Perfect Imperfection

Every now and then I am reminded of some great Spiritual Truth. It always catches me be surprise and it's as though I am rediscovering my toes. It's always been there and I've seemed to take it for granted until now. It's as though all of a sudden I've realized its importance in my life and its life altering implications. I was contemplating the lyrics of a Skillet song that says "You were fearfully and Wonderfully Made". They are quoting David here from Psalm 139 where David is just in awe of God. Its a beautiful Psalm. He just pours out emotion into it and tells of how God has crafted him within his mother's womb. How God saw his "unformed body" and how "all the days ordained for me were written within your book before one of them came to be". David has discovered here how unique he is and how the maker of all the Earth, the One whose "works are wonderful," has created him in His own image. Something that David is not doing here though, is thanking God for specific things about him. He is thanking God for making him exactly as he is including every good characteristic and every imperfection.

Now David certainly had a lot of things going for him, but he certainly wasn't perfect. More notable of his failures include adultery and murder which of course both took place late in life. So why did David sink to that level? Why would he, after being so close with God, decide to commit adultery and then cover it up with murder? If you look through 2 Samuel, you see that David starts out as a war hero, who has slain many Philistines and has been made King over Israel. As the book continues though, you see that David starts to remain at the palace more and more while he sends his troops to fight instead. This man who has fought many battles, probably has the battle scars to prove it, was now sitting in his palace bored. As other soldiers would come back to bring him the news, he probably ached to go to battle, to be back on the front lines and probably started to doubt himself. Suddenly those slight imperfections that he saw in himself began to waiver his self-confidence and that is when his focus came off God and onto himself and slipped into failure.

This Psalm, however, shows David understanding his imperfections and taking hold of them in joy. He is grateful for being exactly who he is, every little imperfection included. He says that he is fearfully and wonderfully made. Those character flaws and imperfections lead him to have a deeper understanding of God's love for Him which in turn gave him a greater Love for God.

I want to be clear before we continue that when I talk about imperfections I am not talking about sin. I am more talking about imperfections that we see in ourselves that if we simply allow God to work, He can use them for His Glory. Here is a story that I'm sure you've heard before, but helps me to illustrate my point.

One day long ago there was a servant who had the responsibility of getting water for his master. Every day the man would take the same two water jugs with him to fetch water from down the road. He would fill both jugs up as much as he could and then would begin to walk back down the road. One of these jugs had a crack in it and would leak water as he walked. The jug would try its best to hold as much water as it could, but could never hold all of it. Day after day the servant would take the jugs to get water and day after day the jug could not hold the water. It began to feel bad about itself and jealous of the one that could hold all of the water. One day it spoke to the servant and cried, "I am sorry, but no matter what I do I can't hold the water like the other jug."

The servant replied, "My friend, have you not noticed the side of the road that I carry you on. Do you not see all the beautiful flowers that are along the road? It is because of you that they are there. If it weren't for you I would not be able to decorate my master's table with beautiful flowers. You see I knew about the crack in you and kept you on that side so that you would water these plants."

From that day on the jug prided itself in seeing the beauty caused by the leaking water.

God knows our imperfections, because He is the one who created us. We are fearfully and wonderfully made and because of that our imperfections are made for God's glory. Take Peter for example. After they arrested Jesus, Peter denied Christ three times showing his almost cowardly behavior. Then in Acts we see Peter as this awesome pillar of the early church. God used Peter's imperfection to share this sharp contrast and to display the Holy Spirit's power. It was for God's glory. Without Peter's self-doubt and cowardice early on, we wouldn't be able to see God's transforming power in his life.

The idea that I was created by God is such an amazing concept and completely life changing. Everything about me was designed by Him. Every little thing that makes me, me was thought of before I was born. The other day was a Lunar Eclipse. This particular eclipse happened on the winter solstice, a phenomenon that hasn't happened in the last 300 years. I was born during this unique time so that I could appreciate the beauty of it just as every part of me was uniquely designed to serve God's purpose in my life. Things that I see as imperfections are not imperfections in His eyes. No, our imperfections are perfections of His Glory. Due to my love of photography I get to see this a lot. Often times I have to take a lot of pictures just to get the right shot in some cases, but every now and then, there are photos that I take that are accidents that prove to be even more beautiful than the original photo. I took a few photos of the Lunar Eclipse and some came out very well, but there was one that I absolutely loved and it wasn't at all perfect, but beautiful nonetheless.

It is through these imperfections that we will be able to give Glory to God and have the opportunity to see His work in our lives. It is beautiful to see that God had me designed and created in such a way as this, so that I might have perfect imperfections.

Winter

I've had trouble writing lately, I have been distracted it seems, or simply uninspired. It could have something to do with the approaching season. We are currently on our way to winter, a season that many people loathe. I can certainly understand why. The other day, while driving, I noticed how bleak and dismal everything looked. The trees were all without leaves, the grass was dying off, even the clouds were not their normal bubbly selves having been replaced by sheets of gray. Whenever I visit my grandparents in Ocean City during the holidays I'm amazed at the scenes. The parking lots normally filled with cars and shoppers is now vacant and utterly deserted. The boardwalk, normally teaming with life and the air filled with the smell of french fries and fudge, is left like a ghost town with signs in the windows saying closed for the winter. It is no wonder that people get depressed or get cabin fever during the winter. It is in complete contrast with all of the other seasons.

If we're honest with ourselves we can acknowledge that we have seasons in our spiritual lives. there are times in our lives where we are bursting forth with fruit and when our growth is evident in all that we do. Other times in our lives we are filled with joy and wonder at new experiences. Still there are other times where we simply shine in our own unique ways and are simply content. Yet we all have our winter seasons. They may seem filled with little spiritual growth, if any. It may be hard to pray or your spiritual disciplines may seem like a chore. I know in my life whenever I hit these points I often wonder how did I get here and why am I here. The other day however I began thinking about it more. Sure winter can be one of those seasons where people are just ready to be done with, but there is such beauty in it.


During the winter, depending on where you live, you get to see snow begin to fall. It lays down this beautiful white blanket of snowflakes, whose intricate design can only be described as an artistic masterpiece. As the snow melts it creates icicles that hang like chandeliers all around. The gentle dripping keeps time allowing us to slow down and enjoy the splendor of it. No other season allows for this kind of beauty. No other time can you experience it. It also rings in true in our spiritual lives. When we are in the winter of our spiritual lives, we should look at it as an opportunity to experience and see a beauty that we can't see the other times. We get to see God work through our weakness, we have the chance to get a better assessment of our relationship with God. During the other seasons, it can be easy to be close to God. They are often marked by our spiritual growth and excitement. In the winter of our spiritual life, however, we may feel distant from God which He allows so that we can truly investigate our relationship with Him. He gives us the opportunity to step back and just admire the beauty of it. When you are in a spiritual winter, take that time to slow down, investigate what God is trying to teach you.

Waiting

Driving down the road the other day I ran into a bit of traffic. Now I think its fair to say that nobody enjoys traffic. There are few things worse than just sitting in traffic waiting to get to your exit or through the traffic light. It feels like we're not getting anything done in the process, we are simply stopped with nothing to do. So here I am, nearly back at my house and I get stuck at a traffic light with a line of cars so far back that I can't even see the traffic light. Fortunately, I know the area moderately well and so I make a quick left turn and through the community I go. I take all the right side streets and stop at all the stop signs along the way and a few minutes later I arrive at my destination. The interesting thing is that in the amount of time it took me to go through the community, it probably would have taken me less time to simply wait at the traffic light. So why did it feel so much better to drive through the community than to wait at the traffic light? The answer is simple because I wasn't waiting. Waiting is something that we have grown to find as an annoyance, especially in American culture where instant gratification is king.

God has something to say about waiting though. He says those who wait upon the Lord will inherit the Earth (Psalm 37:9). He also says that if we wait upon Him that he will strengthen our heart (Psalm 27:14). We are called to wait upon the Lord, but what does that mean in our own lives? What does it look like to wait upon the Lord?

Recently, I have been struggling to find a full-time position in camping ministry. I have been doing it for a number of years now and have unfortunately been unable to come up with anything other than seasonal work. It can be frustrating and discouraging at times, but the one thing that gets me through it is God pushing me on to follow Him. I'm currently in a season of my life where I'm very unsure of my next step and so I've been trying to fill in the next step anyway I possibly can. It feels very much like I am stuck in traffic, despite having urgent things to do. I want to rush God's plan for my life and yet God wants me to wait and continues to say not yet.

Have you ever thought about why God wants us to wait? The obvious answer here is so that we will appreciate it more when we finally get it. We see this example all the time with children who are told that they have to wait and save up money to buy something and when they finally do, they cling to that as their most prized possession. We also see however another answer to this question. God wants us to wait, because we don't always know the true desires of our heart. How many times have you seen something in the mall and decided to wait to buy it only to find later that you didn't want it anyway? Or how many times have you bought something only to find that a week later you are no longer using it and it begins to collect dust till your next yard sale? Waiting is a gift from God. Sure it doesn't feel like it, but it is. He wants us to rely on Him, to wait on Him, to confidently go in the direction that he wants us to go. If that means waiting in traffic along the way then we wait. There is hope though. No matter how bad the traffic is, it always clears up.

My thing

So I have this thing about my DVD collection. Those who know me can attest to this. Each DVD must be in alphabetical order and must be facing the correct direction at all times. If any DVD is out of place, I know it. If they are turned in a direction that is not what it is supposed to be, I know it. Every now and then after I've purchased several more movies I will spend an hour or more reorganizing the DVD collection to ensure that it is in alphabetical order once more. To most it seems rather amusing, sometimes obsessive, and other times just plain weird. It does make perfect sense however.



You see, I work in camping ministry where on a daily basis I'm met with new obstacles in a seemingly haphazard manner. There are days where everything runs smoothly, but we normally call those the weekend. I have to compensate for things that were unforeseen such as a peanut allergy or a group of disrespectful kids who know exactly what buttons to push. There are a million things that go through my head in a given day and very little of it is in my hands. I continue to go through my job knowing that I have no control over anything. As I go to the services and I give my devotion to the students or campers, I'm filled with a sense of powerlessness. I know that without God, there is nothing that I can say or do to control how these kids respond to the message that I have for them. I'm left at the end of the day feeling out of control and worn out. I sit down and began organizing my DVD collection, I have my one thing that I have control over.



Our lives are filled with moments where we are without any control. We search for some way to restore order to our lives; to take back some sort of control. I believe if most people are honest, they have something that they do to try and have at least some sort of control. It may be the controlling of what you watch, or what you eat. Maybe it is a little more harmful in the means of controlling others. We all do it though. We all have some thing that we do, that helps to give us back some sort of stability.



Recently I was turned down for another camp director position. I was very close to getting it, but when it came down to me and another person, they went with the other person. Again, I was without control. I know that God has a plan for it. He always does. I also know that knowing that, doesn't really help matters. I'm still without a full-time job and in just a couple months, I'll be without a way of supporting myself. I am not in control. It is frustrating and leaves me feeling vulnerable and directionless. Despite, the qualifications that I have and the experience that I have gained, I am left wondering at my career choice and if I should move on to something else, something where I can feel a little more in control. My mind then races through many options and possible decisions but I'm left without anything more than I had before. I look through possibilities and entertain ideas of what I could do and all of them seem possible and at the same time none of them do. So at the end of the day, I go back and organize my DVD collection. I take back just a little bit of control, just enough so that I can let go and say, "God, You are in Control."

I crave you undiluted

The other day I was listening to Skillet on my iPod while I was working when I heard the line "I crave you undiluted". When I heard the line I was completely taken aback by it. It is such a cool thought and one of those things that really makes you stop and think about what you should do with that. At the end of the day I did my normal routine of climbing and coming back I saw a beautiful sunset that reminded me again of those lyrics. I looked out on the beautiful colors swirling above the horizon. The thousands of shades of red and pink and orange mingled with spots of blue and purple. Then I began thinking of the one who created all that; He is the one that is drunk with love for me yet do I really crave Him undiluted?

Craving God is not something I would describe as a daily occurence for me. I mean sure there are days where I am on fire for God and absolutely content within His presence. There are other days where I am desperate to be next to Him and to feel Him near me, but to say that I crave God everyday would most likely be a lie. How can we possibly go from realizing that God created this beautiful creation to not even thinking about Him? We seem to be such a fickle people where we desire God one second and with the same breath we think only about ourselves.

The thing is, there is no wonder that we are like this. Yes it has to do with our sinful nature but its more than that. We put these characteristics on God that take away from His character. We look at Him as this judge who keeps us in check. All of us are aware that Jesus died for us once and for all but secretly we are convinced that we are unclean and unable to come before Him. We've heard of God's love yet we diminish it to a shallow conditional love. We are made free from sin and death by the blood of Christ but are quick to condemn each other for our shortcomings. Our misconceptions and human logic have trapped God in a dogmatic set of rules that have lost the original purpose of the Gospel. We almost get bored with God. The one who created joy, excitement and passion is the same one that we get bored with. We have defined God's character as fitting into a certain mold and thus we get burnt out or simply disinterested. We miss the beauty of Christ and the illogical and reckless Grace given to us by God the Father. We should be shouting from the rooftops God's praises. The sun torches the sky in the evenings and mornings to praise God's name. All of creation is shouting together because they don't attach things to God. They are always reminded of the fact that God has given us breath. If we are to follow Christ then we must first learn to separate what we have been told and what is true about God. We must not settle for a diluted, blurry view of God. We must crave God undiluted.

Radical Change

Looking back over my life, I notice something that is so glaringly obvious that I have to accept it and embrace it. I have become something new. Much like Jesus said, "The old is gone and the new has come." I was once something different than I am now. The change is a very stark contrast. At one point, my life dwelt only on me and how I could possibly gain recognition or how I could be better than others. Even in my spiritual life I was always competing with others and trying to make myself better than others. It wasn't about having a better relationship with God it was about seeming to have a better relationship than everyone else.

This thinking came up the other day when I was listening to Fireflight's new CD and I came across the lyrics, "I wish you could see me before the change. You'd see a broken heart, you'd see the battle scars." It's amazing to think at how far I've come and how I really can't go back to what I was nor would I want to. Whenever I met someone who actually understood what it meant to love God, I would normally become distant or try to come up with something that made me better than them at least in my own eyes. I had an inflated opinion of myself and because of that, the song really spoke to me. I sat there thinking about how I had hurt or offended others and in the process hurt myself. I tried to be better on my own and appear to be spiritual when really I was still struggling along with everyone else and muddling through my spiritual walk as an infant.

During college the change in my life began. I began understanding what loving God meant. I began to understand what I was supposed to be living for and what really mattered. Of course this was not of my own doing but rather God's doing. He caused the change in my life in a way that I could not possibly take credit for it. Through my circumstances I've been able to see God's hand move me gently along His path for me. It is a rather comforting experience and thought to know that God actually cares about my life and that He has a plan for it. The one who spoke the universe into existence actually loves me. Now that I'm confident of this change and aware of it I have live it out. If I were to go back to my sinful nature I'd be something that I'm not. As Paul says I was once a slave to sin but then died to that and become a new creation in Christ. I believe that is this change that we must show the world if we want to really love others. It is this change that will set the world free.

Traitorous Heart

In reading from Three Cups of Tea, I am faced with the reality of my own depravity. I am made aware of a problem that our culture has allowed itself to view as perfectly ordinary. I've seen it in my life and countless lives around me. We are cursed with a traitorous heart. How many times have you been spurred on to believe in something or do something only to find that your resolve wears away in a month? My own resolve often lasts only a week maybe two unless it is something that I am constantly around and exposed to.

On my first trip to Ethiopia, I was blown away by the impoverished people of the towns there. While I was there I felt powerless and yet at the same time, full of the knowledge that I could help them. I ate with them and talked with them. I was invited into their homes and treated better than family. As I returned home I knew that I needed to go back and do something more. I needed to give of myself and to do something more for these people that I had grown to love so much. Within a month of returning I resolved to return to Ethiopia and made plans for my next trip.

Over the next year I would think of Ethiopia on occasion. I thought of things I could do there to be there full-time. I dreamt about ways that I could raise money to make an impact in the lives of those who had touched mine. Despite all this I made little effort to really do anything about those plans. I continued to live as I always have and did little to really see those plans come to fruition.

Upon returning to Ethiopia, much of my original resolve was gone. The love that I experienced there was still as great as ever but being there reminded me of all the things that I wanted to do and how little I had done to accomplish them. I met with a man who had moved to Ethiopia and who was in the process of creating a business to help the prostitutes find real employment. This business he hopes will eventually help to build a farm in a town called Sendafa which will provide food and jobs to hundreds of people. I returned to America with a strong desire to help him in his efforts. I began brainstorming ideas that would help him raise the funds that he would need to build this farm. Now it has been nearly three months since I returned to America and I have done little to follow through. I have often comforted myself with the thought that I am myself looking for funding to stay in camping ministry. I make myself feel better by claiming that once I have a more firm footing on my own life, I will be able to do something for those in Ethiopia.

Reading through the remarkable story of Greg Mortenson, I realize that there is a distinct difference between him and me. He has kept his resolve. Upon leaving the summit attempt on K2 and returning to America, he became very intentional about his purpose. He did not allow his heart to lose its resolve. When he left the Karakoram he knew that he must do this. It wasn't a matter of dreaming or thinking of ideas, it was a matter of doing everything possible to accomplish it whatever that meant. He did not look at it as something he could do or a cool idea that he might be able to do eventually in the future. He looked at it as something that he had to do. It never occurred to him that he didn't have to do it. It was as essential to his life plan as finding food for the next day. He is far from the only person that has this mentality. Bruce Olsen, author of Bruchko and missionary to the Motilone tribe in Columbia, left his home to serve God as a missionary. It wasn't an option not to do it. This was something that he had to do. The list goes on. There are people who have stood up, who have not backed down and have not taken the easy road.

I envy their resolve. Their steadfastness and assurance of their responsibility. They were able to give their heart fully to what they were doing. My own heart is for more traitorous. It stops short of action far too often and loses its will. Imagine what this world would be like if each of us were able to tame our traitorous heart. If we could learn to keep our resolve and stay committed to changing the world, we would be able to live as Christ wanted us to. We must learn to set aside our fear and tame our traitorous heart that we might keep our resolve and be the change in the world that Christ made us to be.