Even if my back is set in a deformed slump, my shoulders taking on a slouch, I know that He sets the crooked straight, I know that He alone can reform my jagged skeletal frame. He doesn't ask me to lift my chin a little higher and walk with a metered gait before I enter His courts. He bids me leave the forest of my hiding, for it is the sick who need a doctor, not the healthy. He will set my bones into place, He will dress me with royal attire.

Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord.-1 Cor. 15:58

Walking out Jesus' call of discipleship and evangelism does not always look graceful, but it is entirely grace-filled. Last year I prodded along, trying to bridge the gap between 18 and 23, between Kanye West and Andrew Bird, Marilynne Robinson and Stephenie Meyer. I spent time learning not only to be a listener but also to try to direct the conversation towards exposing their need for Jesus. The Holy Spirit was at work, but there was still a lot of that struggle against timidity in my heart. By God's grace I made progress in coming out from behind the curtain, but I still found myself feeling stifled by my own fear or lack of awareness of the situation.

This year, the Lord has been giving me more of a sense of exhilaration. The desire burning within me to love well and for my lips to be filled with the life-giving words of the gospel are beginning to surface and find more expression, and I am giddy with joy. I think that beauty is the transforming work of the Spirit to make us look like Jesus, and it is so exciting to see His fingerprints over our lives doing this as He remakes us.

At one point during my first week on campus, the enemy filled my mind with the question--"Who do you think you are, approaching girls who have probably been approached with the gospel before? Who do you think you are, believing you can actually have an impact upon the salvation of these souls?"
My response is that I don't think anything great of myself. I think great things of Jesus. It is accordance with HIS power to save and transform that I can be bold and hopeful, regardless of how awkward I am and whether or not I see any immediate fruit. I am free to obey imperfectly. When I begin to grow cross-eyed and turn my eyes inward till all you can see are the whites of my eyes, my vision becomes skewed and I cannot walk out His calling upon my life with the growing fullness He desires for me.

But when I turn my gaze upon Jesus, I can keep running. And when I say "Jesus", I don't mean Jesus in the abstract. I mean Jesus as He shows Himself in His word. How can we see Him if we aren't continually coming to the place where He shows us what He is like? How can we know Him if we aren't sitting at His feet and listening to His words? How can our hearts love One our minds don't know? How can we know what a Person is like unless we close our mouths, open our minds and listen?

May we run, freed by His grace, knowing that He will use our small and temporary works for something Eternal.

Trust in the Lord and do good;
  Dwell in the land and cultivate faithfulness.  
Delight yourself in the Lord;
  And He will give you the desires of your heart.
 Commit your way to the Lord,
Trust also in Him, and He will do it.

-Psalm 34:3-5

Yesterday marked the first day of my Spring semester working in campus ministry. As we slung our bags over our shoulders, my campus director gave the ardent charge: "Let's go get tired!" He was half-joking, but it has been so fitting in light of the beginning of this year, the great shifting of what "normal" will look like for me as God has directed me to look and consider what it means to give my life to Him. He's directed my wandering eyes from the harvest fields illuminated in the distance to the heads of grain peeling before me. I think He's calling me to dwell in this land, to stop my wistful fence-climbing and break up the soil I've been standing on all along. 

In the beginning, God planted a garden in the land of Eden, and He told Adam to work it. There was no sweat of the brow, no thorned weeds to tear up his calluses. But God gave him life and a job, and like Adam, He gives us life and a job. I've been thinking about this, the way He has given us breaths and bodies and selves full of life to steward for the job He's called us to, especially as it applies to evangelism. It can be a thing of beauty, surrender and joy in seeking first the Kingdom of God, or it can be a place of struggle where we either hoard and bury our "talents" or spend them like the prodigal son on small and passing pleasures. 

But oh, there is a beauty in the lavish spending of our selves for the glory of God! May we spend our lives for the King, may we run this race collecting  scabs on our knees and dirt under our fingernails. May our cheeks be creased by the joy of Jesus and our feet be blistered from the spreading of Good News. May we exercise the muscles He reformed when He told us to pick up our mat and walk, and with our numbered breaths may we declare that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.

Last Sunday my Pastor taught on the promises of God, and tonight I find myself in the familiar place of longing. Of the waiting, of the hope that never dies only because it's a Holy fire. When the wavering comes, when the wind of the accuser causes the light to tremble, the oil of the Spirit and the Word cause it to keep burning. 

The longer I live, the more I realize the futility of the pursuits of this world. I got my BA, but my college education felt, in a great many ways, like a lesson in learning enough to sound intelligent without knowing very much at all. The more I learn, the more I learn that there's more I don't know than I thought. It's funny how both pride and humility can come out of study, even though humility alone should be the result. 

I had a conversation recently with a woman about marriage. I told her something about the "nagging" that follows the single person all of the time, and how nice it would be for that to stop with marriage. "It doesn't go away," she told me. "it just looks different." I didn't ask her what she meant. But I can imagine. I can watch married couples, I can see their imperfections, and I can know my heart's own restless evil. Marching down the aisle doesn't eradicate sin. A spotless gown the color of snow cannot sanctify the bride. Only Jesus can do that. Only through the slow, painful process of iron-sharpening-iron and humble repentance can something beautiful rise to the top. It's only after the battle has been fought that the dust can settle and the two can come out one. 

Last August, God led to me to commit one year of my life to campus ministry, twelve months to discipling girls and evangelizing on campus. My dreams were hopeful. I heard stories of miracles in dorm rooms. I talked to one woman during our training who had gone through the internship before, asking her what one word of advice she had to give me. "Don't have any expectations," she told me. 

I took her advice, and without holding any expectations, I have not been disappointed. But I have faced discouragement as reality has set in with discipleship. Plans to meet fall through the cracks. Missed calls happen. Life is busy, always busy, it is midterm season, it is final season, work will not give any mercy. I see my sin, it is not a pure "them" problem. My sin creeps up like poison in the moment of opportunity. Calvin said our hearts are idol factories, and it is sickening how quickly new models arrive on the scene in mine. Temptations arrive to make discipleship about me, about my value in the eyes of God, about my value in the eyes of others, about my value in my own self-evaluation.

All of the these life groanings and realizations are real. But they are not final. 

They are not the climax. 

We do not call them a small thing or close our eyes and pretend they're not there. Neither do we re-label the bad things and call them "good". 

We expose and accept the jagged edges of our pieces, and we lift our eyes to look beyond the wreckage. There are whispers of a Bridegroom who has loved us from the start. There are rumors of a Rescuer who brings joy in the morning, when we begin to assess the damage. 

There is word of words that are sure. Trustworthy. True. Promises with a spine on them. A Promise made in flesh. A Promise made in blood. 

"Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death?

 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!"

                                             He will make all things new.

Her joy gushed out like a broken sprinkler, spreading over all who would receive her--and all who would rather not. Even her walk took on an elated stupor, following the pattern of a skipping calf, or a child trying to avoid stepping on the lines.
When she took a breath, she spent it on praise, and when she set her hands to work on a bouquet, she could never tug at one bud without including an island of soil beneath it.

This past Sunday, as I was praying in one of those sorts of prayers that is essentially "thinking in His presence", I was expressing my desires to serve the Lord more and my present state of less than abundant resources. But are we not, I thought, always in a state of lack? Will a day without the urgent ever come? Will a discipleship relationship with a young woman ever just "fall into place"? Will a commitment to pour myself out as an offering ever exist that doesn't call for some kind of sacrifice? Does God only take pleasure in numbers? Is He only impressed when I give Him big things? Surely God calls us to give in our lack, to serve out of our feebleness and last ounce of flour. Negative space will follow us for the rest of our lives. The question is: what will we do with what we have already been given? Of course, sometimes I believe there is a time when we are not to give in some way, to wait in good time and trust in the Lord. But when He tells us to begin pouring from the basin of our lives, our part is to give every last drop for Jesus. Don't spend time calculating your smallness, spend time giving yourself anyway. Do not hoard your pennies, if that is all that you have. May Jesus grant us the grace to give extravagantly out of our barren state.

 And He sat down opposite the treasury, and began observing how the people were putting money into the treasury; and many rich people were putting in large sums. A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which amount to a cent. Calling His disciples to Him, He said to them, “Truly I say to you, this poor widow put in more than all the contributors to the treasury; for they all put in out of their surplus, but she, out of her poverty, put in all she owned, all she had to live on.”

-Mark 12:41-44

O come, O come, Emmanuel

                                                          And ransom captive Israel

                                                     That mourns in lonely exile here

                                                       Until the Son of God appear

                                                       Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel

                                                       Shall come to thee, O Israel.

We are all perpetual Messiah seekers. For some of us, it is the seeking of His presence in the final climax, to share in that bread and wine with Him and see Him as He is. For others, it is that first glance, that first brush of His robe, that skin-to-skin contact that awakens them to Love and Life. For still some others, which belong to the first party, the groaning extends beyond our own existence. It stretches over families, it stretches over cities, it stretches over continents and cultures. Some of our carry-on belongings are borrowed bags with loved ones' names on them. Messiah, come! We pray. Emmanuel, come! Not just for us. For them. 

2 Peter 3:9 has become one of my favorite verses to praise God with in this mourning for others. "The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance." What does this mean? Every day is a gift of mercy. Every day is the Lord giving room and time and grace for more sinners to repent and come to life, for Heaven's Hallelujah to sing a little louder. 

Are you, like Israel, looking for a Messiah full of grace and truth? Call upon the man named Jesus, and sit at His feet and listen. Are you, a child of God, not only longing for the pervading presence of the Messiah in your own life, but for Him to enter the lives of others? Cling to the hope that each day passing is an opportunity for hope, an opportunity to love them more deeply and truly and to stand in the gap in prayer for them. The Messiah is God with us. The Messiah is God for us.