The Rattles of New Life [and conversations on post retreat syndrome]

Son of man, can these bones live?

That's the question that's been echoing through most of my conversations lately, friends crying out to me that they feel far from God.  The common thread of spiritual deadness makes me keenly aware of the decaying stench that penetrates so many Christian circles, not due to any outright disobedience to Christ, but due to a lack of the pursuit of relationship with Him.

It's the same question I asked God time and time again when I was overcome with the stress and the busyness--and sometimes even the monotony--that daily life tends to bring.  I would find myself often frustrated when I would get on a spiritual high at retreats or conferences or mission trips and watch it fade after returning home, presenting myself more like Moses than Paul, watching the glory fade and not increase.

Sovereign LORD, you alone know.

I knew something was off, something wasn't adding up.  As a New Testament believer, these constant deaths and revivals seemed much too draining to be the abundant life that Jesus spoke about.

Dry bones, hear the word of the LORD!

The revelation that God is always speaking and that I needed to just listen opened up new doors for me.  It tended to the flame that was in my heart, creating a fire in me that became beautiful and untamed and all-consuming.  As I started making attempts at listening, I could hear.  As I started making attempts at noticing, I could see.  Suddenly, abiding became more of a tangible reality rather than some abstract concept that we preach sermons and write workbooks on.  He is speaking.  Do you hear Him?  And almost all at once I began experiencing the fruit of the Spirit overtaking me and sensing the heartbeat of God.  I began experiencing newness.  Mundane routines were transformed into Jesus adventures.  I began to feel alive in more places than just on retreats.

This is what the Sovereign LORD says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin. I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the LORD.

In Ezekiel 37, the bones rattle and come together and grow tendons and skin, but there is no life present.  Part II involves the word being spoken again, and life is breathed into them.  We can give the appearance of being alive and actually be dead on the inside.  Having tendons and skin, while it might mean that you aren't dry bones anymore, doesn't mean that you are living in the abundant life that Jesus offers.

The bones rattle and receive breath after they hear the word.  Deadness becomes life when we hear Him speak and we chose to respond, but we won't hear Him unless we practice the art of listening.

So for those of you who were at The Big Event this past weekend (or those who also experience the comings and goings of retreat highs), listen up: You did not experience a Jesus high because you were at Lake Champion.  You experienced a Jesus high because you were constantly in Scripture, in prayer, and in fellowship with believers.

If you find ways to incorporate those things into your daily routine, you will experience abundant life all of the time, and not just on retreats and at conferences.

Here are some simple and tangible things you can do:
1.  Read Scripture.  Every day.  I don't care how busy your schedule is or what your major is.  Be in the Word every morning (~1 chapter a day) and don't leave your spot until you find an application for your life.  [And actually read through a book, don't just pop around aimlessly.]  His word is alive and active and He will speak to you through it.  You've never read Scripture before on your own and don't know where to start?  Great.  Try starting with Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John.
2.  Learn how to listen in prayer (rather than talk the whole time).  We are not a people who worship a far off god that we just "shoot prayer requests up to."  We are in an intimate relationship with a living God who dwells in and with us.  Speak and wait to hear.  Journaling can help you focus, so ask God a question and then write a response as He puts thoughts in your mind or pictures in your imagination.
3.  Get plugged in and pursue fellowship.  Join a small group.  Find community.
4.  As you go about your day, practice His presence by becoming more aware of Him in the room.  This might seem tricky at first, but the more you do it, the more natural it becomes.

He loves you and He offers you life--abundant life--that stretches beyond the walls of our worship services, weekly prayer meetings, and off-site retreats.  This life exceeds the limitations of our life stages and schedules and (even sometimes) our lack of close friends that live nearby.

Dare to experience Him always.  It will change you.  Forever.

[Speak.]

"My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me."

-Jesus

To follow Him has always been the invitation.

When Jesus first called His disciples He said, "Come, follow Me."  They left their homes, their families, and their careers to follow.  This initial story parallels our own lives, for those of us who have entered into a relationship with Him.

But the following didn't stop there.  The following continues, always, as we remain His sheep.

Jesus says that He knows these sheep, these followers.  And doesn't this verse also imply that the sheep must know Him?

The word "hear" [Greek = akouō] speaks of attending to what is being said and giving an ear to a teacher.  It is a choice.  The reality is, He is speaking all the time, and the invitation is to listen.  And when we decide to listen to Him, we grow to know Him more.

The call is to hear and thus to know Him, to have Him know us, and to follow.  When Jesus beckons us to come, it is not a one-time decision or even a once-every-six-months decision.  We joke in this Christian culture of experiencing "come to Jesus moments," but the invitation is not to come during a season of revelation or hardship or exponential growth.  The invitation is to follow.  Coming happens once or in scattered spurts.  Following happens with every step, every leap, every hobble, and even every crawl.

The invitation is to follow.

The invitation is to listen, because He is speaking.

The invitation is to know and be known.

The invitation is to go deeper,

     in this minute and in the next,

     abiding and praying without ceasing.

Let's stop separating the sacred from the secular.

Let's stop coming to Jesus only when we hear His voice screaming over our noisy lives.

Let's stop coming to Jesus only when we meet with Him in the morning.

Let's say "yes" to the invitation to live out of the Kingdom reality that we are so graciously offered,

     [on earth as it is in heaven].

Let's follow, not come,

     in step with the Spirit, every second of every day.

Let's hear His whispers as well as His shouts,

     because He speaks and His words cut through all of the opaque mundane,

     and all of the thick darkness that we sometimes endure.

He is speaking.

He calls us by name,

     saying, "Child, pay attention,

          you are Mine."

He knows His sheep.

By name, He knows us.

By name, He calls us.

The invitation is to experience Him [always].

The invitation is to go deeper.

always, always, always deeper than before.

the crowded couch

There is a couch in my living room that I find myself always sitting on.

I declare this to you as I'm cuddled under my favorite pink blanket--that I so maturely named "fuzzy" at the age of 22--on this said couch.

I eat my meals here.  I watch my favorite television shows here (well, when I'm not watching Burn Notice and Graceland at the Downs' that is...).  I have my quiet times here.  I even send all of my InterVarsity emails and write my talks here.

These patterns of browns, yellows, reds, and greens make up the fabric that screams of the redemption of my life.

In high school, I never really liked this couch because I never really liked this living room.  I didn't want to be in any common space in my house because I very much enjoyed staying in my room with the door shut.  My wardrobe and attitude announced to the world, "I have teen angst. And I don't want you to talk to me."

It was on this couch that I sat one horrible night during my senior year of high school.  I hid my face under a blanket while my swim coach sat across the room, telling my parents that I was suicidal and that I needed to go to counseling.  This was the night that I thought my life was ending, when in reality, it was only just beginning.  A year and a half later, what I found was that conversation led me to a Christian counselor who led me to InterVarsity, which eventually led me into a relationship with Jesus.

But even though the Lord worked that dreadful conversation for my good and used it as the catalyst to bring me into a relationship with Him, this couch was always the place where I hid in shame under a blanket, too afraid to look into any of their eyes.

And then this was the couch that I laid on (I won't say slept, because sleeping wasn't in the agenda that week) during the last few days of my mother's life.  My sister was on the chair, my dad on the bigger couch, and my mom on the hospital bed in the center of the room.  Dad and I took turns doing round-the-clock care for my mom at night and half-heartedly smiling at visitors during the day.  I remember jumping up from this couch in cold sweats and fear in the middle of those nights, checking to make sure she was still breathing.  The tears and words and feelings and images from that week are burned into my memory.  Forever.

And as those scenes were etched into my memory, these were the cushions that offered me comfort.

It was the death couch to me, the place where my suicidal thoughts and habits were made public and the place where I helplessly watched as my mom died.  It was the place that birthed shame and anger and fear and sadness.  It was the place that ripped life from me.

During breaks from college, I would come home and sit in this family room, remembering how my mom used to always hang out in here and how I would avoid joining her at all costs.  I'm not sure why, but I started reading and watching TV in here more often, maybe in some lame attempt to get back what was so abruptly taken from me, maybe in some lame attempt to apologize to someone who was no longer here.

So by the time I graduated from college, the room no longer held it's death-stigma in my mind.  Those haunting images never went away, but I began to forget about the significance in the fabric of that couch.

And one day, as if a wave of clarity hit me, my friend turned to me with laughter in her heart (trying to prove to me that there was no question that I was an extrovert) and shouted, "YOU SIT ON THE CROWDED COUCH!"

The crowded couch.

I looked around the room and realized there were 30 women packed in here, women who entered through that doorway every Friday morning, women who knew and loved the Lord.  On this couch, I was right in the center of the thickest sense of agape you'll ever experience, snuggled in between five other sisters in Christ.

This room went from a place of darkness to light.  This couch had somehow been transformed into a place where I met with the Lord quietly in the mornings and loudly with my women's bible study on Fridays. This couch went from the place where death loomed and shame burdened and became a place where I did my missionary work, where I wrote curriculums and talks to share Jesus with my students.  It went from being a place of me sitting alone under a blanket, hearing someone tell my parents that I wanted to die to being a place where I encountered Jesus.  It went from being a place of me sitting alone, watching helplessly as my mother died, to being a place where I sat piled with friends and love and the Word of God.

It went from a place where I was alone and in darkness to a place where I was in community and in light.

And oh isn't that what He always does?  He turns our mourning into dancing.  He replaces our sackcloth with garments of joy.

On this couch I once sat broken, and now I sit whole.  On this couch, I thought my life was ending, and now I write talks to invite students into the Life that He offers.

This couch represents me.  This couch speaks of my healing.  This couch proclaims the mighty work that Jesus has done in my heart.

By faith in the name of Jesus, this man whom you see and know was made strong.  It is Jesus' name and the faith that comes through him that has completely healed him, as you can all see. [Acts 3:16]