I was at a dinner tonight with the new 2013-14 cadre of resident advisers, and, in jest, we suggested that, to introduce ourselves, we should each share our name, field of study, hometown... and deepest fear. After one round of benign and expected "most interesting fact" introductions, we repeated the process, agreeing to share our deepest fear. So what are we afraid of? Snakes and cavities, parallel parking and sisters being in car accidents, tornadoes and lightning, elevators and getting really lost. But for the life of me, I couldn't think of anything. Like... what makes me afraid?
At the risk of sounding like an arrogant, unthoughtful, opaque brat, I said, "I'm Jessica, and I can't think of anything I'm afraid of. I'm not afraid of things." Which sounded like a huge lie. And like a huge cop-out. People started offering suggestions of things I might have forgotten--people lying to me? my mother dying? not getting a job? pain? never getting married? having my tongue slowly torn out of my mouth? something bad happening to my residents/zees? dying?--but to no avail. Not scary.
There was a time that I would have said that my greatest (and perhaps only) fear was that my four years of college would be my spiritual heyday, that everything thereafter would be a fading reminiscence of those days when I'd pray and study the Bible for an hour every morning as I sat on my bed, where I could easily think of 20 people I could call if ever I needed someone to pray for me literally at a moment's notice, where I could pace up and down the aisles after church, praying in whatever language I wanted and singing praises loudly and not caring if anyone else lingering heard me, where I could stand on the steps of the campus center and gather everyone's attention just to tell them that Jesus loved them and that I loved Jesus--and that I'd try to live off stale grace and rancid manna for the rest of my life.
But no. I've been down, and I've been up, and there's literally nothing that can separate me from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:39)--not even graduating from college. Who is my God if He cannot require more of me after I graduate than before? And who am I to fear for His lack of provision? "And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord's glory, are being transformed into His image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit" (2 Corinthians 3:17)!! Seriously?! Sometimes I am all giddy that those promises are for me, that that's me, the one being transformed. From glory to glory.
Which means I scratched that "fear" off the one-item list. What of these other fears?
1) People lying to me.
People do lie to me, and will continue to do so. I don't quite get what's very scary about this--maybe that we trust people, and them lying to us will breech our trust. I just had to fill out an online survey, and one of the questions was, "How many days in a typical week do you feel like people are basically good?"--to which I had to respond, in the midst of a veritable pond (there weren't enough questions for it to be a sea... so just a pond. Or maybe a small lake) of cheery responses to similar questions about my general mood, "zero." Because people are basically broken and evil, just in the process of being healed. Which means they lie. I trust people, and a lot of them (plus I'm all about giving the benefit of the doubt, and often many multiple times), but because of this, I can't take lying personally. I don't trust regular people like I trust Jesus, who is "not a man that he should lie" (Numbers 23:19a).
2) My mother dying.
I love her so much! She's wonderful, and I can't imagine what it would be like losing her. She's a humble servant of the Lord, and she loves people in such practical ways. But really, let's be honest: she's going to Heaven when she dies, so why be afraid?
3) Not getting a job.
This is the one I understood least--along with people lying to me. My job won't define me, and if I can't land a "job" per se, there will still be work to be done, since people were created in the image of a God who works (see: Genesis 1-2). Moreover, God's a provider, providing even for sparrows who "neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns" (Matthew 6).
4) Pain.
I've been in pain before. It's not fun, but it passes--and wow, there's nothing (not even morphine, as I can attest after my appendectomy) that relieves pain like singing praise. And if the pain doesn't pass, I guess ultimately I'll die of it--see point 8. This is basically irrelevant, but I have a pretty high pain tolerance, too.
5) Never getting married.
Nothing, including marriage, is promised to me. And as much as I really desire to get married, that's that.
6) Having my tongue slowly torn out of my mouth.
What I know is that when the disciples died gruesome deaths, somehow God was always exalted. So I can imagine this sort of torture happening to me, and when I do it takes the form of religious persecution. This is my spiritual heritage in a lot of ways. Paul writes (and God, let me resoundingly agree to the depths and crevices of my soul!), "I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death" (Philippians 1:21). For real! And even if not for religious persecution, but for senseless torture or political reasons or whatever, still--I would glorify God with my body.
7) Something bad happening to my zees.
This, in some ways, tied my hands, since the question was posed by one of my zees. But as much as I think about them, care about them, pray for them, fast for them--no, I'm not afraid for them. Bad things have happened and will happen to them, and though my heart has ached for them, being scared for them will do literally nothing to help them. And, though I do care about them so so much, I am no one's savior, and I can't always rescue them and protect them, or anyone else.
8) Dying.
I spent almost an hour today sobbing. Just crying--saying, Father, you need to come and fix Your world! Because You made it good, and then things fell apart. And anything that still coheres only does so because of you, Jesus! But Daddy, you have to come and fix it, and I'll work right alongside you, doing anything you want me to do, for as long as you want me to do it, and I'll praise you for it. Someday, though, my work will be over, and then--no matter the mechanism of my departure from Earth, tongue intact or not--I will have the honor of seeing You in all your glory, like Isaiah did in the year King Uzziah died (Isaiah 6)! Far from being something scary, I can't image much else that's as exciting as dying.
Is this flippant? It feels like it, because all these answers seem obvious and immediate. But no, it's not flippant. I'm serious.
One last thing I want to say is that all this is an outgrowth. It's painful to me when people talk about religion as a mechanism for self-improvement--like you want to eat more healthy food, so you lie to yourself by convincing yourself that every dessert is infected with a chemical agent that will make you die an agonizing death. You want to not be afraid, so you believe in Jesus. That's what religion is to people who'd believe in religion as a mere means to an end. No; religion, loosely, and faith, specifically, are about striving after truth. Truth, as in there's a Redeemer of brokenness, and He--JESUS--is more powerful than anything that might be scary, including death and demons and no husband and torture and car accidents and pain and elevators and snakes. I used to have plenty of (so, so many!) fears. All I can say is that fear--except fear and reverence of the sort that means being in awe and working out your salvation--is slavery, and "It is for freedom that Christ set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yolk of slavery" (Galatians 5:1).
BOOM! Now that's real.
Monday, February 25, 2013
Saturday, February 23, 2013
seasons
Just aware of my own insufficiency today, and taking it back old school:
He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.
Ecclesiastes 3:11
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
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