Tag: believe

Posted in Living this Life

Air shows and roller coasters and prayers

Posted on by Sara

For that brief moment, as the ground shook and the sky roared, I could not stop myself from gasping out loud. I looked around me at my sons, and saw the same look on their faces – awe … wonder.

I’ve been thinking about that day alot lately. Also about my journey from where I was to where I am. And about the invisible line in our lives that keeps us in our “safe” little boxes. This strange day brought so many of those pieces together in one gasp.

We went to the air show. It was exciting – there were pilots doing things with planes that no plane is designed to do. We took so many pictures, saw so many stunts, ate good food, enjoyed the music, and generally had a really fun time.

But then the Blue Angels took to the sky, and everything was different. These F/A-18E/F Super Hornets can brag about their power, their speed, their G forces – but all I know is they took my breath away as they roared over my head in a way I had seldom experienced.

Then it was over in a split second, it seemed. But my heart was still racing. And I wondered – when is the last time my heart has raced like that? How often do I experience that “whatness” that is impossible to put into words, but we all know it when we feel it.

As those planes roared overhead, and my mouth hung open, I thought of the words of Jonathan Edwards – that we ought to “be endeavoring by all possible ways to inflame [our] desires and to obtain more spiritual pleasures. . . . Endeavor to promote spiritual appetites by laying yourself in the way of allurement” (Sermon on Canticles)

Allurement – what a weird word. Who says that anymore? I googled it and was told “allurement means fascination, charm, or the power to entice or attract”

I mean – isn’t that pretty much what I felt when those jets roared above me … power to entice or attract? We use other words, but I just couldn’t stop thinking that if I had just stayed home that day and not made an active choice to be where the planes were, I would have missed the moment.

But then more happened… keep walking through that crazy wonderful day with me. Because this next part is what makes me shake my head a bit and lean in to what this all really means.

We left the airshow and meandered over to our favorite amusement park, where they had a concert going on. This concert was a southern gospel staple – not the kind of music I listen to most of the time, but a fun way to end the day. As the concert kicked off, the emcee had a moment of prayer. And as the crowd in the ampitheater grew quiet for prayer, the emcee began to pray, and suddenly we heard screams erupt. Startled, I lifted my head to see what seemed like a strange juxtaposition, and that is when the Holy Spirit spoke loudly to my heart.

Behind the ampitheatre stage where a man stood with his head bowed is the tallest, fastest, steepest spinning roller coaster in the world. And as he said “dear Lord…”, that roller coaster hurtled behind him full of riders screaming in exhileration.

I giggled a little. Then I felt a little bad about giggling in the middle of a prayer. Then I pictured a smile on Jesus’ face – in the middle of it all and realized – there’s something more happening in the middle of all this. What do ground shaking jets, a simple prayer, and screams from a coaster all have in common? That simple phrase, “lay yourself in the way of allurement” kept rolling around in my head.

In this world of self promotion, branding, and influencers, the next great thing is always tugging at us. And that moment – my ears still ringing with the roar of jet engines, and now juxtaposed with the screams of exhileration alongside of a moment of prayer – made me pause: what does it mean to lay yourself in the way of allurement? Is it about seeking out the next adrenaline pumping exhileration and bouncing from one experiential high to the next? Is it the moments of solitude and quiet that comes in prayer? Were the screams of the roller coaster riders interrupting our prayer – or augmenting it?

I’m not here to break it all down for you and give you a simple formulaic answer. But I walk away with a truth in my heart: this wonder in life is all around us – each of us – every day. Whether it is in the ground shaking power of a plane, a quiet moment of prayer, or the unexpected drop of a roller coaster – there is a moment to capture that slips away in just that moment. How are we doing at letting it in? Are we living purposefully in the moments that we are given?

To wake up in the morning and be aware of the firmness of the mattress, the warmth of the sun’s rays, the sound of the clock ticking, the sheer being of things… becom[ing] alive to life… seeing what is there in the world—things that, if we didn’t have, we would pay a million dollars to have, but having them, ignore. Become more alive to beauty. Put your soul on notice that there are daily wonders that will waken worship if we open our eyes. (amended from quote by John Piper)

David captures this thought so perfectly in Psalm 35:7-10: “Both  high and low among men find refuge in the shadow of your wings. They feast on the abundance of your house; You give them drink from Your river of delights. For with you is the fountain of life; in your light we see light”

I guess what I’m trying to say is this: God has filled my life – your life – with innumerable “allurements”. Wonders and beauty and unexpected winks that are meant to “fascinate, charm, entice, and attract”.

Are we seeing it? What clouds our vision? Sometimes the fog of pain can be too thick – life can be so upside down it’s impossible to see through it. That’s real – yet even there, maybe this can help usher in a ray of light. I suspect on most days, however – for most of us – we’re just a bit too distracted. Glowing screens in our faces, the crush of the to-do list, the flurry of life, the decisions and challenges and daily pressures all crowd in and our eyes stop truly seeing.

Entering into this Christmas season with our surroundings decorated and our air filled with different music, maybe this is an invitation to live on purpose. To choose every day to lay yourself in the way of His allurements – to find the treasures He has tucked into your everyday rush that feed your soul with wonder and joy and life. To see and to savor, whether it’s the roar of jet engines, screams from a roller coaster, or just a quiet prayer.

“I will give you the treasures of darkness and hidden riches of secret places, that you may know that I, the Lord, who call you by your name, am the God of Israel” Isaiah 45:3

Posted in Living this Life

the e-mail

Posted on by Sara

I could tell by the subject line that I didn’t want to open the e-mail.

Yet, I knew by the subject line that I just had to open the e-mail and read the words I didn’t want to read.

It was true. Another place closing. Another place that I love – gone.

Thing is, this isn’t just another place. I drove by one of my favorite restaurants the other day and saw the for sale sign. That was a bummer. This was different. This hit deep, and I suddenly didn’t know how to process it.

It’s one of those places that I have never been able to get out of my soul. One of the first places I understood the word “home”. In a life of feeling perpetually out of place, this was a place that welcomed misfits like me and gave us a sense of belonging.

It was my sophomore year of college – that summer when I walked through the doors of a The Shelter, a youth hostel in the middle of the city of Amsterdam on the edge of the red light district.

I had no idea God would forever change the trajectory of my life that summer. That He would show me who I was created to be and that I would never be satisfied settling for anything else.

I went back after college and spent a year in those walls – eager to learn, eager to meet people from around the world, eager to share my Jesus with them. God used that place to forever alter my life.

You may say it’s just a building surrounded by a multitude of other buildings. But it was on that rooftop I would pace when I felt my world crumbling around me – I would pace back and forth – praying and pleading with God for His Truth.

It was in that dining room where I would eat with people from around the world – Laughing, singing, talking, doing life together.

It was in that kitchen where I learned to make Moussaka and Boerenkool. But it’s really the place I learned that the simple act of spending a day cutting onions and peeling mounds of potatoes can carve out quiet places to let the Spirit in.

It was in that snack bar where I would discuss the beauty of my Jesus with a Spanish traveler who had just from a Tibetan monastery. Where I would pore over the Scriptures and rest in the peace of the Psalms with my friend Jess, a gay prostitute who was desperately hungry for balm for a hurting soul.

It’s where I learned not to fear the questions – for if you keep looking you will find the Truth. It just takes a lot of courage to face the real questions and a lot of persistence to uncover the answers. It’s where I saw that we aren’t really all that different under the surface – where a smile has the power to transcend all cultural, racial, and political differences. And sometimes when trying to register a group of 20 travelers who don’t speak English, a smile is all you have.

It’s where I learned to love shoarma and frites with mayo. And I learned the value of knowing how to ask for coffee with whipped cream in Dutch (Koffie met slagroom, alstublieft)

So I read the e-mail, and as the truth soaked in that they were having to close their doors due to the current condition of our world, the tears started to fall. Not just for all the faces I saw, the people I had come to love, the memories I cherished… I wept for the loss of a place to return to.

Oh how the heart longs to remember what fades so quickly! How often we long to return to places that matter because they remind us of who we were. More importantly, of who God is and what He has done. And I don’t have many of those places…

Growing up in the jungles of Africa was an unmitigated blessing and I wouldn’t trade it for anything. But my home no longer exists – the ravages of war destroyed my childhood village many years ago, and I will never be able to take my family to the place I grew up. I can show them the country as it is, but it will forever be a different place than the home I knew.

So all these years, my heart has clung to this special place on the edge of the red light district in Amsterdam. I longed for the day I could show my family the place where God changed the course of my life. Where I learned how real He truly is and discovered that He really will catch us when the world crumbles around us. I have walked through those old hallways with my family so many times in my mind – just waiting for the day it could become reality.

And I wept for the loss of that opportunity.

God has placed eternity in the heart of man (Ecclesiastes 3:11) – and yet we try to fit this small earth around that. We grasp for the ideal of an unchangeable good – a place where our hearts feel safe. But buildings crumble and heroes let us down.. What do we do then? Construct new idols? New mirages of control or illusions of contentment? Or do we reject the stuff of earth and place all our hope firmly and only on heaven?

We’ve all experienced loss this year. And I know my story is light compared to the life changing loss many have endured. But we all share this one thing – longings for something we may not be able to return to. It comes out in grief, sorrow, rage, cynicism, depression… and I wonder – what do we do with all these feelings?

When the longings start and we are torn between what is and our nostalgic memory of what was … we often think we have to choose between the two. Instead of rushing past the callback, why don’t we linger a couple more minutes and let it bloom into something of beauty? What if we’re experiencing a foretaste, a promise, a shadow of what is to come? In His moments of greatest agony on earth, Jesus looked to the “joy set before Him”. (Hebrews 12:2)

Do you see it? Can you smell it? The welcoming notes of the fresh baked bread? The delicate aroma of flowers we have yet to discover? We blush and call it childish nostalgia – but could it be so much more?

“In speaking of this desire for our own far off country, which we find in ourselves even now, I feel a certain shyness. I am almost committing an indecency. I am trying to rip open the inconsolable secret in each one of you—the secret which hurts so much that you take your revenge on it by calling it names like Nostalgia and Romanticism and Adolescence; the secret also which pierces with such sweetness that when, in very intimate conversation, the mention of it becomes imminent, we grow awkward and affect to laugh at ourselves… These things—the beauty, the memory of our own past—are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshipers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of a tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited.” CS Lewis

So today i don’t think I’m going to wipe these tears away too quickly. I think instead I’ll try to just rest in the magic of the mystery. To let the ache in my heart intensify my longing for heaven – that great unending good that will never be taken from us. That we will never outgrow, move away from, or lose. This is the gift.

“For here we do not have an enduring city, but we are looking for the city that is to come.” Hebrews 13:14

Posted in Living this Life

I still believe

Posted on by Sara

I stood there the other night and remembered… I remembered the day I ran away from it all.

The wind tickled my face as I stood at that outdoor concert and watched these three faithful men sing truth and proclaim the power of that truth. And my heart remembered.

I remembered a time when I almost lost my way. A season when nothing made sense and it was hard to know who or what to believe anymore. A time when choices danced before me like mirages and I couldn’t find solid ground.

I remembered the words pounding through my head as my feet pounded the pavement. “I believe in God the Father Almighty…” It feels like yesterday in my heart and soul.

bruge streets

“Creator of heaven and earth…” These thoughts crowding my mind – racing so fast, they can make you fear for your sanity sometimes. “I believe in Jesus Christ, His only begotten Son our Lord … MY Lord!” How had I ended up here? Trying to escape the cycle of bombarding thoughts, walking the streets of Brugge, Belgium, simply because I didn’t know where to go or what to do? How to quiet the noise inside my head – screaming at me from the moment I woke up until I finally found escape in sleep? “He was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary. He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried”

It had been a long journey to this moment. Months in Amsterdam, telling people about my Jesus – the One who promises freedom. All the while, crumbling inside from my own lack of freedom. Trapped in my insecurities, in my doubts, in the dysfunction I had come to see as “normal”. So I ran away to Brugge, and I walked those streets.

I remembered those days when I was a kid. Long Sundays in church, reciting a liturgy I thought was old and “dead”. They called this the “Apostle’s Creed” – it didn’t mean much to me back then – just words we said every week. “He descended into hell. On the third day, He rose again. He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of God the Father…” I remembered sitting in that college cafeteria, telling a wise professor that I was beyond all that now. I was exploring new ways to worship. He didn’t say much, only gently reminded me to not forget those who had gone before me – “You are standing on over hundreds of years of history…”, he said.

“I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic (universal Christian) church” Suddenly the scrambled thoughts started slowing down. I found myself mouthing the words, savoring each precious morsel… “the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, and the life everlasting”

bruge 2

There are many ways to worship, but in this moment, walking those old cobblestone streets, God began to set me free from the tyranny of the new. He brought those words to life in my heart on that day in Brugge, Belgium, and I no longer had to figure anything out – I knew. And that simple knowing quieted the screaming voices in my head.

My God showed me that as long as I clung to what I knew was true, He would lead me through what I didn’t know. Though emotions may soar to great heights and plummet to sordid depths, nothing can shake the reality of this foundation. I BELIEVE IN GOD THE FATHER – I wanted to shout it from the rooftops… and I still do.

Here is where I can plant my feet and not be shaken. In these days of confusion and fear around the world, it doesn’t take much to feel like a “wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind” (James 1:6) Headlines scream terrifying news at us, the pundits on TV tell us what (and who) to believe, people are displaced, having to flee their homes, politicians ask us to put our faith in them – it’s hard to know who to follow and what to trust in anymore. “When you hear of wars and revolutions, do not be frightened” (Lk 21:9) I still believe in God, the Father Almighty”

We are surrounded by the constant shifting shadows of life – today I choose to plant my feet on the one thing that will never change. I still believe in Jesus Christ, His only Son our Lord” “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.” (Mt 24:35) I still believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy Christian church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, and the life everlasting

And in the threatening waves, Jesus whispers, “Peace, be still”.