I’ve been thinkin’…

When have we ever been told by God that we should pray for Him to bring suffering in our lives? When did we stop asking for joy?

Is there a “Christian” cynicism that causes us to believe that He is but that His Reward is only for heaven?

Do we understand what “judgment” is; do we allow the Holy Spirit to be the one to make it?

When have we ever taught that we ARE the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus, that we ARE no longer sin because He became sin for us?

Why do we trade “identity” for “roles”?

Why is going to church the most important proof of a walk with God?

What is abundant life, really?

How will they know we are Christians by our love if love walks around carrying an approval stamp? If we don’t care about others where they are?

Why does the busy keep us shoving even our best friends and families off to counselors for fixing, instead of sitting, waiting, praying, weeping with those who weep?

Did Jesus reference “two or three” because He knew the “two or three thousand” was too many?

Did God create me as me to change me into becoming someone else?

May we not believe that He has given us a new heart?

What is the difference between responsibility and legalism?

Is it possible that “witness” is a command to see? That testimony requires us to tell only what we have seen – not what we have been taught?

Is “right and wrong” the biggest sin, separating us from God who asks us only to love Him and our neighbor?

Are we ever told that emotions are sinful?

What is godliness? What is sanctification?

Do we justify ourselves and our actions because we still hide behind our fig-leaf religion when God approaches us?

Do we take Him at His word when He speaks on our behalf, or do we believe that our sense of guilt is a higher power?

Fear drives me to a frozen place. A place where these questions that don’t always have answers for me sit and go round and round with even more questions, a place where I can only sit, wait, and sometimes weep. My mind screams at me the answers I SHOULD know; His Spirit extends a hand to my trembling heart, whispers, “wait. You need only Jesus.

I do things I don’t want to do. I still live my life in the flesh. I am finite, limited, broken.

But I am also perfect – complete in Christ. The life I now live, I live by faith in Him.

I keep thinking about dying, about how I will have to, about how I almost have, about how living every day can feel like death under the weight of condemnation that is no longer mine. I want to know that there is more for me on the other side of here, so much more that I don’t have to cling to here. I want to know what it means that I have a GOD as my Very Great Reward. I want to know what it means that He loves ME, how He justified dying for me while I was yet a sinner, how His love changes me now.

I believe I will always have questions, but I’m not afraid of them, not when I can remember “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus,” not when His name is all I need to know my God, to hang out with Him, to hold onto holy fear that keeps me back from “right and wrong” that must believe that He is all and I am nothing if not for Him.

It’s poetry, unresolved rhythms of life that aren’t meant to come clear until I see Him face-to-face.