All My Life, In All I Do, Soli Deo Gloria

Audience of One

Slowly shuffle/limping from the gym floor to the locker room last night, I was so proud, so excited that I had overcome me.  But I was a little sadden that I had no one to share my butt-kicking accomplishment with.  Well, I have friends, I could've texted.  I could've emailed my trainer, she would've been proud.  But no one would have understood how tired I was when I got to the gym.  No one would've understood the long pep talk I had to give myself just to go to the gym as opposed to going home after a mentally draining 12-hour day.  No one would be able to relate to the three times I almost walked out of the gym, abandoning my workout, but continued anyway.  No one would be able to understand the mental mountain I climbed to do what I did.

So I didn't make any calls or shoot out any emails.  I blogged about my workout, but what I wrote could not capture the depth of persistent fortitude that I had to mine.  Although I fancy myself a creative wordsmith, even I, in my vast vocabulary could not communicate the personal meaning of my accomplishment.  But all that doesn't matter to me, because I know what I've accomplished.

I once heard a speaker talk about how he doesn't care what others think, because he plays for an audience of one.  God.  His life, his ministry, his words, his every breath is orchestrated that he would please only one, The One, God. 

It doesn't matter if no one ever knows how hard I work on a daily basis to prepare myself to compete.  It doesn't matter if no one ever congratulates me on a workout well endured or a personal goal obtained and surpassed.  All that matters, to me at least, is that I know, and MY audience of One, The One knows.  For He is ever with me encouraging me,  emboldening me on, ever closer to my goals. 

Return

I used to have a pet roadrunner. No really, I’m serious!

The first three springs I lived in Dallas, he usually showed up around the beginning of May and disappears around mid-November when the temps dip closer to freezing. He hung out around the house in the early morning and then again around dusk. During the day, he roamed the neighborhood, and returned to his nest close to the side yard at dusk.

I don’t know why, but I’d become attached to the roadrunner. One Spring, I’d watched for him to no avail.  When he didn’t show around the normal time in the season, I became a bit concerned that maybe he had died during the winter because I hadn’t seen him.

Then one afternoon in May, as I drove the last 100 yards to my driveway, WHOOSH the roadrunner ran in front of my car! He’s back! He’d returned!!!

I honestly wanted to slam on the brakes, jump out of my car and run after him and hug him and tell him “welcome back, welcome home!”…but I didn’t, only because he can run considerably faster than me, and that particular day wasn’t my day to be a ‘spectacle’ for my neighbors to mine their entertainment from.

My excitement to see the roadrunner indeed had returned for another season got me thinking about how God must feel when one of His lost returns home.

Outside of my block of the neighborhood, no one was aware that that roadrunner existed. And I’m quite comfortable in saying that no one was as happy as me to see his return year after year. I’m sure no one held such a diligent vigil in anticipation of his return as I did yearly, peeping out my windows checking the top of my car and the deck every evening around dusk.

Think about the millions of people who think that God doesn’t care about what they do or where they are.

I wish they could feel just a pinch of the excitement I felt when I saw the roadrunner. Then maybe they’d understand on a small scale what their Creator is feeling on a magnanimous scale when He thinks about them.

I wish they could’ve held vigil with me every year in May searching for something, like them, that has no idea that it had been missed. Then possibly they’d know the anticipation their Father has felt for as long as they’ve drawn breath. The vigil He’s posted for them and them alone since the beginning of time.

The dogged vigilance of my “roadrunner watch” those three years is an anemic parallel to the perverse tenacity the Creator exhibits in His bid to draw each of us believer and non, to the calming certainty of an eternal relationship with Him.

Think of it, every time someone lets go, capitulating their reins to Abba, every time they drop their arms, standing aside, to allow the towers they’ve built to topple, every time they trade in their aspirations, their castles in the air for a concrete foundation of truth, every time they return, I betcha God slams both feet on the brakes, stops whatever He’s doing and runs after them giddy with excitement to welcome them home. And I feel pretty safe in saying that creating a spectacle is not on His list of concerns!

Calamity Behind The Facade



I attend a rather large church, that in Christian circles would be called a "mega-church".

My church is located in an area where the median income is upper middle class.

Often, I hear comments about how 'megachurches' are shallow, or others will say 'a megachurch is not for me, I get lost, and no one really cares about me.' Or someone will decline my invitation to attend because they feel that they will not 'fit in' socio-economically'.

In the past, I've become involved in a home-team,  a group of around 20-30 people that meet every other week at someone's home where we fellowship and discuss God's word.  The home-team concept is modeled after the early church in the book of Acts.  I've built some awesome realtionships with some increcible individuals in the group.

I've also played on a co-ed sports team in the flag football league sponsored by my church.  Where, once again, I've had the precious honor of meeting people from asundry backgrounds.

The one thing that has remained a constant in all of the folks God's allowed to cross my path when serving as a volunteer at church to my home-team, to running around pulling flags on the football field, is the pain and brokenness that I find when I invest time in cultivating these relationships.

Outside our faith the common strand seems to be, people that 'present' as 'put-together', but should you take the time to tear away the facade and dig deeper, they're hurting, broken, devastated, longing, reaching out for and finding God's love not only on weekends when they attend service, but also throughout the week as they immere themselves in the life of the church.

I get angry when someone writes my church off as a 'mega-church' that's just about glitz and showiness.  I wish those people, so hasty to judge the book by its cover, could see the hearts of the folks I've met through my involvement.  I long for them to see that the perceived 'glitz' is not what we're about, not what defines us. 

While a fun and creative church service may bring people in, should those same people stay, get involved and get to know the people that make up the church body, I know unquestionably they would see that behind the glitzy facade, we're just a broken group of people daily turning to and trusting God for restoration, leaning on each other for encouragement*. 

There is untold, immeasurable calamity behind the facade.  Such hopelessness that is only righted by the continual cleansing renewing blood of our Saviour.

*Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.
-Ecclesiates 4:12

This I Believe

I was spiritually parched.  My soul had not tasted of spiritual rain for longer than I cared to admit.  In my wasteland, I’d continued to go through the “motions,” all of them, except for communicating with God.  Once again, another temper tantrum (on my part) had prompted me to stifle He who daily guides me.

I stood in the pew, stumbling through the words of a song I’d never heard before. 

“Formed my every moment, calmed my raging sea.”

It was a pretty song, full of alliterations I related to

“walked with me thru fire, healed all my disease,”

They were great lyrics, the melody was easy to pick up and I began to sing along effortlessly following the melody.  However, I quickly shut my mouth and ceased participation as I read the lyrics of the chorus,

“I believe You’re my healer, I believe You are all I need.  I believe You’re my portion, I believe You’re more than enough for me.  Jesus You’re all I need.”

In the 30 some odd years of being raised in church, I’ve sung hundreds, possibly even thousands of songs to God, about God, for God, but never had I sung lyrics TO Him telling Him what I believed AND putting the phrase “I believe” before it, for extra emphasis. 

I COULDN’T sing those lyrics, for I don’t believe He’s all I need.  Even though He’s stood in my proverbial shell of a life and spoken peace over many a raging sea for me.  And although He’s walked with me…scratch that, carried with me through too many fires to enumerate here.  And despite my knowledge that every one of my steps are ordained by Him, I couldn’t vocalize that.

For me to open my mouth and say such things, means that they’re true, means, that I believed.   Means that, the pity party has to stop where the believing begins and if I’m being honest with myself, the believing began a long, long time ago.  For me to speak those declarations of my beliefs, I knew my behavior had to match my words, for how could I stand and sing a song of lies to my Savior?

I’ve spent most of my working life doing jobs I wasn’t qualified for on paper, but I possessed the moxie and stupid determination to do the tasks put before me.  I more or less faked it until I maked it (bad grammar intentional).  Over the last 16 years since graduating from college, I’ve made believers out of many a doubter.  On the way home from church that afternoon, I realized that this was one of those fake it until you make it times.  Because even though my sarcastic earth bound mind struggles with total belief, my heart and my soul run day to day on the fuel of hope, the  nourishment of past victories that have come only at God’s hand.

I’ve spent most of the last two weeks playing that song.  Obsessively over and over and over and over and over, in the car, at home, at work, at the gym, when I was grocery shopping this past weekend.  I sing the words over and over, willing them to become more a part of me than the nose on my face, than the brown eyes that stare back at you, more so than the name that identifies me, I believe. 

If that’s what it takes, repetition over and over, singing it until I truly believe without a doubt, then I’m okay with that journey.  At least I started, and I know (that as in the past) eventually I’ll get to the point where my actions and words meet up and walk hand in hand.

I’m confident of it.  This I believe.

Better Than Life

A couple years ago I shared with a friend a huge praise that I was finally “in the light” after having emerged from a dark time in my life. I painted the word picture of being on the back side of a storm in the flatlands of Kansas or Oklahoma, and looking in the rear view mirror and seeing how black and menacing what you’d just driven through actually was. I reminded her that when we drive through storms like that, most times we don’t realize how dark they are until we’ve exited the storm.

Last fall, on my way to watch a friend’s son play in a JV football game, I got a text from her saying the game had been cancelled due to severe thunderstorms that were slowly advancing toward the metroplex. So a block away from the stadium, I turned my car around to head the 10 miles south back to my house. The closer I got to my house, the darker the clouds got, the closer the lightening flashed, and in my rearview mirror I watched as the last rays of the sun were slowly engulfed by magnificent, prodigious, bruise colored thunder heads.

As I drove into the storm, I couldn’t help but smile as God brought to my remembrance all the storms he’s ferried me out of. When I shared my praise report with my friend, I told her how I’d been playing the song “Better Than Life” all that day. Blasting it in my car, singing equally as loud, hitting the ‘back’ button at the end of the song, and starting all over from the top again.

Your love is everlasting
Its an everlasting love
Your mercy is as new as every rising of the sun
And your loving kindness,
loving kindness is better than life

Fairest of 10,000 of 10,000 you are fair
Nothing in this world could ever measure or compare
And your loving kindness
Loving kindness is better than life

While I agree with the songwriter here, I must take artistic liberty and say, “your loving kindness, loving kindness has given me life”

Lord, I thank for your mercy that renews with every breath you allow me to take. I thank you for the storms that wash away, blow away, tear away what is not of you. I praise you that you set up camp with us in our storms.

I extol you that the storms will not last always. I exalt you because your very words, “Peace Be Still” have the power to extinguish the most violent of storms, and should you choose to remain silent and allow the storm to roll, your lack of vocalization does not mean that you have abandoned us, for you have promised us that you will never leave us, you would never forsake us.

I thank you for reminders, such as past thunderstorms of your past mercies and providence, and I pray that when those small reminders blow across our paths that we would take a brief moment to remember and celebrate your loving kindness, because it is better, so much better than life itself.

If It Takes All Night

I was so tired, I fought back tears.  I wanted to give up and call it a night.  Halfway through my workout, I was spent.  This workout, much more challenging than last week's.  I could give up.  The only one who'd know would be me. 

But I can't.  I didn't.  I pressed on.

Each rep, each set, I completed as she'd instructed.  Each plyo jump, each sprint, each lunge with 25 pound plates in each hand, I fought through.  My body going on pure will alone.  My mind fatigued, screamed, begged, bargained for a reprieve.

I paused, doubled over.  Sweat dive bombing from my brow, my chin, my chest, hitting the black padded weight room floor.  I stood, next set, endeavoring on. 

The seconds between sets grew longer, the muscles in my legs and arms spasmed uncontrollably.  I breathed deeply and whispered to myself "I don't care if it takes all night, I will do every rep and every set." 

I wonder how many times God has whispered to himself as I drug my feet whining and complaining my proclamations that I could go no further.  How many times has he whispered to me, "If it takes the rest of your life, you WILL get this."

An hour and five minutes later, as I sit on my couch digesting my high protein dinner, and trying to find the strength to shower and crawl into bed, I, with unabashed pride, applaud my efforts this evening.  I didn't want to do my workout.  I wanted to quit halfway through because it was too hard.  But.  I.  Kept.  Going.  And I finished.  All of it.  Everything I was told to do. 

It didn't take all night, more like an hour and 15 mintues.  But who cares?  I finished.  I ran through the tape.  Every step.   Every rep.  Every set.

Lord, there's a lot you're working on in my world right now.  Some of it is hard.  Having to break life-long behavioral patterns isn't even in nodding acquaintace with 'easy'.  However, despite the tears, sweat, quivering muscles, fatigue, nausea and a lot of empty excuses, I promise I'll finish every step, every change, every character building exercise.  All of it.  Everything you tell me to do. 

Even if it takes all night or the rest of my life.  

I Hate Push-Ups

I hate push-ups.  The title says it all.  As I was typing the title, my mom's voice was in my head saying "Novia Renee, we do not hate anything, that's an awful strong word."  Not strong enough mom, not strong enough!  In the thirteen months I've worked with my personal trainer, there's yet to be a week where she hasn't inserted push-ups in my workouts.  It's like they're in cahoots.  Deb and push-ups.  Push-ups and Deb.

And what's even more maddening is that as soon as I get good at one kind of push-up, she changes it up and gives me a harder version.  If you think there's only a few version of push-ups, hang out with my trainer for 55 weeks...'cuz she's come up with more than 55 different ways to do them.  This week's work out, I get to pump out 90...yeah that's right you read it correctly NINETY push-ups six sets of 15, but they're not consecutive, they're in between other upper body scorchers...I wanna cheat, I wanna only do some of them or none of them at all.  But I do everyone...all 90 of 'em 'cuz I know she can tell.  She's clairvoyant like that. 

Recently, I settled in my spirit how to be kind to someone who I'm not particulary fond of.  So much so that others had complimented me on my graciousness and asked what had changed.  But then, BOOM, another person enters my life who I despise.  To no end.  A lot.  And the cycle has started all over again.  Just when I thought I was doing good loving my neighbor, along comes another troll for me to be kind to. 

That troll, is my push-ups.  This afternoon, I realized (after thirteen months) that my trainer wants me to  be so strong, that no matter how I'm asked to do them, I can pump out push-ups in my sleep, when I'm awake, when I'm tired, at the end of a butt-kicking workout when my arms are quivering with fatigue, with one eye closed, with one hand behind my back, suspended from one foot, you get the point.  She wants me strong no matter the situation, so just when I get good and strong, she changes it up, confusing my muscles and building more strength.

Likewise, this, my new irritation.  God wants me to love my neighbor.  Period.  Doesn't matter where I am, or who it is.  He said, "love your neighbor as I have loved you."  So what? I got good at 'loving' one unlovable person. Go me.  But now it's time for a new variation on unlovable, thus, enter a new person.  And I go right back to the beginning again, flexing that 'love the unlovable' muscle.   My guess is the unlovables will continue to come and invade my space, until I can love my neighbor no matter what, without even thinking about it I just do it.  It's second nature.

Thirteen months in I may be stronger, but I still hate push-ups...I pray that this exercise in character development takes hold quicker than the push-ups have.

Rage Against The Machine

My dad is techno-phobic.  He's afraid of all technology post the huge car phones in Miami Vice.  He thinks email is useless and says texting is ruining the art of modern conversation.  He doesn't like "the Facebook" or "the Twitter" and is sure if a picture of him is posted on either, his house will be robbed and he will be killed in some horribly brutal way.  I'm not using his name in this post, because I don't think he likes "the Blogs" either, and I don't want to test the technology gods by putting his name here. 

He doesn't understand that an iPod is an MP3 player ("it's the original MP3 player," I kept telling him over Christmas break) or that when taking pictures on his brand new digital EOS Rebel, he doesn't have to look thru the viewfinder to see the subjects he's about to take a pciture of, all he needs to do is look at the big screen right below the viewfinder.  And the list goes on.  He's chosen not to shun the neat things technology has spawned over the last three decades for what he's comfortable with.  Because of that, he's missed the amazingly magnificent metaphorsis of scientific knowledge.

My mom, on the other hand, has very gracefully ebbed and flowed with technological advances.  She's been along for the whole glorious journey (even though she's prefered a quiet space in the back seat for the ride).  If she doesn't understand it, she'll call me or my brother and we talk her thru it until she's comfortable with it and she shrieks like a excited little girl because she finally gets it.  Because she works with college athletes, she is masterful at texting (her students' main source of communication with her) and she understands that "i love you" thru a text is just as strong and meaningful as me telling her over the phone.  She has a Facebook page and knows what to put on her page and what not to put on her page.  She knows how to set her privacy settings and is selective who she shares her page with.  Where my father found great frustration with Siri over Christmas, my mother, found great amusement by asking questions such as: "who's your daddy?" of Siri. 

Mom and dad.  Night and day.  One rages against advancement, the other ushers it in, learning and molding it to fit her needs.  As much as my dad's admamant refusal to enter into the new century infuriates me, I must extend a lot of grace when dealing with him and technology in the same breath.  For I think of the many things throughout my life God has called me to change, adapt to, improve, stop doing.  The course directions that have changed drastically mid-race and the absolute knock down, drag out fits I've thrown because that's not what I wanted, what I was used to, what I thought was 'right' for the situation. 

God is ever-changing and never-changing all in the same breath.  When I think I've figured out an aspect of His goodness, or a side of His breath-taking grace, He throws me a curve ball, asks me to flex, asks me to change, to evolve to fit the environment He's dropped me in.  It's hard (so hard that right before typing that, without even thinking about it, I said "it's hard" out loud).  Nine times out of ten, I don't want to adapt, I don't want to change, I fight change, I want to stay where I'm comfortable, where all is familiar, because that's the way it's always been, and I like it.  But that's not what He's called me to do. 

As much as I enjoy my norm, the more time I spend raging against the machine, raging against change, raging against this evolution that is my life with Christ, the less time I'll have walking in peace and trust with God THE most marvelous part of the journey.

Drop Your Butt and Drive Your Legs

I’m in love with my friend’s dog Tonka.  Which really says a lot because I’m a large dog lover, and not that tolerant of dogs that are smaller than, oh, a border collie.  But Tonka, Tonka is my exception to the rule.  When I visited my friend earlier this year, she let me take Tonka out on his retractable leash.  And because I like Tonka and trust Tonka to make good dog decisions, I let him go to the end of his leash and followed him as he pulled me behind.

But after 10 minutes outside sniffing and burrowing and sampling every blade of grass in the yard, I decided it was time to go in.  I was cold, so potty break was over. 

Me: small tug on the leash “come on Tonka let’s go"

Tonka: continues to sniff around making sure he spread all of his puppy love to all of the fallen acorns

Me: little more of a tug, “Tonka let’s go”

Tonka: pretending to be oblivious to the brown lady on the opposite end of the leash continues to sniff.

Me: walking toward Tonka while simultaneously taking up the slack in the leash, “Tonka, come on”

Tonka: sensing the leash shortening and the space between him and me lessening, drops his butt, digs in his hind legs and pushes off.  He was having none of this, “let’s go inside stuff.”  There was all of nature to commune with and dadgummit, his communing was not to be interrupted.

Me: stunned that the dog had the audacity to act the way that I do, I giggled then slightly tugged at the leash as I continued to close the distance.

Tonka: once again, drops his rear and uses his hips to push himself ever forward.

I LOVE this dog!  He’s me, but ‘cept for he’s a dog!  Too frequently when God asks me to do or stop doing things, I tend to drop my butt and use my hips to push forward, keep going in the opposite direction, straining against the  safety and confines of God’s grace and covering.  I’m not ready, I don’t want to, I’m busy, this is more fun, you name it, I’ve said it as I test the limits of the grace that so tightly binds me.

There are times when God holds a mirror up to my face and it’s not pretty and I’m all kinds of ashamed and embarrassed even humiliated.  Yet there’s other times (like my foray with Tonka) when he holds a mirror to my countenance and with a little humor asks: ‘anything look familiar’ and I bashfully giggle, and say, ‘yes’ and adjust accordingly.

Not My Place

A couple weeks ago, I was given information about a person who I'm not a fan of.  Information that in most circles would be explosive.  Information that I wanted to take to all those people who believe she's so awesome and say, "take off your rose colored glasses, THIS is the REAL person behind all that butt-kissing."  But, the information was given to me in confidance, so I kept my mouth shut.

Recently, an occasion arose where I felt it pertinent to share the information with those in positions of power.  Protecting the names of my source, I let the appropriate people know of the information.  But a funny thing happened, I struggled, mightly.  I struggled with: am I sharing this because I want a wrong righted, or am I sharing this because I want to mar this person's image?

Tough question.

I didn't want to pick up any stones as I stood in the shiny, bright living room of my glass house. Yet there was a part of me that wanted justice that wanted her to be exposed for the fake that she was.  So I shared the facts.  What I knew to be true.  No interjections of my opinion, just the facts.  And then I walked away from the situation.

I'm still struggling with it.  Even though it's not my place to rain down justice on what I perceive to be the unjust.  If I truly believe that the Bible is the unfallible, unmovable, undisputable word of God, then I would believe AND live by Proverbs 21:1

 "The king's heart is in the hand of the LORD; he directs it like a watercourse wherever he pleases" and I would know my arch nemesis will indeed 'get hers'.

I would believe AND function according to Romans 13:1

"Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God." And as opposed to trying to crush her, I'd allow God to do what He chooses with her path. 

I would believe Proverbs 20:24 "The LORD directs our steps, so why try to understand everything along the way?" and quit trying to trip up her steps, her goals and aspirations.

It's not my place.  And the very fact that I'm struggling with it, makes it clearer to me that despite my disdain for her, God has not called me to show the world her wrongs.  He has called me to act justly, love mercy and walk humbly with Him...which includes the simple act of loving the unlovable and knowing when it is my place to expose others, and when it is my place to trust time, and God to do it for me.