{Butterfly} Transformation

I follow (and then when they get annoying unfollow) certain accounts on Twitter. These accounts are often those run by Christian young people who seem to live their lives by tweeting. But once in a while one of them will post something that actually catches my attention, which is why I tolerate one or two. The other night, @GentforChrist posted this:

Why do we give God just the good parts our life? He wants our wretched hearts so He can purify them.
— Imperfect Gent (@GentForChrist) February 12, 2014

At first it didn't seem like much more than trite, Christian lip service. I mean, haven't we all heard this a thousand times, practically every single Sunday at church? But I kept thinking about it, and the more I thought about it, the more astonishing and profound it became. I tend to come to Jesus with the parts of me that are "purified", the things I believe are "ready" to receive His touch. The parts that I have surrendered already, or that I've already asked him to remove. But see, here's the thing: God isn't in the business of removing; He transforms.

"I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God."

-Romans 12:1-2

God doesn't want to wait for me to try (and fail) to remove a certain sin or habit or struggle from my life before coming to Him as if He can't take the sight of it. No, He wants my raggle-taggle life and heart. He wants that original, sinful material that is so soiled and worn and wrung-out and wrong, and He wants to transform it into something beautiful and pure.

He wants to take the impatience and melt it down into contentment.
He wants to transform the lust into purity.
He wants to bend the greed into a ring of charity.
He wants to re-mold the bitterness into compassion and the selfishness into love.

By wanting "all of us", He wants the bad with the good, the evil with the pure because we have nothing good or pure outside of what He's given us. When I thought on this concept, it was like some things I've always thought clicked with what I wanted to feel. I mean...I had always known this concept of transformation, but I'd never taken the time to understand it: that I don't have to wait to feel accepted by Him until we've removed the laundry list of issues I have. Yes, I know there are some things in my life that are yet to be transformed but He's working on it. The other night, once I realized that it's not that things will be removed, but that they'll be transformed, a peace settled on my heart.

I understand transformations.

I'm a writer. I'm an artist. I get the fact that things don't go from unformed one moment to flesh and blood the next. There's a creation going on. We don't get from Winter to May in a flash of sunlight. There's a thaw, a relenting, a release. There's a bud, and a blossom, and then the summer comes in its flush of fruit and light and joy. A book isn't written by thinking, "This is a book" and there it is, all eighty-thousand words of it. No. It's sentence by sentence transforming abstract thoughts into tangible words and meanings. A song isn't written in a blinding burst of music. It is notes and melodies and harmonies strung together in intricate harmony.

Jesus is transforming me little by little, day by day. Sometimes I perceive it, sometimes I don't, but He wants all of me. Every little bit. The scrappy parts. The dark parts. The sad and lonely and angry parts. He wants all of it, because the Conjurer of all conjurers, the Magician of all magicians, the Artist of all artists is working with me--all of me--to sculpt me more like Him.

Search me, O God, and know my heart;

Try me, and know my anxieties;

And see if there is any wicked way in me,

And lead me in the way everlasting.

-Psalm 139:23-24-

{Snow} Scattered Beauty

It is snowing.

Not big fat flakes.

Not small shapeless flakes.

Flakes that are both tiny and perfect. Focus hard enough and you can see that each flake is like an impeccable, flawless spur, built of crystals and magic and perfect beauty. One flake is enough to make us marvel. One flake. One tiny little flake. And then, maybe, you realize that your eye is adjusting like a computerized miracle to be able to focus on that tiny flake, and then you let your eyes readjust and you see that the entire world is flurrying with millions of these self-same flakes; there are too many to inspect each one. Some of the beauty is going to be unnoticed by human eyes forever.

But it's still beauty.

It's fluffing down on us and blanketing the world in white. Large and broad and all-encompassing to show the purity of our God and how He views us through Christ's sacrifice. The snow is also tiny and small and not-a-one-is-identical to show that God cares enough to imagine each design and then create it. Does it matter to God that we won't see the flawless creation that is every single snowflake? Not really. The small ones pile on top of one another in a glorious display of perfection, salvation, mercy. Snowflakes are glory-screamers.

I wish we would take the time to realize that magic is real; that is, the magic of the fact that snow falls, or rain drops, or winds blow. They don't have to do that, you know. From a young age I always had a sneaking sense of living in a fairy-world when it came to creation. There was something about "the fragile beauties" that was extremely...thoughtful. Someone was conjuring these things out of pure pleasure. Someone was spreading beauty and it wasn't just because "that's what snow does." Then I read the essay on "fairyland" by Chesterton and understood:

“Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, "Do it again"; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, "Do it again" to the sun; and every evening, "Do it again" to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.” 

-G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

Exulting in monotony. Who is patient and wise enough for that? But maybe the thing is, monotony--like snow--becomes more beautiful the stiller you are. That everyday grind you do? Have you tried adjusting your lens and seeing the fragile beauty of the day-to-day? To the casual observer, a world covered in snow might seem perfectly ordinary. (I hope not, but it could be) But to the person who knows we live in Fairyland with a Magician who breathes out every flake of snow to a form peculiarly His own fancy...that snow isn't a natural disaster that makes them late for work. That snow is a miracle and an allegory and a love-letter written from the heart of the Divine to His glory-displayers who are fuddy-dudding around like they weren't created for an incredible destiny.

Take a minute to look at the snow.

Remember the mercy.

Praise the One who imagines Beauty and scatters it over the land.

Don't Waste Your Life

"You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body."

1 Corinthians 6:19

     I sit down to review Don't Waste Your Life by John Piper...

     How on earth is one supposed to review a book that is both fathoms deep and extremely practical in a manner that won't make a hash of it all? I have never been much good at reviewing things because I am no good at logic or logical thought processes. But I know that God spoke to me through reading this book and I know it's a book that every single one of you (yes, even you friends who wandered over from the link on Facebook and don't really feel like reading a book review) NEEDS to read. Per my recent fascination with underlining favorite bits in books, each time I sat down with this book, I did so with pen in hand. I am so glad I did--there was scarcely a page I didn't mark up in some fashion.

    This book is just that good.

     He starts out with the quotation from 1 Corinthians above and immediately jumps in:

  "If you are a Christian, you are not your own. Christ has bought you at the prince of his own death. You now belong doubly to God: He made you, and he bought you.  That means your life is not your own. IT is God's. Therefore, the Bible says, 'Glorify God in your body.' God made you for this. He bought you for this. This is the meaning of your life."

     Wham.

     A page later: "It was becoming clearer and clearer that if I wanted to come to the end of my life and not say, 'I've wasted it!' then I would need to press all the way in, and all the way up, to the ultimate purpose of god and join him in it. If my life was to have a single, all-satisfying, unifying passion, it would have to be God's passion. And...God's passion was the display of his own glory and the delight of my heart."

 And this is only the beginning of one of the most revolutionary books I've ever read. Revolutionary not because John Piper is making up a new system of "How to Live a Full Life". Revolutionary because he simply digs into God's word and pulls out the thing that has been lying there forever: God's passion. And when you get a sense of that passion and what it means, your life will never be the same again. My life can never be the same again. I suppose the thrust of the book can be simplified in Piper's words on page 38:

"God calls us to pray and think and dream and plan and work not to be made much of , but to make much of him in every part of our lives."

    I'm finding it hard to put into words how much the message of this book excites me. I am gripped with a passion to not waste my life. I want to be the person who lives recklessly for Christ. A person who sees the cost, knows the cost, and delights in paying that price so she can bring glory to the One who rescued her soul from death.
       "Won't it hurt?" you might ask. Oh, I know it will sometimes. I might even die for living recklessly in pursuit of His glory. But here again, Piper addresses the fundamental misunderstanding that causes so many people to waste their precious, short lives:

"Death is a threat to the degree that it frustrates your main goals. Death is fearful to the degree that it threatens to rob you of what you treasure most....(when we treasure) Christ most, (our) goal (is) to magnify Christ. And (we see) death not as a frustration of that goal but as an occasion for its fulfillment." 

     When you are living for any other reason than to bring glory to God, death is terrifying. But isn't that quote beautiful? THIS is why Christians can be joyful in the face of any and every terror. THIS is the glorious mystery of Christ! Living is Christ. Dying is gain. In every situation we are more than conquerors through His mercy and grace.
     I wish I could get you to see the amazing thing this ultimate goal is: how the passion for it shines so brilliant a light over history, current events, and the world that all other voices are drowned. I really can't describe it...just read this book. It will change the most mundane task into a service of praise. It will cause you to risk all because you know the loss of each thing for Jesus' sake only serves to show the world how highly we value him. It will give you a passion for telling everyone else of the Glorious Lord, and a raging hunger to be more like him. I can't help but think of the words to "Let Your Kingdom Come":

"Your glorious cause, Oh God,

Engages our hearts

May Jesus Christ be known

wherever we are.

We ask not for ourselves

But for your renown.

The cross has saved us so we pray:

'Your kingdom come.'

Let your kingdom come

Let your will be done

So that everyone might know your name.

Let your song be heard

Everywhere on earth

Till your sovereign work on earth is done

Let your kingdom come!

Give us your strength, O God,

And courage to those who speak

Perform your wondrous deeds

Through those who are weak.

Lord, use us as you want,

Whatever the test.

By grace we'll preach your Gospel

Till our dying breath.

Read this book. It's going to change you into something different, I warn you. You'll never be able to view your life the same way. You'll never want to view it the same way. My heart is full and still while at the same time beating like a caged bird to be allowed to dart forth and set the minds of men ablaze to His glory. I can say little but this:
Oh, Jesus, let me live and fight and die in the pursuit of Your glory! This is all I want. This is the service I am giving my life to. Let everything I do be to this end. Because your love is better than life, my lips will praise you. Jesus, please, let me do this: let me live recklessly for Your name. Give me the courage and the tenacity, and use me as your image-bearer in the way your created me to live this precious, heart-beat life.
Piper rightly says "a life devoted to making much of Christ is costly." But it's a beautiful cost, and one I am going to fight for night and day, moment by moment, from now till His kingdom comes. Will you give Him your life--quite literally--so when the end has come you can look back and know it was a life well-spent?

"And they sang a new song, saying, 'Worthy are you (O Christ) to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth.' " -Revelation 5:9-10