You Won't Relent/Take My Life

You won't relent until You have it all
My heart is Yours

I'll set You as a seal upon my heart, as a seal upon my arm
For there is love that is as strong as death,
jealousy demanding as the grave
And many waters cannot quench this love
My heart is Yours

Come be the fire inside of me
Come be the flame upon my heart
Come be the fire inside of me
Until You and I are one

(Misty Edwards)

Take my life and let it be consecrated, Lord, to Thee.
Take my moments and my days let them flow in ceaseless praise.
Take my hands and let them move at the impulse of Thy love.
Take my feet and let them be swift and beautiful for Thee.

Take my voice and let me sing always only for my King.
Take my lips and let them be filled with messages from Thee.
Take my silver and my gold not a mite would I withhold.
Take my intellect and use every power as You choose.

Take my will and make it Thine; it shall be no longer mine.
Take my heart it is Thine own; it shall be Thy royal throne.
Take my love, my Lord I pour at Your feet its treasure store.
Take myself and I will be ever, only all for Thee.

Here am I, all of me - take my life, it's all for Thee.

(Frances Havergal/Chris Tomlin)

Being loved is hard. (More thoughts from The Shack)

Maybe some people are going to read that title and think, "Gee, Stina, that is really lame. Being loved isn't hard! You don't have to do anything! Loving is hard, but being loved isn't!" Okay. But I might start praying for you to get loved a little more if that's really how you feel!

The thing that makes being loved - truly loved, like agape loved - so hard is that you can never do anything to earn it. You'd think that would make it easier, wouldn't you? You'd think it would be easier to be loved unconditionally than to be loved based on what you do. So why isn't it? Why is it that I feel sort of crippled somehow by unconditional love? Why is it that I so often don't believe it, or even at times run away from it?

Because of one of Satan's favorite tricks. He likes to tell us that it is more valuable to be loved for what we've done or how "great" we are than to be loved just because. Think about it: If someone - say, your mom - tells you that you did a great job at something - say, singing - do you receive that the same way as if, say, a really talented musician tells you that you're a great singer? No. Your mom would probably tell you that no matter what, but the musician? He or she will only say that if they actually think you're good. Now complimenting someone and loving someone are totally different things, but I do the same thing when it comes to love. I feel really good about myself when I think, "Wow, so-and-so really loves me because they think I'm awesome and do awesome things. I must be awesome." And my pride grows, and I'm "happy" because I feel like I've earned something great that I really deserve. We humans like to boost our egos.

But what happens when someone really loves you just, well, because they do? When someone can look at all the filth and mess in your life and say, "Wow, I really love her!"? I don't know what happens to you, but I tend to think, "Great. Where's the part about me being awesome?"

The other thing Satan does is push us to try to "earn" that kind of "love" from higher and higher "authorities." I want so-and-so to think I'm awesome, and then so-and-so-who's-even-cooler to think I'm awesome, and so on. I start "loving" cooler people because I want them to think I'm awesome, not because I genuinely desire relationship. Case in point: I don't know about you, but I think pretty highly of God. I mean, He is pretty much "the man" (and much more!). So the PINNACLE of awesomeness would be for someone sooooooo great and awesome like God to think that I'm awesome.

Problem? He already does. He did before I was born. Gee. Thanks. All that stuff I did to impress Him? Nope. Doesn't change it. All the filth in my heart, and the mistakes that I've made, and the times I've failed? Doesn't change it either (thankfully). I'm still awesome in His eyes and there's nothing I can do about it.

Here is where I have gotten love all wrong. I've made it about me, and not about the Source of love. I value love based on how much it makes me feel good about myself, rather than based on how valuable the love itself is. Several years ago when I was teaching science camp for K-3rd graders, I had this kid in my class whom I adored named Jae-Suk. He was ridiculously cute, sweet, and funny and I could go on and on about him but that's another story. I also had another kid in my class who was not so cute, not so sweet, and usually not very funny, and I had a really hard time with him. His name was Isaac. Somehow, I knew I wasn't supposed to have favorites, but Isaac just didn't come close to Jae-Suk. How could I love him anyway?

Somehow, God did a work in my heart and after awhile, I really did love him. Not because he was cute, or sweet, or funny, but I just loved him. He brightened my day just like Jae-Suk did. But it didn't make me love Jae-Suk less. In fact, I started realizing that I probably loved Jae-Suk even more than before, because it became fathomable to me that I would love Jae-Suk even if he wasn't as adorable as he was. That kind of love took a lot more effort, which I suddenly realized meant that it was worth more, not less, than the love I had for "favorites."

The love of someone who only loves the "lovable" people is nowhere near as precious and costly as the love of someone who loves unconditionally. Our world would tell us otherwise, but it is true and I've had to learn and re-learn it so many times. And this is why we know that real love - agape love - comes from God, because His love is the most precious and costly of all. He looked at a bunch of human beings whom He created out of His own pleasure, who had turned against Him and become far filthier than we realize, and said, "I love them so much, I'm going to let my Son endure more pain and torment than they can imagine so that they can be Mine again."

What does any of this have to do with The Shack? There's this really cool scene (pgs. 187-188) where God/"Papa" allows Mack to realize why he hides behind lies - in particular, why he didn't tell his wife about the note he received from God. He justified it to himself with the thought that he was protecting her, that it would've hurt her too much to hear about it, but really, he was protecting himself from his own fear of emotions. Papa allows him to realize that if he hadn't lied to her, she might have been there with him at that moment. The inference there is that his lie kept her away from the blessings he received, but I also see that he kept himself away from the blessing of having her by his side when he returned to such a painful place. She might've gone with him to that dark and lonely place if he had let her.

On Sunday, my pastor was preaching about how God uses our experiences to reach others, and he mentioned some things he had struggled with and how he had been able to bless and be blessed by others who had shared similar struggles. One struggle he happened to mention was - guess what - something I struggled with too! And I had purposely refused to tell him about it for a lot of dumb, fake reasons. I realized that if I had told him, maybe he would've been able to help me through it! (I'm not trying to say you have to tell your pastor everything. But my pastor is more than just my pastor. I am close enough to him and his wife that telling them was more of a default than not telling them.)

That night at small group, his wife and I were talking about The Shack, especially about that scene and how we often project onto others who we think they are or how they are going to respond in a way that we know isn't true. In a later conversation she happened to mention that a kid I went to high school with lost his mom awhile ago, and how bad she felt because she didn't even hear about it until much later and couldn't have done anything. I realized that maybe she would've wanted to "do something" for me too. I mean, my mom didn't die or anything, but there have definitely been times I've chosen to hold back when I otherwise wouldn't because... I thought they would judge me? I thought they wouldn't care? Because I was afraid of rejection? Because I was afraid of looking weak? Afraid of getting too close?

I decided I had to do something about this because I do this to them so much that I could barely discern what was actually true anymore. So we got together and talked, and it was so freeing and healing, just like it was for Mack in the book. And the greatest thing I think I took away from it is that I do not have to impress them, they love me just as I am. They will keep loving me no matter what I do. That is really really cool. It's definitely not normal by human standards.

We do not have a God who wants us to impress Him. We have a God who loves us already and wants the best for us. He pushes us to do great things because doing great things is really really cool and awesome for all who are involved. He is not impressed when I do something good; He is happy for me that I got to partake in His joy by living the way He meant for me to live. And when I screw up? He's right there too, loving me through the messes I make and helping me clean them up. That love is so much more beautiful, valuable, powerful and precious than the "love" that is based on myself and my need to feel "awesome." All I have to do is receive it!

What I think about The Shack (so far)

I just finished reading The Shack and I liked it. I'm not done thinking through it - and its impact on the those who read it - but here are my initial thoughts.

First I will give a little bit of context though. My pastor told me about this book a few months ago, and how it was amazing and I had to read it. By the time I got home from school, basically my whole church had read it and it was all people were talking about. The small group I'm sort of in at church which is led by my pastor is planning to give out copies of the book to friends outside the church and then invite them to a sort of book-club discussion afterward. My church is crazy about this book.

I also knew that a lot of people - including some big-wig theologians - had criticized it pretty sharply. I didn't read their criticisms until after reading the book for myself.

Now, my thoughts?

1. The book speaks some shocking words of truth that are rarely touched upon in right-wing conservative Christian circles (like the South). It takes the emphasis off "being a Christian," "getting saved" and following rules and places the emphasis on God's greatness and grace. One thing I was especially happy to see - and happy that my right-wing church was reading! - was that political paradigms are challenged and readers are reminded that Christ's followers will come from every tribe, every nation - out of* every major world religion, every world culture, out of every political party...

*The key here is "out of" - this is something the book could've made a little clearer. I got what the author was trying to say in the bit about Jesus Himself not having been a "Christian," but the author leaves something potentially confusing (especially to those who have been in one spiritual box for most of their lives) a little too wishy-washy. In fact, I think misunderstanding of what the author wrote is a large reason for much of the criticism the book has received. More on that later. It is important that Christ's followers will come out of all of these worldly groups - you cannot be a Christ-follower and still be, for example, a Muslim, though you can (and must!) still love Muslims - just as you cannot be a Christian and still go on sinning at will. It is also important that these people who come out of every earthly "nation" will not come into anything more than the love of Christ and the joy of life with our Creator. They will not come out of those groups and come into the country club of right-wing "Christian"-ity and start voting Republican and doing everything like we in the Bible Belt do.

2. The book gives great insight, but is not the most well-written book I've ever read. One article I read about the book used the term "awkward prose," and I feel that I have to agree with that description at least of certain sections - like the one I just mentioned. This is unfortunate, because I think the book could be even better if some things were smoothed out. By no means do I think Young is a bad writer - I just think the book could've used a little more steam-lining and sophistication from a literary point of view. That is only my opinion though. No two readers read the same way.

3. I have not spent a huge amount of time reading the critiques of the book yet, but the bulk of the criticism I have read of the book left me with the impression that the critic did not actually understand what the author was saying. Now we can debate about whether that is the author's fault or not, and I do believe that authors have a huge responsibility, especially when approaching subjects of such magnitude as the God of the Universe Himself, to make every effort to ensure that readers understand what he really meant. Authors have an obligation to put themselves in their readers' shoes and adapt their writing accordingly. But some of the criticism seems to simply reveal people's ignorance and lack of attention to the writing.

Example: People have a problem with God being portrayed as a Black woman. First of all, I have no idea why anyone has a problem with Him being portrayed as Black. God isn't white either. (We know Jesus' "race" but not the Father's!) Secondly, the book very clearly does not say that God is a woman! It very clearly says that God is genderless and that both genders carry aspects of His nature. He chooses to reveal Himself to Mack as a woman because He knows it will be most helpful for Mack's understanding. And no one mentions the fact that later, He does appear as a man!!!!!!! (*Side note: The Holy Spirit appearing as an Asian woman named Sarayu is a little weird to me. I don't find anything wrong in it, it just seems strange and I'm not clear why the author made that choice.)

Second example: The USA Today article stated that many critics say it "promotes a wrong-headed view of universal salvation." "Papa" (God) does tell Mack that through Jesus He has reconciled the entire world to Himself. But He immediately clarifies that "reconciliation is a two-way street, and I [God] have done my part, totally, completely, finally. It is not the nature of love to force a relationship but it is the nature of love to open the way." (pg. 192) We can debate the truth of that statement/portrayal, but one cannot argue that the books promotes the idea of universal salvation. The author has made that pretty clear. "Papa" later says, "Forgiveness does not establish a relationship. In Jesus, I have forgiven all humans for their sins against me, but only some choose relationship." (pg 225) Again, we can debate whether this statement is true, but we really cannot stick the "universal salvation" label on it. It does not say what happens to those who are forgiven but do not enter into relationship. The underlying assumption, however, seems to be that entering into relationship is salvation, not just being forgiven. And since only some choose relationship, the logical conclusion is that the author conveys that only some will be saved.

4. The one thing that appears to be missing is God's wrath. One critic had a problem with the absence of anything indicating that sin will be punished, as we are told in the Bible. I can see that, but on the other hand, I believe that when we really get a hold of who God is and how marvelous the life we are intended to have with Him really is, talk of punishment isn't really necessary. We do not serve a God of arbitrary rules and commands who is just trying to make life difficult. We serve a God who is trying to help us experience the fullness of life and avoid the pain of sin! A child who touches a hot stove after being told not to touch it doesn't need to be punished - the burn on his hand is "punishment" enough. Sin is nothing more than believing the lie that something apart from God can make us happy. It can't. It will make us miserable. And thus it is in itself the "punishment." Mack's time with God is so amazing that God doesn't need to talk about punishing him if he chooses to miss out on it. Missing out on it is the punishment!

5. These things might go without saying, but as great as the book is, we have to be careful. We must not confuse it with the Bible and with personal communication with God Himself through prayer, worship, etc. And we must not cease to test it against the Word of God.

Many proponents of the book have responded to the theological criticisms by saying that The Shack is not a "doctrinal" book, but this is very dangerous! Any portrayal of God contains elements of theology and doctrine, and if that portrayal is inaccurate, it will affect our own beliefs. We must not allow ourselves to fall in love with a depiction of God that is inaccurate. Any depiction will of course be incomplete, but if any falsehood has crept into a depiction, ignoring the falsehood will only lead us astray.

I might come back and write more about the book later. I definitely recommend reading it, although - as with any book! - I recommend careful scrutiny and testing against the Word of God.

Abraham and Isaac

This has become perhaps my favorite story in the Bible (except for maybe the Resurrection... :) the last few months and I've decided I should write about why.

It all started awhile back during the school year when I was applying for the Fulbright teaching thing. When I left Berlin after my year of studying there, I felt pretty confident that I was coming back. Somehow, the place just felt right in a way no other place had felt before - I could really see Berlin as a place God might be calling me. Usually, I fall in love with the people in a certain place, but this was the first time I fell in love with a place itself too. I felt a general call to Germany, but especially Berlin.

I knew about Fulbright and the teaching assistantship program, and this sounded like a slam-dunk. I would get a year away from academia before grad school, get teaching experience, experience Germany's school system, and spend another year in the place that I felt God calling me to (hopefully Berlin, but at the very least, Germany). So I applied, but once I applied, I had this strange feeling like it couldn't just be that easy. I didn't want to just put all my eggs in one basket, and I wanted to be sure that it was really what God wanted me to do, and not just the most obvious thing to do. I prayed a lot about it and told God that if He wanted me to do something else, I would.

After I came back to school from Christmas break I started awakening to the work God was doing in Philadelphia and on Penn's campus. All of a sudden, it seemed like God might be calling me to spend another year in Philadelphia, which had never been anywhere in my plans. Philadelphia had always basically been the city I was passing through on my way to the rest of my life. But suddenly it seemed like it might actually be a place God would ask me to serve. And I was confused. I was happy that God had opened my eyes to what He was doing there, but I battled with feeling torn between two cities. Where did God really want me? I really felt like the call to Berlin was from Him, so why would He call me to Philly too? Why would He call me to two different places? It seemed so contradictory. Needless to say, I pendled back and forth between the two for awhile. I applied for a fellowship in Philadelphia, but didn't get it. Then the prospect of interning with Campus Crusade arose, and I began to imagine myself doing that. And it was hard. The cost was high - not only my own desire to return to the great city of Berlin and to the people I knew there, and to dive into what I thought was my lifelong calling, but also the support and encouragement of so many other people in my life who (I thought) might be disappointed if I turned down the opportunity to go to Berlin. (And all the while, I actually didn't know if I'd gotten Fulbright. That came many months later.)

Somehow, at some point, God brought to mind another time when one of His children was faced with a seemingly contradictory call from God - Abraham's call to sacrifice his son, Isaac, whom he loved, whom God had promised him and who God said would be the father of many nations, as a burnt offering to Him. Why? Why would God ask for the one thing He had given and promised to Abraham? Why would He tell Abraham to sacrifice what He had said would be the fulfillment of His plan? If God said He would bless the world through the offspring of Isaac, why would He tell Abraham to kill him?

There are many reasons why God did this, not the least being a striking foreshadowing of His own sacrifice of His one and only Son, Jesus. It was a test of Abraham's faith. But it also appears to me that God wanted Abraham to be willing to give up everything for God - even the very things that God Himself had promised and called him to. He wanted to Abraham to find his identity in Himself, not in his calling to be the father of many nations, through whom all nations would be blessed.

God wanted me to be willing to give up Germany - even if it was indeed what He was calling me to. He wanted me to find my identity in Him, not in my calling. He wanted me to identify myself as His child and His faithful one, not as Christina who teaches Turkish kids in Berlin, or Christina who does ____ for God. He wanted me to just be His.

In studying this passage in the Beth Moore study The Patriarchs which I am doing this summer (P.S. I love Beth Moore and highly recommend her books and studies!), I came to realize that there are many "Isaacs" we are asked to lay down on God's altar. God routinely asks us to sacrifice the things that are not of Him for the sake of His glory, but do you realize that He asks us to sacrifice things that are of Him too? The other "Isaac" in my own life that was brought to my mind is actually a person, someone I am fully confident is not only a child of God herself, but one that He absolutely wanted me to meet and be in relationship with, and someone who shaped much of my early understanding of my relationship with God. But there came a time - a very difficult time! - when I had to lay her on that altar too, not because she herself was not part of God's plan, but because God wanted me to find my identity in Him, not in her, nor in Him through her. He wanted to be my One and Only, the only foundation I stood on. This time "Isaac" basically got taken from me by force, but it was the same principle: being asked to sacrifice something (or someone) that is good and of Him for the sake of sealing my identity, my hope, my relationship in God alone. And of course, He won't actually take these things or people from us if He doesn't have to - He stopped Abraham from killing Isaac, seeing that his faith in God would lead him to do it if God actually wanted. He did not take that person away from me, though He did greatly change our relationship (for the better!). And He did not take Berlin from me - in fact, despite the odds He gave me exactly what I believed He was calling me to! Berlin, teaching at an immigrant school, even an apartment in Pankow close to my church.......

Praise His Name!

Jesus is more than fire insurance

One thing that always makes me uneasy is when I read a church's or a ministry's statement of faith that includes some sort of definition of who will be saved and who won't or who will go to heaven and who will go to hell. I have not yet read the whole Bible (though I intend to and think this is very important!) but in my reading and studying - particularly of the gospels and of Romans - I have never found a clear, black-and-white definition of who is going where after death.

Don't get me wrong - the Bible does make some promises on this subject. Romans 10:9 "if you confess with your mouth, "Jesus is Lord," and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." Mark 3:29 "whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; he is guilty of an eternal sin." But the Bible does not put every human being in two boxes - the "going to heaven" box and the "going to hell" box. Only some. A large chunk of humanity is not put into either box.

Why would God do this? Why would He leave out this one piece of information that we all want to know?

Because we don't need to know it. Because our human pride would trample all over the Name of God if we started thinking we could judge. The problem? A whole lot of Christians think they can judge.

C.S. Lewis writes in Mere Christianity: "Here is another thing that used to puzzle me. Is it not frightfully unfair that this new life should be confined to people who have heard of Christ and been able to believe in Him? But the truth is God has not told us what His arrangements about the other people are. We do know that no man can be saved except through Christ; we do not know that only those who know Him can be saved through Him."

He goes on to say that since we don't know, the best thing we can do is get on board with God and His mission, become part of the Body of Christ and allow that Body to do the work of the Kingdom - to make disciples. "Getting saved" as we understand it - confessing with our mouths that Jesus is Lord and believing in our hearts that God raised Him from the dead, and putting our trust and our hope for salvation in Him alone - is the best thing we can do if we want eternal life and want it for others too.

But there's another catch: How in the world can I make myself believe something? I don't believe I can. In one way or another, I have to "see" it - I have to have reason to believe. Either that, or someone or something has to supernaturally give me the ability to believe. We can be saved by Jesus through faith. But how do I get faith?

I do believe there is some element of choosing involved, but I cannot make myself have faith. I'm not 100% sure why our faith matters so much to God, but one thing is clear: HE is the ONE who saves. I cannot save myself. I am not saved because of me or because of anything I do (or don't do). I did absolutely nothing to earn it. Even my faith doesn't earn me salvation. It's simply a (perhaps not the only) means by why which God gives it to me.

I believe that Jesus is the Son of God and that His death and resurrection has the power to give eternal life to every single human being that ever lived and ever will live. Whether or not that's what He decides to do with it is His own business, and although it's tough, I trust that He has a really good reason for doing it the way He chooses. And I really think that God chooses to leave us out of this process - to keep this a mystery - because He doesn't want us to start thinking of His Son as fire insurance. Jesus is much more than my "ticket" to heaven.

There was a street preacher at my school this past year who would preach hellfire-and-brimstone every Wednesday to passing college students. He usually had an illustration, often a big picture of flames. (No joke.) I wanted to ask him what makes him think that people are going to become Spirit-filled, fruit-bearing believers out of fear of fire. Does Jesus' awesomeness not outweigh the horror of hell? People are not going to believe that Jesus is awesome unless they encounter Him and see how wonderful He is.

This, I believe, is where we, the Body of Christ, come in. Other people that God wants to save are supposed to see Jesus in us. Some might say that because God wants to save the people around us, we need to evangelize all the time. Others might say that we need to feed the hungry. I think we need to do all of these things. Jesus was not only an evangelist. He was not only a prophet. He was not only a healer. He was not only a teacher. He was all of the above (and much more!). Here's our challenge: Are we, the Body of Christ, doing all of the above? Does the world see Jesus through us? Or does the world look at us and see judges? Fanatics? A bunch of people who are afraid of fire?

Thoughts.

I've decided I'm going to start writing out some of the many things I've put a lot of energy into thinking about lately.

Just FYI.

Almost there...

A big piece of news: I got Fulbright! I'm really excited, but the waiting isn't over... I still have to find out where they're sending me!

I can breathe a little easier, but it still ain't over... But I am really happy and thankful. God is good. He's going to send me somewhere perfect.