Blah

"You shall eat the flesh of your sons, and you shall eat the flesh of your daughters." - Leviticus getting crazy!

Perhaps the coffee hasn't kicked in yet. Maybe the rain and fog is getting to me. Maybe it's just that it's hot in Starbucks today and my brain feels stuffy (allergies don't help). But I'm trying to read God's word and finding it impossible to focus. I can best summarize my feelings as "Blah!"

Of course I have friends meeting beside me, and my cosciousness keeps floating over to their table, listening to their conversation and away from Leviticus and it's curses. I'm in the curses section. I barely want to focus. Man that's an ugly section of scripture!

Sometimes I don't know how to respond to this God of ours. Do you? He can seem so close one second and so far away the next can't he? I know he's always close, but it sure doesn't feel like it sometimes. And in scripture we see him absolutely raging at his people!

He's alien. When I see him cursing his people, I see a God that doesn't fit well on billboards and church signs. I see a God that's talking about making parents eat their children. Scary stuff.

I had to discipline little David today. He was sitting at the bottom of the stairs, moaning and yelling at Mommy. I came to him, got down on his level and asked him to look me in the eye. He looked away, curling up into a little ball of rebellion.

I warned him that if he didn't look at me, there would be a consequence. He continued to moan and yell at Mommy. He chose consequence over obedience and joy.

This helps me make sense of passages like what I'm reading today. And it helps me with God's seeming distance. Perhaps his distance is me curling away, eyes shut tight, not wanting to look him in the eye. Perhaps his silence is me refusing to listen. But perhaps not.

Sometimes a God that loves me in deep and even painful ways is just too much. Stiffling. I think I want to be left alone.

I know I don't really want to be left alone, if I knew the magnitude of that sort of consequence. Say I don't want to wind up eating my kids.

But on days where I can't focus, I just want to run from my responsibility of calling yet more people to raise funds. I just need a God who's close, a God who holds me as I thrash and beat my fists on his chest.

The Gospel tells me that this is exactly what I have. For Jesus took all of the distance and alienation for me. He felt God's utter abandonment. What I feel is simply a tiny taste, or perhaps not even. He enables me to be this raw, this way with God. Being true to the way I feel, while perhaps not true to the way of reality.

Life has me blah today, and Jesus enables me to be "blah" me, free to pour out these feelings onto a page without fear. For he felt the weight of the uggliest of consequences (I can't think of anything worse than the verse above) and he bore it for me, for you. That's the heart of God. A God who is "compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love."

I have to rest in this, it's a sure place for my soul. It's the place where I am held.

And woa! I just figured out what might have me feeling this way today. I had a supersized extra value meal at McDonalds late last night! That's a whole consequence in itself.

Vacations End?

"This God - his way is perfect; the word of the LORD proves true; he is a shield for all those who take refuge in him." - David in Psalm 18.

I have a serious case of post-vacation funkiness. No matter how hard I try to avoid winding up in this state of mind, I always end up here. For me, this particular vacation was going to be perfect. It was located at a resort with my parents, siblings and assorted grafted in wives and husbands on the Sunshine Coast north of Vancouver, British Columbia. If a place has in it's name "sunshine" or "coast" I want for me to be there always. Yes, I want for me to be there FOREVER.

That's kind of the way I view heaven: vacation forever! And I was viewing this as the vacation to end all vacations. I was so excited about this one that I disregarded all the wiser voices in my head saying not to get my hopes up too high, or to seek this experience as the end.

I saw it as the end: the end of being a fund-raising flunky (sometimes the way I feel), the end of stiffling, mind-numbing heat (it was that), and (with my parents and sibblings around) the end of such weighty parenting responsibilities as wiping my childrens' bottoms. Oddly nobody took care of my last request. Its amazing how selfish people are when they're on vacation.

Welp, we drove home last night (after three rear-end-aching days in the van), and I was innocently reminded by someone this morning that it was "back to real life". I smiled and nodded while I almost imploded and worlds went bang in my head. I wanted this vacation to be the END. Now I should get to live happily ever after.

I really, really shouldn't be complaining. I'm sitting in an air-conditioned Starbucks for crying out loud! I'm writing, pretending to have devotions and do missionary stuff. I really don't have it bad. Ha - bad would be stepping outside into the scorching heat again.

But my actual reality is different. The reality that I'd love to believe in before I die is so different. The reality is that God is my shield and that his ways are perfect. I know so, because it says it right here in my Bible. And it says so in my blog. You can believe everything you read here.

So maybe while I wouldn't have minded never waking back up on the dock after my 3 mile swim (I had to get that in here. Can you believe I swam 3 miles? Yes, I'm pretty amazing! My increased body-fat means I can float practically forever.), God has different plans for me. Apparently they don't involve pure, undistilled self-indulgence. Dang.

I'm writing trying to convince myself of this morning. Thankfully, I don't have to be convinced, I just have to trust. Trust that God is the one that knows about life, God is the one who knows our times and seasons and God is the one in control. Thankfulness might help as well. "Thanks that my vacation is over God."

So I'll quit licking it and put down my idol of vacation and attempt to put one foot in front of the other today, even though my rear really is killing me. Actually it's not hurting at all, but it sounds like such a clever way to wind up this post - sort of "Doogie Howser-ish".

"With a Word"

"That evening they brought to him many who were oppressed by demons, and he cast out the spirits with a word and healed all who were sick. This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah: 'He took our illnesses and bore our diseases.'" - Matthew.

I've never been demon possessed, I don't think... But I think I know what it feels like to be oppressed by demons. Self-loathing, hatred, bitterness and strife - these guys aren't pixies, they're real meanies.

Maybe you caught some of it in my entry yesterday, if anyone reads these successively - "Anyone, anyone, Beuller, BEULLER!.." Yesterday I was in the throws of personal angst, and today I feel like I've had five coffees and three-point-eight energy drinks. Go figure. It's kind of scary being me sometimes. I've been blessed to grace the doors of many a psychologist and psychiatrist (actually I really have been blessed) and have been diagnosed as Obsessive Compulsive, Manic Depressive, Generalized Anxiety Disorder-"ly conduct" and in one of my personal favorites "A worry wart." I'm sort of an anomoly to them. I think I'm human, that's why.

As you can imagine, wearing all these labels makes me a little suspicious of feelings. Feeling particularly high just means I'm manic and feeling low just means I've got a weird wart. I don't take depression lightly, because I've had it almost as long as I can remember.

In fact, part of my reason for writing, is to work through depression. To understand why and how I feel and to allow God to give me feelings that are appropriate. My big reason is to search for God, and get lots of page hits of course.

But for those of you who struggle with depression, you know it's got to be a lot like demon oppression. For those of you who don't struggle, you may have never thought of this.

But if any of you think depression is simply demon possession, please dig yourself a hole, get in it, live there for a week with only water, and then ask yourself the question, "Am I depressed or am I demon possessed?" My guess is you won't know. And it probably won't help to think you are. This is just a mean thought for those out there who dismiss depression, which I'm sure are none of you.

What would it be like to meet Jesus in the passage above? To see him healing demon oppression, sickness and athletes foot (I've got a really bad case) "with a word." This guy Jesus is powerful. More powerful than the tornadoes of emotions that have been swirling through my body for the past few days.

The reference to Isaiah in this passage is striking. Let me type it again: "He took our illnesses and bore our diseases." Jesus didn't just dismiss illness and oppression, he took it on himself. I don't know how deep this goes, or even if I'm enterpreting this right, but there seems to be something in Christ's healings of him bearing peoples burdens. We see it in the cross, but in the healings as well? Hmmm...

But whatever it means, Jesus is familiar with depression. He's familiar with every disease that oppresses his creatures. And as my creator he knows me, intimately. This is sure ground for hope through emotional tornadoes. After all doesn't it say somewhere in our Bibles that "he was acquainted with grief and afflicted with sorrows"?

That's why I love Jesus. Because he's real and he can deal. As I've said before, he's the real deal, and I would certainly not have to ask him to dig a hole. Unless I was building dirt-jumps again, then I might ask him to do some of his fancy magic for me. I wish cause that would be so awesome and narly. Dude, I'd be so stoked!

"Hey Chimp, You Look Like I Feel."

Head clogged, eyes heavy and itchy, sleep still dripping from their lids, breath atrocious, sitting, wondering and heart-aching for reality. Here I sit in all of my humanness, just a small, weak and tender creature, buffeted like the wind that stirs the clouds outside the coffee shop.

Here I sit, and I wonder, "Is this all there is? Is this what I'm called to?" Faithlessness, restlessness, running, busyness and escape, life bleeding opportunities passed and relationships spurned. Here I sit a human.

A small ripple swells as I remember the words "As the Lord has compassion on his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him. For he remembers our frame, he knows that we are dust."

This frame quakes today. It shakes at the prospect of a day full of attempts and setbacks, responsibility and weight. The frame quakes, shakes and falls in a cloud of dust. And here I am, just a pile, but a pile that is loved.

A pile loved deeply beyond my deepest hopes and desires. This is Good News. That God loves his precious piles.

I wasn't sure what I was going to write about today. I just started writing and this is what came out. Obviously, I'm tired and worn, wondering how God will preserve, strengthen and awaken this soul of mine today.

He will, he always does. He will because he's a "dread warrior." He is furiously, passionately and even wrecklessly in love with his people. My calling today to email people and get the word out about what I'm doing - writing in ministry. But I'll be honest, it seems pointless.

The imaginary people in my head don't seem to care. I shape them from my own responses to ministry, and it's not a pretty shape. I don't want to be bothered by stuff from outside my sphere, things from outside my own personal world. Challenges to give and "opportunities" are annoyances, a mosquito I simply want to swat away and get on with the business of me.

I know I feel this way when others come-a-calling. I feel like an annoyance. And I don't want others to annoy me with their problems and needs.

But still God patiently calls. He reminds me that my story isn't mine, I'm a part of something bigger now. Something far more bridingly brilliant than I can handle: "Here's your sunglasses Philip. You better put them on."

So as God and I gaze into the real reality of his kingdom coming my grumblings fall away and I begin to feel a little silly. This pile of dust needs this gaze today. A vision of the kingdom. Jesus' kingdom, coming to make all things right.

I always think of myself laying brick or stone when it comes to building the kingdom. And I'm no brick-layer or stone-mason, and I feel the cement dripping off my wobbly pallet even as I write. It's frustrating this kingdom work. God can't you see that my section of the wall is wobbly. Can't I just push it over (I like seeing things go crash anyway) and go elsewhere?

"No, find your strength in me. Rest in me. For your burden is my burden, we shall walk this road together."

"But God, as I look at our foot-prints in the sand, somethimes two (when you carry me) sometimes four, what are those other prints - those two round prints so close together?"

"Oh that's where I got tired of your whining, and shoved you down on your buttoski."

"Oh."

That's what my imaginary God does. Thankfully I don't live in a world of imaginary gods and imaginary people, the real God can shoulder my grumbling. At least I'm counting on this today, but perhaps it would be clever to put on an extra pair of underwear for padding just in case. You never know in dealings with the real God.

Gray Mornings

I woke up feeling depressed this morning. And so far my bible reading doesn't seem to be helping. Check out some of the passages I've stumbled upon:

"Few and evil have been the days of the years of my life, and they have not attained to the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their sojourning." - Jacob responding to Pharaoh's innocent question of how old he is.

"Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might, for there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, to which your are going." - The Teacher of Ecclesiastes in one of his more positive moments.

What does God want to teach me when I look to his word for comfort and find passages like these? I don't really know. Some days it's both gray outside and inside for this little human named Philip.

But it helps me to know that God gives us these sentiments in scripture, because they only further illustrate it's authenticity and truth. God knows the bumper-sticker truth that life is hard and then we die. He doesn't tip-toe around this sentiment. He goes right towards it with full vigor.

God knows that life is full of toil and struggle, that we live in a broken-down world where everything isn't OK. He knows we will wake up to gray mornings and troubled spirits. He knows that our dreams will sometimes be filled with fears and tears. He knows that we are but dust. He understands. This is so very difficult for me to believe, but it's true.

A God who understands is who I am seeking. Even when I run away, I want a God who sees my weakness and pursues. I love the truth put forth in Tim Keller's book "The Prodigal God." We serve a God who dives deep into our humanity, who was tempted in every way, who knows our mess, who is all-too familiar with our sin, and who loves passionately, recklessly, and in an extremely costly fashion. He is the older brother and Father we have always been looking for.

His life is our life. His hope for us is Him.

On gray days, when I can't see the sun for the fog and clouds, I have this as a sure anchor for my soul: That God became like me, little old Philip, walked in my shoes and spared no expense in expressing his love for the broken like me.

His resurrected life is my life now. Even in the middle of my depression. My depression is not my real reality, my real reality is that I'm hurting but my God is healing, resurrecting and making me whole in Him. To say that I'm not hurting is denial, and to say that God is not working is denial.

Tell someone this who's feeling depressed or that God uses all things for our good and you're likely to walk away with a black eye. But tell them that God really feels their pain and never, ever, ever leaves his beloved children and walks closer to them than they'll ever believe, even when we don't feel him anywhere, and I believe you're not only telling them the truth but feeding their soul with a proverbial "good word."

We serve a God we can be angry at. We serve a God who holds us as we beat our fists on him.

God will never forsake his own, even on gray mornings. Plus, I serve a God who has shown me that coffee helps!