Thoughts for My Em (On Being a Girl)

When I was in third grade I became an entrepreneur for a short time. My elementary school bookstore sold NFL pencils that the boys went crazy over. For some reason I was in possession of one of these pencils when some little boy said he'd give me a dollar for it. Cha-ching. I was no dummy. I knew I could march on down to that bookstore and buy ten pencils for that price. I took my dollar and matched it, buying a whole box of these coveted NFL pencils. Now, I can only assume since many of the boys in my class were already using these writing utensils, they knew that they could purchase them for a dime just down the hall. Being the shrewd businesswoman that I was though, by the end of the day my once full box of pencils was filled with over eleven dollars. Boys were literally throwing money at me. And yes, I see the grooming that very well could have happened in that moment had my life taken a different direction. My mom, who must have had visions of this, was horrified when I brought home my dirty money and toyed with the idea of calling these little boys' mothers. Thank goodness she spared me the humiliation and just explained that I probably shouldn't do that again. Whatever, lesson learned, boys are d.u.m.b.

Fast forward to my early years of high school. Every summer my four best friends and I would go to summer camp. At the end of one of our first weeks we all realized that all of our bank funds had been depleted. But, we really wanted to go on an ice cream cruise that night or at least have a pizza delivered to our cabin. One of us had the brilliant idea that we should just ask people to give us money. Maybe we could at least get the pizza. How we underestimated the power of charming smiles and the phrase, "God loves a cheerful giver." Yep. This was what we learned from our week at Christian camp. How to use God and charming smiles to manipulate boys. Putty in our hands. We made enough money for all of us to go on that ice cream cruise and get our pizza. Lesson learned. We possessed a ridiculous power to get boys to do what we wanted with very little effort.

I don't think I ever consciously processed this power that I held, but I do know that sometime during my high school years I did make a decision that I wasn't going to use people this way. I wasn't going to objectify myself to get something I wanted, whether that was possessions, relationships, or just my own way (I'm sure Matt would say I'm still a work in progress with that last one). I think it must have only been through the Holy Spirit's leading in my life. In some ways it cost me. I missed out on a slew of boyfriends, which at times felt like the worst thing in the world. Though in hindsight, I certainly didn't miss much. 

So here's what I want you to know, my Emma. You'll probably discover somewhere along the way that you can very easily manipulate the opposite sex to do what you want them to do. Resist the temptation, my dear. It's so not worth it. You see, you were created in the image of God, and the way of following Him looks different than what you'll hear from t.v., music, and even your friends. Even though Jesus was God, he set aside all his power to come to earth, serve the lowest of the low, and die a criminal's death at the hands of the powerful. He did this to defeat the powers of this world. He defeated the power of sin, so that we wouldn't have to be held captive by it. So we could know God. He defeated the power of death by his resurrection and ushered in a new way of life for those that follow him. He turned the world upside down. He didn't use people to achieve his end. I promise, using and manipulating people will only cause pain. Even when it comes to dumb boys. There will be times when you really like a boy, and there are certain ways you can act or things you can do to get him. To feel wanted. To feel loved. You are amazing and loved just as you are though my sweet, and any boy that fails to see that is not worth your heart. 

There will be times when men will try to have power over you because you are a woman. Sadly, I can almost guarantee it. There will be times when men will look at you as an object instead of a person stamped with the image of God. There will be times, I'm afraid, when you will feel small. Take heart in that this is not how God created things to be, and while He's in charge of our world, he has yet to set all things right. Someday he will though.

There's something I want you to know, my love. If you are a child of God, you do have power. You have the Holy Spirit living inside of you, equipping you to live in a way that only He can do. Through His Spirit, you have the power to change the world. People may try to quiet your voice. I pray that you have the courage not to let them. But more importantly than how anyone else responds to you, I pray that God gives you the strength to find your voice and use it to love God and love others. Don't be taken in by the enticement of power. Just know that character is so important, and while it may not get you to the top, it will make it so you can peacefully lay your head down at night. Oh, and for the record, a woman of character does not mean a woman that keeps quiet. Yes, there are times to hold your tongue, but you are the type that has a voice. Use it my love. Use it. Surround yourself with all kinds of people, but make sure you have people close to you that will build you up in becoming the kind, strong, intelligent, and beautiful woman I know you are. I will always root for you. I will always have your back, and I will always understand those days when you feel like it's just not worth it to live like this. 

You're so completely wonderful, my sweet, and I can't wait to see all that your future holds. You're incredible.  And in case you're wondering, this is what I think about as you nap. :)

Whaaat-Did I Really Just Post a Recipe?

I love sharing conversations with friends over coffee. Except I hate coffee. It's disgusting. I don't understand how people drink the stuff. I've tried so many times to acquire a taste, but it ain't happening. Since I don't want to miss out on the social aspect of coffee drinking, I've found ways to cope. If there's no hot chocolate or other sweet drink available, I do what I can to make sure the coffee tastes nothing like the black bitterness that it really is. When I saw my friend Heather had posted this recipe for peppermint mocha coffee creamer I had to try it. The great thing about Heather is that you can be sure that everything she makes is el natural. She has gone to great lengths to reform her kitchen as her family faces many, many food allergies. She's pretty much amazing. Plus, this recipe also doubles as straight-up hot chocolate, so you don't even need to taint it with coffee nastiness. Tonight I made these for friends, celebrating the many conversations shared over a drink and cultivated my kitchen in this third week of Advent with JOY at the anticipation of our Savior's birth. I even got Matt to join in on the fun. He totally sat in the kitchen and provided Christmas jams to keep my spirits up. Thanks, babe! Domesticity is tiring, you know.



Peppermint Mocha Creamer

{also makes an awesome hot cocoa recipe!}

2 cups of 1/2 and 1/2 (or 1 cup cream with 1 cup whole milk)

*can be substituted for an non-cow’s milk such as unsweetened almond milk, rice milk, soy milk, or coconut milk

3 tablespoons of cocoa

1/4 teaspon peppermint extract

1/4 cup of maple syrup

1/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

METHOD

Let milk gradually come to a simmer from a medium heat in saucepan. Take care with almond milk, if it heats up too high or for too long the flavor changes.

Add the cocoa, peppermint extract, maple syrup, and vanilla extract. Whisk until well incorporated, about 2-3 minutes.

Funnel into storage jar and refrigerate. Lasts 2-3 weeks, keep refrigerated.

Occupy Mojave

My last post was about cultivating the space I've been given, and how I've been trying my hand at all these domestic activities that I normally shy away from. These thoughts sprang from a pretty dry spell. A few weeks ago I turned off my brain. For real. I flipped a switch and was done. I got annoyed at some things and closed my books, my Bible, my brain and my heart. It was my thirty second rebellious streak. I get them every so often. My drug of choice was Hobby Lobby. Ya'll the place is dangerous. I spent $400 as my way of sticking my middle finger to the world. Except it wasn't sticking it to the world. It was sticking it to no one but me. Funny how that usually works. So $375 worth of stuff went back to the store. Eh. Sometimes I can be quietly dramatic, which I've come to believe is the worst kind of drama. It eats at you and makes the world me-centric. It's not a healthy place to camp out.

Sometimes I just like camping though, you know? Wallowing, and wondering, and complaining is just a whole lot easier than stepping out. It's like the whole occupy whatever movement. At first I got it, I saw what they were saying, but there has to come a time when you make your point and just get back to the daily business at hand. Take a step. Even if it's small. Be oh so faithful with the now. Keep having the difficult conversations. Keep being challenged.

Keep. Cultivating.

I remember spewing out paper after paper during college about being a lifelong learner. I'm not sure how much of it I actually believed as I was writing it, but somewhere along the way it stuck. I don't want to settle for ignorance in the midst of abundance. There's hard work to be done that starts in our minds, as God transforms our hearts and then expresses it in our actions.

Ah, thankful that there's still life in the desert.

MySpace

What am I doing right now? Crafting.
What will I be doing later? Baking.
What have I been up to lately? Decorating. Well, this one I have to use very, very loosely. It's been more of a process of returning things but I'll get to that. On another day. Maybe.

Here's the thing. I want to cultivate the space I've been given to bless my family and friends. One of my former students recently inspired me with this thought through her grad school application essay. She talked about the symbiotic relationship between an environment and it's inhabitants. Built spaces with intentional designs are usually found in thriving environments. What is one thing you can do if you want to revitalize a neighborhood? Build a playground. Plant flowers. Watch how people grow as their space is cultivated. Some of the most healthy places are those filled with art, music, and beauty. You know, the gravy of life.

So here's the thing, I will never be Suzy Homemaker. Not me, don't want to, won't do it. However, I am committed to serving my family and anyone that enters into our space. Yup. Serving them. As my husband is committed to serving us as well. It will probably take a lifetime to flush out exactly what this means, but I know we are both committed to learning to put the other person first and willing to extend grace to each other as we figure it out. I truly want to be purposeful about this for everyone that walks through our door.

So how does this happen?

Who knows, but it's a nice thought.

Kidding.

I'm still in the process of thinking it through. Here's what I have so far though. The best relationships are fostered through time, commitment, and hard work, but there also must be lots of room for laughter and playfulness. So it is with the space I have to cultivate these relationships. I want to work hard to make it an environment that encourages growth. I want to be intentional. I want to work hard with what I've been given. I have to keep it simple though. I'm easily overwhelmed in these areas. And when I get overwhelmed I shut down. I mean, like serious hairballs in the shower shutdown. Got the visual? Great. So I'm just going to continue to give it a go. We'll see. I'm sure there will be lots of failures, but it's all in the journey, baby.

So here goes...

I want our home to be a place where people feel welcome. Whenever. As I've said before, I miss the days of running down the hall to share a bit of time together. I want our place to be warm, welcoming. And dangit, I want to finish it. One. Project. At. A. Time. Moving into a new place, decorating it, moving out a year later and then moving back in almost another year later is annoying. And great. We were able to get so many upgrades, but mustering up the motivation to start over with a completely different color palette while trying not to spend a lot of money and figuring out a style that we can both agree on has been tough. So, I've avoided it and used it as an excuse not to open our house to people. So lame. Done with that. In the next couple months I will finish my downstairs though. At least fill in the picture frames with blonde haired children that resemble us instead of the muy bonita chicas that currently hang on our walls. Photo shoot on Thursday. Check.

I want the things that leave our home to come from our hearts. I want to give in meaningful ways. If I give a gift, I want it to make the receiver feel loved. And I want my children to be generous. We very clearly saw our lack of success in this area a few nights ago when Matt offered to let one of Em's friends borrow a movie. She threw a royal fit. I mean, with fist pumping and screeching. It was pretty bad, but obviously the concept of a cheerful giver doesn't come naturally to a three-year-old. It doesn't come naturally to me, but this is a huge area that God has been pressing on my heart. It's our job as parents to instill this in our children. I also want to be intentional about what I support with my money. I'm debating staying away from the mall for a while. My problem is that I'm generally content with what I have. Until I enter the mall and see all the things I don't have. What can I say, I love pretty things! This in itself isn't bad, but it's when I start feeling dissatisfied and want more that it becomes an issue. And I don't want to give to big corporations that exploit others so I can save a few bucks to look pretty. Intentional living folks- being accountable for what we know!

I realize I digressed quite a bit, but well, it's late and I've been crafting all day. Love this new excuse. Looking forward to diving into what it means to cultivate my environment in order to build up those around us.

One Thing I Know

As I pack up her clothes for the passing of another season,

In a flurry to clean up the mess of another day,

I pause for another moment

Thinking of all the hours she spent in those silly dresses,

How much she loved wearing them while I cringed

At her lack of style.

But next season they'll be too small

And will stay in the attic for another time,

For another little girl.

And I'll remember this very minute

Because one thing I know,

The minutes that seem to pass so slowly 

Will quickly turn into years

Making me miss the simplicity of my 3-year old's tutus.

I Don't Want to Just Sanitize

Here's what I learned today as I sat at the doctor's office: My kids are screwed.

They are destined to think that they have cancer, a heart defect, liver disease, or any other health problem that can be identified on the Internet at the first sign of a a hang nail.

What prompted me to realize this was when Emma said to me today, "Mommy, the doctor's is a dangerous place."
"Why do you say that, Em?"
"Because there's GERMS."

No disagreement there. My girl knows.

She just happens to have a mommy that's part of the safety police. And not in a healthy, I'm just being a mom sort of way. It's more like a giiirl, you've got issues sort of way. I get nervous on playgrounds. I get even more nervous if Matt is there because that boy would let them jump off the top of the monkey bars assuming they'd just bounce.

Which I can almost respect.

Because I want my kids to be brave. I want them to be risk-takers that aren't held back by fear. I want them to walk boldly through life. I want them to be the kind of kids that stand up for the outsider, even if that means getting beat up or more likely, losing cooler friends. I hope they love deeply and give freely, without placing expectations on others. I want them to be peacemakers who actively pursue peace instead of passively sitting by avoiding conflict. I want them to live valiantly and joyfully instead of disengaging because of anxiety passed down to them from me.

So, I'm dealing with it instead of putting it off until tomorrow, which becomes next week, which becomes next month, which stays at never actually dealing. This is not just for my own sake but for the two little ones who are constantly watching. I am an active participant in the work that God is doing in my life, and yet I can rest in the knowledge that His perfect love drives out all fear. So day after day, I place it at the altar,  in faith that one day I won't need to anymore.

The Static Rule of a Lack of Rhythm

Recently I was reminded of how much I love art. I was looking through a friend's facebook pictures and recognized a glass sculpture by Chihuly, which brought back a flood of memories that seem so far removed from my current life. I used to sit for hours painting and go to museums for fun on the weekends. I loved watching slide after slide of great works of art in Art History that all had a story behind them. They all had some type of form, some type of rhythm. I miss that season of life. It seems so far removed, especially as I look around my half-hearted attempt at decorating my house. It's like I've lost the creative rhythm.

There's many rhythms within our family that need cultivation.

We've probably lost some valuable rhythms in our house because of my fear of routine. I hate the word. Always have, always will. It's just not a part of my make-up. I get bored easily, like spontaneity, and refuse to make lists. While Matt values structure a whole lot more than I do, he's pretty laid back in this area as well, so when it came time to have children, this was an area that we were on the same page about. We would keep a schedule with our kids when possible, but we wouldn't be bound by it. While this has generally worked for our family, I can't help but think we're failing to establish really important rhythms in our lives and the lives of our children.

Part of this could be due to poor word association.

Routine = stale, lifeless

I see it in the denomination that I grew up with, and in my own life as a follower of Jesus. I didn't grow up in a liturgical church that followed the traditional church calendar or recited creeds in worship. In my own life, I was so repelled by empty acts and words that I refused to do certain things just to do them. That's poor logic though. I think about my relationship with Matt, and how every night we say "I love you" before going to bed and usually when we hang up the phone with each other. It may not be a heart swelling statement each time but that doesn't make it meaningless. In fact, it's probably in the regularity of it that the meaning is found. I notice when we don't say it. It's a natural part of our rhythm as a couple. A steady beat.

Rhythm = dynamic, progressive

We've been working through what this means for our family, and what areas we need to work on cultivating rhythm in our lives and the lives of our children. I know it will probably be a struggle for me as it feels so contrary to my nature, but as awkward as it may feel, we need to press into what we're learning. God has orchestrated His world with a rhythm of which our family is a p.art.

Third World Symphony

Several weeks ago, I saw this video and haven't been the same since. As I was watching it, I was screaming at the computer, "THAT'S ME! THAT'S ME!! THAT'S WHAT I WANT TO DO! AAAAHHHHHHH!"

To which my husband replied, "So do it."

Seriously? Just like that? 

Just. Do. It.

What does that even mean? I had to go through a process of figuring out what it was about that video that resonated so much with me. It's funny, I always get a kick out of people that talk about the clarity that their thirties brought. A good friend of mine often talks this way, and I always laugh at her about it. I think I'm starting to understand though. My twenties were about this crazy search of figuring out God's purpose for my life. What do you want me to do, God? If you just tell me, I'll do it. 

Recently, I realized that I've been asking the wrong question.

I've been learning so much about the importance of framework. Without a good framework, you might come to some valuable conclusions, but you will probably miss the big, beautiful picture.

I'd been framing the question all wrong, which brought me through this years long wilderness of searching after who knows what. The question I needed an answer to was not, "What is God's purpose for my life?" The better framed question was, "What is God doing in the world, and how can I be a part of it?" 

If I had gotten an answer to my twentysomething year old self's question, I would have missed out on the toil of the search. Through searching, I've seen the heart of Christ and his kingdom purpose. I've been exposed to the things that break His heart. I've seen the things in me that break his heart. I've come to really believe that Jesus is Lord over the whole earth in a now but not quite yet way; he uses us to reconcile a world to him and there is a time coming where he will be all in all. I've discovered that He is working in our world and invites us to partner with him in his work.

His ambassadors.

If that doesn't give a follower of Jesus a sense of purpose I don't know what does. 

The part I can play is starting to make sense. I see how He's developing, affirming, and fueling my passions. I see kingdom living in day to day, real ways. I see that He has given me a voice, albeit a small one, but it's one I need to use, even when it terrifies me to open my mouth. I want to be a part of the work that God is doing beyond my own comfort zone because there's no way I can know about things that happen in our world and sit idly back.

I want to see the Third World. I want to touch the faces of poverty. I want to have a symbiotic relationship with those that may not have material blessings but experience blessings that I can hardly comprehend. I want them to show me my own poverty in the masses of stuff that I own. I want to be a part of telling their stories, to give them a voice. I want our stories to collide through Jesus in a way that brings His story together in a rich, beautiful symphony. 

I know, it sounds completely naive and idealistic. But I believe that God is truly working in our world and wants us to be a part of it.

So, I'm going to just do it.

In the beginning of the new year, I'm going to take a trip somewhere in the third world to feed hungry children, tutor those living in extreme poverty, or love kids that live on the streets.

Because it's real.
Because I know about it.
Because I believe that hope and change are more than abstract concepts.
I believe they're found through a Person, who was resurrected from the dead to bring new life.

For right now.
For the life to come.

I know this is just a small thing. It'll be a week of my life, and then I will be able to come back to the comforts of my own home. But it's a small piece that I think will be part of a larger picture. We'll see where it leads. 

Anyone want to join me?

Not All Communal Living Involves Pot

I'm thirty years old and I miss college life. This very well could make me a a washed up loser who needs to move on with life, but I don't think so. I just have such a longing for the relational aspect of college life that you don't get again until you're eighty years old and living in a nursing home.

And I have a lot of time before I get to that point.

I loved being able to walk down to a friend's room in the middle of the day and chat. Sometimes those conversations were about nothing while other times we'd work through major life issues without even planning to. Meals could be hours long as groups of people would congregate to be silly together or other times devise plans to change the world. There were days when you could only stay for a minute, but at least you had that moment to make a connection with others, to know that you were not truly alone, even if you had to spend the next eight hours huddled in a cubicle studying.

At curfew during my senior year, I could be sure to find a bunch of girls gathered in the hallway, eating pretzels and nutella, recapping their days. Matt's experience was similar, except it involved a lot more boyish stuff like slugging each other with ping pong balls and pooping on each other. Evidently stuff like this bonds boys together like eating pretzels and nutella does for girls. No matter. The point is, we had people to count on and share life with.

Then we grew up and bought a house. Come to find out the house had Chinese drywall in it, and we lived with Matt's parents for eight months but that's a different story. Kind of. Because while sharing space with your in-laws doesn't sound like the ideal situation, I know that I now have a much greater appreciation for them that I don't think I would have had, had I not lived with them. My brother and sister-in-law lived with my parents for a time as well, and I think the same could be said of their relationship. They lived with them while I was in college and I would come home every summer and break to share a house with them and my oldest niece and nephew. I know that I have a special bond with those kids that I'm sure was developed by living together.

I think I would trade in my house for an apartment. Seriously, I would. Or maybe a condo because I'm pretty sure Matt would never go for throwin' money away for rent. He's all about a good investment, which is precisely why I want to live in an apartment. In a complex with several other families. It's just so hard to truly invest in people when you're scattered all over town. It's so hard to cultivate relationships when half of your time is spent in the car. When I'm sucking as a mom, I want to be able to walk down the hallway to a friend and say, "I'm sucking as a mom. Help bring me back."

Like everyone else we know, we're busy people. When we have an evening without anything going on, we usually just hang out at home. It takes a lot of time and energy to bring people into our space. And let's be honest, unless you do it regularly, it's not always comfortable. It's hard to let your hair down with people you see sporadically. But if we were actually nearby people, then it wouldn't be so difficult. You could just do it.

Matt and I both have all these ideas floating around in our heads that need other minds to cultivate, but how does an idea ever come to fruition when it's being watered irregularly? If I'm not being encouraged with something constantly, I have a tendency to just push it to the back of my mind. I want my family to flourish within an active community of people that are constantly encouraging each other and taking time to work through the difficult parts of life together. Wouldn't that be so much easier if we were actually within close proximity to each other?

Am I just crazy?

Thy Kingdom Come

In high school I was a tract girl, not to be confused with a track girl, which I only wish I was (I have the scars on my knees from a bad hurdling accident to prove it). I handed out tracts. I personally shared tracts with people. In school. At the mall (until getting kicked out). In the streets of NYC.

Mmmmm- those were interesting days.

Honestly, I loved God with my whole heart and I wanted other people to know the love that I had experienced through Him.

But my framework for sharing with people was skewed. Then, as I've talked about before, I went to college and my faith blew up in my face. God put the pieces back together in a way that I think I'll spend the rest of my life figuring out. I love it. God is continually rocking my world.

Back to tract girl.

When tract girl shared her faith, it would look something like this,"Can I ask you a question? If you were to die tonight, do you think you would go to heaven?"

Answer not really important.

"Can I share with you how I would answer that question?" And onto the tract we would go.

Seriously?

Salvation was about heaven and a personal relationship with God. Believe these four points right now and that was it. Now, as weird as all of that may have been, I hope that God used even that to prick someone's heart in a way that did send them on a path of knowing him. That's the thing about God, even through all of our craziness, he still is on the move in our world.

It's taken years to process this though. The more I dig into the Word of God and the more I read and talk with people, the more I see how the framework we use of "will you go to heaven when you die" is just not getting it. I touched on it in a post this summer, but I'm still in the process of learning and seeing a fuller picture of what the kingdom of God is all about. Particularly, just how important the resurrection is and what it means for us both presently and in the future.

If we base the whole framework of salvation as simply will you or will you not go to heaven when you die than we're missing so much of the richness of God that extends to ALL. OF. CREATION.

I just finished reading N.T. Wright's, Surprised by Hope, and it's one of those books that rattled me and reminded me just how big the work is that God is doing in the world.

Wright says, "...the work of salvation, in its full sense, is (1) about whole human beings, not merely souls; (2) about the present, not simply the future; and (3) about what God does through us, not merely what God does in and for us."

This idea is nothing new to me, yet at the same time, if I'm not continually processing it, my mind tends to default back to salvation is about what God does for me. End of story. It muddles all kinds of things up.

About a month ago I wrote a post about Emma's confusion over heaven, and now I realize my own confusion about heaven. So much of what I learned about it growing up was wrong. It's not as if we die and our "soul" is separate and will live forever in this nonmaterial place called heaven. We talk about dying and going to heaven like that's the end of the story. Heaven forever, baby. I remember that phrase from "using your hand to share the gospel," and if you have no idea what I'm talking about, I'm completely fine with keeping it that way. N.T. Wright says, "The ultimate destination is not 'going to heaven when you die' but being bodily raised into the transformed, glorious likeness of Jesus Christ. (the point...is not merely our own happy future...but the glory of God as we come fully to reflect his image.)" Resurrection is vital to our lives beyond just the knowledge that Christ was raised.

Maybe I just haven't been listening very well (quite possible) but it seems as if we don't spend enough time on the resurrection. Yes, we talk about Jesus rising from the dead. He conquered death. I've heard it said (and have said myself) that everything hinges on Easter. I get that. The risen Lord. He took our sin, and didn't stay dead.

I just never understood all the implications of this. I know, Jesus's human body was transformed. He was the same, yet different. He didn't die and have a soul raised. HE raised. And because of that, we will too. While this is nothing new, I guess for years I've just failed to make the connection between resurrection and everything else that God is doing in the world since then.

Resurrection is so much more than just a point of theology. It's the inauguration of God's kingdom on earth. The new creation has begun. As Wright puts it, Jesus was vindicated about "all that he said about the coming kingdom through his own work, through his death and resurrection has come true."

The resurrection ushers in the beginning of the new creation. 

So what in the world does that mean?

Growing up in church you hear the terms new heaven and new earth. The problem is our culture has been so inundated with all this Left Behind hoopla that leaves us trying to decipher truth from fiction. But Jesus returning isn't some weird, science-fiction, it's about God's commitment to setting the world right, to reign as sovereign king. To reaffirm that what he did in the beginning was not this massive mistake, but it was good as he said it was. His plan of rescue worked (is working). And, it brings ultimate justice for those who have faced injustice, suffering, and despair in the hands of those who continue to distort the image of God in the world.


He's redeeming what he called good from the beginning and, "liberating what has come to be enslaved."

My goodness, it's about the entire creation, not just lil old me.

"The New Testament, true to its Old Testament roots, regularly insists that the major, central, framing question is that of God's purpose of rescue and re-creation for the whole world, the entire cosmos. The destiny of the individual human being must be understood within that context. How God is going to redeem and renew his creation through human beings and how he is going to rescue those humans themselves as part of the process but not as the point of it all."

God's kingdom will come on earth as it is in heaven. God is rescuing all of creation from it's current state of decay. And yes, rescuing, in my understanding, is both present and future. We get to be a part of the work that God's doing in the world as instruments of redemption. What we do in this life matters.

But it's God that's going to set it all right in the end. This world's a mess that's not getting any better.

Yes, God ultimately is the one that will set establish his kingdom completely as only He can do. However, if new creation has already begun through the starting point of the resurrection, than it will continue beyond to the future as well. As Paul says, "Our labor in the Lord is not in vain." A point that needs to be expanded upon, I know, but for another post.

While the death and resurrection of Jesus ushered in God's kingdom, we can't forget about his life and teachings, which are the bulk of the gospels.

"When we reintegrate what should never have been separated-the kingdom-inaugurating public work of Jesus and his redemptive death and resurrection- we find that the gospel tells a different story. It isn't just a story of some splendid and exciting social work with an unhappy conclusion. Nor is it a story of an atoning death with an extended introduction. It is something much bigger than the sum of those two diminished perspectives. It is the story of God's kingdom being launched on earth as it is in heaven, generating a new state of affairs in which the power of evil has been decisively defeated, the new creation has been decisively launched, and Jesus's followers have been equipped to put that victory and that inaugurated new world into practice. Atonement, redemption, and salvation are what happens on the way because engaging in this work demands that people themselves be rescued from the powers that enslave the world in order that they can in turn be rescuers. To put it another way, if you want to inaugurate God's kingdom, you must follow the way of the cross, and if you want to benefit from Jesus's saving death, you must become part of his kingdom project."

Yes, please.

I long for purpose. I ache for it, and I believe wholeheartedly that God allows me to be a part of His purpose in our world. I am a new creation.

This only just scratches the surface, but I have to process in chunks. All I know is that the more I learn about who God is, the more I want so desperately to be a part of what He's doing because it's SO GOOD. So much better than I could ever have imagined. So much better than four points that send me to a nonmaterial place of eternal bliss. So much better for this life and for the life to come.

"Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven."