were, and asked, "Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?" I dug into His question a bit by looking up the Greek translation of each word, and I discovered that His question could be phrased a little more like this: "Have you not yet been persuaded?"

The disciples ask: "God, don't you care?"

And Jesus responds: "Have you not yet been persuaded?"

Right now, it's easy for me to feel like Jesus in sleeping while I'm weathering a pretty significant storm - not just because staffing is a new and challenging experience, but because meanwhile, I feel that I'm undergoing some serious "heart surgery" in regards to where I find my security, where I find my peace. And I think this story resonates with me so powerfully because as I cry and fitfully sleep and fight through waves of fear, the question I want answered most is: God, don't you care?

And He asks me, in a tone of voice full of the gentleness and peace of a newly-calmed storm: "Have you not yet been persuaded?"

Have I not yet been convinced that His love for me is deep enough and sure enough and powerful enough for me to take heart in the middle of a storm - even when the waves are crashing over the boat? Can I look back over the short course of my life, identify His trademark faithfulness, and choose to trust that He is deeply invested in me? Can I allow that trustworthiness to persuade me beyond my circumstances, and choose to rest with Him while the waves are raging?

It wasn't carelessness that allowed Jesus to keep sleeping as His disciples panicked. It was confidence. He knew He could shut down the storm if He needed to, He knew how things would turn out.

When we acknowledge the kind of love we are loved with, when we really believe we are valuable enough to God that His quietness in a frightful time doesn't equate to carelessness (!), we're invited to mirror the peace He displayed in the stern of that storm-rocked boat. Peace that doesn't make sense circumstantially (perhaps the "peace that surpasses all understanding" the Bible talks about.) Peace that, instead, makes all the sense in the world when you consider the magnitude and forcefulness of His love towards you.

So right now, I'm challenging myself to be more intentional about reflecting on His past faithfulness... And I'm challenging myself to be more intentional about envisioning it in my future. Such a confronting, and then comforting, question: Have I not yet been persuaded? Looking back over our life together so far...haven't I?

"Do you trust Me?" // Starting Simple

"Do you trust Me?" Isn't that always the question?

I feel like that's always the question, with the Lord. In big things, in small things, we are continually given opportunities to respond to this gentle, stubborn question which harbors a thousand implications - "Do you trust Me?"

Last winter, this question stirred in my heart in the form of a YWAM acceptance letter, an open door to Australia and discipleship school and...? And what? What guarantee did I have that my time away from everything I know would be justified, that it would be worth it to commit six months to something which provides me with no concrete benefits, by the world's standards? "Do you trust Me?" Both then and now, sometimes the best response I can muster up is: "...I think so?" That's the less-than-impressive answer that was richocheting around inside my head as I booked a flight for Brisbane and stuffed shirts into a big red backpack...

And just like that, it's over. The little "yes" morphed into a six month gift of precious friendships and unexpected adventure and whatever it was, exactly, my spirit needed when I started the school six months ago: Something like a combination of healing, invigoration, reassurance, general growth.

I've been back on Texas soil for almost two weeks now, officially a graduate of YWAM Brisbane's Pathfinders DTS. I'm in the middle of processing the transition and it is sometimes overwhelming, sometimes underwhelming, kind of weird, and overall good. Trying to communicate everything the Lord did while I was away, in my own heart and in the hearts of those around me, feels like trying to pour a gallon of water into a teeny tiny glass. So it's tempting for me not to pour out the water at all, to keep the gallon safely untouched... But I think it's important for me to take the time to sit down and chew on what happened, to work it out into words and in so doing, empty that gallon of water one teeny tiny glass at a time. I want to be faithful to share with others what He was so faithful to share with me.

So. Where do I begin?

I will begin simply, because if I don't I will overwhelm myself and freak out and drop the entire "glass filling" thing and start reading a book instead...

+++++

So if I had to pick an overarching theme, a lens through which every other lesson was learned throughout these past six months, it would be this: That God is always, forever, and foremost a RELATIONAL God. Meaning He loves me, individually and specifically - not the work of my hands, nor the rate of my progress.

I actually had this revelation four years ago, and it kickstarted my faith in ways that no guided bible study or youth event or worship song ever had. There is so much power in realizing - really realizing - that God's heart is for YOU. Because when you recognize that the God of the Universe is in the middle of loving you with a pure and powerful love, something in you gains the confidence to say "no" to shame and doubt and begin receiving the wild abundance of grace that He has always been extending to you. That grace allows your heart to rest in being truly, honestly forgiven, and that release gives you a transcendent freedom, completely separate from your circumstances or past or weaknesses. That freedom gives you boldness, and that boldness propels you to step out and grow in the faith that got the whole process originally rolling... It's a beautiful, incredible, supernatural domino effect.

But as I matured in my relationship with the Lord, I recognized that I wasn't a "baby Christian" anymore, and I allowed myself to adopt certain responsibilities and expectations. The idea of "I should know better" permeated the way I looked at every single situation. And, sure, there are several situations in which that could ring true - but the problem was that the "I should knew better" mentality crowded out the free gift of grace that is so foundational and pivotal in walking with God. It replaced deep forgiveness with shame I thought I deserved (because "I should know better," right?) and the longer I let myself operate from this perspective, the more burdened and incapable I felt, and the less I believed that His heart motivation really was His love for me.

Patiently, carefully, the Lord used my time at YWAM to re-work into my heart the original revelation that had sent me falling in love with Him in the first place: He hasn't come to place additional burdens or standards or expectations upon us, like the rest of the world does. He hasn't come to critically review the works of our hands, to add to our productivity tally, our performance review. He has come to LOVE us. To LOVE me. That's the beginning, the middle, and the end of the gospel: God reaching for us, not because He needs us, but because He wants us - out of love. Most of the time, I don't even know what that means, because I'm so wired to scan for benefits and outcomes and you couldn't possibly just love me for me, could you, Lord? There's something you want me to achieve or obtain, some standard you want me to uphold, and THAT'S what keeps me in your love, right?

Nope. He loves me for me. And it doesn't make any sense at all, but it's just as true as it is fantastical. It's a pure love that frees you from "you should know better," and beckons you into a greater, sweeter freedom of "I love you, period."

God is a relational God. He loves me, you, us, individually and specifically; not the work of our hands, or the rate of our progress. He loves us with a love that extends a transformative, declarative grace, and we cannot receive His love without also grasping that grace. If this isn't the context of our learning and growing, our roots won't get very deep, we won't get very far. This has to be the ground on which we let the Lord build in our lives.

+++++

"Do you trust Me?" The original question. The recurring question. I'm learning to - bit by bit, through lessons like this one. He's teaching me how, and I'm learning to.