Growth

Well, it finally happened. Slowly but steadily, the world is tuning green again. And I mean literally, not the eco-friendly term (thought that does seem to be on the rise). Everywhere I look, things are growing again.

There's this great Nichole Nordeman song that talks about how God is in "Every Season" of life, and she ends with Spring:

And everything that's new has bravely surfaced
Teaching us to breathe
What was frozen through is newly purposed
Turning all things green
So it is with You
And how You make me new
With every season's change
And so it will be
As You are re-creating me
Summer, Autumn, Winter...Spring.

(Listen to it, please. It's a fabulous song.)

I know I've talked a lot about my restlessness lately. I'm starting to get the feeling that it's because things are changing for me, too.

Sometimes I look at the last few years of my life, and I don't feel like I've changed much or done much with my life. And it's easy to want start with externals--like a new haircut, or a nose ring, or a tattoo. Something visible and tangible that says, "Look, I'm different." A new outfit. A new job. A new relationship.

But once in a while, God lets me get a glimpse of what He's doing in my life. I had a minor revelation last week, and it made me happy. It gave me peace. It gave me freedom. Which is what Truth does, right?

There are so many things I'm afraid of in life, it's ridiculous. I'm not talking spiders, here. I'm talking about all the little worries that flood my head whenever I think of doing something, especially something new. I fear failing, but I also fear changing for the sake of change--just to keep from being bored.

So as I look at the horizon of my life, I worry that I'm running from my old life just to avoid it. But should I let that hold me back?

I sometimes wonder if growth is painful for plants. Does it hurt trees to stretch their branches further each year, to reach up to the sky?

Right now, I feel a little like a heroine in a novel or a movie, someone who is on the brink of change and can't even see it yet. I just feel like I've been waiting for something to happen...stuck...but that just around the corner, something is coming. Does that sound weird? I'm okay with it if it does. I don't expect everyone to get it, I'm just kinda rambling.

I'm just at a point where I know things can't stay the way they are. Something has to give. Square peg, round hole and all that. I mean, I've made some friends here, and I'm grateful for that (not to mention, my family!). And for a brief window of time, I felt like I had a place here. But, I don't know...somehow I'm just too much of a gypsy. I feel like Vianne from Chocolat, always listening to the North Wind and moving on. Only, I'm trying to hear God, listening for where He is calling me to go.

Would you pray for me, as I listen? I'm considering Ireland. I will be attending a prayer/missions conference in the Dublin area later--in the summer. I want to go. Really. I'm excited about this trip. But I only want to Go--back, that is--if it's where He wants me.

He is growing each of us, just like the trees and the flowers. And thank goodness--I couldn't take much more of winter.

Redeemability

I must confess something. When I was in High School, I was…a bit of a prat, actually. Kind of a Goody-Two-Shoes. It’s true. I kind of had to be, just because I lived in California, and everyone else seemed so…well, I want to say “damned,” but trust me, I never would have used that word back then.

I was one of those kids who didn’t believe in Santa Claus, ever, and didn’t celebrate Halloween. I didn’t listen to secular music. I was a staunch little evangelical, and a Republican, to boot. I also disliked peace symbols (a broken, upside-down cross) and yin-yangs.

You know yin yangs—those swirly little symbols with a little dot of the opposite color on the inside of each half? I didn’t like them because I read that they symbolized that there is a little bad in every good, and a little good in every bad. And, being the rational child of modernity that I was (and still am, in many respects) I concluded that this was false, since God clearly had no evil in him, and the devil clearly had no good in him. So. Yin-yangs=taboo.

Even now, I shy away from peace symbols and yin-yangs. But I must admit my feelings have changed a little. After all, outside those two absolutes I mentioned, God and the devil, isn’t everything else in this life kind of…mixed? I mean, even as Christians, as new creations, don’t we still wrestle with our sin nature? And in those who are not yet saved, despite being lost and fallen, isn’t there something that Christ, through us, wants to redeem?

Redemption is a tricky, sticky thing.

It’s one of those things that sounds easy in theory, but is harder in practice. Common Christian knowledge would have us believe that Maturity, growing closer to God, means pulling away from the world. Being sensitive to things that would grieve Him. Cutting out bad things in life. And that’s true—to a point.

Consider, though, that Christ spent his ministry years among the poor, broken, and degenerate of his society. He didn’t keep himself away from all that might taint Him. Instead, He was able to see so clearly and Love so fiercely that even today He is redeeming the Lost.

It’s hard, sometimes, I think, in this world that is so mixed, to find the redeemable. We’d like to draw very clear, dividing lines to say This is Sacred, and That is Secular; This is White, and That is Black, This is Good, and That is Bad. This is Christian; but That is Not. Certainly we have been given standards and rules and guidelines on how to keep ourselves pure and set apart. But when we try to apply these things arbitrarily to something like, movies—for example: Rated ‘R’ movies are Bad!—I think we run into trouble.

Does Redeemability apply only to people? I don’t believe so. I think Christ came to redeem the whole earth. And we know one day, Someday, He will. Until then…what?

Let me first say that I don’t have all the answers. But here’s what I think. I think sometimes we get so caught up in seeing the bad in things that we write them off. We throw everything out—bathwater, baby, and all. I know sometimes it might seem like there is precious little good in something. But I still say you never know what God may use.

This could be said of so many things—situations, movies, books, even people. It’s so easy to disregard something because it looks ‘bad’ at first glance. I’m not advocating filling our heads and hearts and lives with garbage just to sift through for a little treasure. All I’m saying is that it might be nice if we kept our eyes open for the good we can pull out of things. As Arthur F. Holmes says, "All truth is God's truth." He has given us so many glimpses of Him throughout so many areas of life. There are fingerprints of our Creator left on the entire universe. Perhaps we can use those things to point others toward Him.

Just a thought.