Category Archives: Below the Surface

Desert

“All of my life, in every season, You are still God.  I have a reason to sing, I have a reason to worship.”  – Desert Song by Brooke Fraser

In my personal life the season has been a bit of a desert (“This is my prayer in the desert, when all that’s within me feels dry).  I go through seasons where I feel like I’m floating through life.  By that I don’t mean that I’m so excited that my feet are not touching the ground.  I mean that I’m reading my Bible in the morning and checking off my prayer list but without really enjoying fellowship with God in that time or at any point during the day.

A few things have been encouraging in the last few days.  One was reading 2 Corinthians 13:14 where it says, “May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.”  I’m thankful that these are not things I have to work for but rather things that are free for me to enjoy right now.

I was also encouraged when I was reminded by something I read that those who get to know God love him more and those who love him want to get to know Him.  On one hand this could be discouraging in a desert time because I don’t feel like I know Him or love Him!  However, it was encouraging because I realize that even though the time I spend in ‘devotions’ each day seems empty right now, I would desire God even LESS if I wasn’t doing that!

Hopefully those thoughts can be encouraging to some of you who also know what it’s like to ‘float’.

On a different note, we got to do a Flashmob McDonalds as a FYG Event!  I would post a video here but alas, I don’t have access to that.  And I’m not sure how good the actual dance was!  We did a song by Mandisa called “How Much”.  The emphasis of the song is that even if you feel unloved, or broken God’s love for us is huge.  Immeasurable, really.  We incorporated the Christmas message by having John 3:16 written on posters.

It was fabulous to see the shocked look on people’s faces as the music started and more and more of us started dancing!  Even more fabulous is that one of our leaders got to have a conversation with a lady who has been ‘away’ from God for a while as a result.  We also had a first time teen join us.  She responded really positively as well and we’ll probably be seeing more of her in the future.

Even in the desert God is still God and He’s still moving.

Critical

I am a very critical woman.  It’s not really a surprise to me but I’ve been taking stock of my critical tendencies since, after a certain event, a good friend looked at me and said, "You have an opinion about everybody, don’t you?" 

I do. 

I feel like I am outside of the situation and able to unbiasedly evaluate everyone else on their behaviour, attitudes and words.  I feel like I can judge whether someone is ‘in’ or not spiritually.  And of course I’m always right.

This morning I read about a different way of living.  "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another."  Jn 13:34,35  I didn’t stop and think about this verse because it grabbed me; I stopped because it didn’t.  As I grabbed a pencil to underline this important statement I realized that I havn’t spent very much time thinking about how *I* can love others.  How do I love my roommates?  How do I love my boss?  How am I going to love my fellow staffers during the two weeks of camp?

Now there is something I havn’t dwelt on before.  I’ve thought about loving the campers.  I’ve thought about loving God.  I’ve thought about how to make sure the gospel is clear and how to discipline.  But not how to make the other staff people’s lives easier.  I keep thinking of how to make my life easier.  How I can make sure I have enough energy.

So I’m praying for grace to love.  Not just at camp, although that’s a good place to work on this, but in general.  To become a woman known for love rather than criticism. 

Nothing to Say

Lead us beyond the curtain,
Lead us to You
Lead us to intimacy,
Yahweh with You.

I played guitar tonight for the first time in a long time.  Like I used to.  There was a time when I would often strum guitar with a notebook handy.  In those days I wrote a lot of songs.  I had things to say. 

Tonight I strummed.  Melodies came to mind.  But no words.  No meaningful words.  Cliché phrases, yes.  But nothing substantial that I really meant.  I want to write again.  I want music to be an outlet.  I want to be creative and have times of quiet contemplation and expression.  But there’s nothing there. 

Books, tv shows, movies…these have been my outlets.  Have they been sucking me dry? 

I felt more like myself than I had in a long time a couple days ago.  Interacting.  Having something to say.  It was a happy thing.  And it made me think that the break down of the past almost year is maybe coming to an end.  But…I’m not sure that I’ve changed in the most important way.  Being a beggar.  Needing Jesus.  I’m feeling more capable instead of more dependent. 

I need to be a beggar.  I need to need.  To be desperate.  Meet Jesus face to face.  Maybe then the songs will well up within again. 

Spinning Plates

"Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."  Matthew 11:28-30

 

Rest.  A word that has repeatedly invaded my world.  Repeatedly because I need the reminder again and again.  I don’t rest well.  I especially don’t rest in my Saviour well.  Too often it takes months for me to notice that I’m not carrying the weight He has given me but rather the weight that I have put on myself and think others have put on me.  My mind becomes consumed with that weight.  Trying to put everything in it’s place.  Trying to control everything in my world.  Spinning plates.  Many plates.

And then a plate slips, it doesn’t quite crash and I try to salvage it.  That plate consumes my thinking and before I know it another one is about to fall.  How long I continue in this state of appearing in control while becoming more overwhelmed and tired by the moment is scary. 

It really is the grace of God that opens my eyes to see that it is more than I can do before all the plates have crashed and I become a nervous wreck, burnt out and broken beyond repair.   I started spinning a plate a few months ago that I thought would be difficult but doable.  I had no idea what I was getting into.  It is impossible for me to spin that plate.  I am incapable.  And now God is using that plate to show me how wobbly all of the other ones are.

It took some getting away, walking through the autumn leaves, to clear my head.  To see clearly.  (And do I see clearly even now?)  I need Jesus.  Desperately.  Not just to run a good ministry.  But because *I* need Him.  He needs to be my passion.  Just because He is worthy.  He needs to be my centre because my sole purpose of existence to glorify God and enjoy Him forever.  Ministry may flow out of that, but ministry is not the end!  Jesus is!  I need to know Him.  I need to learn from Him.  I need to rest in Him.  And He will give me the load I need to carry.  And He promises that it is easy and light.  I’ve been carrying too much.  

 

Whenever I look away from Your face

Trying to make it on my own

Your grace comes and lets me fall

Into Your arms again

 

Into Your arms I’m running now to hide

Into Your arms I come and lay it all down

Into Your arms, Jesus, I come

I come, Jesus to You 

Music for the Weary

These last couple weeks have been necessary and very uncomfortable as it is any time God reveals long held internal sin.  In this case ‘respectable sin’.  I’m no where near the other side yet but in the process God has been using music to get to my heart.  It seems to be His way with me.  When my mind refuses to bend the right way making any ‘thought processes’ dark circles, when reading the Word holds no pleasure, when I don’t know what to pray because of lack of desire, when I am confused, then it’s time to sit at the piano or pace and sing.  These two songs, which were written when I was in similar states, have been on my lips today:

Confession
Lord, I am on my knees
I come to tell You I’ve failed
Lord, there’s things I haven’t let go
Things no child of Yours should hold

And though I am clean still I,
I am dirty needing to be clean
And though You saved me still I,
Need to be rescued to be holy, Lord

Lord, it’s not just a fault
Something I should do better
It’s black as sin can be
Open my eyes so I can see sin clearly

Pride, lust of the mind, selfishness
Keep me from enjoying Your presence
Lord, I need You so much
I can’t get rid of myself

If we confess our sins He promises to heal us
And to purify us and make us righteous.  Thank You Lord.
~DJ Friesen 2004

Living Sacrifice
In Your death I choose to die
Not in part, complete must be
At Your feet myself I lie
My life, my time, all of me

A living sacrifice to You my God

May I always be

Never from the altar far to stray

Always to worship Thee

None of me but all of You
Rid me of my selfish will
Till in me Your love rings true
And my body You do fill

Yours are my hands and my feet
All of my body is Yours
Living and breathing in me
The Holy Spirit my source
~ DJ Friesen 2004

Discouraged

I’ve been discouraged for a while now.  Not sure discouraged is the best word but for lack of a better one I’ll use it.  Partly because looking into the world around me is down right draining.  I’ve been reading a book over the last couple weeks that has exposed various worldviews that people hold.  They are so hopeless, so illogical, so individualistic and so intricately embedded into all of culture and life, even the church.  When asked we would of course declare that God has created the world and that salvation is only through Jesus Christ.  And yet we, I, live as though I can choose my own way and am not accountable to anyone, let alone God.  When it is said bluntly: all choices are morally equal and so there is no such things as sin and therefore no right and wrong, my response is immediate and emphatic that this is not true.  And yet I live a lifestyle based on that assumption, denying it all the while with my mind and heart.
 
We’ve lost our fear of God.  We’ve lost a sense that He is awesome in the sense of creating awe.  Romans 3:18 says "There is no fear of God before their eyes."  Although we believe He exists and have trusted Jesus for salvation, we act like He isn’t going to judge us or hold us accountable.  I don’t.  As long as no one confronts me I must be doing okay. 
 
Which is really where this bout of discouragement has started.  The culture aspect has followed but it really started within.  Tracing it back I think it began one evening as a group of us were planning for a missions weekend our church held.  We were discussing what we as a church really need to do and how important prayer is and on and on.  One of those ‘rah, rah’ sessions where all the problems are diagnosed and all the solutions given and the participants walk away feeling good that we’ve solved the worlds’ problems and do nothing to implement the solutions we’ve discovered.  At one point in the meeting I got tired and cried within, "I’m tired of being challenged and not changed!"
 
I look out and I see hopelessness.  I look in and I see a young woman with good intentions and desires who is largely unchanged, unmotivated and independent of God.  Part of me wants to stay in this discouragement because then at least I’m feeling something and can even pretend that I’m accomplishing something.  Reminds me of the many times that I’ve conned myself into believing I was being productive by staying in bed and pressing my snooze button for the umpteenth time.  I am not who I want to be.  And in a moment of uncharacteristic honesty I’m going to say that I’m not even someone who deserves to be financially supported or applauded in the ministry sense.  I’m not looking for people to be condescending and say things like "Debbie, you’re not that bad…"  I dare you.  Look into what I do.  Investigate.  How effective is my life?  How much sway does God have in it?  And then please, be honest and help me.
 
I’m not who I would be.  I’m not who I preach at others to be.
 
And yet, and yet… even today God gives hope.  "And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."  (Matthew 28:20)   

Crazy

I really did not expect it to happen.  It’s what I’ve been praying for off and on for almost three years but I didn’t expect it.  And definitely not like this.
 
My dad called a bit ago to tell me that someone had called and asked if he knew someone who needs a car.  He proceeded to tell me about the car, it’s good points, it’s bad points and then told me this, "He wouldn’t get very much for it so he’s giving it away."  WHAT!?!??!  That sounds like something from some spiritual hero’s testimony or something.  I mean, sure, it has crossed my mind as a way God could move and maybe even the only way to get a car, but it seemed too crazy.  Too unrealistic. 
 
But here I am praising God.  I expect so little of Him.  Maybe I expect so little because I really don’t pray about things like this much…at all.  Maybe because I really don’t feel like I deserve it.  Partly because I couldn’t imagine that anyone would be generous enough to give ME a car.  It really is a grace of God.  Undeserved by me for sure.  But it’s kind of like how He works in my life all the time.  It really amazes me how God touches people through me.  Not because I’m such a good people person, not because I’m qualified for anything I do, not even because I do everything I should do because none of those things is true.  Yet somehow, God has grace in my life and uses my daily bumblings.
 
Not only that but He’s changing me from within.  What a grace that is.  That even though I am still SO far, I’m not where I once was.  It’s not me.  It’s not my hard work.  It’s not my discipline.  It’s the Spirit bearing fruit despite me.
 
Praise God!  For His gifts, material and spiritual.  Hallelujah, what a God!   

For my Future Husband

"Love is patient, love is kind."  I read that today and thought of you.  It put a smile on my face and reminded me that there is a purpose to the waiting.  In some ways the wait has been good.  It will make getting to know you that much sweeter.  For now I am content, not knowing who or where you are but hoping that our paths will cross soon.  In the mean time I think of you from time to time and pray that you are waiting for me.  Not just by keeping yourself sexually pure, although that too, but by praying for me and by learning from the men and women around you how to grow in being a man of God.  I pray that in the waiting you will be learning some of the lessons that I’m learning about what marriage means and what our roles are going to be.  I pray that you are learning how to be a leader as I’m learning how to submit and serve. 
 
But sometimes what’s most on my mind is how unprepared I am to meet you and start a relationship.  As long as it’s not reality I can imagine that our relationship is going to be perfect and pain free.  But I know that is not going to happen.  I know that even with all my knowledge I’m going to make mistakes and have a hard time following your lead.  I know that there is still a lot of pride that is going to balk at the idea of submission.  I know there’s still a lot of selfishness that will flare it’s ugly head.  I don’t want to bring that into our relationship.  As part of this waiting process I want God to chisel away at these rough edges.  
 
Even though it will mean some pain and self denial, I am looking forward to our lives together.  So come soon.

Because of Jesus

  Previously my tagline was "Expectantly Run Towards."  This has been a reminder to me to run forward in faith that God’s going to do what He says He’s going to do.  Good reminder, but I’ve changed my tagline.  For some time I’ve been frequently ending my correspondence with "Because of Christ", or "Because of Jesus."  Every time I write it, it reminds me of this very simple fact: anything in me that is good is Jesus. 
  I was just reminded tonight that I am not always a friendly person and can be down right hard to talk to.  As I drove slowly I listened to the words of the Grand Prize song posted below and asked the question I’ve asked from time to time. 
  "Why?"
  "Why, Lord, have You chosen me?  Why have You placed me here?  Why have You placed me in youth ministry?  And even more crazy, why have You touched lives through me?"  I ask these questions not in a blaming tone but rather one of awe and mystery.  I don’t get it.  I’m so not there.  But despite me, to my ever increasing awe, God moves on, because of Jesus.  Because He’s changing me within.