Undone.

I've got a lot of fear in my heart.

...Because I am not sure I have approached God the way I ought to have. His Spirit is in me -- I believe this firmly. Yet what have I done?

Cultural Christianity has had a grip on me, and I am still struggling to flee. I cannot struggle fast enough. Maybe that seems irrational to some of you, but I am truly coming undone, because I know that I have not used my Lord's name as I should have. I have not reverenced Christ as I should have.

Is His name really a thing for passing? Is it really a matter to joke about?

I have used "worship time" and my head was often everywhere but God. I was so distracted and captivated by my environment and how much "fun" I could have ... where was the actual worship part? So I flee from all "worship" that causes this. in me.

I have written quotes that I have supposed to be of God -- "prophecy" if you will -- even in this journal in the past. What if I have been wrong, however, and have approached this boldly, and this was not Him or of Him? I have done great injustice if so ... Either way, I have been too quick with my assumptions.

For instance: I have reflected on something I jotted in an old notebook, where I supposed that He was telling me that "Walking in the Light" meant to rejoice and be happy, to love with a joyful heart, to serve willingly, that all of this was the "fullness of His Spirit."

What is that ??

Isn't scripture clear that to walk in the light is to know the truth, to obey, and to be humble regardless of circumstance? Does not true joy and servitude and love flow out from these things, and ultimately from Him?

Maybe He does, in some sense, influence us. Maybe He "speaks" by reminding us of scripture. Perhaps His Spirit encourages our thinking. But can we claim a quote, verbatim? I fear that I may have overstepped my boundaries in presuming upon something that I really know little of.

I've been so irreverent!

... I am afraid to correct. I am afraid for my own reputation rather than for holiness.

I have made Him into artwork, as though He could be "made," as though this were a holy thing to do. I have reduced Him to an image.

How pride has blinded me. How many, worldly things have blinded me ...

How I've neglected to study His word properly. How I have sought to replace that with theory and emotion and celebration and idealisms, how I have been so overzealous (and now I understand how this is possible,) because I practiced such zeal without a proper understanding of His written will.

I am a Christian. I was so before. His Spirit has been with me for a little over two years. Yet I can scarcely keep up! I have ignorantly bought into so many misunderstandings. I have cursed Christian commercialism yet I have taken part. I have admonished others to take care how they use His name and make claims in His name, and yet I do the same. I have done so much in the name of teaching and preaching (is it even my place?) but my own practice falls miles short.

I am made to see that I am dust, helpless in my flesh were it not for His Spirit. I warn every true Christian who seeks after God, this: He will humble you. He will open your eyes. He will mess up everything you thought about the world and about yourself. He will break you. I do not say this on my own. It is very clear, if you pay attention to anything in your Bible. And I am experiencing it, now.

You will think you have it right, and He will show you just how far you are ... I will tell you plainly that knowing God's way is not an easy path. But it is the only true one.

... Oh, but praise Him for His grace and mercy! ... Who could encounter Him and still live to know Him were it not for that? Praise Him that His plan is perfect, because we are the furthest thing from perfection and would be so far away were it not for Him.

Soli Deo Gloria.

Putting the Pieces Together

There's something both frightening and refreshing about the way God works.

He takes control of a life. He puts you in places you'd never expect to be, with people you'd never fathom meeting, for reasons you cannot even begin to try to understand. It is frightening in the sense that you never really come to a complete understanding of what is going on or where you really stand, yet refreshing when you look and accept that God is still in control.

I cannot even begin to approach all of the things the Lord is doing. In the best analogy I can think, it is like a jigsaw puzzle without a reference picture. You start with a bunch of scattered and seemingly unharmonious pieces. You see, a jigsaw is not painted as it is pieced together; rather, the picture that was painted long ago and is simply slowly revealed to the person who has received it. We piece this together and sometimes mistake some pieces for going other places. We suspect some pieces of being missing because others keep getting in the way. Yet there is a crescendo, a finale, a final result that is most beautiful when seen in full, and we see that no piece was missing, or extra, or ever mistaken. God designed us in full from the very beginning, yet He chooses that we might see His design progressively, that He might grow us in faith and be glorified to the greatest extent.

That is where I am. I've got this puzzle (quite literally, my life,) and I hold the pieces, and God guides my hand according to His purpose. Pieces that I never thought were part of the big picture indeed are. Pieces I never thought would link are linked, and worlds meet. And some which I have thought to be linked in one place, they wind up in another. Some were for an entirely different purpose than I had ever fathomed. Sometimes I have started with the most unconventional, unlikely piece and more has built on it than I could ever see. I know the picture is coming together. I cannot yet claim the epiphany of knowing what it may altogether be, but there is that strange and sweet understanding that all of it is indeed here to fit together.

From the beginning. The churches in Pittsburgh. The jobs I had there. The friends and fellowship. The ministry work. The theological discernment and growth. Move forward - School at New Tribes Bible institute. The church in Waukesha. The folk I've met here. Move forward -- ???. I don't know. I still don't know! ... And yet I'm not worried, anymore. I don't feel the need to know, anymore. The progressive revelation God has given me is enough. Seeing His faithfulness, His response to prayer, a growing understanding of who He is ...

Fleshed out, this experience is filled with great providence, revelation, miracle, divine appointment ... (my vocabulary is sounding somewhat charismatic here, hah!) For instance, who knew that a girl whom I had casually crossed on deviantART, found on MySpace, and struck conversation with through MSN one day would come to be my roommate here at NTBI? I have had several tiny, insignificant inclinations and actions like this that have blossomed into the most tremendous changes.

None of this is of anything I've done. I am not painting this picture; God already has.

"Be still, my soul: thy God doth undertake
To guide the future, as He has the past.
Thy hope, thy confidence let nothing shake;
All now mysterious shall be bright at last.
Be still, my soul: the waves and winds still know His voice
Who ruled them while He dwelt below."
- Katharina A. von Schlegel, "Be Still, My Soul"