Monthly Archives: October 2010

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10/08/2010

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The Breaking

The day I received my brand new Bible, I flipped the pages open to Genesis 6 so I could underline a passage that I remembered as the first passage I had ever read from the NLT translation: “The Lord observed the extent of human wickedness on the earth, and he saw that everything they thought or imagined was consistently and totally evil. So the Lord was sorry he had ever made them and put them on the earth. It broke his heart.” (Genesis 6:5-6)

Now that may sound like a strange verse to want to underline, but I guess I’m just fascinated by the idea that we are capable of breaking God’s heart. I hadn’t really thought about it until I read this interesting fantasy series about a world that had been created alongside earth, but didn’t fall in Adam and Eve’s rebellion. One conversation between two characters  really resonated in my heart. This wise dwarf is explaining the fall of man to the newly crowned king. The young king wants to know if Adam and Eve’s sin is what broke the Most High’s heart. “Nay,” the wizened, old dwarf replies, “this is what started the breaking.”

This is what started the breaking – meaning God’s tender, fragile heart has suffered more than once. Meaning His heart has been broken repeatedly since that moment. Meaning I’m guilty for some of the pain experienced by the Most High.

I think that if we are going to experience a loving, intimate relationship with God, we have to realize that we are capable of breaking His heart – just as we are capable of breaking the heart of a human being. No, God is not human, but since we were made in His image, we humans possess many of His qualities – such as a heart that feels both joy and pain.

Think about this: your heart can only be broken by someone you’ve entrusted with it. God has entrusted you with His heart. He has given you the ability to hurt Him because He thinks you are worth the risk. If that doesn’t move you, I don’t know what will. The thing that breaks my heart is that I know I am the person described in Genesis 6:5. I know I’ve thought and done some things that are consistently and totally evil. In reflection of all this, I wrote this poem:

One single tree, one simple command;

they acted like they didn’t hear it.

One bite of the fruit was a knife in your soul

and already, they knew they were drifting.

So this is what broke the Most High’s heart?

Nay, only what started the breaking.

Every day it is broken again

as Your Word remains ignored.

To say that I’m sorry seems insufficient

when I know that I’ll fail You again.

I’m tired of hurting You, of hurting myself.

When will there be an end to

The Breaking?

 

From the Breaking of Your heart to the Breaking of my chains.

Set me free from this trap I’ve fallen into.

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10/06/2010

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Live the Journey

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The Best Year of Your Life

I had an interesting conversation with a coworker the other day. It was one of those conversations that left me thinking, then praying, then writing, and now blogging. He asked me this question: “If you could relive one year of your life – not to change anything, but simply to relive it – what year would it be?” Now, my initial thought was, “What’s the point? I’ve already lived that year once, so why would I want to return to something so familiar? What would be the fun of that?”

What left me pondering this thought long after I had gone home from work was the fact that I didn’t have an answer. Every year of my life has been filled with ups and down, joys and pains. How could I choose one that stood above the rest? The only answer I could offer my coworker was, “Well, I know which year I wouldn’t choose.” But now I’m not so sure. As I laid awake in bed thinking of that year I have long considered to be the worst year of my life, I began to think that maybe it wouldn’t be so terrible to return to it. In fact, if I could go back with renewed vision – if I were able to take with me the perspective I have now – that would probably be the year I would choose.

I learned so much in that year. I learned how to stand in the midst of a storm while the wind and waves pressed against me and the sands shifted beneath my feet. I discovered how to love through the course of that nightmare – unconditionally, that is – because up until that year, no one had presented any conditions that I was required to love around. I learned how to fully trust the God who creates the light at the end of the tunnel, because throughout that year, I knew nothing but darkness. And if I could go back with the perspective I have now, I might be able to see the things that I missed. Perhaps my worst year would become my best year, but I guess we will never know.

The only thing I am left absolutely certain of is this: I don’t want to live my life stuck in the past, savoring the moment. I don’t want to get so caught up in a memory that I miss what is happening here and now. It’s like the old proverb says,

Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery; but today is a gift. That’s why it’s called the present.

So here’s my answer to my coworker’s silly question: This year, 2010, is the year I want to relive. And next year it will be 2011. And the year after that, 2012. My lesson learned (and encouragement to you) is this: Don’t walk around yearning to relive the best year of your life, but strive to make every year a year worth reliving.

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10/05/2010

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Just to Make You Smile

There’s a Bible on my bed. No, that isn’t unusual, but it is no less extraordinary. Sometimes it’s the little things in life that make me smile most.

It all began when I was reading my other Bible one morning. I began to think I’d like to read a different translation – just to get a fresh perspective on the stories I know so well. Sometimes a little change in wording is all it takes to make something come alive to me.

“Maybe I’ll ask Grandma for an NLT Bible for Christmas,” I thought to myself. (I had heard that translation is pretty similar to the original Greek, and I had also heard a few people quote it.) That very day, I received an email from a coworker saying someone wanted to donate new Bibles to the staff. I was dumbfounded. “Wow, God, that was fast.”

I was reminded once again of the joy God finds in making me smile. I guess we’re similar in that manner. I love making people smile. My youth pastor really liked no-bake cookies, so sometimes, on his birthday or Pastor Appreciation Month or one of those “just because” days, I would bring cookies to youth group with me. Just to make him smile. I think we all tend to do those kind of things for people we love. And since God loves you, He wants to make you smile. Your joy is His joy; your delight is His delight. So He sends things like butterflies and rainbows, hot chocolate on snowy days, and faithful friends on “blah” days. Just to make you smile.

So today I accepted my gift with a smile as I thumbed through the pages to get a feel for this precious book. And now, there’s a Bible on my bed. It even has my name stamped on the cover… Just to make me smile.

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10/04/2010

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Paradoxes and Mysteries

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The Familiarity of the Unfamiliar

Today I learned something about myself that I never knew before – or at least had never fully realized. I’m the kind of person who likes to tackle things one at a time. Even though I was homeschooled, I wouldn’t bounce around between subjects. I would finish history before moving onto science, and I would always save math for last because I knew I would be too frustrated to focus on anything else after that. I even eat my food in order. I simply can’t take one bite of beans then one bite of potatoes. If I start with the beans, I don’t touch the potatoes until the beans are finished. Weird, I know.

I just don’t like leaving things unfinished or having too much going on all at once. I guess I like simplicity, but I’m starting to feel as if God is shaking the boundaries of my comfort zone (as He so often does). I feel like He’s throwing more things at me, and I’m having to learn to juggle (which I’ve never had a desire to do). Still, God is stretching me and, as He often does, He’s using people. Namely, author Steven James.

Today, when I arrived home from work, I discovered a package waiting for me. Knowing exactly what it was, I tore into the manila envelope with great delight. Voila! Sailing Between the Stars. I had to start reading it immediately.

Wait. What? I’ve had other books on hold for over two weeks because I haven’t finished my current reads. How can I even think about cracking this one open? Simple really. It’s Steven James. And I connect with his writing unlike any other author I’ve ever read. I simply have to know what he is going to say. I have to ponder his insights into the Kingdom. I’m drawn into his poetic flow and enraptured by the paradoxes he presents. How can anyone be splintered into wholeness? He says things that leave me thinking, and things that keep me coming back for more.

So on top of my devotional and the book I was already reading, I now have two Steven James books thrown in the mix. And I think it’s God’s way of telling me He wants to expand my boundaries. Already, He’s been playing with my dreams and turning my expectations upside-down. There was a time that I thought I had my life all figured out, but now I feel as if I’ve lost control of everything. And I don’t understand. But according to Steven James, my lack of understanding isn’t a bad thing. Here’s a quote from Sailing Between the Stars:

…we’re busy trying to make Jesus seem reasonable, sensible, and practical. But He’s not. He’s radical, paradoxical, and absurd.

And that’s one of the reasons He’s so attractive to me.

That’s one of the reasons I believe.

God doesn’t make sense to the human mind. If He did, He wouldn’t be God. I’m not going to waste my time analyzing and trying to understand every little aspect of the heavenly realm. Rather, I’m going to embrace the mystery and step out into the wonderful familiarity of the unfamiliar, because it’s the poetical paradox of who God is that keeps me coming back for more.

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10/02/2010

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Live the Journey

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Extraordinary Mundane Moments

Sometimes I wonder how to encourage people to embrace the ordinary moments in life. I’m pretty sure no one is simply waiting for me to tell them about the mundane moments of my day. But what I hope touches your heart as deeply as it touches mine are the moments when God shows up and makes something extraordinary out of my ordinary, mundane moments. I had one of those moments today.

I was planning to finish a significant amount of writing this afternoon, but as we all know, things rarely turn out as we expect. And since my mind was somewhere else entirely, well… I didn’t write at all today (unless you count the rewriting of the poem that has been pounding in my brain for the past 24 hours). What I did do was start feeling a little artistic, dig through all my photographs from the past four years, and meticulously edit and form them into a masterpiece. Four hours and 22 pictures later, my masterpiece was completed, but I felt as if I had wasted my entire afternoon.

But God didn’t agree. “Rebekah,” He gently reprimanded. “This is a beautiful form of worship.”

Worship? Is that really what I was doing? Was meditating on a poem about the greatness of my God and forming it into something that would serve as a continual reminder, truly a form of worship? The way God’s Presence saturated my living room in that moment left little room for argument.

What I experienced today was an extraordinary mundane moment. And I almost missed it. In fact, I think we miss them most of the time because they don’t fit into our agendas. God tends to show up in the little things that we didn’t plan on experiencing – probably because we otherwise don’t leave enough time for God in our days. But when I take a step back from my plans and agendas, the only thing I can say is this: “Giver of Abundant Life, what a glorious day to embrace the mundane with You.”

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10/01/2010

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Live the Journey

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Live the Journey

We interrupt the normal schedule of this blog to bring you an important message:

God has been doing something in me these past four months. I wrote a book, boldly presented it to a publisher, started a blog, and am slowly sinking into the world of ministry to my generation. It’s been amazing, and I’ve been learning so much. But tonight was one of those nights that God just smacked me in the face. You see, sometimes I get distracted from what I’m supposed to be doing and God has to set me back on track. I was skimming through my new book, A Heart Exposed by Steven James, when I stumbled upon these words:

you dance on the breeze in the evening light, you leap on the curl of a wave, crashing white. you twirl on a star in the darkest night, calling, “Live the journey! Live!”

With four more rousing stanzas, Steven James reminded me of my passion and purpose. It’s the reason I started this blog. God called me to live the journey, and when I looked around at the world I live in, I saw that many of my friends and loved ones weren’t walking in the freedom God called His children to when he told us that He had come to give us life to the full (John 10:10). It was my calling to echo the cry my God shouts, whispers, and screams. “Live the journey. Live.” I regret to say that I haven’t truly been challenging anyone to truly live the journey. I allowed myself to be boxed in by structure and say, “This is the routine.” But I never really gave God much freedom to step outside the bounds of my pre-conceived categories. Not that this has been bad… I simply believe that it could be so much better. God wants to make it so much better.

I’m one of those people who strive on structure, yet I hate when routine gets in the way of the Spirit. But there I was, doing the very thing I hate. I convinced myself that it had to stay the way it was because I had to stick to the singleness theme. But honestly, this isn’t about singleness. It’s not about marriage. It isn’t about dating or courting or whatever else you may use to define relationships. It’s about moving beyond waiting for the things that won’t come until the future and refusing to get caught up in the past. It’s about living the journey. It always has been. Until I let myself get caught up in traditions and routine and whatnot.

But I’m going to warn you that tradition stops right here. I’ll still try to post three times a week, but it’s going to have a little less “Rebekah-shaped structure.” I’m not going to force anything I’m not feeling. I will only post what I feel the Spirit is sharing with me to share with you. I’m going to expose a little bit of my heart on this page. The only goal I now have is to live the journey. And I want to encourage you to live with me.

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10/01/2010

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An Undivided Heart

God created mankind to be with Him, but we turn away from Him time and time again. I think it’s about time our “60 seconds” come. I think it’s about time we wake up and realize how intricately our hearts are connected to His. And I think it’s way past time that we realize that all our wants can never fulfill the void that eats away at our soul. God’s love is the only thing we truly need. It’s time we come to understand that with our whole hearts.

Scripture is full of stories of people who have turned away from God much like I have. At one point in time, when the people of Israel were in exile, God sent the prophet Ezekiel to comfort them with this promise:

“I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh. Then they will follow My decrees and be careful to keep My laws. They will be My people, and I will be their God.” -Ezekeil 11:19-20

I believe that God is tryng to do the same thing for us today. Accept the undivided heart that He offers you. And while it is okay to have wants, you must first be content with the only thing you truly need. And that is an undivided heart that beats in perfect rhythm with His.