#mp2018journal

Jotting some thoughts VERY QUICKLY with as little proofreading/revising as possible because somehow there’s never a good time to do this and I already missed a month:

March: marked by a lot of anxiety, doubt, whining. Learning just how circumstantial my faith and security can be, and some ugly indicators of what motivates me (to sum: pride). Lots of big question marks as I waited to hear back from grad schools, tried to make long-term-future plans despite the question marks, and was repeatedly overwhelmed by stress as I tried to deny the super apparent futility/insanity of trying to plan the unplannable. Really struggled (by sometimes not even struggling) to be in prayer and the Word. NY resolution (sorry, vision) fail, but thank God for grace to keep going lol.

April: Lots of big conversations and big decisions. Decided on a grad school (hi, Biola!). Growing in relationships. Learning more about what partnership looks like, and mutual parent-daughter respect/trust. Realizing just how much of a community I have somehow built here and how investing in people is actually hardly ever fruitless (even if the fruit-bearing sometimes seems to take forever). 

Current thoughts: things I’ve stumbled upon on social media/news/Bible/sermon/conversations have been amplifying the always-present-but-sometimes-distantly-murmuring voice in my head, the one that asks what is it all for? No matter how many times I remind myself, it is STILL so, so, so, SO incredibly easy to live all of life getting from Point A to Point B while planning how to get to Point C from Point B. If Jesus were to come right now, what will my life testify to? Whom will I have honored? If I were to die right now, what legacy will I have left behind? What lives will I have impacted eternally? Jesus said some crazy uncomfortable and radical things about caring for the outsider/less-fortunate/isolated/poor/needy, with such frequency and specificity, that none of us who proclaim to follow Him can look Him in the eye on that day and say, “Oh…I didn’t know I was supposed to do that.” Passive disobedience =  active disobedience (Matt. 25:41-45). Do I want heaven or Harvard? My best life now or my best life later? We hope that we’re the exception, for the “both, and”, but the reality is we can only truly be chasing after one (whether or not the Harvard follows). Big questions but it comes down to following Jesus. To follow Jesus I must listen to him; to listen to him, I must know his voice. So rebooting for May: to knowing, listening, and following, in that order and also all at once. ”The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out…I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me” John 10:2-3,14

February = busyness, exhaustion, restlessness, stress. Consequences = easing up, giving up, reacting not responding, old anxieties/insecurities coming out to play, being at the mercy of circumstance and whim. Antidote = prayer and the word, admitting defeat, crying for help, honest conversations with people and God, laying down all the ugly and unanswered at the feet of Jesus.

To sum: don’t stop fighting(, Michelle). Please don’t stop fighting. Don’t stop fighting for discernment, for purity, for holiness, for kindness, for joy, for obedience, for that best thing which puts bad things and even good things to shame.

I stopped making NY resolutions a couple years ago because (surprise!) I don’t have a very good track record with keeping them. But entering 2018, I didn’t have resolutions so much as I had a vision: full surrender to God.

In practice, carrying this out did begin with the seemingly mundane (but actually anything but) goal of reading the Bible and praying every day, but full surrender is quickly becoming so much more. It’s a way of life, a 24/7 posture, unscheduled, uncontainable, costly. It spills over into corners of my heart and life I did not (want to) know needed changing. Surrendering to God is never not a conscious decision, and hardly ever an easy one. But it is always, always worth it, and I want each year of my life to be lived in conscious, determined surrender to this God who is faithful to change me and use me. Starting now.

A couple thoughts, lessons, visions one month in:

1. I don’t want to be satisfied with “good enough”--a “good enough” prayer life, knowledge of the Word, knowledge of God, personal and relational purity, compassion for others, etc. When it comes to knowing God, I don’t want to stop with the ecstasy of feeling his presence for a few moments--because God doesn’t stop there! He’s not about peppering lives lived largely apart from him with 1 or 2 moments of ecstasy during rare seasons of seeking His presence...he’s about giving us all of himself, in return for all of ourselves. Nothing less (from either side). He’s after transformation--uncomfortable, all-consuming transformation--from old to new, sinful to holy, enemy to daughter(!). And full surrender means saying YES to this lifelong process, trusting that the transformation is for His glory and, therefore, my good. 2. It’s true when they say “don’t waste suffering.” But I also don’t want to waste conventional “blessings.” Yes, largely devoid of significantly scary/painful/uncertain personal circumstances, this season is certainly a blessing--but not for the obvious reasons. It’s a blessing because I have the extra time and resources to rigorously train my heart to trust ONLY in what is unchangeable, to meditate on lasting truths, and in doing so, habitually discover a depth of joy/satisfaction/peace in them that can be found nowhere else, equipping myself for when (not if) those conventional blessings fall away.