I have this condition of the heart lately – an almost constant longing for something more, something else. I want today to be tomorrow. I want to be anywhere but here. I want to travel somewhere new, to book Phil’s and my next vacation even though we just got back from a short one. I want to start a family. I want to own our own home. I want, I want, and I want some more. With the internet as it is, we’re all given a chance to peer into other people’s lives through blogs, facebook, twitter, etc. and I find that it is so easy to imagine most people have a far more fascinating and wonderful life than I do. And even without that, I think it has always been easy to imagine I “need” more than what I already have, and to look ahead to the future with longing without living in the opportunity of today.

“But godliness WITH CONTENTMENT is GREAT GAIN. For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it.” (1 Timothy 6:6-7)

Contentment. That hits home to me today. I don’t think I could be living farther from that in my heart these days.

When I think about all that I do have, I realize that God has been very generous with me. I feel and know this most deeply when I think about the amazing husband God has blessed me with. When it comes to Phil, I truly could not ask for more in a husband (although sadly, there are plenty of times where I selfishly think he ought to be a whole lot more). When I'm thinking clearly, I know that Phil is absolutely perfect for me and more loving than I have ever known. He is the precious answer to almost a decade of tearful prayers and longing for a godly husband and partner in this life. How shamefully quickly I can move on to ache over my next longing and miss the opportunity to praise God for all I have already been given! And you know what? Even if I were to get to the place where I could honestly say that I could be content with only Phil and nothing else - no other possessions - I would be (perhaps a little crazy and) completely off-base in where I placed the source of my contentment. Even Phil could be taken from me someday. He was never meant to be the one to fulfill me and be my joy’s security.

It is so clear to me today that my contentment is not resting in what it ought to be at this point in my life. The only true contentment will be found in an intimate, alive relationship with Christ. It will be found in gratitude for what I have been given and who I am in Him and the knowledge of my sure hope to someday forever be with the God of the universe who for some reason happens to love me with a greater love than I can comprehend! That is the only unshakable foundation for contentment in this life. Frankly, lately I have spent far too much time sighing over little wants than gazing at the One who makes all those other things I want seem as small in importance as they actually are. Sure they’re all good things, and I very well may be blessed with some of them someday, but what about today? Because of Christ and His great love towards me there is enough in this moment for all the contentment and joy I could imagine. But will I see it and embrace the truth of it with all my heart? Will you? Pray with me that it will be so. I can almost taste the peace and freedom found there.

It's Good Friday today. I had a lovely morning with Phil, making brunch and reading together the most wondrous story of Jesus' crucifixion for my sins. Though a very familiar story to me, it brought tears to my eyes today. Lately it seems that each new week that goes by I grasp and feel deeper the weight, wonder and freedom of the Gospel message, realizing more and more how it truly is life to those of us who accept it.

The Worldviews course I have been taking this semester is opening my eyes to the incredible logic and reason that supports all I have thus far believed in faith. I have always feared apologetics because of the obnoxious pushiness I have seen in too many people who try to shove it down others' throats; but, as I have studied, my mind and my heart are being filled to overflowing as I am becoming more convinced than ever that Christianity holds the answers of the soul and makes sense of existence in this world. I cannot wait to share what I am discovering! I find it interesting that the internship Phil and I are moving to Hamilton for this summer is focused on evangelism. I am praying for opportunity to share with those who have questions and are seeking.

For right now though, I am sitting here alone, curled up on our comfy couch, with a soft, warm breeze coming in through the windows. Usually Good Fridays are rainy and cold, but not this one! The sun is shining and giving us the best spring has to offer. Buds are on the trees and early flowers have pushed through the earth and turned their heads toward the sun. The sound of Pastor Greg (who lives behind us) playing baseball in his backyard with his two sweet little grandsons is a delight to my ears (and what inspired me to set aside my homework for a few minutes to write). I couldn't help smiling hearing Pastor Greg shout with delight at one of the boys' hits, encouraging him as the little guy ran from base to base shouting back to his dad, "Hey dad! Look at me! Look at me go!" I immediately put down my book and smiled, pondering the way God has designed us to desire the attention and approval of our fathers. I felt like God gave me an earthly portrait of how we are designed to interact with Him, our Heavenly Father. I sure do feel like that little boy inside, wanting to cry out with delight to my Father, longing for His smiling face and encouraging cheer to press on. It is there if I look for it. Yet how many of us grow up and learn to tame those childish squeals and find out the hard way that in life on earth we rarely get those who will smile and cheer us on - but what a shame that we lose that childlikeness with our Heavenly Father who does not change and whose love endures forever!

Watching loving parents with their children is good for my soul. They give me valuable glimpses into a reflection of the way God loves me. I really want to know God as the loving Father He truly is, not just what I've projected onto Him from some negative earthly experiences.

Mark 10: 13-16

"People were bringing little children to Jesus to have him touch them, but the disciples rebuked them. When Jesus saw this, he was indignant. He said to them, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it." And he took the children in his arms, put his hands on them and blessed them."

While studying for my Missiology exam last semester I came across this quote by my professor in one of my lecture notes about Christian leadership:

"While there are many important things to be learned about effective leadership, the most important thing comes only by spending significant time at the feet of Jesus, becoming mesmerized by His heartbeat and captured by His love. If the present crisis in leadership is to be solved, if adequate numbers of quality leaders are to step forward, many important efforts will have to be made. But it will be all for naught unless the battle of the heart is won first. Only a heart like that Jesus can bear the pain."

As a person still stumbling out of the rubble of burnout in ministry, I am deeply moved reading this. "The most important thing comes only by spending significant time at the feet of Jesus, becoming mesmerized by His heartbeat and captured by His love ... Only a heart like that of Jesus can bear the pain." As I reflect on my journey of burnout and the great challenges of ministry, I am deeply aware that the most fatal mistake I made was slowly ceasing to spend that time at the feet of Jesus for myself (not just in prayer or preparation to teach or minister to others). I needed to be reminded and refreshed by the reality of His personal love for me, but my hectic schedule just did not allow it. My time was packed so full that eventually my times with God consisted of a cry to Him for help and drifting off to the sleep my body desperately needed. The longer I went without that intimate time with my Savior, the more helpless and impatient I became in reaching out to others, and the more I avoided God because I feared He was as demanding and needy as I felt everyone else in my life was. Eventually I hit bottom and, thankfully, soon after my responsibilities came to an end and I have been ushered into a time of rest when I can come humbly before my loving Lord and allow Him to rebuild what was broken.

This journey of burnout initially made me want to swear off any form of ministry or people-helping for good. Suddenly a desk job staring at a computer screen all day sounded like the best job in the world! There are great joys in Gospel ministry and seeing lives change; but along with it comes the burden and pain of leadership that is very great. There is much sacrifice in it - one does not have to be long in ministry to find this.

My Missiology professor used the imagery of an old Japanese proverb when giving a lecture on leadership: "The nail that sticks up will be hammered down." To presume one can stand up and lead people is often looked upon as arrogance today. It is a much more popular concept to "lead from within". I myself used to hold to this image of leadership and never desired "title" or "position" and didn't necessarily appreciate anyone else holding such a status over me. I have come to see, however, that Scripture's consistent metaphor of God's people being like sheep in need of a shepherd challenges that concept of leadership. Passages like Num. 27:16-18, Matt. 9:35-37, Mark 6:33-35 show that when God's people are without leaders, they are like sheep without a shepherd, each going his own way and lost. Leadership is necessary, and done Scripturally, it is the farthest thing from arrogance - it involves following in Jesus' footsteps - it will mean laying down one's life for others.

I see in my generation an avoidance of humble, sacrificial leadership and responsibility - in many areas, but certainly in spiritual leadership. I definitely see among women in the North American church two extremes when it comes to leadership: either 1) a complete avoidance of taking our call to truly know Jesus and grow in His likeness and teach and exhort younger women to love the Lord and their families, or 2) a wrongful pursuit of the highest levels of leadership regardless of Scripture's instruction on orderly worship. This has left me with a deep ache in my heart. I long to see the women in our churches realizing that if they know Jesus Christ as Lord they have a beautiful calling to leadership - to continue to pursue Him, to dig deep into the Word, to neither be afraid of nor ignore theology as though it is the men's domain (nor think they are lesser if they have not studied theology - we have the Spirit of God within our hearts who instructs us in all truth), and to reach out to teach younger women (no matter what your age - there are always those younger)!

It is always easier to go the other way from leadership, especially if you have been burned by it, as I have been. I have been tempted to run the other way, but through much time off and reflection I have found engraved upon my heart a burden and burning within my heart that I cannot shake - to live out what God calls me to. How much humility I need God to grow in me to be able to step out as the stumbling Christian that I am and say that I will take responsibility in all areas of my life to seek by God's help to live a life worthy of following. How quickly that plants me on my knees asking for God to do it through me, for I know (and have already experienced) the danger of trying to do it in my own strength. It is only through the strength found in His arms that any of us will ever be able to live through the joys and deepest heartaches that are Gospel ministry.

Not that many will ever read this, but this is my humble call to my own heart and to my generation of Christians, whether you consider yourself the "leader-type" or not: May we live at the feet of Jesus, being captured and transformed by His heart for us, and out of that, stand up in this world full of sheep lost and going astray to love and lead them to the Shepherd.

"In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace that He lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding."

(Ephesians 1:7-8)

There ought to be exclamation marks all throughout that passage, and tears in my eyes as I read it. But my heart can be so cold sometimes, so dead to the glorious Gospel of life and forgiven sins. I can be so unaffected reading about Christ's shed blood. This is gory stuff, why does it so often strike me so comfortably and leave me unmoved? It should not! I cost Jesus His very life because of my sin, but because I do not have to go kill an animal with my own two hands and feel the blood drip down and truly know that my sin must be atoned for with blood, I can read about Christ's shed blood for me with a light-hearted "Thanks Jesus" instead of a face-to-the-ground-in-awe prayer of gratitude. He gave everything in order to give me life in Him, all that truly matters. Oh, ungrateful heart of mine: remember what you cost Him, revel in what He's freely given you - and love Him!

The trees are shedding

And the carpet of leaves is a sea of yellow and red

Even this rose inside too will soon fall to petals.

Christmas is approaching,

And with it, this aching in my heart.

I have a new family now -

His tender face is all of home to me;

But I still feel the weight, or lack thereof,

Of the other -

The family torn apart,

That still beats lonely in my heart.

Oswald Chambers – The Nature of Degeneration

Romans 5:12 – “Just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all men sinned…”

“The Bible does not say that God punished the human race for one man’s sin, but that the nature of sin, namely, my claim to my right to myself, entered into the human race through one man. But it also says another Man [Jesus] took upon Himself the sin of the human race and put it away – an infinitely more profound revelation (see Hebrews 9:26). The nature of sin is not immorality and wrongdoing, but the nature of self-realization which leads us to say, ‘I am my own god.’ This nature may exhibit itself in proper morality or in improper immorality, but it always has a common basis – my claim to my right to myself. When our Lord faced either people with all the forces of evil in them, or people who were living clean-living, moral, and upright, He paid no attention to the moral degradation of one, nor any attention to the moral attainment of the other. He looked at something we do not see, namely, the nature of man (see John 2:25)."

It is so much easier to make salvation about my moral choices of right and wrong rather than solely on Jesus’ righteousness – it is especially difficult for me, being someone who is bent much more toward moral conformity rather than moral rebellion. I am still so likely to try to prove myself, to my own self I suppose (for God does not ask this proving of me). I think I still want to believe there is righteousness in me, that is of me, instead of accepting the truth of what God’s Word says in Isaiah 64:7 that all my “righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away”. What arrogance this reveals in me!

I read recently an incredible book by Timothy Keller called “The Prodigal God” about the parable of the prodigal son. He looked at this parable in a way I have not yet heard before, narrowing in on the older brother rather than the typical emphasis on the younger brother. He exposed the equal or greater spiritual lostness of the older brother who stayed with his father and did everything “right”. In the end of the parable it’s revealed that his heart was as distant from his father’s as his younger brother’s was. His “goodness” as a son was also motivated by self-interest rather than pure love for the father. He, like his brother, was using his father for his inheritance and what he could get out of him just as much as the younger brother. His heart was exposed when in anger he ignored his father’s pleadings to come in to celebrate his brother’s return. He did not want his father to welcome his younger brother home again with such open arms because it meant a loss to him again. I cannot go into all of it in this blog, but I highly recommend the book. It’s short, but can change your life and awaken you to your heart, especially if you are like me - church-bred since birth.

Having been raised in the church and having generally lived a very moral life, my temptation is to put my faith in myself instead of Jesus. My temptation is to not examine the deeper motives of my heart beneath the “righteous acts” that will reveal that my heart too surges with a nature as bent on self-glorification and self-will as any one else’s. I can so quickly get into the mindset that God owes me because I’ve been "so good" for Him. The bottom line is: I say I love Christ with all my heart and that I surrender all to Him, but then I still tend to take back the right to myself soon after when I don’t like what He’s doing or don’t understand how it makes sense. And then, in order to get around the discomfort of that conviction, I subconsciously rest on my moral performance as being the gauge for sin - not self-idolatry.

May God continue to have mercy on me and transform my heart in order that I might throw my all upon faith in Jesus Christ and nothing else, and entrust to Him every aspect of my life, whatever it costs, for no other motive but that I love Him.

“They did not realize he was the Son of God.”

One of our pastors preached on the gospel this morning. It was a beautiful and powerful message, as any true presentation of the gospel will be. He was talking about how Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane was deserted, how even his three closest friends did not stay awake to pray with him in his darkest moment of need. As a man facing the cross, Jesus prayed out of his humanity’s weakness, anguishing, asking God if there was any other way for redemption to be fulfilled; but if there was not, he affirmed he was surrendered to God’s will, not his. God did not answer Jesus’ prayer that night in the garden. The cross was the only way, and though Scripture tells us that Jesus could have at any moment called twelve legions of angels to rescue him, he did not. Jesus allowed himself to be forsaken by God that I might not be, that you might not be. He watched the very people he created, loved and came to redeem scream out, “Crucify him!” He watched his closest companions and friends run away in fear when he was wrongly accused. He didn’t have to, but yet he went to the cross, to redeem them, to redeem us – so great is His love toward us! 1 John 4:10,19 - "This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. ... We love because he first loved us."

I was struck very deeply this morning about the reality of who I would be likened to in that story. I know all too well in my heart that I too would have fled in a moment, because I see so clearly in my life today how I still flee in those moments. My actions often show that I am still ashamed of the gospel, ashamed of the shame my Lord bore, that I also am unwilling to give all to follow in His footsteps, no matter the cost. I still love my reputation and my freewill more than my Saviour, who I claim I love one moment, but desert the next. That’s why this morning when my pastor said of the Jews that they crucified him because “they did not realize he was the Son of God”, it hit me like a ton of bricks. I too often do not realize that Jesus Christ is the Son of the Most High God. I forget the high cost of what he gave for me, and am so quick to take it lightly because of its familiarity.

In communion this morning God impressed upon my mind a visual image of how to this day I forget Jesus is the Son of God and slap him often in the face as though his sacrifice was little to me. Every time the Spirit whispers, or the Word presses upon me to obey God, and I instead choose my own way, my own desires, my own will, I have effectually slapped my Lord’s face and said, “My way, not yours!” When it doesn't cost me more than I think it should, I stick with Jesus with all the fire and gumption of Peter when he claimed he’d die for Jesus if it came to it; but in the moment of testing, I cower and hide. I am no better than the disciples who ran, Peter who denied, or the Jews who spat on Him.

Paul says in Romans 1:16a – “I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes.” Oh that I might not forget that Jesus Christ is the Son of God who bore the weighty punishment for my sin that I might have a relationship with God - one that is as intimate and lovely as any relationship imaginable. May I not forgot that his shame, his cross, purchased my very life because He loves me! How can I, knowing this, refuse to face the possible shame I might incur in this world if I stand for Him? Because the truth is, that cross did not just cause the Son of God’s death – He also ROSE, conquering sin and the grave once and for all, that now anyone who trusts in Jesus as His Saviour has eternal life. Jesus is the Living One, the Son of God, my Saviour, my Friend. He is with me this moment as real as this computer is to me. This is not just some belief system, some religion or a lifestyle I hold to. The gospel message is truth, it is reality - not mere story, fable or conjecture. Jesus Christ the Son of God is alive and He is my Saviour. My life – words, actions, attitudes, all! – ought to scream of this! I will never be ashamed of the gospel when I strive to remember every moment with the deepest recollection that the good news of what Jesus Christ accomplished on the cross truly is “the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes!”