Is Life So Bland?

I've been coming to grips with a very raw, brutal, hard truth lately. (Hard for me, anyway.) It's this: Life isn't always a crisis. But it is. My definition may just be wrong. And yours might be, too.

...Completely confusing, I know... I'll get there. Here's my heart.

First of all, let's talk about "crisis."

Paramedics know what crisis is. So do firefighters, combat soldiers, law enforcement, and doctors in the ER. If you've ever been to basic training, or first on the scene of a car wreck, or found yourself in a hostile country, or some other "I'm gonna die" emergency situation (possibly even, "The house looks like World War III and mom will be home in five minutes"), you probably know what it means to find that elusive third gear.

It's "do or die trying." Everything else slows down (yes, like the movies) and you find your adrenaline-infused self operating at a speed, dexterity, brilliance and competence you never thought possible.

Well the thing is, I kind of live for those times. I live for stuff that is difficult and challenging and painful and, well, miserable (and not only for the heck of it, but especially for the greater good or when no one else wants to do it--my idea of "helping people"). So much so that sometimes, despite my attempts to adjust, "normal life" feels unbearably dull and painfully purposeless by comparison.

I'm sure part of it is my personality. But recently I'm also realizing that, until now, I have never really had to live outside of crisis mode very much.

All my growing up years were straight-up survival on our primitive family farm. It may as well have been Mars. (When your reason for getting out of bed in the morning has always been, "To live," other average reasons are just not quite as motivating.)

From there I joined the Air Force auxiliary and lived off of emergency services/search and rescue training and military discipline.

Then I helped start and then run a military youth academy, working with youth who had been into everything you could name, of which I was made the Cadet Commander (which brought new stresses and challenges, to put it mildly).

From there was living in Egypt (enough said?). Middle Eastern drama, persecution, a new and difficult language to learn. Awesome third-world-country life that I never tired of.

Three jobs, a marathon, CNA.

Next, New Tribes Bible Institute. Which was not crisis mode per se; but still rather new, exciting, lots of vision and inspiration and deadlines, and I got the occasional, brief adrenaline fix by working as a Driver's Ed teacher. (My foot still unconsciously hovers the imaginary emergency brake, so you may not want to ask me to sit in the front passenger's seat...)

My genuine ache and struggle to find significance and meaning in normalcy, my addiction to crisis mode, my stressing over lack of stress, may be hard for most people to understand. But the resulting symptom mimics something our Hollywood-saturated culture and everyone else struggles with, too: Discontentment. And unrealistic expectations.

Let's put it this way...

Maybe, you want to marry a country boy. Because you think they're all as great as Phil Robertson. And so you marry a country boy, but he's nothing like what you thought a country boy should be, definitely not romantic or as understanding as you expected, or even a gentleman... and you're crushed. Maybe, by crazy chance, he's everything you thought he would be. But you find other things about him that you don't like, and you pick on them. And you're crushed. Disappointed.

Maybe you've always wanted to be a nurse. You just want to help people, you say, but of course you want to enjoy yourself and look great doing it. And at some enlightened point in your stressful, black coffee-drugged four years of classes and clinicals that are harder than you ever thought possible, you wake up. And you realize: It's not going to be like Grey's Anatomy. And it's certainly, definitely not like Scrubs. At all.

Perhaps you've always wanted a small, primitive family farm. Want to live off the land. So you start the slow, difficult journey toward what you're sure will, someday, be romantic and picturesque--it must!--but something just seems "off." You find yourself aching from entire days of unglamorous, monotonous weed-pulling in a field that goes on and on for acres; stitching up a calf with a quilting needle in your living room; twice-a-day milkings with no respite; scampering to can and preserve a winter's worth of food for a whole family; slaughtering animals by hand in the freezing cold; working all night by the headlights of a truck to pick up all the potatoes before morning's delivery; wondering when in the world, oh dear God, there will ever be time to do laundry or cook or wash the dishes or rest your back. And there's nobody there to capture the essence of what looks a lot.. better.. than it feels.. sometimes.

Or what about this: You really, really want to be a missionary. Missionary biographies captivate you. You're "on fire" for God. And all you can think about is missions (and deep down, somewhere you won't admit, you might feel you'd be viewed as a "better Christian"). You're very compassionate and empathize with the plight of the people in, say, Somalia, and -- excitement!! -- you end up there. It's amazing and wonderful and different at first. But soon you notice things you didn't before. Like how the different food and the habits of the people are extremely annoying now, and it's a lot of work to fit in and you just want things to be how they were; and you find your compassion is dwindling because the people don't even want you there and nobody's getting saved. And you can't figure out why it's nothing like that two-month or maybe even just one-week missions trip you took, once upon a time.

Could go on and on with other situations: Marriage. The dream career. Parenthood. Retirement. The cake you baked or the picture you drew or the house you built. Disappointment. Not how it was supposed to go. Nothing ever going how it was supposed to. (Side note here being that disappointment happens and is neither rare nor wrong. Sadly, our default setting is to turn it into bitterness and cynicism, which certainly is wrong.)

The Dean of Students while I was a student at NTBI spoke in chapel one day, and said something like this about living for your personal dream, no matter how good: "If you don't achieve it, you will be depressed because you didn't; if you do achieve it, you will be depressed because you have nothing left to live for." (Queue King Solomon and the book of Ecclesiastes.) Point being, Jesus Himself is the only thing worth living for. Not even dreams that involve Jesus. Because who knows what may happen to them.

Here's something my Heaven-sent husband reminded me of the other day (paraphrased):

Part of what I'm feeling is not wrong. We are to live in crisis mode, we need to live in crisis mode, because we are living a crisis. There are people's souls, and the state of the Church, and our stance before Jesus one day, at stake. It's just hard to see from our current vantage point. And Satan, the world and our flesh use that blurriness against us.

I'm not saying we should have no expectations at all. In fact, I'm not entirely sure what I'm saying about a conclusion regarding degree of expectations. But here's what I am saying:

Thankfully-- probably because of the way I was raised-- I've never been disappointed by life in that everything is, frankly, just so much more awesome than I ever would have planned or imagined (from ice cream to my husband to my in-laws). I still get excited and giddy inside about watching a movie or getting new toothpaste or the fact that the inside of my house is warm in the winter!!!

However... most of my expectations still tend to be unrealistic because they envision a life that by necessity is much more difficult (or challenging or characterized by crisis), whereas a lot of other people's expectations are unrealistic because they envision a life that is much easier (or more comfortable or picturesque or like the movies). But neither of them are much like "normal" life. So both produce discontentment if we focus on them too strongly.

Now, God may not end up calling Joey and I to something "normal" (or even to another day of life on this earth). But He might. Because He calls the shots. We could live out our lives in Aleppo, Syria or the mountains of Tibet or in a town of 300 people in rural Wisconsin. The point is that it should not matter. The heart that is God's says, "I am Yours. You bought me. It is my joy to live for You, wherever, doing whatever!" Like Paul:

"I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well-fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through Him who gives me strength." [Philippians 4:11-13]

Obviously, this is easier said than done, and requires daily renewal by the Spirit of God. It is so much harder to learn to live content with the idea of either, or oscillate between the two, than to stick with one.

I would like to implore us all toward this:

Relish true love stories, but not chick flicks. Don't feed on things that you find produce discontentment, which are all different things for each of us. Live in the real world. I encourage you, with every breath I have... Live here, in this real, imperfect world, with real, imperfect people, acknowledging your very imperfect self, before our loving and perfect God.

Because the real world (even in all its fallen nature), when it's not being compared to grand delusions (lies), is still pretty dang beautiful.

Horrifying Dreams.

A couple of mornings ago, I awoke after dreaming (for what felt like the entire night) about being hunted down like an animal. The worst thing was that there were others being pursued, too. With me were members of my family, friends and other believers. We were hiding in the cracks and crevasses of stone walls, near dumpsters in back alleys, abandoned basements. We were running out of locations and ways to conceal ourselves.

It wasn't wartime, and it wasn't in another country. It was in the U.S.

They were not random criminals, but those employed by the government - the established laws of the land - who were coming after us.

I knew somehow that their intent was to execute us, but only after a great deal of torture and digging for information.

And I knew for a fact that it was because I had broken some law because of my belief in Jesus. Maybe owning a Bible, maybe praying with people. Maybe, just being a Christian.

As a child, I once had a dream which I cringe even to share. In this dream, again, Christians were being persecuted-- in this case, butchered by being sawed in half. You may think that I watched one too many horror movies, except that we didn't watch movies when I was a kid. Much later, I read a passage in Hebrews chapter 11 that described what some believers had endured for holding on to their faith in Jesus, with the same word pictures:

"They were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, were slain with the sword: they wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins; being destitute, afflicted, tormented..."

Whether this account took place in the time of Antiochus or perhaps Manasseh, we know that Christians around the world suffer like this every day. America is pretty much the last physically safe place for Christians. Reality is that the rest of the world deals with this; we're one of the only countries which does not currently experience discrimination and physical persecution as the norm and reality. The reputation, favor and "rights" we have enjoyed for centuries, however, are quickly disappearing.

Dreams and thoughts like this are not the least bit comfortable. They're absolutely frightening. But they should not fill us with dread of the future. They should propel us into the arms of Jesus.

To where else can we go?

These miserable dreams got me thinking about my own heart and where I stand. It is always healthy to have a reality check and ask ourselves tough questions, no matter where we stand with God. Our flesh is and will always, always be prone to wander away from Him.

My thoughts on this mirror ones I wrote on this blog previously, and serve to remind myself of those I put in the post "The Quest For Love:"

When I was growing up, I read a few stories from Foxe's Book of Martyrs. I still regularly read the Voice of the Martyrs magazine. I used to wonder what it was that kept such Christians faithful through gruesome torture and death. I admired what I assumed was their steely willpower.

Willpower doesn't do that - everyone has a breaking point! Memorization and indoctrination cannot do that... torture can wear down every human faculty. Love does that. Not theoretical love, but actual love. How many of us would die for something we don't know to be true? How many of us, outside of the military sense, would readily die for a total stranger? How about someone we'd met once? Now how about family, or a close friend? I'd give my very life for my little brother. My mom, or my dad. An Egyptian girl I know, who is like a sister to me . (Just as examples.) Why? They're not just names. I LOVE them. I know them.

It's possible to be acquainted with the Lord, to be saved by Him, yet not know Him (how sad!) "Have I been so long with you, and yet hast thou not known me?," Jesus asked Philip.

We have got to know Jesus. If we don't, why in the world do we bother with the religious rigamarole? What, then, does the concept of heaven even hold for us? What is the point of being "saved" - to spend eternity with someone we do not know, much less love?? "Your love is better than life," the Psalmist, David, says. Wow! Think about that literally (the Bible does mean every word of what it says). Do we have that kind of "attachment" to God? God holds in His heart the deepest possible, beyond imaginable love for us, but He does not force it on us. We have to want it. We have to seek Him. Psalm 145:18 says, "The Lord is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth." James 4:8 says, "Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you." That's not a "maybe"... it's a promise!

By the way, trusting someone comes easily once you really know them. I wouldn't ask that you trust a stranger. God doesn't, either. I trust Him with my life [...] because I trust Him - trust Him to do what really is best for me, not what I think is best for myself. How could I not!? Is it not tragic that we claim to live for a God with whom we refuse to entrust our circumstances?? 

...There is a space, deep in the heart of every human being, which cannot be filled even by a spouse. There is a love we crave with every ounce of our aching souls, regardless of whether or not we're painfully aware of it. A space which can only be filled by God himself. And so often, even we Christians mistake it for a longing for the human love we chase, not realizing that even once we attain it we will be unfulfilled. We were made for something so much more: something perfect. And once we have it, I don't see how there could be any going back. Everything else really does, of a sudden, pale in stark contrast.  

Does that sound like hollow spiritual rhetoric? It did to me, once upon a time. It always does, until it becomes personal and tangible.

Tears fill my eyes at the thought of how many "followers of Christ" have never experienced Him... never gotten close to Him as to a closest friend or a Father... indeed, never known Him. 

Some Christians go to church a few times a year. The good ones, every Sunday. The really great ones volunteer during the week and get involved in ministry, or go on missions trips, right? Even at home they study the Bible, but as they would a textbook, and utter one-way prayers into the air, like a ritual. 

I've been there.

Is that it? Is that worth it? Isn't a relationship two-way?

How many of us have a personal God? How many of us can say, with every possible bit of sincerity, that He is our closest friend, the One we most want to please and most hate to disappoint - that there is nothing and no one we love more? It's one thing to say it. It's another thing to actually feel it, and yet another to fully know it.

Yes, we've got to plug into good, solid, Bible-teaching churches, and have our "quiet time" or "devos" or whatever you personally call it. Yes, we've got to be careful about what we watch, listen to, and otherwise feed on so that we don't pollute our minds and hearts with junk and make ourselves numb to sin. Yes, we've got to share the Gospel from personal testimony with our friends, neighbors, acquaintances. And yes, we've got to surround ourselves with other believers who love Jesus and actually talk about Him and His Word and our struggles together so that we will grow and strengthen and flourish in Him. But it's got to be even more than that. It's got to be all of ourselves, and by that I mean our hearts. It's got to be real. Nobody dies for something or someone they cannot swear is real.

The part-time Christianity thing is like part-time breathing!

Is this hard? YES! It's more than that. It is impossible with the Holy Spirit of God. And it will not even seem worth it unless we are in a genuine relationship with Jesus-- I speak from personal experience.

If you have the desire to know Jesus more and just don't make it a priority, the time is now. Things will not get easier, they will get harder. Our flesh and the Spirit fight a vicious battle til the day we die; if we quit even trying, we're giving up ground, not just calling truce for awhile.

[I know how hard it can be! Yesterday morning I had plenty of time, so I convinced myself I needed to listen to this one song on YouTube at the beginning of my quiet time. ...Which was phenomenal, edifying and would have been really great, except that then somehow (still don't know how), I ended up on Facebook. ("She what!?" Yes. I'm an idiot.) Did I seriously just tell Jesus He had to wait?? For Facebook?!? I would never say that. But I did it. (This is why my quiet time is normally the first thing. Otherwise, the days starts and all of a sudden there's no time.)]

If you've been play-acting, maybe it's time to stop. It's easy to act the part and even think it's real when you've grown up in a Christian home or it's all you've ever known. I knew a girl a few years back who recently posted on her blog that she has finally "broken up with God," which she considers to have been "an abusive relationship." She watched as her other Christian friends enjoyed deep, real relationships with God, but for all of her praying and Bible-reading, did not experience it herself. She resents the lifestyle she has led, because it has been an act.

My initial tears and aching heart on her behalf (and grief over God's character being so maligned) were tempered by Joey reminding me that it's a step in the right direction. She has become honest with herself about where she stands with God. She's no longer pretending. And for that I have thanked God.

We cannot surround ourselves with the things of this world, put time into knowing God on the side, and expect that He's going to give us this massive, overwhelming love for Himself. He doesn't just special-deliver a box marked, "Awesome relationship with Me" one day. If you have no desire to really know Him, ask Him for it! Ask other believers to ask Him for it for you! Pursue Him. Maybe (this is gutsy), ask Him to use whatever it takes to make you desperate for Him.

By way of lengthy conclusion...:

One good thing I have witnessed about persecution is this: It brings the believer face-to-face, raw and real-time, with what he does or does not believe. It's one thing to go through the motions when all it means is looking like a good Christian in America. But when looking like a Christian means you stick your neck straight out onto the chopping block, well, you think twice about whether or not you consider Jesus to be worth it.

I don't believe that anyone gets through gruesome persecution and torture on one's own. I fully believe that God gives grace and strength in the moment. Which means that our job is to be connected to our God. We have to "abide in the Vine." When all is said and done, He is the only thing worth living for. He is the only reality.

Which means that Facebook can wait. So can whatever we have planned. Let's spend some time with Jesus.