I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh...

i used to write.

i used to HAVE to write to feel..not whole, i never feel whole (it strikes me as a linguistic irony or perhaps, justice, that the word,"hole," is in the word,"whole."), not whole (i often make my parenthetical asides so long that i'm afraid, as i certainly have, you the reader may have lost my original thought, so i repeat the last bit to get us both back on track.) No, i never feel whole, (see.) not  to feel human-i don't even know what that means, but ...me.  There was a time in my life when my life felt so much like wearing someone else's shoe, a shoe that did not fit, a shoe that did indeed fit so poorly, my entire body was wracked.  When i felt this, when i lived like this, writing wasn't just a compulsion, or a hobby, or a diversion, it was a scream of protest.  It was a lament.  It was a maskil of a prayer for deliverance.  i needed to write to escape and grumble and complain and seethe and sob and make fun of and do all of the emotions that my detached and unemotional childhood never taught me to express properly.  To bare the soul that i kept so carefully hidden in shame.  

The same might be true of my other artistic ventures.  My cartooning.  My drawing.  Attempts to live a different life.  Minor rebellions.  Passive-aggressive revolts against ...well, let's be honest here, if God is sovereign then He has arranged and ordained the circumstances of my life, so against God.  

i have always believed in God.  i have always believed in Jesus as the only way, truth and life.  i have always known that if i put my trust in His finished work, my soul would be saved.  i say it that way on purpose--my Soul would be saved.  Because what i never really believed or even had a concept of, was that my Life would be saved.  What i have struggled with from earliest memory was believing that God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, loved me.  In point of fact, i suspected they were far too busy and important to even notice me, or if they did notice me, it was as a disappointment.  At the same time, i've always believed that God was in control of my life.  i've never understood how other people plan and set goals, i've never really even understood how people dreamed and invented possible futures for themselves.  To me, events just happen.  i'm not a sailboat in a sea of possibility.  i'm not a motor boat upon a lake of dreams.  i'm not a ship plying a course to a destination.  i'm a raft with a leak so i have to keep inflating it from time to time to keep from going under.  And somedays are relaxing and i can sit back and enjoy the sun and somedays are stormy and i have to paddle and bail alternately to keep from being swamped or capsized.  But a destination is beyond my understanding.  It is not even a concept.  There are only two possible outcomes: rescue or drowning.  And one seemed much more likely than the other.

When one reaches adulthood however, one is forced to make decisions.  Long term decisions.  Decisions with ramifications for oneself and one's loved ones.  Marriage.  Career.  One is forced to face what one thinks about Life.  What is Life for?  Why was one given Life?  Why are we here?  The answers to those questions, whether we articulate them or not, are shown in how we make those long term decisions.  And then how we react to the consequences of those decisions.  Having no matrix to hang my expectations on, i didn't always feel like i made those decisions well, or correctly, or at all.  Things just sort of continued to happen to happen and i floated along with them.  And grumbled.  

Pastor Steve Lawson says one of his seminary professors threatened to sit in the front row any time he was preaching and within five minutes of his sermon, hold up a big sign simply saying, "SO WHAT?"  The point being, preaching, like blog writing, if it is only for the preacher/writer is self-indulgent and vanity and so much chasing after the wind.  Vapor.  With that in mind, if you're still with me, let's try and find a point in this self-indulgent musing mist.

The compulsion to do something, anything, just because you like it, i believe we can safely say, is not evil.  It is gift.  It is the image of God in us.  God creates.  God created us in His image, to model Him, to be like Christ in some ways; corrupted, inward-curved, self-serving, misused and mishandled, to be sure!  But Like Christ in its origin!  In 1 Chronicles 25 King David arranged the Levite singers and musicians.  Two hundred and eighty-eight of them into twenty-four teams, twenty four divisions, twenty-four rotating shifts who would lead the praise and worship in the temple that Solomon was going to build and one assumes, at a tabernacle of some sort that David must have erected for the Ark of the Covenant and the worship of YHWH in Jerusalem.  Over them were Asaph, Jeduthun and Heman (not the Master of the Universe but it is interesting to note there is a Heman and a Sheerah in the Bible).  If those names sound more familiar to you than just a mention in Chronicles it is because they are also mentioned as authors, musicians and music directors in the Psalms!  Now that alone should tell us how important their job was.  

i grew up in a family that didn't really value art and by association, artists much.  Art isn't necessary.  It does not produce something that the family can eat, that will keep the rain out, it will not keep you warm, it will not heal a broken arm, it won't fix a legal matter, it does not balance ledgers, it does not quarry stone, it does not engineer a way to cross large rivers, it isn't inventing a solution to a particular problem, it does not even really look like work when one is singing or dancing or playing a piano or guitar or drawing or painting or sculpting or making a scale model or carving or writing a story or a poem or a song, or decorating something that actually is useful.  It's vanity.  It's more than useless, it's sinfully proud.  The people who practice it are lazy parasites and the people who pay them are fools.  At best, it was cute and interesting and something to do when all your chores, important work, useful work was done.

But that's not how God treats it.  God didn't just make a tree useful.  He made it beautiful.  If no one uses it for paper or firewood or structural material or eat its fruit or nuts, or take shelter under its shade or in the rain, or plants it to muffle the noise of the world or privatize their yard; it's still beautiful.  It's beautiful to see.  It's beautiful to hear when the breeze rustles its leaves.  It smells beautiful.  It's tactile.  i don't necessarily recommend tasting them but...they're beautiful.  They are art.  God is a gardener.  A planter for purpose.  For beauty.  God is a creator.  God deserves worship in beauty and holiness and the beauty OF holiness (1 Chron 16, 2 Chron 20, Ps 29 and 96)!  And as if that wasn't enough there is the purpose of beauty and art...

"Moreover David and the captains of the army separated for the service some of the sons of Asaph, of Heman, and of Jeduthun, who should prophesy with harps, stringed instruments, and cymbals."  1 Chron 25: 1
"...the sons of Asaph were under the direction of Asaph, who prophesied according to the order of the king." verse 2
"...under the hands of their father Jeduthun, who prophesied with the stringed instrument with thanksgiving and praise to Yahweh." verse 3
"... All these were sons to Heman, the seer of the king, according to the words of God to raise a horn."  verse 5

Prophesying.  Seeing.  According to the words of God.  For as the angel said to John in the Revelation 19, "Worship God! For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.”  When is art more than art?  When it is worship AND prophecy!  When we tell the truth we have learned about our God and His order and His kingdom in some small, toddler to his father with his building blocks kind of way!  To bring this full circle, the truth about God that i've had to painfully learn through my life is not only is God sovereign, but God is Good!  God really does know me!  And loves me!  And in some weird way that i may never fully understand, likes the real me in Christ!  And this is what i'm hoping to prophesy to you today!  To anyone who reads this and needs to know it.  That your life isn't random.  Your life isn't organized by a detached and disinterested God.  Your life isn't only the product of your poor decisions.  Your life has been fearfully and wonderfully made and crafted to make you,  yes, even you, a prophet of the Living God who tells the world something about Jesus Christ.

Now more than ever, as our lives have been reduced, as our essentials are being boiled down and our dross is being skimmed off, what is left of us?  What is God pulling you to?  What is God giving you a godly desire for?  What habits draw you TO Him and not away?  What activities have given you life or made life more delightful rather than drudgery?  What do you have a pang to share with others who appreciate such things?  What are you sharing online?  What gives you hope?  

It might, i say might, just maybe, be art.  It may, in its best form, be worship.  And if it's those two things, it might just be prophecy.  

(*complete side note here: one of my favorite forgotten worship songs came to mind while writing this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVMR7ZFVHdo)

Short or long, life is for the strong....of faith.

We may fear God calling us to short, dramatic lives and a martyr's death but it seems to me, in many ways, that would be easier than the long, quiet resistance of anonymous faithfulness in constant danger of folding into the warm, soft, fuzzy, smothering embrace of the perfumed, comfortable, luxuriant, bosom of Babylon.

We may hate affliction and suffering, but it is truly God's gift to His people which keeps them in dependence upon Him.